#But both of them in the good omens setting would be INCREDIBLE!
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mark me in your heart
PAIRING: drug dealer!mark x bartender!reader (female!reader)
GENRE: angst, smut, kinda friends with benefits au, bartender!renjun, best friend!renjun, action au, open-ended narrative
WARNINGS: mentions of alcohol, explicit description of drug use (don't do drugs kids), use of pet names, trust issues, explicit language, mentions of food, smoking, emotionally unavailable characters, both mark and y/n are kind of assholes, explicit sexual content, angry make-up sex, rough-ish sex, unprotected sex (!always use protection!), heavy make out, choking, lip biting, nipple play, pussy slapping, spitting, oral (both m and f receiving), degradation, praise, spanking, crying, hair pulling, incredibly cringey dirty talking, aftercare (?), not proofread (let me know if i missed any!)
WC: 13k (12,975)
‣[PLAYLIST]: 505 by arctic monkeys, bad omens by 5 seconds of summer, slow down by chase atlantic, why do you only call me when you’re high? by arctic monkeys, a little death by the neighborhood, okay by chase atlantic
SUMMARY: when a sensitive and broken heart meets another one of the same nature, their instinctive reaction is to seek comfort in each other, and in order to heal themselves, they both need to be equally strong and willing to put all their broken pieces back together. but sometimes, some hearts aren’t strong enough to be saved; the only way to save them is if the stronger heart of the two is willing to take the risk and try for the both of them, whatever it takes.
A/N: it's finally here! it took me too long to finish this one but here it is! i know it might seem a bit fast paced or vague in certain parts, but remember this is all about the vibes and i deeply hope that you will enjoy it and give it some love because it definitely needs it <3
read on wattpad / ao3
“Hey Renjun, pass me that glass” you said as you wiped the thick tall glass completely dry before you put it back on the shelf behind you. You were moving mechanically at this point, the exhaustion of the long night at the bar taking over your entire body. It was 5 in the morning and you had just barely managed to kick out some of the remaining drunk nobodies who were so wasted, that their toxic-infused brains couldn’t even give them the signals to move their own bodies.
Working at the bar wasn’t your dream job but it’s not as if you had a better choice. It was either a bartender or a stripper. Both of them sounded equally bad, so you decided to opt for the slightly better one. If you could even say it like that.
It wasn’t a particularly ideal job but it was enough to get you by. It earned you enough money to buy you food and pay the rent at the motel you were staying at, it got you as many free drinks as you needed to help your mind escape from all your worries and you also got to meet some relatively cool people, so that was somewhat good. The working hours weren’t such a big of an issue either, you couldn’t really sleep anyway. So you were fine with it.
Most nights, the bar usually closed at around 3 am. There wasn’t a set rule on this; it usually depended on how many customers there were and how much they were drinking. Your boss had suggested that you shouldn’t keep the bar open all night long, so you kinda decided that it was best to close a few hours after midnight. You weren’t complaining about this though; the sooner it closed, the more time you’d have to get high with your co-worker Renjun at the alleyway behind the bar.
Unfortunately, tonight luck wasn’t on your side, as a group of friends kept on drinking more and more as the hours passed by, which meant that you and Renjun had to keep the bar open until later. You weren’t opposed to this idea, it only meant that you would earn a little bit more money. It was Renjun who started complaining, so he decided to take action into his own hands and practically dragged the drunks out of the bar.
This is how you ended up cleaning up the place this late, rather this early in the morning, with your co-worker. The two of you were too tired to speak, so neither of you made any efforts to spark up a conversation. You both just attended to your respective tasks, waiting for a specific somebody to show up.
Luck surely wasn’t on your side tonight. He would usually show up at around 3:30 am, right after the bar closed, and he would have all the stuff ready, just at the exact moment you needed it. Why was he late today?
It didn’t take a genius to understand that Renjun was clearly affected by the lack of the stuff. He moved around the place nervously, tugging at his hair and stomping his foot rhythmically. He was in a desperate need of it, and you would honestly lie to yourself if you said you didn’t need it half as much as Renjun did.
You put the last clean glass on the shelf behind you and went over to the storage room to grab a broom, so that you could clean the floor a bit while Renjun was still wiping the bar counters. As soon as you closed the door of the storage room, the little bell that hung above the bar’s front door rang with a tinkle and soon after it followed the sound of the so familiar footsteps you were waiting for all night.
“Hey kids, Santa’s here,” his voice resonated in the empty room as he waved a small transparent plastic bag that looked white because of its content. Renjun threw the handkerchief he was holding to the other side of the counter and dramatically jumped over it to go and hug the male who just entered. All of that just at the sight of the clear plastic bag with the snowy content.
“Mark, what took you so long my guy, I’m literally a dead man walking! Give this beauty to me,” Renjun exclaimed and snatched the plastic bag straight out of Mark’s hand. Mark smirked at what Renjun said and immediately started grinning at the sight of the boy’s eagerness.
Renjun went to sit on the bar stool closer to him and placed the bag on top of the counter he had just wiped clean. With slender fingers, he opened the plastic bag and dredged some of the content on the counter. With nervousness in his movements, he set the bag aside and shuffled through his back pocket to find his ID card. He started scattering the white dust all over the counter before he gathered all of it in a straight line with the help of his ID card. When he was satisfied with the result, he put his ID card back into his pocket, lowered his head to the level that his nose touched the cold surface of the counter, took a deep breath and snorted the entire line of crack, the product going straight up into his nostrils.
Renjun blinked several times before he slowly lifted his head. He scrunched his nose and wiped it with the back of his hand, his drowsy eyes looking surprisingly bright considering his state. “Man, whoever hasn’t done crack, never, they haven’t known the beauty of life yet” he chuckled. Mark smirked at Renjun’s comment and you couldn’t help but shake your head amusingly, a small smile creeping up at your face.
Renjun took the plastic bag with the rest of the cocaine and put it in his pocket. “This baby’s for me, thank you,” he amused and turned his heel towards the storage room. “Don’t come look for me, I’ll be right here. If I take too long to come out, then you should be concerned,” he said and closed the storage room door behind him; a scene that was surprisingly quite familiar to you.
You then set the broom down and walked towards Mark. “Hey” you whispered and Mark greeted you back in a low husky voice. “What took you so long? We were expecting you to come earlier” you asked him.
Mark shrugged and leaned his elbow against the counter. “I came by at our usual meeting hour and saw that you guys were still open. I couldn’t risk anyone seeing me so I decided to drop by later,” he said and you nodded in understanding.
“You do have more of those plastic bags on you, don’t you?” you asked him and he chuckled. “Of course I do, pretty. Let’s go outside and treat ourselves a bit, shall we?” he suggested and you nodded again, walking beside him towards the alleyway behind the bar.
The sky was painted in a deep hue of light blue, the moon and the stars still visible in the early morning sky, the sun barely seen in the horizon. You huffed in a sharp breath and put both your hands inside the pockets of your jeans as a reaction to the crispy air of the early morning, as you leaned your back on the damp wall behind you. Mark followed right after you and did the same. He shuffled into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a clear plastic bag full of crack, two crack pipes and a lighter. With almost automatic motions, he filled the pipes with crack and lit them up. He handed you one of them and kept one for himself.
You looked at the crack pipe as if it were an oasis in the middle of an infinite desert and you were so thirsty that your dried up mouth and throat were already relieved just by the sight of it. It only took you one second to react to the visual stimuli in front of you, quickly removing your right hand from your pocket and pulling the pipe straight from Mark’s hand. You brought the pipe to your lips, closed your eyes and took a long, slow drag. This was exactly what you needed.
You immediately felt your body relax and your mind clearing up. The moment you took the drag in, all your worries and problems completely vanished, even if it were only temporary. It was your brief sweet escape from the huge bitter world you were forced to live in.
A chilly breeze flew and you lifted your shoulders at the shivering sensation. Mark noticed immediately and he pulled you closer to him, removed one of the sleeves of his jacket and draped it over your shoulder, slinging his arm over it too.
"So," Mark spoke up, breaking the easing silence, "how was work today?"
You shrugged your shoulders. "Eh, like usual. Bunch of random people came in to drink their problems away and give us their money in exchange for adulterated alcohol. But Renjun had to drag some of them out of the bar, he literally grabbed them by their collar and feet and dragged them out of the store, you should have seen it. It was way too funny" you said and chuckled at the memory of the incident that happened a couple hours ago.
Mark giggled at your statement. "Damn," he dragged out the word, "too bad I missed that" he said and brought the crack pipe to his lips and squinted his eyes in pleasure and relief when he inhaled the poisonous content.
The next few minutes remained silent. There was only the sound of cars passing by being heard in the distance, it was probably people going to their early shifts at work. Normal types of work. Unlike the one you had, unlike the fate you brought upon yourself. That’s when the realization of your situation hit you like a truck. How could your family cut you off so easily when they found out that your dreams were different from what they were expecting of you? Were you just a tool for them? Another burden to take care of?
"You seem unhappy" Mark broke the silence. He was looking straight ahead in the distance, his eyes focusing on nothing in particular, probably because he was a bit too high to notice anything.
"Because I am" you responded to his comment, turning your head to look at him, searching for a sense of home into his soulless eyes.
Mark smirked and turned his attention to his heels. "You know, I wanna help. Right? You know that" he said with a raspy voice due to his sleeplessness. "But I don't think that feeding you drugs is any help" he now turned his head to look you in the eyes.
You pressed your lips into a thin line before you spoke. "I ask for the drugs Mark, you're not feeding me anything. It's my only escape, what else am I supposed to do?"
"I love you, Y/n" Mark said.
You winced at his confession and turned your head to avoid his gaze and fixating yours on the wide sky ahead of you.
"You're high, Mark. Cut the crap" you said in a bitter tone.
"Do you think I'm lying? I mean it, Y/n. I fucking love you, for whatever reason I do. And I care about you, so come with me and let's get out of this shitty town. I’m running out of time too, they’ll soon find where I live" Mark defended himself.
You turned again to meet his eyes. "And go where, Mark? Where the fuck should we go, huh? I don't have anything else to do other than this shitty job. I only keep it because I need the money to survive and it's the only way to keep myself sane. The people I used to call family kicked me out of my house and this was the easiest solution I could come up with before I would collapse entirely and before it would become too difficult to get back on my own feet. So what else is left for me to do?" you were clearly getting angrier now, but not at Mark. At yourself.
Mark's eyes darkened in sadness. "That's what I'm saying! You deserve better than this! Look, we have enough money. I do deals, but I know this is a job I can't have forever. I told you, I’m on thin ice. If I’m seen doing deals again, I’ll go to jail. You know I play the guitar, right? I can join a band or something. I know a friend downtown, he might be of help" he said.
"And you," he continued, "you're a great bartender. You could make a career out of it" he said.
You shut your eyelids and shook your head in denial. "It won't work out. I'm a mess, you're a mess. We can't make this work. It's impossible" you said, turning your head away.
Mark sat up straight and put his hand below your chin to turn your attention towards him. "Look at me, Y/n. We can make it work. Believe me. Trust me. I can't leave you living like this. And I certainly can't live a life like this myself. You're the only person I can make a change with. I need you" he said.
You gulped and stared right into his eyes, unable to form a response. "So you just need me as a means to get you out of town and help you start your magical new life. No thanks, Mark, I'll pass" you said and shoved his hand away to release his grip on you.
Mark became frustrated and moved to stand right in front of you. The half of his jacket that was wrapped around your shoulders dropped and it hung behind his back.
"Okay, look Y/n, you're tired and you're high. We'll have this conversation again in the morning" Mark said defeated.
Your energy was running low despite the boost of energy you had just inhaled, so you let yourself loose. "Let's get you back to your room. You need some rest. Come on, I'll drop you off" Mark suggested and you gave in to him completely.
You took a step towards him and stumbled a bit. Mark, with his rapid reflexes, caught you firmly by the forearm and guided you to his car. The last thing you remembered was the faint sound of the car door closing, before you were engulfed into pretty sleep.
The next day you woke up to the sound of light guitar strumming from across the dim lit motel room. It was already past noon; the curtains were still drawn closed but the midday sun rays found their way in between the curtain folds and peaked through the dirty motel room windows to light up the inside of the place.
Mark was sitting on a wooden chair across the bed with a concentrated look on his face. With his jaw clenched and his cheekbones popping, he strum his fingers through the guitar strings, playing random chords in an attempt to create a melody he liked.
You shuffled between the bedsheets and stretched your body all over the old bed. A squeaky sound echoed in the room due to your sudden movement, which caught Mark’s attention. His strumming stopped abruptly and his head jolted up in surprise, his eyes opened wide and his lips dropped to a pout.
“Did I wake you up? Shit, I’m sorry” he whispered, trying to be as quiet as possible.
You rubbed your eyes to clear your vision and looked at him. “No, you didn’t. I like what you’re playing. Sounds pretty” you reassured him. “Good morning, Mark”
His previously guilty expression was taken over by a wide grin appearing on his face, which turned into a bright smile. “Good morning, pretty,” he said.
You smiled at him and he went back on strumming random chords on his guitar. His eyebrows scrunched in concentration and you couldn’t help but giggle at the sight of his messy hair and wrinkly t-shirt due to the, apparently, good quality sleep he just had. Your obsessive thoughts took over once again and didn’t let you enjoy this glimpse of happiness in the abyss of misery you were engulfed in. Your lips gradually dropped to a frown and your vision became blurry again.
Mark wasn’t perfect, but neither were you. He came into your life at the perfect moment, when you needed him the most. It was your first day at the bar, your first time as a bartender. Renjun had been training you all day, teaching you the basic parts of the job and giving you tips on how to handle weird or creepy customers. You were completely drained out that day, so your co-worker and soon-to-be best friend had promised you a pleasant surprise by the end of your shift.
