Archive of Our Own ^beta

The Elephant in the Room

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Ella Lopez was having a terrible Christmas.

An a pesta Christmas. The crappy kind of Christmas that didn’t feel like Christmas at all. First, her mamí was begging her again to come out to Detroit for a big Navidad con la familia, which Ella was not feeling. Even Alejandro had just gotten engaged, and all she had to show for herself was a life of committed not-dating since Pete and being the science tutor for her friends’ toddler. That was as close to a burgeoning family as she got these days, and it so wasn’t her own. To pour even more salt in that wound, as much as she loved her friends, well normally, and as much as she’d been the number one Deckerstar cheerleader, it hurt somehow to see Chloe and Lucifer so deliriously happy.

Especially now that Chloe was expecting.

Which was weird, sure, because despite his exceptions for Trix, who was pretty damn cool, Lucifer wasn’t really a kid person. Also, no offense, but secretly, Ella had mad respect for Chloe because at their age, the idea of being up at three a.m. with diapers gave Ella hives.

But it was still domestic city and bliss everywhere, and Ella was left out because the idea of so much as being alone with a strange guy on a date made her hyperventilate. And the last thing---on pain of death---she wanted to do was go home to Detroit to have her mother and abuela and father and like eight primas all on her butt for being the childless, forty-something around the table. Because, yeah, that sounded like three or four days she’d have fun with. Add in the subzero temperatures that were usual that time of year when at least she could be drinking alcoholic eggnog in her apartment in the sunny So Cal weather.

And pass.

Hard, hard pass.

But she was also not feeling her so-called L.A. family much either. After all, about two weeks ago, while teaching Charlie about constellations and stars, the little guy had his wings pop out. And not in an Ella-was-seeing-things-again way. No siree Bob. (Note RIP turtle-Bob). But she was sure they were real. She’d reached out in her shock and touched them, and they’d been literally the softest things she’d ever felt. Rae Rae had never been corporeal or, at least, let Ella touch her. But these were real, shuddering, and so so mullida that they had to be real. In a few minutes, even before Charlie had noticed them, the mini-alas had faded away like magic.

No, she had no idea where they’d gone either.

And then she’d realized after excusing herself to Linda soon after to go have an existential freak out at home that Lucifer was the literal Devil, Maze was a demon (which made a lot more sense now), and Amenadiel and Michael were angels. Because of course Charlie was a half-angel. Unless Linda was also a psychic or something magical. Ella wasn’t clear on that.

She was half-nursing a theory that Dan was a centaur too. Maybe, possibly.

Anyway, that meant that most of the people she knew were paranormal, which was fine. She could have handled that. What she didn’t like was that for close to five years everyone, including presumably Linda, Dan, and Chloe as the other humans in the mix (jury still out though on that), had been lying to her. Just mentiras on top of mentiras. So, she wasn’t feeling very charitable to them either. And the idea of going to Christmas Eve dinner at Linda’s where everyone was going to just keep pretending she didn’t know and treating her like an idiot or like the most gullible person ever didn’t feel great either.

But between her judgmental real family in Detroit and pseudo-family in L.A., who apparently thought she was a moron, Ella was going to have to bite that bullet and go to Linda’s.

At least she would have tons of eggnog and top shelf stuff to ease her anger and frustrations. Because since it had only been two weeks, Ella really didn’t have the energy or wasn’t even sure how to broach with anyone from Amenadiel to apparently Satan himself that she knew.

Seriously?

How easily did “So your kid has wings?” roll off your tongue?

So, as she stood outside of Linda’s with her favorite ugly Christmas Sweater (and how could you not love one that immortalized the leg lamp from A Christmas Story?) and a wrapped white elephant gift, Ella was already seething.

What she didn’t quite expect as she waited for Linda or Amenadiel to open to her knocks was to have Michael arrive at the same time.

He wasn’t wearing anything different than the usual. Same dark brown pants, a tweed-type jacket that reminder of some of her forensic pathology professors in college, and a turtleneck with a moth hole eaten at the neck. He did have a gift, technically. It was wrapped in the comics section of the newspaper and the bow---which seemed to have had better days---was stuck onto it with duct tape.

“Lopez, that’s certainly an outfit choice,” he said.

And even now, even knowing for sure what they all were and that by obvious process of elimination that Lucifer was no more British than Michael was from Brooklyn since both of them were literally older than earth, to hear him talk threw her. Over the year or so since he’d popped into town, Michael turned up around the precinct or at big group events. He mostly heckled everything, bitched, and left in a huff. Or sometimes had to drag Lucifer away from cases in what she realized now had to be bigger than just “family business.” Or, well, family business hadn’t been something financial as much as probably some big honking Celestial trouble. Still, she was not used to seeing someone with Lucifer’s face---well except for the huge, nasty-looking scar---speak like some hipster.

It was weird.

Almost weirder than the fact all of them were angels. Casi.

She wrinkled her nose at him. “At least I don’t smell like an abuelito. How many mothballs are in your closet?” Ella smirked at him and poked her finger into the hole in his shirt. “Might need to add a few more.”

Michael scoffed at her. “Ooh, score one then for the care bear. Didn’t know you had a mean bone in your body.” He sniffed deeply. “Or that for now you smell like a mini-bar.”

She rolled her eyes and knocked on the door. Maybe Charlie had figured out how to flutter around the house by now. That would suck and take a minute to calm down before answering the door. Linda did have a few ceiling fans too. Ouch.

“I’m fine.”

He shrugged, though only one shoulder really moved. “Didn’t really ask, but yeah, usually you smell nice.”

She arched an eyebrow at him. “Huh?”

“I mean…not like all the cheap tequila. Seriously? You okay? I know that hu…people apparently get bugs up their asses around the holiday, some pressure for perfect family Christmasses, which not possible. That said, you don’t seem much like your overly perky self. You good?”

Ella quirked her head at him. It was odd that he was the first person to notice. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been working cases with Dan, Lucifer, and the first trimester Chloe for the last two weeks. Sure, she’d tried to hide her real feelings well and just do what needed to be done day-to-day at the crime scenes, but her so-called real friends hadn’t noticed any difference in her behavior. But Michael, who saw her maybe monthly, had.

“I guess I get the Christmas blues sometimes,” she admitted. “Do you even like the holiday?”

He groaned and rubbed his face, hand seeming to freeze over his scar. “Not a big fan of religious crap these days, but hey? Free food, right? And Linda’s loaded so if Amenadiel didn’t cook it, then it was catered. If Big Brother did cook it, then it’s all top flight crap from like Whole Foods. Hard to turn that down.”

