"How Many Decent Writers Do You Lot Even Have Up There? Because Neil Gaiman's One Of Ours. 😎

Where we left off: Nina scolded me for being mean to Maggie...

Now she actually WANTS me to be mean to Maggie and even meaner to Muriel. People! Will you ever make sense?

But let's rewind and start... right here.

"For once in your life, trust somebody."

No, no, wait, that's too far back. A little further along.

"Fine", Nina says, although it's not. "You've made your point, Mr. Crowley."

Did I? And is my point pointy enough for you to go away, never come back and leave me to my misery?

It certainly seems so, because Nina backs away. "We can offer you our friendship, we cannot, however, make you accept it. I still think you're making a mistake, but the choice is yours, and you're old enough to take responsibility for your own actions."

She falls silent for a moment. The sun's setting with the buildings casting long shadows over the road.

"I'll leave you alone from now on." Nina half turns, looks back over her shoulder. Her features seem calmer than before, but there's still some anger in her eyes. "And Maggie will too, once you explain to her that you don't need or value her friendship. I trust, you will do this soon and won't leave her worrying about you any longer."

What? "Explain to her... what?"

"This. Do you think, ghosting is an appropriate behaviour?"

"I'm not a ghost, 'm a demon."

"Don't take it literal." She sighs. "Ghosting means not answering people's messages and pretending you aren't there. It's very hurtful to others because it leaves people worrying and they never get any closure. That's what you've been doing to Maggie and me and I haven't even started to talk about Muriel."

I didn't know there was a word for it, but I never meant to do anything. How can I do anything by doing nothing? It doesn’t make any sense.

And yet, I know she’s right. Doing nothing sometimes hurts people most of all. Simply standing by and just allowing things to happen.

“What’s that with Muriel? There’s a croak in my voice I can’t supress right now. “I don’t understand, what do they have to do with it?”

“She… wait, Muriel uses “they”? Nina seems surprised. “I assumed since you and Mr. Fell both look like guys and she… they chose to look like a woman... you can all choose what to look like, can’t you?”

Great. Humans are not supposed to know about any of these things. I hope no one tries to erase her memory or turns her into a pillar of salt.  

“Yes, we can, but Aziraphale and I have been to Earth for such a long time that we understand the concept of gender. We use the ‘he’ pronoun when we present male and the ‘she’ pronoun when we present female. Most angels don’t know or don’t worry about these things, so they go by “they” unless it feels right for them to go by something else. Muriel has only been to Earth for a couple of months and it’s their first time here, so they wouldn’t worry about gender or pronouns yet. “They” simply makes most sense in their case because it’s neutral and doesn’t assume anything. And before you ask, no, we don’t.”

“You don’t what?”

“Procreate. I thought that would probably be your next question.”

She tilts her head to the side, giving me a long apprehensive look. “So, you’ve had this kind of conversation with humans before.”

“Well... occasionally.” It’s not that I never had closer bonds with humans before. I just try to avoid it because it’s trouble.

Fortunately for me, Nina does not press the point.

Instead, she takes a deep breath and starts talking about Muriel.

~*~

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Things to Do Today

1. Sleep

2. Not get booped awake by weird people

3. Stop dreaming ridiculous things.

The duck still doesn't want the peas...

It gazes at me with one beady eye, its head bending sideways while the rapping and tapping quickens its pace.

"Wait", I protest, "you can't be a duck, you're supposed to be a raven. A duck wouldn't be rapping and tapping at my chamber door."

"Right you are", says the duck and with a flap of its wings knocks over the bowl. The peas roll all over the place while a bespectacled friar in a black frock frantically chases after them and yells something in German about dominant allele, whatever that is. My poor head can't make sense of it because the rapping and tapping rings too loudly in my ears.

The duck on the other hand doesn't worry about any of this. It flaps its wings again and takes off. Landing on the shoulder of the Metatron, it croaks a long last 'Nevermore' in my direction. The Metatron glares at me and I notice, he has a pair of black buttons sewn over his eyes. Still, doesn't make the glare any less creepy. 'Nevermore' still rings in my ears when the rapping and tapping finally saves me from drowning in seas of peas.

Ouch.

My head hurts.

Again.

Oh, come on, Nina! Seriously?

I scramble for the handle to roll down the window before her angry fist starts breaking glass. My poor, poor car. "What. Do. You. Want?"

"I want you to come out of your little booze fortress, Mr. Six-Shots-of-Espresso and listen to me."

"I don't want to talk."

"You won't! I'm going to talk and you're going to listen. And if you're too drunk to listen, you will use these devilish powers of yours to make yourself sober and listen anyway."

"Big words from the woman who wanted to drink herself senseless after Annie Wilkes dumped her."

What? I'm not a nice person and I want her to go away.

"First, you have absolutely no right to insult my ex-partner. Second, that would've been one night. One. You've been going at it for several months now. Are you trying to drink yourself to death?"

I swing my long legs out the door, jump up and start pacing around her. Slowly. Menacingly. She doesn't even flinch.

"So? And whatever do you think," I spit out, "makes this any of your business?"

Her death glare is no less deathy than mine. Maybe even a little more so.

"I made it my business. Because with your shitty behaviour you're hurting people I care about."

"What?"

Why?

