Who: Elijah Savage and Michelle Kingston What: Ineffable meetings at exclusive parties. Where: An NPC Ageless's flat in London. When: Backdated to Sunday night, September 11, 2011. Day of rest and all that. Warnings: Getting to know each other in the biblical sense? Not really. I just wanted to say that. >>
Michelle had become much more frequent about her frequenting of Ageless functions in the last year or so. She’d been out of the picture for so long after becoming a reincarnate that she hadn’t even known what she was missing, and when she finally did she hadn’t been too sure what all the fuss was about. The longer she and Azi spent together the more of a stick in the mud she became, or at least the part of her that was Azi did. There was still the other part of Michelle that was a bit of a wild child and sometimes liked to cut loose. She used to dye her hair pink after all. She’d stopped doing that recently, pretty much ever since she became the head of caretaking. She wasn’t sure what about a promotion equaled toning down on the hair dye when she’d already been forcing the Agency to tolerate her pink hair for going on six years now, but she’d still kept the glitter and the Bon Jovi fan girling at an all-time high so somehow that made up for it.
… Where was she? Oh yes! At a party. And not just any party, an Ageless costume party. Why her fellow Ageless friends were having a costume party in the middle of September when October was still another month away completely escaped her, but she made no arguments. The Ageless pretty much had parties for everything anyway, Michelle was more or less sure she’d attended a Somebody Just Sneezed party just last week. Oh well, it was a chance to kick back and relax with the other immortals in her ever widening circle of forever friends. Literally forever, a concept that Michelle was still getting used to and frequently needed the added counsel of alcohol to get her through the rougher patches. And what better way to test out her Halloween costume then a party a month early with friends and a fully stocked bar? Work was a pain in the ass and even angels needed a break once in awhile, so she’d arrived at her friend’s place that night dressed as a fallen angel and made an immediate beeline for the liquor.
Now it was an hour later and Michelle was definitely drunk. Not just pleasantly tipsy, though not completely hammered. Just a silly sort of drunk and currently tripping over her halo (however the Hell that worked) as she finally escaped some people on the dance floor. Azi was scoffing away in her head about having more of a sense of propriety but she wasn’t listening, as usual. He’d already tried to get her to wear something else that night but she wasn’t hearing it. Azi was no typical angel as much as he tried to deny it and Michelle certainly wasn’t either. Hence the total black, gothic look she had going on and the way she was ever so gracefully sitting herself down on one of the bar stools. And by gracefully, I mean she sat down and immediately almost fell off it from the sheer force of a very small hiccup. If it hadn’t been for the skeezy looking guy in a devil’s outfit who’d caught her that might have ended badly, but then he wouldn’t leave her side no matter how bored she tried to make herself look. Finally with her chin in her hands and most of her upper body draped across the bar surface, she huffed at him mid-never ending sentence. Man this guy could talk forever, and he wouldn’t stop touching her damn leg. “Look, dude. If you think that little act of chivalry was enough to get you laid, orrrrr if you think this is some kind of crazy costume connection, like I’m gonna do you just because you’ve got the horns? Think again. I’m an angel, mkay? I’m sure there’s a Mary Magdalene around here somewhere. Beat it, ese!” And he walked off looking dejected as she took a relieved sip of her gin and tonic and scoffed. “Demons.”
--
All things considered, Elijah Savage was far more social than any demon had a right to be. Demons just didn’t like other people, let alone other demons (or, Satan forbid, actual angels), but that was where Elijah differed from his hellish brothers. He liked people. He even like the occasional angel or... well, just the one occasional angel, but still, the point stood. Elijah Savage wasn’t antisocial to the point of a severe complex. He liked parties.
Or, more specifically, he liked crashing them.
The end result was the same, really. Invited or no, the parties went to were the ones that were worth crashing. Maybe that was his demonic influence at work, but he couldn’t say he minded. He enjoyed himself, and everyone around him enjoyed themselves, and so what if a few souls got lost along the way? It was bound to happen anyway. Elijah merely tended to speed up the process, as was his infernal wont. It wasn’t really his fault. These things just happened.
