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Current Location: the grounds

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Date: April 23rd
Place: The Manor grounds
Status: Public - Aziraphale and Michael (anyone is welcome, though)
Summary: Michael is skilled at avoidance. Operation: Avoid Gabriel has now commenced.

All right, so maybe Michael had overreacted. Evicting Gabriel from his room and then Binding him out might have been considered... over-the-top. But it was his room... and anyway, the gasped "NO" following the "I love you" declaration was enough to throw anyone off! So really, Gabriel brought this on himself. Yeah. Let him grieve the loss of someone he didn't like. Woo. You go, Michael. Way to make a stand.

But Michael's room was boring, and there was only so long you could spend pacing. So, where was Gabriel not likely to go?

Well obviously the Library was out of the question; not that it would be Michael's first choice of location anyway. But Gabriel was such an inside creature - the lack of tan gave that away! - that his best bet was to go outside.

And so he did so, going outside, sitting on a bench and spreading his wings. They needed the sun to keep bring out their highlights, anyway.

He pondered what to do. What was there to do?

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Aziraphale decided that getting out of the Manor's basement for a spell would be a wise idea. He was starting to see demonic sigils every time he closed his eyes.

He fetched from the library John Dee's five books of mystery: original sourcebook of Enochian magic and strolled outside, going to find the park bench he had sat on with Barnaby what felt like ages ago.

Only to find it was already occupied.

Common sense dictated that he should turn around right now and just pretend that he hadn't seen the Leader of the Host. But Michael looked absolutely despondent and it didn't suit Aziraphale's nature to walk away from him like this.

He shuffled over and sat down, not saying a word. If Michael wanted to talk about whatever was wrong with him, he could, but Aziraphale wasn't going to press him for information either. That would likely backfire.

Edited 2010-05-14 20:13 (UTC)

"I'd like to think I'm a pretty good catch," said Michael suddenly. "I mean, I'm kind of a big deal. You'd think that someone would like to date me, but nooooooo, I said, 'oh by the way I love you,' and he said, 'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111111111111111111111111111111111'"

Aziraphale stared at him before calmly putting down his book, raised a hand and pinched his nose. "What happened?" he asked, "and please answer without embellishments."

Michael gave him an affronted gape. "I never embellish anything, thank you. And anyway, it's... kind of a long story. Things were said, things were stabbed, and yeah."

He kicked at a pebble. "I guess I need something to do to distract myself now. Any chance your wing's healed up?"

Aziraphale gave a soft smile. "So you finally told Gabriel of your feelings for him, and he turned you down, I imagine with not nearly as much fanfare as you described." At Michael's surprised look, he amended, "Well, it's not as if you've been particularly stealthy about it. I imagine the only one who didn't know of your feelings for Gabriel was Gabriel himself. In fact, if it weren't for..." He was wary saying That Name around Michael of all angels, so he continued with, "... past incidents, he probably would reciprocate. And you would make a fetching couple."

Michael opened his mouth, and then closed it. And then opened it, and then closed it.

"Oh," he managed at length, rendered speechless for the first time in five hundred years or so.*

-
* He was pretty pissed at what happened to Jeanne d'Arc. Then again, who wasn't?

Aziraphale always found it rather refreshing when his superiors proved that they weren't all-knowing. He gave Michael his best reassuring smile, reached over and patted Michael on the hand comfortingly.

"It may be hard to be with him now that everything's out in the open, but not impossible. The key is to try to keep things as normal as possible. Things will never be the same, but they don't have to be so different. I know you two are friends, after all, and it would be just a shame if you lost that."

"Yeah, it would be a shame," he muttered. "But I can't look at him, I just can't. You know what I mean? I mean, I've known for a long time that my feelings weren't, um, reciprocated, I really did. But it's one thing to know it, and another thing to be punched in the face with it. You know what I mean?"

Michael needed a little reassurance that he wasn't the only angel to be spurned for love. It just didn't happen that often with their kind, and now that he'd been denied, he was reeling.

(Although he would never ever admit it, and if Aziraphale told anyone how vulnerable Michael was acting, he would find himself recalled to Heaven and stuck doing grunt work for eternity.)

Sauntering over the grounds, Loki spotted two figures, one of which looked remarkably like Aziraphale from behind. The other he had seen on the easter party, but not had any chance to talk to in more detail yet.