She was about to answer when, finally, a harried-looking Linda with a squirming Charlie on her hip opened the door. “Hey guys, thanks…sorry about the delay, Charlie was having a bit of an emergency.”

Ella was sure that as she stepped into Linda’s home that the few, tiny, grey feathers littering the stairwell were not in her head. She noticed out of the corner of her eye that Michael stilled a bit at the first feather and then kept moving after too, side by side with her, and as they both get to the bottom of the stairwell, her heart sank.

Apparently, they were both the last ones to arrive. There was something intimidating in stepping into the lions’ den. Not that her friends were that, really. It was just that they had all lied, played with her, and either it was because it was too funny to stop, or they didn’t trust her. Either reason hurt, rubbed her heart raw, and it was hard for Ella to handle that.

On the sofa, Eve was curled up on Maze’s lap, and the demoness was liberally guzzling down some dark alcohol in a tumbler. In the kitchen, at the island, Lucifer and Amenadiel---one in a kiss the cook apron and one in a Santa-themed one---were arguing over the final bit of glaze to add to the Christmas ham. Charlie had gone back to being sat by Trixie, and the kids were in the corner doing Legos by the fireplace. Chloe sat at the kitchen island drinking what had to be just the regular old recipe nog. Ella was far from an expert on, well, coming antichrists (technically) but she figured no drinking for Chloe for about six more months anyway. Even Dan was ensconced in the Hallmark scene with helping Linda take the last of the white elephant presents to settle under the tree.

These people were supposed to be her family when the other one failed. Supposed to be was the operative term. After all, they’d lied to her for half a decade or so, which meant to them she had to mean nothing.

Michael settled in an armchair at the corner and seemed soon to be making strained but still technically small talk with Maze and Eve. Ella was offered a seat by Chloe at the island, but she just couldn’t. It hurt too much for right now even if watching Lucifer and Amenadiel pettily fight over cooking was pretty funny normally. She settled down by the fire eventually, helping Charlie get his hands around the finer Lego blocks and playing quietly with both him and Trixie. She knew that Trix had to know, considering she would soon be the half-sister to the Devil’s kid and all, but she figured if Trixie had spent a long time hiding things from her, then at least it was because adults had told her to. It was just easier to do things for now with either a kid who couldn’t lie or the one who probably had been ordered to directly.

At least she felt she could trust Charlie and Trixie.

The grown ass---some of them billions of years old---adults in the room, not so much.

**

After dinner where Ella mostly got through by smiling and nodding at the right places and, occasionally, geeking out with Trixie over which movies the teen wanted Dan to take her to over her week off from school, the gang all settled on the sofas and chairs in the living room to do the white elephant exchange. Linda had stressed the buy-in was thirty bucks, and Ella knew that was both because if not at least told, Lucifer would put a diamond or a sports car key or something insane in the pot and because, again, while she didn’t know Michael very well, she gathered that he didn’t have much money. Honestly, she didn’t have buckets of spare cash around either. Rent was going up again in the new year and what money she did save, Ella tended to use to splurge on comic con tickets or fabrics for her cosplaying hobby.

However, as the presents started being opened, it was clear when Dan pulled out a bottle of wine with some fancy French label and from a year early in the 1900s that Lucifer had not stuck to the cost limit.

Ella looked around the room feeling a bit stupid. Most of the other gifts had been small or normal. Coffee and cocoa sets, a pair of fluffy slippers, and even a jigsaw puzzle that Charlie had “won.” But compared to wine that cost more than her salary (probably like she’d know but it was old), her gift wasn’t going to be very impressive. Then again, that wasn’t that particular gift’s point.

As she scanned the room, she noticed Linda frown a bit at Lucifer of course breaking the rules but also at Michael slumping deeper in his chair.

Dan spluttered at the wine and set it by his feet. “Thanks, and I’m going to guess Lucifer?”

He beamed at that. “Well, a Devil can’t deny when he’s called out, can he?”

Michael rolled his eyes across the room. “A Devil could just for fucking once play by the actual rules, Sam, but I get it. You’re just oh-so-special, right, Brother?”

Amenadiel held up both hands. “Maybe we can not fight tonight? Maybe get through Christmas Eve? Not to mention the language.”

Trixie seemed to sense the coming tension and picked Charlie up on her hip before gathering his puzzle and the bath gels she’d won and taking him to his bedroom. Ella waved at her before the teen scurried out and deeply, deeply wished she could go with them.

Michael glared at Lucifer. “No, I mean, what’s your opinion, Doc? You put out rules. Everyone else had to follow them. All Sam had to do was not dig out some aren’t-I-so-rich vintage from his private wine cellar and rules complied with. But no. He has to show off. He has to be so fucking special.”

Linda swallowed hard, and it didn’t escape Ella’s notice that Amenadiel had stood and was now literally positioning himself between the Devil and, honestly, the freaking Sword of God. Her life was so weird, and it was far weirder now that she actually knew about all of it.

“The challenge of the exercise was to find meaningful or funny gifts, to put effort into it, Lucifer, and to also understand that not everyone has the same means,” Linda pointed out.

Michael snorted derisively. “Yeah, not all of us have literal castles we never use or a zip code in Beverly Hills, jackass.”

“Well, I’ve offered to let you use one of my properties since Dad deemed you need time to learn how not to be an utter drag on all of Creation,” Lucifer replied. “You refused.”

“I’d rather live on a railroad trestle than be in something you owned,” Michael snapped back.

“Anyway,” Chloe interjected, rubbing her bump with one hand and taking Lucifer’s hand with the other, “it’s the thought that counts, and next year, I’ll buy for both of us.”

“See, and the more we learn to follow the rules---” Linda started.

Michael rolled his eyes again. “If Sam couldn’t follow them since literally the beginning of time, then he’s not going to give enough of a crap to start now. Like, I appreciate your profession, Doc, kind of, but you do get that if there were literal wars fought over Sam’s inability to do what everyone else does and fucking listen, well, you don’t have a shot.”

Amenadiel hardened his expression at that. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Amenadiel before you drank the Kool-aid, you knew better than I did, almost,” he added, rubbing at his stiff right side, “that Samael will never listen because some of us have to do the actual work and some of us get to prance about and be ‘special.’”

“We didn’t have to invite you,” Lucifer replied coolly.

Eve’s wide eyes grew bigger, and she fiddled with her hands. “Hey, Luce? Can we just get back to the game?”

Ella, who both had no interest in seeing part two of the actual, freaking Rebellion break out tonight and who also recognized how much it sucked to have your brothers gang up on you, chimed in. “Exactly. There are only a couple of gifts left. Rayos, you haven’t even picked one yet.”

