#literally all I saw about it is that apparently there's a crested gecko in it

[moghedien]

i've seen nothing about it and I'm low key curious, so fellow adults who read Percy Jackson as a kid, is the new show bad or not?

[joddit-y]

Gabriel and Beelzebub's Divintively Terrible Plan (a Good Omens fanfiction)

if you’d rather read it A03, click here

chapter one is here, two is here, three is here

CHAPTER FOUR

Aziraphale, having known Crowley for around six thousand years, know quite a bit about him. Some of the more important things were the fact that Crowley cried, he could do weird things with his tongue, and most importantly, he was seldom truly fearful. True fear was rare in ethereal or occult beings and even rarer in the Serpent of Eden. The demon tended to smother his emotions, out what Aziraphale assumed was pride. So to see him experience what could only be described as a severe panic attack was unsettling to say the least. But Aziraphale was predominantly worried as he hurried inside to collect a soft rag and a glass of water from where he’d left Crowley sitting in the outside lot. He’d been twisting at his jacket sleeves, knees curling up to his chest the last he’d seen him.

The angel had made a friend in the late nineteenth century (Crowley had been asleep at the time so he’d been available) out of an intrepid customer who had, despite his best efforts, managed to visit his shop weekly. Eventually his annoyance gave way to grudging admiration and they became fast friends. She figured out that he didn’t particularly want to sell his books, so she just curled up in a corner with a stack of tomes and a pair of cotton gloves for hours, never buying. One unfortunate day she decided to bring her fellow book enthusiast with her on her weekly visit, and he was less than patient with the seller’s antics. He pressured the poor girl into simply buying the book she’d been reading for the past few weeks (he hadn’t planned on a long visit), and as a result she’d panicked, not knowing who she wanted to please. Apparently the man she’d been with was her date, and he was alarmed by her nervous breakdown and abandoned her there. Aziraphale had done his best to help her that day, and it was then she’d informed him of several generic ways to help someone having a panic attack.

The first rule, let the patient decide what they need (physical contact being a big one), don’t force anything on them. The second, if they look like they might be about to hurt themselves (whether intentionally or not), give them something mindless to do with their hands. The third was to attempt to understand what happened once they were calm.

He mouthed the rules to himself as he scuttled over the hardwood, gently opening the door to the back porch. Closing it with a soft click, he saw Crowley was now upright. A good start, he cheered silently. The lanky demon looked at him from over his shoulder balefully, and it was then Aziraphale noticed the crate had moved itself outside, and Crolwey was preparing to break it open. He hovered over the last step, confused.

“Crowley, why...well, are you alri--”

Crowley waved him over and cut him off.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine, now are we going to see what’s been hogging your floor space or what?”

The angel’s eye roll was barely reigned in as he begrudgingly acquiesced. Of course Crowley would pretend everything was fine, his ego was roughly the size of Soho afterall. His demonic nature made him too proud to ever ask for help. Demons liked themselves very much, and accepted help from none, lest their “reputation” be tarnished (although a certain demon tarnished his own reputation by making his most common wile gluing coins to the street). He’d resigned himself to this fact centuries ago, he just preferred not to think of it. He preferred to fool himself into thinking that Crowley knew just how much he was loved.

Meanwhile, the demon had begun to pry open the top of the crate, miraculously avoiding the splinters gunning for his slender fingers. Aziraphale sighed. He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t just drop the issue. Grasping the cool metal of the second crow bar he joined his friend.

“Dear boy, I must ask what happened not five minutes ago. I’ve never seen you that panicked before, aside from the Apocalypse of course.” he grunted, the thick wood beginning to finally give way.

Crowley paused in throwing his entire weight against the bar long enough to sigh despairingly.

“Angel- that was-well, I suppose I don’t really know exactly what happened,” he fumbled, waving his free hand around, a sure sign he was uncomfortable. Aziraphale raised his eyebrows disbelievingly.

“...I just sorta. I dunno, it’s over now though so it’s fine .”

He grumped, throwing himself back into his work with a renewed vigour.

