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go_exchange2024-12-09 05:14 am
Happy Holidays, shaggydogstail!
Rating: PG
Length: 12k words
Pairing: Beelzebub & Crowley gen, Aziraphale/Crowley, Beelzebub/Gabriel
Summary: Before Time, the angels Crowley and Beelzebub strike up a friendship. Now, after Aziraphale's return to Heaven, the demons are trying to figure out if they can be friends again. A story of two friendships, two demons in love with two angels, life on Earth and life on Alpha Centauri, and some bad romantic advice.
Author's Note: Title from Mary Oliver's The Owl Who Comes. Thanks to Vigs for their footnote guide. Thanks to ngkiscool for the beta and cheerleading!
1. Before
The archangels tended to breeze through the creation departments, only pausing to speak to supervisors or examine anything particularly unusual and compare it to the blueprints. Creation wasn't what the archangels had been made for, so they weren't interested in all the details. Beelzebub[1] had figured that out after their first inspection. They'd prepped for hours, making sure all their paperwork was in order and that their favorite piece was pride of place, in case someone asked them a question about what they were doing, but they'd barely merited a glance and a nod of approval.
They stopped putting in extra effort for inspections after that. Their work spoke for itself in their opinion. If someone couldn't see the beauty in a bee or a fly or a beetle, in their bright fragility and their careful fit into what would be a thriving ecosystem, then creation wasn't for that person. Beelzebub would make what they were supposed to make, and not think about how the archangels always seemed to make them feel especially small somehow, even though some of them were hardly taller than Beelzebub were. Anyway, none of that physical stuff was supposed to matter, so the way they felt loomed over was nothing more than an illusion caused by their corporation.
They weren't paying attention, carefully applying a scalloped edge to a delicate wing, when someone spoke to them, and it took a minute for them to realize they had an audience. They glanced up in surprise.
"Hi! Sorry to bother you, but do you mind if I take a look?"
The speaker wasn't one of the archangels, who Beelzebub could see striding ahead through the fish section, but perhaps someone who had tagged along with them -- an angel with warm interest in his brown eyes as he squinted at the tools in their hands. Beelzebub had never seen him before.
Beelzebub set the wing down in the frame carefully and pushed their bangs out of their face. They didn't respond, but the other angel stooped and brought his face close to the little wing. He reached out a hand as if to touch, and then pulled back, grabbing his own fingers as if to scold himself.
"Won't touch it, I know how it is when someone sticks their fingers where they don't belong. But that's lovely. I've never worked with something so small."
"What do you do?" Beelzebub asked, still not sure why this angel was here, but glad to share in his excitement.
"Stars," he said, and gestured widely, but he was still careful not to upset their table. "Different scale entirely. I'm waiting on some noble gasses to finish up my current project so I thought maybe I'd come have a look at what else was going on. What's that for?"
Beelzebub told him, and then he asked more questions, about the differences between an insect wing and their own wings, and the interaction of pressure and gravity, which were things they both had to think about for very different reasons. Beelzebub wasn't sure how long they'd been talking; after a while they realized that most of their coworkers had drifted off for leisure pursuits, but this odd angel was still here, talking to them about exoskeletons.
He seemed to notice their glance around, made his own, and flushed.
"I didn't mean to keep you," he said. "I know I ask a lot of questions."
"What's your name?" Beelzebub said, and shared their own.
"Well," they continued, once introductions were completed, "I don't mind the questions. It's fun. Let's go get a drink[2] and talk some more."
"All right," Crowley[3] said, and they meandered off together easily to continue their chat.
*
1. Now
After Aziraphale got into the elevator and returned to Heaven, Crowley got in the Bentley. He shut off the radio, and he drove for a long time. He drove, and he thought. Finally, he came to the conclusion that he had known he would eventually reach.
Nothing about the way he felt for Aziraphale had changed, despite their awful parting. It was a fact of his existence. Crowley knew, instinctively, the number of seconds that had elapsed since God had started Time, and that was a fact that ticked away in his brain no matter what. His love for Aziraphale was the same: unceasing, increasing. And unlike Time, he couldn't pause it.
Someone needed to be in the bookshop when Aziraphale came back (when, not if). And that someone was going to be Crowley, not just some angel who'd spent ten minutes on Earth. Crowley had defeated much more experienced angels than Muriel[4].
The Bentley turned towards home -- towards Soho, and the bookshop -- and he parked outside in his usual place and grabbed one of the boxes of plants from the backseat before he approached the door. He knew what to do: be confident and leave no room for pushback.
When he approached the door to the bookshop, it opened at the brush of his hand. (Always had.)
"'Ello 'ello 'ello! --Oh, it's Mr. Crowley! I wasn't expecting--" Muriel said. They had been perched on a little stool behind the till, reading (something naughty, Crowley thought, from the way they'd shoved it under the counter, maybe some of Aziraphale's apocrypha). When he burst in, they leapt to their feet in surprise.
"Mm, take this," Crowley said, handing them the box. They took it, looking puzzled. Good, now they were helping.
"Why are these plants living in boxes? And why am I holding one?" Muriel asked. They held the box awkwardly.
"Ease of transport. Set that down here, I'll find a place for them," he said, pointing vaguely towards the counter, which was the only flat surface in the bookshop empty of books (just so no one got any idea about a book in proximity to the till).
"In the bookshop?"
"Why else would I have brought them into the bookshop?" he countered.
"Well, it's just… The Metatron left me in charge here…" Muriel began. Crowley took a deep breath.
"That's his mistake then, because it's not the Metatron's bookshop. It's our bookshop. Mine and… Aziraphale's. You saw the sign," he said. He managed not to choke noticeably over Aziraphale's name, he thought.
We both get plenty of use out of it, he thought.
"Yes. A. Z. Fell and Co," Muriel said. Scrivener angels were so good at noting details.
"I'm the Co," Crowley said. He watched Muriel set the box of plants down on the counter and reach for the nearest plant, a sad-looking snake plant that had been underperforming since their move into the car. He scowled at the plant.
"Don't touch that plant! It knows what it did."
"What did it do?" Muriel asked, pulling their hands away as if the snake plant had caught fire. Crowley was pleased by this. He'd given Aziraphale a plant or two over the years, and Aziraphale had alternately overwatered them or forgotten to water them until even an angelic intervention couldn't preserve their lives. Crowley hadn't been around enough to prevent it. This angel would stay away from the plants, if he taught them quickly enough.
"It knows." He went back out to the car and returned with another box. Muriel was still standing there by the till, so he handed them this box as well and watched them try to find an empty space for it.
"Suppose you can stay for now," Crowley said casually. "Are you still sending up reports?" he asked them.
Muriel looked up at him, alarmed. "It's only been two Earth days. No one asked for a report."
"If you send enough of them no one reads them, which is exactly what you want. I'll help you write one after I get the plants settled. I know the trick to it."
"... The trick?"
"Look, Inspector--"
"It's Muriel, actually," Muriel said, in the tone of someone who had had to repeat it frequently. Crowley felt a little bad about that. He'd thought maybe a nickname would be appreciated, but nicknames really weren't a thing in Heaven. You'd have to know another angel well enough to be able to give them a nickname, after all.
"Muriel," he said, "do you like Earth so far?"
"Yes, I think so," they said, setting the box carefully on the floor over the circular rug. Crowley wondered if there was a way to remove the Heavenly communication circle underneath it without damaging Aziraphale's floors. He didn't like thinking about them having a direct line of communication here.
"And you'd like to stay a bit longer? Since, after all, the Metatron did ask you to come down here," he continued. It felt a bit wrong, tempting Muriel like this, but he didn't want to just kick them out on their own. They knew next to nothing about Earth, and if he let them stay here, it was possible that Heaven wouldn't suspect that he was here as well. He doubted that they'd mention it in official reports, not if they were worried about getting into trouble, and that seemed to be a common concern for Earthbound angels. If he made them go back Upstairs, they would definitely end up telling someone why, and that someone wouldn't be Aziraphale, which would not be good for him.
