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pengychan · 4 years

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[Good Omens] Winging It - Luke 24:38

Summary: Shockingly, attempting to destroy an angel without consulting God first comes with consequences. There is more than one way to fall, and a thousand more ways to inconvenience an angel and a demon who just wanted to be left in peace. Characters: Gabriel, Crowley, Aziraphale, Beelzebub, Michael, Uriel, Sandalphon Rating: T

Prologue and all chapters are tagged as ‘winging it’ on my blog.

A/N: Getting relationship advice is kind of hard when you have to omit that the relationship in question is with a Prince of Hell.

***

“... And so, this friend of yours ghosted you?”

“Yes. I don’t think I did anything wrong - they were about to fall on their face and so I caught them, what else was I meant to do? I just tried to help, for Heaven’s sake!”

“Right.”

“It’s been a week and they haven’t showed up again. I don’t understand. They usually appear at my place every other day - or night - usually night--”

“Oh, you gave them the keys to your flat? Sounds serious, then.”

“What? No, they don’t need the ke-- I mean-- yes. Right.” Gabriel cleared this throat, still pacing back and forth, reminding himself that mortals would find it quite odd that this friend of his could, quite literally, appear in his bedroom in a burst of flames that would probably set off the fire alarm sooner or later.

If Beelzebub was ever going to appear again in a burst of flames or otherwise, of course. They may never do so again. And the notion grated him. “They… do have the keys,” he muttered. The problem with his human friends was that there was a lot he couldn’t tell them, but the notion of talking about this with the other archangels… well. It was awkward to put it mildly. “But the point is, they’re not showing up anymore and I think I am owed an explanation, don’t you think?”

“Hu-uh,” Fabrizio said through his mouthful of sandwich.

Gabriel turned on his heel, starting another round across the break room just as Łukasz spoke.

“All right, I have to ask - is grabbing them before they fell really all you did?” he asked, causing Gabriel to blink, looking up.

“What?”

“I don’t know, maybe your hand slipped, and it was. You know, inappropriate?”

Hey, get a room!, the boy had yelled, right before the wheels of his bike mysteriously caught fire and sent him crashing into the pond. Gabriel hadn’t paid it much attention, but it made it back to his mind now and he’d spent too much time on Earth not to have grasped what it meant, however dim his concept of carnal desire was - a thing he knew existed, but which had never been of his concern. It still was none of his concern.

Right?

“What-- no!” Gabriel sputtered, face suddenly aflame. “If you’re suggesting I’d do anything inappropriate, I never--!”

“Whoa, all right, calm down! I told you, as an accident!” Łukasz held up his hands. “Are you really sure there isn’t anything else that happened? Because storming off for being caught before falling is kind of… well…”

“An overreaction,” Fabrizio said, once again through a mouthful of his lunch. Łukasz raised an eyebrow at him.

“Yes, that. Bit rich coming from you, though. You announced I’m going to Hell for putting cream in carbonara, you dramatic ass.”

“He is right, actually, and you should stop,” Gabriel informed him, matter-of-factly, causing Łukasz to throw his hands in the air with an exasperated noise and Fabrizio to laugh hard enough he almost choked on a sundried tomato.

“You’re the worst and I wish Daniel were still here to agree with me,” Łukasz lamented. “Look, are you sure nothing else happened?”

“Well…” Gabriel stopped pacing, hesitating a moment. “... We did have a disagreement, I suppose. Over, uh. An old job.”

“What, you were colleagues?”

“A very long time ago. We were both very different people then. They were fired long before I was, and at the time I agreed with--” divine judgment “--the management.”

A scoff from Fabrizio. “And they fired you anyway. Typical. I have yet to work a job where the management knows the first thing about what they’re doing.”

“It’s… complicated. It’s more that they handed in their notice, only the terms they got were not favorable. But the management they’re under now is arguably worse.” A pause. “I pointed that out. They didn’t like that.”

This insult will not stand! You take it back right now!

“See? Maybe that was it, not just grabbing them.”

Unhand me right now!

“... They didn’t like me catching them, either.”

“What did they want you to do, let them fall?”

Why not? I did before.

The thought was a sudden stab of pain somewhere in his chest, and Gabriel chased away the thought. No, he hadn’t let them fall - he had tried to reach out. Both had tried to reach out for the other, neither had taken the other’s hand, and what had happened next was entirely out of Gabriel’s hands. In the end, he sighed.