Huffing, Aziraphale asked Crowley if it was time he step back from the box, as it was almost open and he didn’t want to get hurt. The demon nodded curtly as the lid creaked open, releasing a cloud of dust along with the unpleasant sensation of being watched. Shoving the lid onto the ground, Crowley peered over the lip of the crate, only to be met with the back of a gloved hand to the face. Aziraphale startled to his side as Crowley tripped backwards, matching expressions of shock painting their faces. Crowley made to stand slightly in front of the barbed angel at his side, preparing to protect him from the waves of demonic energy seeping out of the container, which were unexpectedly and alarmingly more intense than he’d sensed. Crowley’s pupils shrunk to anxious pinpricks amidst a golden sea.

“Who in the he- hea- Earth are you, and why have you spent the last few days loitering inside an angel’s book shop?” Crowley announced, feeling quite pleased with how confident he sounded. Aziraphale wondered if he knew how much his voice was wavering.

The satin hand considered flipping them off for a moment before withdrawing back inside the crate. The hand was attached to its owner, (it is actually important to clarify this, this particular hand had been attached to several other demons in the course of its existence) who was feeling quite rash at the moment, as they had just spent a good part of the week stuffed inside a cheap, splintery crate in full formal attire. Of course they had chosen to wear that outfit, but that was beside the point. The demon considered their options as they listened the the pair outside shuffle nervously (Aziraphale had decided that he couldn’t leave Crowley to face the demon alone, and was resetting their placement to a more equally endangered position). They rather felt like with what they’d had to put up with (listening to an angel argue with voicemail for a week was infuriating), they had earned a dramatic entrance, the “dissasembled-body-parts-crawling-up-to-reassemble-themselves-limb-by-limb” being one of their personal favourites. But at the end of the day, they were tired, and wanted to get these morons out of their life as soon as possible.

Crowley had just begun to consider edging closer to the eerily silent box when suddenly there was a tall, suited creature in front of him. Confusion and worry fought for control over his facial features as he recognized the being standing before them. Aziraphale gave the demon a hasty once over warily, blue eyes darting to Crowley and then to the other demon’s tongue, which was currently tracking saliva all over a soft pink eyeball. He supposed that his snake-like friend wasn’t the only one who could do weird things with his tongue.

The maroon, leaf-like crests lining their head (like they put three minutes of work into making acceptable looking hair, which they had no idea how to go about doing in the first place) swayed slightly as the demon spoke.

“You are the demon Crowley and the angel Aziraphale.” he said, his voice an almost perfect baritone if it weren’t for the clicks and chirps punctuating his speech pattern.

Crowley seemed to sober up at his words, the angel noticed. He himself was finding it a tad difficult to tear his attention from the demon’s tartan pocket square. The snake demon considered lying before remembering that this tart had been hiding out in the bookshop for about a week now, so they were confirming, not asking. Drawing himself up to his full height (he didn’t like being looked down on, figuratively or literally, and they were currently doing both), he grumbled an affirmation. Leaning back, the demon picked their gloves off their hands.

“Good.” they barked.

Aziraphale decided to draw attention to himself.

“Excuse me, ah-”

“Dagon, Lord of the Files.” Dagon interrupted. “Or more like Lord of the Flies with how much time I spend around the Prince.” they snarked, the joke sliding off the pair like water slides off a duck. They were far too concerned at the moment to appreciate the rare sight of a demonic sense of humour.

“Lord Dagon then. To avoid beating the tush,”

A part of Crowley died as that awful misconstruction entered the world. Dagon just looked confused.

“what exactly is it that you want with us?”

The frilled head nodded knowingly, padded fingers drawing a small, black velvet box from their inner suit pocket.

“I’ve always preferred showing to telling, so why don’t you two just have a look in this chest for me?” they purred, holding the box out to them invitingly.

Crowley was fully aware that Dagon, while being an utter stiff, was a powerful, cunning demon who could incapacitate them both in a blink of their eye (metaphorically anyway, geckos and therefore Dagon did not blink). So when Aziraphale looked like he aimed to protest, he gave him a sharp poke in the ribs to shut him up, which worked, but earned him an affronted look.

