Beelzebub X Gabriel - Blog Posts

same man, same

I went through every possible emotion in those last 20 minutes, plus some that I made up on the spot! how are y'all?

I just finished good omens, need to say that I loved that part where Aziraphale confessed his feelings to Crowley and they finally got together. Years later they attended to Maggie and Nina's wedding, even Gabriel and Beelzebub were there! Loved that ending folks

Where we left off: Our hero was nursing his wounded heart, that had been so callously broken, with a bottle of whiskey and a lamentation to the stars. (Mind the commas in the last sentence or it will mean something entirely different... I think. My spelling's "tickety boo" for a demon, but don't hold me accountable for commas, or as Aziraphale used to call them: commata.)

Anyhow, as our hero was lamenting and minding his own business, he was suddenly ambushed by an old enemy. With even more whiskey.

I know, I'm gonna regret this. I'm gonna regret this big time.

"So", I ask, turning to Beelzebub. "What exactly happened?"

"At first, nothing bad. We went to the pub as usual. And then we went to lots of different places. More pubs, shops, the sea, some restaurants, a waterfall, Paris, the moon...."

Why did we never do things like that? We could've had ages to go to places. Literally ages!

Nice one, us!

"And then? Then what?"

Well, we did go to the Ritz. And Paris, too. And some graveyard in Edinburgh. Still, to most of these places we haven't been on purpose. They just happened.

We've wasted our time. We’ve wasted so much time.

"At first, everything was like...like..." Beelzebub is at a loss for words.

"Maple syrup?", I cut in, "Raspberry vinegar? Baklava drowned in honey?"

Being stuck in their office, Beelzebub used to be quite unfamiliar with earth, but they do have a taste for sweet and sticky stuff. Even more so if it's drowned in even more sweet and sticky stuff.

They pause for a moment, trying to hide the goofy grin spreading on their face. It's a very unbeelzebublike grin. "Even better. It didn't really matter where we went and what we did, as long as we could spend time together."

"So, what changed?", I ask. No reason to dwell on memories of things you can no longer have.

"I don't know. It got boring. No, not boring. And not all of the things."

"More like annoying?"

I'm taking a wild guess here, but the expression on their face tells me I struck gold. "Yes. Exactly."

Beelzebub sets down the bottle to be able to move their hands more freely as they talk. "Wherever we go, he always wants to go shopping. This watch and these bags and those shoes. And then he parades around in them and wants me to tell which ones make him look better. And if I pick the wrong ones, he gets all sulky and curls his lip in this really weird way."

Their words get a bit fuzzy, as they try to demonstrate it with their own mouth, but that may be the alcohol's fault.

"And the tailors - oh, these endless hours at the tailors! I can't stand it. This suit and that coat, and - bloody heaven - how am I supposed to know if a tie is supposed to match the shirt or the jacket?"

"It used to be the jacket, now it's the shirt." I marvel in silence at the amount of words tumbling out of their mouth. Beelzebub can be quite a chatterfly, but this is unusual even for them.

"Oh and if it wasn't bad enough, then that whole napkin thing started. We ate at this nice little restaurant in Florence - and he managed to get a stain of tomato sauce on one of his oh-so-precious suits."

I snigger. Imagine that, Mr. ‘I-don't-sullen-my-celestial-body’ eating Pasta in Florence and getting tomato sauce on his clothes. Oh, Angel, how I wish, I could tell you this! We could sit in the bookshop, have a laugh together and imagine Michael or Uriel sending Gabriel a strongly worded note...

"I thought, how can one little stain be such a big deal? We can just miracle it away, but he was devastated. And then he started stuffing a napkin into his collar whenever we had something to eat, so it wouldn't happen again."

Florence. Aziraphale and I met in Florence once or twice during the Renaissance. We were watching the horse races with a young Spanish seminarian - César, I believe - me trying to tempt him away from priesthood and Aziraphale trying to cancel me out. I had already struck a deal with the boy's father in Rome to make him Pope, but I suppose that's a story for another time. Anyway, napkins. Right. Napkins.