"Yes, of course!" Muriel said. They touched the edge of a monstera leaf gently. Crowley let that slide.
"Then we'll send up something that will make them happy and you can stay here as long as you like," he said.
"... It's a very nice bookshop," Muriel said shyly.
"I've always thought so," Crowley admitted.
"I'd like to stay," they said.
Crowley didn't let his relief show on his face. Another benefit of Muriel sticking around was that they might get some kind of forewarning for this Second Coming thing, if Aziraphale wasn't able to communicate with Earth otherwise. Crowley nodded at Muriel.
"I'll be back with the rest of the plants," he said, slipping out the door again, and when the bell rang welcoming him back in, it hurt less than it had earlier that day.
*
2. Before
Becoming friends with Crowley was so easy. He just kept coming back to see what Beelzebub was doing. He disappeared for three units of non-time that they tended to think of as days, just to be tidy, and they found themself a bit disappointed, but then he came back, babbling about stars again, with a big dark mark ringing around one eye.
"What happened?" Beelzebub asked, reaching out gently, and he waved it off, saying something about experimentation and explosions. Daphiel suggested that he get his eye looked at, these corporations were pretty new, but Crowley wore it like a badge of honor, letting the colors fade from purple to yellow-green and finally back to normal. When Beelzebub asked where he'd been, he'd shown them his workspace and explained why the explosion had happened, and how he was sure he was going to get it right the next time.
"Come find me when you're bored," he said, an open invitation, and after that, they did. Sometimes he was out in the universe, where a meteorite wouldn't make as much of a mess, but he was always interested in whatever Beelzebub was saying when he was present.
Crowley was friends with everyone, and soon Beelzebub was too. Some of the angels tended to stick to their hierarchies, and Beelzebub had thought that was normal -- the two of them were both building stuff, on the same level, so their friendship wasn't odd, but Crowley was friends with low-ranked angels and high-ranked ones. He told Beelzebub that the trick to Gabriel's favor was telling him you were trying to make a process more efficient -- which was something Crowley loved doing, finding shortcuts or creating workarounds. He'd even made Uriel laugh once, when Beelzebub was around, and they never laughed except in the Presence. Their laugh was beautiful, the way they lifted their neck and shut their eyes, submitting wholly to the experience.
Crowley knew recording angels and messengers, other creation angels and their creations -- he was quite fond of snakes, Beelzebub learned ("They do such a good job even without any legs!") -- that sweet, quiet principality who didn't seem to understand Beelzebub's gentle teasing, and even the archangel Lucifer[5], who one rarely saw far from God's Throne.
Beelzebub was seeing Lucifer around a lot more now that this whole Earth thing was really getting into gear. The archangels used to travel in a small pack together, but now they were working all across Heaven, deeply embedded in their specialties. There was talk that She was going to start up Time soon so they could age the Earth a bit, get everything ready for next steps.
Lucifer seemed to be at loose ends, for some reason. The more that Michael's angels trained and Saraqael's angels documented, the more Lucifer could be found wandering Heaven's halls, striking up conversations.
Lucifer said, "She's more involved with this human thing than She's been with other plans for ages. I really wish I could understand why that is."
"It doesn't seem like anyone has the full picture," Crowley said. "Besides Herself of course."
Crowley poked his head in everywhere he could but the group of angels working on humanity were not inclined to visitors. Their work was incredibly complex and not at all like building a monkey and then adding in higher reasoning, apparently. So he hadn't learned as much about them as he'd liked, and Beelzebub knew he found that frustrating.
"Enough about humans for now. Tell me more about this comet you're working on," Lucifer said, sounding genuinely interested.
Crowley flung his arms out, nearly striking Beelzebub's nose in his enthusiasm, and they couldn't even be mad about it. "This comet, yeah! Would you believe -- "
*
2. Now
Usually Crowley let Muriel answer the bookshop phone when it rang. He thought the angel could learn a lot about humans from talking to Aziraphale's theoretical customers. If they ever got in over their head, or if someone got rude, they could just hang up. But it was late; anyone calling a bookshop at this time of night was going to be more of a challenge than Muriel was ready for, so Crowley, who'd been on his sixth straight hour of Candy Crush, put the receiver to his ear.
"Fell's Bookshop. We're closed, try back later," he said, in case this was the wrong number or someone calling from across the pond who didn't understand time zones.
"Don't you hang up, snake," a familiar voice responded, and Crowley fumbled with the phone, smacking himself in the ear and nearly dropping it. He wondered if Beelzebub was daring enough to try coming through the phone line. He'd never told Hell about that trick he'd learned, one of his many insurance plans that he'd worked out well before the failed Apocalypse, but he wouldn't be surprised if Hastur had shared it with everyone afterwards.
"...Lord Beelzebub?" he managed, annoyed at the way his voice cracked. "This is a-- a surprise."
The Prince of Hell hadn't manifested in the bookshop, at least not yet. Crowley waved at Muriel, who had been looking at a cup of tea and inhaling the steam, and gestured towards the door. Go to Maggie's, he mouthed. Maggie lived in a little apartment above the record store, and she and Muriel had become fast friends over the last couple of weeks. If something happened, Muriel could be well out of it. Maggie wouldn't appreciate the late night wake-up call, but she'd be too polite to turn Muriel away.
If Crowley wasn't unpleasantly discorporated in the next few minutes, he could -- well, not apologize, he was a demon -- send her something in the morning to make up for it. New record craze, bank error in her favor, something like that.
"A surprise for me too, you answering this phone number. Guess it shouldn't be," Beelzebub said smugly. Crowley watched Muriel slip out the door and felt a small amount of tension leave his body; at least that was one less thing to worry about.
"'S not your business anymore. For many reasons," he responded. He was a confident, brilliant demon who was immune to holy water. Definitely all of those things.
"Saves me wheedling your phone number out of your angel anyway," Beelzebub said, which sounded like a threat. Crowley bristled.
"What do you want? Just tell me."
"Hi Crowley! -- Fuck off for a minute, Gabriel, I'm on the phone. I'm calling to see if everything's sorted and we can come back to Earth."
Crowley pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at it. Everything sorted? Like the two of them had left Earth and that had magically resolved the eternal conflict between Heaven and Hell?
"Crowley, did you hear me? I used a miracle to make this call, so there shouldn't be interference. Crowley? Can you hear me now?" Their voice was tinny at this distance from the speaker, but perfectly clear.
"Yes," Crowley admitted.
"Then what's the verdict, you traitorous fool? I shouldn't have to ask twice."
"You're not my boss anymore, remember? But, ah, probably safer to stay where you are." He swallowed.
"They didn't start the war without us, surely? --They can't, I've still got the first trumpet-- As if that's ever stopped Heaven doing what it wants."
"For Satan's sake, take me off speakerphone," Crowley grumbled. Every time he heard Gabriel's stupid voice, he wanted to punch him, now more than ever. If the former archangel ever ended up at their door again for any reason, he was going to do it. He wasn't a creature of violence, really, but he knew counting to ten was not going to cut it this time.
"I don't know what that is," Beelzebub said.
"Of course not," Crowley mumbled. "There's no war. But you guys missed… well. Actually, why am I even having this conversation? Fuck off."
He slammed the phone down on the receiver and waited for Beelzebub to appear in a clot of black smoke or a filthy swarm of flies, but nothing happened. He counted to ten. The phone rang again, six times, and then stopped.
He waited for another ten minutes, then texted Muriel that it was safe for them to come home[6]. Beelzebub had a short fuse; if they were going to do anything they would have done it already.
He sent Muriel back over to Maggie's in the morning with a thank-you gift card to the coffee shop, no matter that Nina didn't sell gift cards, which he considered both a temptation and an apology.
