#roughly around the time I first read good omens actually

[junkolt]

“You are so stupid I could kill you,” Malfoy raged, and kissed him.

It was possibly the worst kiss of Harry’s life. Malfoy was obviously too frantic and angry to think about it at all, it was just a crush of mouths as if Malfoy had decided that hitting Harry with his face was the way to punish him, and it made every muscle in Harry’s body relax abruptly and completely.

— “Drop Dead Gorgeous” by Maya

[monstrousvoice]

Royal Treatment

A/N: I wrote this for a Discord server and someone said it was good enough for posting so…here you go.

Tags: Smut, Spanking, Light Bondage, BDSM,, Dom-Sub, Dub-Con, Consensual Non-Consent, Kidnapping, Drug Induced Knock-out, Playing a Scene, everything is consensual I swear, Female Tarnished

Read on AO3!

You're sneaking around the castle of Lyndell when it happens. Margit the Fell, who you now know is the King, finds you. 

It was unexpected, you didn't know he had been watching you the entire time. In a quick flurry of attacks you were disarmed and a potion of sleeping draught was broken at your feet. The cool mist seemed to seep into your very bones, making you drowsy and desperate for sleep. You collapse, but don't hit the floor. The last thing your mind registers is the Fell Omen of Lyndell staring down at you.

When you awaken, you're staring at the stone floor. Your joints ache and you feel weary, the aftereffects of breathing in so much sleeping draught. As the pounding in your head clears you look up, taking in your surroundings. 

First thing you notice is the cool air on your backside. You're naked, head to toe, not a scrap of clothing to preserve your modesty.

Second, the surface you rest on is actually a rack, one your wrists and ankles are tied firmly to. Even if you were at full strength, you wouldn't be able to break through the binds. Said binds have been chosen carefully, clearly. Leather straps that hold you in place but don't dig roughly into your skin. 

If you're a prisoner, why would your captor make sure you were safely tied up for no injury...?

And finally, the room you find yourself in is not your typical prisoner cell or torture room. The walls and floor are pristine, no remnants of blood, no corpses left to rot. The smell of calming perfume tickles your nose. A fireplace, a genuine hearth like you've only seen in the Roundtable Hold, sits in the corner and cackles with flame. Everything is bathed in warm golden light and despite your nakedness you don't feel cold. Just pleasantly cool.

It would be enough to lull you into a false sense of security were it not for the objects lining the walls. Shadows from the fire dance and twist their shape, and fear pools like ice in your belly as you stare at what looks like instruments of torture. 

Some you recognize immediately. A wooden paddle, a leather whip and flock. Different types of shackles for your captor (and now torturer, you're certain) to move you into different positions and shapes. Some of the objects are just...so odd looking.

Some look...you blush and chastise yourself for thinking something so lewd, but they look...phallic? 

Rising panic makes you yank at your bonds with more force, and you cringe at the loud clatter of leather and metal against wood. You need to get away, you need to get out of here- 

The creak of a door opening behind you makes you freeze. Muscles tense and heartbeat in your throat, you crane your neck to look over your shoulder.

Margit the Fell stands, his arms folded across his chest. If you weren't so terrified you would have admired the flex of his muscles, the way his thick pectorals are pushed together by his strong arms. His golden gaze looks heated in the glow of the fire.

"M-Margit?" You whimper. "Please...please whatever you have planned, please don't do it, I swear I-"

"Quite a lovely sight, little Tarnished. A wonder thou does not walk around the Lands Between in such a state." He cuts you off, as if he doesn't even hear your pathetic pleas.

"W-wha-?" Your eyes dart down, and in reflex you try to clamp your thighs closed, only now realizing that with your tied position, everything is on display to the Omen.

Your shackles clatter and hold tight, keeping your legs forced open. You squeal in mortification, tears pricking your eyes at being in such an embarrassing position.

"Calm thyself, Tarnished. I took great care in choosing bonds that would not hurt thee, but too much struggle and thee may do so anyways."

You bow your head, wishing that you could simply disappear. 

He can see. 

He can see your shame, your lewdness. See how wet you are from simply being tied up.

You can't let him know, you can't-!

How did he even know!? How did he know that you would be in the castle? That you fantasized about this exact scenario on your journey through the land? Was he watching you the whole time?

Did he...did he see you at night? Hiding away in your camp near Grace, whispering his name and plunging your fingers into your dripping cunt? 

What would he do with you now? You were helpless, tied down with your only exit being blocked by the very being making your most shameful fantasies a reality.

"I-I don't know what you want with me-please-!"

"Tis no use little Tarnished. I can smell thee." Your neck snaps up, trying in vain to face him again. "...Yes, I can smell thy scent, that sweet coiling spice of heat and arousal..." 

"N-no-!" You whimper, wiggling against the table as molten heat, the kind he smells you now know, pooling in your lower belly. You can feel your cunt leak at his words, at the sound of his lower timbre of a voice.

He laughs at you, a deep chuckle that you can feel vibrate through you to your very core. It makes your opening clench, and you bite your lip hard to keep from making more noise.

The heavy thud of his feet along the stone floor echoes in your ears. With no warning, massive scarred hands grip your thighs, the curve of your ass resting just above them. You squeak in shock at his touch, jerking your hips forward out of instinct.

"Don't move away from me, Tarnished." He growls. 

"P-please-" He ignores you. You feel his thumbs, each one longer than your palm and as thick as two of your own fingers, pull at you drooling slit.

Your lips open to him, muscles clenching and winking at him as you bury your face against the table and squeal. Your cream beads from your opening, making the skin shine with arousal, all for him to see.

"Ahh, such a lewd sight. A beautiful cunt thou has, my little Tarnished. Tight and wet. Desperate for a cock to fill it, hmm?" You don't say anything, not trusting your voice to work how you want it to.

Embarrassed beyond belief you jerk again, pulling your hips away from him. Immediately you know this was the wrong move. Margit huffs in frustration, his hands falling away from your skin.

"Tis thy wish to be difficult, hmm?" He growls, moving away from the rack. You peek up from the wood to watch him as he goes towards the many shelves holding the various devices you can't even imagine the use of. He goes for something simple, a durable leather flogger. 

You tense up again, eyes wide. He won't possibly-!

"Wait! Please, Margit I'll do whatever you ask, p-please not this-!"

"Silence. Or thee shall wear a gag the rest of the night." His eye pins you, and you whimper once more. "I would rather not have to use it. I want to hear thee scream my name by the end of the night."

Resigned to your fate, you give up. There is no changing his mind. He plans to use you, to play with you, to break you.

Make you his. 

And trying to fight it would be pointless.

"Now, thy squirming is adorable, but not when thy goal is to pull away from me. Punishment is needed for thee to learn thy proper place." You tense as he walks behind you once more, and flinch hard at the feel of the flogger gently laid against your backside. He simply lets it drape over you, again and again until your muscles relax on instinct at the feel of the leather.

"What should thy punishment be? Tis a first time offense against your Master, I understand that thee must learn first. We shall start small." His free hand joins the flogger on your ass, fingers gripping the flesh of your cheek hard.

"We shall go to ten. Thou shall count every strike, is this understood?" You tremble, nodding your head.

"Y-yes Sir...c-count to ten..." You whisper. 

"Good." He purrs.

And the first strike hits. 

You cry out, body tensing up all over again as pain ripples through the soft flesh of your ass. Your back arches, trying to pull away even knowing it would be useless. The entire right side of your ass feels like it's on fire. 

You fucking love it.

He switches the flogger to his other hand, using his right to grab the stinging flesh of your right cheek. Large fingers massage the area, diluting the pain and making your muscles unclench once again.

"O-o-one..." You croak.

The second strike somehow feels worse. Right against your left cheek, the flogger strikes true, and heat spreads to match the intensity you feel in the right side of your ass. You jump hard again, body rocking back and forth as it tries to make sense of this painful pleasure combo it's been hit with. As Margit's hand massages the area, your own hands turn and grip at your leather cuffs, pulling at the bindings for some sort of stability. 

"Tttt-two-!"

When the third hit strikes your right cheek, you scream.

"FFFF-FUCK-! T-THREE-!" Your voice sounds distant to your own ears, the blood pumping through your system making everything feel both heightened and dull.

You can feel your cunt clenching rapidly on nothing but empty air, slick gushing out of you and coating your thighs. You need...you need something, anything. Anything that the Omen behind you will give to you.

"Good job little Tarnished, thee are doing very well..." His voice rumbles. A burst of smug pride and bliss spreads through your whole body at his words.

Yes, you are doing good. You're taking Master's punishment and doing exactly as he commands...what a good pet you are~

Another strike of the flogger against your abused skin.

"G-grace give me str-streng...Fff-four..."

Margit rubs soothing circles into the flesh again, watching as you go lax to his touch. Your skin is already hot to the touch, welts forming over your skin. 

His cock is aching between his legs. It has already slipped out of his sheathe, the head leaking precum into a pool on the table between your feet. His knot was still tucked snuggly away inside, not yet swollen enough to come out. 

He wanted to see your ass ruined, the skin tender and sore as he rubbed his cock in between the meaty flesh before pounding away at your cunt. To hear you cry for him as his cock stretched you open and his hips slapped against your abused skin.

He needed to move this along.

You were starting to relax fully at his gentle touch, the sting in your butt slowly fading away. And suddenly in quick succession, two strikes hit you at the same time.

Your back arched again and you threw your head back, staring wide eyed at the ceiling in a silent scream as searing pain blossomed into hot pleasure that shot straight to your cunt. It spasmed hard, a gush of cream squirting out and soaking your legs and Margit's hips. 

You weren't sure if you just came, you didn't know. You could feel the release of tension from your pussy, waves of pleasure rolling over you from head to toe, but the heat in your belly remained. 

The need to feel something more was still there. 

The flogger was laid down next to you, both the Omen's hands kneading and massaging your abused ass this time.

"Nngghhh-fuhhh-fuck-...Fffive and...and s-sssix..."