Is Beelzebub about to tell me how they broke up with Gabriel over napkins?

"You know, some humans actually do wear napkins in their collars. Or put them on their lap while they eat. It's considered an acceptable behaviour in most restaurants."

"It's a ridiculous behaviour." Beelzebub doesn't seem to be happy about me trying to share my earthly wisdom. "Human children wear them. Adults look absolutely ludicrous in them. Anyway, I told Gabriel, I will not stand for it. If he puts one more napkin in his collar, I will turn on my heel and leave. And yet he did, and then I left and now I am here. End of story."

They grab the bottle again and gulp down the rest of it.

Okay, how do I put this. "Look, Beelzebub, 'breakup' may be a bit of a strong word here."

"Whaddoyoumean, strong?"

"I'm saying, you two got in a fight, but it's not that bad. Aziraphale and I used to have them all the time. You see, he has far more annoying habits than wearing napkins in his collar and parading around in new clothes."

"More annoying than napkins?" Their eyes narrow in disbelief.

"Tartan. That bloody tartan! Yes, I know, Angels wear tartan, but he wears it in places where you wouldn't believe it even existed and I'm not telling you because it really is none of your bisss... business. And he practisesss weird phrasesss about auntsss and their gardenersss because he insistsss on French, the hard way."

"French the hard way?"

"No, not that kind of French!"

"What French?"

"Oh, just forget about the French! He turned my car yellow. He uses weird words like 'commata' and 'tickety-boo' and half of the time, I don't understand what he's talking about anyway. He insists on doing human style magic shows without any miracles and doesn't care that he's bad at it. All of his drawing pencils have to be put in their little boxes in the right order and they all need to be the same size. And when he gets all excited, he pronounces capital letters."

I mean, really pronounces them. And he waves his hands around and bobs on his feet and singsongs along to his music records and I can't... I don't... grrrm... and where the heaven did I put my blinds? Where the f*** are they?

"Here." Beelzebub grabs them off the street and hands them back to me without looking at my face. Their eyes are set firmly on the flow of the river.

Humans may offer each other hugs and hot cocoa. Demons usually mock other demons for weakness. Pretending not to notice it, is a rare thing, and I appreciate the sentiment.

"I have a plan." Luckily, my instincts are back in place, for Beelzebub is about to tell me the real reason why they came to me in the first place. "Look, Crowley, why don't we just start our own thing?"

"What thing?"

"I mean, Hell was started originally because angels rebelled against Heaven, right? And now we - sort of - rebelled against Hell."

They can't be serious. "You mean, we create Hell Point Two? Oh, I bet, good old Lucifer is going to love this."

"He can't thwart us if we're strong enough. Not if we get enough demons to join our side."

They start to pace to dwell on their train of thought. "We could offer better rations or even some nice extras. Like stronger firecoffee or bugs in the office."

I take a step back. "Look, I don't know if 'Hell Point Two' is going to cut it..."

"You're right, we need a better name. One that's more appealing. How about: "The United States of Beelzebub?'"

"Bit long for demons, don't you think? They couldn't spell it. 'Hell' is such a nice short word."

"Don't be such a spoilsport!", they snap. "We could shorten it."

Right. I can clearly picture legions and legions of demons pumping their fists, fins, hoofs and claws up into the air while shouting: USB! USB! USB!

Scary thought. "Oh, come on! Think of all the paperwork. It'll be far worse than a few napkins."

"So, whaddoyousay, Crowley?" Beelzebub extends their hand. "I'll run it, you can be my second-in-command?"

Now, where have I heard THESE words before?

"Well, yes, USB. I can definitely see a career option here. Bees are great. Wahoo for Plan B. Just don't forget, before Plan B is set into motion, there's Plan A as in: Talk to Gabriel!"

Their hand sinks as they stare at me incredulously. "Talk to Gabriel... what about?"

"Pacts. Pacts are a thing. I know, they teach us in hell that we can only strike proper pacts with humans, but they actually function with angels, too. Quite well, to be honest. Aziraphale and I have had lots of pacts over the centuries."