Renjun’s definition of a “pleasant surprise” was slightly different from yours. That night, Mark walked into the empty bar with steps full of confidence. You didn’t know him back then, but from the very first second you saw his figure enter your life, there was only one word that kept circulating your mind; trouble.
Mark was trouble. With his sharp gaze and well-defined features, captivating aura and assertive moves, it was more than obvious that this guy would mean nothing but trouble to you. For some inexplicable reason, this was exactly why you were instantly attracted to him.
Mark came in carrying all the usual stuff Renjun wanted and gave them over to him without talking much. The two guys seemed to share a lot of past memories together, and you were right. Renjun had filled you in later that night on his relationship with Mark and how they helped each other stand back up on their own feet after they were forced to leave home. A story very familiar to you.
Mark came by the bar every single night. He didn’t give Renjun drugs every time, but he sure enjoyed both your and Renjun’s company. It’s not as if he had anywhere else to go.
That’s how you grew quite fond of him very easily. You found yourself looking forward to the end of your shift just so you could see him. He once offered you drugs but immediately took back his offer when he saw your shocked expression. You were at the lowest point in your life and doing drugs wouldn’t be the wisest habit to take up, even though this was, at the same time, the exact reason why you should do drugs. Eventually, reality hit you and you caved in, waiting for Mark to come at the end of your shift for one more reason other than just seeing him. He was reluctant at first. Mark didn’t want to drag you into this lifestyle, so you annoyed him and begged for it until he finally gave you the lethal medicine.
You and Mark were surprisingly very similar. Maybe that’s why you bonded so fast with each other. And maybe that’s exactly why you were equally bad for each other. You could see so much of yourself in him, just at a more put-together version. Sure, he was a drug dealer, which was certainly not a better job than yours, but he at least seemed to have a purpose in his life. Unlike you.
As time passed, you started spending more and more time with him. You would smoke crack, get high, talk endlessly until your mouths dried up, go back to your motel room, have sex with each other, and repeat. You found comfort in his presence and became attached to him without even noticing.
But you didn’t love him. No, you couldn’t call this love. Rather, you were depending on him, no matter how much you hated that. He acted as an emotional support beacon to you, you enjoyed his company and, if you were honest, you genuinely liked him. But it was hard for you to admit to any deeper feelings, so you repeatedly tried to convince yourself that you didn’t love him, so that it wouldn’t hurt as much if he ever decided to switch on you. You hoped it wouldn’t turn out like that.
You lightly shook your head to get rid of all these thoughts and got out of bed to wash up a bit. “I’m starving, I’ll go down to the diner to grab some breakfast, do you want anything?” you asked Mark as you were heading towards the humid bathroom.
“Let’s go eat there. Together” Mark suggested and you stopped at your steps.
He always avoided going out in places that were too public because he was at risk of being outed as a dealer. Especially now that he was caught selling drugs once and the guy who saw him threatened to report Mark to the police.
“Are you out of your fucking mind? You’re on thin ice, you said that yourself” you raised the tone of your voice and walked towards him.
Mark put down his guitar to focus on you. “You worry too much Y/n, like, what are the odds? We’re in the middle of nowhere, I doubt anyone knows this place apart from us and the customers of your bar. I think we’ll be fine,” he cleared his throat, “I mean, I’ll be fine. Relax, I wanna spend some time with you.”
You decided against protesting and trusted Mark’s certainty of his words. Besides, he was right. The diner was out of town, it wasn’t very popular among people who weren’t familiar with the bar. Most customers at the diner were either drunk people from the bar or passersby. So you simply just nodded and whispered a soft “okay” before you went inside the bathroom, the door emitting a creaking sound as you closed it shut behind you.
The screeching sound of the fork scratching the surface of the porcelain plate turned your facial expression into a wince, which went completely unnoticed by Mark whose attention was entirely devoted to the pancakes in front of him.
The old diner was relatively empty despite it being lunch time. Other than you and Mark, there was only a group of friends and a guy sitting on a barstool. You were actually very satisfied with the quietness of the place, which was only disrupted by sounds of forks scraping plates and glasses thudding on the tables.
The diner was situated right down the same road your motel was at, so anytime your stomach growled in annoyance you would stop by and fulfill its needs. You were practically a regular customer now and probably the one who kept the place from going bankrupt. It was old, cheap and dirty; the perfect place for you.
Mark gulped down the last bite of his pancakes and thirstily drank the entire glass of water. He then set the glass down and leaned back on the booth, fixating his gaze on you.
You noticed his eager eyes on you and you set down your fork, mimicking his stance and staring right back at him, waiting for him to speak.
"That was a pretty good meal" Mark sighed and you smiled a bit. This wasn't what he wanted to say.
Since Mark seemed to be unwilling to speak his mind, you decided to take matters into your own hands instead.
"Why did you want to have lunch with me?" you asked him with your voice calm and your eyes searching for an answer in his.
Mark crossed his arms and scrunched up his nose before he answered your question. "’Cause I wanted to spend time with you. Actual time. You know, like normal people?" he said.
You rolled your eyes at his response and mimicked his body language once again, crossing your arms over your chest. "I don't buy it, Mark" you said.
Mark sat up straight and leaned closer to the table, resting his elbows on top of it. "Why are you always like this, Y/n? Whenever I tell you something, you never believe me! What's up with you?" Mark's frustration started building up in his attempt to defend himself.
"It's not that I don't believe you-"
"It's that you don't trust me" Mark interrupted you and you stood there with your mouth still open. You didn't know what to say.
Mark's gaze was piercing, his sharp eyes were darker than usual and his lips quivered at the blank stare you were giving him. "You don't trust me," he concluded.
The truth is that you weren't sure if you trusted him or not. You wanted to trust him and he had proved to you numerous times that he was someone who cared and didn't lie. Yet sometimes, you were afraid that if you trusted him too much, he would end up hurting you. So every time he said something you weren't expecting him to say, you immediately assumed that he was lying.
"Mark, listen to me," you started to say and Mark sat back against the booth, rolling his eyes. "I-I do trust you, it's just that-"
"What? You think I don't mean what I say? If I didn't meant what I fucking said then I wouldn't fucking say it! When I say I care about you, Y/n, I fucking mean it. When I say I fucking love y-"
"Don't get mad" you were the one that interrupted him now. Mark was clearly way too frustrated by you now, his voice was getting gradually louder, his eyes were full of fire and his nostrils were fuming.
At the sudden raise of Mark’s voice, the guy who was sitting at the barstool turned to look at your booth with a brief glance and then returned back to eating his food.
"Mark, just let it go, please" your voice came out almost like a whisper. You hated when Mark became angry at you and you hated it even more when he did it in public, even though it was practically just you and him in that diner.
Mark's jaw visibly relaxed and he lowered his eyes to his lap, nodding to himself. He lifted his head to look back at you with pleading eyes, much in contrast with his previous fiery gaze.
"Then why don't you come with me? Out of this fucking town? You deserve to live a better life than this. We deserve it. Look, I know I don't have an exact plan on how we'll do it, but I know that we can figure it out together. Please, Y/n" he said, taking your hand in his from across the table, rubbing your knuckles with his thumb.
You lowered your eyes at the spot your hands were joined together. Did you really love Mark? No, actually, did you really trust him enough to depend your entire life on him?
You couldn't give him an answer at that moment. Not a yes, not a no. Not even I don't know. Forget that, it would complicate things even more.
Mark noticed that you weren't going to give him an answer to his question soon, so he let go of your hand and started putting on his jacket. He reached into the inside pocket and took out some cash. He slammed it on the table and got up from the booth ready to leave.
"I have to go to work now, alright? I've arranged some deals. I'll come back later at the bar tonight. If you ever decide what you want to do with me, you know where to find me" he said and without even turning to look at him, you heard the sound of his footsteps grow fainter as he walked out the diner.
The bar was relatively full tonight. From behind the counter, you could spot only two empty tables. That was the fullest the bar has been in the last month. At the far back of the bar, you spotted Renjun already counting the tips he had earned and it was still midnight.
All the customers were busy chatting and enjoying their drinks. You found yourself craving some alcohol too, the need for an intoxicant substance was growing stronger and stronger, so you decided to mix just a little bit of something to treat yourself.
As you were filling in your glass, Renjun walked behind the counter and leaned close to your ear to speak, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to hear him through the loud chatting of the customers. “Man, I think we are in heaven, I lost count of my tips and I’m not even high yet” he said and you giggled at him.
He noticed the bottle of vodka you were holding and nudged you on your forearm. “Hey, pour me some of that too” he asked and your response was to grab a glass from the shelf behind the counter and fill it with the toxic liquid.
You had barely stopped filling in the glass when Renjun grabbed it and downed the liquid in an instant. He placed the glass on top of the counter with a thud and licked his lips, savoring the bitter taste. “What’s up with you and Mark?” Renjun asked you. You contemplated whether you should answer him or pretend you didn’t hear him just to buy you some time. A good couple of seconds passed so you just caved in and answered him.
“I don’t know. Go and ask him.” you said in a tone filled with nonchalance, sipping on your drink.
Renjun rested his elbows on the counter, his eyes scanning the place around him. “He said the exact same fucking thing when I asked him about you. You can’t be running in a vicious circle all the time. Just fuck it out, you’re both acting like little kids” he said and you sighed at his scolding tone.
Renjun wasn’t just your co-worker, he had also grown to become your best friend, a person you could talk to freely without fear of judgment because he always understood your intentions. Engulfed in your misery and loneliness, he was the person who helped you get back on your feet and have hope that things will somehow get slightly better. That sounds like something a friend would do.
You brought the glass to your lips to drink the last sip of vodka that was still inside, leaving it empty waiting to be filled with more of that toxic liquid. “You wanna know what, Renjun? Even though I hate the life I’ve made for myself, I enjoy having Mark in it. But I can’t do what he asks me to do. I can’t depend my entire life on him. I can count on him for some of it, yes, but starting anew with him? I don’t know. I really don’t. I’m not the kind of person you want to start a life with. I will fuck everything up. And he shouldn’t count on me as much as he does. It’s for the better. For both of us.”
Renjun kept staring at you, waiting for your little rant to be over so that he could take his turn to speak. He gulped and looked at your burnt out figure. Your eyeballs were turning a bit crimson due to the line of cocaine you snorted earlier, even though you promised you’d wait until Mark came later, and the lack of sleep provided you with dark hues under your eyes and skin as pale as the moon.
“Look, Y/n,” Renjun started and came a bit closer to you so that he wouldn’t have to strain his vocal chords in order to be heard, “I see your point. And I understand exactly what you mean because I felt the same way when I came here. But in my case, I had nobody to lean on. I became an addict, left home and the rest of the story is familiar to you. But you and Mark have each other and, trust me, your future is looking way brighter than mine.”
You looked into his eyes searching for honesty. Renjun has always been honest with you and you never doubted any of his words. He really cared about you. Mark too, as it seemed. And he was right. Living in a cheap motel, starving and working long hours to barely make ends meet, depending on drugs and more specifically on an exceptionally lovely drug dealer wasn’t the life you imagined to have. But fate had different plans for you and now you ended up here, whatever this here is supposed to be.
Mark didn’t seem to be ill-intentioned. From the very first moment you met him, he was protective and caring, he had always treated you nice. He spoke to you softly and touched you in a just as smooth way. But the life he was living wasn’t that much better than yours; in fact, you could say it was even worse. He depended on you as much as you depended on him.
You didn’t know what was the thing that made you keep a sort of distance from him. Emotional distance. Part of it might be because you weren’t available to be fully devoted to him, because of fear that one day he would leave you, just like everyone else did. Part of it might be because the two of you weren’t so different and two broken souls mending together doesn’t necessarily make a fully healed one.
“I’ll talk to him when I’m ready. I could do it later but I’m afraid I’ll be too high to think rationally. Or maybe this will give me more insight, I don’t know, I’ve never thought of it. Do you think clearer when you’re high?” you asked Renjun but he was preoccupied, looking at the screen of his phone which radiated such brightness his eyes squinted as a reflex.
Scanning his features more carefully, you realized that the reason for his scrunched expression wasn’t lying solely on the brightness of the screen. You took half a step closer to him and Renjun tilted his phone away from you, hiding the screen from your eyesight.
“What’s wrong, Renjun?” you asked with worry lacing the tone of your voice. Renjun shook his head and put his phone away in his back pocket. “Mark won’t be coming by later. Something came up, I’m afraid we’re in trouble too. Listen, can you handle the bar for a couple hours by yourself? Mark needs some help” Renjun said, searching for his jacket underneath the counter.
Your eyes widened at Renjun’s words and you felt your heartbeat racing and your fingertips trembling. “Is Mark okay? Tell me, is he okay?” your rising voice quivered, betraying the nervousness you felt.
Renjun squeezed your shoulder and pressed his lips together in an attempt of a reassuring smile. “Yes, he is alright. He’s fine. He just needs some help with the cops. If you see anyone suspicious showing up, flash the stashes down the toilet, we don’t want them finding anything. I’ll be back soon.”
With swift movements, Renjun turned his heel to walk out the bar in a hurry, muttering something under his breath that, due to your shocked and nervous state, you failed to hear, “How am I gonna save your ass this time, Mark?”
As soon as you heard the bell on top of the bar’s front door tinkle, you knew that Renjun was already outside and you were left alone in the bar. You were left standing frozen behind the counter, staring into nothingness. Your vision became blurry due to the tears that threatened to spill from the corners of your eyes, your hands curled into fists and your nails were digging deep into your palms, cold sweat forming at the sides of your forehead.
You were terrified. Mark was already caught selling drugs very recently, so your mind went to the worst case scenario which made you extremely terrified; that Mark was caught selling drugs by the police.
You dreaded this moment at the exact same time your eyes met Mark’s sharp ones. You knew that, once you became thick as thieves with a drug dealer, you would be in for a lot of trouble.