I don't understand. Why is it anyone's business what I do? Even if I wanted to drink myself to death - which I don't - why would that be anyone's business but my own?

The only person I love is gone.

He doesn't care, so why should I?

~ * ~

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GO unites people of different ages, genders, cultures, countries... There aren't many things that have such a universal language. Terry and Neil wrote a masterpiece, Michael and David made it real. I will never be grateful enough. In the midst of the rubbish of life and the world, it's so nice to find common ground with other people, beyond all barriers. Because this is what GO teaches: there should be no sides, we should simply try to be at peace with ourselves and others. I don't think it's a trivial message, I think it's powerful.

Diary Entries on AO3

Since a few people asked me to post the diary entries to AO3, I started to put them together and post them there:

Aziraphales Diaries and the Secret (not so Secret) Diary of Crowley

I can't promise you, however, that everything is going to make sense in the end.

I'm basically a heartbroken demon living in a Bentley, who lost the love of his life (me, not the Bentley). I'm drunk half of the time, I'm asleep the other half, I'm driving around and ranting when I'm neither drunk nor asleep, and I just want to be left alone by all those people constantly wanting something of me.

Yup, that's my life in a nutshell.

(Luckily, the person behind my diary is neither an alcoholic nor a demon, just a regular human, but still very very heartbroken from watching a certain series called 'Good Omens' and especially something called 'The Final Fifteen'. (Whatever that is.)

But I do believe, somehow, that particular person wishes me to be reunited with my angel in the end.)

I usually sleep through Easter. It's not as bad as Christmas, but still too many people rambling on about 'the-lord-our-saviour' before being cheerfully and positively nasty to each other.

I can only hope, no one puts any Easter cards with "Harry, the rabbit" under my Bentley's wipers.

~ * ~

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"Aziraphale would probably disagree about the introvert part.

My plants would too, if they dared something to say on the matter."

Nope, no silly cards under my wipers. But apparently someone left me a Swiss chocolate Easter Bunny.

Two questions, people: 1. Which one of you was it? and 2. Is it poisoned?

Lucky for me, it doesn't even remotely look like Harry the Rabbit.

~ * ~

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I usually sleep through Easter. It's not as bad as Christmas, but still too many people rambling on about 'the-lord-our-saviour' before being cheerfully and positively nasty to each other.

I can only hope, no one puts any Easter cards with "Harry, the rabbit" under my Bentley's wipers.

~ * ~

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Things to Do Today

Slee.. oh, wait!

There's a missed call from Aziraphale on my phone.

Yes, that's his name on the display. Did they finally insist on giving him a mobile phone in heaven? Even if they did, how would my phone know that it's him? Wouldn't it just be Unknown Number?

The number connected to his name in my phone is the number of the bookshop. He no longer is in the bookshop. If he was in the bookshop, I would feel that he's on Earth. I no longer feel him on Earth, so he can't be on Earth and in the bookshop.

Phone, delete missed call.

Phone, delete contact Aziraphale.

Phone, block this number!

~ * ~

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"Back in 1941 when we were in the bookshop, there was this song playing on the radio that Aziraphale liked so much. Something about angels dining at the Ritz and a nightingale.

He still refused to dance with me, though, because well, angels don't dance.

A few days later, though, when I drove by the bookshop, I saw him dancing in there all alone by himself. His eyes were closed and he had this dreamy far-off expression on his face that he sometimes gets when he reads one of his favourite books or smells some very delicious food. I've also seen this expression when he listens to his favourite composers, but never before with a modern song.

So, angels do dance, they just do it when no one's looking. I suppose, the cat's not dead as long as no one opens the box.

The very same song was playing on the radio again. Of course, I couldn't hear it through the windows of the bookshop, but I had the radio turned on in the car.

Some time after the war, when the song stopped being famous and wasn't played on the radio anymore, I sent Aziraphale a record of it. He never mentioned it, but he must have known it was from me because he said something about dining at the Ritz in a conversation we had a few years later.

Actually, the song isn't even about angels dining at the Ritz, that's just a figure of speech. It's about two lovers who spend one magical night with each other, but for some reason, they can't stay together and have to say goodbye in the morning.

I have the head canon that at some point, I like to think 1941, Crowley tried to slow dance with Aziraphale. He just got caught up in the moment and the music, extended their hand and said something like ‘may I have this dance’ or something like that. In response Aziraphale, even though he wanted to with every fibre of his celestial being, only sat up straight,cleared his throat and said ‘ Crowley, you know quite well that angels don’t dance’ and Crowley sat down again.

That’s why Crowley says‘you don’t dance’ at the ball.

That's the thing with Aziraphale, he can always surprise you.

You think you've got him all figured out, sticking by the rules, loving his routines, and wearing the same clothes for over a century. And then.... BAM! I gave away my flaming sword! I took evening classes to learn French. I opened a bookshop in Soho.

I adopted five stray cats that live in my bookshop now. I gave away a corner of said bookshop to this girl who sells records. I want to borrow your car to go to Edinburgh! I did that thing with the Halo!

And you just stand there, openmouthed and think, oh I almost forgot, that you had in you. That you sometimes love to break rules, too. That you sometimes need the unexpected, the spontaneous, the chaotic. That there really is room for a 'me' in your well-ordered, well-mannered life.

Or at least, there used to be...

Good Omens S1E1 | S2E6