*
3. Before
"How did I know you'd be here?"
It wasn't really a question, more of an opening salvo, and Crowley looked up from his desk to answer it. Beelzebub grinned at him. They could tell by the clutter spread across his desk that he was pretty deep into a problem, probably the one he'd been telling them about yesterday, an issue with the irregular orbit of a pair of problem stars. His space was a mess of crumbled paper, dull pencils, and a paperclip Mobius strip that was pretty cool.
"Because I'm always here, or out there," he answered them, gesturing out at the view through the wall of windows to the dark sky, pinpricked with stars designed by Crowley and the rest of his team. Not really Beelzebub's thing, but he was clearly proud of them, anyway. Proud enough to be going around and around in circles over this little detail, but this marinating had been going on too long. Their friend needed a break to reset his thoughts.
"It's true. Which is why you should come with me somewhere else for once."
Crowley's mind was clearly still half on the problem; he glanced back down at his desk. Beelzebub fluffed out their wings in front of his face to block the view.
"I have a deadline -- " he protested.
"Which is ages away, since She hasn't started Time properly yet -- " they countered.
"And this orbit is not going to fix itself -- "
"And you've been staring at it for how long?"
"I think we just determined that there's no way to know," Crowley said. He leaned back on his stool and stretched out his wings and his back, shutting his eyes. This was a good sign. A little more persuasion, and they'd have him.
"Take a break," Beelzebub coaxed. "You keep saying that you want more information on the Earth project and the archangels are giving a big update in the main Hall for everybody."
"You just want to see if they'll talk about your bugs," Crowley said, but he was slipping down off his stool as he spoke, opening a drawer and shoving everything off the desk and into it.
"I just think they have to be important, if we're making so many of them," Beelzebub said, following Crowley as he left the office, shutting the door behind them. He started walking too fast and they yanked at his sleeve so he'd slow down. Now that gravity and other basic forces had been turned on in Heaven, for beta testing, the difference in their heights mattered, and Beelzebub hated making two steps to his one. He tended to pull ahead and circle back when he remembered himself, like they were participating in some sort of impatient, one-sided dance. It seemed that he couldn't be still or slow unless he was deeply absorbed, and that tended to be true whether walking was involved or not.
"I thought the same thing," he muttered, and Beelzebub tried not to roll their eyes and get him started again on that. He'd told them the whole story of how he'd met this angel when he was out building nebulae and the angel had told him about the six thousand year Major Deadline. They'd both asked around a bit and none of the other angels building things for Earth had known anything about it, so Beelzebub was pretty sure the principality was wrong. They weren't too worried about it, but Crowley had been in a snit over it for (metaphorical because what is time) ages.
"I'm sure we'll figure it out," Beelzebub said. "Quit flapping, getting riled up isn't going to help. Maybe there will be time for questions at the lecture!"
Crowley's eyes brightened. He pulled ahead again and then twisted around to face them, walking backwards down the hallway.
"But where to start?" he wondered, and Beelzebub just had to laugh.
*
3. Now
Crowley went out some nights -- nights when the bookshop felt too quiet, nights he'd been marinating in memories and it didn't make him happy, nights when he wanted to be out among the bustle of humanity and remember what he liked about Earth.
He'd found a little dive bar that served cheap whiskey and spent a couple hours playing darts with some rowdy college kids, pulling off ridiculous trick shots with miracles and pretending not to listen to them try and guess which washed-up rock star he was. It was just an evening of drunken fun, like hundreds he'd had before, only he hadn't had to convince anyone to cheat on their wife or embezzle from their company at the end of the night. It was -- not nice -- diverting.
He stumbled back to the Bentley to sleep it off and had just gotten the seat adjusted how he liked when his phone rang.
"Whosit? Muriel? Probably sleep in the car tonight, don't worry. Bentley knows what to do," he said, yawning. The car would keep the heat on whether or not his keys came close to the ignition, and he'd already hidden her from any passing authorities for the night.
"Don't hang up. But that is pathetic," Beelzebub said. Suddenly, Crowley was sober; he did the miracle without even thinking about it. Now his mouth tasted horrible, and he'd lost all of his pleasant buzz.
"You again? How did you get this number?" he barked into the phone.
"The stupid angel in the bookshop gave me your personal phone number. I told them I had a book you'd want," Beelzebub said.
"Muriel isn't stupid. They're used to believing what they're told," Crowley said. Why did he feel like he should be defending Muriel? Why was Beelzebub calling him again?
"Good trait in an underling. I can see why Aziraphale hired them to replace Gabriel," Beelzebub continued.
"That's not -- Fine. Are you going to keep calling until I talk to you?"
"There is nothing else to do here besides talk to Gabriel, and he's asleep."
"Fine," Crowley said. Should he be humoring them? He still felt like he should be humoring them. Suddenly the Bentley felt claustrophobic. He opened the car door and got out, not slamming it behind him because the Bentley didn't deserve that, but only just. He started striding down the street with no real destination.
"Why exactly did you call? Not a book," he said, walking past the now-dark bar. It had rained earlier and the air was still thick and humid. He was wearing snakeskin boots with a sharp heel and they were more conceptual than real; he felt the damp pavement through them. He could smell the acrid scent of the nearby dumpster as well. There was a building up here on this next corner that had been there since 1804, and Crowley had walked past it hundreds of times. The bricks on the corner of it were softening, slowly coming apart. He passed it again. London changed, London stayed the same.
"If I said it was, you'd probably come and get it, wouldn't you? For your angel?"
Beelzebub's tone was mocking. Crowley felt himself sneering.
"You sound like you're mocking me, but I saw the way you looked at that asshole archangel, and you're not fooling me. What did he ask you for?" he said.
Crowley was tired of being scared of Hell. Beelzebub was -- at least, as far as he knew -- in Alpha Centauri. And Beelzebub… maybe they were different now. The Beelzebub he'd known in Hell would never have let anyone else see them look at Gabriel like that.
"I already told you. It turns out when you lose your memory and decide to stop sticking up your nose at human things, you find out that you like sleeping and drinking cocoa. And there isn't a lot of cocoa on Alpha Centauri. So I told him to take a nap and I'd sort it out," Beelzebub replied. They sounded fond.
Crowley passed a dark coffeeshop, not Nina's, but it made him think -- was this what she had seen between him and Aziraphale? A few words, a stray look? He hadn't exactly been subtle, these last few years. Let Heaven and Hell look, he'd thought, when he'd felt brave. They never had understood the two of them. (He just hadn't realized how obvious it had been to the humans.) He cleared his throat.
"Don't know how much pull you have on that now. Sure Shax or Dagon went and tattled to Himself about you running off with an archangel. And since he didn't end up -- "
Crowley stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, his body catching up with his brain, the shock locking his knees. "That's what you were expecting, wasn't it? That Gabriel would Fall, you'd catch him?"
"It was… a possibility. Better than some alternatives."
"You'd refuse them Hellfire a second time, so they'd just send him down to you. Beez, don't you remember -- he wouldn't be him anymore. Might not remember much. Might, in fact, blame you for it."
He was walking again, angry now. Wisps of steam were curling up from under his collar. And Beelzebub thought they loved Gabriel? This was what they thought love was?
"You're more defensive of him than -- " Beelzebub said.
"Aaugh! It's not -- Gabriel can go hang for all I care -- " Crowley interrupted defensively. He should have dropped that idiot off in Dartmoor and been back at the bookshop tonight, should have been drinking in a warm room lit by Aziraphale's smile, but here he was, burning footprints onto a London sidewalk.
"I know you're not worried about Gabriel, don't worry. Your angel didn't Fall, but you thought he might, didn't you?"
