DISCLAIMER: Good Omens does not belong to me. Obviously. (Hurls scrap of paper into the river where it promptly bursts into flame).
A/N: Something I headcannon, at least so far as this story is concerned, is the way in which angels and demons spiritual abilities differentiates. I know that in the book we have a scene where Crowley breathes life into a dove that Aziraphale accidentally smothered in his sleeve but I prefer to think of angels being the ones in primary possession of intensive healing magic.
I imagine that demons may have the ability to heal smaller wounds but the healing is not quite as effective and doesn't always take. That's the vein that this story is going to follow, anyway.
And so, another update. Please feel free to grab a snack, your very favourite libation and take a read and I shall see on the flip side for a few additional thoughts.
~X~
~Monday, April 8th - 2019~
The Dog & Duck, London Soho
Nine months to the Apex...
A public house was hardly a distinguished locale in which to host a last minute angelic/demonic tête-à-tête. But it was certainly far the more suited whence compared to the likes of a video arcade, they had all agreed. Less of a chance this way of Hastur rendering his human body broken and worthless by otherwise repeated attempts to thrash an endless parade of teenagers, each more pus-flecked than the last, at the seductive sirens lure what was Dance, Dance, Revolution.
Humans it would seem possessed an insatiable need to flock to public houses of an evening, Gabriel observed. To flitter amongst the accumulated odour of one another's constantly expunging sweat glands, to slaughter an endless parade of alcoholic beverages and speak at a progressively louder (and distinctively more the slurred) cadence as the night wore on. Combine this then with the strains of an ancient juke box which did not play its tunes so much as ooze them and the cracking of wooden cues striking the sides of billiard balls, it was far the simpler to hold a conversation without fear of being overheard. Even when squeezed into what might have been described as an 'intimate' corner booth, it proved difficult to catch what any of them might in fact have been saying.
Not that there was much to be said that first half hour. The majority of the collective sat simply in a sort of stunned silence, staring over the table at one Archangel Gabriel who looked very sore and sorry for himself and an ever so delicately bored as usual Lord of all Hell Beelzebub who was twirling a swizzle stick around the base of their honey malt whiskey.
"Well," they finally said, with the air of one whom had been mulling some more the interesting conclusions about in their head. "That went down like a lead balloon."
Gabriel, ever so intensely preoccupied by the pain radiating from the region betwixt his thighs, didn't quite catch this. "... I'm sorry... what?"
"I said, that went down like a - Oh forget it." Beelzebub tossed the swizzle stick onto the table churlishly and took a hefty swig from their drink. Across from them and squeezed in far the more intimately than the both of them preferred, Hastur was staring at Sandalphon's pinched expression from a distance far too close for the angel's comfort.
"He punched you? ...That little powder puff?"
Sandalphon, healed upper lip just about forced into both nostrils, nodded in the very vague direction that the odorous demon currently (and offensively) occupied. Hastur in response, could not have looked more the thrilled than if Christmas had just gone and landed square in his stinky little lap.
"I think I'm starting to like that Aziraphale." He chuckled, sipping from his Rob Roy in a strangely dainty manner. He splashed a little of it onto his gloved hand as Sandalphon shifted uncomfortably on the far too small a bench space.
"Why am I stuck sitting next to you on a booth?" He tersely questioned, face directed away so that he was less the likely to incur the putrid waft of the demon's mouldy breath.
"What you think I asked to be sat here? I'm quite as shot of you, don't you worry." Hastur shoved his hip sideways, forcing the angel over a couple of much needed inches. " And could you move over? Your arse is currently crossing the line."
"Well I can't very well control where it goes! If I move over any more I'll be on the floor."
"Fine by me."
"Sounds like we missed quite a party." Uriel remarked, raising her voice so as to be heard both above the din in the pub and the bickering of the angel and demon to her immediate left.
"A shame Crowley's boot didn't miss more of Gabriel's 'party'." Beelzebub made an offhand gesture towards Gabriel's crotch with the base of their glass, enough to cause the angel to flinch reflexively away. "Why did you feel the need to affix those unfortunate things anyway? Asking for trouble, that."
