#getting ready for IBweek

[incapacitated-till-caffeinated]

Off we go again

[hollowistheworld]

Flies

Day 2 of IBWeek 2023, hosted by @the-bureaucracts-are-everything

Also on AO3

They’re admiring Gabriel’s statue again, and that’s how Beelzebub knows they’re absolutely fucked. It shouldn’t have been endearing, watching Gabriel stare lovingly at a statue of himself. But unfortunately for Beelzebub, Gabriel was no longer capable of doing anything that wasn’t endearing. Everything was their song miracled onto the jukebox, Gabriel buying them human consumables so they wouldn’t draw too much attention, Gabriel letting his gifted fly out of its matchbox just to smile at it and listen to the buzz of its wings. 

Beelzebub had decided they didn’t care about the fraternizing, didn’t even care about pretending to come up for a reason for it, but this… They looked up at Gabriel’s statue, at the massive cross, the memories of the days of robes and ceremonies.

“How were we both more and less formal back then?” Beelzebub asks.  

"Hmm? Oh. I…” 

And Beelzebub misses the next bit of Gabriel’s blustering, because they’d looked over just in time to see Gabriel look up at the statue - meaning he hadn’t been looking at it all along. It had looked, instead, for just a moment, like he’d been looking at Beelzebub. 

And Beelzebub isn’t quite ready to think about all the implications of that, so they tune back in just in time to catch Gabriel saying, “I don’t miss the robes though. Suits suit me far better.” He chuckles and repeats, “Suits suit me better. That’s good. Didn’t even mean to.” 

Beelzebub, with barely any attempt at restraint, smiles. He is funny. Not that obnoxious excuse for funny that one usually gets with angels, where they pretend they don’t realize they’re rubbing the Fall in their demonic audience’s faces. Actually funny. And genuine. 

And… sweet. Gabriel is sweet, which would have been an unimaginable description of him a few years ago. But back then Gabriel had been more of an idea than another living being. Just Beelzebub’s counterpart Upstairs, the one they’d butted heads against a few times over the millennia, the one they'd be squaring off against once the War finally got rolling.

Now Beelzebub would rather take a massive demotion and spend the rest of their eternal existence in the worst of Hell’s pits than play that particular story out. 

Because they’re fucked. Because they’re standing here in a graveyard, looking at a statue of the Supreme Archangel Gabriel while standing next to the actual Supreme Archangel Gabriel, because there’s nowhere else they’d rather be than wherever Gabriel feels like being. Fuck that, there’s nowhere else they even like being anymore. 

“Are there any statues of you out there?” Gabriel asks. 

Beelzebub shrugs, and makes an effort to not preen too obviously at being asked. “None that bear such a good likeness. Mortals like to emphasize the horns and scales and things when they make representations of demons. They are meant to be afraid of us after all.” 

Gabriel looks down at them with a sort of frown. He has an odd way of frowning, Beelzebub has noticed, as though he’s trying to convince you he’s smiling at the same time. Probably wasn’t really allowed to frown in Heaven, same as you could never look too happy in Hell. “Right,” he says. “Demonic attributes. You have more than just the flies?” 

…Right. They’ve only ever met up on Earth, where boils on the skin or rotting teeth might cause a panic. “Plenty more. I’m the Grand Duke of Hell. I can’t look mortal. We aren’t like you lot, where we can brag about being made in God’s image.” They sneer a little, but with far less bite than there’d been the first few times they’d had conversations like this. It all feels so natural now. They're not so different, at the end of it all. Not in ways that matter. 

Gabriel turns his back on his statue. “May I see?” 

Beelzebub stares at him. “…Why?” 

“That’s what you really look like, isn’t it? I’d like to see your real face.” 

They’re doing it again. Taking a step they aren’t supposed to, heading toward another place they won’t be able to come back from. The first had been when they’d simply agreed they’d meet again soon, no pretext provided, and the steps have been coming faster and faster ever since. This is the most dangerous thing Beelzebub has done since the original rebellion, all those thousands of years ago. But unlike then, when Beelzebub had looked up at God’s place above them and braced themself for the brutal consequences they knew were coming, there’s no real fear. Just the awareness that they’re about to do something just as reckless and dangerous as the Fall had been. 

Beelzebub is pretty sure this fall is going to be worth it. 

They’re still caught off guard every time they move closer to it though. This isn’t what demons do. This isn’t what angels do. But when Crowley and his angel had canceled Armageddon, they’d messed up a lot more than just the Great Plan. 