"Why am I still talking to you?" Crowley answered, thumbing the button to hang up the phone. When it started ringing again, he silenced it with a vicious look. Eventually his walk took him back to the Bentley, but he was now too keyed up and sober to sleep, so he spent some time confounding traffic enforcement, moving street signs, removing no parking zones, and the like. He convinced two different sets of traffic lights to change their patterns in a way that would make all sides red for an irritatingly long amount of time, so that people would have to decide whether they should run the light in the morning and potentially cause accidents (with, of course, a miraculous lack of injuries, should they give in to their frustrations). In years past this would have given him the satisfaction of a job well done, but today it felt hollow, just like it had every time since the world had failed to end the first time.
For thousands of years, Beelzebub had thought of Earth as no more than a battlefield, like the rest of Hell. Now that Gabriel wanted to be here and try human things, they wanted to be here too. It infuriated Crowley. It wasn't that he'd wanted any more supervision up top -- even the demons who did come to Earth on occasion never got the hang of it, not like Crowley had, as a permanent agent -- but this whole thing with the first Apocalypse would have had been a lot easier to deal with if there had been others on their side of it.
Now that it was too late, Beelzebub wanted to reach out, to understand, and Crowley wasn't sure he had the patience anymore for that.
He knew he should try, though.
*
4. Before
Crowley had slunk out of the meeting room so quietly earlier that Beelzebub almost hadn't noticed. They liked to sit in front so they could see more than the back of other angels' heads. Crowley had been leaning back against the wall nearby, still and eyes focused, and then he wasn't. Beelzebub watched Lucifer's eyes track Crowley's movement, and then Lucifer glanced back over the small crowd without losing the thread of his speech.
Beelzebub slipped out. It was late -- Heaven was trying out a day/night cycle to see how well that might work for the humans, and during the "night" the angels had their leisure time and the lamps were turned down lower. They had an idea of where Crowley had gone, though, and when they pushed open the door to the starmakers' workspace, they could see the movement of his arm where he crouched down under his desk, wings tight and fluffed, pressed against the underside of the desk. He was tossing a little blue ball of leftover starstuff between his hands, catching and squeezing it until it squeaked. The smile he shared so easily, most of the time, was absent from his face.
"I don't know why you're so upset. You like asking questions," Beelzebub said.
"I do," Crowley agreed, catching the ball again and then wrapping his arms around his knees. Beelzebub strode carefully through the messy workspace -- tidiness had been abandoned for the moment in the interest of productivity, with the plans changing all the time now, red and gold ink annotating what seemed like every diagram -- and crouched down beside him.
"And the questions Lucifer wants to ask Her, a lot of them, came from you, you know," they continued, watching Crowley squish his fingers into the little ball and reshape it into a cube, and then a sphere again.
"I didn't -- it's not the same, Beelzebub," Crowley said. "I just want to ask Her to tweak some things. Maybe stretch a few deadlines here and there. Why are you building all these insects for different environments when the humans will be limited to one place? Will She let them out to explore eventually so they can see them? Plants division has been working nonstop on the rainforest for ages -- who is that for? Why am I bothering to put all these colors into these nebulae when the humans won't even have eyes that can see most of them? And they'll only be able to move one direction in Time, which seems like a waste of potential --"
"That's exactly the kind of thing Lucifer wants to ask about, Crowley," Beelzebub repeated, frustrated. They reached out and poked a donut hole into Crowley's ball and watched him reshape it until the evidence of their hand was gone. Stardust glittered on their fingernail. They blew it off towards Crowley.
"Not ask," Crowley said, after another minute of fiddling with his hands. "Demand. And Aziraphale said that his division is training harder than ever, but for what enemy? It doesn't seem fair to fight the humans, so who else?"
So it was Aziraphale again. Every time Crowley spoke to him, he came back worried about something, like the other angel was rubbing off on him. Beelzebub didn't like it. They liked Crowley the best when he was making up games or telling jokes that never quite landed because he liked to reference anachronisms that didn't exist on this side of Time yet. But he kept making the jokes, and that's what Beelzebub liked about him -- Crowley was unapologetically himself, and there was no room for uncertainty in him.
"You know, and I know, that God will answer however She wills, so why not ask? I'm sure She knows what's going on and She's just waiting for us to organize our thoughts," they tried.
Crowley muttered something like, "Doesn't seem very organized," before slithering free from the space under his desk and handing them the blob of starstuff, which he'd coaxed into a non-Newtonian fluid, making Beelzebub quickly close their hands around it so it would remain more solid than liquid. It still managed to drip a bit onto the floor. They opened their hands over the wastebasket and scraped the mess into it.
"You missed a spot," Crowley said, thumbing a bit of slime onto their cheek, and although Beelzebub didn't like the feeling they did like the return, however brief, of Crowley's bright grin.
Didn't stop them from reaching into their pocket and flicking a stray beetle leg in his direction, though.[7] After that, it got a little chaotic for a bit.
By the time they had finished cleaning up, Crowley's bad mood was gone. They were both sitting in front of the windows, looking out on the starscape, when Crowley pointed at a distant nebula.
"She told me, good use of color there," he said. "I'd gone a little off book because I realized that just a hint of neon would really make the thing pop. I just felt -- inspired, you know?"
Beelzebub nodded, but they really weren't sure what he meant. It was hard enough to put in all the little details properly, building an insect -- they certainly weren't going to improvise. But maybe stars were more forgiving than that.
"I'm sure it will be fine," he went on. "This thing with Lucifer. You guys are going down there tomorrow, right? My morning's booked but no one will notice if I'm a bit late, will they?"
"I'll notice," Beelzebub said, and he rolled his eyes good-naturedly. It was true, though: there was a reason that Lucifer had latched on to some of Crowley's ideas and expanded them. Crowley was a good talker. They might need that if the Lord wasn't in a great mood.
"Maybe I can move some stuff around," he said, circling his hands in the air in front of him. "A little more space in the Ineffable Plan for some creativity would be nice. Room in the margins."
He scrambled to his feet and offered them a hand up. They took it.
*
4. Now
Crowley was stubborn, but so was Beelzebub. When he didn't answer the phone, they'd just keep calling. Turning off the ringer didn't affect whether their calls would ring through, once they'd figured out how to handle that miracle, and each time it was a bit louder than before. Even when he hung up on them, even when they ended up screaming at each other, they still called back the next day as if the prior argument hadn't happened.
So he started breaking his nights into two, a few hours of sleep before the call and then restless wandering afterward until he was settled enough to go back to bed. He checked on sleeping ducks in the park and monitored a couple of Aziraphale's long-term projects that he'd been aware of (a queer community center for teenagers and some funding for additional shelter beds he was determined to get through local government dithering). Some nights he took Muriel out into the city with him; they didn't like wine but they did like watching humans dance and blessing people out about the city at night.
Crowley hated to admit it, but he liked having Beelzebub to complain to. He liked arguing with them, liked that they gave as good as they got and never tried to end a disagreement by claiming superior morals like a certain angel Crowley knew. There was something about the two of them being bored together in the early morning hours that reminded him of how things had been before it all went wrong. The good bits, from what he could remember through the holes in his memory.
It had been a long day, in a very human sort of way. Nina had been in a snit when he got his morning (noon) coffee, and Crowley had had to curse a very persistent customer with an unpleasant family phone call to get them to go away. Twitter had gone down without warning for hours (Crowley kept thinking he should quit using it, it was basically Hell now anyway, but here he was, pointlessly refreshing with the rest of them). He'd gone up to bed early but couldn't sleep, not on the bed or on the ceiling, which was his favorite backup option.
The bedroom didn't smell like Aziraphale anymore. It had at first, when he'd moved in here, although not as much as it would have if the angel had ever slept. Aziraphale's bedroom had been a pass-through place, where he kept his clothes, pressed neatly in the wardrobe, and his cologne, and the occasional book that was too valuable or interesting for human eyes. He'd had a bed because humans thought bedrooms should have beds. Crowley had made only two changes to the room: he had miracled away the dust on the quilt, and relocated the stray books to the bookshelf in the corner.