Lucifer calmed at that and smiled toward her. Normally, a look like that felt nice, made her feel she had a brother, more or less, who cared about her more than Ricardo ever had. But now, it made her heart ache. Because was it even real? Did Lucifer care about her at all?

How much of everything was all an act?

It ate her up she didn’t know.

“That’s actually a good idea, Miss Lopez,” he said as he stood and walked over to the tree.

It was then that Ella realized her mistake. There were only two gifts left, the one she’d wrapped in Snoopy-themed paper and the mangled, newspaper-covered gift from Michael. Lucifer regarded both presents as he slunk to the tree and made a show of inspecting both as well as looking over the adults in the room and the available gifts open to “steal” per the rules of the game. He picked up Ella’s for a moment, and her heart almost slowed down, but then, Lucifer set it down and picked up the rumpled one from Michael.

“I think this looks quite fetching,” the Devil said coolly, and his tone was cruel.

It was nothing that Ella had ever heard from him, certainly not directed at her. It reminded her excruciatingly of when she’d been in high school and Ricardo would start goading her about her ghost friend, trying to get her to talk about Rae Rae in front of their primos and tíos---all of their extended family---so that they could laugh at her.

And they always laughed at her. Oh, the chismes and the bromas then, the look from her older relatives like she might be possessed and the jeers of her cousins like she was nuts. Yeah, Ella knew what Lucifer was about to do, and she braced for impact, for her own flashbacks to her shittiest brother.

Lucifer shook it. “Mhm, doesn’t rattle. Certainly isn’t heavy, so I doubt it’s any type of libation.” He held the package up in his hands and spun it around as if he needed to get a better view of it. “And this wrapping is so avant garde, I wonder whose it could be?”

Michael was white, any color seemingly drained out of him as he downed the rest of his vodka. “You know, Sam. Just get it over with.”

Even Chloe seemed to grow tired of Lucifer’s mocking. “Lucifer, come on. It’s late, and I think it’s about time to go to bed. The indigestion is just killing me.”

Lucifer shrugged and arched an eyebrow as he tore into the wrapping. Once it was cleared, the Devil lifted the loofah and the bath lotion up before chuckling. It was a grating noise, nothing like how he usually laughed freely around the precinct. “Well, yes, never let it be said that small things can’t go a long way. A sponge, truly, thank you, Twin.”

Eve looked between the two brothers and seemed about as stricken as Ella felt. Most of the other woman’s (the first woman’s) expressions were so easily written across her face and large eyes. “Luce, it’s nice. Who doesn’t love some Bath and Body Works, right?”

Linda nodded. “If it’s not your style, then you can just give it in a few days to Trixie as a stocking stuffer."

Amenadiel turned stiffly to his brother. “Michael, thank you for bringing something for the game.”

Lucifer still had a dangerous, almost manic glint in his eyes. He set the loofah down on the arm of the sofa and then looked at the simple bottle of, based on its coloring Ella was gonna guess it was some kind of lavender lotion, clutched in his well-manicured hands. “Well, Eve, darling, I do agree that it’s perhaps the sentiment that counts. But this is hardly Bath and Body Works, if that can be aspired to at all.” Lucifer read over it again. “Yes, I see, that very exclusive collection from The Dollar Tree.”

Ella had had enough at that. She stood, though that didn’t net her much when all three of the angels, even Michael hunched over a bit, were as tall as trees. However, she glared up at Lucifer, who had stopped talking in apparent shock.

“Miss Lopez, I don’t think you have a turn left,” he said, gesturing to the cocoa she’d won.

She didn’t much care if Linda hadn’t grabbed a present yet. Instead, she marched to the tree, picked up the gift she’d brought, and shoved it into the Devil’s hands. “Open it.”

He frowned at her. “I don’t believe that’s how the game works.”

She glanced over her shoulder at a quietly fuming Michael and rolled her eyes. “The game doesn’t need you to humiliate your brother either. Ábrelo, now.”

Lucifer’s frown deepened as he took the gift. He unwrapped it quickly, although in human speed, and when he pulled out the angel tree-topper she’d made clear, his face was at first a bit pinched. “Perhaps not my preferred decoration for a festive holiday tree, but I can see how it’s seasonally appropriate.” Then, his eyes really studied the white feathers she’d used to make the wings. Really had to notice the way they glittered and hummed with their own inner light even under Linda’s lamps. He inhaled sharply and looked back to her. “Where did you get this?”

She looked only at him, didn’t even glare at Amenadiel or Maze, who had both been lying to her as long. Just Lucifer. “I made it. I like fabricating things anyway, but I had the feathers in my lab from the Sinnerman loft shoot out.” Ella took in a deep breath before adding, “I had your feathers, Lucifer, and I thought you could have them back.”

And after that it was quiet for a full minute. No one spoke, and Ella swore she could feel the blood rushing through her veins and hear the ticking of the wall clock on the other side of Linda’s kitchen. It was a moment that felt like it lasted for hours, until of all of them, Dan spoke.

“That’s kind of a weird thing to say, Ella.”

She rounded on him and glared. “Really? You’re gonna let one of the humans lie for you? Unless, I mean, Dan’s a centaur or something. I have this theory…”

Dan gaped at her. “Wait, huh? I’m normal here!”

Maze chuckled, spell broken a bit. “Hey, so Ellen finally scienced it together. Congrats! I was getting tired of censoring Tribe Nights, you know? Finally over the ‘method actor’ crap explanation, right?”

It hurt again, a fresh dart finding Ella’s heart to hear Maze express how exacerbating it had been to keep her in the dark. She stumbled back a bit at that, and it was Michael who, now that the cat was out of the bag, seemed to come from nowhere to catch her. To steady her a bit before slipping back to his chair.

Ella straightened out her sweater and surveyed all of her friends. Eve looked a bit teary eyed as she chewed her bottom lip. Maze looked excited, like it was all finally going to be a ball now that Ella knew. She was certainly holding up her tumbler in salute. Dan was still ranting to himself, and she’s half tuned it out about how he wasn’t a dumb horse thing, while Amenadiel nodded to Linda to go and check on Charlie. Chloe finally seemed to move the tableau along by standing and walking over to take Lucifer’s free hand. Her eyes mostly made contact with Ella though, occasionally darting to the feathers of the tree topper the scientist had made.

The angel feathers.

Lucifer’s literal feathers.

“Ella, we wanted to tell you,” Chloe started.

“No,” she replied, and her voice was wavering even then, “you didn’t. It would have been so easy for Lucifer or Amenadiel to have shown me their wings when I was losing my faith, out every night drinking till four, doing cocaine---”

Michael snorted at that. “And that’s what I’d expect from the superfriends. What a shock.”