He approached them quietly from behind, not sneaking but not exactly stampeding either.

Aziraphale reached over and gently squeezed Michael's thigh. "I do know, dear." Well, he had vague close brushes with the idea, personally speaking. "I've seen it happen to humans all the time. They survive the ordeal, just as I'm sure you will. It hurts, yes, but the humans have an adage: What doesn't kill us makes us stronger."

Truth be told, Michael was no longer listening to Aziraphale. Instead he was paying very close attention to whoever was approaching from behind. Not a demon, but that didn't mean they weren't antagonistic.

Well. If this whoever it was thought to get the drop on him, it was sorely mistaken.

And, for being nice, he would make sure the Nerd didn't get offed too.

"Hi," Loki said casually when he had almost reached them. "Can I play, too? I've been through a couple of ordeals myself, you know."

His tone was light, not matching the look of concern he had put onto his face.

Aziraphale looked over his shoulder and beamed at the approaching Norse god. "Oh, hello again! Loki, this is Michael," and he patted Michael's thigh again, "and Michael, this is Loki."

This guy could be the world's greatest listener, but that didn't mean Michael was going to talk about anything close to being that personal with someone he didn't know. So, it was time to change the subject.

"Hi. What are you?"

Edited 2010-05-28 20:12 (UTC)

Aziraphale tried but could not resist the urge to facepalm.

Loki crossed his arms in front of his chest and leaned lightly on the bench's backrest between the two of them from behind. He could look at them comfortably that way, while Aziraphale and Michael had to twist their necks of turn half around to look him in the face.

"Hello, Michael," he said. "I am a jötunn. You, apparently, are half bird."

Leaning towards Auiraphale, he added with a smile clear in his voice: "It's a legitimate question in these parts, don't you agree?"

Michael blinked at him. "Bless you."

Loki laughed, a deep, honest laugh. It wasn't like this was the first time he'd gotten that particular reaction in this time.

"Not one for languages, are you?" he asked when he had calmed down again. "The word is Old Norse. I've seen it translated as Giant but..." he trailed off. It was obvious that he was tall, but no one in their right mind would call him a giant.

"Nature spirit will do," Loki said. "I see no reason to offend your god by using his title." That, of course, was a statement that was very much limited in time and space. Here, in the hotel, with any number of his minions and lesser gods aroundit bode well to be careful around the ones was not more familiar with.

Michael wrote off the laugh as symptomatic of the crazy. "Okay, nature spirit it is, because there's no way you're a giant. Spirit of what part of nature, anyway?" In Michael's case, he was fire, but it seemed awkward to say that, because I'm the Prince of Fire!

"Fire," Loki said evenly. "I'm fire. There's another one here by my name who doesn't seem to be, though."

Michael grinned. "Me too! We've all got elements - Gabriel's water, Uriel's earth, Raphael's air, and I'm fire. That's so cool. And that's weird, people going around stealing your name. Although from what I've heard 'Michael' is a fairly common human name."

"I know Gabriel, but I haven't heard of or met the others," Loki said. "And I wouldn't mind so much if he was just taking my name. But alas, he claims to be me!"

He paused in thought for a moment. "So, what was it you were talking about?"

"Uriel was here," Michael pointed out, "although I missed him too. And really, he thinks he's you? That's really sketchy. Want me to," he put up his fingers into quotes, "'have a talk' with this guy?"

Yes, Michael, pretend the question was never asked. That always works.

Loki shook his head. "I had a" - he repeated Michael's gesture - ""talk with the guy before. I've also not ran into him for a couple of days now, so maybe he left. Besides, apparently we're getting thrown out of here if we're having too physical a talk. Though I admit ours got rather physical, too. It wasn't about names, though."

He glanced at Aziraphale to check his reaction. He thought that one might know his other "self", too.

"What about you? Want me to talk to the one who ... did whatever caused you two to sit here moaning about ordeals?"

Aziraphale had frowned at the mention of the American Loki, but pushed it aside and cleared his throat while Michael turned an odd shade of pink. "We were simply gossiping," he said. "You know how it is. A group of ecclectic individuals come to one place and you can't help but comment on some of them."

There was a way to easily change the subject and assure it stayed changed; make Michael angry.

"Like that Duncan fellow," he said. "Am I to understand he claims to be several centuries old?"