Yep, But I'm A Goodlooking Foul Fiend. 😈

My book boxes found a new home it seems...

Passing by the bookshop, I can see the new shelf standing near the door. It's nice and full now, ready and waiting.

Have to remember to get new books as it starts to empty out. But I suppose, it'll be a while. People rarely want to buy books, they prefer to walk through the isles, look at them and leave. Stuff's online these days anyway.

I can see Muriel move around, adding something to the shelf, but I can't see what it is from the outside. They're sitting back down at the desk doing something that involves cutting und glueing paper, and also drawing and painting on it with different pens und brushes. Then they get up, go to the shelf again, add something and move back to the desk. This is repeated a couple of times.

They're so busy, so joyfully immersed in their work. I can almost feel the enthusiasm, and I can certainly see that little spring in their step. It reminds me of an angel I know, and - bloody Heavens - did I just smile? Did I actually smile?

Funny old world, is it?

The last time I smiled, was a little more than half a year ago. In this very same spot. Looking through the very same window, into this very same bookshop.

The day my summer ended.

The very last day that I saw my angel.

~*~

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Muriel -

These boxes in front of the door contain books of classic literature the University gave away. They are not first editions like the ones Aziraphale has, but some of them are quite old.

You can put them in a shelf at the front of the bookstore to distract customers. So if you get very persistent costumers who really want to buy a book, you can sell one of these. Then the customers won't go for Aziraphale's books.

Try it out, it might make your daily business a little easier.

(There is no signature on the note, but someone drew a little snake on it...)

*Muriel struggles to put together a bookshelf from someplace called IKEA. It is so different from the original bookshelves in the bookshop.*

*Shelving the books that were dropped at the door.*

The Picture of Dorian Gray, To Kill A Mockingbird, Ulysses, The Odyssey, Metamorphoses, The Great Gatsby, The Works of William Shakespeare……the list goes on, the bookshelf filled.

Muriel places a little miracle on the bookshelf so that customers would be drawn to it. To look for their purchases there.

They went to the back of the bookshop, digging through the back room until they found the bucket they were looking for.

They smile as they begin decorating the bookshelf.

Trying to talk to Maggie and to Muriel – Attempt Nr.2

Hi Maggie, please tell Muriel to come over to the record shop, so that I need to say this only once: Stop trying to talk to me, the both of you. Stop sending me notes, stop trying to call me, just stop doing anything about me. I am not your friend and never will be.

There, you have it. Nice and short.

The only problem is, if I put it like that, Maggie will probably cry and Nina will give me her angry face again. And Muriel will look at me with those big brown eyes and think it’s their fault. And perhaps cry, too.

Enough! No more crying. I’m sick of blowing my nose all the time. It gets all red and blotchy. Why do noses always have to run when you cry! Major design flaw if you ask me. But I forgot, you are not asking, @the-almighty-god. You’re just playing your ineffable game. Next time, please play Dungeons & Dragons with us. At least that one has uhm…. dungeons and dragons and elves and Bags of Holding in it. I would quite like a Bag of Holding, then I could’ve kept all of my plants when Hell kicked me out of my flat.

Okay, next try: Hi Maggie and Muriel. I can’t be your friend because I don’t do friendships. Bye.

That one’s so short, I could actually write it on a card. Maybe I should, then I don’t have to talk to them. But Nina was very specific about this one. If you don’t want friends, you have to tell people to go away and you have to do it in person. Writing will not do, texting will not do, and simply going away until they forget about you will not do either. That one least of all.

Nina says, the truth is painful, but at least they’ll have a clean cut and they can start to heal. They can’t when I just leave them hanging. No closure.

Hi Maggie and Muriel. I don’t want to be your friend because I’m scared. Scared that I’ll get hurt when I open up to someone. Scared that you’ll get hurt, when Heaven and Hell start doing their thing again and we all get caught in the crossfire.

No, by ‘the truth’ I didn’t mean ‘that much truth’.

Just the clean cut. The one we never got to have. First, I walked out, then he walked away. We never sorted anything out. Did he leave because he chose Heaven over me? Did he leave because he chose Heaven for me? Did we break up? How can we break up if we aren’t even together? Are we still friends, or is everything over for good?

What does he want with Heaven? Does he truly believe, he can make a difference? Was it just an excuse to get away? Why did he kiss me back and then told me, he forgives me? Did he even listen to anything I said?

Why suddenly dance with me at the ball when he refused to dance with me back in 1941 when I asked him to? Why does he want me to be an angel again? Am I not okay for him the way I am? Does he even want to be “an us”, or did he at least want it before everything went down the drain? Does he still think about me as he is up there, doing God knows what?

Is he thinking of me right now? Perhaps this very moment?

I slam on the brakes and let the Bentley spin to the right, so the car behind me passes by without hitting me. The driver yells something rude, but I’m not listening to him. My mind is full of questions and I can’t answer a single one of them.  