You fell limp against the rack, tears in your eyes as your overstimulated body finally gave out. You let your tears fall, unashamed as your body squirmed and wiggled. You didn't know what you needed anymore, a rest? A cock, to be bred by your Omen Master? Did it even matter? 

What did anything matter when Master was here for you? He knew what you needed, he would take care of you.

"P-pleasssse...Master I...I need-..." You needed him, anything from him. His words were as soothing as his touch.

"Yes my little one, I know. First thee must finish the punishment. It shall be over soon, dear one. Just four more." 

You gave a choked sob. You didn't want to do four more! You wanted it to be over, you wanted him-!

"Thou is doing such a good job...such a good little pet for me." You heaved and panted, taking solace in that you were being good. You didn't want to do it, but you could. Your Master knew you could.

His hands moved lower towards your lips, spreading them once more to watch you unabashedly.

"Fuck...look at this pretty little cunt, pulsing for me...so wet." You heard him say as a single finger dipped into you. It didn't even press against your opening or your engorged clit before it was gone again, a sticky trail of moisture connecting it to you. The trail snapped under its own weight, the slick falling back onto your trembling thighs.

You heard Margit suck on his finger, tasting your cream on his tongue. You hoped he liked it.

"Let us continue."

The flogger was picked back up, the threads of leather trailing on the table in the corner of your eye. You took a deep breath, bowing your head and presenting your sore ass for more punishment. 

A strike on your right cheek, a cry from you. Tears leaked down your face as more pain bloomed under your skin. 

"S-seve-!" Your count is cut off as another strike makes its mark, and your body convulses. Your hips wiggle and hump empty air, your lungs feel empty as you try to breathe. 

"FFF-FUH-Fuuuckk...please, please, pleasepleaseplease-" You beg, unsure what you're asking for at this point. All you know is that you need this.

"What is our count little one?" Margit growls, his hands already kneading your flesh. You give a choked cry in response. 

"Tell me. Otherwise we shall have no choice but to start over." The threat has you shuddering and crying again and you force yourself to mumble with some coherency.

"Sevvven...a-ah-ahnd...e-eight...ooohh fuuhcck..." 

"Hmmm, good. We are on our last two little Tarnished." You feel his body press against you, his towering form easily able to press against the entirety of your back and bring his lips to your ear.

His hot breath fans against your skin, and you're overwhelmed with the urge to feel his tongue shoved forcefully down your throat. You can feel his cock, hard as steel pressing against you, his hips pushing burning pressure against your ass.

"Count these last two...and thy punishment is over..." He purrs, nipping your earlobe. You give a broken sob, tears running down to your neck.

You can't take two more...you can't. Your ass feels broken and sore, the skin burning like hot coals were under your skin. Your cunt felt so empty, you just wanted this to be over-!

Margit pulled away from you, standing to his full height once more. His hands give two quick gentle pats against your ass that has you squeaking in protest.

Not that it will earn you a break. The end of your punishment is here.

With a resounding 'WHACK' two more strikes are dealt to your bruising skin. You scream loud enough that if anyone is in the halls of wherever you're being held, they surely would have heard. Your hips buck and thrash as your skin throbs in time with your heartbeat. 

You look a mess, tears staining your cheeks as bruises stain the lower ones. Your thighs are coated in slick, your pussy throbbing for any kind of stimulation as the pain slowly fades and leaves pleasurable heat behind. 

You give a shuddering gasp when air finally returns to you, dropping your head against the wooden table below you as your muscles all go slack. 

"Nnnn-nine...t...ten..." 

Margit gives a low groan in his chest at the sight of you, his cock twitching. He doesn't give you a moment of reprieve, simply climbing up and settling himself down against your thighs. You don't protest or try to pull away from him, from your kidnapper, only laying still and watching him over your shoulder with hooded, tear filled eyes. 

He grabs his dick, pushing the head down towards your puffy pussy and pressing insistently against the tight hole.

"This will be a tight fit for thee...but I know my little Tarnished whore can handle it~" He smirks, meeting your gaze as he pushes inside. He wants to watch you as he breaks your cunt on his cock.

He watches as your eyes widen and roll to the back of your skull, your jaw dropping open in a silent cry. He bites his bottom lip, endeared by your cute reaction to taking him fully.

With the head snug inside he removes his hand, placing both on opposite sides of you to hold his weight. He shifts to be more comfortable above you before sinking further inside. You give the most adorable mewl at the feeling, your cunt giving a wet 'squelch' as he pushes deeper.

"I-ooohh fuhhck...sss-so deep...b-breaking me-" You gasp, your arms pulling futilely at your cuffs.

"Yes, that's right...this is my cunt now. Mine to use and break how I see fit...no one else." He growls.

You can feel him stretch you open, your muscles lax and sensitive as his fat cock pushes forcefully through. Your gummy walls spread until they can't any more, until his cock goes as deep as it can.

"Margiii-it...my-my womb-your cock is-! Fucking g-!" You can only squeal as he finally stops, his hips resting against your abused ass. His balls, swollen with cum and desperate for release, rest against your pussy, pushing against your blood engorged clit that hasn't gotten any attention this whole time.

He simply sits there for a moment, enjoying the way you pulse against him, the cute noises you keep making.

"Yes little Tarnished, tell me. Tell the world whose cock it is stretching thee so well...who thou belongs to..." His hands move to your back, massaging and pressing against the tense muscles. 

"Yes!! Yes-it's yooouuu-! Fuck, it's Margit the F-Fell Omen inside me! S-stretching my p-pussy so faarrr-!" You cry, shuddering.

A sudden wave of pleasure washes over you as you scream those words, bliss overtaking your mind. Your cunt squeezes down hard like a vice as you finally cum. You shake and shudder on his cock, drooling all over yourself as the intense pleasure makes you cry more.

"Fuck, there it is...My little one cumming for thy new Master...So good for me..." He moans. With sudden speed your body is not prepared for, Margit pulls out of your welcoming heat.

He thrusts back in immediately, setting a harsh and brutal pace that knocks the air from your lungs. Your pussy isn't able to keep up, just keeping a tight grip on the fat cock breeding it as wave of bliss after wave of bliss washes over you. Your first orgasm never truly ends…Or it does and is immediately followed by another one, your mind is too blank to tell. Your toes curl and your back arches to keep your ass up and open for the pounding you receive.

Your ass stings with every thrust, sharp jolts of pain that mingle with the pleasure you feel. Margit's fat sack slaps against your clit with every thrust. Your body is trapped in an endless loop of pleasure. You can't do anything except lay there and accept that this is your place now.

Your mind slowly fades, washed away by pleasure and joy as you give everything up to your Master. 

Margit watches, entranced by your whimpers and tears as you take him, your body being molded to be his perfect little mate to breed and fill with his thick cum. 

He keeps thrusting, holding off on the urge to push his knot inside for as long as he can. He never wants this feeling to end. Your tight heat pulsing around him, opening up to him, welcoming him inside. 

His eye looks down at the hypnotic sight of his cock disappearing inside you. Puffy cunt lips spread wide and stands of sticky cream that break and conjoin with every one of his thrusts. His cock is coated in the stuff, the pink skin covered in creamy white with every thrust.

It's too much, his body feeling on edge after your punishment. He feels his knot grow, finally slipping out of his sheath to press against your too small hole. 

He'll make it fit.

His hands move down from your shoulders to your ass once more, thumbs hooking against your wet lips to spread them further. It gives him a wonderful view as his knot presses against you, being pushed back out from the tightness before finally-!

With a shuddering groan from deep in his chest, he watches as the knot slips past the tight ring of your cunt and inside. He bows over your prone form, teeth biting into the soft skin of your neck as his hips press deep inside.

Your only reaction is to coo and cum again, head laying limp against the wooden table as Margit takes what he needs from you.

Pump after pump of thick, creamy cum is unloaded inside you, filling your waiting and abused womb. A small bump immediately forms in your abdomen as you’re flooded full. You can feel the liquid slosh back towards your opening, trying to find a way out as you're filled to the absolute limit. Margit's knot does its job, keeping you plugged even as he absentmindedly grinds against your ass for more pleasure.

He's lost in his own mind, huffing and grunting above you, teeth still in your skin as his eye slips closed. It feels so good...pumping you full of his seed, making you his. 

You'll never belong to another. Never.

Your body is made for him, made for his cum, for his future pups, for wherever he needs. 

You let out one final moan of his name, a plea and a promise, before you fall completely limp against the rack, mind unconscious.

                                                 ~~~~~

When you come to, you're no longer in the cell. 

You lay on a soft luxurious bed, wrapped up in silk sheets. The curtains are drawn but the ever present glow of the Erdtree seeps through and gives the room a soft glow. 

Margit sits at his desk, bifocals on his nose as he looks over paperwork. At your shifting, he looks to you.

He smiles and stands, taking his bifocals off and laying them on his desk. He makes his way over to you, and grabs a glass of water off the nightstand you didn't notice.

"Drink. Ye need it." You do as he says, and find he's right. Your throat is sore and tender after all that screaming.

"Ye should have told me it was becoming too much. It was thou's idea to have a safe word for such situations." With a small cough, you clear your throat.

"Yes-...Hrmm, yes. But I didn't want you to stop, love. It was amazing~" You coo. You look at your wrists, and then show them to him.

"And look! No scrapes or cuts! I told you leather cuffs would work just fine!" You smile, taking his hand in yours. The Omen sighs through his nose, sitting down on the mattress next to you. His tail rises and falls in slight agitation, showing his anxious thoughts,

"I worry that I will hurt ye too much someday..." Your expression goes soft, and you bring his hand up to press a gentle kiss to his palm.

"I know you won't. That was wonderful and I loved every moment of it." He looks more reassured by your words, but the doubt is still there. You think for a moment before speaking.

"How about we talk a little more about this and I can tell you how much I loved it? We can have dinner here! I...can't exactly walk, heehee~" You giggle. Morgott smiles, a small quirk of his lips, and nods.