Maze pulled one of her knives from her hip and spun it in her hands. “Stuff it, Mike.”

Amenadiel crossed his arms over his chest. “Mazikeen, let it be. Michael’s not even worth the blade.”

Ella stilled and felt her eyes go wider.

Dan had stopped ranting about her apparently way off base centaur theory and yelped a bit. He looked around and narrowed his eyes at Maze’s blade. “It’s that casual?”

“Violence is violence. Also, demon hello!” Maze chimed in.

Ella quirked her head at Dan. “I thought you knew?”

“I did for a couple years. I don’t really ask much about it cause I don’t have to,” he replied. “I definitely don’t get to see demons threaten angels often. Not really something I wanted to sign up for.”

Two years.

All of them had known at least that long because there was no doubt Linda would know by the time she got pregnant with Charlie if not far earlier, and that truth bomb had to be what sent Decker spiraling through freaking Europe way back when. If Dan had known for two years, then they really were never going to tell her.

“Does Trixie know?” she asked, even though the girl had to, considering her half-brother or sister coming soon. “Like was I the only one you were never going to tell? I mean, funny right? I don’t know as much as the fourteen-year-old. Just stupid, gullible Ella.”

Chloe stepped toward her. “Look, we thought it was safer if---”

“For who?” Ella demanded. “I lost my faith. I spent the year after that…do you know how gutted I was after Pete? Do you even care? I thought I was dark and bad and wrong, and maybe if I’d known that, hey, Lucifer’s dad being super nice to me was literally God trying to give me a pep talk, it could have really helped! But it was too good a joke, right?”

There was a sharp intake of breath behind her, and she couldn’t be sure if it came from the couch where Eve was or from Michael’s chair.

Lucifer sighed heavily. “It was still safer. I can assure you that poor luck has fallen onto every human here for knowing. My mum tortured and almost killed Linda. The Detective has had so many close calls. Whyever do you think Pierce, who I told you was Cain, wanted to hurt her? To get to me, in a way. And Daniel---”

“I shot him,” Dan said. “He was fine though.”

Ella turned to him, wide-eyed. Both because she never thought Dan would do that to Lucifer and because she and he were both raised Catholic. She wasn’t sure if Dan really still practiced; Ella was pretty sure he didn’t, well no more than going through enough to get Trixie through communion, but he should know you cou;dn’t shoot freaking angels with actual bullets. Like duh.

“That’s the dumbest plan I ever heard,” she said.

“Well, it wasn’t even the douche’s fault. My idiot twin came up with it,” Lucifer replied.

Michael rolled his eyes. “Because I knew you weren’t gonna actually get hurt. I just…never mind. It’s been a couple years, and I don’t get involved. I don’t prod at your relationships or Amenadiel’s dad of the year routine. I’m here for muscle when bad shit goes down, and sometimes a family dinner to keep Dad from being even more Biblically pissed off at me. But yeah, Ella, that one was on me.”

She turned and laughed a little, and she didn’t really think she sounded all that lucid. “You know you’re not going to get hurt by a bullet, don’t you?”

Michael sighed heavily. “Of course, and yet it’s those little loopholes you gotta watch for.”

Lucifer nodded. “I have had, at times, a slight mortality sitch.” He shared a look with Chloe that Ella couldn’t quite read. “However, all these cases just prove the rule. It’s dangerous to know, and it was safer for you not to.”

“Was it? And I’m serious! How long as Trixie known? I mean what? The last few months? Cause of the baby coming.” Ella demanded, gesturing to Chloe’s modest bump.

“That’s when I discussed it with her,” Lucifer said.

But Ella knew him well, had called him for what he was: a bluffer. And years ago at that in Las Vegas. She knew when he wasn’t saying everything to technically not lie.

“That’s not what I asked. Cuándo lo supo? When did she actually know?”

Maze shook her head and sheathed her weapon. “Halloween of 2016. She asked me to take her trick ‘r treating, and I showed her my face. She said that it wasn’t as cool as Lucifer’s eyes. So I told her and showed her then, but when the fuck she saw Lucifer’s whole red-eyed thing, I dunno.”

Lucifer swore under his breath, and Chloe looked to Maze like she might, a little, wanna kill the demon herself.

“You took my eight-year-old trick ‘r treating with your demon face out?”

“It was Halloween, and we got the most candy for it!” Maze objected.

Eve patted her knee. “Actually pretty smart thinking.”

“Mazikeen you know that---” Amenadiel started.

“Oh, do have a big pompous lecture about the infernal or divine not mixing with humans, Menny? That fits so, so well with everything you’ve done by starting a mortal family of your own,” Michael bit out.

“She’s known the whole bloody time?” Lucifer asked, confusion coloring his words. “My eyes make grown men go mad.”

“Yeah, well, kid’s tough. What can I say? I’m not just best friends with anyone,” Maze concluded.

There was a soft click down the hall, and Linda appeared again. “Ella, how do you know?”

“I saw Charlie’s wings,” she answered. “They popped out a couple weeks ago when we were doing constellation lessons.”

“Oh, that actually makes quite a bit of sense, you see---” Lucifer started.

“Right yeah, brag about the Lightbringer thing,” Michael jeered. “You know making the stars by definition could never and was not a one-angel job.”

Ella frowned at that, too many pieces of information from too many people. Years, well actually billions of years of back story being pelted at her. She marched to the kitchen, grabbed the closest bottle of the alcoholic eggnog, and uncorked it. She drained a good bit of it from the bottle before looking at any of them again.

Maze clapped at that. “Didn’t know you had it in you.”

Michael whistled at Ella’s chugging, but his face seemed concerned. Was she imaging that? The way his brows were furrowed and eyes focused solely on her. Probably.

“Too much. I…I just…did one of you, did one of you pendejos think to ask me? To maybe try and see if I could handle it? You all treated me with less respect than you did Trix, and I love her, but she’s literally a child. I’m not.”

“Now, Miss Lopez---”

“No,” she said, striding back across the room and shoving the bottle into Lucifer’s hands. She hadn’t corked it back, and the nog splashed across his fancy, three-piece suit.

Cry her a fucking river.

Lucifer’s eyes seemed to flash red for an instant, and if she were still in denial, she’d say it was a trick of light, but it was the irritation of the literal, Biblical Devil. Over her shoulder, Dan actually fucking meeped a bit and shuffled back in his seat.

She was not like that.

At this point, she didn’t care which deity any of them were. Lucifer had hurt her; he could deal with the dry cleaning bill.

“No, Lucifer. Not this time. You all treated me like crap, and you…you don’t deserve me. Merry Fucking Christmas.”