Still, Crowley liked it. Even if he couldn't feel Aziraphale on Earth anymore, he sensed him here most of all. Perhaps because it was a room the angel had never expected anyone else to see, strewn only with the most intimate effects. The wallpaper was cream-colored and floral, and there was an old-fashioned washstand next to the wardrobe, where an unfolded bow tie lay over the towel bar. The bedside lamp was carefully angled to give the best light to someone who preferred to read in bed, and when Crowley tossed his sunglasses down on the nightstand, they joined a spare pair of the half-moon spectacles that the angel liked to wear when he read. There was a silver snuffbox on the washstand that held a pair of Aziraphale's cufflinks, and the box had been a gift from Crowley, centuries prior, its fiddly decor worn down at the clasp from the regular touch of angelic fingertips.
So here he was, staring up at the ceiling as the hours passed, until the phone rang shrilly.
"Beelzebub," he said into the phone, putting it on speaker and dropping it next to his head so he could hear them.
"Yes, correct," they answered. "What human amusement have you pursued today?"
This was a frequent question. Crowley had the suspicion that Beelzebub was trying to come up with good date ideas, since it seemed that all they and Gabriel had done on Earth was go to a graveyard in the middle of the night once, and to a selection of small, ratty pubs. He'd finally convinced them that he had no idea when it would be safe for them to come back, but they were stubborn, and clearly still thinking about it.
"Nothing special today. Taught Muriel how to count cards, but they're better at it than me. Scrivener memory."
Beelzebub snorted. "Like Dagon. Never won a game against her."
Crowley tried to picture Beelzebub and Dagon playing poker, and found it quite easy to do. Maybe with Hastur and Ligur. The cards would be a bit chewed on, but that happened to pub cards everywhere. It was rarely what they did in their downtime that scared Crowley about his superiors.
"Do you remember --" he started, and then stopped. He didn't really remember very much about his time as an angel (but he remembered enough; he just hadn't wanted to talk about it with Furfur or Saraqael).
"Before," he said finally. There was only one Before and demons tended not to talk about it.
"Don't remember playing cards," Beelzebub said stiffly.
"No, not that. Dunno how much you remember, really. Mine's spotty. But I remember some things," he said. He shut his eyes.
"We don't talk about that," Beelzebub said.
"Hell doesn't talk about it," Crowley said. He'd been one of the last to pull himself out of the sulfur pools, after wobbly hierarchies had already been established, and that rule had been one of the first ones he'd learned.
Beelzebub was silent for a moment. They weren't breathing; Crowley was pretty sure they'd never gotten into the habit of it. If humans found it unsettling, all the better. Crowley's lungs filled and emptied automatically nowadays, even when he slept.
"I remember how you would never shut up when someone got you going," Beelzebub said.
Crowley smiled. "Me? Hours and hours of you talking about flies and beetles."
"You know what else I remember? That I told you back then your angel was trouble. Made you worry too much," Beelzebub said. Crowley sat up on the bed and pressed his back against the headboard, feeling the wood creak behind him, a solid press against his cool spine.
"Never been good at taking advice," he admitted. "Also, he was right."
Beelzebub laughed; it was an ugly laugh, but honest.
"Correct," they said. "Not right."
*
5. Before
Crowley and Beelzebub went down into the Garden of Eden together, once. It was during one of the earlier stages, after fruit trees but before the animals came. The Garden was a riot of greens and pinks and blues, apricots and cherries, bananas and oranges. There wasn't a wall around the Garden yet, and a breeze blew through the surrounding hot sand into paradise.
"Odd to see it all put together like this," Crowley said, walking in slow circles with his neck craned to take it in. He tripped over a tree root almost immediately, and Beelzebub caught his elbow, sputtering as he instinctively flapped his wing in their face to avoid falling.
"Bit of a hazard," they said, laughing, shoving his feathers out of their face. "Maybe try looking where you're going?"
"Where to look?" Crowley countered. "There's plants everywhere! I heard that Ramuel's one even got approved, the plant that eats insects. Do you think it's here?"
"If it is, you'll probably trip over it," Beelzebub said. "Doesn't seem right to me, anyway. The plants are supposed to be the food."
"The Earth project is supposed to be something different than before," Crowley countered. He ran his hand over the bark of a tree and gently touched the edges of leaves.
Suddenly, the wind carried the sound of voices to them, and without hesitation Crowley grabbed a tree branch and hoisted himself up. He offered Beelzebub a hand and they followed. They climbed until they were safe in the crown of leaves.
Beelzebub whispered, "I thought you said this was allowed."
"What is it going to hurt, us being here?" Crowley said, which was not the same thing. "I heard that God was going to be particular about the fruit, but I don't see why we can't look at things."
He patted the bark of this tree. "Bet some termites are going to move in right here. See how sturdy it is? What bugs wouldn't like it?"
Beelzebub laughed, but then put a hand over their mouth. They couldn't hear what the other angels were talking about, and they didn't seem to be getting any closer, but might as well be cautious.
"Quit trying to distract me," they said quietly, elbowing him in the ribs. "Are we going to be in trouble if someone catches us?"
Crowley shrugged. "They won't, so don't worry about it." He squinted up at the sky above them, which was broad and blue and cloudless. Beelzebub settled down on the branch carefully, dangling their feet towards the ground below. This gravity thing had seemed like a bit of a lark in Heaven, when there wasn't very far to fall if one did. Somehow, on Earth, the ground seemed further away, even though they weren't very high up. Something about atmosphere, they thought.
"Aziraphale told me there will be angels stationed down here," Crowley said. "Do you think they'll ask for volunteers? I think I'd like to try it."
"Like after the humans and animals are here?" Beelzebub held tightly to the branch underneath them, feeling the rough, firm way it pressed into their thighs, almost painful, but supportive.
"Sure, why not?" he said. "I'd like to see how it all fits together."
"It's going to be messy, everyone says," Beelzebub returned. There were no insects in the Garden yet, but every plant was full of fruit. When the lifecycle started, the fruit would drop and decay, and from that death would come new fruit, with the help of the animals and insects. That was the theory, anyway -- no one had seen it in practice yet. Nothing would stay the same, not for a minute.
"You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs," Crowley said, which made little sense to Beelzebub without the context of omelets. Broken eggs, though, they understood that. Broken eggs didn't lead to new birds.
"I don't know," Beelzebub said finally. They were both silent for a long moment as a pair of angels passed under their tree. The other angels were talking about the fruit, they thought, but the words were too technical for Beelzebub to understand. They must have been some folks from the plants department who were probably supposed to be here, testing things out.
"I'll tell you all about it," Crowley said, after the angels had gone. "If I get to come back down here."
There was something in his gaze, though, that made Beelzebub think when, not if.
*
5. Now
Crowley talked to Beelzebub in bus stations, where he and Muriel were watching people try to pick up coins glued to the floor, in parks, in the warm darkness of Aziraphale's bedroom. Once, he stalked around a Tesco's at 1AM as the two of them talked about the hand Crowley had had in encouraging reality TV, and what reality TV was, and the fluorescents roiled with his irritation.
He had eventually told Beelzebub something of what happened after they and Gabriel had left -- not the way it made him feel, not about the kiss, but about the promotion and the offer of Rising (which Beelzebub had scoffed at, although he was fairly sure that they didn't believe that Aziraphale had been sincere in asking, rather than understanding Crowley's emotions about the concept, but Crowley found that impossible to talk about anyway, with anyone).
But Muriel had told them about the kiss, on a day when they'd called the bookshop and Crowley hadn't been around[8]. Crowley hadn't realized that there'd been a witness to said kiss, but there could have been an actual elephant in the room that day and he wouldn't have noticed. Unfortunately, this seemed to give Beelzebub the idea that he needed romantic advice.