Take tonight, for instance. He’d heard about the party from a friend of a friend of a friend and he’d slipped in after it was well underway, rather disappointed that he’d shown up without a costume but too fond of his current attire (plus sunglasses) that he couldn’t be bothered to change it. His mood lightened significantly, however, as he mingled amongst his immortal peers, laughing more or less openly at their magnificently unoriginal costumes and leaving a trail in his temptation in his wake. (Again, not something he could help, and the Ageless, well. They were abnormally susceptible to temptation. Which was unfortunate, really, considering going to Hell wasn’t actually a possibility for them. But that was beside the point.
…. But then again, what was the point?)
Ah, yes. The inebriated angel at the bar.
Once Elijah saw her, honestly, there was no staying away from her. At first he simply watched her, sliding his sunglasses off and slipping them into his vest pocket, fixing her with an intense stare he usually only reserved for people he was going to sleep with. Yep. She was definitely a viable option. Out of all the faces at tonight’s party, hers was one he didn’t recognize, which was always a bonus. Also a bonus? She was quite lovely. And quite drunk.
Perfect.
With a positively wicked smirk, Elijah snaked his way into the (pathetically false) demon’s vacant seat, shaking his head and tugging at the bottom of his vest once to smooth any wrinkles. “The worst, aren’t they?” he commented dryly, waving the bartender over with snappy gesture from his wrist. “No taste, and evil to boot. How dare they.”
Snickering, he continued, speaking to the bartender. “Whatever the angel’s having. Two, please.” Then, back to the aforementioned angel. He stuck out a friendly hand. “Elijah. I don’t believe we’ve met before. I’m positive I would’ve remembered someone as heavenly as you...”
---
Michelle was still glaring at the ever retreating form of what’s his face. What was his face? Come to think of it she’d never gotten a name, not that it mattered. She’d just as soon be rid of him for good, and she was, but then in what seemed like the blink of an eye the seat he’d just vacated was occupied again. Occupied by a very well dressed and much better looking male then the one who’d been bugging her previously. Michelle blinked a few times, attempting to regain her bearings but his face was so distracting with all its... handsomeness. She was definitely not sober, but that was the farthest thing from her mind as she squinted at him for longer than necessary until she realized he was holding his hand out to her.
“They’re not so bad,” Michelle responded casually, ignoring the slight twinge in her gut at being called ‘angel’. It’d been awhile since Nick left, but the memories still stung a little. “Some of them anyway. Really depends on who you’re asking.” She spoke, giving him a funny look as she relented and shook his hand, smiling in spite of herself. It’d been awhile since a handsome stranger had looked at her like that. “Hope you like gin and tonics.”
She threaded a few fingers through the soft strands of silver and black that her hair had become for the night, her lips pursed around the rim of her glass as she gulped down the rest of her drink and slid it across the bar after the bar tender. Then she crossed one leg over the other and planted her elbow on the bar again in the interest of leaning a bit closer so she wouldn’t have to shout over the music. She only wobbled in her seat a little. “Michelle. No, I don’t think we have either. You new around these parts? Or just old enough that I wouldn’t know you yet. I’ve had both.”
---
“My favorite,” he replied graciously, his grin widening roguishly as he gave her a little tip of his head. Even though his attitude was casual, his eyes were watchful – searching, even. There was something about this angel that gave him the tingles, in more ways than one. Not only was she beautiful, as angelic as a woman could ever hope to be, but there was something frightfully familiar about her. But he didn’t let himself hope, nor did he leap to conclusions. There were more angels dropping from the heavens these days than he cared to count (and disappointingly, most of them had their own demon buddies – because that idea was so original), and thus far, none of them had been Aziraphale. And there was no way, absolutely ever way that Aziraphale would go out in public looking like that. Not if his life or the continued existence of reality depended on it. No, Elijah decided, she wasn’t his angel – if she was an angel at all, which was still up for debate. Just because most of the Ageless had a tendency to pick cliched costumes didn’t mean she did.
Either way, thought. He could pursue this woman without fear of embarrassing or potentially brain-breaking repercussions. Elijah was safe. As safe as demon could be, anyway. And that was definitely the way he liked it.