Oodles of pacts. Once he had understood that it actually worked, it was pact-city-Aziraphale.

"For example: You could try something like: 'First, I go shopping with you for two hours, but then you go to my favourite pub with me.' Or: "First, you tell me which pair of shoes feels better on your feet, then I tell you which one looks better.'"

I see the frown on their face, but this time, I definitely sparked their interest. "There are many ways this could work, all you have to do, is bargain for good terms. Negotiate. Find things to bribe him with. You won't believe me now, but this can be quite fun."

"Fun?"

"Fun. Trust me on this. And don't let fights discourage you, they are just a thing. After our first fights, we didn't speak for centuries, then it became decades, then years. Nowadays we are down to mere days or even hours."

"Fine." Beelzebub still looks grumpy as usual, but also relieved somehow. "I'll do that, then."

"You know how to find him again?" I'm curious.

"Yes. I can sense where he is... sort of. I know it sounds weird, I can't really explain, how it works. It's just a feeling."

A feeling? Right. How would I have even the slightest idea how this feeling feels like? It's only been ... what? A few hundred years? A few thousand?

Why can't I pinpoint the moment when it started. I actually can't. It's always been the two of us. Always. Except for the brief times when he went up or I went down, I could always feel an earth with an Aziraphale in it.

Now it's empty. Hollow. I've never not felt him for such a long time.

I'm empty. Incomplete. Ripped to pieces at my very core.

"And, Crowley?"

"No, don't thank me.” Just go, be happy lovebirds or whatever. This has gone far enough already and I hope, I'm just too drunk to remember this entire conversation tomorrow."

~*~

More Diary Parts:

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Things to Do Today

1. Sober up and get rid of hangover

2. Ponder on how ridiculous this is

3. Get drunk again because I can't deal with this sober

I thought they were off to Alpha Centauri. Living that sweet life we will never have...

Well, it seems things don't always work out for other people, too.

Obviously. But let's rewind to last night and try to sort this all out.

"I was going to mysteriously appear in your car", Beelzebub said, "but somehow I can't get in anymore."

Oh.

"Also, when I tried to miracle myself in, the car suddenly turned yellow. Like some kind of defense mechanism."

OH!

"Things have changed, Beelzebub. You have to be invited in. And I'm certainly not go... gonna do that."

"Well, that's all right." They take a step closer. "We can just talk here."

"And I certainly don't want to talk."

"I brought booze."

My eyes shift between the empty bottle I'm holding and the full bottle in their hands.

Sigh.

I throw the empty bottle into the Thames (Yes, I should litter, I'm a demon after all. And maybe some hermit crab can build a home in it. Or some little fish family. Oh, lookey here, it's Nemo and the guys.)

Beelzebub passes the full bottle to me. It's obviously not miracled out of Hell, it's good old Earth stuff.

Mhm. Smells like it, too. And I just remembered that Nemo is a saltwater fish.

And so are hermit crabs.

I take a deep sip. Well, obviously not fish, but well.. you know.

"I heard about Aziraphale," Beelzebub looks at me with a sympathetic gaze and suddenly I feel the need to throw up. "I'm sorry, things didn't work out."

Bloody Heaven! I'm not going to talk to them about Aziraphale. It's bad enough with Maggie and Nina trying to get me to talk about Aziraphale, but Beelzebub? Really?

This is one of the few times I'm actually speechless, but being a fellow demon, Beelzebub should fully well be able to read my death glare.

They do. "Well, that's all right. Gabriel and I broke up, too, and I don't want to talk about it either."

They WHAT? They thwarted both Heaven and Hell for their love and now they fall out of it after barely three months?

Lucky for the both of us, Beelzebub freezes the bottle in mid air before it smashes on the ground. They grab it, take a big sip and pass it back to me.

We stand in silence, staring at the river. All is quiet, except for the city noises in the background, the sound of the water and the occasional burp from one of us as we devour the alcohol.

I know, I'm gonna regret this. I'm gonna regret this big time.

"So", I ask, turning to Beelzebub. "What exactly happened?"

~*~

Older Diary Parts minus the Reblogs:

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