With that, she grabbed her coat, the cocoa set she’d won, and her car keys and stalked to her car. Although, she was pretty sure it wasn’t her imagination or her fault the stairs were wobbly on the way up.

Stupid stairs.

**

Ella was trying to get her car to open. Honestly, she was. But the tequila before dinner, the wine during the meal, and the not-inconsiderate portion of the handle of eggnog she’d just slurped down were making remembering how to get her key in her Mustang’s door pretty impossible.

She hiccupped to herself and tried again before cursing lividly in Spanish when the keys fell to the grass below. She got to her knees and started scrounging for them, but large hands grabbed them first. Her heart stuttered then, some irrational part of her, some part that would always be terrified of him thought it was somehow Pete again before a nasally, somehow-New York accent sounded in the night:

“Lopez, hey, you shouldn’t be driving.”

She didn’t get up, just kind of twisted onto her butt on the grass by the driveway and stared up (and up, seriously angels were trees) to find Michael staring back at her.

“You don’t even like me,” she said, and her voice was so very quiet then. After her big tirade at her so-called friends, Ella didn’t have the energy to do much of anything anymore.

Michael shrugged, and again, it didn’t escape her notice how his stiff right side barely moved. “It’s not personal, Wednesday. I don’t like anyone. I mean, I kind of like drinking with Maze. Demons are great at holding their booze. But in that room? Outside of the kids, who I’m indifferent to, and the demon, who’s at least honest, I don’t like any of those assholes and for more or less valid reasons. Especially Sam.”

She hiccupped again and rubbed at her eyes. “I never got to ask. Why Sam?”

Michael sighed and took her hands in his, helping drag her steadily to her feet before leading her to Linda’s front porch. He eased her down on it and sat beside her but gave her a few feet of space. It was disorienting. Although she’d known him, kind of, a while and bumped into him over a dozen times since his move to Los Angeles (which after tonight’s fight sounded more like God had banished him here for a time), it still sometimes looked so much like being in Lucifer’s presence that it was just raro.

Then again, Lucifer wouldn’t be caught dead in Michael’s outfit, and there was something else about him. Something she’d noticed every time they’d encountered each other, even in passing in the precinct, that felt off. She knew people were drawn to Lucifer. That he had that whole “what do you desire” routine that until two weeks ago, she had assumed was a hypnotism thing. Ella had noticed on the nun case how the sisters had flocked to Amenadiel hard, as if they’d known he was an angel. But with Michael…being near him even if he didn’t do more than just nod in her direction…it left her with goosebumps on her skin and her stomach roiling.

And she felt that low level of anxiety return again.

“‘Samael,’” Michael replied. “Lucifer’s real name, the one Dad gave him. He has issues with it and prefers the nickname Mom gave him. He doesn’t consider himself ‘of Dad’ anymore, but I think in the end, Dad just yanks our chains however He sees fit.”

“So you call him ‘Sam’ to piss him off?” she asked.

“Got it in one. He hates it, and it’s worth it every time.”

She chuckled. “God…I mean, it’s like that year where Ricardo was fifteen and didn’t wanna be ‘Ricky’ with our family anymore. You know, have a grown-up name and stuff. Anyway, the whole time, my older brothers, Alejandro and Israel called him ‘Riki tiki tavi’ instead.”

Michael surprised her by laughing at that. “You have a lot of brothers and sisters?”

“Four big brothers,” she replied. “I…they don’t always treat me well.”

The goosebumps on her flesh grew more pronounced, and she rubbed her arms, trying to stay warm, which was nuts in itself since it was still sixty out tonight.

Michael stood and didn’t leave but did go to stand by her car, far enough now that she had to project more to be heard or would have to.

“I’m sorry,” the angel said.

“That my brothers are dicks? Yeah, I think you get it.”

“No, I mean…” he gestured with his left hand to where she was shivering. “That’s me.”

“Right because you made me nervous.”

“I did, actually.” Michael shoved his hands in his pockets and then looked to Linda’s awning. “Look, you’re pretty drunk off your ass and upset. I’m not in a mood to placate Sam and Menny to get brownie points with Dad. Not like having a family Christmas is gonna get me paroled to go back to Heaven this year. And I know exactly where Sam can shove that loofah for the record.”

She giggled at that. “I’ll help.”

“But you can’t drive, and I’m pretty sure you don’t want to stay here. So, would you like me to take you home, Wednesday? You can say no.”

She blinked. “Okay, if we do, can I ask you questions? No one ever tells me anything.”

He chuckled again, and this time, something in her stomach flip flopped but not out of anxiety. “Yeah, kind of gathered that. That, chica? That was a showstopper. No one in Sam’s little fan club ever tells him no. I haven’t seen someone tell him what a jerk he is like that in eons. It was a real stunner.”

She stood up and walked over toward him. Her eyes raked over the collection of cars in Linda’s driveway. Ella noted Dan’s patrol unit (he must have come from the station), Lucifer’s Corvette, Maze’s motorcycle, and of course her own Mustang. What she didn’t see was Michael’s vehicle.

“Uh, did you take a bus?” Which wasn’t possible cause of course something like that didn’t go to the 90210. She blinked, rubbed her eyes, and tried to keep on her feet. “Maybe an Uber?”

Michael shook his head, and though she didn’t know him well, she could have sworn he was being a bit bashful about it, looking down at his feet. “Well, I’m banged up and on probation, but I am an angel. What was the point of suffering through L.A. traffic when I could flap my way here?”

She gaped at him. Hard. Just blue screened of death right here. An angel, a real, live angel. No, not any angel, the Sword of God (punished or not) was going to fly her.

Michael mistook her shock for something else, maybe being too drunk. She wasn’t sure. He stepped closer to her and waved his hand in front of her face. “Uh, hey, Wednesday, you still with me? Your eyes? Extra big even for you. Did I break your brain?”

The dumb nickname snapped her out of it. “Why do you keep calling me that?”

“About yay high? Dark hair? Huge, cartoon-sized eyes? Figured it fit enough.”

“I’m not in the Addams family,” she huffed. “And you know, we call her Merlina.”

He snickered at that. “Why?”

“Well, my family does. We used to watch the old ‘90s movies. I loved them. I mean Gomez was the best, and Raul Julia heh. You know how it is---tall, dark, and handsome and uh…” she sputtered, realizing in a way she’d just kind of described Michael.

“Right, well, whatever, do you want a ride or not?”

“Now?” she squawked. “Like you just poof out some feathers and air time?”

“No, I click my heels together three times and say ‘there’s no place like my shit box apartment.’”

She laughed at that, and the goosebumps lessened. Ella admitted she could still feel the low thrum of anxiety making her heart pound, but oddly, talking to Michael, surly as he was, made her more relaxed than she’d been in weeks.

