My Book Boxes Found A New Home It Seems...

Oh, Angel... please don't let them break you.

𝘖𝘩 𝘈𝘻𝘪𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘩𝘢𝘭𝘦…

And my absolute highlight at Proud Nerd Con was, of course, meeting David Tennant.

I can tell you, he really is a wonderful person. Often when you meet actors in real life, it's a little bit of a disappointment, and the things we love about them, are just show. That's not the case with him.

He cares for his fans, and he means it. It was an incredible busy day for him, autograph sessions, photoshots, meet and greets, and pannels, he really was rushing from one thing to the next all day. But he went out of his way caring for his fans, even when he was getting tired at the end of the day.

He answered as many questions as possible, he had smiles and kind words for everyone, and even some hugs (with asking consent first, of course.). It really felt like he had adopted all of us.

He loved being at the convention. He called it "absolutely bananas" and said he enjoyed the cheerful atmosphere. Everybody got to be themselves, and no one needed to hide anything.

He is also incredibly funny. And it's not that kind of funny that mocks other people that you see so often in bad comedians. He loves to tell stories, he loves to play with with language, and he really had us laughing our heads off. His jokes are silly (the good kind), and his humour is incredibly intelligent.

His charms and great personality carried a big part of the event and turned it from a wonderful day into a truly magical day. Everyone was still glowing on the bus ride back to the train station.

Yeah, well, sometimes I forget that I've got wings, too. Or I forget that I could just turn into a big badass snake.

There's one thing I don't forget, however: Rescuing me makes him happy, too.

Snoose the Goose. The Snoose Game. (Az wins the fuck-shit-up wingspan.)

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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No, not really falling. More like... sauntering vaguely towards him.

But yes, ending up in another pool of burning lava. 🌋🐍😭

You know what I was just thinking about? That feeling when you fall hard for someone you can't have.

And every time you see them your heart jumps. You drop EVERYTHING for a chance to spend time with them. Hearing from them lights you up, and your life can be divided between the time you get to spend with them and the time spent waiting to be with them again.

That agonising, heartbreaking, soul-crushing feeling of having fallen so deep that you can't see a way out, and you don't even want to.

Now imagine that going on for hundreds of years.

And then, when it finally looks like there might be a way out, together, it gets ripped away.

I was just thinking about that.

"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

Things To Do Today

Be angry at Nina for making things so difficult. Instead of talking to me, she could’ve just written more notes for me to ignore.

Ponder on Nina’s words

Overthink

Go back to sleep because my brain hurts from overthinking

Wake up and work up the courage to speak to Maggie and to Muriel

Have a few drinks to be more courageous

Sober up because I can’t very well talk to them drunk. Maggie would probably not take me seriously and Muriel would be really confused or even scared. They haven’t experienced me in full drunk mode yet.

Yell at plants to let off some steam

Drive around, not necessarily in the right direction.

Nina says that Muriel thinks it’s their fault that I’m not talking to them, not visiting the bookshop anymore and not responding to any of their notes and cards. I was so shocked I almost dropped my shades.

I can’t wrap my head around it. I couldn’t even wrap my entire body around it if I was in my snake form.

I mean, we all messed up in some way or other. The angels messed up, the demons messed up, Gabriel and Beelzebub messed up, Shax messed up, Aziraphale messed up, Floating-Head-Coffee-Or-Death-Guy messed up, Maggie und Nina messed up, and I have been walking chaos since I started walking on legs. (Might have been crawling chaos before that). The only person who really didn’t have anything to do with any of this, was former-inspector-constable, now bookseller-to-bee.

Why do they think it’s their fault? I don’t understand it at all. I know that humans sometimes feel guilty for something they’re not responsible for, but Muriel is an angel. They should think that they’re always doing the right thing.

But then, Aziraphale has experienced guilt before. Even then when things weren’t his fault. Perhaps guilt is an angel thing after all.

I wish I could tell Muriel that this has nothing to do with them. It's a good thing that they keep the bookshop safe.

I just can’t be in there at the moment because everything reminds me of him. But I can't talk about that to Muriel. I can’t be on Whickber Street, I can’t talk to Maggie and Nina, I can’t deal with this, I can’t process it. And I’m sorry for causing them pain. I don’t want any friends because I don’t want to cause others pain.