"This whole caretaker thing you two have is what's ruining your relationship, you know," they said into his ear. Tonight he was haunting his favorite bench at St. James, undisturbed, because open hours were for humans. He was glad there weren't any around because his reaction was really more of a yelp.
"What?"
"Feeling like the humans need you, or whatever it is. The reason you didn't want the final war, it wasn't just him, was it? You like wine and sleep and cars -- whatever nonsense the humans are inventing. Have to have your hands in it, both of you. It's why he went back, has to be," Beelzebub said.
Crowley had come to the same conclusion eventually, but he was surprised to hear Beelzebub say the same thing. Maybe they had heard him, these past few weeks, the admiration that crept in a bit at human innovation (for all the bad things, there were always good ones too, after all).
"He must have done it because he thought he had to take care of the humans. It's not like he was ever gunning for a promotion before. Gabriel barely considered his work passable," they continued.
"Oi! Never appreciated him!" Crowley growled.
"It seemed like he let you get on with quite a bit of demonic work, Crowley," Beelzebub said. "Satan was very proud of all those popes you sent us."
Crowley didn't want to get into what he had or hadn't convinced various popes to do, especially since there were long stretches of time where he hadn't been in Italy at all, even when he had been assigned there. It wasn't as much fun after Leonardo died.
"Anyway," Crowley said, "you can't think you're qualified to give me -- advice. Relationship advice. You haven't even had a proper fight yet. You barely know each other. Two years, a handful of hours mooning at each other."
"Perhaps we're just better at this than you are and figured it out faster."
Crowley, Someone help him, actually considered this for a moment. Of course, he'd been gone on Aziraphale for so long that figuring it out hadn't really been part of the equation. Or figuring out how the angel had felt, either. It'd been everything else -- Heaven and Hell, Beelzebub and Gabriel, Aziraphale's absolute faith in the Almighty and Crowley's rejection of Her -- that stood between them.
Earth had been the only place where they could pretend none of it mattered for a little while. They'd both known that for a very long time. Maybe Gabriel and Beelzebub had figured it out pretty quickly once they'd started meeting on Earth, but it wasn't really bedrock to them, was it?
"Or maybe you'll get sick of him in a few months. Decade on the outside. Spent just a couple of days with him with no memories and still nearly tipped him out a window," Crowley said, and then flinched, because he hadn't exactly meant to bring that up to Beelzebub.
"You don't -- " Beelzebub paused, flies buzzing passively into the phone like they were searching for words. "It's not the same for me. The way he looks at me, I don't need anything else."
"Yeah. Yeah, I get that," Crowley managed, staring into the reflection of the moon on the water, gleaming white. He was sitting on his side of the bench, by long habit, he realized, but even with his knees spread wide, there was no answering limb to bump into.
"When he disappeared, when Michael called me, I thought -- what's the point of any of it, if I can't find him?" Beelzebub continued.
Crowley thought about the way he'd felt, like his body had still been burning inside, in the pub after he left the shell of the bookshop in flames. He'd drunk his whiskey and let the time pass, even knowing it was limited. It hadn't seemed to matter much, then, the seconds counting away.
"Gone where you couldn't follow," Crowley said.
"Only for a while. He was very safe with my fly. I'd have found it eventually. He did exactly what he should have, in the circumstances."
Crowley sighed. They were right; Gabriel had landed in the one place on Earth where there was someone who both would and could keep him safe, for at least a little while. The fact that this had ruined Crowley's life was incidental to the archangel.
At this point, Aziraphale would have said something about God working in mysterious ways, or being ineffable, and Crowley would have flicked some frozen peas at him. Maybe someday in the future that would happen. But because this was Crowley and Beelzebub, there was no need for platitudes.
"You guys owe us, big time," he said instead, "and I do intend to collect on that favor in the future."
Beelzebub snorted, but they didn't say no.
*
6. Before
Beelzebub felt relieved. It was an ugly sort of relief, painfully satisfying, like ripping off a scab or lancing a boil. Finally, they knew where they stood. Finally, all of their questions had been answered, and if the answers they received weren't the ones they wanted, well, this was what existence was now.
There was a cold burn in their chest, a reminder of what they had lost, but they weren't thinking about it. They had more important things to do. Satan had chosen them to help Him build out this place. They could do whatever they wanted here, He said. This was theirs. He'd give all of them the power that God had taken away. Who needed Her input, anyway? When She'd reacted like that, just to a few reasonable questions, and a threat to go on strike, and a few swings of the sword just to show that they all meant business? A single (broad, threatening) challenge to Her authority?
Beelzebub knew now that they didn't belong in Heaven. The questions they had been asking were the wrong ones all along. Funny that.
Why was She above them all anyway? Who put Her in charge? Those were the right questions. And maybe the answers could change.
They had things to do now. This was Hell, and here they were a prince. There were ranks here, because of course there had to be, with this many fallen angels. But they weren't the same ranks as before. Satan was rewarding ambition, He was rewarding those who fought the most fiercely with him, and those who had the brightest ideas. And Beelzebub had stepped up. They wore their flies around their head like a halo, and didn't miss the old one at all. Not when they had so much to do. They had underlings now, people who responded when they snapped and shoved and shouted. They had a fierce, biting joy in their heart.
When Crowley came before their throne, they didn't recognize him at first, not until he wobbled into an approximation of his old human-like shape, put his head in his hands, and tried to say their old name.
"No!" they said. The demons had learned that their angel names were anathema to them now, just like the old ways of drawing down power, and the secret names of God. Most of them didn't remember, or were choosing not to remember. After a few hundred years, it'd be the same, anyway.
They gestured, and the guard shoved Crowley down into the appropriate bow.
"Things are different now," they said to him.
He looked up at them with the slit pupils of a snake, and nodded.
"You'll receive your instructions soon," they said. Absently they wiped at the dark crust across their cheek, unsettling the flies there. Crowley watched their hand, opened his mouth, and then shut it again.
"Yes, my lord," he said.
"Good," Beelzebub said, waving a hand in dismissal. After all, there was so much still to do. He'd get the hang of things, eventually. There would be clear rules down here, with clear consequences. Satan had promised. There would be a ruling council to manage much of the day-to-day decisions. There was, in fact, already a suggestion box in sector 32, next to the imp breakroom, but all Beelzebub had found in it so far were suggestions for the reader to do something that would require manifesting genitals. Which was fine. Everyone was allowed to make suggestions here, but Beelzebub had hoped they'd be a little more inspired than that.
Crowley would find his place, just like Beelzebub had found theirs, and maybe they'd get to know each other again then. If Beelzebub knew him at all, they knew he wouldn't be quiet or disinterested for long. Give him a bit, and they'd be running this place together, Beelzebub thought. Crowley always had the best ideas.
*
6. Now
Beelzebub and Gabriel had found some single-celled organisms on Proxima b, but otherwise the planet was pretty dull. They had taken up residence on a little continent near the equator, after determining that most of the planet was iced over or otherwise covered in water. Miracles provided what they wanted, mostly.[9]
Once the single-celled organisms grew up a bit, maybe things would be more interesting here, but that would probably take a few million years if they did it in realtime, so mostly Beelzebub and Gabriel spent time together. They also spent some time apart, to have something to talk about later. Gabriel liked jogging, and although he'd had to stop walking on water on Earth after Jesus made that too conspicuous, there was no reason to avoid it here. He liked to run out on the water, feeling it slip and slide under his feet, working his muscles until they burned, or so he told Beelzebub.
For their own part, Bee had taken up sculpture. It seemed the easiest thing to do, what with the surfeit of mud available. They liked shaping and firing, but they loved the ending of this endeavor the most. Each evening, as the first sun was setting, they broke their creations against the rocks along the shoreline, enjoying the sound and sight of their destruction.