“Right, okay, Please. I can’t deal with them.”

Michael nodded and rolled his shoulders. Unlike with Charlie’s wings just appearing and disappearing seamlessly like magic. It took Michael’s a beat to unfurl. The left one came first, mostly easily, but the right jerked out and almost stuttered a moment. Michael had his eyes closed tight, and his brows furrowed as he did it. Ella swore she could almost see sweat dot his brow by the time he was done. Again, the whole process of getting his right wing out was slower, about a minute compared to instantaneously. Even in the dark with the light only coming from porch and streetlights, she could tell they didn’t hang right. Not that she was a wing expert. She was pretty sure no Bible she ever read was accurate about the actual angels she knew, but Charlie’s had hung evenly. Here, she could tell his right was lower than his left, that at the wring wrist (thanks chicken handling experience) was limper and didn’t quite relax at the same angle as the left one.

Ella, being Ella, wanted to ask, but a small, snide voice in her head reminded her she talked too fucking much. It sounded both like Pete and like Lt. Pierce, and she listened to it. Slamming her mouth shut before she’d have to wait in the L.A. night for an Uber.

Michael held out his arms. “Sorry, only way to really do this is a bridal carry. Trust me, it’s hysterical knowing that Amenadiel had to do it for Sam at least once when my twin didn’t have his wings.”

“Wait huh?”

Michael picked up her cocoa gift and settled it in her arms and then held his own back up again for her. “Do you really care?”

“You know,” she said, letting him hoist her up and taking a deep breath as she looked up into his eyes, feeling something that sent her heart now racing in a warm, inviting way…in a way that she had never once felt for Lucifer. “I really don’t give a damn.”

Michael nodded and spread his wings wide. It was more obvious with them spread this close to her how mangled the right one was, the feathers were scraggly and broken. It was clear he hadn’t preened them in ages, and she had to help Margaret with hers every so often when her chicken and general BFF molted. But there were great, mangy bald patches too, and she wondered again what had happened to an angel…to the Defender of Heaven himself to cause that.

Then, she forced herself to look away from his injuries, to both shove her curiosity away and be polite, and then nodded up at him. “I’m ready.”

With a few, great flaps, they were off.

**

She wanted to say her first flight was awesome. Maybe, okay, even a bit romantic. But that would be a lie. Angels flew fast, and unfortunately, the second he set her down, she was rushing to her bathroom to shoo Margaret to a corner and puke. Having ridden with him was like going rocketing down the strongest roller coaster out there.

When she recovered, she sheepishly walked back to her living room and sat on the corner of the sofa opposite from where he sat. She’d made sure to shut the bathroom door behind her because Margaret wasn’t great with strangers, and Michael was both a new person and very odd.

“My bad---”

“Sorry---”

She giggled awkwardly when they said it at the same time.

“I mean, my bad, I didn’t realize that it was like riding a rocket,” she said.

Michael swallowed and handed her back the cocoa she’d dropped on the sofa in her haste to, well, blow chunks. “I haven’t ever had a human passenger before. I can work on it.”

She arched an eyebrow at him. “That implies you’d take me on a ride again. I thought I was just tolerated.”

“Nah, I like you now. You told Sam off. You’re at least as good as Mazikeen in my book.”

Ella relaxed bit by bit at that. She noted that Michael had somehow made his wings disappear again, wherever they went, and it wasn’t like a werewolf thing. They took time to manifest but they didn’t just slurp in places and crunch bone either. She had no idea, but then again, she was mortal and Celestial magic was gonna be over her paygrade.

“I’m better,” she chirped, hopping up and scurrying to her kitchen. “Now, I do have marshmallows which is great because what’s hot cocoa without those, right?”

“You’re going to make me cocoa?”

“Do you not drink it? I mean, you had Christmas dinner and a lot of vodka. So, you can, right?”

“Eat, yeah? I don’t have to, but, you know, when in Rome or L.A.,” he amended.

“Then you’re going to enjoy it. I always liked having some submarinos with my family before Christmas. This isn’t that. I mean powdered can be nice too. But those are amazing. My abuelita taught me and you get real, high quality cocoa bars and let them melt in whole milk. It’s pretty amazing. I know a place near here that makes them authentically, a little Bolivian-owned place. You are gonna love it.”

Michael snickered a little from the couch. “Are we making future plans, Lopez?”

“I dunno. Maybe?” she said as she pulled out a pot and got some whole milk from her fridge. Whoever had gotten the cocoa (and she was gonna guess Amenadiel or Eve, honestly) had gotten some premium stuff that would go well over the stove, not just be heated up in the microwave. “Unless you don’t want to?”

“No, it’s good. If you want to have the actual truth, I’m game to answer your questions. It kills the time here, I guess. And if you ever wanna bitch about how much Sam is a pain in our mutual asses, then I am definitely there for that.”

“I don’t hate your brother,” she said, turning on her burner and stirring the milk bit by bit. “It just hurts.”

“It was convenient for him. I meant what I said at the party. It’s always about Samael. Always. Trying being born with him. Maybe I got attention for a hot literal minute before oh hey there’s the Lightbringer.”

“Yeah, Mamí was…I dunno…she’s harder on me. Expected more. Read grandkids. My brothers, she always fawned over but with me, she wanted me to get more into taking care of the house faster, making their lives easier, cause you know that’s what you do.”

“Is it?”

“So, machismo not a thing you’ve heard of?”

“Gesundheit,” he said.

She laughed as she added the cocoa to the mix, her stomach rumbling greedily with the smell of chocolate. “No, I…never mind. I get it. My mamí expected a lot more of me, and my brothers, especially Ricardo…they got to slide.”

Michael touched his, okay being honest, good-sized nose. “Exactly. Add about fourteen billion years on that. Samael is special. Dad allows it, even now. I mean, my twin defies heaven and gets his own little girlfriend made for him. I try and stop a war and…” he trailed off then, rubbing his right shoulder.

“Wait, Chloe’s an angel?”

“No, she’s a Miracle. It’s apparently at thing,” he replied.

“What’s Linda?”

“Human, far as I know, but a real ball buster. She even scares me. That’s saying something.”

“But Chloe’s not human really?”

“No, she is actually, just…I dunno…Samael’s powers don’t work on her. That’s it. That’s the Miracle.” He snorted and kept rubbing at his right shoulder as if trying to get the knots out of it. “She should get a refund on that, ask Dad for some superstrength too or something.”

“Okay, cause I don’t care if someone’s secretly a mermaid, I just wanna be in the loop.”

“Yeah, none of your friends as far as I know. And none of mine.”