But then she uttered that last little phrase, so matter-of-factly that a very unprepared Elijah couldn’t keep his glee from showing on his face. His eyebrows flew up into his forehead comically fast and his mouth actually fell open for a moment, but then he was rescued as the bartender set their drinks in front of them. He cleared his throat, recovering himself. “Have you? You’ll have to settle a bet for me, then,” he said with a nonchalant sip, purposefully avoiding her question for the moment. “A friend of mine is convinced that no one under 50 is worth sleeping with, but I happen to know that recently immortalized reincarnates have more energy than they know what to do with, which always makes for a fun evening no matter how old you are. Passion over stamina, youth over...” He took another sip and raised an eyebrow over his glass. “Experience – it all comes down to taste, doesn’t it? And you, well. You’re very lucky that your tastes are so diverse. You won’t be bored for the rest of eternity, that’s for sure!”
He knew very well that that wasn’t what she’d meant at all. He just didn’t care. This was just too good to pass up.
---
It took all of Michelle’s self control that she didn’t really have not to spit the first gulp of her new drink all over him. Well, she managed not to do that much thankfully, but she still choked on the liquid half way down her throat at his last remark. Blushing horribly, she attempted to regain some semblance of composure before she realized she’d lost all of that about an hour ago. Damn. So, she gave up and just swallowed the remainder before answering, fixing him with a look that plainly said ‘are you kidding me’ but the still very distinctive tint of red around her ears firmly gave her away. After a moment she couldn’t even keep that up anymore and she just burst out laughing, quickly covering her mouth to stifle most of it as she fought to control the sudden burst of drunken giggling.
“God you sound just like-” But the rest of her remark was cut off by a very abrupt hiccup and then she forced herself to calm down a little before straightening up in her seat (mostly just to get a little more distant between them, it was like his eyes were hypnotic or something and determined to pull her in) and getting a hold of herself enough to actually respond somewhat intelligently. “You can just tell your friend that he or she is gravely mistaken, and if that’s the sort of attitude they have then they’ll probably be very lonely for the rest of eternity.”
She practically had to choke out the word ‘eternity’, having gotten lodged in her throat just like it always did but she forced herself to say it anyway. For being the director of caretaking, Michelle wasn’t exactly an inspiring role model when it came to coming to terms with your reincarnate status. One day. But now she was getting off track again so she reaffirmed her point by taking a more decisive sip of her refreshed drink and raising an eyebrow at him like she was trying to stare him down. Didn’t exactly achieve the desired affect. “I’m only twenty seven and plenty experienced, thank you! And I have at least one person who’s well over one hundred and probably much older than whoever your friend is to vouch for me.”
Of course the minute she said it she was mentally kicking herself for it. Nick. Stupid, stupid Nick. Miri had been right. Another somewhat bitter thought that left a bad taste in Michelle’s mouth. He was always going to leave, without so much as a word or a hand wave, and leave he had. No one had heard from him in months, but the angel wasn’t that easy to knock down. Nope. Screw Nick. With that somewhat empowering thought echoing in her ears she shrugged somewhat coyly while toying with a strand of silver hair near her chin. “Besides. What makes you think passion and stamina are mutually exclusive...?”
---
Elijah had many talents (many, many talents, and almost all of them demonic), but perhaps one of his favorites was talking about sex as if it were the weather. Not only was it a good icebreaker, but it was also a fantastic way of gauging someone’s character without really bothering to get to know them first. Everyone reacted differently, and every reaction told him just about everything he needed to know about the person in question. Take the lovely lady to his left, for instance. She was easily shocked, which told him that for at least half of her twenty-seven years she’d led a rather sheltered life, but she recovered and retorted just as easily. A very good sign. This angel, apparently, had a wicked side to her. A hidden one, perhaps, but he’d be lying if he said that wasn’t his favorite kind. Much more rewarding in the end.
Glancing at her out of the corners of his eyes, Elijah smiled like a snake. The coy thing was cute, but he had a feeling she could do better. All she needed was the right incentive. Lucky for her, he was exactly that.
“Oh, do you?” He leaned in conspiratorially, an eyebrow raising archly. “Should I be jealous of this centenarian? No, no. Don’t tell me. We’ve only just met, and I’d hate for you to break the soulless vacuum where my heart used to be.” Winking at her shamelessly, he took a prolonged sip of his drink, swallowing with much more decorum than she had when she asked him her probing question in response. Good girl. He was proud of her already.
