Happy Holidays, edna_blackadder!
Dec. 27th, 2020 05:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
goe_mod posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
go_exchangeTitle: Love Thy Enemy
Pairing: Beelzebub/Gabriel, Crowley/Aziraphale
Rating: G
Author’s Note: Happy Holidays, edna_blackadder. I hope you enjoy the story. And thank you to my beta, M, who can be called on for those last minute Hail Marys.
Summary: If Gabriel’s appearance, some weeks after The Incident, wasn’t enough to tip off Aziraphale that this wasn’t an official visit, Gabriel actually knocking on the door of the bookshop before entering was tantamount to dark glasses, a fedora, and a trenchcoat. Or a conversation on the upper floor of a double decker bus.
If Gabriel’s appearance, some weeks after The Incident (1), wasn’t enough to tip off Aziraphale that this wasn’t an official visit, Gabriel actually knocking on the door of the bookshop before entering was tantamount to dark glasses, a fedora, and a trenchcoat. Or a conversation on the upper floor of a double decker bus.
“Gabr . . .” Aziraphale started to say, but his words were cut off by the archangel’s frantic shhhh as he looked around the abandoned room. “You don’t know me.”
“Right. Yes. Sorry, er.” Aziraphale’s eyes scanned the room as well, looking for any suspicious flashes of gold or ethereal glow. As he did so, he uttered a silent prayer that this was not one of those times when Crowley decided to pop in for some wine, records, and a curl up on the couch.
“Aziraphale.” Gabriel’s voice — that familiar mix of annoyed and haughty — brought Aziraphale out of his thoughts and back to the present.
Aziraphale shook his head and was about to apologize when he looked, really looked, at his (former) superior. There was a smudge, barely perceptible, but still, on the lapel of his cashmere jacket and the collar of his turtleneck was slightly askew.
“Yes. . . Sir. How may I help you?”
Gabriel leaned in, and with a look on his face like he would rather be stepping into a shower of brimstone, he asked, “Why is it so wrong to love thy enemy?”
Aziraphale very nearly swore for the second time in over a century.
“Pardon?” Aziraphale managed. “Why —”
“You’ve been here since The Beginning and your precious little humans do that, that liking thing even if it’s against their better judgement.” Gabriel gave a full body shudder. “And I can’t believe I’m asking this, and if you breathe a word of this or attempt to pass judgement on this question I will…” He paused for dramatic effect before continuing. “What would happen if the impossible could happen and an angel of unimpeachable glory found themselves attracted to ...”
ooo
“The most dedicated servants of Hell,” Beelzebub buzzed, looking for all the world like they wished for a hole to open up in the sky to suck them up (Only that wouldn’t solve the problem at all and would actually only add to it... ), “could somehow find themselves thinking favorably about an angel.”
Crowley had only just managed to keep his jaw both hinged and shut as he stared at Beelzebub, who had appeared from Below just as Mel and Sue were announcing the Signature Challenge (2) looking just unnervingly nice enough to cause warning klaxons to go off in Crowley’s head.
“I’m sorry, what?” Crowley asked, not quite believing his own ears.
“There has always been the connection between thy realms. Communications. And when thy finds thyselves working towards similar goals,” the esses slid along Crowley’s spine like a file, causing him to shiver, “then surely it was possible for this to happen.”
--
“It’s just when two beings have similar positions...” Gabriel said.
“...is it not unnatural,” Beelzebub mused.
“that one might find oneself somehow…”
“...not hating...”
“...The Enemy,” Gabriel finished, smiling almost sweetly.
“...Thy Enemy.” There was the briefest of twitches at the corners of Beelzebub’s mouth and for the briefest of milliseconds, they may have even glowed.
ooo
In a small secluded park populated with parents and nannies watching children run free, giggling and running and playing and generally creating a cosmic shield with the atmosphere where angels (and demons) would fear to tread, Crowley and Aziraphale sat on a park bench.
“He said all that? About Beelzebub? Whoo wee,” Crowley whistled. He was still just annoyed enough about The Rubber Duck Incident to want to spit at least a little hellfire in Gabriel’s general direction, but even he could find some humor in the situation. “What did you tell him?”
Aziraphale looked down at his hands. “He caught me off guard. I —”
“Angel, did you actually help him?” Crowley asked, his eyes widening.
When Aziraphale looked up again, there was a spark in his eye that Crowley knew well. He was smiling before Aziraphale even opened his mouth. “It was the right thing to do. And one should do unto others, you know. I may have suggested flowers. Maybe a small plant.”
Crowley reached for Aziraphale’s hand, “You didn’t.”
“And how about you, my dear? What sage advice did you impart to the lord of flies?” Aziraphale asked, his hand warm in Crowley’s.
“Chocolates might have been recommended,” Crowley answered.
“I’m sure those chocolates would have been so delicious,” Aziraphale said with a sigh, thinking back to that day in 1800. “Ritz?”
“Lead the way.”
ooo
On a clear evening in London, an unexpected flash of lightning crackled across the sky.
In an empty capsule on the London Eye, one tall, dark-haired gentleman in a suit and a camel overcoat appeared. He sat down.
A moment later, the floor of the capsule seemed to melt away at the center and a figure dressed in black and red rose from the opening. They took the seat next to the nattily-dressed man.
“So,” Gabriel said, looking down at the tiny venus fly trap in his hands.
“So,” Beelzebub said, pulling a slightly crushed box of chocolates from their jacket.
The capsule began to move as they sat in silence.
“This is for you,” Gabriel said, handing over his gift. Beelzebub looked at it as though at any moment it might start to gnaw on their hands. Their face felt weirdly hot.
“And this is for you,” Beelzebub pushed the chocolates into Gabriel’s hands. A drop of melted chocolate escaped from a broken corner and landed on Gabriel’s jacket. Despite himself, Gabriel laughed.
“Good thing I can miracle that away,” he said, and with a wave of his hand, he did.
ooo
In a corner table at the Ritz, one angel and one demon raised a glass of champagne as their former bosses awkwardly began to hold hands.
-----
1.
Collectively referred to, in hushed tones and always informally, as “The Rubber Duck,” on Both Sides.
2.
Neither Aziraphale nor Crowley had specifically requested the return to the original line-up, but in the returning of things to the way there were Before the End That Didn’t Happen, this was one of the things that was made right once again.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-27 05:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-28 05:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-29 01:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-29 06:34 am (UTC)I love all your little details as well, like Gabriel describing himself as an angel of unimpeachable glory -- that's so him! -- and the Bake off joke, LOL YES PLEASE, and hee, mental klaxons! Thank you so much, and have a wonderful New Year!
(no subject)
Date: 2021-01-03 03:44 am (UTC)Love how you showed the conversations happening side by side, I could see it as though it were filmed like a comedy :D
" thinking back to that day in 1800." Aww!
Omg a venus fly trap. PERFECT. And so is them meeting on the London Eye! Going up, then down again, hovering between Earth and sky....