“Great, so I know everything you know?” she asked, watching as the cocoa came to a boil and then turning off the burner. She moved it to a spare, unheated coil, and started rummaging for her mugs.

“No, didn’t say that. Everything about heaven, hell and in between since the beginning of literal time is a lot of prologue, but if Espinoza is secretly a horse-person? Yeah, no.”

She giggled at that. “I didn’t know!”

“Hey, good guess. He’s kind of a horse’s ass.”

“He’s my friend. I think you both don’t like Dan much, huh?” she asked, getting the mugs she liked and pouring from the sauce pan directly into each. The smell wafted up, and her mouth watered.

“Don’t,” Michael said, his voice flat, and she felt the goosebumps up her arm again.

What even was that?

“What?”

“Find common ground between me and Sam. We don’t have much. We have to look alike, which I hate.”

“Are a lot of angels identical?”

“None,” he drawled. “Just us, so lucky me.”

Her heart twisted at that a bit. She didn’t understand that personally, but her brothers, Alejandro and Israel, were identical, and had gone through a phase in middle school trying to be as opposite as possible. Apparently, the Devil and the Prince of Heaven never outgrew that.

“I’m sorry,” she said, coming back out of her kitchen nook and handing him his cup. “That sounds really hard.”

“Very,” he said before arching an eyebrow at her. “You have kids?”

She frowned. “No why?”

He gestured to his mug where Baby Grogu was eating a frog and then to her own which was one with Garfield hating on Mondays. “These are your mugs?”

“Well, I mean, yeah? Why have boring ones?” she asked, settling next to him on the sofa, so close the warmth of his thigh was against her own.

He looked around at her various funkos and action figures and even her vintage care bear collection. “No kids at all?”

“No.”

“And you’re in your twenties then? Closer to Trixie’s age than the rest?”

She gaped at him. Sure, Ella looked good for her age, but she wasn’t, to borrow a Margaret-themed expression, a spring chicken herself. “How old do you think I am?”

He shrugged. “Humans unless they’re almost ready for little sis to visit and very wrinkly are hard to tell apart in age. You all live like a blink anyway. So, all the toys, you must be just past kid-dom, right?”

“I’m Chloe’s age, a few weeks older actually.”

“Huh, go figure.”

“Are you saying I’m immature,” she asked, sipping from Garfield.

“No, just not like the other humans I know.”

“How many is that?”

“Five. So you know all the ones I do,” he admitted, after sipping his drink. He made a satisfying little moan of approval at the tastiness of the cocoa and marshmallow combo, and she blushed. “But none of the others collect toys. Well, maybe Eve, but I haven’t seen their place, so who knows?”

“Probably not those kind of toys,” Ella admitted, knowing from Maze’s ample tendency to overshare how adventurous she and the first woman were which, yeah, made even more sense now.

“What other types are there?” Michael asked, genuinely seeming perplexed.

She blinked at him before deciding he was having a go at her. “Ha, right?”

“No, I was serious?”

Ella frowned then even as she sipped her cocoa. “Are, uh, all the angels related?”

“Yup.”

“And you don’t do the Game of Thrones thing?”

“I have no idea what any of those words meant in that order.”

“You know are the angels real real close?” she asked, a blush touching her cheeks.

Michael choked on his cocoa and a bit spilled onto his turtleneck, which was no great loss. “Wait what?”

“Never mind, forget I asked,” she replied.

“No, we don’t do that. Why?”

“I just…” she spluttered, trying to dodge the fact that by doing the math if Michael was that obtuse about adult toys and had spent billions of years among only siblings…

“Oh,” he said, tone flat again as he set his cocoa on the table. “I…it’s complicated.”

“It’s none of my business,” she admitted. “I haven’t even for years you know?”

Michael quirked his head at her. “But you seem nice. Very perky. I have been told humans like that.”

“No, I…” She sighed and looked at her hands, trying hard not to think about Pete but failing miserably.

Beside her, Michael reached out stiffly with his left hand and patted her shoulder, which made the goosebumps perk up again. “That…that makes sense, that fucker who hurt you a couple years back. Sorry you have to see lilies sometimes still, that the smell bothers you. Probably doesn’t help in your line of work, eventually you have to go to funerals full of the damn things.”

She frowned up at him, shocked. “Did Lucifer or Chloe---”

But she hadn’t told them about the how the hot house smell still bothered her, how she woke up with the stench of it in her nose after nightmares even now. No one knew that. Not even Rae Rae, whom she hadn’t even seen in about eight months and who, most likely, was a vivid hallucination anyway.

Michael sighed and dropped his hand. Then, with his right, he jerkily moved it and pointed it to his temple. “Samael is Desire. Amenadiel has time and some weird thing where he can reflect Father’s love at true believers, which as you can guess, doesn’t happen much in L.A. But I have Fear.”

“You can read them?” Her eyes grew wide in her panic. “All of them?”

He sighed and picked up his cocoa again. “All the time. I block them out, but I get surface stuff sometimes. If it’s a deep-seated phobia or someone is keyed up, even my walls can’t keep it out great. You were thinking about Pete, so I could feel all of it, what happened. I am sorry. What a piece of shit. If it makes you feel any better, he’s going to Hell, and I hate Sam, but he and Maze will make it more miserable for him than most. That’s saying something.”

Ella blinked at him, still trying hard to breathe steadily. “You felt all of it?”

“I didn’t mean to…” he stood, although his right leg seemed shaky as he did it. “I’ll leave.”

She breathed in hard and forced the thoughts of Pete away. Ella ignored the goosebumps and the anxiety oozing through her. Michael hadn’t meant to, and she believed that. She knew at least enough to see how Lucifer’s powers worked in hindsight. He was Desire, and humans were drawn to him all the time. She doubted he could completely turn off his Pied Piper-like effect on people all the way. Same way apparently Michael couldn’t stop feeling strong fears or, weird, but with the nuns, Amenadiel hadn’t been able to completely get them to stop staring at him like girls at a One Direction concert.

Ella hopped up fast and hugged him. “Wait, please.”

He stilled, and she wouldn’t point out that he took a hug like Lucifer, that both twins stiffened up hard as if expecting to be struck as much as embraced. She didn’t know about the life of the Host, not the true events at least, so maybe that came honestly and they did.

“What?” he asked.

“I just…please, you’re the only one who knows who isn’t in Lucifer’s pocket. You lied to me kind of, but we didn’t know each other well or ever see each other one-on-one. Even if you might have wanted to tell me, not like there was a time to. I just…please stay. I don’t want to be alone.”