“I never said they were, actually, though it is a bit rare, to be quite honest. Most humans have too much of one and not enough of the other, and finding the right balance is... difficult, yes, but not impossible, I’ve found. Like you, dear girl,” he grinned wolfishly, “I’m plenty experienced.”
---
Michelle only scrunched up her nose in response, taking his jovial request not to tell him seriously as she really didn’t want to get into why she’d come to this party unattached. It was pretty obvious anyway wasn’t it? And she could definitely do better at this game, she knew she could, but there was something about this man that was sufficiently throwing her off. Something familiar, something... something not exactly pleasant, while something not exactly unpleasant either. Just familiar. Like she already knew him but of course that was ridiculous, she definitely would have remembered a face like that. Even if everything that came out of his mouth sounded like an old friend she’d forgotten she had.
Taking her own prolonged sip of her drink, she swallowed much more successfully this time and smiled with pursed lips around the rim of her glass at his long-winded one liner. He was a smooth one. That automatically meant he was bad news, her mother had taught her that much and all those months dealing with Nick only justified her mother’s warnings during Michelle’s pre-teen years. ‘Watch out for those bad boys!’ To Michelle’s own detriment, however, that seemed to be the only thing that could get her attention anymore these days. Aziraphale had his own brand of wickedness, and so did she. They fit, oddly. In a way that they really didn’t at all but that was entirely besides the point.
What was the point? Oh yes, which is why she eventually set her glass back on the bar and leaned forward in a similar conspiratorially fashion, planting her elbow on the edge and her chin in her hand, fixing him with a knowing look. “Oh, are you?” She mocked back kindly, while arching an eyebrow expertly at him. “Mmm. You’ve obviously just been hanging around the wrong immortals. Maybe even the wrong angels, if that’s your thing.”
---
Elijah laughed outright at that. It was... rather a shocking laugh, one that would surprise her as much as it surprised him, simply because it was so out of character for him. Elijah was a sneak, that much was perfectly obvious. Everything about him was sneaky, from his constantly present sly grin to the way he inched ever closer to her. Frankly, he prided himself in his mysterious act. He loved confounding people and confusing them and keeping them in the dark. He’d gotten rather good at it over the past sixty years, after all. Why shouldn’t he be proud?
Still. It was a rare thing when he forgot himself completely as he just had with that one little laugh, and that should’ve been a sign. Unfortunately, however, nothing made Elijah and Crowley more stupid than a pretty, angelic face. It was a weakness that he’d never admit even for all the bottles of Chateau Lafitte (1828, of course) that had ever existence, though for anybody who really knew him? It was painfully, embarrassingly obvious.
“You’re not wrong about that, actually,” he admitted with a bow of his head, almost ashamed but not quite. “To be quite honest, I prefer the company of Principalities, but it’s just so hard to find a good one these days.” His eyes flashed upwards to meet hers, then he made a move so deft and calculating that it appeared so much more casual than humanly possible. It was hard to keep the smirk off of his face now. He was rather proud of this one.
As if he were swatting a vaguely annoying fly, he blithely brushed her long hair off her shoulder – not just with an air of disinterest, but an air of extreme disinterest. “Almost as hard as it is to find an interesting stranger to share a drink with, in fact. Funny, hm?”
---
The abrupt laugh did take her by surprise, but only because she hadn’t been expecting it. Then again, she didn’t really know what to expect from him at this point since everything he was doing seemed to be taking her by surprise. Which honestly should have been her first clue but aside from having a pretty serious weakness for smooth talkers? She was still very drunk. Very drunk, and growing more miffed by the second that she couldn’t seem to figure him out. Why was it that the really mysterious ones were always the most attractive? She sighed in her head while Aziraphale grumbled, taking another somewhat smaller sip of her drink while she considered him.
“Ahhh, so you’re one of those ageless,” she concluded with a knowing smile, silently wondering to herself if there was any other kind. They were all pretty exclusive that way, but the longer Michelle spent in their company the less she minded. These were the people she’d be spending eternity with after all. Everyone else came with an unpleasant and often tragic time stamp.
But those weren’t happy thoughts. Luckily for her, all her thoughts were very quickly derailed by that subtle but very noticeable gesture of his hand through her hair. She didn’t even notice when the hair he’d brushed off her shoulder got tangled in the cheap wing strapped to her back, she was too busy trying and failing to keep the new blush off her face as she quickly searched for something to say. Damnitt, Azi, she silently growled, more or less sure that she never used to blush as much as she did now before he’d come along. Angels. The fact that he was a lot closer to her now then he had been when he’d initially sat down wasn’t helping much either.