"I shall have the servants bring something up for ye."

"And you too! You need to eat with me." You insist. He pauses for a moment, then bows his head to you.

"Whatever my mate wishes."

[contritecactite]

Thanks for the tag, @quoththemaiden! I saw this one milling around and dreaded/eagerly awaited it reaching me in alternating 6-hour shifts (OK, I didn't think about it that much). No-pressure tags for... @frogs-in3-hills @rage-against-the-dying-of-light @franzizka @monimolimnion @dgcakes @nemaliwrites @kristimoon @mirjam-writes @thelocalmuffin

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 90, accounting for one in a currently unrevealed collection.

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 394,715. Ambitiously, I hope to hit half a million this year. We Shall See.

3. What fandoms do you write for? Ace Attorney, Good Omens, and a smattering of Final Fantasy titles.

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Yes! One of the first places I landed when I finally got internet access was Livejournal, and I had a great many conversations in the comments there that led to long-lasting friendships. AO3 currently doesn't seem to have quite the same culture of keeping a conversation going, but every now and then, someone catches on (hi Quoth), and I'm always grateful. I also love getting responses when I'm the person who left a comment, so I like to assume that others feel the same way.

5. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Ooh, not to my knowledge. I think I've always been safely enough under the radar.

6. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yep, plenty of times with a variety of people. Mostly RP-style with alternating forum posts or instant messages, but once or twice via something like google docs, which I like because there's a comment functionality rather than [putting the part you're saying in brackets to tell your partner(s) it's not part of the body message]. I miss it pretty often, but I'm also nervous about trying again.

7. What's your all-time favourite ship? Ooh. Hmm. Frog and Toad. Those were formative works for me. Tell me that doesn't explain my insistence on Softe(tm) vibes. I'll also give a shout to Klapollo for getting me back into writing after roughly a decade, but tbh my multishipping heart sees other fun options for them too.

8. What are your writing strengths? Warm and cozy vibes, close character focus, wrapping things up nicely. I also like to think my heavy-handed metaphors and parallels are strengths since they're consistently part of my style, though I know they're an acquired taste.

9. What are your writing weaknesses? Physical description. Get that outta here. I don't know what she's wearing. I don't know how it looks in the room. I don't know what the room looks like or if they're even in a room! All written scenes take place in The Void until plot mandates otherwise. I think I also still struggle with consistent characterization, particularly over the course of longer works, but I'm getting better.

10. First fandom you wrote for? Wrote for casually? Monster Rancher. Actually officially wrote for and let others read? FFVII.

[sarucane]

Glorious Good Omens S2 Missable Details

I watched Good Omens S2 roughly 507 times the last few weeks (been a rough month, it kept me afloat and I'm eternally grateful), point being:

Tumblr Reader, please benefit from my wild-obsession and read on for good deep-cut bits to pay attention to on your next rewatch:

Episode 1

-Crowley has a very slightly different accent in the opening scene. It's a bit more "proper" and "angelic."

-Maggie's shop is called "The Small Back Room," and she tells Nina it started out as a corner of Aziraphale's bookshop...one of his back rooms.

-Crowley's newspaper says that voters named Tadfield the best village in England--and that the weather there remains perfect.

Episode 2

-There are crows visible and audible in the background riiiight after Crowley "smites" the goats.

-"Jim's" bendy-fan book is a Terry Pratchett's first Discworld novel "The Colour of Magic"

-Someone wrote the whole article! Apparently business at "The Resurrectionist" slowed down when "Everyday" got old, but now people are showing up just to witness the miracle.

-The fellow at the pub who Aziraphale miracles out of a chair has a newspaper that mentions Milton Keynes. Most of the article is out of focus, but Milton Keynes is a city that, in the book, both Crowley and Aziraphale took credit for.

-Job, when introduced, is leaning against a pile of steaming manure. I'm aware that I'm an idiot for not noticing this right away...

Episode 3

-Jim is using a mug that Aziraphale had in the first season. Either he or Aziraphale has added the label in the interim.

-Muriel doesn't say "cup of tea," she says "cuppatea," because she didn't properly hear what Aziraphale said.

-At some unshown point, Crowley takes over body-hauling duties for Elspeth

-Beezlebub hauls their chair horn-ed chair around to 2-3 rooms over the whole season--and is also, on reflection, clearly quite worried about Gabriel here and in episode 1.

-Aziraphale finds the surgeon's whiskey to be a step too far, smell-wise.

-Laudanum courtesy of Cut-me-own-throat-Dibbler. It's a miracle the thing had any effect on Crowley, it was probably mostly rat urine and even more questionably sourced water.

-When Crowley tells Elpeth to leave just before she exits stage left, he calls her "hen," which is what Wee Morag almost always called her.

Episode 4

-Mark Gatiss's (Nazi Male Sidekick) arm is falling off half the time because he's the one who was holding the books that Crowley demonically saved. The nazi's arm was sticking out of the rubble, holding the suitcase, to make it easy to retrieve the books. Hence it got tugged by both Crowley and the scavengers, and fell off by the end of the episode. Serves the book-thief right.

-The Nazi Zombies hang in the Dirty Donkey to spy on the fellas in the bookshop--the same pub Crowley and Aziraphale visit in E2, and the pub that the heaven elevator commanders in E4 and E5

-Aziraphale gets nervous and seems to jump to the end of his act when he asks the audience who has experience with firearms. He hasn't told Crowley that this will be the cue. So, quite reasonably, Crowley does not raise his hand when asked if he has experience with firearms.

-Listen to the credits all the way through to the end of the music here: the audio changes. I don't know music well enough to know what happened, but it's fun.

Episode 5

-The owner of "Marguerite's," the French restaurant, is in fact named Justine. When she goes into Aziraphale's shop for the ball/business meeting, her accent has changed completely.

-All the candles we see on the chandeliers, as well as the candles in the next episode, are battery-operated.

-Nina's the only one this season who gets to drop the f-bomb.

-Mrs. Sandwich and the whole sequence. Google Discworld+seamstress guild if you don't get it.

-The music shop owner took the Doctor Who manual with him when he fled the demons.

Episode 6

-When Crowley changes his clothes to look angelic, the only thing he's wearing that's ACTUALLY white are his hilariously dumbass white slippers.

-The box that Gabriel came with is now storing a bunch of books, pamphlets, and papers. Two of these are the lost Shakespeare plays mentioned in the original Good Omens novel: Golde Diggers of 1589 and The Comedie of Robin Hoode.

-Gabriel's first 2 memories appear after he goes down an orange-red tunnel. But after he and Beezlebub have their first "background" meeting, the tunnel becomes blue. The whole thing ends (after bookending, Crowley says "let there be light" in the first episode and Gabriel says it in this one) with Gabriel's eyes turning purple...blue+red.

-Background acting appreciation: 1) look at Gabriel when Beelzebub says Shax could be Grand Duke of Hell, 2) look at Aziraphale in the corner when Crowley talks to Shax about his apartment, he's nodding vaguely while staring dreamily and it's adorable, 3) also rewind and check out Martin Sheen in episode 2 when the angels come to the shop, he's in the background being terrified and it's amazing

-...I can't resist: based on episodes S01E06 and S02E06, one way or another this'll end with nightingale song

[squish--squash]

Thanks for answering my ask......If you don't mind me asking (again), what are your top 10 (or top 7) favorite media (can be books/ manga/ anime/movies/tv series)? Why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before......Thanks....

lol hello again, ty for asking me this! I promise I'll give you more than 7 answers this time lol

Tian Guan Ci Fu/tgcf (book series, donghua) - I stumbled upon this randomly back in 2021 through its brand new donghua and I've loved it ever since. I adore the characters and the plot is both extremely complex and absolutely wild. it's roughly 750,000 words but I was able to read it in a week despite having school because I was so invested in it!

Moriarty the Patriot/mtp (manga, anime)- I think this is funny bc I tried watching bbc sherlock once and did NOT like it, so I just thought I wasn't into the sherlock holmes stuff. WRONG! I just had to discover this. I call this the "best sherlock holmes adaptation" for a reason (check my current pinned post, you'll find many reasons why I love mtp; I don't want to sound like a broken record so I don't plan to repeat them). I can't wait for when (or if) the manga comes out of its break/hiatus

Good Omens (book, show) - both the book and the miniseries/show are so near and dear to my heart. I always have a soft spot for watching supernatural entities fall in love (with each other and) the world around them. also, it's funny as hell

Promare (movie) - goooood I love Promare it's so neat; love the colors and the shapes and the plot is fun despite its simplicity. I could rewatch this movie every day for a month straight and not get tired of it

Arc of a Scythe trilogy (book series) - this is not something I've talked about a love, but this is one of my favorite book series! found it back around the same time I did tgcf; it's fucking insane I loooove the worldbuilding and the main cast, and by the second book every other page was like a plot twist gutting me in the best way possible; it's made me ponder about life and death on more than one occasion too

Matched trilogy (book series) - I started reading this in either 5th/6th grade but didn't really get it so I kinda forgot about it until around 2021-2022 (what? I actually had time to READ that year!) and managed to reread it and it was like a third eye opened. I really enjoyed the mystery unfolding in the trilogy! it's pretty cool imo, even tho I think (?) it was meant for teenagers to read

Not So Shoujo Love Story (webcomic) - this webcomic is so fucking funny AND it's wlw! I've been a fan for years it's so good

Bee and Puppycat/Bee and Puppycat: Lazy in Space (show) - a comfort show of mine (one of many); I'm in love with the atmosphere of the show and how awkwardly real the dialogue tends to be (plus I've been slowly rewatching it with my gf with is always a plus <3); I love both the og and its "reboot" equally, and would recommend people watch both

Snow White with the Red Hair (anime) - I haven't read the manga for this one, but I've seen the anime and it's another comfort show of mine. It's so sweet and cozy and the entire cast is lovable; even the "bad guy" in the first season is someone you grow to root for by the end of the second season. it's great!