But you also knew how careful Mark was and this gave you hope that, whatever the case is right now, he would find a way to get himself out of there. Mark was a smart guy. You wanted to trust him, you wanted to believe that he would be smart enough not to get himself in trouble.
Yet something didn’t add up. Mark has been doing these types of deals for a long time now, he knew all the tricks of the job and he knew very well how to protect himself. So it sounded almost impossible that he would do something so reckless and irresponsible to get him caught.
There was only one possible and logical answer to all of your questions. That somebody ratted him out.
Your train of thought was disrupted by the husky voice of a man. “Excuse me, miss, would you mind pouring me a drink?”
Your head snapped at the sudden sound of a voice other than the one inside your head. Your eyes met with a man sitting on a barstool at the other side of the counter, looking at you with wary eyes. Your gaze was roaming all over his figure when your eyes halted for a second as soon as they spotted something shiny at the right side of the man’s chest; a badge.
You cleared your throat to cover up the anxiety and fear that started to appear in your voice. “Officer! What can I get you?” you greeted him with bright eyes and a cheerful voice that masked your intense heartbeat and the trembling state of your hands behind the counter.
“Actually, I don’t want a drink,” he started and moved his hand inside his jacket to pull out a file with pictures and papers, “but I do want you to help me with something. Have you ever seen this guy?” he asked you, placing the file on the counter and turning it to your side.
You gulped at the sight in the front of you and your eyes quivered from side to side. A mugshot of the face you grew to almost love was staring back at you. Sharp gaze and popping cheekbones, defined jawline and dark eyes were presented in front of you and you knew more than well enough who the person in the picture was.
Your heart sank at the sight of Mark’s mugshot and you knew what you had to do. You drew in your eyebrows together and lifted the picture with your hand in order to bring it closer to your eyes and examine it better. “I don’t think I recognize this man, officer” you said.
You set the picture down on top of the counter and looked at the police officer, not trying to avoid eye contact. You wanted to seem as less guilty as possible.
The police officer took the picture and put it back inside the file. “Really? That’s a shame. But I’ve been informed that you do know this guy because you were seen with him this morning.”
You froze immediately. Your brain tried to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, you tried to digest and connect everything the cop just said in order to form your answer.
“Are you sure about this, officer? A lot of other girls look like me, maybe it was a mistake?” you asked with a rising intonation in an attempt to defend yourself by adding another lie to your previous one.
You tried to remember where you could be possibly seen with Mark, especially during the day. You always met with him at night and you avoided seeing each other in the morning. There was no way anyone saw you with Mark.
The moment you had this thought, the answer to your question suddenly popped up in your head as if a lit up light bulb. That morning, you and Mark had breakfast down at the diner. And you specifically remember that suspicious guy who kept staring at the two of you.
That’s when you knew you had to do something drastic to get you out of this situation, and you had to do it relatively fast.
The police officer didn’t seem to buy the lie you had just uttered and continued to pressure you more. “Is this where you keep all the drinks? Can I take a look inside your storage room?”
The rhythm of your heartbeat kept increasing more and more by each word the police officer said and you were running out of lies and excuses.
“Sure, it’s this way officer” you said with a nonchalant tone, gesturing towards the door behind the counter.
The cop stood up and turned his heel to walk behind the counter and towards the storage room door. Your trembling hands had barely managed to hide the stashes you kept behind the cash register under your oversized shirt, and you followed the cop inside the storage room with uncertain steps.
The police officer could not find the rest of the stashes. It shouldn’t happen, and you had to act smart in order to prevent it. “Can I help you with something, officer? We can’t stay in here for too long, my co-worker finished early and we’re not allowed to leave the bar without having anyone to tend to the customers” you said in an attempt to speed up the process and get rid of him before he could find anything that could put you in jail.
“You can go back to your work, miss. This is my job here, you can go and do yours” the cop said as he had already taken a bottle of vodka in his hand to examine it for anything suspicious.
“Okay, I just wanted to help. Call me if you need anything,” your answer was convincing enough for him, but it wasn’t good enough for you to buy you more time.
You left the storage room and stood right outside the door, leaving it so open as to let you peek through it so that you were able to see what the police officer was doing.
With your still trembling fingers, you took out your phone from your pocket and dialed Renjun’s number with quick movements. Without taking your eyes away from the cop, you kept tapping your foot waiting for Renjun to pick up his phone.
The constant beeping sound in your ear signaled that Renjun wasn’t going to respond soon, so you put your phone back in your pocket and tried to think of what to do.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck” you muttered under your breath, running your fingers through your hair. Your eyes were wavering from the police officer to the customers in the bar and then back to the police officer. You had to do something to get everyone out of there.
Your eyes followed the cop’s figure and certainly didn’t like what you were seeing. The cop squatted down so that he could reach the boxes under the shelves and stretched his arm to pull out one of them.
“No, no, no, fuck” you whispered. Those are the boxes in which you hid the drugs.
You turned your head to look at the inside of the bar. It was fully packed. There was not any chair or barstool that was empty and, just at that moment, the door opened to reveal a group of friends who wanted to get drunk and have fun just like the rest of the people inside the bar.
The only person who wasn’t having any fun right now was you. And obviously Mark and Renjun as well, who you had no idea about their whereabouts or their well-being. On any random night, all these people in the bar would equal a pretty satisfactory amount of tips that would make your life slightly easier to get by. However, you could definitely not say that for this particular night, when your main priority was your and your friends’ safety.
Shifting your gaze from the customers to the police officer and back to your phone for any missed calls or unread messages from either Renjun or Mark, you were completely on your own on this one. Cold sweat engulfed your entire body as the seconds passed and the cop was one step closer to finding the thing that could turn your entire life upside down.
You swallowed thickly and looked at your phone one last time. No sign of anybody.
“Okay, I got this” you muttered to yourself and walked behind the counter where you usually stood. A middle-aged woman was sitting on one of the barstools, smoking and sipping lightly from the cocktail you mixed for her earlier. You picked up the first bottle of alcohol you saw on the counter - you didn’t have the time to care what it was - and walked towards her.
“Excuse me, miss, would you like a refill?” you asked politely to gain her attention. Before she even opened her mouth to speak, your actions were faster than her words. You quickly snatched the cigarette from her hand and put it out on the counter, immediately pouring some alcohol right on that spot.
Soon enough, flames started building up and the counter caught on fire. The smell of smoke became suffocating and it was hard to breathe in such a small space full of people. Your plan worked.
Muttering a string of “sorrys” to the woman, you turned around to pull the fire alarm. Every customer turned their heads to the direction of the piercing sound full of worry. “Everyone must get out, the building is on fire!” you yelled as loudly as you could, motioning everyone out the door.
Very quickly, you managed to evacuate the building by leading all the panicked customers outside the bat through the front door. In the midst of all this chaos, you noticed with the corner of your eye the police officer you rushed out of the storage room without looking any scared at all.
You ushered the last customers outside as the fire grew bigger, eventually leaving you and the cop as the only ones inside the flaming place. As he passed by you to get out the bar, he leaned closer to your face and whispered. "That was smart, young lady," he said and walked outside towards his car.
So he knew, you thought. He knew all along about the drug deals happening in this place and mainly the drug possession. He almost tricked you into thinking you tricked him. How amateurish of you.
You walked out the bar and shut the door behind you, watching the police officer drive away. A sigh of temporary relief escaped your lips and you pulled out your phone to dial a phone number you weren't particularly happy to call. Waiting for a few seconds, you heard the dreadful voice on the other line. "Hey boss, um, is it easy for you to come down to the bar? We kinda have a small problem" you said with a rapidly beating heart.
The time was already 3:16. You were pacing around your motel room, patiently waiting for any news about Mark. You had already called and texted him multiple times, but all of your efforts to reach him went in vain.
A few minutes after you called your boss, she arrived at the bar, totally shocked and deeply saddened upon seeing her not-so-small business all up in flames. You explained to her what happened, shaping the story so as not to sound guilty, and luckily she didn't blame you for anything.
After the firefighters arrived, your boss encouraged you to go home, saying that you already went through a lot for the night, so you needed to get some rest.
So now you were back to your motel room, unable to get some rest because you were still scared about yourself and your previous interaction with that police officer. But most importantly, you were anxious about Mark.
You were terrified for him. And your fear only increased because you couldn’t do anything to help him or save him. You realized that you depended on him twice as much as he depended on you and that made you feel useless in situations like this. Knowing that Renjun was - probably - with him eased your nerves a bit, but, at the same time, knowing that you didn’t do anything to help him made you feel selfish and hopeless.
Everything you did tonight was to save no one else but yourself. The entire night, you kept worrying about yourself and how you could avoid going to jail when during those very same moments in time you had no idea how Mark was or what he was going through.
Mark wasn’t the helpless one in this situation; it was you.
As you picked up your phone to call Renjun again, a loud thumping noise on the door startled you. Your body jolted up upon hearing the sudden sound and you walked nervously towards the door to look outside through the peephole.
Your eyes widened in shock and surprise at the sight of the face that was constantly on your mind. You didn’t waste any time opening the door and pulling the boy you were aching to see all night long inside the motel room, wrapping your arms around him in a tight hug.
You rested your head in the crook of Mark’s neck and he reacted to your touch in an instant, stretching his arms to the small of your back to hug you as tightly as he physically could.
Tears fell from the corners of your eyes and you pulled back just as much as you needed in order to look into Mark’s exhausted eyes without breaking the embrace. “You can’t imagine how scared I was,” you whispered.
Mark stared deeply into your watery eyes. He moved his hands to cup both of your cheeks and nodded his head when he processed what you just said. “I know, I was terrified too. Renjun came to help me but we kinda fucked it up" he said with a stinging tone in his voice.
“What happened?” you asked and Mark let go of you and walked towards the bed in the middle of the room, sitting on the edge of it. You copied his movements and sat down right next to him, turning your head to his side as you waited for him to fill you in on what you had missed.
“That bastard ratted me out. That asshole from the diner. I had a deal with some teenagers and he called the cops on me. I don’t even know how he tracked me down.” Mark confessed looking straight, his eyes full of void, focusing on nothing in particular.
“Anyway, they took me to the police station and started questioning me about all this bullshit. There was no way I could excuse myself, they literally busted me, they saw me doing the deals. I texted Renjun and, I don’t know what he said to them but it didn't go well," he stopped to take a deep breath despite the desert that formed inside his mouth and the waterfalls that were forming in the corners of his eyes, "so we basically ran away and sooner or later the police will find me. I had nowhere else to go and I knew that your place would be relatively safe." Mark finished reciting you the events of the last few hours, tears staining his cheeks like the raindrops of a drizzle.
The dried tears that stained your cheeks became wet again when the new set of them fell down your face. You were staring at Mark through your teary gaze, trying to find any emotion in his void expression. He had never looked so soulless and it terrified you even more.
But the truth is that Mark himself was trying to mask his fear and anxiety by not showing them. The tears that traveled from his bambi eyes down to his popping cheekbones felt empty and the sight of him in such a state brought a stinging pain to your heart.
“So w-what does that mean?” your voice trembled at each word you uttered as you faced Mark with nothing but fear and another emotion that, at that moment, resembled love.
Mark made an attempt to wipe most of the tears off his face with the palms of his hands so that he could face you with clear vision. “It means I might go to jail. I will go to jail, unless I get out of here” he said. “Fuck, those bastards gave me an excuse to leave this fucking place” Mark scoffed as he sat up from the bed and started roaming around the narrow room, hands resting on his waist.
Your eyes trailed on every single one of his moves. You blinked several times to prevent any more tears from falling and cleared your throat to avoid your hoarse trembling voice. “So you’re really leaving” you said quietly, more to yourself than to Mark.
Mark turned around to look at you. “Yeah, I am. First thing in the morning. I don’t have many things to pack so it won’t take me long. And I can help you pack your things too, it will be quicker if-”
“Who said I’m coming with you?” you interrupted Mark and you immediately regretted doing so once you met his fuming gaze, which was now completely taken over by anger but was previously filled with nothing but emptiness.
“Y/n, we agreed to this. You’re coming with me and that’s it.” Mark growled as he took a step closer to you.
You stood up and started walking nervously around the place you called home, running your fingers through your hair in an attempt to ease your nerves. “We never agreed to anything. I told you I can’t-”
“Bullshit, that’s what you told me. Everything you said is bullshit. I want nothing but the best for you, we’ve been meaning to do this for such a long time and now that we have every reason to leave, you don’t want to! What’s wrong with you Y/n?” Mark clapped back at you.
A tear dropped down to your feet as you looked at Mark’s reddening face. Your lips trembled in your attempt to voice out your feelings, unfamiliar to your vulnerable state. “I’m scared, Mark,” you paused to sniff your nose, “I’m so fucking scared. For you, for me, for everything.”
Mark’s features softened at your sudden confession. He remained silent, gesturing to you to move on.
It was hard and unusual for you to open up to him like this. You hated the fact that he made you weak, that he had such a strong effect on you to make you eventually do as he says. But there was always this evil little voice in your head that told you not to trust him because, in the end, he would act just like everyone else and leave you.
“Do you know how scared I was tonight? I almost risked my fucking life for you! I had no idea where you were, I didn’t know what happened or why, and you know why? Because you never tell me anything! You only care about yourself,” all your fears and anxieties exploded and the outburst was so big you didn’t know how to stop. And you couldn’t stop even when you took a glimpse of Mark’s furrowed eyebrows and frowned lips, which you couldn’t tell if they were the result of sadness or anger.
You didn’t want to hurt him. But at this state, you couldn’t remain silent anymore. It wasn’t Mark’s fault, but you had reached a point where you couldn’t bottle up anything you felt anymore, so he just had to take everything you said.