"I had to go and get a trouser fitting. Couldn't risk the attendant realizing something was awry." The archangel attempted to cross his legs and thought better of it.
"Well your own bloody fault then. Won't see me having much sympathy."
"I healed your broken ribs, I would expect something somewhat akin to sympathy for that much at least."
"Why not just go ahead and heal your bloody love spuds then and stop griping about it?" Dagon suggested, attempting to peel the label from the side of her beer bottle with very limited success. Scraps of torn paper littered the table in front of her, which Uriel had started sectioning into neat little piles.
"This is hardly a discorporal issue. I am not Aziraphale and I do not condone the whipping out of frivolous miracles left right and centre. I expect that this... in time... will alleviate." Gabriel shifted in his seat, hissing from between his teeth. Gosh darn did that demon have some ever so offensively pointy shoes. "God I hope so."
"I don't know if I would be asking your God for much of anything right now, Archangel." Beelzebub murmured, unable to keep the smallest of satisfied smiles from gracing their lips. Michael held a cautionary finger up to their Cupid's bow, casting a glance towards the door as they did.
"Careful. We don't want to go and attract the wrong attention."
They were quiet a moment, casting surreptitious eyes about the interior of the bar. The Vices and Virtues were all due to convene in London for whatever the reason and who was to say whether their appearances might have changed during their six thousand year retirement on earth. They might have been there even now, spattered amidst the gaggle of drunken humans; going about whatever business was required preceding the coming of the so called Apex. It was a contrarily sobering thought and one which encouraged the group to lean in closer still, in spite of some obvious reluctance to do so.
"It wasn't as though we were expecting they'd be pleased to see us." Uriel murmured in reference to Crowley and Aziraphale. She frowned as Dagon ripped free another longer shred from her label and deposited it dead centre on the table.
"I thought we might at least get a word in edgewise." Gabriel grumbled, trying to recall what it was that humans might have utilized so as to take the sting out of what was turning out to be a most indescribable and not at all otherwise dimming, pain.
"Never mind what Crowley got in edgewise." Beelzebub said with that not often seen little smile peeking out from behind the rim of their glass. Gabriel smacked his palm lightly to the table, eyes cast to the ceiling as his celestial patience wore ever closer to thin.
"Yes, all right, it's all very funny that the demon kicked me in the human testicles, can we please move on?"
"You weren't able to get across our proposition?" Dagon managed to enquire amidst the rupture of snickering Gabriel's near outburst elicited from the demons. Sandalphon took a short sabbatical from his and Hastur's repeated attempts to usurp one another from their begrudgingly shared seat cushion to reply.
"Not a word of it. Aziraphale was clearly in no mood to listen." He glanced a finger to his lip, somewhat still in awe of the punch that the predominantly pacifistic angel had graced him with. It had been many thousands of years since Aziraphale had, so far as they were aware, engaged in combat of any kind. His form however had not diminished, it would seem.
"And Crowley waz ridiculous as per usual." Beelzebub took another sip from their drink, thinking back to the aforementioned ludicrous situation of less than an hour past. Crowley's legs windmilling around whilst the car continued inexplicably moving forwards. Their own subsequent ejection into the side of an elm and the then intolerable embarrassment of having to request an intensive healing from none other than Gabriel himself. "I know their little ears'd prick up if we managed to grab 'em for five minutes, but it's getting them to stand still long enough to talk that's proving tiresome." They scratched out some lines across the paperwork they had been forced to haul above ground; a considerable pile having formed by their elbow and piling so high it near graced the dangling legs of their blow fly hat. Hell was still without a leader and Beelzebub's workload was, in spite of the withdrawal of all demonic interference on earth, quite a great deal more than they could ever seem to get on top of.
"You take down that number from the bookshops window?" Gabriel asked Sandalphon who nodded and petted a hand to the breast pocket of his trench coat. "We'll try it tomorrow then. See if we can't get Aziraphale to cut the cheek long enough to have a civilized conversation."
"What about you?" Michael asked of the demon collective. "You can communicate through media devices can you not? Have you tried utilizing any of that to get a hold of Crowley?"