“I don’t know,” Gabriel muttered, just as the timer on his watch went off. Ah, there it was, the end of lunch break. As Fabrizio seemingly unhinged his jaw like a boa to swallow the rest of his frankly oversized sandwich, in a move Crowley would be proud to witness, Łukasz shrugged.

“Have you tried calling them?”

“Calling?”

“Or sending a message. You’ve got their number, no?”

He did, as a matter of fact, although he saw little point to it when he could quite literally call their name to see them materializing before him. That was an option, but at the same time it grated his nerves - the idea of calling out for them while they didn’t bother to get in touch at all. He frowned. “I am not desperate yet.”

“Yet?” Łukasz repeated innocently, causing Gabriel’s frown to deepen and Fabrizio to guwaff.

“Hah! Look, I tried to do the aloof thing with my girlfriend too, and you know how it went? I don’t have a girlfriend. Zero out of ten, would not recommend.”

“What…?” Gabriel blinked, taken aback, and stated at him like he’d just grown antlers. Wait, what was he thinking? “This is not-- they are not even remotely my girlfriend, it’s not like that--”

“Ah, right, sorry. Significant other, in this case,” he cut him off, entirely misunderstanding what Gabriel’s correction had been really about. “Anyway, call them.”

“No, they’re not my significant anything-- we-- it was them to storm off, I have no obligation--”

“Guys! Lunch break is over! Get your asses over here so I can have mine!”

Fabrizio shrugged, patting his shoulder. “All right, you do you. Just don’t complain once you’re single,” he said, and walked out, leaving Gabriel to stare at his retreating back, opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water.

“... You all right?” Łukasz’s voice came from very far away. Gabriel recoiled, and shook his head.

“Yes. I’m fine,” he muttered, and walked past him, doing his utmost to push that nonsense in the back of his mind and think no more of it.

He had about as much success as he’d had trying to talk the Antichrist into bringing forth the end of times.

***

For the eighteen-hundred and thirty-second time, the mug shattered in a hundred pieces on the stone floor. For the eighteen-hundred and thirty-second time the pieces came together again, leaving the mug unscathed. For the eighteen-hundred and thirty-second time Beelzebub, Prince of Hell and Lord of the Flies, picked it up and stared at it as though expecting to see some kind of great secret revealed on its surface.

On the side of the mug, the Titanic remained still, halfway into the water. After a few moments of silence, the mug was thrown on the floor to shatter for the eighteen-hundred and thirty-third time. For the eighteen-hundred and thirty-third time, it came back together and Beelzebub picked it up to stare some more at the ship printed on it.

At this point, Dagon had questions.

Questions were among the things that had landed them in not-really-metaphorical hot water a very long time ago, and truth be told they were not the safest thing to ask in Hell, either. She was, however, trusted enough by Lord Beelzebub to speak her mind. Most of her mind. Most of the time. “Is something the matter, Lord Beelzebub?”

The Lord of the Flies took their eyes off the mug to give her a look which let her know, in no uncertain terms, that they found the question amazingly stupid for how obvious it was that something was indeed the matter. She was not ordered to be silent, at any rate, which made her bold enough to speak again. “I couldn’t help but notice you seem displeased.”

“Mph,” was the reply as the mug was thrown to crash on the floor for the eighteen-hundred and thirty-fourth time. “This stupid mug displeases me. The imbecile who gave it to me like it would be even remotely enough to win my favor displeases me.” The mug in question came back together for the eighteen-hundred and thirty-fourth time.

Maybe Dagon should just stop counting.

“I assume you’re referring to your attempt at getting a hold of the soul of the former archangel? Surely it is a good sign that he has given you a, uh… mug. As a… token of his loyalty?” she faltered a little, not really knowing what else that mug was supposed to be. If Beelzebub’s snort as they picked up the mug once more was anything to go by, ‘token of loyalty’ was not it.

“This pathetic thing is no token and there is no loyalty involved. It is a gift of sorts.”

Dagon blinked. “A gift?”

“Yes. And the imbecile probably even scored a good deed in getting it for me, to add insult to injury.” The Prince of Hell’s scowl deepened, and the mug crashed on the floor for the… upteenth time.