You took a deep breath before you licked your dry lips to speak again in a calmer but still bitter tone. “If only you would disappear from my life I would-”
You never completed your sentence because Mark dashed towards you and grabbed you by the neck, squeezing the sides just so, so you could breathe a little bit, his face only a couple inches away from yours. “Shut the fuck up” Mark spat out with a growl which immediately kept you quiet.
His blackened eyes were piercing right through you, his fully black pupils bore into your wavering ones. You stood frozen there, completely locked in your place under Mark’s forceful hold on you, a position which made your lower stomach twitch.
Neither of you spoke for a few seconds. Mark’s face was painted in crimson, his eyebrows fully drawn in together and his nostrils flaring out, as he tried to keep his breathing steady. His angry state scared you even more; not because he would hurt you, but because he could hurt himself. Behind the mask of the angry man he presented himself as, you were the only one who could see the sad little boy who wanted nothing else from you but to love and trust him.
With Mark’s hand still pressing on your neck, your voice barely came out when you tried to speak. “Mark please, say someth-”
Mark interrupted you once again by smashing his lips on yours with the same force he held you under him and the same desperation he hid behind his bloody gaze. You didn’t waste a second, responding in an instant to him, moving your lips to the pace and rhythm he settled. You slightly parted your lips to allow him access to deepen it even more, as he slid his tongue in your mouth to dance with yours.
His presence and strong grip was too much to endure, so you stretched your arms to grab his hair. Mark sensed your need for more support, so he lessened the pressure on your neck and moved his free arm to the small of your back.
The previously quiet room was filled with the lewd sounds of your lips and tongues and the soft grunts and whimpers that left your lips in between each violent connection between them. You hadn’t realized how much you needed Mark, how much you had missed his touch and his burning essence on you until this very moment. Your body reacted to him almost immediately, as you felt your blood flow from your heart down to your aching core.
The heated argument from earlier was now completely forgotten and transformed into a passionate battlefield between two broken souls. Mark's crack infused breath, the bitter taste of alcohol on his dry lips and the lust overtaking his brain and controlling his actions electrified your entire body. There was not a single part of you that didn't want Mark, that didn't desire him and you couldn't help but want more of him.
Your brain, too foggy from the bold emotions and the alcohol you had consumed earlier, couldn't work properly, so your primal instincts took over you entirely. You kept kissing Mark while biting on his lower lip, which resulted in low whines coming out of him, his hardening length growing more inside the pressure of his pants.
You could sense him struggling to keep his cool and you were trying to give yourself some friction too by rubbing your thighs together. You reached your hand down to Mark's pants, cupping his dick outside the thick fabric of his jeans, the teasing action causing him to roll back his eyes.
Mark stopped kissing you abruptly and without wasting any time, he threw you on the bed with all his strength, watching you with hungry eyes. You plopped down on the bed, the sheets creasing at the sudden force and you looked at him with a lustfull gaze that invited him in.
"Wanna fuck you so dumb right now" Mark growled lowly as he took off his shirt from the back of his neck in a swift motion and continued to unbuckle his belt, his eyes never leaving your pleading ones.
You followed along, removing your own shirt and shorts, lying in bed only in your underwear. Mark had now discarded himself completely off of all his clothes except from his boxers, which had an undeniably visible precum stain on them.
Mark's body hovered above yours, connecting his lips with yours for a brief moment before he pulled back to attack your neck, biting and nipping on the spot right under your ear, which earned a loud gasp from you.
His lips kept on abusing your neck area, as you locked your fingers in his hair, tugging and pulling at it with every bite on your neck and chest. The hot sensation of his lips, tongue and wet saliva all over your body made you whimper under him, a sound that made his cock twitch inside his underwear.
Mark traveled lower down to your chest. He slipped his hand behind your back to undo your bra, removing the bra straps off your shoulders eagerly and tossing the piece of clothing somewhere in the dirty motel room. He was quick to attack your hard nipples, dropping his head to suck on one of them, and reaching the other one with his hand, twisting and rubbing it between his fingers.
Your moans and whimpers echoed in the room, the sound and smell of your bodily fluids polluted the small space, everything about the inside of the place being purely filthy.
The heat in your body kept rising and you could feel the stickiness in your panties. You wanted Mark, all of him. You wanted him to treat you however he wanted to, you wanted to please him by giving him all of you and you wanted to feel desired by him.
"Please Mark," you breathed in a soft moan, "please fuck me" your face reddened in your pathetic confession, but it didn't seem to stop Mark from ripping your panties apart, leaving your dripping cunt exposed to the dirty cold air of the room.
Your drowsy eyes and rapid breathing fueled Mark and all his inner needs, as he lifted his body off yours and parted your legs with his hands, pushing your thighs apart. You were breathing heavily in anticipation of his next move, which was a sharp slap to your pussy that sent a strong bolt of pleasure through your whole body. You moaned in pleasure and surprise and Mark repeated his action at the sound of your whiny moans.
"You're a pathetic little slut after all, aren't you?" Mark lowered his head and spat on your pussy, which had you clenching around nothing. "Look at you, begging to be fucked" he brushed one finger up and down your clit, just enough to tease you and elicit a sharp intake of breath from you. "You really pissed me off, you know?" he muttered.
"Please Mark, I want you. I need you so bad, please fuck me" you whined with a high-pitched voice, the one you knew that Mark could never resist, as you pouted your lips at him.
Mark rested his hands on your knees, holding your legs as far apart as possible, so as to have full access to your glistening cunt. His dark eyes were filled with nothing but hunger and lust, unable to control himself any longer from how bad he wanted to taste you. He lowered his head even further, brushing his lips over your clit.
"As you wish, princess" he mumbled to your wet core before he attacked your swollen bud, licking and sucking on your clit with absolutely no remorse.
A loud moan escaped from your lips at the abrupt touch of Mark's wet tongue on your pussy, your hands intertwining in his hair, grabbing and pulling at every licking stripe Mark left on you.
He kept on licking and sucking on your clit, mumbling sweet nothings and small praises, which reminded you more of the Mark you knew rather than the cold and hungry man that was presented in front of you a few minutes ago.
The lewd sounds of Mark's lips and tongue on your pussy mixed with your whiny moans turned him on to the fullest, as he pulled one of his hands away from your knee and dropped it down to slowly pump his dick underneath his underwear.
The burning desire rising up in his body was becoming too much for him, so he pulled away from your clit with one last sucking pop and took off his underwear, setting free his painfully hard length.
Mark positioned himself between your legs and with a swift motion, he turned you over to your stomach, pulling you by your hips so that your ass was higher up towards him.
"Need to fuck you so bad" Mark growled as he smacked your ass cheek with a sharp slap, your pussy clenching at the burning sensation.
"Please, Mark" you whined in the pillow, a tear rolling down your face and landing on the sheets as a response to the overstimulation taking over your body.
The way you kept whining his name and the juices almost dripping down your thighs had Mark gritting his teeth. He gave himself a few more light strokes as he positioned his dick right at your entrance. Without giving you any warning, he dived into your pussy with a sharp stroke.
You shut your eyes in pleasure and gripped the sheets tightly until your knuckles went white as Mark pounded into with sharp rhythmic strokes, each one pushing your head further into the pillow.
Your moans were coming out as crying mumbles as your face was buried deep in the sheets. Mark kept his pace and force, his head lolling back at the intensity of the moment. He kept his one hand on your hip in order to keep you steady while, with the other one, he reached down to grab a fistful of your hair, tugging at it and pulling it roughly, an action that triggered your hot tears to spill from your eyes at the pure sense of pleasure.
Mark's breathing was heavy and sharp at the sound of your soft growns and the sight of your ass jiggling at each stroke he left. "Is this what you wanted, pretty? Me fucking you so good you end up a crying fucking mess?" Mark provoked you in a voice as deep as the ocean, his groans low and hot like the pits of hell.
The sound of skin slapping on skin echoed inside the four walls of your motel room. Mark's hips connected with your ass in an intense force and a static speed, as he hit the spot that always brought you closer to the edge.
"I-I'm close, Mark, p-please" you whined as he gradually took you closer to your limits, your lower stomach twitching in pleasure and your jaw going slack as you felt your climax rising more and more.
"Let this pretty pussy cum on my dick, come on baby" Mark growled and with that, you let out a high-pitched groan into the pillow as your pussy clenched around Mark's dick, the forceful grip of your hands on the sheets was slowly loosened.
You felt Mark's strokes become sloppier as you coated his length with your warm fluids. He quickly pulled out and turned you over so your back was touching the soft mattress. He moved his body closer to you, pumping his dick slowly as he brought the tip to your lips, brushing softly against them as an invitation to take in his dripping cock.
"Open up for me, pretty" his fully blackened eyes bore into your teary ones. You slowly opened your mouth and Mark quickly pushed his cock into it, moving his hips as you bobbed your head up and down, sucking on his veiny length.
"That's right, baby. Such a good girl" Mark whimpered as he slowly released into your mouth, his hot cum dripping down your throat. You swallowed all of it completely before he pulled out and laid down on the bed next to you, both of your heavy panting echoing in the now quiet room.
Mark took a few seconds to ease his breathing and turned to the nightstand above his head to search for the pack of cigarettes you kept hidden in the small drawer. He took one cigarette out of the box and brought it to his lips. With the lighter you kept inside that very same drawer, he lit it up, smoke immediately coming out of it. The room now smelled like a mix of sex and smoke, and you winced at the odd yet satisfying combination. Mark took a long drag out of the cigarette and then puffed the smoke into the filthy air.
As soon as you caught your breath, you turned your body towards Mark's, looping your arm around his waist and resting your head on his chest. Mark responded to your intimate touch, wrapping his free arm around your shoulders, stroking your hair lightly. He pressed a soft kiss on your forehead and then brought the cigarette again to his lips.
After the long and terrifying day you had, you finally felt at ease. Your heart was beating normally, your breathing was steady and your mind was blank. All you could do was savor this moment with Mark, wrapped around his arms and listening to his beating heart, a sound that promised you that everything would be alright.
"Please don't leave me, Mark. I wouldn't know what to do without you" you whispered to him as you slowly drifted away to deep sleep. Mark didn't say anything back. He kissed your forehead again instead and inhaled deeply, exhaling in a long sigh, as his eyes were fixed outside the window, looking over at the bright city lights.
Your eyes fluttered open at the sound of chirping birds outside your window. From the way the room was illuminated and from the shadows that formed behind every object, you could tell that it was only a few minutes after sunrise, and the bright orange sun confirmed your speculation.
With your eyes still half-open, you stretched your arms above your head and groaned, a soft yawn leaving your pouty lips. You then shifted between the sheets, turning your body to the other side of the bed, moving your arms around in search of the drug dealer’s toned body, the one that hugged you tight to sleep.
“Good morning, Markie” you mumbled, still half asleep. You rested your head on the pillow, still patting the mattress when you couldn’t sense the male beside you. Your eyes widened in an instant and your body quickly adjusted to the awake state. You were focused on the other side of the bed, where the boy you spent the previous night with would be lying sound asleep. Instead, you were met with nothing but tangled bedsheets.
“Mark?” you called again, in hopes that maybe he was in the bathroom and he couldn’t hear you. No response.
You yanked the sheets off you and rushed to the bathroom, opening the squeaky door with more force than you intended. “Mark?” you called, but the calling was in vain.
Maybe he went down to the diner to get us breakfast, you thought. It was still very early in the morning, but the diner never closed during the night, so there might be some leftovers or, if you were lucky, some fresh food at this hour.
So you decided to wait for him, thinking that his whereabouts were probably the old diner. Since you were now fully awake, you decided to take a shower and change into some fresh clothes. It will only be a few minutes, Mark will probably be back by the time I’m finished, you thought.
So you hopped into the shower, letting the warm water fall down your tense shoulders in order to ease your nerves and help your body physically relax. Your mind brought up the memories of the previous night you spent with Mark. You thought about the cop that came to the bar, you thought about the fact that Mark was in serious danger, you thought about your argument with him and how you made up afterwards by having steamy sex, just like every other time.
You didn’t know how to label your relationship with Mark, or whatever you had with him. He was more than a friend but less than a lover. He protected you, cared for you, helped you with any troubles you had and was always there for you, whatever it took for him. And what did you do for him in return? Nothing.
You did absolutely nothing, at least nothing that could compare to what he did for you. And you hated yourself for not being able to pull him out of his misery, even for the slightest bit, when he could even go as far as to move mountains just to see you crack a smile.
You didn’t deserve him; yet you were too selfish to let him go. He was a soul that wanted to fly and be free, but his wings were weighed down by your annoying fears and anxieties for the unknown.
The water dripping down your body suddenly turned cold and you immediately turned off the faucet and ran out of the shower, wiping your body dry with a towel. There was still no sight of Mark, so you quickly put on some fresh clothes and searched throughout the room in order to find your phone and call him.
Your eyes scanned every corner of the room where you could have possibly left your phone, when your gaze dropped to the wooden chair across the bed, the one where Mark usually sat when he played the guitar, only to find a folded piece of paper.
You stepped closer to the chair, picking up the piece of paper and turning it around. With shaky hands, you slowly unfolded it and a shiny bright red guitar pick fell on the floor. You picked it up, bringing it closer to your eye only to recognize it as one of Mark’s favorite ones.
You held the pick between your fingers and sat down at the wooden chair, looking at the wrinkly piece of paper. Written with a dark pencil, you recognized the sloppy handwriting and the small neat letters as none other than Mark’s and you couldn't help but feel your eyes sting in threatening tears as you slowly read and processed each heartfelt word he wrote:
Dear Y/n,
You’re probably reading this because you can’t see me in your room. But don’t bother look, because I have already left for a better, safer life and I won’t be coming back.
So here’s everything I couldn’t bring myself to say last night.
I love you deeply, Y/n. And I know your feelings towards me differ from my feelings towards you, but I’m not scared to hide it. You’re afraid of the power your heart holds and I understand that. For that, I will give you time, as much as you need to learn how to use this power.