Michael pulled away from her but resettled on the sofa. “I don’t know why Mother and Father made us opposites, what cute bullshit They thought They were doing. Maybe it was because we’re the Demiurge and we had to shape the universe from Dad’s plans together. Maybe it was just amusing, and the Big Shots get bored. I don’t know. But Sam…he burns so bright. I understand that. Once, I loved him too. We were brothers, and when it was just us, we were friends. But everyone is drawn to him by his very nature. You work with him, so you know.”

“Yeah, of course,” she said, deciding not to mention Lucifer’s mattress romp offer about a month after she transferred into the precinct or how many HR nightmares he’d caused by letting new unis sleep with him before he and Decker were a true thing. “And if you’re opposite?”

“Who likes Fear, you know?” he asked quietly. “So, between being busy leading the Legion, and mostly stuck with my brothers and sisters…I never got time to…” he looked away again. “There was never time, and then after the Rebellion,” he held up his right arm, which didn’t quite hold up high enough, couldn’t get level with his shoulder. “I was ruined, so what was the point? Any deity or other pantheon out there? I was a joke. So, yeah, funny right? There are a lot of things I don’t know shit about, probably never will.”

Ella sniffled at that. “Did another angel---”

“Samael,” He finished. “We struggled, and I literally kicked him the final way to Hell. Dad’s orders, but he…he panicked and grabbed my wing. It wrenched…my whole spine did…and it never healed. No idea why. But I apologize your airline tonight wasn’t great. I mean, I didn’t know humans aren’t great at that much speed. Should have rung a bell. But my wings are the worst by heavenly standards. So, you’ll have to ask Samael or Amenadiel to give you a spin with the good sets when you are all back to being super pals.”

“I didn’t think your wings were bad.” She frowned. “Okay, maybe scraggly? Have you preened them lately?”

“I can’t reach parts in my own wings, Wednesday. How could I?”

“Oh, well you have way more brothers and sisters than me, right? Lucifer makes it sound like thousands.”

“It is.”

Her eyes grew wide. “See! Then, someone can help. You just need to schedule a time to do it when you’re in heaven again.”

“It’s been two years, so it might be a while, but that’s moot.”

“Why? Maybe if you ask Amenadiel nicely? Maybe?”

“I’d rather rip the wings off,” he snapped.

“Right, uh, but why is it moot?”

“No one touches them.”

“Are they sore?”

“Yes, but I…my siblings despise them. They treat it like they can catch it. I have one sister who would but she’s the Angel of Death, and she’s so busy ferrying souls, that she’s never home. Okay, two sisters, but Gabriel is always off delivering messages across the multiverse.”

“Whoa, like Everything Everywhere All at Once? Or the MCU?”

“You don’t make a ton of sense. You talk in code a lot, Lopez.”

She rolled her eyes and finished her cocoa. “Um, no. You have been here two years. Don’t you watch movies?”

“Whatever comes on cable, sure.”

“Nah, won’t do. We’re doing movie marathons. I am getting you up to date on so much stuff.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I need to get a note pad. We have to get me to take you to the Bolivian place and get that submarino, then the Marvel nights, oh and of course we’re gonna get you preened. I can help with that.”

Michael laughed so hard then, laughed and laughed till tears sprung up in the corner of his eyes. “You’re a human whose full experience with wings were seeing the worst pair in heaven tonight and tiny, mini down fluff on a nephil two weeks ago. You can’t help.”

She rolled her eyes, hopped up, and came back to the couch with Margaret’s pet food clenched in her hands. “Hello, read it.”

“Grubbly Farms chicken feed. Well, I guess you gotta keep a balanced diet, chica,” he said, laughing harder.

“No, dude, I have a chicken. Her name’s Margaret, and she lives in my bathtub. You can meet her later, but I meant that I help her with molting all the time. Ergo, who can be your wing woman?” She grinned up at him and pointed to herself with both thumbs. “This gal!”

“I’m not a chicken.”

“But you have wings, and she has wings---”

“They’re magically-imbued manifestations of pure divinity.”

“With feathers,” she pointed out.

“Okay, sure, but Dad got lazy and made birds after us.”

Ella put the bag down and settled back on the sofa but not before nudging his right side very gently with her elbow. “So what? Wings are wings.”

“I’m not a Foghorn Leghorn.”

“Will be if you won’t let me preen you.”

“Fine, we can do it next weekend because that’s a long process, and I just don’t have it in me to take the right one out again tonight. It’s stubborn, and it hurts a lot.”

“But good. They will hurt less with less busted quills, you know. Man, Margaret gets real clucky before molting season and---”

“Not a chicken,” he huffed again, crossing his arms over his chest and pouting. A lot.

She decided wisely not to add that Lucifer looked like that too when he pouted.

“Thank you, you know,” he added, after a long silence stretched out between them.

“For what? You flew my drunk butt home.”

“For standing up for me against Sam. No one…no one ever has.”

“Dude, surely. I mean even Mamí didn’t like always take Alejandro’s side over Israel’s.”

Michael sighed heavily. “It’s cute in a way you think like that. Quaint. There are only shadows to be in when your twin is the Lightbringer. So, no, I owe you a few more for getting him off my back. I…I don’t have papers, so I have to take odd jobs. But I was trying to be polite and stick to the limit cause, you know, I don’t have a couple grand to blow on caviar or wine or something else that’s an extravagant waste.”

“It was mean.”

He rubbed his shoulder again. “It was mild compared to everything else. But thanks, chica. That’s probably the best gift I’ve ever had.”

She sniffled at that a bit, thinking over how desolate a statement it was, but Ella rebounded quickly. Standing up, she went to rummage through her DVDs. “You know, we got our week planned out, all that stuff. But for now, Christmas Eve isn’t over. I can make more cocoa, and we can watch the best thing ever.”

“That MCU stuff?”

She turned around and handed him the DVD. “Um, no. You’re gonna love Emmet Otter’s Jug-band Christmas. It’s epic. So, Mike, get comfy, ‘k?”

He looked at the cover and glared at her. “Are you sure you’re not younger than Trixie?”

“Nah, it’s a classic. We do this and A Mickey Christmas Carol.”

“A Christmas what?”

“Oh, wow, you don’t know Dickens at all?”

“Uh, no been busy beating back Eldritch horrors from the deep.”

“Pfft,” she said, hurrying to her kitchen to get another round of chocolatey goodness going. “Stick with me. We’ll do Christmas right this time.”

He laughed, and it sounded genuine for once this night and not just snide. “I don’t know whether to be scared or honored, Merlina,” he added, although languages-wise, he was no Lucifer, and his attempt at even a hint of Spanish was a muddled mess.

“Oh, I know,” she said, leaning over the counter in her kitchenette to wink at him. “Be afraid, ángel, be very afraid.”

__