No closure. No clean cut. Just pain.

I can’t heal because I’m left hanging. I can’t move on with my life because I don’t know what’s there to move on to and what there isn't. Is he still a part of this life or is he gone for good?

I’m on hold. I’m on hold like a human on a phone who doesn’t know if they should hang up or if they should wait for the conversation to continue. When Beelzebub came to talk to me about Gabriel, I understood immediately what was going on with them. Why can I not understand what is going on with us?

Again Nina’s words: “But then, other people’s love lives always seem so much more straightforward than our own.”

I start the Bentley’s engine again, but before I can bring my foot down, I freeze.

“Hello, traitor.”

 No literal freezing. Just a jumpscare.

“I was going to pull you down to my new office, as it seems befitting for my new position. But you’re so miserable already, I didn’t want to drag you out of your safe space. Besides, Hell doesn’t need to know about our little talk, do they?”

~*~

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@aziraphalesdiaries @muriel-not-the-dim-one

"Naaah, guys like Hastur or Ligur or Furfur can't just snap their fingers and drag me down to Hell.

Right, they're dudes... Dukes of Hell - at least Hastur and Ligur are, Furfur's just an admissions demon, who thought he could turn me in for "collaborating with the angel Aziraphallus" but for that he needed to go the long bureaucratic way which Hastur and Ligur skipped when they thought they could just bring me in by brute force.

Anyhow, what was I trying to say? My point is, very few demons have this kind of power. Lord Beelzebub kinda does, they dragged me down once, and even through the protections of my Bentley, but they also had to appear on Earth personally to do it.

Satan doesn't need to. He can just do the fingersnapping thingie. Actually, he doesn't even need fingers. He's Satan. We're demons. I think, you understood this part quite well, bookgirl. 😉

Oh, and besides, do you know what's even more difficult than trying to resist Satan's pull? Try to resist Satan's pull while you're absolutely positively high on Laudanum!" 👿

Edit: Though, I suppose, the place, too, does matter. Somehow, I doubt that Satan could simply drag me down from Aziraphale's bookshop, which is heavenly protected. But I suppose that Lord Gaiman has the final say on that matter."

The resurrectionists minisode appears to retroactively change the rules in the gomens universe as to how crowley can be summoned to hell — after all, in s1 and in the book crowley needed to be collected by hastur and ligur in the holy water scene. So i’m now headcanoning that something simply changed between 1827 and current day, and that something is that aziraphale saw crowley get pulled down for doing a good deed and vowed to consult every book on earth to find a way to tether crowley to the earth from now on unless physically dragged to hell so he’d be safer

Cat Booped Me Awake Today

Seems like I slept through another week. If it weren't for the cat, I would probably be sleeping still. Shouldn't leave the window open.

Things I Did Today:

Ate the rest of Shax' chocolates, simply because I'm booored. They were not poisoned.

Drove around for a bit.

Drove by the bookshop

Made another attempt at telling Muriel (or Maggie) I don't want be their friend. The attempt consisted of me sitting in the car in front of the bookshop

Drove away again

Drove by the University where they gave away old books today. They do that from time to time because they get lots of books from private collections, but they don't have room to store them all.

Took a few boxes of books and stored them in the bentley.

The plants were not pleased

Drove back to the bookshop

Placed the boxes by the door

Wrote a note to Muriel

~*~

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This. *points at picture with a shaky hand*

I want my angel back so bad. 😭

Screw Heaven! Again.

I just want them to be happy again 😭

Another print choice for my Acid Rain tier in Patreon (extended into April since this was finished late)

Well, I don't know about the Crowleys of other people's headcanons, but as for me, I'm never setting foot in that bookshop again.

What should I do in a place where he isn't, but everything reminds me of him? Torture myself on purpose? Get Muriel into even more trouble with Heaven so their superiors kick them out and he looses the bookshop for good?

And besides... walking back into a place where I just made a very dramatic exit from - nah, not really my style. So, no bookshop for me.

I've been hanging out in my car ever since the shop was entrusted to Muriel, and Hell still refuses to give me back my flat.

And my Bentley doesn't even remotely look like a beach. It's not gonna start being yellow again.

Fascinating that the fandom has basically torn itself apart about Aziraphale…what are his intentions? his motivations? did he do the right thing in going back? what’s he planning? …but everyone just somehow agreed that Crowley’s one job in s3 is to hang out in the bookshop until Aziraphale gets back…basically his s3 job is Beach.