I don’t know if I am a strong man or a coward for leaving; that I’m not sure of. But what I’m sure of is my life, and right now my life is in danger. I always spoke to you about how I wanted to have a normal life, to escape from this hell hole and build a different path for me.
Most importantly, I wanted to build this path with you. You’re the only thing that made this hell hole bearable, the only thing that gave me purpose, the thing that made my life have a meaning.
But I took some time to think and I realized that I can’t force you to follow the same path as me, no matter how much I need you or how much I want only what’s best for you.
So I left. I left to build this new path and I will try as hard as I can. I don’t care if I fail, because I know I can keep on trying and, no matter where you are, just the thought of you gives me strength.
I’m leaving you a piece of me behind though. My favorite guitar pick. I want you to have it. You can keep it, burn it, destroy it, I don’t care what you’ll do with it. I just want you to have something to remember me, something that means to me as much as you do.
So, for the meantime, mark me in your heart like I have marked you in mine, and think about what makes you truly happy. If you ever change your mind, you already know where to find me.
Your beloved,
M.
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The Metatron's outfit obviously has meta reasons/the costume department and Neil decided on it for a reason, but I think that there are also in-canon ones we should talk about more.
Now, the thing most people notice immediately is the colour—angels were whites, beige, light colours that match the job and heaven's sterile whiteness. His, on the other hand, is black, a colour usually associated with hell and demons.
As a small meta reason side note: I do not think that they chose the colour to signal that he is a demon and broke them up because he has Big Evil Plans because that goes against everything Good Omens is about. The Metatron is at the top of heaven's hierarchy and only subservient to God (assuming She is actually still involved), he can have bad intentions and universe-destroying plans as an angel, the whole point is that the angel/demon dichotomy is an ideological fantasy.
Why did the Metatron himself choose that outfit though? One would assume that he would have the most pristine white clothes possible, but every single time we have seen him so far, he has been a floating head without a body.
So before he came to earth, he actively made a decision to dress the way he did. We also know that he did his research on Aziraphale and Crowley, hence his knowing that Aziraphale consumes human food and getting that coffee. The entire situation was the Metatron creating the most beneficial set-up for his plan—to convince Aziraphale to come back to heaven with him.
He knows Aziraphale likes food, but what else does he like?
Crowley.
The person we see wearing exclusively black and dark colours.
Give Aziraphale a coffee, make his subconscious associate the Metatron with Crowley based on his clothes, sweet-talk him and lie to get him attached, and then offer him everything he could have ever wanted—heaven, the ability to change heaven, and Crowley and him being angels together.
Just like his off-hand mention about consuming food, the black suit is also meant to make him seem 'other', someone who—just like Aziraphale—doesn't really fit in with all the other angels. Aziraphale sees all of that, and the conclusion he comes to is the following:
The Metatron, the Guy In Charge is like me! He understands me, and we're both different, but he still wants me to be the Supreme Archangel. It IS possible to break some rules and still be a Good Angel, I was worried for nothing, everything is fine, and he will even revise the mistake of Crowley's fall.
Consequently, Aziraphale accepted the offer and didn't even think further than his own moral qualms finally being resolved, which is exactly what the Metatron wanted.
I think he vastly underestimated their relationship though—Aziraphale almost changes his mind—but overall it was a complete, clean success for him.
For my part, I am incredibly curious if he will keep the black suit in season three, turn back into a head, or change into white/lighter clothes. Now that he has Aziraphale where he wants him, he can dial down the persuasion and manipulation techniques.
#alex talks good omens#good omens#crowley#aziraphale#good omens season 2#go2#aziracrow#crowley x aziraphale#ineffable husbands#ineffable wives#ineffable spouses#ineffable divorce#the final fifteen#good omens meta#alex's unhinged meta corner
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'...You’ve featured in the television adaptations of both Good Omens and The Sandman, so you’re a familiar face for many fans of Neil Gaiman! Did you feel that sense of familiarity when approaching The Sandman, or did the differing tones of both stories and the contrasting roles you were given mean that your experience working on each of them was very different?
“I had no idea when I was cast as Harriet Dowling in Good Omens that I would have the privilege of inhabiting yet another of Neil Gaiman’s incredible worlds years later. Neil is one of the most exciting, courageous, and brilliant minds of our time, and I always feel so exhilarated stepping onto one of his sets. Good Omens and The Sandman are very distinct tonally, as were my roles, which contributed to the experiences feeling very different to each other. It’s quite a thrill being able to play characters that are so contrasting. I mean, can you imagine Harriet Dowling having coffee with The Good Doctor?”
Is it challenging to take on such iconic stories which are already loved by a huge fanbase? How do you approach that, and what has it been like for you to see the fan reception to the adaptations of The Sandman and Good Omens?
“There’s definitely a pressure to do justice to the extraordinary source material that is so beloved by fans the world over. Luckily, I was in very safe hands with the creative team and my fellow cast. My process involves doing as much research and preparation as I possibly can, and then trusting that enough to throw it all away and, as Sanford Meisner famously said, “live truthfully under imaginary circumstances.” Seeing the fan response to both Good Omens and The Sandman has meant so much. In my opinion, these fandoms are as good as it gets – the epitome of creative and kind humans.”
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gene im so glad you said this cause I haven't seen anyone else comparing it to the book as source material for like character and tone but i am So sure that if terry was alive the season would not be like this but i fear good omens fans dont realise how big a factor the lack of terry's influence is?? or like they forget that good omens was never just neilman???
ok before i go any further: i rly don't want to detract from anyone's enjoyment of the season and everything im going to say comes from a place of love for a) the original novel (& season 1 to a certain extent bc it got me back into it lol) and b) tv as a medium so like peace and love on planet let people enjoy things etc etc
but
like u said, terry's influence on the book was enormous – what makes gomens gomens is the balance of his genuine warmth and precise understanding of humanity tempered with neilman's sardonic voice and general like.....savvy approach to storytelling? i guess u could call it? anyway what rly helps the book is that it took them years to write it, passing ideas back and forth and rewriting each other's work until their voices blended seamlessly and a well structured capital-s Story was created. when i praise the book for being self-contained i think a huge part of that comes from the circumstances in which it emerged: two authors with complementary styles writing in a v particular time period where they had both the space to play with their ideas and the constraints of the novel as a storytelling format from which to craft something extremely specific.
adaptations are a tricky business and a tv version of gomens produced literal decades after the book was always going to have some unique challenges, but i don't think that's a bad thing bc the challenges could prove to be creative opportunities to take both the established audience and those new to the story by surprise. my biggest hot take here is that i don't think translating a story into a different medium means it has to follow the original narrative exactly, bc each medium has its own ways of communicating information and these structures, rules and traditions in turn inform what that story is. what matters more than following a story beat-by-beat is capturing what that story is about at its core, what themes and messages and ideas it works through and how.
all this is to say i never expected tv gomens to be a perfect reproduction of the book and if it had it been, it probably would have been worse off for it. that being said, there are parts of the book – like u said, its tone and character – that needed to have some fidelity in order to pull it off, and for the most part s1 did that bc it was still working predominantly within the bounds of the novel & its core ideas. while i did have some issues w how neilman & amazon adapted some details and characterisations, i generally rly liked s1 – it reminded me of why i loved the book and it was just generally fun to watch.
s2 was. not that fun to watch
a few positives before i go ham w the critiques:
the hair & makeup + costumes were fantastic (although i feel like s1 was slightly better re: makeup?)
the sound design & score made some of the more awkward scenes bearable and thats no mean feat imo
david & michael gave incredible performances w what they were given – michael especially managed to salvage aziraphale enough that his complete 180 didnt feel completely tonally dissonant (more on this later)
the detail of the sets is NUTS and i genuinely want to see more of hell bc of how intricate and fun the props look
i actually like gabriel/beelzebub!! their getting together montage worked for me, although they could have spent sliiiightly more time establishing what it is they like abt each other so much + why gabriel wanted to stop armageddon 2.0 so suddenly
the opening scene, although not on par w the novel's & s1's, was visually gorgeous and thematically resonant (although neilman owes me royalties for ripping it off from this shitty fic i wrote back when raphael!crowley was all the rage lol)
now w THAT being said:
like i said yesterday, the pacing was fucking awful. flashbacks are hard to work w at the best of times and the way they were used in this season felt so needless, especially the 40s one in ep 4 that takes up like 90% of the episode. in both flashbacks + present day there were scenes that dragged for no real reason, dialogue that looped back around on itself to stretch out the runtime, and weirdly enough places where there should have been character & plot work where there just,, wasn't any?? for example, maggie & nina's night locked in the café – some parts of the dialogue in later episodes made out that they'd had some rly deep conversation abt how they feel about each other or even that they'd had an affair, but that isn't clear from those scenes in the café. i'm not saying we had to see that conversation in its entirety but that there needed to be more connective details – either in dialogue or direction – that gave that part of the story coherence.
(there were pacing issues w the editing too but i don't want to jump down the editor's throats on this one bc im more focused on writing & direction issues)
the second major problem that i mentioned in my tags yesterday is the protagonist shift, which is an issue that started in s1. aziraphale & crowley are side characters in book gomens – significant ones, yeah, but still somewhat peripheral to adam (& anathema who counts as a deuteragonist imo). this works incredibly well w who they are as characters: they're Just Some Guys who happen to be involved in this epic biblical-level bureaucratic nightmare and importantly, they don't want to be in the spotlight. the arrangement was created so that they could explore what it meant to be themselves away from the Big Narrative; literally any time they get involved in larger affairs is bc the plot is alive and caught them unionising on company time. the last fucking chapter is adam (& god) being like haha u guys are alright keep it sleezy and letting them go. like. hello. neil u let them go.
but then!! tv gomens s1 does something interesting at the end w the body swapping addition that i dont totally hate – it gives aziraphale & crowley the extra bit of character work that brings them slightly more adjacent to their book selves. see i kinda view tv a/c as the younger, less settled versions of book a/c; they're still caught up in the immediacy of being key players and haven't fully realised that earth is their home. i haven't watched s1 in a while but one scene i remember rly clearly is crowley throwing all those astronomy texts in the air and angsting abt when he was an angel; i remember it bc his anguish in that scene feels a lot newer and rawer than book crowley's feelings about falling. when tv a/c do their bodyswap, it gives them the chance to land a blow against heaven/hell in a way that solidifies their allegiance to earth in a way that more closely resembles what book a/c have been abt the entire time (still adjacent, though. not parallel).
the reason why this works is that it does one final pivot to orient aziraphale and crowley as almost-main characters in a manner that makes sense in relation to a) their book selves and b) the position the tv show has placed them in. a combination of factors made tv a/c feel a lot less mature than their book counterparts but at the end of s1 they're sort of facing the same direction the book ended in, albeit through their own flashy late 2010s means.
when s2 was announced i was.......apprehensive bc to me, that felt like a satisfactory ending. i get the impression that amazon saw how wildly successful the adaptation was and was like oh shit we could make way more money out of this and neilman, having all those undead darlings that he and terry killed in the process of whittling the book into a workable novel, jumped at the chance to resurrect all those half-realised ideas. but not only were those ideas probably discarded for a reason, they've either been laying in wait for years unworked or they're new inventions, which means they weren't molded in the way that the book had been. like i said before, book gomens underwent years of rewrites and creative collaboration, and i think that process was what made it so good; s2 didn't have that. even if some of terry's ideas made it into s2, his influence is still missing bc he and neilman weren't in dialogue the same way they were in the book (and in some ways s1 bc i know terry was involved in the process of adapting gomens to screen before his death).
i don't think it's a case of newer fans forgetting terry so much as it is the context of terry's involvement being so removed from the current circumstances that certain aspects & discourses (i.e. is the s2 finale queerbaiting (no), does binge watching change the viewership experience (yes), etc etc) about the show overshadow other discussions that would usually be taking place. and before anyone says it's a case of neilman forgetting terry, i definitely don't think it's that either bc thats. yknow. wildly disrespectful. but also there are larger systems and structures at play than one writer no matter how much beef i have w him and his decisions, bc ultimately he's just one guy (a powerful and wealthy guy, but just a guy) and there's a wider cultural shift happening rn towards rehashing old stories without understanding what made them successful in the first place, and that same culture just doesn't allow for much, if any, constructive discourse analysis
so yeah
#replies.txt#Anonymous#god this is so long and rambling i hope it makes sense lmaooo#i have further thoughts on the general fic-y feeling of the season but that wasnt rly anon's question so i'll save that for another time#good omens#good omens spoilers
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Let's Talk Laudanum - a GO meta
Hey all - I'm gonna preface this one with a tw/cw for opioids, death, suicide, and substance abuse ok? It shouldn't be too heavy (just canon typical), but I don't want anyone surprised.
Ok! I've been watching some of the Good Omens s2 behind the scenes specials, and in the "Grave Danger" clip it mentions that Laudanum is "...a very intense kind of alcohol, or like ethanol, that would kill somebody…" which is not actually true. In the show itself we see the bottle:
Which confirms that laudanum is a combo of Opium (45 and 1/2 grains per ounce) and Alcohol (40%).
It also says Poison and CMOT Dibbler... The poison angle (is it poison? well yes... if you take enough) has been covered in another post by @queerfables who talked about the make up of laudanum as well. CMOT Dibbler is a great nod to Sir Terry of course :)
What do I want to add? That yes, laudanum is in fact an opioid, and was actually an incredibly popular and over-used drug in the 18th and 19th centuries, both in real life and maybe more importantly in novels of the time. Proceed under the cut!
In my non-duck life I work in a field with some familiarity with opioids, so I also want to add that while yes, opioids can make you loopy, they are ultimately a soporific (meaning a sleep aid, a downer, a relaxant), a pain reducer, cough suppressant, and a respiratory depressant. That last bit is why they can be deadly in the case of an overdose.