“Why?” Crowley asked, feeling that this was a safe question. The demon rolled their eyes, and proceeded to make a production out of placing his other hand on the lid of the box. Curious blue and yellow gazes followed it reluctantly.

The lid snapped open, the dust that had been loitering in the velvet for decades was finally ousted.

And then several things happened all at once, so I will relay them to you in the most sensible order I can.

The box, greedy for its next meal, wrenched over 12000 years worth of memories from two violated minds. It had been getting pretty hangry recently with nothing to fill itself with, but all said and done it was extremely satisfied with the outcome of its little outing.

Their minds suddenly found themselves in a fog, trying desperately to latch onto things that it couldn’t remember, feelings that they’d never had. Then everything was gone.

Aziraphale suddenly found himself blank.

Crowley was empty.

Dagon, knowing they had about five minutes of dazed recovery time to leave without making a fuss, teleported the pair into the bedroom of the shop, and then disappeared back to their desk in the Management wing of Hell, hoping that the traitors would just live out the rest of their days (they were immortal of course, but the end of the world was still coming- eventually.) as the old married couple they acted like and not bother anyone.

~~~

As you know,angels and demons don’t technically have gender. Or sex for that matter. Pronouns are generally assigned to them by humans, who assume gender constantly. So really they just go with whatever is convenient at the time. Since these particular occult beings don’t remember their pronouns, we will just assume that they’ll figure it out eventually and refer to them both by he/him for convenient story telling.

He blinked. Blinking felt...odd. It felt as if he wasn’t meant to do it but got into a habit of it anyway. He blinked again, hoping the small action would clear the fog from his head. It didn’t help, but he decided to keep doing it. Blinking seemed to be the only feasible option right now, he wasn’t sure what to do with the rest of himself just yet. He wondered vaguely if he should be slithering right now, and if that was right then why did he have limbs?

Blink. One after the other this time, not that felt any less strange.

He flopped his head over to the right, nuzzling against the cool, soft thing underneath his cheek. What were these called again? ...Blanquette? No, no, that was French. Times had changed, and so had language. Frowning into the… soft thing, they realized that French was as much a mystery to them as the blanquette was. For that matter, so was the sleepy looking blonde lying just a few feet away from him.

Wait.

Lurching up from the blanquette and stumbling over the wood panels to prop himself haphazardly against a dusty old dresser (why are legs??), he watched the other being in the room suspiciously. The other looked to be harmless, but there was something about him that felt mildly dangerous, and he wasn’t going to take any chances in this state. But really, what was his state? He couldn’t remember anything before waking up a few minutes ago. That wasn’t good. This was very bad, not knowing yourself was very bad problem to have, especially if you can’t defend yourself from- defend from who? He couldn’t remember. He just had that feeling that he was in danger in some way. But at least he remembered common things, like… French, apparently. Thank God for that. Wait, he didn’t want to thank God, that was awkward for some reason.

If not God, then who- Satan? No that didn’t seem right either but who else would you thank, someone? Whatever, Someone would have to do for now. He got the feeling that this was a common dilemma of his.

There was something else about the fellow face planted into the bed that he couldn't quite put his finger on, but it made him uncomfortably comfortable. He didn’t feel like he should be trusting someone he’d never met but already knew. The soft waves of energy emanating from the man made him itchy. He wasn’t sure he liked that. But he couldn’t deny that something about him made him feel safe.

As he raised a pale, twiggy hand to scratch the back of his neck (anatomy! He knew that!), he readjusted his stance and limped slowly over to the bed. He knew how to use his legs, but his hips were an entirely different matter. Were they supposed to sway this much as he walked? Catching sight of a full length mirror propped against a wall, he stood up a tad straighter and gave himself a quick once over. Other than finding himself to be quite aesthetically pleasing, there wasn’t anything that required his immediate attention. Focusing back on the stranger (although he could be referring to himself here for all he knew), he leaned in slightly. Did he know this being? He certainly didn’t remember him, but he was pretty sure that he knew them. But all sense of sentimentality was forgotten when blue orbs batted open.