“Yeah. Funny...” She trailed off, looking at him just as intently as he seemed to be looking at her despite his dismissive air. She took another gulp of courage, swallowing thickly while her gaze stayed trained on him but immediately after she knew she shouldn’t have taken that last sip. Suddenly the room was a lot more fuzzy and she lurched forward an inch, like she was trying to get a closer look at him as she squinted. “Say. You’re awfully good at this, you know. Much better then most. Have you tempted before?”
---
That blush. That blush made him smile – really, genuinely smile. Like his laugh, this was a rare enough occurrence. Hardly ever did he smile without an hint of deviousness behind his lips, but once again, she’d somehow managed to evoke something... honest out of him. Something human.
That’s weird, Crowley thought idly.
Like a moron, Elijah ignored him.
Instead, he only leaned in closer to her, resting a hand on her upper arm to steady her as much as possible, very much aware of how far apart they weren’t, even if she wasn’t. He licked his lips, smiling again. “Mm, perceptive, aren’t you? For an angel, I suppose. What gave me away, exactly? The pitchfork? No, couldn’t be, I left that at home with the plants...”
His voice was hardly more than a murmur now, reeling her in as softly and smoothly as possible. “Or maybe it was... Oh, yes. I know.” He grinned and bit his lip, the temptation now almost too much for him to bear. Him! “It was the ineffability, wasn’t it? Always gets them, in the end...”
And then he did it. He kissed her.
---
“Angel’s are plenty perceptive, I’ll have you know, just because we-” But Michelle was abruptly cut off in her defense of her principality, which was terribly rude as she was just about to make the argument that losing things like antichrists was not the same thing as not being perceptive, but that was all quickly forgotten once she actually registered that they’d been leaning in closer and closer until his lips were on hers. Surprising. Although not really, since he’d had his hand on her arm and everything. There were always clues, certain signs of a person’s intent, and from the very moment he’d sat down at the bar Michelle could have argued that she’d seen where this was going, but honestly? She was a little too caught up in the moment to care about all that.
The second his lips actually touched hers she sank into the kiss with a soft hum, tilting her head and breathing into it deeply like a fly firmly caught in the spider’s web and she wasn’t so drunk that she didn’t know that’s exactly what she was. She was no stranger to temptation, she’d been exposed to enough of it in her few years as an angel to know what it was, and this guy was the very definition of. Had that stopped her? No, even if kissing a perfect stranger was a pretty far cry from her usual behavior. But she blamed that all on the amount of alcohol she’d had tonight, and the fact that he was so good looking it could practically be a sin. … And maybe was, if he really was a demon. Oh well.
His lips were insanely soft. So soft that all she wanted to do was keep hers pressed to his, leaning half way and precariously off her stool in order to kiss him fully but then she was pulling back an inch, letting the kiss linger with a more or less accidental tug of his lower lip in order to blink at him in drunken recognition. Key word being drunken, so it really wasn’t much recognition at all. “Ineffable? Funny word, that...” Her voice soft and husky as she didn’t exactly succeed in looking him in the eyes with their faces still this close, so she ended up just training her gaze on that mouth of his. “Suppose it is ineffable. So many things are these days.”
---
“Everything is, one could argue,” Elijah murmured back, his voice just as low as hers, though his was a little bit sharper, a little more aware than hers, and therefore much more piercing. Urging, even. He was getting bizarrely impatient now – he was feeling feelings, and that was just... well, it was just bizarre! In a few mere seconds, this angel had stopped being a challenge and started being something else entirely, but what that was exactly, he couldn’t quite say. If he’d been thinking clearly, he’d’ve known that that was an entire universe of not good. But it had been a nice kiss. He’d like it. Strange, really, considering he hadn’t done anything (or anyone) nice since the early 1940s. But for some reason, that didn’t matter. All he wanted was to hear that noise she’d made again. That hum.
There was definitely something wrong with him.