So let's get back to laudanum. Yes, it was used post-surgically, but quite often would also be prescribed to (predominantly) women with various aches or pains that their doctors couldn't (or wouldn't bother) investigating. Subsequently women would become addicted to the opioid, needing more and more to achieve the desired effect, leading to eventual death or any of the other mental, emotional, or socioeconomic ills of addition.
Given the above and the era's fascination with the "sexiness" of wasting diseases such as consumption (hmmm, cough plus pain, perfect for treatment with laudanum!) laudanum was also a little bit of a romantic drug. It was also popular in novels of the era such as those in the Gothic Romance genre. (A quick peek at Wikipedia turns up lots of examples... though I'm sure a literature expert of the era would have lots more to add.)
All of which to say! The Resurrectionists as a minisode is channeling some pure Gothic Romance (think Mary Shelley's Frankenstein - pub 1818, etc) so laudanum is the PERFECT poison for Elspeth to pick. It dulls pain and at sufficient doses suppresses the respiratory system to the point of death. Without the modern miracle of Narcan or naloxone, death is all but assured. Of course, then, enter Crowley.
You know what laudanum doesn't do? Give you an Alice in Wonderland experience and make you specifically shouty about people not killing themselves. Now, this could be how opioids affect demons (it's possible), or the more entertaining option is that Crowley has no clue what laudanum is or isn't supposed to do, saw the poison and alcohol label, and decided to have a bit of fun while doing some deniable (the laudanum made me do it! honest!) good. It's also handy that he doesn't need to do mundane human things like breathing. So he gets to sing about Scotland, save the human, and get hugged by Aziraphale - pretty good day... until he gets Lightning Sanded to Hell.
I'll just add here that the laudanum plot line works well if we are taking the minisodes at face value... OR if we are reading them as Aziraphale's version of events of the past, especially with the literary aspect.
Bonus: If you've made it this far, maybe you'll come along with me on a little cross-fandom jaunt.
I'm also a massive fan of the Aubrey/Maturin series - Patrick O'Brian's books set in the early 1800s and starring Captain Jack Aubrey and Doctor Stephen Maturin. If you've read the series or even watched the Master and Commander movie you may know... those two characters have their own odd couple thing going on and quite a collection on AO3 :) . Anyhow. In the books Stephen is hooked on laudanum for a good while, mostly to dull the pain of a love that cannot be acted on. That's actually what got me started thinking about this post since there are certainly some parallels there.
Thanks for sticking with me on this ramble!
#good omens meta#the resurrectionists#laudanum#tw opioids#tw substance abuse#tw death#1827#good omens s2#good omens 2#the resurrectionists minisode#a duck talks#gos2#good omens#aziraphale#crowley#tw suicide
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I'm genuinely curious why a Lucifer!Crowley fan theory drove you up the wall? I mostly want him to be a nobody just bc I'm tired of "oOoOh the nobody is actually Somebody!!" twists, but I saw a meta yesterday that had me at least considering Crowley might be Lucifer 🤔😆
That particular theory drove me up the wall because it proliferated despite both Word of God evidence AND in-story evidence that was flat out against it. I’m all for fun headcanons but I’m just enough of a pedant that it sets my teeth on edge when a headcanon is contradicted by both the text AND the author.
- Neil flat out said that Lucifer and Satan are not separate people in the Good Omens universe. So the theory was already dead before he killed it again with this new ask.
- Crowley refers to Lucifer as a separate person. He’s not referring to himself or as being one of the “guys”, in context he’s clearly talking about a separate group and it’s needless conspiracy mongering to try to twist those words. The context was incredibly clear and it required willful blindness or perhaps unfamiliarity with English as a native language and its accompany tone to think Crowley was including himself in the group or referring to another person calling HIM Lucifer. He was clearly saying Lucifer is over THERE with the guys and I’m walking by them and then joining their table because I’m bored. Ergo he’s not Lucifer.
- Satan is a character in Good Omens! He was Adam’s father! He appeared on screen! He was voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch! I’d understand the theory if we never saw Satan or Satan’s identity and whereabouts were a mystery but they’re NOT. Crowley is not Satan! We’d know if he was Satan! We saw Satan! It was a whole big thing, the climax of Season 1! I get it if most GO fans care more about Crowley than Adam but it definitely happened in the text and on screen!
- And since Satan and Lucifer are THE SAME PERSON as is the case in the MOST popular perceptions of Satan and Lucifer if you don’t delve into truly obscure angelic and religious apocrypha, that means he’s a separate character from Crowley!
Like I get it, it’s a fun theory and a great premise for a fanfic that’s focused on Crowley but my god, this theory COULD NOT be more contradicted in the text in every which way. The conspiracy mongering to make it work is truly mind boggling. I promise you in no religious comedy intended for a broad audience is ANY author going to make Lucifer and Satan separate characters in a story based on Christian mythology with an assumption that readers will expect it. That is something you clearly lay out in the story if it’s true and people should be theory mongering around it, the fact that Pratchett and Gaiman didn’t is because it’s not true and because 99% of laymen ie, their audience, thinks of Satan and Lucifer as the same entity. It would be BAFFLING for most audiences not steeped in obscure Christian religious apocrypha to make them separate and if you did it would be clearly stated at SOME POINT, ANY POINT, IN THE TEXT.
For fuck’s sake, Crowley isn’t Lucifer! And I’m glad Neil murdered this theory dead!
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How in the fuck are you going to be anti trans and a Good Omens fan as if both the book and the show don’t explicitly establish the existence of several nonbinary characters and both Aziraphale and Crowley themselves are genderless beings
Not to mention both David and Michael’s staunch support of the LGBT (really emphasizing the T here, since you love to drop it) community as a whole, and David literally has a trans child
Part of me is even asking this in good faith because how do you see a series that is so incredibly queer and like it considering how much you shit-talk trans people on your lackluster TERF blog
There’s many reasons, actually! I’ll explain them in good faith, because I think that people who ask questions like this don’t understand the perspective of so-called “terfs” and assume we think like you do.
Firstly, I’m a feminist, so I’m used to media not aligning with my politics. I expect it, actually. Down to very simple things, like knowing I’m never going to go into a show and see a woman just existing with body hair like men do in shows all the time. But I’m comfortable and confident enough in my beliefs that I can consume media that doesn’t align with them. This extends to my feelings regarding gender. A they/them character doesn’t make my head explode, it’s just the same for me as seeing a Christian character (like Ella from Netlix’s Lucifer) or a female character who’s pro-beauty culture (like Elinor from First Kill). It’s a representation of a belief I don’t agree with and personally don’t believe in, that’s all.
Secondly, Good Omens is set in a made up universe with fantasy themes. I can easily get behind the idea that the true forms of angels and demons are genderless, because that makes sense to me in the same way God being genderless makes sense to me. This doesn’t have to carry over to me believing that humans can be genderless (I don’t believe in the concept of internal gender identity, because I don’t believe in souls. So I guess the better way to put this is that I don’t believe humans can be sexless unless we’re using gender and sex as synonyms). In the same way that it makes sense to me that angels and demons have souls that are put into bodies issued to them…but I don’t have to believe that also applies to humans. Or how it makes sense to me that Aziraphale and Crowley could survive without food, water, and sleep…but I don’t have to believe that also applies to humans. Etc. etc.
Basically, just because something is in a fantasy show, doesn’t mean I have to believe it’s real.
Thirdly, what the actors do in their own lives is none of my business. I don’t agree with supporting the TQ+ especially in relation to LGB (considering they’ve made it a primary goal to harass lesbians into pretending we can like penis, and to take every chance they get to express their hatred for homosexuality. I love to drop the T because they dropped me and my fellow homosexuals years ago). If two straight male actors want to do that, whatever. I also don’t agree with Sheen having a baby with a woman his daughter’s age, but that hasn’t stopped me from watching the show or appreciating his talent.
This all takes me back to what I said about believing you don’t truly understand the perspective of those you call “terfs”. Just because you might not be able to comprehend watching and enjoying something that doesn’t perfectly align with your worldview, doesn’t mean others feel the same. For example, many radical and rad-leaning feminists enjoyed the Barbie movie, despite it not being radical feminist. We’re capable of watching and enjoying things we don’t agree with, and of having discussions about why we don’t agree with it.
A much simpler answer to your question would be: I’ve always loved angels and demons and all things supernatural. I’ve always loved old cars. I love Queen. Religious/moral commentary and critique interest me. I love lighthearted comedies. I’m gay and starved for representation of healthy gay relationships. I love gay star-crossed lovers stories (go watch First Kill). Naturally, I’m going to love Good Omens, even if it doesn’t perfectly align with my worldview.
#asks#anon#it’s not even just the stuff regarding gender I don’t agree with!#I have a HUGE issue with the existence of Ms Sandwich and her ‘stable’ of ‘girls’#brothels are insanely inhumane and a breeding ground for human trafficking. And women are human—not property to sell#tbh I take bigger issue with that aspect than any of the gender stuff#there’s also the whole thing with God being a woman/having the voice of a woman…#…despite there being no attempt at reimagining what the world would be like had it been made by a female god instead of a male one#(example: maybe Adam would’ve come from Eve’s rib. Maybe Adam would’ve been responsible for the Original Sin)#instead Neil keeps all the patriarchal religion stuff in and pats himself on the back for casting a woman as God#what I’m trying to say is that yeah. I have disagreements with the show. so what.#it’s still a good show even if it’s not a radical feminist/rad-leaning show
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Books! The ongoing project I've had half-finished since March continues to thwart me, so I want to show off a project from May that turned out incredibly well. I'm extremely proud of these!
Ta-da! Look at my creations! Are they not beautiful?? This is a set of two related works, From the Deep and Into the Deep. They are by the same author, @worse0mens, and they share a lot of worldbuilding but are not a series and can be read independently. They are siren AUs with very solid characterization, both for everyone's favorite main characters (three guesses who I mean; this is a Good Omens work) and for the secondaries as well (Eve in Into the Deep is a particular favorite for me). The worldbuilding is another star; I would read non-fanwork originals in this universe and that's not something I usually say.
More photos and process talk under the cut! I had to make a lot of adjustments to the design while it was a work in progress, so this post got even longer than usual.
Since these are so closely related even without being a series I really wanted to make them look like a set, and I honestly think I nailed that. I found the pale blue scale-patterned paper on ChibiJay before I even started the typeset and knew it would be perfect if I could match it in black, given that those colors are so heavily associated with our two viewpoint characters. The original plan was to have one in all blue and one in all black, but that blue paper was kind of a nightmare for color-matching. It clashed horribly with the blue book cloth, so I switched that to the black book, and then it also clashed with the black cloth I had chosen. So it got charcoal in the end, and it ended up coming together quite well. The titles are HTV, first time using that on cloth, and that also did not go well. It very much did not want to stick, took more than twice as long as it should have to press, and I still ended up with some wrinkling. Further experiments are needed, I think. It was worth it in the end, though--colors and fonts are perfect, and I like the vertical orientation even more than I thought I would.
Endpapers are solid brown on both books. Another nightmare of color matching. Black is easy! Everything looks good! But that blue was really stubborn about what I could match it to, and this was the only paper that I could find that looked good with both. It's ludicrously thick and was hard to trim even with my plow. Endbands and bookmark are solid black and solid blue respectively, the only easy match in the entire project. Even then, I had originally wanted a gold bookmark on both, to match the gold lines on the covers, but I couldn't find one that was thin enough. Everything in the right colors was wider than the spines. I was very glad to find that blue ribbon, and it was an exact match for some endbands I got ages ago as part of a variety pack. Stroke of luck, there.
Interiors. As I said above, I wanted them to look like a set, so the same fonts, sizing, and text ornaments are used throughout both copies. All the images came from rawpixel, all I did was resize them and I think adjust the color. I was originally planning a much simpler look for these, and the typeset reflects that sort of stripped-down look; there are fewer text ornaments than I normally use, and the title fonts are less curly and ornate than my usual. The plain endpapers were also chosen with that thought in mind, but the covers turned out way more ornate than I thought when I first pictured them in my head. I don't think the insides match the outsides terribly well, but both came out so nicely that I don't mind. I could never regret those covers, they are too gorgeous for that.
Top view on both books. I had some issues with the boards warping on this project, which you can see in the first two pictures. The one on the left is how it looks normally, and you can see that the boards curve away from the text block in the middle, leaving a gap. If you squeeze the book (middle image) this gap goes away. It's present in both books, though more visible on the blue one. I think I made an error with the grain direction, possibly in the endpapers. Or the very heavy endpapers just have more pull to them than the much lighter chiyogami on the outside, and it can't compensate. Hopefully it won't lead to any structural issues further down the line. It's just less than ideal, is all.
I've toyed with the idea of making a slipcase for these. They're already a set, but they could be a BOXED set. Very fancy. I've never done boxes before though, so I'm a bit intimidated. I may revisit them someday to do that.
#bookbinding#fanbinding#snek makes books#good omens#fic rec#i am so in love with these omg#they look like if i found them in a bookstore they would be out of my budget#but they're NOT because I MADE THEM#to one degree or another i feel that about all the books i make#it just surfaces more easily sometimes#and now is one of those times#that's a me thing though#if i bound your fic in the past i felt that way about it too#it is just not always easy to say
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…thinkin’ about this post and just the idea of like it’s like a gig at Eats & Beats and they’ve played a couple songs and absolutely slay it (as they do) and Julie says into the mic “time for a bit of a different set up” and it’s Luke like front and center on the mic this time and he plays like, Look Weekend and Crooked Teeth how he envisioned them to and it’s such a feeling and it’s really thrilling for him like getting to do his songs that he wrote, how he intended them to be done.