“... So it is some kind of plan from his part to thwart you?”

“The idiot cannot plan to save his miserable mortal life,” Beelzebub snapped, glaring down at the mug as it fixed itself once more. “He only ever followed one plan his entire existence, someone else’s. Now he has none - all he can do is spew out the most obnoxious nonsense!”

“I understand,” Dagon said, not understanding at all. She just watched as Beelzebub slammed the mug on the table beside their throne, this time without shattering it but still glaring death at it all the while. Finally, they stood.

“I will have his soul. It is a matter of principle.”

“Of course.”

“He spent his existence serving someone who threw him out at the first failure - who does he think he is, to just start lecturing--” they trailed off with a scoff, waving a hand. “Neither of us could bring about the Apocalypse, neither of us could punish the traitor, but I am Prince of Hell still. My loyalty was recognized - and where has his loyalty landed him?”

“In Soho,” said Dagon, who was not the sharpest knife in the drawer when it came to figures of speech. Not that Beelzebub minded the rather literal nature of their reply.

“Exactly! Some thanks he got for his eons of work, doing everything by the book - and now he thinks he can question Satan, of all beings!”

The notion of questioning Satan was unthinkable enough to make Dagon visibly shudder, clasping her hands behind her back. “If you win-- I mean, when you win his soul, he’d better learn his place quckly, or he will not last as a demon.”

“Of course he wouldn’t last! He thinks it was bad being cast out! Hah! There is no being cast out of Hell. Questioning Satan means destruction for any of us, and--” they trailed off, suddenly, and to Dagon’s confusion their expression went from frustration to astonishment, like something mind-blowing had just occurred to them. It wasn’t often they were so fazed and Dagon might have asked, if not for the fact the Lord of the Flies’ features twisted into fury once again the next moment.

“He’ll learn better, or face the consequences,” they buzzed furiously. “You’re dismissed.”

“Huh. My Lord, I am here concerning the filing system upgrade you reque--”

“GET OUT!” Beelzebub’s shout was underlined by a burst of flames and furiously buzzing flies, which told Dagon in no uncertain terms that was the right moment to take her leave.

Questioning Satan was unthinkable, but questioning Beelzebub was not a very bright idea either.

***

“I certainly hope I have not taken you from important duties by calling you here - duties which I’d rather know as little about as possible,” Gabriel said. He managed a smile, passing the mug from one hand to the other. “You must have been busy. I must say, I have been busy myself. Time flew by. I just now realized we haven’t met in a couple of weeks.”

A pause.

“... Not that I was actively thinking of it, of course, but I just happened to pass by a store, and they had this mug on display. Since you seem to like mugs, I figured it would be right up your alley. I understand if not, I purchased it just in case - I could use a new mug myself, I could keep it. That was the idea, actually. That you might like it was more of an afterthought, but either wa-”

“Sir.” Gabriel’s little speech to the wall was cut off, and he turned to see a rather exhausted-looking clerk staring at him, and then down at the mug in his hands.

“It’s closing time. Do you want to purchase either of those?” he asked. Witnessing a client talking to the wall for several minutes while holding mugs didn’t really seem to faze him.

Closing time already? He must have been standing there longer than he thought. About an hour longer than he thought. “Ah,” Gabriel said, and looked down at the mugs he’d picked up. One read ‘Boss From Hell’ printed in back letters and surrounded by flames, while the other read ‘Tears Of My Employees’. He tried to make himself pick one in the following five seconds, failed, and sighed.

“I’ll buy both.”

“We have a discount, that would be ten pounds. Twelve if you buy a third.”

“Oh. In that case…” Gabriel turned and grabbed what had been his third choice, ‘Bitter As Hell’. “I’ll take this one as well.”

It didn’t occur to him that trying to claim he had just so happened to buy three mugs Beelzebub might like, entirely incidentally, might not be an easy lie to sell.

***

“Why rebel to the absolute authority of God to pass absolute the absolute authority of Satan,” he’d said.

“It was God’s Great Plan you were fulfilling,” he’d said.

“I didn’t mean to grab you,” he’s said.

There was absolutely not one aspect of their last conversation that did not make Beelzebub want to burn down a planet or two or twenty before returning to Earth to choke him with the very mug he had foolishly gifted them. First of all because he deserved it and, secondly, because he had a point and it was the single most infuriating thing Beelzebub had to admit to themselves in the past several millennia.