They were in the middle of a building cycle, fingers coated with gunk and flies a-buzz, when their phone rang, the sound sharp and foreign. There was only one being in the universe who had their phone number -- well, two, if they counted Muriel, but they really didn't -- and he never called them. No, it was Beelzebub who sat up in the evening, after Gabriel had retired to his miracled hammock, and talked to the snake.
They pulled their phone from the bib pocket of their filthy overalls and answered it.
"You want to get over here and make some trouble?" Crowley said, and there was a mischievous edge to his voice that they hadn't heard in some time. They found themself grinning, all teeth.
"You have no idea," they answered him. They sent a fly to summon Gabriel as Crowley explained what was happening. It seemed Heaven was done waiting for the Messiah to agree to return and had taken matters into their own hands. Aziraphale had been sneaking coded messages to Muriel for a while, but his delay tactics were no longer working. They (Crowley and Aziraphale and some humans and a few celestial and occult beings, more than Beelzebub would have guessed) had worked out a plan, or at least the skeleton of one, and having the Lord of the Flies and the former Supreme Archangel present would increase their chances of ending this with Earth still intact.
Gabriel snapped his fingers, dissolving his sweatshirt into his familiar suit and Beelzebub's playclothes into their usual grubby uniform, and Beelzebub yanked at his hand until he bent down enough for them to nip him fondly on the ear.
"I told you I'd work it out, didn't I?" they said to him, before the two of them summoned their power to return to Earth. When they manifested in the dusty bookshop, it looked exactly as Beelzebub remembered, except that there were plants in all the windows.
The scrivener angel was standing there, and sighed in relief to see the pair of them, which was something Beelzebub hadn't ever experienced before -- someone glad to see them. It really must be dire, they thought. The angel started babbling about some kind of Heavenly thing that Beelzebub immediately tuned out, but Gabriel seemed to understand them well enough, nodding and considering.
"Oh!" the angel said, interrupting themself. "Crowley's across the street in the coffee shop, will you meet him there?"
Beelzebub nodded. They squeezed Gabriel's hand (some angelic interaction was probably good for him, they thought) and then let him go, making their way out of the bookshop and into the street. The humans scuttled to and fro, unconcerned and unknowing of their fates, as always. Beelzebub could taste the potential sins around them, like psychic shouting after so much time in the presence of only one being. If they were a lesser creature, they might have staggered; instead they pushed their way through and into the coffee shop.
The last time they had stood in the same place as Crowley, it hadn't been as equals. The two of them hadn't been proper friends, not like before, for more than six thousand years. This time felt different. It felt awkward. They scuffed a foot against the floor. Crowley had been standing near the counter, talking to the woman behind it, but he stopped when he sensed them near and turned. For a moment he put out an arm defensively, shifting his weight to block the human from view, but then he let his shoulders drop.
"Did you get smaller?" he asked, with an amused quirk of his jaw. "Surely your corporation hasn't always been this short. Are you shrinking in your retirement?"
"Go to Hell," Beelzebub answered, crossing their arms, and that was that.
"Not yet," he said, and he was crossing the room to them, gesturing to a table and circling around them as they took a seat. They could see the stress in the sharp movements of his body. Had they ever seen Crowley without a worry in him? Not since they'd both had unburnt wings, they suspected. Still, there was a fluidity, a confidence to him, that was familiar as well.
"I do need some directions, though, and you spent a lot more time Downstairs than I did. And you had all the keys. So if you could fill in a few details for me--"
He snapped his fingers, and the chalkboard on the wall next to their chair now showed a crude illustration of the labyrinth of Hell. Then he shoved a piece of chalk into their fingers. Outdoors, car horns blared, and indoors, the room was thick with the smell of old coffee. This was nothing at all like it used to be when they spent time together -- not in the cool emptiness of Heaven, or the hot, crowded halls of Hell. But here they were, together again, trading questions and answers back and forth like they always seemed to. Beelzebub smudged out a section that Crowley had drawn backwards, and put it back in correctly.
Maybe Armageddon Part 2 was starting in a few hours. Maybe this was the last moment of near-peace Beelzebub would feel in their long existence. There were worse ways to go out.
*
7. Now
Crowley kept the smile on his face until Aziraphale went into the bookshop and shut the door. Then he slid down in the Bentley's seat until his forehead was at the level of the steering wheel. The tight feeling that had been building in his chest as he drove was biting at his ribs now, like he was being crushed by his own snaky self.
It had been a very long day, but Team Human had won it. Not only that, but Crowley was alive, and Aziraphale was alive, and the Earth was alive. Crowley located his phone and thumbed a contact.
"What could possibly have gone wrong now?" Beelzebub said into his ear. Their grumpy tone was a balm. Of course, he'd seen them only a few hours earlier, so he understood their surprise.
"...Nothing. It's fine. Second Coming still averted. Just…" Crowley began. They'd begun to re-establish this… friendship, he supposed he could call it, at least in the privacy of his own head where Beelzebub couldn't hear him, but neither of them were exactly good at emotional support. He just didn't have anyone else to call.
That wasn't true. He didn't want to call anyone else. He could have called Maggie or Nina or Muriel[10], but he'd called them instead.
"I can't think of a single reason you'd be calling me right now. Don't you have better things to do? Where's your angel?" Beelzebub demanded, and the pain in Crowley's chest began to ease. It was something about how Beelzebub had said "your" angel, which was always what they said, to distinguish Aziraphale from their angel, Gabriel, but over time he'd picked up the habit of it in his own head, and he liked the gently possessive feeling.
"Inside. In the bookshop. Brought him home and he went in and I'm just… sitting out here in the car. For a minute," he admitted.
"Then why are you calling me?"
Beelzebub never lied to spare his feelings. Crowley was a professional at avoiding his own. They were probably the right person to call.
"...Nssss," he managed.
"Stop hissing and use your words."
Crowley let out a breath. "Nervous! I'm nervous! It's been a bit of a whirlwind around here, haven't had a chance to talk to him, properly talk, not sure --"
"Then go find out, you idiot!" Beelzebub said. They sighed dramatically. "Honestly! What would you do without me?"
"Yeah. Yeah, okay. Uh -- thanks."
They were right. Staying in the Bentley wasn't going to solve any of Crowley's remaining problems. He watched the lights go on in the bookshop, one by one, knowing the path that Aziraphale was walking across the floor, the same path he'd walked thousands of times before. Crowley was used to seeing it from the inside, from his vantage point on the backroom couch, and he wanted to be there, in that wonderful, warm place where they could finally, truly, be safe together. Just the two of them.
"Don't thank me, makes me want to vomit. Talk to you later, Crowley," Beelzebub said. Crowley could hear something domestic going on in the background, a tea kettle whistling, a drawer rattling. They'd wasted no time in setting up again on Earth either, although in all the commotion, Crowley hadn't asked where. He hoped it wasn't anywhere too close.
But it wouldn't be so bad if they weren't too far away either, he supposed.
"Talk to you later, Beelzebub," Crowley said into the phone, and he opened the door to the car.
*
Now, epilogue
Aziraphale had been, if not completely asleep, drifting contentedly, when Crowley's phone began to ring. Crowley had been asleep for a few hours now, tucked against Aziraphale's side like this was something they had done for years. It had been quite a day -- it had been quite a challenging couple of years, standing against the plans of Heaven for the sake of humanity, for their side. And then, in the wake of yet another near-miss, Aziraphale had been tired of holding himself back. In the sanctity of the bookshop, he had poured himself the best cup of tea he'd ever drank, sat down next to Crowley on Crowley's settee, and actually spoke with him, outright, about what they might want their relationship to become. They had, bravely if awkwardly, had the kind of honest discussion they'd never before allowed themselves. It hadn't been easy, opening his heart after guarding himself so closely in Heaven, but it had been worth it. They'd talked for hours. When Crowley had yawned so widely his jaw cracked, Aziraphale hadn't wanted to let him go, and finally, finally, he didn't have to. So they had climbed into the bed together (their bed, in the bookshop, just like Aziraphale had wanted for so long), and they'd continued talking until Crowley finally started snoring.