It occurs to Beelzebub they may have to come up with some reason to cut Crowley loose and take him off hell’s shit list. They have enough decency to at least recognize when they owe someone, and it would seem they owe Crowley a lot. 

“Alright,” Beelzebub agrees, and Gabriel smiles. 

It’s been a long time since they’ve been on Earth without disguises. Humans aren’t so easy to terrorize or impress as they used to be, and even Hell’s Grand Duke has to deal with an obnoxious amount of paperwork to get a new body if the old one gets burned at the stake or stoned to death. Beelzebub takes off their hat and twists their neck, stretches their shoulders, feels the pop in the back of their ribs. Their flies begin to buzz. They can see when the noise reaches the world - Gabriel tips his head and smiles wider.

The night grows a little darker, the air thicker. Beelzebub feels their skin shift and snap, the left side of their mouth pulling up, their teeth sharpening and elongating and filling up their mouth. Flies crawl over their tongue and out of their mouth, burst out of freshly formed pustules on their skin. 

And then they’re fully demonic; surrounded by flies, their skin rotting off in patches, boils sprawling across their face. They’ve even exposed their wings - a rare thing to bother with, but if they’re showing off, they’re going to do it all the way. 

Beelzebub’s wings have changed over the years, no longer the soft feathers God had once given them all. Now they’re stretched thin, transparent, like feathers made of fly wings. Beelzebub unfurls them, lets them catch the light Gabriel summoned and throw twisted shadows on the surrounding tombstones. 

This is one of those things a demon shouldn’t be doing. It’s been a good few centuries since you could just wander around with all the evidence of your crimes against God on your face for anyone to see. They put regulations in for this. To intentionally not pass yourself off as a human was to declare yourself to have bad intentions, and that meant any nearby angels had free reign to slam down with all the holy power they could muster. 

And here’s Lord Beelzebub themself, in front of Supreme Archangel Gabriel, making sure there’s no question about exactly what they are. And not only is there no fear, Beelzebub doesn’t even feel the need to be challenging about it. They feel no need to brace themself, to meet Gabriel’s eyes and dare him to turn away in disgust. 

And Gabriel doesn’t. His eyes are glowing violet and his own wings blur into existence, and the two of them are spotlighted, their wings catching and throwing the light at each other. The rest of Earth seems to have disappeared and it’s just them now, in all of existence. 

Gabriel reaches out one hand and flies swirl around his wrist as he cups his palm against Beelzebub’s cheek, his thumb running gently along a patch of rot. “You’re stunning,” he says softly. 

And it isn’t… Beelzebub has never been insecure about their appearance. They’re intimidating and horrifying and know how to put on a disguise (which is more than can be said for at least half of their people) and that’s what being a demon is all about. They’re proud, if anything. And they certainly aren’t wondering about humans or angels finding them attractive. 

But once, a long, long time ago, Beelzebub was an angel. They had once crowded at God’s feet and shouted with delight as the universe formed around them. That had been stunning. Beings who had been present at the birth of everything didn’t use words like stunning and awe-inspiring lightly. 

They lean into Gabriel’s touch, feeling a smile on their mouth they hadn’t thought about making. It’s like a small miracle in its own right, how often that happens around Gabriel. As though a smile is the expression that belongs on their face, not a snarl or the slack-jaw of boredom. 

“You’re rather nice on the eyes yourself,” Beelzebub returns. “I like purple.” 

Gabriel’s smile gets a little smugger and Beelzebub laughs. Gabriel’s free hand falls to their shoulder and his fingers slip into the tangle of their hair. “Your laugh is the most beautiful sound in the universe,” he says. 

Beelzebub remembers the singing of the morning stars, remembers how lovely God’s voice had sounded, back in the beginning, before everything had gone - quite literally - to Hell. Remembers sounds so beautiful you could cry at the way they filled you up. 

And not one of those sounds compares to Gabriel’s voice right now. “I could stay like this for eternity,” Beelzebub says, voice quiet, carried up by the buzzing of their flies. 

“Me too,” Gabriel replies, and he bends forward, touching their foreheads together. 

It isn’t eternity, in the end, because they don’t have that luxury. It isn’t even hours, because these meetings are crowded into their already busy schedules, around complaints and demands and paperwork and battles that just don’t feel worth fighting any longer. They drop their disguises back into place and the night feels grayer for it. They squeeze each other’s hands and hold on longer than is necessary, even as they pull away. 

“See you soon,” Gabriel says, stepping away like it pains him. 

“As soon as possible,” Beelzebub returns. 

It won’t be soon enough. It never is anymore.