"Yes, of course." Dagon sniffed, looking annoyed for the impertinence of having even been asked so obvious a question. "No joy. He's draped a sheet or something over his televisions and every time I attempt to tap into one of his music devices he's either shut it down, set it on fire or smashed it with a golf club."
She had only known in fact that this was what Crowley had been doing because the demon had gleefully informed them of the fact right before the imminent crashing sounds had just about blown Dagon's eardrums out of her skull. If Crowley had ever bothered to put some of that solid backswing into actual combat he might not have been a poor investment as a front line operative. A shame he had the backbone of a bottom feeding invertebrate.
Gabriel raked his fingers back through his hair, sweat pricking across the worrisome lines of his forehead. "It's intolerable. We're running out of time. Doesn't the demon have a mobile telephone device? Have you tried that?"
"He never gave that number to any of us. Had us well convinced it was just for earth based business only." Beelzebub grimaced, struck another notation through a page with such contempt that the paper ripped and a line of ink bleed across the grain of the tabletop. "When I think of how much I let that little snot nose get away with-"
"You- you think that's bad?!" Gabriel spluttered. "When I think about all the underhandedness Aziraphale got away with... Conducting evil deeds on behalf of... well, your side all these years!" He shuddered just so as to imagine the inherent mishandling he was more than partly the responsible for. Six thousand years and the most he had done was issue Aziraphale with a strongly worded warning about cutting back on the amount of frivolous miracles he'd been conducting. If he had simply taken the time to have checked as to what precisely the nature of those miracles were...
They had all allowed themselves to be played for fools; assuming that Aziraphale was much too glib and well meaning and moral to be led astray. Say what you will of Crowley, but he was clearly an astute and cunning breed of demon if he had managed to talk an angel about to playing the collective sum of Heaven's elite like the big, ignorant cello's they were.
"Never the mind that you had a demon whipping good deeds out of his back pocket like it was a novelty new card trick." Beelzebub whisked the completed document out off of the top of the stack and shifted it to the side. Only several thousand more to go. "Like I've already said, we've all gotten fucked over, we're all in the same boat up the same shit creek with toothpicks for oars and no wet wipes. The sooner we quit griping about the past and figure out what we're going to do regards the future-"
"Yes, speaking of the future," Michael said, earning a look of reproach from Beelzebub for interrupting. "-the two of you have been the slightest bit circumspect regarding this. What exactly is so concerning that you feel we need to involve two expunged agents? Never the mind the rest of us."
In the days before the Fall, Gabriel and the Angel-What-Would-Become-Beelzebub had once been able to communicate a great deal of their thoughts and feelings in but the meeting of a simple gaze alone. Though the foundations had shifted dramatically, the core of this historic exchange continued to translate quite as fluidly as it had ever done and they shared a look now which might, between others, might very well have encompassed an entire spoken conversation. They agreed (strange though it still was for an angel and a demon to be largely simpatico on most anything) that it was appropriate to share with the others the depth of their unease and both sat up a little straighter in their seats.
"Something in the contract in particular." Gabriel said, with another visible wince. Shifting in his seat had not helped. "Besides the date on the cannister, of course."
"What exactly?"
"The wording used." Said Lord Beelzebub, putting down their pen and picking up their drink instead. "All. All shall be judged."
They allowed silence in which to allow for this heavy and incontestably alarming nuance to sink in. Michael and Dagon in particular appeared to understand without further clarification as to just why this indelicate wording was particularly troubling but the others continued to look a little confused by it.
"There's no context around this." Gabriel stressed. "All could pertain to the entire human race-"
"- or it could pertain, as we suspect to all." Beelzebub concluded, swilling the last remaining snifter of golden liquid about the base of their glass. Not really focusing on it, but using the motion as a sort of soothing mechanism for their troubled thoughts. "Not just the souls of the human race but all souls under God."
This explanation left no bones as to the reasons why Gabriel and Beelzebub were particularly worried. It seemed fitting that for the first time in recorded history, a number of demons and angels wore the very same expression of fear and confusion upon their human faces.
"You see our quandary." Gabriel said. "If we do not act and act swiftly it is not a war what will be coming but a penultimate nullification of most everything."
"Erasure." Beelzebub enunciated further; as though the fear presented by Gabriel's statement alone was not quite enough to send the gathering to quivering beneath their earthly garments. "A do over. Noah's ark for all creation."