The phone call caused a spike of anxiety in the angel -- who was calling, and why now? Aziraphale's pocketwatch was on the bedside table, currently out of reach, but he knew it was late. Humans wouldn't call so late, when they expected people to be asleep, not unless it was an emergency.
Crowley groaned and nuzzled his face into Aziraphale's shirt, and then Aziraphale was treated to a soft look of wonder from his demon for a brief moment before Crowley screwed his face up and snapped his fingers. The phone, which had been discarded on the floor when Crowley traded his jeans for black silk pajamas, appeared in Crowley's hand, and he put it to his face without moving away from Aziraphale.
"You can't do this anymore," he growled. "--No. No! None of your business! --It's fine. Okay, it's wonderful. If you want to actually talk, call during daylight hours. Good night, Beelzebub."
Crowley flung the phone back towards the floor (it bounced harmlessly against the bedside rug, knowing its place in the world) and pressed his face into Aziraphale's side again, wrapping his now free arm around the angel's waist.
"Beelzebub?" Aziraphale said. He wasn't sure of the specifics of what Crowley had been doing on Earth while he had been working in Heaven, but he wouldn't have guessed that Crowley was talking with his former boss.
"Yes," Crowley said, voice still rough from sleeping. He tipped his head up and opened his eyes to look at Aziraphale. "We -- a long time ago, you know. Before." He glanced up, and Aziraphale knew what he meant -- Heaven. "Used to be friends, then."
Aziraphale found Crowley's hand on his waist and laced their fingers together. He was surprised to hear Crowley refer to his pre-Fall self so casually; it had always been a hot button between them, even before that awful fight. But things were changing now.
"They called me a bunch while you were gone. Gave the worst advice. Absolutely plonkers over Gabriel still, somehow. I did talk them into giving us some help, though, so not the worst thing, I suppose."
"Is that so? I think it's sweet," Aziraphale said, and he smiled just to see Crowley roll his eyes.
"You would," Crowley said, and his eyes were already drifting closed again.
"Maybe I'll call to thank them tomorrow," Aziraphale said, unable to resist the tease, and Crowley bared his teeth in a way that the angel found completely unthreatening.
"Not for at least the next six hours. You have more important things to do," Crowley said, sighing comfortably and squeezing Aziraphale's hand, and Aziraphale knew that was true. This time here, in this bed, with Crowley pressed against him, two bodies warm together under the quilt, was something to treasure, one of the mundane, human blessings he used to think an angel couldn't have.
There was a little beep from the floor, like the phone had considered ringing again and then changed its mind. ("A text tone," Crowley would have said, had he been awake, but he'd already fallen back asleep.[11]) Crowley didn't stir, so Aziraphale let it be. Whatever else Beelzebub wanted to say, they could discuss in the morning.
******
- This wasn't their name back then, but it will work as a substitute for something they can't remember. [back]
- Of ambrosia. Options were pretty limited at Heaven's bar before the invention of humanity. And also afterwards, since Heaven didn't adopt any of humanity's mixological ideas. [back]
- This wasn't his name back then, either, but an old self, shed like snakeskin. This one will have to do as a placeholder. [back]
- Mostly by trickery, or if no other option presented itself, by running away. Twice by getting an angel so drunk he missed his train, but the second time Crowley had missed the same train, so that was more of a draw. [back]
- More than 5600 years later, Crowley would spend some time in the court of King James, flirting with courtiers and convincing Biblical scholars to put Satan's angel name in the Bible, on orders from the Big Boss; it seemed reasonable to use it here as well. [back]
- He'd managed to convince this angel to carry a cell phone with only the smallest of temptations, and their emoji game was already quite good. [back]
- When the starmakers came into the office the next day, it was a lot cleaner than they remembered, and most of them assumed that another angel had found some time to tidy. Which was true, but it was because Beelzebub and Crowley had made an absolute mess with the insect legs and the leftover moon rocks and ended their fun inventing the paper airplane, which had been very amusing until they both realized that people were going to need to use this space again. Maybe some things got shuffled around onto the wrong desks; maybe a few stars ended up in irregular orbits. It wasn't their faults that Heaven never double-checked this close to a deadline. [back]
- Crowley desperately wanted to know what Muriel and Beelzebub talked about, during their infrequent conversations, but so far he'd resisted asking. [back]
- Hell wouldn't dare to disable Beelzebub's access, as their admin credentials were used to run half of Hell, and changing all those passwords would be a lot of work. It was the same in Heaven -- the archangels had shared one admin account. [back]
- Well, he probably couldn't call Maggie or Nina. They were probably still pretty angry that the Second Coming had interrupted their wedding, even though Crowley had miracled most of it back together afterwards. And Muriel was eating victory Pizza Express with Jesus, so he didn't really want to bother them either. [back]
- The text message said, now u owe me. [back]
Absolutely fantastic!!
The footnotes are hilarious and perfectly woven in. The faintest hint at a larger story in #4 might be my favorite.
Every detail in this is fantastic. I love Beelzebub trying to scope out date ideas. So cute!! Muriel taking naturally to counting cards! Beelzebub and Crowley breaking into the Garden! I like the hints of Beelzebub and Gabriel's relationship that we get as well (over speakerphone!! ['I don't know what that is.' They would totally communicate like that.) 'Fuck off for a minute, Gabriel, I'm on the phone. ' - Ha!
And this passage hit me right in the feels, for both of them. The sweetness and quiet strength of Beelzebub's love for Gabriel, which we don't really get to see in canon, contrasted with Crowley's loneliness, his missing piece: '"You don't -- " Beelzebub paused, flies buzzing passively into the phone like they were searching for words. "It's not the same for me. The way he looks at me, I don't need anything else."
"Yeah. Yeah, I get that," Crowley managed, staring into the reflection of the moon on the water, gleaming white. He was sitting on his side of the bench, by long habit, he realized, but even with his knees spread wide, there was no answering limb to bump into.
"When he disappeared, when Michael called me, I thought -- what's the point of any of it, if I can't find him?" Beelzebub continued.'
Love the glimpse into Beelzebub's brain after the Fall. And, '"Don't thank me, makes me want to vomit.' made me laugh.
Overall, a fantastic story, OP!! Thanks for sharing this.
Re: Absolutely fantastic!!
I'd say this fic is definitely influenced by some of your own work so the fact that you enjoyed it especially is very pleasing to me. And what a very nice comment!!!!
Re: Absolutely fantastic!!
So sweet
Re: So sweet
(And I saw that you were commenting on like all the fics which is so impressive, extra points for that!!)
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(Anonymous) 2024-12-09 01:50 pm (UTC)(link)Kudos!
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Comicgeekery
(Anonymous) 2024-12-09 05:31 pm (UTC)(link)An impressively long one-shot. A balance of humor and angst to expand on canon. Touching nuance for all characters. Footnotes.
Mayhawk, is that you?
Re: Comicgeekery
(Anonymous) 2024-12-09 10:54 pm (UTC)(link)Either way, excellent story!
Re: Comicgeekery
Re: Comicgeekery
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(Anonymous) 2024-12-10 09:46 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
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Thank you!
I'm so glad you choose to write about Beelzebub and Crowley, and what a clever format switching between the "before" and "now" times - really highlights how they've changed and how they've stayed the same. There's lots to like here, but I particularly enjoyed the uncomfortable, somewhat grudging rekindling of the friendship between Crowley and Beelzebub. Really liked all the little details and touches of humour - I could just picture Beelzebub's art projects! And they really do give the best no-nonsense sort of advice.
This was such a fun insight into two of my favourite demons, thank you!
Re: Thank you!