Supernatural (show) - even tho I haven't finished the show and idk when/if I ever will, I still consider it a favorite media of mine. not bc I think it's great (it's good in most places, lacking in other), but bc I pretty much grew up with it. I have a core memory of watching the first handful of episodes when I was younger with my dad on the couch with the first time and being hooked on this strange show about supernatural creatures (I was that kid that enjoyed the supernatural! I read ghost story books, I binged every Goosebumps book I could get my hands on in fourth grade, I had a creepypasta phase, etc); even now in 2024 I've been sitting down with my dad to rewatch it with him before I go back to my college dorm and start back up classes. it's less so one of my favorite medias because I think it's good but because I associate it with my family <3

[ashafox]

HI IM BACK WITH ANOTHER FIC This one is dedicated to everyone who was so sweet about my little ficlet yesterday! Y’all are right!! Fuck everyone who was mean! I’m writing self indulgent bad fics and I don’t care!

Fruk, oneshot, 1600 words

Arthur has to be cheered up by his husband after he receives a bad review on his novel.

Francis Bonnefoy is having an exceptional day.

It began early morning, when he woke up a split second before his alarm went off, refreshed and ready to take on the day. His beautiful little rat of a husband greeted him with a soft “g’morning, love.” And a peck on the lips (which he rarely does, often complaining of morning breath or Francis’ loud alarm ).

Francis went on to make the most delicious and stunning golden poached eggs for the two of them, actually receiving a compliment from Arthur. Not only that, but his hair cooperated beautifully with him, his golden curls dancing around his face and framing it wonderfully.

After fetching the groceries for the week Francis discovered an old friend of his had moved back into town, and the two scheduled drinks for the following weekend. He hadn’t seen Gilbert since the two were in college, so it was a wonderful surprise bumping into him in the parking lot and getting the fright of his life.

Yes. Francis Bonnefoy was beaming today. He’s in his element, pouring all the passion and inspiration he’s received into his and Arthur’s dinner, a wonderful fresh salmon. You can imagine his surprise when his front door is burst open as if someone was about to rob the place.

Startled, Francis abandons his masterpiece to poke his head into the hall, fully convinced a murderer was about to ruin his day. Maybe he should be disappointed it’s not a murderer, as the sight in front of him isn’t exactly pleasant.

Stalking into the house comes Arthur, kicking his shoes off at the door and slamming it behind him. Francis notes that his husband hadn’t even bothered to place them neatly on the rack. That’s a bad omen in itself. Francis watches as Arthur mopes off into their living room, crashing into the coffee table as he goes. Sighing over the string of poetic profanity, Francis makes his way in after his fireball of a husband, smoothening down his apron.

“Please, hold in your excitement Arthur. I’m not going anywhere.” Francis hums, testing his husbands mood based on his reaction to his one liner. He isn’t even dignified with a response. Arthur is roughly thrown onto his favourite seat, an old dusty thing he refuses to let Francis get rid of. That’s not good. Either someone is dead, or Francis is about to be. Concern knits in Francis’ eyebrows as he moves over, taking a seat on their loveseat next to Arthur. He watches the tremble in his husbands wrist as he rubs his temples, reclined so far back his derrière is barely on the seat. Francis thinks back to what could have brought this on. His questioning look is answered by a tired sigh as Arthur sits up, unbuttoning the topmost button on his shirt.

“The reviews came back from the early access crowd today.” Arthur says, solemnly. Francis chides himself for forgetting- Arthur’s final manuscript had been released to a select few reviewers before it was to be released to the public. This is by no means his first rodeo, Arthur is a well established author. Enough so to keep the two of them afloat on his income alone. But this new book was his baby, a true labour of love if Francis had ever seen one. The first book Arthur seemed genuinely proud of.

Arthur continues. “That… That infamous journalist from the Northeast Times. He absolutely slated my book. Called it a ‘disgrace to whatever beat up computer it was written on. A dry, mediocre attempt at writing that left much to be desired, with prose that read as a dying man desperately attempting to signal for help’. Whatever the fuck that means.” Arthur scoffs, idly picking at a loose thread on the arm of the chair. He can’t look Francis in the eyes, and it’s clear he’s memorised this review from how he retells it.

Francis hates the look of shame on Arthur’s proud face. This tiny lion should be wearing nothing but pride, Francis thinks. He reaches over and places a gentle hand on Arthur’s knee, the Englishman stiffening, and averting his gaze to the side. That breaks Francis a little more.

“Oh, Arthur… I’m so sorry. You expected as much though, right? You know he only gives awful reviews to stay relevant. That’s all they do, those journalists. They find a lovingly crafted work, and they write something sharp and entertaining to read, it’s not personal.” He tries, squeezing the bony knee in his hand. Arthur is cold to the touch.

Arthur lets out a puff of air, sinking back into the seat. “No, I understand that, Francis. I just thought… I don’t know. I’m not even angry at him. I’m angry at myself for letting him get to me. I’m Arthur bloody Kirkland, for fucks sake. I’m on the New York Times bestsellers list! Twice! And this- this article writer is what breaks my confidence?! It’s laughable!”

Arthur throws up his hands in exasperation, letting Francis pull his hand away. Arthur doesn’t normally bring up his achievements. He’s more one to smirk on the side when it’s brought up. Francis winces, this really got to him.

Francis looks to the coffee table and picks up the small stack of documents haphazardly thrown aside by Arthur. He just wants to occupy his hands, to be honest. Keeping his attention off his fuming husband might make him feel more at ease. Arthur hates being observed in his ‘weakest’ moments.

The thought is shoved out of Francis’ head by what he’s reading, however. His eyes quickly scan the sheets of paper in his hand, and he can’t help but balk at what he’s seeing. Every single review, apart from the one negative, is overwhelmingly positive. Each one is a five star.

“Arthur Kirkland- You must be joking.” He scolds, standing up and slapping the back of his hand to the documents. “Have you even read past the one negative?” He clears his throat.

“A thrilling read bringing new insight to the fantasy genre, Arthur Kirkland has done it again.”

“Masterfully written, surpassing my high expectations from the start.”

“I wish I could forget this book so I could reread it again for the brilliant twist at the end.”

Francis slaps the pages back down onto the coffee table and meets Arthur’s slightly shocked expression. His husband stares up at him as though he has grown another head and spat at him with it.

“Now, I’m no expert on writing, but what I am an expert on is my husband and I can tell when he is being a fool. I’m no stranger to masochism but this just takes the cake, Arthur! You can’t be seriously letting a single bad review, and I will repeat, single bad review spoil the whole bunch! Look at these!” He gestures to the pile with as much passion as he could muster. “They loved it, Arthur- and even if they didn’t all that matters is that you love it! And if you’re going to be so stubborn as to interpret what’s in front of you as negative I will personally march you down to the hospital to get your tiny brain checked myself.” Francis huffs, finishing his impassioned rant with the folding of his arms.

Arthur stares up at the slightly reddened face in front of him with his mouth in a tiny ‘o’. The pause causes Francis to falter slightly, Arthur should be far quicker to react with an insult of his own. His worry is washed away, however, when Arthur begins to laugh.

The Englishman snorts, bringing his hand up to his face to cover his mouth as he lets out full on, honest to god belly laughs. Francis frowns, his cheeks heating up with embarrassment at the unexpected reaction.

“What?! I don’t-“

“Good Lord Francis Bonnefoy, you are something else!” Arthur smiles up at him, getting to his feet to meet his height. “Only you could take me at my worst and throw it back in my face!”

Arthur runs a hand through messy hair, looking down at the papers scattered across the table. There’s a small smile to his face, one only containing fondness. It instantly calms Francis down at the sight. Crisis averted.

“You somehow know exactly what to say to me when I get in my own head.” Arthur muses, allowing Francis to side step over and wrap a loving hand around his waist. “It’s a talent, truly.”

Francis smiles, gently leaning his head against his husbands shoulder. “Yes, well. I worked in a nursery. Dealing with spoiled brats was just something you had to get good at- Agh!”

Arthur lovingly flicks Francis’ pointed nose, another soft laugh bubbling up from his throat.

“Honestly,” Francis continues. “I don’t know why you listen to anyone else besides me. I’m the only critic you should worry yourself with, and Iloved your book.”

Arthur hums in agreement, leaning into Francis’ soft embrace. “That’s very true,” he begins. “And I will say, I’m no food critic, but I do believe you’re burning our dinner.”

Francis stiffens, his head whipping around to face the kitchen as the smell of burned salmon fills his delicate nostrils. “Oh, crap! My fish! Arthur Kirkland you rotten little monster, your bad mood surely caused this!” He shouts, rushing off to the kitchen to try to salvage the burned meal.

Arthur turns his attention back to the documents. Leaning down, he gently piles them up and turns them face down, before moving off to join his husband in the kitchen.

[liladiurne]

Brighter Than Bright - extract from chapter 14

Look at me, with chapter 14 already underway barely a week or so after posting 13. Isn’t that a good omen?

Once more, here is the beginning bit, because I don’t have anything at this point that wouldn’t spoil too much for you. I thought this would be perfect, because it announces a little what’s coming in the chapter without actually introducing the new characters. There is so much good stuff coming this chapter! I may share another extract before it’s finished, but we’ll see, because this is a bit longer than what I normally share, I think. Either way, I think this is going to be a long chapter!

This extract may change and differ a little in the finished chapter, as I tend to move things around when I edit. I have proofread this a bit quickly, so there may be some typos, which you can disregard because they will surely be fixed at some point. I hope you enjoy!

EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER 14

While Harry’s second heat does not last quite as long as the first one did, a few more days must pass before he feels strong enough to leave his bed. Charlie remains by his side throughout, drawing while Harry reads or sleeps. From the way he dutifully attends to Harry’s every need, constantly asking if he is hungry or thirsty or tired, it is evident that he still feels guilty at having left his little brother to such torment, regardless of how many times Harry has told him that it was probably for the best.