There had been a similar conversation before, hadn’t there? Only that the roles were reversed, then.

“We do all the work, no? God has done nothing but give orders in eons,” Ba’al had said, a very long time ago.

The ruler keeping away, not really talking to anyone, giving instructions that are not always exactly clear or giving none.

“Don’t you dare say such a thing! None of us is above--”

This insult will not stand!

Overall that seed of extremely uncomfortable doubt was the most worrying thing, and therefore Beelzebub made what seemed the most logical move: ignored it entirely hoping it’d die off like an unwatered plant, and focused on the other infuriating thing about their latest exchange.

He’d picked them up. He had dared pick them up, just like that, presuming he was allowed to touch them - that was the infuriating part. The worrying part, though not as worrying as an attempt at questioning the very foundation of their existence, was that outrage hadn’t arrived immediately after the surprise faded. Something else had, which Ba’al may have felt once but not Beelzebub, not ever, not since the Fall that forged them into what they were now.

They’d ordered Gabriel to unhand him without knowing exactly what they would have done if he had not, and try as they might there was no denying a pang of something that felt suspiciously like disappointment when he had, indeed, unhanded them. And that stupid look on his face...

Hey, get a room!

Ridiculous suggestion, ridiculous idea. They were not even human, and were not among the demons who ever held any interest in carnal matters. Gabriel may be human now, but surely neither would he. And if he did-- no. No, it was ludicrous.

Everything about this is ludicrous. I should have burned that mortal to a crisp. Should have burned Gabriel to a crisp when I found him, let his soul go wherever, and forgotten about it.

But they hadn’t and now they were stuck, because getting his soul was a matter of pride and they really should go back on Earth to make sure he wasn’t behaving too well and earning himself access to Heaven. If he did, and returned there as a mortal soul in the lower spheres after death, it would mean defeat… and never seeing him again, because mortal souls couldn’t leave Heaven any more than demons could enter it.

Either I win his soul, or the end of his laughable lifespan will be the last I see of him. And I am losing that fight.

“Well, good riddance,” Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies and Prince of Hell, told the empty room. Empty words. Empty lie.

And keeping up willful ignorance was getting difficult, more and more unwise by the day.

***

“Uh, angel?”

“Yes?”

“Since when you have pornography books?”

“Oh, a good while now,” Aziraphale replied, as casually as he might have informed him that it was mildly breezy outside. “They’re all first editions.”

“Ah.” Crowley cleared his throat, skimming through it. It was illustrated, showing men in various interesting as well as rather indelicate positions. Some of which had to be bullshit, because there was no way a human being’s skeletal structure may allow for such flexibility. “Not very holy, I have to say,” he said, choosing not to comment on the fact it was right next to a first edition of the King James Bible.

“They’re collectibles. I acquired that one in a discreet gentlemen’s club, one of the patrons - a grandson of Queen Victoria, I believe - was selling it.”

“A discreet gentlemen’s club.”

"Yes, in the 1880s. The Hundred Guineas Club.”

“The-- wait, that club? In Portland Place?”

“Yes, you heard of it?”

He had and, considering it was the most exclusive gay club in London at the time, so had plenty others. His eyebrows went up almost to his hairline. Surely he had not… no, not Aziraphale, he couldn’t imagine it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. “... I heard it mentioned once or twice.”

“It was a nice place, I was quite put off when they shut down. I learned to dance the gavotte there."

“The gavotte.”

“You know, the dance?”

“You went to the Hundred Guineas Club and learned the gavotte.”

Still focused on the books he was cataloguing - apparently, moving books from one bookcase to the other was… more complicated than just grabbing them and moving into another bookcase - Aziraphale shrugged. “Well, it was more convenient than going all the way to France,” he said, like he had not taken a trip to France in the midst of the Revolution, dressed as a nobleman, to eat some crêpes.

“... Fair,” Crowley muttered, putting the book down and stepping closer to the shelves. In the end, they had elected to only move some of Aziraphale’s most prized books in the cottage and leave the rest in the bookstore. After all, with a door now miraculously connecting them, it would be a simple matter of stepping through it. “How’d Gabriel even know you had this sort of book?”