"Only no Ark." Uriel stated. Gabriel gave a small shake of his head.
"No Ark."
No way out. No salvation for a one of them. God's plan was not it seemed to permit Her creations to resolve their age old disputes through war but to wipe it all clean like a cloth across a densely scralwed upon whiteboard and start fresh.
She had done the same with the human race when She had no longer been able to abide Her disappointment in them. Perhaps She too had grown tired and wearisome of the rift between Her other children.
"... I do hope that you are wrong about all this." Michael said softly; their faith giving an ever so tremulous waver. It was thunderous. "Because if you're not, the fate of everything is going to rest with us being able to convince a pair of wholly substandard, jaded ex-employees to act on our behalf in investigating a plan which has apparently been set in place since before time on earth began and potentially inciting the wrath of beings not only mightier than we, but that of the Lord God Herself."
Gabriel, lips pressed so tightly together they were just about non-existent, simply nodded, the severity of the situation all but having faded the worst of the pain from his attentions. Michael stiffened in their seat, the blood what might have resided in their human face all but draining visibly from their cheeks and down into their neck. They reached over, without even looking and plucked up Hastur's drink from within the loose clutch of the demons fingers.
"Hey!" Hastur protested, otherwise making no move so as to try and prevent the act from going forth. It was about as interesting as it was impertinent and both things were a sight not often affiliated with the likes of the celestial agents.
"I'm an angel, I'll buy you another one." Michael threw back the drink in one go, flinched at the strong, unfamiliar sensation of the alcohol hitting the rear of their throat. They swallowed, blinked heavily mascaraed eyes and sighed down into the now empty glass. "Mm. Staring to see why Aziraphale buys into all this." They waved the glass about. "How long until this stuff kicks in?"
"For you Wank-Wings? Probably about half a minute." Hastur chuckled. Gabriel dithered in his seat, mouth agog for what he had just witnessed.
"Please Michael. As if things weren't bad enough." His consternations were however made just a little more... flexible by the unspoken permission Michael had unintentionally bestowed. It would be... a relief, he thought to himself, to shut off some of that fierce anxiety what had been holding court in his chest these past few months. Not to mention shave off some of the pain from the injury he was currently nursing. He reached over to where Beelzebub had set their drink down, fingertips grazing the rim of the glass. "Maybe just a-"
The demons petite fist smashed hard and unhesitatingly into Gabriel's still tender groin, sending him toppling from his chair with a high pitched squeal that set all the local dogs to howling.
"Buy your own, you angelic skint flint." They said, snatching their drink back up and tossing what remained into their mouth with a sailor like proficiency. They had a headache, which was hardly improved by the added screech emitted by Hastur from the other side of the table, battering his hands wildly at Sandalphon who was holding up what looked like a perfume atomizer with a tasseled spray pump.
"The blessed Seraphim is spritzing me with something!" Dramatically shrieked the Duke of Hell, coughing at the oversaturation of potent musk suddenly permeating the air.
"It's just cologne and if I'm expected to sit here in your company for the next goodness only knows how long, I'd prefer you not get around smelling like a dead fish!"
"Now he just smells like a dead fish on its first date." Uriel remarked as Hastur and Sandalphon got to fighting over the atomizer like two children vying for possession of the very best toy truck in the Kindergarten sandpit. Beelzebub groaned, waving a hand to beckon the waitress over, wondering just how many drinks it was going to take before any of this became just a little less painful.
~X~
Crowley's flat - London Mayfair...
In a posh flat on the rather more affluent side of town, another demon was lying awake. His eyes were sore. He would hate to admit it, hate all the more for anyone to have witnessed it, but he had been crying.
He was awful tired and would have very much liked to have drifted off to sleep, but his thoughts were racing. He'd had so much to drink that you couldn't imagine anything could possibly race in such an inebriated state; not without tangling up its own metaphorical legs and sending itself hurtling through the crash barrier. But Crowley's was a habitually busy brain and the evening preceding had done anything but instil restful thoughts.
The swirling, alcohol drenched fog of his mind was currently occupied by one thing in particular. Or rather one word in particular.
