#it's just so much ... sharper and sleeker than in my imagination? like in her writing it's very sketchbook colored pencils vibe

[maraczeks]

the flatshare thread pt 1

[politeanarchy]

There’ll Be Paperwork (a WIP)

Here’s the beginning of a thing I’m writing, in which a snake-demon causes some unintentional problems in the early days of the Earth.

...

Corporation Replacement Request Form Date: 4003 BC Requesting Entity: Principality Aziraphale of the Eastern Gate Cause of Discorporation: demonic bite

It had been several months since Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden. An angel and a demon had been quietly following them for most of that time. On this particular evening, the humans were huddled close to a small fire, doing their best to comfort one another against the chill that followed after sunset, while the angel and demon peered warily at them from behind a couple of concealing boulders.

"We could have a fire, too," said the demon.

"Of course we can't, they'd see it!"

"So?"

"So then they'd come to investigate, and they'd find us, and then they'd be exposed to your evil influences again. Goodness only knows what else you'd manage to tempt them into, given the chance."

The demon made a sort of diffident hmmmm-ing noise. "Don't know what anyone expects me to do, with you here thwarting me left and right." He shivered. "Aren't you cold?"

"Here, sit next to me." The angel shook his wings, then fluffed them up and wrapped them around himself and the demon. "Better?" He picked up a fig from the small stash of fruit he'd brought along and which they'd been sharing fairly amicably.

"A little," agreed the demon. He nibbled a couple of grapes, while trying to pretend not to huddle a little closer to the warm angel. "Besides, if we talked to the humans again, wouldn't it give you a chance to help them, with, you know, blessings or some such?"

"I certainly wish I could help them," the angel fretted. "They're  going to need it, especially since I'm pretty sure Eve is going to have her baby soon." He bit into the soft ripe fig, leaving his fingers slightly sticky with juice.

"How do you know that?" asked the demon. "Have you got a heavenly memo saying that angelic messengers are going to be popping along with it shortly, or what?"

"What? No! That's not how it works at all." The angel waved his hands and gesticulated impatiently, still holding the bitten half of the fig. "You see, she...well, and...I mean..."

The demon wasn't making much attempt to follow the explanation. He knew where humans came from: the Almighty made them, then put them on the Earth, gave them a few simple (and probably contradictory) instructions, and turned them loose. And honestly, the angel's incoherent ramblings wouldn't have made much sense even if the demon had been listening. Whereas the waving hand holding the fig was exactly the sort of thing that predatory reptiles were built to notice.

The demon watched him closely, yellow slitted eyes tracking every motion, head swaying.

"So after nine months...at least I think...oh, this is ridicu— Hey!"

There was a sudden movement, like a snake striking. The angel was startled to find that his remaining fruit had been stolen, licked out of his fingers by the demon who was still holding him by the wrist, staring with intense focus at the remaining patches of sweet juice.

"I beg your pardon!"

"Sssorry. Inssstinct."

They stared at each other, the space between them charged with complex tensions.

"You're still holding my hand."

"I ssuppose I am." Without breaking eye contact, the demon brought the angel's fingers back up to his mouth and deliberately licked some juice off them. This resulted in a sharp intake of breath from the angel, followed by a wicked smile from the demon. "Dissstracting, is it?"

"No! Yes. I mean..."

"You don't ssseem to be asssking me to ssstop, though."

"Why are you doing this, anyway?"

"Dunno. It's interesssting." He was looking sleeker and more sinuous than usual, forked tongue flicking out to taste the air, teeth grown longer and sharper.

The angel may have been aware of the changes, but was also pretty sure he could take his hand away any time he felt like it. He just didn't happen to feel like it, at the moment. It was quite interesting, this business of how bodies reacted to different things. He was here on Earth to observe and learn, after all. In fact, it was practically a duty to find out why it was that this made him feel so uncomfortable, while at the same time making him want it to keep happening.

So he made no move to reclaim his hand, but continued to gaze at the demon curiously. And permitted the demon to close his sharp-toothed mouth around one finger, gently licking off the last traces of fig juice and noticing how its flavor combined with the taste of angel skin.

It was unfortunate that at exactly this moment, a bright light and a swell of unearthly music announced the imminent manifestation of some new angelic presence just a few yards away, on the other side of the boulders they'd been hiding behind.

The demon, startled, bit down hard on the angel's finger.

"Ow!"

"Oh, shit! Sorry! I didn't mean to—"

The angel, after the initial shock of being bitten, realized that something was very wrong with his physical body. Waves of pain were spreading up his arm from the bitten finger, and his eyes wouldn't focus properly. "You idiotic serpent! I think you must be poisonous!"

"I'm not poisonous, I'm venomous!"

Frantically, in his last conscious moments, the offended angel gathered all his holy righteousness and human irritation, and used them to smite the demon as hard as he could.

A few minutes later, when two angelic messengers arrived on Earth to help Eve with the birth of her first baby, they didn't even notice the fading traces of a discorporated angel and a discorporated demon, dissolving quietly into dust and aether. If there was a faint smell of sulphur and charred feathers and ozone, they put it down to the humans' campfire.

Aziraphale shortly found himself back in Heaven, and was eventually presented with a commendation for his heroic actions in the service of protecting Adam and Eve by fighting and eliminating a demonic threat. He shook his head and made a tut-tut sort of noise, and may even have gone so far as to say hmph.

However, it was a relief to return to the familiar serene brightness of the celestial realm. To join in the choirs singing "Holy, holy, holy." To contemplate the ineffable wonder of it all, and especially to think about the Earth, so complicated and confusing. To worry a little about how Adam and Eve were doing. To wonder what had become of the demon who was so full of curiosity. To miss having a body that was able to experience physical sensations. To admonish himself for being full of unseemly questions and unsuitable desires.

He stared out across an infinite expanse of pristine firmament and fidgeted, tapping his fingers and wondering what to call his current state of discontent. Heaven didn't understand the concept of boredom, but Aziraphale was beginning to.

"Aziraphale! Just the angel I was hoping to see."

"Gabriel." He nodded politely at the Archangel.

"I've come to inform you that you're being re-assigned to Earth. From what we hear, some demonic force is causing problems again. Might even be the same one you got rid of when you were down there before. Aaaaand since you handled him so neatly the last time, well." Gabriel smiled, smooth and shiny as a platinum credit card.

Aziraphale stopped himself from jumping up and down, and suppressed a joyful cry along the lines of "Yippee!" Instead he smiled back, and hoped he was projecting a sense of cheerful enthusiasm for duty rather than oh thank goodness I can finally get out of this stifling office. "I'm always happy to help, in whatever way the Lord should require of me."

Gabriel beamed, and punched him playfully on the shoulder. It hurt a bit. "That's the Holy Spirit I like to see!"

Aziraphale wondered whether Gabriel's rampant enthusiasm meant that no one else had been willing to take the Earth job, or if he was just imagining it. It didn't much matter, he supposed. He was impatient to get going as soon as possible.

"When should I expect to leave, then?" he asked.

"Right away." Gabriel materialized a stack of pages, and handed them over. "You'll just need to fill out some paperwork, first."