"How many decent writers do you lot even have up there? Because Neil Gaiman's one of ours. 😎

Terry Pratchett? One of ours. Oscar Wilde? Definitly ours. Shakespeare, Goethe, Hesse, Virginia Woolf and Mary Shelly? So very definitely ours. 😈

Have yourselves a merry little eternity with C.S. Lewis and Stephenie Meyer! 😇"

You’ll pay for this, Neil. Writers’ Hell awaits

Things To Do Today

Sleep

Burn more mail

Why is there always so much mail under the wipers? That can't be right. There never was so much mail under the wipers in the months and years before. And Shax never put the mail under the wipers anyway. She always insisted on giving it to me personally.

Seems there were notes in between the letters. Or letters with notes. I don't know. I don't care. It's all burned now.

Something or other from Nina and from Maggie. Maggy? Don't know how to spell her name. Spelling's hard anyway. Doesn't matter, I'm never talking to her again.

And Muriel obviously wrote me some glittery card thingie for Valentine's Day. That must be the reason why the ashes are so glittery.

Someone needs to explain the little bee what Valentine's Day is for.

Someone, not me. I'm going back to sleep.

~*~

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Where we left off: Shax, newly anointed Duchess of Hell, jumpscared our hero in his bentley….

…. and apparently, she wants to bribe me with liquor-filled chocolates to come back to Hell. I’m not going back, but first I puncture the chocolates with a pen to drink all the liquor. Oh, and did I mention I’m small? (the puncturing and drinking thingie wouldn’t work too well if I was my usual size).

“Stop deluding yourself, Crowley. Deep inside, you already know that Aziraphale left for one reason only. You are a demon and you will never be good enough for him.” Shax tilts her head to the side in one of those familiar bird-demon gestures and watches me intently with one eye.  “How does that make you feel, Crowley? Hurt? Angry? Will you let an angel treat you this way? Break you and cast you away like a used toy?”

I clench the pen and ram into the next piece of chocolate like a tiny lance. This is ridiculous. She doesn’t know the least thing about my angel. However delusional Aziraphale may be for believing he can make a difference in Heaven, deep down his intentions are good. He never wanted to hurt me.

“You gave up everything just to be with him, and you’ve risked everything, even your own destruction. And at the first grasp of power – he’s gone!”

No. No, no, no, no! This isn’t about power. Aziraphale doesn’t care about power at all. He wants to change the system from within. He wants to turn Heaven into the place of light, he always believed it’s meant to be.

But in this belief, there’s no place for a demon. There would have been a place for the angel I was, but I can no longer be that angel.

Shax’ eyes glitter. “I’m not offering you a job, Crowley, I’m offering you a chance at revenge. Rise from the ashes and use that burning fury inside you against the one who wronged you. Unite with me and strike him down on the battlefield in the Great War to come.”

Revenge? Burning fury? I almost choke on the burning whiskey running down my throat. Course, I understand where this is going, she wants to me to direct my anger against Aziraphale. She wants me to become the big bad demon in shiny black armour raining fire and destruction in his unquenchable thirst for vengeance.

Bloody Heaven, I can almost picture this. Aziraphale and me having a face-off in the midst of battle. He’s probably wearing something silvery-white and carrying – I don’t know – some flaming sword or lancea-longini-spear-of-destiny-thingie. And then we’d look into each other’s eyes and stab each other very dramatically with Heaven and Hell watching. And maybe, just maybe, we’d die even more dramatically in each other’s arms with white and black wings entwined.

There’s only one little mistake in this scenario, we did this whole silver knight - dark knight scenario a thousand years ago in King Arthur’s Court and it hasn’t become any less pathetic since then. And second – a crank handle isn’t really made for stabbing. Or fighting in wars for that matter.

“Sorry, Shax.” I’m back to normal size now, sitting in my usual seat behind the wheel. “Nice career option, just not seeing myself there. Anyway, thanks for the booze and tell Hastur, I said ‘hi’”.

She looks at me incredulously. “This choice will have consequences. If you stand aside like a coward, you will be crushed like one.”

“There are always consequences.” I shrug. “But it’s not cowardice, although you probably don’t believe me.”

“What is it, then?” She eyes me suspiciously.

“I just don’t feel it, Shax. All this silly power play for rank and influence and who-get’s-the-biggest-throne-and-the-shiniest-medal. I know, we demons are supposed to live for this, but I just don’t care.  And, you know, that eternal-fiend-thing with the angels? Don’t feel that either.”

“Earth has made you weak.” She shakes her head. “All of us will assemble and take our positions in the last stand. Like on a chess board. If you don’t take yours, you will be totally insignificant in the game to come. And my offer was better than anything you could've hoped to achieve. You could’ve been my Second-in-Command, once I sit on Beelzebub’s old throne.”

She can’t know that she’s already the second person to offer me a position like that. The third, actually, if you count “The United States of Beelzebub”.

No.

No Heaven for me. No Hell for me. I’m done.

“I’m perfectly fine with being insignificant.” I want to add more, but she’s already vanished.

Anyway, I’m keeping the coffee. Or in my case, the liquor.

~*~

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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