The N word.
Nice.
It wasn't so much that nice was a trigger word for Crowley. More that it was... a four letter word.
Four letter words, he thought, were notorious for being some of the very worst that the English language had ever devised. Short and sharp enough to really cut in there and cut deep. Do some serious damage.
All the very worst words were four letter words. Crowley had come up with a great deal of them, in fact. Pain, shit, fuck, cunt, feel, hurt, jinx, poxy, jape, dill and of course, duck. There were far more, of course. He had attempted listing them so as to suitably bore his brain into nodding off to sleep but that one little niggling word just kept on slinking right back in and jamming its grubby fingernail into his mind.
Nice. Now, there was a word what really rubbed Crowley up the wrong way. It was a horrid, nasty, demeaning little word. Aziraphale knew how he felt about it. And was still loose lipped concerning it.
Crowley could not remember a time, in all his long existence, when he had ever felt more insulted and tooth splinteringly infuriated with anyone.
Nice. "You really are quite a nice..."
"You don't get to say that," Is what he had wanted to say, when he had shoved Aziraphale just about clear through the wall of the Once-Satanic-Nuns-Chattering-Order-of-Beryl-convent. Had needed to say. Should have said. "You don't get to call me nice. You rejected me, no you negated the possibility of me by virtue of the fact that I'm not nice enough. I'm a demon and angels, as you so often remind me, can't play 'nice' with demons.
If they could, we wouldn't even be needing to have this exchange. We could have just... been. Whatever form this 'been' takes.
From the moment we had exchanged those very first words of greeting upon the wall of Eden, our roles had been explicitly defined. I rose, ironically and you descended. All that mattered, it seemed, was from where we had originally hailed. Not the individual. It didn't matter that I had only been guilty of having too much cheek. Asking too many difficult questions and not taking 'no' for an answer. That I had been having a 'boring' afternoon. I'd been made that way. Made to agitate, made to never feel entirely at ease. How was that my fault? It was just a particular that the Almighty chose to impart upon me, just as She saw fit to bestow you with that ever eternal warmth and incomprehensible patience.
And it was those particulars which held greater weight to you than the feelings we held in our hearts. The heavy press of Heaven's enormous burden upon your shoulders was all that you allowed yourself to feel. All that you permitted yourself to feel. Still. To this very day.
So no, angel. You don't get to call me nice. You don't get to just find a reason to say no to me and then remind me that no matter how close I get I will always be too far away. Too far away for you. Too fast. Too much never-quite-right. Always just out of reach of reconciliation.
You knew what you were doing when you said that. How could you not? We have long memories. I don't forget. You don't forget. It's precisely why we can injure each other so exquisitely. I know every chink in your armour and you mine. And you would think a demon would be more the likely the utilize this to its advantage.
But no. Not where you're concerned. You're too good, far too good for the likes of a world such as this. A spirit which held the shine, the worth, the beauty of an incandescent pearl. One that might never have come however from a grain of grit but from the most beautiful, holy and compassionate corner of God's will. It was uniquely and explicitly, a gift that was yours. What set you apart. What I could see had set you apart.
Crowley might have made his attempts to move Aziraphale's way of thinking, to encourage him towards some manner of independent thought (he was certainly clever enough and independent enough to formulate some genuine gems of his own making) but he would never go so far as to truly Tempt the angel. He had respect enough to always be honest with Aziraphale. But truly, the idea of playing any sort of game with perhaps the singularly one true and genuine angel of Heaven, was tasteless even so far as he was concerned. And this from a demon who had been known to swerve towards the oft errant hedgehog which had the misfortune to wander onto the road when he had been out driving about.
It was not the demon who saw fit to play his games of malice. But the angel. Proving once more, as Crowley had long suspected, that it was the forces of Heaven, rather than Hell, that could twist the blade harder and deeper than any of the fell forces of Hell were ever capable.
You sat in my car, looked at me with those eyes and you said 'You go too fast for me, Crowley'.
I knew what it meant. Between the lines. It meant I can't go where you want us to go. Because.' Because, because, be-fucking-cause...