People in the crowd I guess would then be like “…hey wait a second that sounds kind of familiar” the lyrics and everything would be pretty similar to the songs that the general public knows as Trevor Wilson’s but yet they have a much different vibe that those to what they just heard.
Idk I guess I just picture like conspiracy theories going on in their fanbase of like “Hold on 👁️👁️ we’ve done research and turns out Julie’s guitarist looks like a missing person back in 1995, was in the band Sunset Curve and was also a guitarist, but then died by food poisoning. The drummer from that band and bass player look incredibly similar to Julie bass and drummer too who both also died the same night Like died.” I just feel like there’s be such a divide of people being like “idk what to make of that” or “wow she got holograms of those guys that look so life like” or “hey maybe the phantoms in the band name has some truth to it 👀”
…also bonus points that this is how Julie finds out the how of how the boys died. “Food poisoning?” Reggie just gives a nod like “they had such good street dogs too” and Alex laments like “Probably was a bad omen that I got pickle juice on his jumper cables” and Julie is just so confused and questions his statement and they all just nod remembering back and Luke adds “they had the best street dogs you could serve in the back of a car trunk” and Julie just looks at them and repeats back “you guys ate hot dogs out of the back of a car” and they just all nod and see nothing wrong with what she said and she sighs and is like “…looking back… do you wonder why you guys got food poisoning?” And they take a second to collective think on it and then Luke goes “…well when you put it that way”
#jatp#julie and the phantoms#jatp netflix#luke patterson#jatp luke#julie molina#luke jatp#alex mercer#reggie peters
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David about playing Crowley
Crowley is just a fantastic character in an extraordinary, mind-bending story. There’s nothing else really like that out there. It’s incredibly ambitious. It needs enormous resources, time and care, and as that’s all available then it’s something I want to be part of. This particular world, that Neil and Terry created is so unique and fantastical, and yet so recognisable. It’s the very domesticity of these supernatural beings that makes them so appealing to play.
They complete one another. They are the perfect yin and yang. Over thousands of years on Earth, they’ve slightly dabbled in each other’s territory, and they’ve been diluted by the world of men. So, Crowley has drawn Aziraphale into the odd temptation and yet Crowley isn’t nearly as bad as he might be.
In very strict terms it means they’ve been cut off by their head offices. They’re no longer towing the party line. Therefore, they are on their own. They have no higher power to appeal to, no authority to get them out of trouble, because they’ve gone too far against what is expected and prescribed. That’s what ‘our side’ means. I suppose they’ve found this way of being through the centuries where they’ve helped each other out a bit. They’ve come to realise that if one is going to cancel out the other’s deeds then what is the point? I suppose the argument is that there’s an equilibrium there to keep the world going round, and that you need a bit of both.
I think if Terry and Neil have a philosophy here it’s that extremism of any kind is unpalatable.
It’s where we create characters we grow to love. It’s like we love the Maverick cop who gets things done by not going against the rules but teasing them slightly. Their superintendent is usually the grumpy, by-the-book character we’re not encouraged to find appealing. I think as human beings it’s inevitable that we’re melting-pot shades of grey. The supposed extremities of Heaven and Hell just seem a bit implausible.
It’s hard to unpick how you end up doing something. You read the script and register it, and then it filters through your subconscious, and finally something comes out the other end. Sometimes you get confused about what’s instinct and what’s calculation. It’s not always easy to specify how things emerge. You almost don’t want to go too deeply into it.
Either it feels right or it doesn’t, and that’s a combination of many things: your initial reaction to the script, the conversations you then have with those creating it… and that includes people from all sides of the production. They might come with ideas that never occurred to you. That sets off a chain of events, and something can end up miles away from where it started.
Neil’s presence is essential in terms of knowing we’re being true to what’s been written, and yet he’s gracious enough to appreciate that you might find something truer but not necessarily following it. I admit, I was nervous, that a writer of his status would have every right to tell us how to do it. Instead, because he’s so creative and inspired by the world around him, Neil is interested in this being something we’re making together. It’s been incredibly inspiring.
Every couple of days, there’s been some new extraordinary place or circumstance or special effect to work with. So, I feel like we’re re creating something that I believe in. Even if people don’t see what they’re necessarily expecting I trust they will be caught up in the world we’re creating I might not be exactly the same as what they imagine, but it will be equally pleasing. The challenge is being clever, creative and mischievous enough for the material. And we do have the boss here. We’ve been endorsed by the authors, so can’t go too far wrong.
Good Omens TV Companion
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✨This post is from a belly kink blog. If that’s not your thing please keep scrolling.✨
I was having Good Omens thoughts inspired by the ox scene. So I turned to ao3 and was not disappointed. Among other good stuff there was this fic.
And now I’m obsessed with the idea of Crowley turning into a snake and cuddling Aziraphale’s overfull belly. So…
Aziraphale leaned back in his seat, hands roaming his distended belly. He had unbuttoned his waistcoat some time ago and had miracled his shirt to stretch. But even with the addition of supernatural elasticity, it was pulling tight across his middle.
“Oh my.” Aziraphale’s voice was breathy, with a hint of the groan he was holding back. His stomach gave an unpleasant gurgle and he hiccuped. “Excuse me. I do believe I’ve eaten a bit too much.” Fortunately he knew just what would help him feel better.
Aziraphale looked up at where Crowley was sitting nearby, wine glass dangling from his long fingers and a laconic smile on his lips. Crowley’s sunglasses had been set aside hours ago and his yellow eyes were fixed on Aziraphale’s belly.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, drawing the demon’s attention up to his face, “would you do the thing?”
Crowley’s smile widened. “What thing, angel?”
Oh, he was playing dumb? Well, Aziraphale knew how to handle that too. He put on his sweetest pout and arched his back a little, pushing his rounded belly out. “You know,” he said with just a hint of a whine in his voice. “Help my tummy. It’s your fault I’m so very full.”
“My fault, eh?” Crowley stood, all serpentine grace, and sauntered over to join Aziraphale on the sofa.
“Yes,” Aziraphale pouted. “You tempted me.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that, angel.” Crowley placed his hand on Aziraphale’s swollen belly. “I think mossst of thisss was all you.”
Aziraphale managed to keep his smirk internal: the sibilance in Crowley’s voice indicated that he was about to get what he wanted.
Crowley began rubbing Aziraphale’s belly and it felt absolutely lovely.
“You’re ssssssso warm,” Crowley breathed.
Aziraphale luxuriated in the feeling of Crowley’s hands soothing the tightness and grumbling of his stomach for a few minutes, then ran his hand up Crowley’s arm.
“Wouldn’t you like to get closer, dear?” he asked quietly.
“Yesssss.” Crowley was already morphing: skin darkening to black scales, arms and legs disappearing into his sides. Aziraphale quickly unbuttoned and opened his shirt, baring the taut skin.
And then a three-foot-long python was slithering up his side and onto his belly. The snake’s cool body encircled the rounded mass, and his movement and weight worked as an incredibly effective belly rub.
Aziraphale belched and excused himself, then let his head fall back as he enjoyed the feeling of Crowley on his belly. The massage of Crowley’s movements, the weight of the enormous amount of food inside him, the wine he had consumed (not nearly as much as Crowley, he’d been too busy eating, but it was having an effect all the same), all combined to lull him into a stupor. He belched again, and the tightness in his belly was noticeably reduced. Aziraphale groaned in pleasure and relief. “Thank you, my dear boy,” he mumbled sleepily.
The snake stilled, but remained curled on his belly and Aziraphale stroked the smooth scales of his head for a few minutes before reaching over to pull a throw blanket over them both. He encircled Crowley in his arms and fell asleep.
#good omens#aziracrow#belly kink#belly rubs#sort of#snake variety#snake crowley#aziraphale#crowley#stuffing#kerwyn's writing#might add to this and put it on ao3
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Good Omens Brainrot has set in so I’m purging some Thoughts™
I think the core of it is Crowley and Aziraphale love each other complexly and uniquely.
For Crowley he would literally put himself physically on the line (and has many times) for Aziraphale, love is to die protecting the one you love. He would sacrifice himself in a heartbeat to keep him safe.
Crowley has come to the realisation that Aziraphale is so very special, there’s no one like him and he’s the only one who sees the questioning in Crowley’s nature and doesn’t immediately dismiss him (or punish him) for it. Crowley wants to be seen and be loved for himself, but he has deep issues with trust, trauma from heaven and the fear he might drive Aziraphale away with how he is not good enough for him (in his mind). Crowley is even scandalised at the thought he would treat Aziraphale as a flippant liaison when Nina mentions it ‘he deserves better than that’ is the thought.
We often see Aziraphale subtly prod Crowley to reveal his true (often good) intentions especially towards humans (he seems big and scary on the outside but deeply cares for humans as much as Aziraphale).
Love for Aziraphale is something that is natural for him and broadly reaching (his love for heaven, his love for humans, his love for god, his love for Crowley) but he struggles with the balance of his love in conflict: how can he love God and heaven but also defy them ? How can he love Crowley but also acknowledge and see him as the demon he is. How can he reconcile the Crowley he knew as an Angel and the punishment he received from his god and heaven that he loves?
So we can see that love for Aziraphale is a struggle - a dichotomy of perception and reality - he loves the perceived reality of heaven and the surrounding angels as agents of god enacting good - but that clashes with the reality of heavens will to create the apocalypse on earth causing great potential pain and suffering to humans that he loves (gods creations that she commanded the angels to love more than her - hence lucifer’s fall).
He KNOWS Crowley is good and kind and capable of love, but he wants justice for him and for the balance to be restored (Crowley gaining back his place in heaven that was unfairly taken). However Crowley perceives this as him being ‘not enough’ as he is, and that for Aziraphale to love him he must change to fit the standards of heaven.
Wrapped up in all this is also the concept of love and shame. Breaking through the propaganda and brainwashing of heaven to see that reality isn’t as binary, isn’t as black and white and that shades of grey can exist and thrive, is incredibly difficult. There’s the shame of sin, of disobedience, of consorting with ‘the enemy’ but deeper down it’s also the fear of what his light/ attention being brought to Crowley will mean for his safety.
It seems Aziraphale is still trying to unlearn fully his idealised conceptions of what heaven can be and what it’s role is, vs Crowley has decided the whole system is fucked and it’s time they made their own morals and choices.
So many of the mini past escapades have this lesson, that while morality may seem easy and just initially to do the ‘right’ thing as it’s perceived by the will and rules of heaven, reality is complex and there’s no way to blanket apply to every situation nor is that just or moral, in fact it often hurts more people in the process.
So we have two idiots both desperately trying to love and save each other, while trying to unlearn eons of conditioning, shame and self loathing (let’s not forget that love of self immolation pervasive in Christian narrative where the ultimate act of love is shown to be dying for others, martyrism is a dangerous precedent )
Crowley goes too fast so he made it to the realisation quicker - he’s always been one to question the party line - that they don’t need ‘sides’ they only need their ‘us’.
Aziraphale wants to give Crowley heaven (he doesn’t want it) but Crowley just wants them to be an ‘us’, being together as they are is already heaven to him.
#good omens#gomens#aziraphel#aziracrow#ineffable husbands#ineffable idiots#good omens meta#crowly x aziraphale#crowley#good omens season 2#good omens 2#Spotify
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Hello, Becca! I hope you're doing well! Bit of a random question perhaps but since you are a woman of great tastes, I am curious: What are your top 10 favorite shows?? Feel free to add what you like most about them! Thanks for indulging me and keep being amazing <3
hello phoe! hope you're well too<3 i'll be honest, whenever i get this kind of question my mind immediately goes blank and i forget any show i've ever watched, so this is by no means a 'definitive list' because there are definitely things i love that just slip my mind, but here are more shows i've really enjoyed this past year:
the witcher: for the women who take shit from no one and kick ass, but also for the found family vibes. the witcher will always have a special place in my heart, the characters are both fantastic on their own and interacting with each other, and this show will always feel like home to me
shadow and bone: just because i've giffed it a lot this week and it brought back all the feelings. comedy mixed with action, it was just an adventure and a joy. shadow and bone brings back the young adult fantasy nostalgia my brain craves, but injects a freshness of sarcastic comedy into it with the addition of the crows (my beloveds)
yellowjackets: rewired my brain chemistry. it was the biggest surprise of a show for me because i actually thought i really would not vibe with it as it's marketed towards horror and i am a scardy cat who does not vibe with anything horror. and yet, from the first episode it completely grabbed me. the wanting to know what happened next of course, but mostly just getting to see the intricate relationships between girls. there is nothing out there quite like yellowjackets, and for that reason it really is a special one
house of the dragon: divorced lesbians let's go! i love a show that's a tragedy. i love a show where i know the ending and it's inescapable. i love watching everything crumble whilst knowing there is no way out, and yet begging at every second for something to somehow change. just fantastic worldbuilding, fantastic characters, and fantastic relationships to watch burn. if you like angst and pain this one's for you!
our flag means death: i don't think anything exists quite like our flag means death. it's a breath of fresh air in the tv world. there's a character for everyone to love, whatever archetype you fall for. and it's guaranteed to be a rollercoaster of emotions: this show has made me laugh and cry but most importantly it never disappoints
the last of us: show of 2023 for me. i knew very little about the last of us game watching this, and for that reason i was hooked the second i started watching because i just had to know what happened. i still have to know what happens, the wait for 2024 may kill me. just a great action-packed show with the most beautiful acting in existence
good omens: good omens was just a little bit of light in my life this year. where a lot of shows in the currently tv world rely on heavy action sequences, or gore, or even sexual content, good omens challenges that perfectly. it's a light-hearted relief, even silly at times (in the best way possible), but also knows how to make you think and make you cry. i just adore how the plot is done, with a 'present day' storyline but also several stories that run in the past to see how the characters got to where they are now, it's a trope that i very much enjoy
bridgerton: i absolutely love a good period drama. i grew up watching many a jane austen adaptation with my mum, and so there is something incredibly comforting to me about adaptations set in this time. bridgerton is just a good vibe, i know it will make me feel warm and fuzzy inside no matter what drama it also serves on the side. plus kate and anthony? rewrote the definition of chemistry
the umbrella academy: honourable mention to my little superhero show of chaos. if you like superhero shows, watch the umbrella academy. if you don't like superhero shows, watch the umbrella academy. it's a chaotic mix of found family and time travel and trying to save the world and that makes it perfection
merlin: shoutout to this classic because i've been rewatching it lately and damn, they just don't make tv like they used to in the mid to late 2000s. at times it's cheesy, at times it makes you want to bawl your eyes out, and you know what? you'll never know which one it's going to be. it's absolutely ridiculous but entirely fun. once you accept that the bad cgi is hilarious you'll be guaranteed a wonderful show, just take your tissues with you for the sudden gut-punches of emotion it provides
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Good Omens s2 thoughts!