When Harry thinks back to those dreadful few days, he is filled with a combination of fury and shame. Perhaps worse than the memory of his suffering is the knowledge that, although he does not remember it, he seemingly called out for Mr Snape. Fanny said that the heat is meant to coerce him into mating, and he tries to console himself with these words. He suspects that this irrepressible, forceful longing does not discriminate between one Alpha and the other, and for this reason, he is nearly grateful that Charlie was absent. As he is so often reminded, he is not truly related to Charlie after all. If his reason can be so addled, if this strange instinct inside his chest, this part of him that does nothing but crave and crave, can resort to yearning for a despicable Alpha such as Mr Snape, Harry dares not imagine what could have happened if his brother’s scent had been nearby when he was in the throes of the heat. The oestrus has a mind of its own. If it can turn abhorrence into attraction, who knows what it can make of brotherly love.

Most of what occurs during the heats does not stay with him for long. He cannot recall much apart from the pain and some vague, feverish recollections of waking up and then sleeping again. He knows that he dreams, sometimes vividly, sometimes rather hazily, in wisps of thoughts and images, but all remembrance of what those dreams contain leave him swiftly as the fever fades. He is unsure whether these lapses in memory are caused by the fever itself or simply by the laudanum. Perhaps it is a combination of the two. But it is just as well that he cannot remember. Harry has no desire to know what feverish delusions might have resulted in him saying Mr Snape’s name.

At least he did not ask for Mr Malfoy. He does not think that he could live with such ghastly knowledge.

When Harry finally leaves his room for good, he finds that a thick blanket of snow has covered the world, thus putting an end to horseback ventures with his brother until spring. He is somewhat disappointed at having missed the last days of autumn, but as soon as he is well enough to leave the house, he heads outside with Charlie and the two of them engage in a great snow battle, to which even their father participates. Later in the afternoon, as the sun sets, they construct a great snowman in front of the house and dress him in a scruffy hat and scarf before retreating inside for some mulled wine.

Harry usually finds winter most inconvenient. As beautiful as snow can be at the beginning, it never takes long for him to miss the smell of the warm summer air, the loud humming of the cicadas, the wide, green expanse of his field. Unable to retreat to his habitual refuge under the shadow of the beechwood tree or to go on long walks by the river, Harry must spend most of winter confined to the house, forced to read every book he can find, often ones that he has already read countless times before. When he is truly unable to find entertainment, he sometimes sits at his desk and writes short little stories for his own amusement, or he plays with Hedwig, sprawled on the floor and throwing a ball of twine around for her to catch.

This year, of course, with Charlie present, there is no such lack of distraction.

On the first week of December, after a particularly heavy snowfall, Charlie spends at least an hour rummaging through the shed behind the barn until he finally unearths the old sleigh that Hagrid made for them years ago. It needs a little fixing, having been buried under some tools and refuse for nearly a decade, but as soon as it is good to use, it is attached to one of the draft horses’ harness. Once they are dressed thickly and warmly enough, Harry and Charlie settle on the sleigh, which is barely big enough to hold them both now that they are grown, and spend the afternoon being dragged around speedily through the snow, laughing and yelling and causing quite a raucous through the village, for which they are promptly scolded at supper. Their mother is not shy in expressing her disappointment at finding out that she has not, as she believed she had, raised respectable young men, but rather careless little ruffians.

As much as he loves the warmer weather, Harry is rather looking forward to the colder days, hoping that the river might freeze, because Charlie has also found their old ice skates hanging in the back of the shed. At present, however, the water still flows merrily, with no sign of stopping.

“It is so unfortunate that you were not here last winter. It was frozen for months,” Harry says regretfully one morning as they stare at the river, having taken advantage of the sunny day and the melting snow to walk alongside it.

“It is not cold enough yet. Perhaps in January.”

Harry shrugs. “It may not even harden enough for skating.”

“Do you remember that big pond in Hampstead, behind the marketplace?” Charlie muses, nudging Harry with his elbow to try and shake him out of his sombre mood. “It was always fit for skating. Do you remember? Grandfather would take us there when we visited in the winter.”

“I remember,” Harry says distractedly.

His mother never wanted him to go. She would insist that his brothers and cousins were too rough and that he would get hurt and that it would be better if he remained at the house with the girls. But Grandfather would not hear it. He had never once left Harry behind, even if it meant arguing ceaselessly with his daughter. It is true that the boys were terribly rough, however. Harry remembers how they darted around dangerously on their skates, crashing into one another at terrible speeds, and Grandfather was aware of the danger their carelessness posed for Harry, who was much smaller than they were. He would pretend that he was afraid to fall and hurt his old bones, and he would ask Harry to remain nearby and please not let go of his arm while they skated around the edges of the pond safely. Harry should perhaps have been upset at being subjected to this protective treatment while his brothers were free to play however they wanted, but he took a sort of pride at being kept close as the favourite. He still remembers how Grandfather’s steady hand would hold him up whenever he lost his balance or whenever the blade of his skate would catch into the ice and threaten to trip him. All of his brothers and cousins would get regularly hurt whenever they went out skating, but even if Harry had never been a good skater, he had never fallen once with Grandfather by his side.

“It must be nearly ten years since I last saw him,” Charlie adds disbelievingly. “Eight years, I believe.  Yes, since I joined the military. It will be good to see him again.”

Harry turns to his brother in confusion. “Again? Are you going to Hampstead?”

“Yes. All of us shall be visiting for Christmas,” Charlie reveals with a grin.

Harry grips his arm suddenly, a bit roughly perhaps, but Charlie only laughs. “What? When was this decided?”

“I told Father that I would need to leave for a few days next week,” Charlie says in a more serious tone. “I was going to perhaps find a room in Hatfield, but he suggested I go to Hampstead. I have done so in the past, after I came of age, if you recall.”

Harry nods, looking away in embarrassment. When they were younger, Bill and Charlie both would visit their grandfather whenever the time for their rut was near. Harry has always felt a certain guilt over this, especially now that he knows how much easier it is to be at home during such a trying time. But they would both rather leave The Burrow than have Harry being sent away, even for a few days. Besides, Grandfather Prewett is himself an Alpha, and he was always in the best position to provide a comfortable environment for them.

“And so, I wrote to Grandfather, and he was the one who suggested everyone should follow suit after me. I shall be leaving on Monday, and Mother, Father and you should join us the week after. Everyone will come for Christmas as well. Uncle Fabian and Aunt Mable, with Catherine and Caroline. And Ron and Ginny. And Percy, Fred and George will certainly come as well. I believe even Robert will come with his wife and the children. Are you happy?” Charlie asks, quite unnecessarily, because surely it is obvious from Harry’s wide eyes and grin that he is ecstatic. “We shall have a big family Christmas, just like when we were little.”

“I am happy,” Harry can only mumble, holding Charlie’s arm tightly still and pressing his cheek against his brother’s shoulder. “It will be just like before. As if nothing had changed.”

Harry is nearly certain that his brother smiles sadly at this, but Charlie does not reply as they continue walking, the soggy ground squelching under their feet.

[pengychan]

[Good Omens] Winging It - Isaiah 40:31

Summary: Shockingly, attempting to destroy an angel without consulting God first comes with consequences. There is more than one way to fall, and a thousand more ways to inconvenience an angel and a demon who just wanted to be left in peace. Characters: Gabriel, Crowley, Aziraphale, Beelzebub, Michael, Uriel, Sandalphon Rating: T  

Prologue and all chapters are tagged as ‘winging it’ on my blog.

A/N: well, shit hits the fan and the end is near.

***

As the boy who was most assuredly Not The Antichrist - but who had nonetheless been their charge for about the first eleven years of his life - walked towards the front door of the bookshop in Soho, entirely unaware of being stalked by a man with a pocket knife, Aziraphale stood in the bedroom of a lovely cottage in the South Downs, not far from the Devil’s Dyke.

He knew it was rather rude, being roughly seventy-five miles away from the place where you happen to have an appointment in about five minutes’ time, but surely it was not too much of an issue, given that they would be right back in the bookshop by crossing the threshold of a rather miraculous door they had installed between the two places. And besides, Crowley had really wanted to show him something. 

That something being a luxurious, huge and hugely gaudy canopy bed with gold-plated columns and red velvet drapes that wouldn’t have looked too out of place in Versailles, before revolutionaries took most of its contents to an uncertain fate. As a piece of furniture still occasionally turned up in flea markets, Aziraphale wouldn’t put it beyond the realm of possibilities.

Said bed now occupied the greater part of the bedroom that Crowley had insisted they ought to have in the cottage, against Aziraphale’s suggestion to turn it into another room for his books. 

“We already have the loft for those, and the bookshop on the other side of the door,” he’d pointed out. “We need a bedroom.”

Aziraphale, who had actually last slept sometime in the nineteenth century and solely out of boredom while watching an especially poor performance of Troilus and Cressida - in itself far from Shakespeare’s best work, and the lead actor’s lisp had done it no favors - had been slightly taken aback. “But, my dear, we don’t need sleep,” he’d said, getting a snort out of Crowley. 

“We don’t need to eat either. So what?”

Aziraphale had to concede he had a point, although he didn’t quite see the allure of laying in a semi-comatose state for several hours while hallucinating the same way he saw the allure of a slice of red velvet cake, and agreed that the cottage would indeed have a bedroom. It was only fair considering the space he had for his books, so that was a compromise he did not regret. 

Telling Crowley he was welcome to choose whatever bed he liked himself, however, was something Aziraphale did regret. He knew that Crowley’s taste when it came to furniture ranged from dreadfully minimalistic to unbearably garish, but this - the golden columns, the red heavy velvet - was… a little too much. 

“Well, what do you think?” Crowley was asking, looking as proud of himself as he had after moving that golden monstrosity he called a throne right next to Aziraphale’s old trusty armchair in the loft, entirely ignoring the way Aziraphale’s right eyebrow had twitched. 

This time, it was the left eyebrow to twitch. 