“I wouldn’t, personally,” he grinned, perfectly aware of the way her eyes were trained on his lips, “but some things, yes. Some things are ineffable. Like you, for instance.” His free hand touched her cheek – delicately, yet with purpose. While she wasn’t looking, his eyes searched hers so intently that Crowley’s natural yellow eyes, slit like a snake’s, slipped through, which probably would’ve been quite startling had she actually seen them. As soon as he realized it himself, however, they were gone. Odd. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that. His brow furrowed, ever so slightly. “No, I can’t quite put my finger on you...”
---
His skin felt just as soft as his lips, and just as pleasantly warm. It had been long enough since she’d touched someone like this that she wasn’t too drunk not to savor it, another pleasant hum sounding in the back of her throat as her lips parted in a lazy smile mere centimeters from his. There was something so intoxicating about him that she was already completely unaware of anything or anyone else in the room, they might as well have been alone for all that she didn’t take notice of anything else but him. It was a curious thing, but not something she had the wherewithal to process at the moment.
“Me?” Michelle mused as she tilted her head into the hand on her cheek, finally raising her chin and locking eyes with his, noticing immediately what a lovely color blue his were. Striking, even. She couldn’t remember ever seeing eyes that entrancing. Almost like they were pulling her in all on their own. “There’s nothing to put a finger on, really...”
Her face scrunched up like she was trying to work that out for herself but her face soon relaxed again as she bit the corner of her lip with a small shrug, eyes wide and unassuming. Every time she spoke her mouth seemed to move closer to his on its own accord, speaking now almost against them for all the space that wasn’t between them anymore. “I’m just...” A pause, like a drunken epiphany. “... Michelle.”
---
Elijah couldn’t help it – he kissed her again. With her lips so close, it was too much for him to resist, and he grinned as he met her bemused expression. For an angel, she was a bit of a paradox. Self-aware, yet not at all. Innocent, yet so not at all. She was a different breed of angel, that was absolutely certain. A breed he’d rather come to miss. If coming to this party had been a part of the ineffable plan, then this was one instance when he wouldn’t try to defy it. Just the one.
Pulling away from her, his grin only widened as he stood up and circled around her, holding on to her hand and placing another on her hip as he eased her from her chair. “In that case, Michelle,” he murmured from behind her, whispering in her ear, “I think it’s time we’ve left, don’t you? No time like the present, after all, and I think you’ll find my timing is both nice and accurate in all my endeavours. If you’d care to test me, that is. I do love a good challenge.”
And he couldn’t resist his inside jokes. Sometimes, with no one to share them with, it was all he had to remind him who he was.
---
“Oh-” Michelle exclaimed in soft surprise when he circled around her, but making no protest when he so very calculatingly helped her off the stool. She stepped off it with an unsteady hop and immediately fell against him for support, shivering a little as his breath met her ear and that only made her eyes flutter closed for a moment as she took in this new sensation. She was perfectly aware what his intentions were, as aware as she was of that hand on her hip, which was very. Did she care? Probably, if she had been just a teensy bit more sober, but she reasoned to herself that there was no reason not to if Nick wasn’t around anymore. And just because he was yet another demon didn’t mean she shouldn’t. Just the thought made her the slightest bit smug, but then she was distracted again by the hand on her hip and she leaned into him more decisively, stretching out her neck to look back at him from an angle.
She was about to kiss him, maybe say ‘yes’ or ‘let me think about it’, but then he cracked that joke and she immediately laughed. And then, after she laughed, her eyes widened quite considerably and she pulled away with a look like she’d just been been told there was an apocalypse scheduled for tomorrow.
… Honestly she might prefer the apocalypse scenario. “Oh, god. Oh-” She managed to turn around to face him without falling over, her face immediately developing a deeper shade of pink as she fully came to her drunken and very horrifying conclusion. “God.” Now she was sputtering at the same time as she was silently berating herself for being such an idiot. If he was- And she was. One Crowley was more then enough and Nick hadn’t even been her Crowley, so somehow she’d justified it. Nice and accurate? That was a phrase she was nearly positive wasn’t just coincidence, and it’d be just her luck. “Ugh, this is just perfect!” She huffed, throwing up her arms at the same time as she completely disappeared from the room, miracle-ing herself back to the safety of her own home where she’d never leave again so she wouldn’t kiss another Crowley for as long as she lived. In theory. One should really never drink and miracle.