It was my damn job to cause others pain for so long.

~*~

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

Things To Do Today

Drive.

Just drive

Nothing else.

Waking up this morning, I knew instantly that today is a driving day. I've sobered up to get rid of the hangover, but my headache's still there and it's persistent. Should've sobered up yesterday night, but I kinda like the fuzzy head. Keeps me from thinking.

If there's enough pain in my head, I suppose, I won't worry too much about the pain in my heart.

I don't want to go anywhere near the bookshop. I don't, but I need to return the CD to Muriel before it looses its song. Still, I drive around all day to work up the courage.

The song starts five or six times while I'm driving back to Soho. I try to listen, but in the end I always turn it off. My car turns it back on. I turn it back off.

At the horizon, far beyond the end of the road, the sun's going down in a blaze of red and orange. Like the whole world was about to end in fire.

The street lanterns at Whickber Street flicker on as I pass through. The stores are closed at this hour, but there's still light in most of the restaurants and, of course, the pub.

I could go there, have a whiskey. Or I could have a bottle of wine at Marguerite's or a bottle of Tsingtao at Mr & Mrs Chen's place.

No, I can't. It would never be just one glass or one bottle. Wasting yourself on your own is fine, but not in front of people you used know. Not front of people he used to know.

If I was human, I'd probably be dead in a ditch somewhere three times over. Being who I am, I know how far I can take this. This may be the worst time, but it is certainly not the first.

It's not even the first time I got my heart ripped out, but last time happened to be a bit more literal.

Do mine eyes deceive me? There's light in the bookshop. No, not in the shop itself, but up in the flat, in the very guest room that Gabriel used to live in when he was Jim.

For a brief moment I allow myself to imagine what it would be like if Aziraphale was still in there. He'd notice I was on my way and open the door for me. And then we'd sit inside and talk about something or other, have a drink or two, and maybe talk some more. He would have a snack and I would watch him eat. He would get excited about something and bounce around and I would listen to the ridiclous sounds coming out of his mouth.

And watch his smile. That beautiful beautiful smile. And everything would just be fine for a few hours.

A familiar silhouette at the window. Muriel is sitting there, probably on the inside sill, their head bent over a book they're holding. They're a fast reader, turning the pages at a quick and steady pace.

I wonder why Muriel didn't take Aziraphale's room. It's bigger than the guest room and it's not like he'll be back anytime soon.

Angels and their faith...

I drop the CD in the letterbox inside the door, trying to avoid any noises. Back on the road, I look up to the window again.

Muriel still seems busy with their book. I hope, they read all the brilliant ones first, then the good ones before moving on to the trash that they inevitably will find.

But then, these humans never can tell the difference. Goethe's Faust was a good book. Marie Corelli's Sorrows of Satan was a brilliant one.

I cross the road and signal for my car to come pick me up. Nina is still inside her closed-for-the-night-coffee shop sitting at a table across Maggie. They're talking to each other and they both look worried.

Time to get out of here. Just as the Bentley speeds around the corner, Maggie spots me and starts waving frantically. Nina looks up, too, her expression a mix and match between a sigh of relief and a death glare.

No. No talk. I don't want to talk to any of you. I did what I came for and now I'm leaving.

Just leave me alone, all of you!

~ * ~

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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

Hello! Big fan here.

Just a teeny little question.

Since you're somewhat a snake, do you enjoy things snakes enjoy as a humanoid? Heat lamps, nice rocks to scratch itches on, etc.?

Love your work, especially the M25. Wahoo!

🖤❤️🧡

Well, hello there, big fan.

No, I really prefer the cold.... naaaah! I enjoy warmth both as a snake and as a humanoid. Would use a heat lamp if there was no sun around. And no more angel to put a blanket over me when I'm cold.

As for rocks, no, I can scratch my own itches while in human form. I have hands for that.

And, no, I absolutely do not eat mice. Not even as a snake.

I'm no longer in the business of hellish road construction, so if you happen to have any trouble with bad traffic or crazy madmen drivers, it's not on me. Anyhow, wahoo to you, too!