“Well, it is-- rather…” Aziraphale raked his brain for a polite way to put it. “Eye-catching.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Crowley grinned, even prouder. Aziraphale suspected his euphemism had been a little too subtle. “I remembered what you said when I came to save your butt in France.”

“... That I wanted crêpes?”

“That you had standards. French royalty standards.”

“Well, it was not quite royalty level, more along the lines of a noble--”

“This beauty comes straight from Versailles.”

Ah, of course. Of course it did. 

“Or, well, not so straight. It went around across Europe quite a bit. But here it is, as you see.”

“Yes. I… I do see.” Aziraphale managed a smile. No harm done, he thought - he didn’t have a habit to sleep as Crowley did, so he would hardly ever need to be in that room at all. He would just entirely forget about that bed. Out of sight, out of mind. 

“The mattress is new, clearly. You’ll like it. Real plush.”

Aziraphale blinked. “That sounds nice, but I am not in the habit of sleeping.”

“You should try. Nothing better than some time spent in a semi-comatose state while vividly hallucinating.”

A chuckle. “You’re not making it sound very alluring.”

“Ah, I should up my temptation game. I’m out of practice. When was the last time I tempted you into anything?”

“This morning, actually, you--”

The chiming of the grandfather clock downstairs - a very tasteful eighteenth century clock Aziraphale had long debated whether to move in the cottage or keep in the bookshop - cut him off, and reminded him of… well, of the time. 

“I believe Warlock should arrive any moment now - we should head back,” he said, and they did. It looked like the boy might get there before Gabriel popped in to return the book, and if that turned out to be the case… well, Aziraphale really hoped he had enough sense to put the book in a bag or something like it. If not, they may need to have a few words.

There were things an eleven-year-old boy really didn’t need to see.

***

“Ugh, c’mon, they knew I was coming…” Warlock Dowling huffed, taking a couple of steps away from the door of the bookshop which had stayed closed, no matter how hard he knocked. He glanced at the sign in the window; it made just as little sense as it did the first time he read it. 

I open the shop on most weekdays about 9:30 or perhaps 10am. While occasionally I open the shop as early as 8, I have been known not to open until 1, except on Tuesday. I tend to close about 3:30pm, or earlier if something needs tending to. However, I might occasionally keep the shop open until 8 or 9 at night, you never know when you might need some light reading. On days that I am not in, the shop will remain closed. On weekends, I will open the shop during normal hours unless I am elsewhere. Bank holidays will be treated in the usual fashion, with early closing on Wednesdays, or sometimes Fridays. (For Sundays see Tuesdays). A.Z. Fell, Bookseller

Warlock briefly wondered who A. Z. Fell was, really - the founder? A co-owner? It definitely was not Brother Francis’ name, but he had claimed to be the owner, which was a leap from working as a gardener but not a claim Warlock had any reason to doubt. Brother Francis did not lie, after all. He hated lies and got really cross with him whenever he caught him lying, usually after Nanny-- after Crowley suggested he did.

“Pair of weirdos. Always been,” Warlock muttered, but it wasn’t really a complaint; they were a fun pair of weirdos to grow up around, or else he wouldn’t have tracked them down in London. After checking through the window to see if anyone was in, and seeing, no one, Warlock reached in his pocket for his phone and began looking for Crowley’s number. 

Focused as he was on the screen, he failed to notice the man approaching with a hand in his pocket, eyes fixed on him and pupils blown so wide his eyes looked entirely black. On the opposite side of the road Hastur, Duke of Hell, retreated from the mortal’s mind with a smirk and prepared to enjoy the scene with eyes just as black.

***

“... So no, I really doubt the London Dungeon holds prisoners anymore, but it would be an interesting thing to--”

“Silence,” Beelzebub spoke suddenly, stopping abruptly in their tracks and causing Gabriel to almost bump into them and drop the book, something for which Aziraphale would probably be very, very cross with him. He frowned. 

“It’s not my fault that they have stopped using the dungeons, if that’s such an issue I suppose we could change plans and--”

“Something’s wrong.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t you sense-- ah. No, you can’t anymore,” Beelzebub muttered, and looked around with a scowl. “A demon is at work. It was my order that no one was to approach the traitors.”

Gabriel blinked. “Maybe it’s Crowley--”

“It’s not,” Beelzebub all but snarled, staring at someone some distance away. Further down the pavement stood a man that looked… wrong, for the lack of a better word; something not human who made a passingly decent job at masquerading as human, but not quite good enough. Gabriel may not be able to sense demonic or angelic presences anymore, but he could see as much.

“Hastur,” Beelzebub scoffed. 

Ah, Gabriel was vaguely familiar with the name - Hastur, Duke of Hell. Not someone he’d be pleased to meet anywhere in general, but seeing him there was especially worrying. He recalled Michael mentioning that out of all demons, he held a particular grudge against Crowley. Was that grudge really so great that he would ignore a direct order from Beelzebub to find Crowley in Soho and… and do what, exactly? “What is he doing here?”

“I’m about to find out. Wait here,” Beelzebub muttered, and walked - no, marched - directly towards the demon. “Hastur, Duke of Hell. What in Heaven are you doing here?”

Their voice caused the demon to recoil and turn his attention away from… whatever they had been staring at on the other side of the road. He was already deathly pale, but he seemed to grow just a tad paler as his gaze rested on a decidedly annoyed Prince of Hell planting themselves before him, arms crossed and clearly looking for a very good explanation why he would defy a direct order not to be anywhere near the traitorous demon that holy water could not destroy.

As he stammered some sort of reply, Gabriel let his gaze wander across the street. A man was walking towards the bookshop coming from the opposite direction, and he was… wait. Wait, he looked familiar - Gabriel had seen him before, a few months earlier, near the church where Daniel’s funeral service had just been held. He’d given him his coat because it was raining and talked briefly with him, and he had found it funny because his name was… his name…

“Noah!” Gabriel called out with a smile, walking towards him. “How are you doing? How’s your--” 

The next word - dog? - died on his lips when he got to look, to really look, at Noah’s eyes. They looked no more human than those of the Duke of Hell currently getting a tongue-lashing only a few steps away, and they were fixed dead ahead of him as he kept walking, giving no sign of having heard or seen him. Walking towards the bookshop… and towards a boy fumbling with his phone right in front of it, back turned to them all.  Something was off. Something was wrong. 

A demon is at work, Beelzebub had said. Gabriel opened his mouth to cry out, to demand that Hastur, Duke of Hell, released that mortal from whatever hold he had on him - but before he could force out a single word, Noah’s hand came out of his pocket and something gleamed in the sunlight. 

There was no time to cry out. No time for words, no time to think, no time to demand action from anyone other than himself. Gabriel knew there was one thing he ought to do now, one thing only. Ever since finding himself without plan or purpose, choices had not always come easy to him - the terror of choosing wrong often paralyzing him. But this one came with no effort: it was no choice at all. As a dark shadow fell on a boy he didn’t even know, Gabriel dropped the book he had come to return, and ran. 

“NOAH! STOP!”

Noah did not turn, but the boy did. He lifted his gaze from his phone to glance over at Gabriel, clearly confused - then his confusion turned into alarm when Gabriel suddenly grabbed his arm and yanked him away. 

“Hey! The hell?” the boy yelled, just as the knife descended on the spot he’d been standing only an instant before, narrowly missing the back of his neck. He tried to pull away from Gabriel’s grip, turning to call out for someone to get that madman off him  - and froze when he finally saw the man standing behind him, eyes all black and lips pulled back in a snarl, swinging something at him.

Somewhere in his brain, he registered it was a knife. He tried once again to scream - mom, he thought, but if he’d managed to force out his voice he probably would have said something more along the lines of ‘shit’. Gabriel, from his part, didn’t try to speak again; he could tell Noah was beyond hearing him. 

So he yanked the boy back once again, and threw himself between him and Noah. The result was, all things considered, extremely predictable.

Four and a half inches of steel buried themselves into Gabriel’s gut with a wet sound that went almost entirely unheard. There was a sense of heat, the pressure of a handle against his flesh and, at first, no pain. Gabriel found himself staring straight into pitch-black eyes for a moment before the pupils shrank to a normal size again, revealing the human eyes, light blue and filled with confusion. Somewhere behind Gabriel, the boy screamed and turned to bang on the door of Aziraphale’s bookshop. 

People around them stopped walking to turn, not quite having caught up what was going on but slowly getting there. On the other side of the road, a panicked Duke of Hell disappeared in a cloud of smoke as soon as the Lord of the Flies turned to see what the commotion was about. 

Gabriel tried to speak, to call out for Beelzebub - don’t hurt him, he didn’t know what he was doing - but a gurgling sound was all that left him, and something dripped down his chin. 

“What…?” Noah muttered, blinking at him, and looked down. “Oh-- oh God, oh Jesus Christ, oh shit-- !” he cried out, voice high and panicked, and staggered back with the knife still in hand, dislodging from Gabriel’s flesh with another wet sound.

Blood came rushing forth, coldness set in, and so did pain. Gabriel’s knees folded, and he hit the ground just as the bloodied knife did. Noah stepped back again, shaking like a newborn calf. 

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry-- someone call an ambulance, I’m sorry, oh God…!”

Don’t bother calling out for God. They don’t answer. Not for me.

“Gabriel!” Beelzebub’s voice filled his ears, drowning out all the rest. There was a hand on the back of his head, lifting it, and he opened his eyes again to see them looking down at him, wide-eyed and scared in a way he had never seen them.

And Gabriel was scared, too, filled to the brim with the most primal, human terror - the most ancient sort of despair known to man. He suddenly knew why even Yeshua had faltered that night in the Garden of Gethsemane, pleading to escape the fate before him and avoid what he knew was unavoidable.

I don’t want to die.

He tried to speak, choking on his own blood. Somewhere behind him, a heavy door was thrown open and Aziraphale’s voice reached him as though from miles away. 

“Warlock! My boy, what is-- oh. Oh dear, what…?”