~~~

He felt...bad. This all felt wrong. But how did one know what was the difference between right and wrong, good and bad anyway? Blinking the sleepy haze from his eyes, he zeroed in on the rather angular looking person tensed at the foot of the thing they were lying on. He looked worried about something. Maybe he were suspicious of him? But he’d never done anything to this man as far as he could remember...

His hands move on their own accord to gently pat down his face. Was this who they were? Why didn’t he know that, he should know who he was, of that he was certain. This was definitely wrong-

“Oh dear oh dear oh dear-” he breathed, hand running through his apparently short hair while the other plump digits ran over his clothing. When the person across the room made a move towards them, he was barraged with questions.

“Who are you, where are we?!” “I-” “What is happening??”

The ginger waved his hands frantically, signalling that he was just as confused and that the interrogation wasn’t helping.

The two of them sat in silence for a minute, staring at each other. Eventually the blonde, once he’d calmed himself, decided they had to start somewhere. Clearing his throat, he inquired the other’s name.

“My name?” the other frowned, thinking hard behind the dark glasses.

“Yes, dear boy, everyone has a name.” he said, even though he currently had no idea what his own was. He hoped that hearing the other’s would jog something. While the skinny creature in the dark clothes pondered the question, the other suddenly wondered what he looked like. Glancing around the dusty room, he caught his reflection in a mirror across the room. He didn’t look like much (in stark contrast to the fellow leaning awkwardly against the dresser), but he found it pleasant. Homely, if you will.

“Well I don’t know who I am right now either, so let’s just call me...erm… I dunno, what’s a good name for me do you think?” he muttered, stuffing his hands into pockets that were far too small for anything to actually fit in.

“Wh- You don’t have your memories either?” the tartan clad man exclaimed.

The ginger shook his head hesitantly.

“Well you look very nice, very sophisticated. Maybe something proper, like Sean or maybe Anthony?” he suggested.

“Anthony, eh? Not bad. Don’t like Sean though." he accepted the name brusquely, and gestured impatiently for the other to do the same.

"Oh! Yes, my name. Erm." He blundered, looking to Anthony for ideas. He was somewhat offended by the small eye roll that accompanied the next suggestion.

“Why not...oh I don’t know, Michael? You could pass for a Michael.”

He shuddered. “No, no, definitely not.” Something about that name just made him uncomfortable. Anthony frowned, and did his best to remedy the sudden tension in the room. He opened his mouth as if to say something, and then looked sideways at Not-Michael.

“You know, I’ve been going along with this because there’s something about you that makes me feel safe, but don’t you think this is suspicious? Don’t you think it’s odd that two amnesiacs wake up together in what looks like the centuries old backroom of a long dead pub?”he growled, making his way slowly across the creaking floor panels to the other man in a threatening manner. He was getting increasingly unnerved by how smoothly this was playing out, he didn’t feel right being this vulnerable.

“Unless, you’re...faking?”

Not-Michael bristled.

“How dare you! A being such as myself could never stoop so low. My only wish is to help and love others, here you stand accusing me of senseless deception!” he cried, standing wobbly on top of the bed to gain height on his attacker.

Anthony looked slightly abashed, but wasn’t backing down.

Two brilliantly white wings burst from Not-Michael’s back, sucking up all the color in the space to make way for them. His soft blue eyes hardened into vibrant blue mint orbs, white hair standing more upright than usual. He didn’t like this feeling, it was too intense, too angered . But he couldn’t seem to control it, as much as he desperately wanted to when Anthony flung up his arms to shield himself from the burning light illuminating the room.

Anthony didn’t know what had happened. One moment he had been interrogating his new acquaintance, and then he’d snapped, outraged and painful. The itch that had been plaguing him furiously bloomed into a fire racing through his veins, scorching him from the inside out.

Then suddenly a huge, slightly burnt, black snake had taken Anthony’s place, hissing like mad and coiling itself up defensively, preparing to do just that.

Now, and angel’s fury is, like most would assume, righteous. Powerful. But angels can be made furious over practically nothing (part of their design, unfortunately- it made smiting easier), and if the angel in question has no control over that anger and the power that comes with it (or no memory of even having it), then it can spiral out of control very quickly. And as is common with those quick to ferocity, that innocent anger can be easily misguided and taken out on the wrong person.