Because you are right handed. Because I am ambidextrous. Because you like classical composers and I like twentieth century rock and roll. You are above and I am below. You are an angel and I am a demon. No matter how far and how hard I might stretch my hand, no matter what effort I might go to, you will always be just out of my reach.
I fell and for that alone I am unforgivable.
And that hurt. That hurt a whole lot more than damnation ever did. To not be able to be with the person you had been smitten with, from the moment they held their wing out over your head to keep you out of the rain and told you ever so earnestly that they had given away a holy relic because a pair of humans had been 'having a bad day'. Had done something simply because he had felt that it was the right thing to do. Regardless of what Heaven might have otherwise directed. Aziraphale was his own person, who drew conclusions based on his own moral compass and whom had demonstrated, over the thousands of years, a willingness and a capacity to be swayed.
That angel. That stupid, stupid angel with his stupid kind eyes and his stupid cruel and stubborn consternations. His being 'wedded' corporeal body and ethereal soul to a Heaven that had never deserved him. Not ever. Not the once.
Nice, you see, was a four letter word. Four letter words were traditionally offensive. Love was a four letter word and it was, in Crowley's opinion, the most offensive word of all.
Nice, it seemed, and Love, would never be set too far apart in his mind. One four letter word reminded him so unequivocally of the other four letter word that he was destined to never obtain. And the reminder of this was just as painful and as unneeded as was the rubbing of vinegar into a still bleeding wound. It hurt like hell. And you were most definitely asking for a fucking punch in the nose for your efforts.
So, don't bring it up. Let it alone. Transgress your genuine angelic ignorance past the point of just delivering your sweet platitudes for want of what you have just witnessed and think, foolish principality. Think in how those that have transgressed might think and connect the dots so as to see how something so innocuous in your eyes, might be so destructive in mine.
And don't bother with acting all surprised when I shove you through a wall for it.
Crowley had work first thing in the morning. But with such thoughts having turned the well trekked halls of his mind into their regular stomping ground, sleep was a long ways off.
More the pity for his house plants. Which had never looked the more vibrant, luscious and verdant. Nor the more petrified.
Crowley you see, had not been in a good mood the past two months.
And he was a demon who on his happiest of days, was capable still of reducing even the hardiest of Indian Banyan's to a mess of quivering leaves in the corner.
You might not have thought the squeaking of mattress springs to have roused such immeasurable terror but it was this sound that the metaphorical ears of the houseplants had grown particularly attuned to. For it was the sound which preceded an ever more sleep deprived, frustrated and gnarly Anthony J. Crowley stomping the flat in a restless fit, slogging back more and more itinerant mouthfuls of top shelf and peering, bleary eyed and calculating at each and every leaf adorning his plants; searching for just any excuse to hurl one of them out by the roots and straight off to the kitchen for execution.
There could never be found, in all the known corners of the world, more complete and incomparable supporters of Crowley and Aziraphale sorting out their mess than the demons persecuted house plants. They wished most ardently for it, in fact and waited and prayed in fervent hope for the pair of star crossed twits to drift back to one another's orbit, confess their love and ride off into the nebula of Alpha Centauri together with a picnic hamper and enough alcohol to cripple the An tSeirbhis Chabhlaigh.
The sooner the better, they thought. In that minimalistic sort of way in which house plants could formulate a thought. If they could walk as well, they might very well have described the experience of living under the same roof as Crowley as tiptoeing on eggshells most days.
For the third time that hour, the mattress squeaked. A verdant hum echoed about the flat, shortly thereafter followed by a breeze so strong it near about whipped the expensive paintings from their hooks upon the wall.
~X~
A/N: I hope everyone had a very lovely, and very safe holiday season! Mine was a quiet, but much enjoyed family affair; which is perfect, as I'm not what you would call a particularly Christmasy/Holiday person. At least not this year. Maybe next year I'll get back into the swing of things :)
If you enjoyed, please feel free to leave a review, or a follow. Or a favourite. If you did not enjoy, or see room for improvement, feel free to concrit. I promise, I do not bite. And it honestly makes me very happy to hear people's thoughts on the story, so please feel free to speak up, if you have any thoughts!
See you in the next update, and, with all my usual infernal love,
~MadamMortis~ xxx ooo