“What the Heaven is going on?” Crowley’s voice was a couple octaves higher than usual, and suddenly there was silence, time itself stilled; the crowd all around them, Noah, even a bird flying past right above them remained fixed in time like so many statues. The boy was talking frantically to Crowley and Aziraphale, but Gabriel was unable to pay his words any mind. His gaze remained fixed on Beelzebub, and on Beelzebub only. 

“Heal me,” he choked out. He felt cold all over, even with the wound itself throbbing in heat and pain the way the wounds on his back had, the day his wings were torn off. “Please.”

“Hastur will pay for this, he-- I-- of course, you idiot, be still--” their hand hovered above the blood-soaked shirt, and suddenly they hesitated. Their gaze found Gabriel’s, and held it. “... Sacrifice,” the Prince of Hell murmured.

“What…?”

“You sacrificed your life for another. That’s it. It’s your ticket back home, Gabriel.”

Home. Back in Heaven, where he belonged. Not quite in his old position - a mortal soul - but still, home. Except that… except that if he returned there as a mere mortal soul...

“No,” Gabriel wheezed. “No. I can’t. I-- would never-- be able to leave it-- again.”

“You never wished to leave it in the first pla--”

“Never see you-- again--” Gabriel coughed, and let out a weak groan at the excruciating pain. He could taste blood in his mouth, feel it down his throat, pooling down on the pavement around him; he felt his strength draining away with it. The back of Beelzebub’s free hand wiped some of it off his chin; the other still cupped the back of his head.

“... You will die either way in the end. You do not wish to reside in Hell and I will not force you.” Their plan of leaving behind Hell for good seemed to be far from their mind now. “This may be--” the Prince of Hell paused, and let out a shaky breath. “This may be your best chance, Gabriel.”

“No. Not now. Not yet,” Gabriel managed a smile. His vision was growing blurry. “I will take… all the time I can get. With you.” However little it may be. Such short life spans, but I will make it worth it. I must. I only get one shot. “So don’t-- let me die-- yet.”

For a moment Beelzebub only stared, their hand hovering above his wound. They swallowed, and opened their mouth to say something - only that someone else spoke first. Aziraphale.

“Oh, oh dear, what a dreadful mess-- Gabriel? It’s all right, hold on, I will heal you--”

“Keep away from him!” Beelzebub buzzed furiously, shooting a glare at Aziraphale, at Crowley, at the boy who was currently glued to Crowley’s side, staring with wide eyes at the scene before him and at the crowd frozen in time. The angel reared back, but did not give up. 

“I mean to help him. Heal him.”

“I can heal him myself!” the Prince of Hell snapped, and pressed their hand on the bleeding wound. Pain shot up Gabriel’s body and he ground his teeth, waiting for relief, for healing, for the end of suffering… but none of it came. 

Beelzebub pulled away a now bloodied hand, taken aback, struggling to comprehend what they were seeing. “It’s… it isn’t working. It won’t heal.”

Gabriel closed his eyes, despair sinking in his chest.

No. It cannot be. Not now, God, please. Don’t do this to me. Don’t let me die now that I have learned to live. Don’t take them from me again.

“... May I try, Lord Beelzebub?” Aziraphale spoke again, ever respectful, but the hesitation in his voice made it plain that he didn’t think they could succeed where Beelzebub had failed. Gabriel squeezed his eyes shut, and felt something trickling down his temples. 

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why--

GABRIEL.

That voice, in the back of his mind and yet everywhere. Gabriel hadn’t heard it in such a long, long time, but hadn't forgotten it. His chest shuddered in a gasp, and he tried to speak again, to respond to the call - whether to cry, to beg, to curse he didn’t know. Before he could force out a single sound, another voice rose. Very familiar and decidedly concerned.

“Uuh, angel? Any idea what that is?”

“What-- oh. That might be our cue to move out of the way. Move away-- you too, Warlock, move back, my boy…”

What…?

Gabriel opened his eyes and looked up at the sky. Precisely above him, the blue of it was gone; clouds of blinding white had gathered in a circle, and within that circle was only light. The air around him seemed to crackle, and he knew what that meant. Gabriel tried to speak, to warn Beelzebub, but he could only cough up another mouthful of blood. On his tongue, he could now taste something else.

Ozone. 

From a distance, once again came Aziraphale’s voice. “Lord Beelzebub, you ought to let go and--”

“No.” Beelzebub’s grip on Gabriel tightened, vicious and desperate at the same time. The air crackled, the clouds swirled, and Gabriel’s vision began to fade. His hand weakly gripped their jacket, but he was unable to do anything else. Beelzebub’s face was but a blur, but ah, their grip was unyielding. His eyes slipped shut, his head rolled against their chest. 

“I refuse to let go. God cannot tell me what to do and neither can you.”

Don’t take them from me again. Please, please, please--

“Brother Francis, what the hell--”

“We’ll explain later, my boy - step back now, cover your eyes - don’t look, Crowley, make sure he doesn’t look--”

The crack of thunder covered his next words, filling the world, drowning out all noise. Gabriel felt the grip around him tightening, heard Beelzebub choke out something that sounded a lot like ‘you idiot’, and he opened his eyes. 

And then there was only light.

***

In the instant before lighting struck, three things happened in quick succession.

First, Crowley pulled Warlock’s face to his chest to make sure he wouldn’t be blinded as many mortals had been before Heaven learned to somewhat tone it down; second, Crowley turned his back to the scene to avoid looking himself, and shield the boy while he was at it. 

And third, Aziraphale’s wings unfolded to shield them both.

There was no heat, which was rather typical of Heavenly things: light without warmth, utterly unlike the darkness and heat - humid heat rather than raging flames, but all the more uncomfortable - that Aziraphale had experienced in his first, and hopefully only, visit to Hell.

Shielded by Aziraphale’s wings, Crowley kept his eyes tightly shut behind his glasses and Warlock’s face pressed against his shirt for several more moments after the last echo of the deafening thunder faded. 

“Is it safe to turn, angel?” he asked, while Warlock kept muttering against his shirt a litany of words that mostly sounded like ‘what’, ‘the’ and ‘fuck’, in the order. 

This time Aziraphale didn’t bother to make a mental note of talking with the boy about his language. Aside from being relieved the boy had not been stabbed, turned into salt, incinerated, blinded or deprived of his sanity, Aziraphale suspected they would have different, more pressing matters to discuss very shortly. “I’ll check. Don’t look yet,” he replied, and finally looked back.

The crowd of mortals was still around them, frozen in time, unscathed and unaware. The clouds were gone, quick as they had come - but there was a sphere of light before him, crackling with electricity where Beelzebub and Gabriel had been until moments earlier. In that light, there was… something. At first Aziraphale couldn’t make it out, but as he stepped closer and the light began to dull, he could see something all right. 

And that something was a pair of folded wings. 

At first, Aziraphale thought he must be looking at the wings of a demon and wondered how Beelzebub could survive the full might of the Lord; then, as the light pulsed and faded little by little, he realized that was not it. The wings were not the pure white of angels, but neither were they midnight black. Deep brown with a golden sheen, mottled with darker brown, black, specks of white. The wings of an eagle.  

And they did not belong to Beelzebub.

One last crackle of pure energy, and the pulsing light dissolved. Aziraphale worked his jaw a moment, mouth dry, before he finally called out.

“... Gabriel?”

The wings shifted, and slowly parted. Gabriel was kneeling on the pavement, eyes blinking open as though he struggled to comprehend what was happening. In his arms, held tightly against his chest, was the Prince of Hell; their eyes were screwed shut as though they were waiting to be smited still, but they were in one piece - shielded from the full might of God by the Archangel Gabriel himself, who seemed to be just now beginning to process precisely what had transpired. 

“What…?” he muttered, and the sound of his voice caused Beelzebub’s eyes to snap open. They pulled back from his chest, on their knees themselves, and looked up at Gabriel - and at the wings spread behind him. They opened their mouth to say something, closed it, opened it again. 

“You have wings again,” they finally said. “But they don’t look like--”

Gabriel didn’t so much turn to look at them. “You are all right,” he muttered, and cupped their cheek with a long breath, smiling widely. “Thank-- whoever there is to thank, you’re--”

Beelzebub’s hand grasped the collar of Gabriel’s shirt before he could say another word, and yanked his head down in a sudden kiss. It was definitely not something Aziraphale had expected to happen and neither had Gabriel, by the looks of it, but he seemed… far from displeased. Actually he leaned into it rather enthusiastically, arms slipping around the Lord of the Flies’ waist. 

Aziraphale stepped back, feeling just a touch awkward.

“Angel, is it safe to look or no--” Crowley finally spoke up, and turned without waiting for an answer. A rather unwise move, that. His gaze fell on the scene before him, and he let out a groan. “Uuuugh! No it’s not safe, not it’s not, for Satan’s sake it’s seared in my brain now, why didn’t you warn...”

He turned again and took a few steps away, rubbing his eyes beneath the glasses. Warlock, on the other hand, remained exactly where he was - eyes shifting slowly between Gabriel’s brand new wings and Aziraphale’s own, still in full display.

“... Brother Francis, I don’t mean to be rude or anything,” he finally said. “But what, pray tell, the fuck.”

“Well…” Aziraphale hesitated a moment, knowing he couldn’t count on Crowley stepping in for an explanation for at least another ten minutes, busy as he was trying to jab his eyes out of their sockets. In the end, he said nothing and turned to survey the scene.

Time stood still and so did every single living being in sight, including the man who had wielded the knife, a horrified expression frozen on his face. Gabriel and Beelzebub didn’t seem to plan on letting their mouths part ways anytime soon, still on the very spot where Gabriel had nearly bled out to death minutes earlier. A few steps away, in the middle of the road, was Aziraphale’s antique pornography book. 

With a sigh, Aziraphale went to pick it up and tucked it under his arm, making sure to hide the cover from Warlock’s sight. 

“I believe,” he finally spoke, “that we all could use a nice cup of tea right about now.”