I was expecting it to be really fanservicey based on the reviews going woooo it's so fanservicey! But ... it only felt fanservicey in that the fans really wanted to see Aziraphale and Crowley interact more, and so we got more episodes and they're the main feature.
Crowley's angelic hair killed me, what on EARTH was that.
Muriel's so cute, oh my god, they're so cute I love them so much they should have been in so much more of the show.
Is it just me or is the sound mixing/leveling really bad? I feel like I missed a lot of lines all over the place.
MAGGIE AND NINA! They work as A/C parallels both ways, don't they? Like, obviously Maggie is the Sunshiney One and Nina is the Grumpy One, but Maggie's also the one who stands up to the demons, and Nina's abusive relationship isn't far from Aziraphale's with Heaven.
I did think that setting the magic show stuff right after the Blitz shenanigans undercut the Blitz shenanigans. Also felt like Elspeth accepted her gf's death and the selling of her body pretty fast. need to rewatch that one.
But I loved that Crowley addressed the fact that Gabriel told Aziraphale to shut up and die - you want to talk fanservice, that's fanservice.
LOVED THE BALL! The seamstress conversation ... (There was also "C.M.O.T. Dibbler" on the laudanum bottle in The Resurrection Men.)
More actual fanservice: Gabriel and Beelzebub alliance/romance. I do find it kind of funny that "Everyday" is their song ... I was imagining Aziraphale trying to take steps toward liking modern music for Crowley by listening to dorky 1950s pop (/affectionate).
VERY obvious A/C parallel though, yikes, like it treads over the line from "cute" to "gratuitous". But it could just be that I never got into Gabriel/Beelzebub during the interim. But like ... there's a LOT of character development necessary to make me believe that someone as shitty as s1 Gabriel could fall in love with anyone at all let alone an opponent, and we didn't really get any of it.
It's also a bit weird to follow the acceptance of this frankly bizarre relationship with Maggie and Nina, who make a lot more sense and have more of an arc together, giving the "you can't just push us together, we need time" speech?
Whyyyyy would Aziraphale still be on the "Heaven is good" train after like the entire point of the first season being that he learns that choosing to be their own side >>>>>> working for Heaven?
(I have already come around on this jsyk. I absolutely buy that his takeaway from Notmageddon was that God meant for him and Crowley and Adam et al. to stop it, and that the real problem was that Michael, Gabriel et al. wanted it for their own messy reasons.)
Oh man, Crowley hates trying to express how he feels and I love it.
fjdskljfkldsjfljsdkfjlksjflkdsjlkfjlkdsjflksdjfkjlksjflkdsjflkjskfjslkJAGFSJDLK
So on the one hand I'm like, "Good, an angsty ending, nothing like that to light a fire under a fandom and get them writing the most passionate fix-it fic"
On the other, what an INCREDIBLE bait-and-switch, showing us the kiss in the "queer liplock sizzle reel" and then having it be entirely one-sided and Aziraphale freaked out afterward. I am living. This is studio malfeasance at its finest and I am frankly delighted to have been fucked with.
Also lmao Metatron replacing Gabriel as the abusive boyfriend in all the AUs when?
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my main takeaways from good omens s2 & my own theories for s3
This is going to be long and slightly incoherent, but I've watched the second season of Good Omens several times now and need to put my thoughts out into the universe to make sense of them. Proceed if you wish for a lengthy take and some light reaching.
Season 2 of Good Omens has already been acknowledged by Neil Gaiman as an in-between, a sort of setup to get to where the story needs to be for the third and final season. As many people have already pointed out, there are multiple hanging threads left at the end of season 2 (some more obvious than others - see Book of Life). The season was described as "slow and romantic" before release, and I wholeheartedly agree with this assessment despite the whole demon invasion that occurs in the finale. Season two does an excellent job at weaving in new concepts and making some existing themes in the show more evident than they were in the first season. I will not explain these all in detail, but they will be important to my theory on how season three will tie everything together.
The whole goal of this season, in my view, was not to move the dial in terms of major world-saving events, but to develop the characters of Crowley and Aziraphale further, alongside their exceedingly complex relationship. They do just the correct amount of growing to wind up in their required positions by the end of the finale: Aziraphale, making one last attempt to save Heaven by accepting the position of Supreme Archangel from the Metatron, and Crowley, abandoned by his love and cast out from both Heaven and Hell. There is a parallel of incredible loneliness and rejection on both sides following Crowley's confession and Aziraphale's proposition in the last few minutes of the season. Their individual perspectives on dejection and doubts on the paths they've chosen will heavily influence the direction of season three along with, what I believe will be, an incredibly difficult reunion and regain of trust.
Let me start with Aziraphale, as the end of the season leaves him in a very interesting situation. The Metatron, a semi-omniscient(?) being who has been exposed by Crowley's experience in Heaven as potentially having a considerable investment in Armageddon, has offered Aziraphale the role of a (metaphorical) lifetime: Supreme Archangel. Aziraphale takes this offer after some considerable heartache, still believing that he can make worthwhile change from within the walls of Heaven. It is important to note that the Metatron is the sole being who can alter the Book of Life, a text which recounts all existence, and is heavily referred to in season 2.
Aziraphale has arrived in a Heaven which has had its entire status quo upended, and will take authority over the archangels who have already expressed discourse over their current hierarchy. I don't see any world in which Michael and Uriel let Aziraphale take rule without some difficulty. While I do believe that Aziraphale will be allowed to make initial changes (ones that won't threaten the great plan) due to his status with the Metatron, I do think his experiences with Crowley and within Humanity will cause him to question the plan, especially once the details of the Second Coming are revealed to him.
The Second Coming is an incredible setup for the main plotline of the final season, from a narrative perspective. We have already seen one foiled Armageddon, but this time the inclusion of the resurrection (after all of those hints from season 2; the Resurrectionist Pub, the revived Nazi zombies, etc.) is set to make the story very interesting on levels both Earthly and ethereal. I believe the Metatron will use this plan to hide the plans for rapture from Aziraphale, making Aziraphale put into action the very events which would destroy humanity. The Metatron has already put the chess pieces in place; he has Aziraphale's trust, as indicated by the odd scene in which he offers Aziraphale a coffee, and he has a very gullible angel left on Earth.
This moves me into my thoughts on Muriel. As a side character, Muriel is pure comic relief, and is easily overlooked as a device to reveal the truth about Gabriel's disappearance. Now, this may be a reach, but thanks to some cunning fans I have done my own dive into the accounts of the angel Muriel in original scriptures. There are accounts which identify Muriel as becoming Abbadon (or Abbaton), the angel of death. The sticking points of this recounting are that Abbadon oversees the Bottomless Pit, has been identified by some interpretations as the antichrist / Satan, and performs work of destruction while involved in the Last Judgement. I don't think it's a coincidence that Neil Gaiman included a character named Muriel, whose namesake is historically linked to the Second Coming. I believe Muriel was chosen by the Metatron specifically to stay on Earth as he knows that she(?) could be easily swayed to act in any future plans which would involve intervening with Humanity. While the Metatron can keep Muriel at an arm's length due to her dim-wittedness, he keeps Aziraphale close as a potential danger to the second attempt at Armageddon.
This will lead me into Crowley's part in season 3. We know by Shax's return to Hell that Crowley might be able to move back into his flat, which is where I believe we will find him at the beginning of the season. Crowley opened himself up to Aziraphale and, at his most vulnerable, was abandoned by the one person he thought he could trust. I expect a boatload of sadness and vice from his side of the story. In having his flat back, Crowley would be staying close to the bookshop, which was entrusted to Muriel upon Aziraphale's ascension. I don't necessarily see Crowley moving to try and get Aziraphale back on his own, nor do I see him involving himself in the affairs of Hell now that Shax is on top. In my opinion, it will take a significant plot event to make Crowley understand that something is very wrong, that the Second Coming will bring about the end, and that Aziraphale is indeed being used - placing him in direct danger. As upset as Crowley must be from the argument at the end of season 2, I don't think anything will truly stop him when he believes Aziraphale to be in serious danger.
As for the details, I am still muddy on a lot of elements. The Book of Life must return in a significant way with the direct connection to the Metatron, and I would not be surprised if the Metatron himself has been interfering with the written record of existence himself to aid in his plans. Some keen observers have mentioned how odd particular elements of season 2 were, in a way that feels like some of the show's fundamentals have been tampered with. There are loose threads that don't get followed up on, such as the mysteriously vanishing Eccles cakes, and moments in the historical recounting of Aziraphale and Crowley's meetings which feel just odd enough to merit a second glance at the narrative we are being fed.
One thing I am certain of is that Aziraphale and Crowley are being purposefully separated by whatever force sees them as a threat to the recurring plan of Armageddon. We have enough evidence to believe that an angel and a demon together can be incredibly powerful; this is shown through the 25-Lazarii miracle that Crowley and Aziraphale perform to hide Gabriel, as well as more inconspicuously in the flickering of lights when Gabriel and Beelzebub hold hands and sing together. Whether or not this is due to the nature of opposing forces alone, or exacerbated by the overwhelming presence of love, is still to be seen.
Love is where the story begins and ends, in my view. It is the one constant that will ensure that our protagonists prevail, as we have been shown time and time again, both implicitly (through longing glances and helpful hands) and explicitly (in small touches and a kiss of last-ditch desperation) that Crowley and Aziraphale love each other in a way that supersedes both Heaven and Hell. The way that their love is explored through parallels within Humanity, and doubled down upon even in their worst moments, leads me to believe that there is no choice but for them to have a happy ending. Love will be the one thing that neither Aziraphale nor Crowley can ignore, and I foresee a difficult but euphoric reunion in season 3 which will ensure victory for neither Heaven nor Hell, but for Humanity; for it is Humanity which taught them how to love each other.
I have many more thoughts, but this is where the train of coherence ends. Let me know if you have any additions and/or would like to theorize!
#good omens#aziraphale#crowley#ineffable husbands#good omens 2#neil gaiman#i would tag neil in the body text but i am petrified he could actually come across this lol
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HIGHLIGHTS FROM GOOD OMENS S2 (spoilers ahead)
This isn’t in any kind of order of episodes or anything, sorry, literally just my stream of incoherent thoughts about the series as a whole
(Quite long)
Crowley just running around Soho after Aziraphale as he invites people to a Jane Austeneaque Ball & Crowley cringing at Aziraphale failing to speak French
Also when A is talking to a shopkeeper & C’s just fucking around with shit in the background like bored + unsupervised little kid
Aziraphale detective outfit.
A’S MAGIC SHOW? HELLO? He put his life in Crowley’s hands yet again & they admitted that they trusted each other over wine with candles (honestly somewhat more substantial than a love confession)
Smug aziraphale! Stubborn Aziraphale! Bitchy aziraphale!
Shax’s (paraphrasing) ‘I thought you two were an item’ - ?!)&&;:??(!-
Angel Crowley making the stars! He was so joyful and innocent
Crowley wasn’t holding back AT ALL this season - to make people fall in love they should seek shelter together from the rain???? He suggested to Gabriel n Beelzebub to go to ALPHA CENTAURI WHILE LOOKING AT AZIRAPHALE
They danced together! They held hands! They practically live together…
Crowley (drunkenly) getting so worked up about Gabriel to the point where he told him to JUMP OUT OF THE WINDOW I was silently giggling at 3 am
Our Bookshop Our Car (*cough* married couple quarrel *cough)
Crowley threatening to sell books & Aziraphale immediately giving in & speeding up
The way some people predicted that Crowley & Aziraphale would fail at setting up Nina & Maggie’s relationship & instead receive a push forward for their own from them?!
😠❤️I thought we carved it out for ourselves 😠❤️
Needless to say BUT C covering A as it rains stars. wtffff
‘but rescuing me makes him so happy’
Hell in 1941 being full of nazis
Also the zombies in the minisode were so funny!!
Just A & C being so comfy together throughout the ages - A holding C’s waist as she is high on poison after grave robbing in the 19th century (would only happen in Good Omens) - Crowley lounging around in Aziraphale’s dressing room - sharing a chair and that chest touch and giving each other no personal space in the present day
The Bentley playing Good old fashioned lover boy as Crowley drove home to Aziraphale after hearing that he would be erased from the Book of Life and have never existed. Crazy.
Aziraphale stocking up on fire extinguishers & using battery powered candles (I feel like Crowley promoted him)
I Want to give Nina a big hug :(
Aziraphale talking to the Bentley
^ also Crowley being pissy about driving too slowly
from an art perspective this season had me like 💓👁️👁️ 💓in general, the colouring & aesthetics were incredible
aziraphale having tears in his eyes during EVERY & just both of their expressions. slaughtered me
#feeling like I’ve had 6 shots of espresso after this#no the ending was not satisfying it was heartbreaking but I’m focusing on the positives here#good omens 2#gos2 spoilers#good omens 2 spoilers
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