“Oh, I don’t think he did. I have no idea what that was all about, in all honesty. It did cause some awkwardness when a customer present returned asking to see the books I have in the back of the store. I had to turn him down - they’re not for sale,” he added, stepping back from the bookcase to admire how the books looked in it. He seemed satisfied.

“Heh. If Gabriel shows up again asking for pornography, you should show him this.”

“That would be most inappropriate,” Aziraphale replied, somehow managing a tone that said he disapproved as well as a look that hinted he was at least amused by the notion. “Which he is now aware of, thank God, so unless he loses his mind he is unlikely to come to me asking for pornography,” he added, and both of them forgot something rather important he should have learned long ago.

Unlikely was not impossible.

***

“What’s the meaning of this?”

“What-- there is no meaning. It’s just mugs.”

“You summoned me to show me mugs? Are you mocking me?”

“No! I just bought these for myself, and I figured you might… er…” Gabriel paused, unsure. It finally occurred to him that the claim was… a little less than believable, and he may be better off telling the Prince of Hell something a bit closer to the actual truth. “I bought them as… apology.”

Beelzebub turned to look at him, clearly taken aback for a moment before they narrowed their eyes. “And pray tell, what are you apologizing for?”

Gabriel shifted his weight from one foot to the other, a little taken aback by the question. “For-- grabbing you?”

“... Yes, I suppose I am owed an apology for that too.”

Ah. Right. “If it’s about what I said about you letting Satan have absolute power after rebelling against absolute power--”

“Yes. Apologize.”

Gabriel frowned a little. “You know I have a point.”

“You do not.”

“You wouldn’t be so cross about it if you didn’t know that I do,” Gabriel remarked.

Beelzebub’s expression soured, but they didn’t try to argue that point. Instead, they turned to look at the mugs. “An appropriate payment for your insolence would be your soul, but for now, these will do just as well.”

As much as the statement should have relieved him, something about it rubbed him the wrong way. “Wait, is that what my soul is worth? Twelve pounds?”

“I said for now, mortal.”

“Oh. I mean, good. I was starting to feel insulted,” Gabriel managed to joke, smiling. Beelzebub raised an eyebrow at him.

“Also, while I am not an expert in human etiquette when it comes to… gifts, I am fairly sure you are not supposed to disclose the price paid for it to the recipient.

Gabriel’s smile went out like a burned-out lightbulb. “Ah. Fuck,” was the brilliant reply. For the briefest moment, the corners of Beelzebub’s lips seemed to quirk upwards before their gaze turned inquisitive. Which was… probably not a good sign.

“You are a mortal now.”

“... I am aware?”

“And a great many mortals have desires. The carnal sort.”

Gabriel opened his mouth, sputtered, and felt his face catch fire.

Hey, get a room!

“Yes, I-- I suppose-- they do,” he muttered. It had been simply a fact he had been vaguely aware of for a long time, of absolutely no relevance to him. He still was of no relevance to him, or so he had thought until very, very recently.

When the Prince of Hell had suddenly been in his arms, the weight and warmth of them, the closeness, the grip on his shirt right over a fast-beating heart he couldn’t entirely blame on jogging. How right it had felt. How reluctant he was to let go.

Beelzebub stared, expression unreadable; only the clearing of their throat revealed the barest trace of discomfort. “Well. Do you?” they asked, their gaze resting on just about everything in the room except Gabriel, who was beginning to wish God would smite him where he stood.

“No, I--” he paused, trying with very little success to recollect his thoughts. Not that he’d precisely had carnal desires - or at least he didn’t think he did - he knew very little of what those would entail. It was not something he’d looked into. Perhaps he should seek advice. “I don’t… think I do?”

Beelzebub turned away, too quick for Gabriel to gauge their expression, and grabbed the mugs. “I see,” they said, their voice entirely flat. “Well then. Your boon and apology are accepted.”

“Ah. Good.” Gabriel cleared his throat, trying to recover some semblance of control. “Well, if you are not busy this evening, I was wondering if you’d--”

There was a burst of flames, louder and taller than usual, followed by the wail of the fire alarm that had, at long last, detected the presence of hellfire. Gabriel ignored it, just staring in silence at the spot where Beelzebub had stood only a moment earlier, feeling a lot like he had just failed a test he did not understand.

***

"And He said to them, 'Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts?'" -- Luke 24:38

***

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