There are very few things that can halt this kind of anger in its tracks. One of them happens to be receiving a huge, sudden shock. And watching the only person you’ve ever met turn into a giant reptile is certainly surprising.

The light was gone. The air stopped vibrating and returned to its usual meander. Electric irises were once again soft. His blood wasn’t burning.

The wings however, stayed. But they didn’t possess the light of Heaven anymore, now they were completely normal wings. They’d stayed put because they’d had enough of the pocket dimension they’d been stored in for the last several years and decided to make a break for it.

The angel took a few steps away from the spitting animal across from him that he didn’t want to believe was Anthony. The speckled wings puffed a bit, mimicking their owners bewilderment.

The snake hissed.

“What have you done to Anthony?” he cried, pointing a plump finger at the just as bewildered looking snake. “Because-” he started, searching desperately for an answer to the beast in front of his very eyes. “Because you can’t be Anthony, people don’t just turn into large snakes. I think.”

Anthony, for his part,was more confused than he’d ever been before, which was saying a lot, seeing as he had woken up just ten minutes ago without his memories. He felt better as a snake though. He couldn’t remember quite how he was a snake, but it felt right this way.

“Oh you think I’m sstrange? You have wingss!” he argued with some difficulty. Speaking through a snake was very different.

“Yes, but that’s normal! Isn’t it? Yes, yes it is, wings are normal. Turning into a huge reptile is most definitely not!” Not-Michael spluttered.

“Being a ssnake iss- um. It doesn’t not feel normal? So that meansss it’ss completely normal, and if it feelss that way then it can’t exactly not be normal!” Anthony blustered.

“What?” The other said, trying valiantly to get through the double negatives to what he was actually saying. His hand faltered, swinging back down to his side.

“Besidess, what wass with all that horrible light? You nearly killed me! Over nothing!”

“I-what? I nearly killed you?” he suddenly looked horrified.

Anthony cringed. He’d wanted to scold the man, but he looked so genuinely and terribly distraught that he felt a little guilty about it.

“I mean, I don’t think ssso, but it ssure felt like you were getting there.” he mumbled, coiling himself into a loose pile of scales. He noticed vaguely that there were red stripes adorning his underbelly.

“I… I’m so sorry, Anthony. I truly didn’t mean to hurt you, I just wasn’t sure how to control it, and I was so furious over what seems like nothing, now. I’m so sorry my dear.” he sighed, blue gaze eventually meeting a golden eye.

“Ss’okay angel, I’m ssure you...I mean you had good reasson to… we’ll work on it.” the snake grumbled. Not-Michael perked up, a small smile on his face. Anthony decided then and there that he liked that smile.

“Angel?” he asked, wondering if that might have once been his name.

Anthony said nothing. He wasn’t entirely sure if that had once been some sort of pet name, or if it was poking fun at what seriously looked to be the man’s species. The only part he mentioned aloud were his musings on what exactly the blonde was, because he vaguely certain that wings and terrible light weren’t part of the average human package. The other thought it over, and decided to accept the theory as truth. So now he was an angel. How about that.

“What do you think,” he started contemplatively “of just calling me Angel for now?”

The black scaly head cocked to the side slightly, not unlike a dog.

“I sssupose that could work.” he agreed.

Angel smiled appreciatively. “Say Anthony, do you think you could possibly turn back now?”he queried, straightening and then immediately crouching back down to eye level with Anthony.

“It’s not that I have anything against your being a snake? But it really would be easier to sort through this mess if we’re both in the same form.” he paused, then added “and I’m pretty sure that I am unable to become a snake.”

If snakes could blink owlishly (or blink at all for that matter), then Anthony would have done so. Unfortunately the only thing his body could muster to convey his realization was his jaw hanging open. This gave him the gently surprised look of someone who’d just found out that ethereal and occult beings Make An Effort far more often than they would like to admit.

“You- you do know how to turn back,,, don’t you?”

He did not.