***

"But those who hope in the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall soar on wings like eagles; they shall run and not grow weary, they shall walk and not be faint." -- Isaiah 40:31

***

[Back]

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[aha-my-villainous-thoughts]

Please, keep me. (Good Omens)

It took me forever to finish this chapter and the one after it, I meant to have them done for Halloween and it’s January... nevermind. If anyone is interested in starting from the beginning, you can read the entire fic so far here. 

Part 20

The whole business with the books and the attic had been forgotten quite quickly, possibly a little too quickly for Crowley’s liking, but he found he didn’t seem to mind. He found he could put up with quite a lot of his angel’s shenanigans as long as there were kisses involved for him.

And kisses there were indeed, as Crowley found himself scooped up and curled around Aziraphale’s shoulders and his head held in two hands, being peppered with affection all over his snout.

“Hello, my lovely little thing,” sighed Aziraphale heavily, simply holding Crowley close to his face and giving another great big contented sigh. “I feel as if I haven’t seen you in an age,”

Crowley knew what he meant. Any time away from each other seemed to go on forever, like he was living a completely separate reality away from his angel’s touch, and then slipping back into his true life, the one he was meant to be living. Aziraphale breathed in again, nuzzling his face into Crowley’s neck coil before pulling back to smile at him dazzlingly.

“Someone’s been sliding around in the dust, haven’t they?” he smirked, eyes twinkling.

Crowley looked down, but couldn’t see any traces of dust on himself, his scales gleaming as usual.

“You smell a little...well, metallic maybe?” continued Aziraphale, going in for another sniff. “Maybe a hint of… oh, what is that? Woodsmoke?”

Crowley gave a half hearted shrug, moving to wind himself once more around Aziraphale’s neck and hide himself under the angel’s chin. It didn’t work, as Aziraphale simply unlooped Crowley’s tail from under his armpit and ran his nose along it.

“Hmm, it’s an interesting aroma, whatever it is,” he concluded. “But perhaps not as nice as your normal smell,”

Can we just change the subject , thought Crowley morosely. He had already spent enough time as it was trying to hide the new additions of starlight that had been leftover on his scales when he had transformed; he was less than pleased that he had overlooked the leftover influence of the furnaces.

“Well, anyway, let’s get a wiggle on, shall we?”

Aziraphale checked his pockets for his supplies, ink, quill, paper, checked once more for Crowley, and then they set off.

--

The morning turned out to be a little dull, with Aziraphale actually attending to his duties as expected for once. Crowley tried to stay present, listening to all the gentle things Aziraphale would say, either to himself, Crowley or to the books. When there was nothing to comment on or share with Crowley, Aziraphale would lapse into thoughtful quietness and then slip a little further into humming to himself. His throat rumbled gently as he hummed, and with the gentle rise and fall of his chest Crowley found himself being lulled to sleep.

He woke to a little squeeze of Aziraphale’s fingers to the coil of him that roughly translated to his armpit - his rather ticklish armpit - and immediately gave an involuntary little squirm. His head popped up so quickly from where it had been tucked into Aziraphale’s collar that he bumped himself on Aziraphale’s chin.

“Oh goodness, sorry my little thing, did I startle you?”

Crowley gave another little squirm, moving as to tuck away his more sensitive spots as he blinked away the sleep. They were in one of the more chaotic corners of the Library, where the unusually black lacquered bookcases were much closer together forming narrow corridors, absorbing the feeble amount of light that the orbs threw out. There were a few candles dotted about in sconces at shoulder height, the flickering light showing the spiderwebs that criss crossed the narrow pathway, the books slowly being cocooned in the darkness.

“It’s a little spooky, isn’t it?” said Aziraphale in an excited voice, lifting a hand to push a web away from his face as he tiptoed a little further into the darkness. His wings were gone again, once again folded away on another plane so he could forget about even pretending to look after them, the poor things. Crowley mused on what it would be like to offer to groom them for him, when he realised Aziraphale was speaking again.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come down here with a duster in hand to tidy up, but I simply can’t bring myself to do it,”

Aziraphale ducked under another larger web which spanned the space between two towering bookcases that seemed to loom down. He straightened, thinking he had successfully avoided the web, but then gave a small splutter as he went face first into another one directly behind it.

“Urgh, really!” he complained, lifting a hand to remove the web from his face and spit it off his tongue. He turned towards the centre of the web, still fussing the web from his curls, and gave a cross look to the occupant.

“I don’t mind you making your home with the books, but you know how I feel about walking through them!”

[goodomensblog]

Afterward - Part 9

A Good Omens Choose Your Own Adventure Fic

Here’s how it works:

I’ll write a scene.

At the end of each scene, you’ll be presented with 2-3 options for what the characters will choose to do next.

Comment or reblog to vote for your choice. I’ll count all votes after the first 24 hours after each update is posted.

Read: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8

(#3 is the winner! And the results are...interesting)

Afterward - - Part 9

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

“I mean,” Gabriel says, shrugging, “I always assumed demons had some way of healing other demons, but if you-”

“Yes, yeah we’ve got ways,” Crowley says with a glare. “But it’s complicated, alright? Some of them only work in Hell. And we can’t exactly pop down for a visit.”

Aziraphale’s hand is gentle, a soothing touch on his shoulder. 

“We’ll find another way.”

“There is another way. Might be the best option that we’ve got, given the circumstances.”

“And ...?” Gabriel says, impatiently waving him on. “Come on. Get on with it.”

Aziraphale’s hand remains on Crowley’s shoulder, and at Gabriel’s tone, they share a commiserating look.

If Beelzebub didn’t have information on a rampaging Satan - and potentially hold the key to keeping him at bay, Crowley wouldn’t even be attempting to deal with Gabriel and his over-the-top dickery. 

But considering that a crazed Satan does in fact, pose a significant problem for everyone, Aziraphale included, Crowley is willing to deal. 

For now.

With a long, deep sigh, Crowley rolls his neck, and begins, “It’s a ritual. One of the ancient ones. Transfers a portion of one being’s life force to another.”

Gabriel, thin lips mercifully closed, is nodding.

“I’ll have to perform the ritual. So you,” Crowley says, nodding sharply at Gabriel, “will have to offer up a bit of angelic life.”

Silence swallows the room.

Gabriel opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again. He tilts his head, blinking, and finally says, stiff and sharp, “Yeah, no. I’m not doing that.”

“Beelzebub is dying, you jackass,” Crowley hisses, gesturing at the burnt demon, small and sunk into Gabriel’s lavish couch. “You’ve got plenty of life to spare. Get the fuck over yourself.”

Beside him, Aziraphale has a hand on Beelzebub’s wrist. He chances a short glance at Gabriel before worriedly re-examining the fading demon. 

Arms folded across his chest like a shield, Gabriel shifts, looking between them.

“Gabriel,” Crowley demands.

Twitching in a distinctly uncomfortable manner, the archangel turns a quick circle. A muscle works in his jaw. Rubbing his hands over his arms, he shakes his head once.

“Transporting you all from that church was one thing. But giving up some of my holy energy to — to —” and here, Gabriel glances down at Beelzebub, and blinking, averts his gaze. “I’m an Archangel. It would be beyond blasphemy.”

“But Gabriel,” Aziraphale starts, then stops. Carefully placing Beelzebub’s hand on the couch, he looks up. “I know you’re not on the same side, but you two have worked together. In a sense. And I don’t know the full story, clearly, but Beelzebub trusted you to—”

“Yeah, well they shouldn’t have.”

“Obviously,” Crowley drawls, lips curling back over teeth.

“It can’t be angelic to let a being just die—”

“You—” and here Gabriel stops, pressing a fist against his lips. He hisses a breath through clenched teeth. “There are rules, Aziraphale. And you never got this, but there are the right ways of breaking the rules and the wrong ways. Using one’s own angelic life force to literally breathe life into a demon is the wrong way.”

“...but,” Aziraphale says, shaking his head, “either way, it’s breaking the rules—”

“Plausible deniability, Aziraphale,” Gabriel breathes, and the sound of it is the exhaustion of ages.

“You’re really going to let Beelzebub die on your couch,” Crowley says.

Violet eyes shutter, and Gabriel turns, staring fixedly at the floor. 

“My hands are tied.”

“We could make you,” Crowley says, deadly quiet.

“You could try.”

“Crowley, stop. We can’t fight here. If we’re, I mean - I assume Gabriel brought us to...?” Aziraphale halts, glancing at Gabriel for confirmation.

Arms folded, Gabriel gives a short nod.

Heaven.

It’s his second time returning to the above in the span of a few months, and Crowley feels as little this time as he did the first. And it’s - odd, considering that Heaven - or at least his expulsion from it, has been, for many centuries, a topic of particular fixation. His lack of attachment - feeling - anything - with regard to Heaven, now that he, again, stands upon it’s pristine floors, has Crowley thinking, in a vague, distracted sense, of the nature of home. 

It’s Aziraphale’s voice, soft and musing, which draws Crowley from his thoughts.

“Release too much power, and they’ll sense our presence here.”

“Gabriel wouldn’t want that either,” Crowley thinks aloud as he refocuses on the problem at hand. Gaze wandering to the twitching Archangel, he adds, “Imagine, being caught red-handed, harboring two demons and an angelic fugitive.” 

“It’s a moot point, because we especially do not want to be discovered, Crowley,” Aziraphale says. “I don’t want to imagine what Heaven would do to us, let alone Beelzebub.” 

Pressing his lips in a thin line, Aziraphale nods once, apparently arriving at some conclusion.

“I’ll do it,” Aziraphale announces.

“You - um - what?”

“We need Beelzebub. At the very least, to find out what they know,” Aziraphale insists. “I’ll happily give up a portion of my life force to heal them.”

Crowley blinks, and there’s a stuttering rhythm in his ears, because Aziraphale was nearly d—

He can’t even think it.

“You’re an idiot,” Crowley says, tongue curling around the shape of an agitated hiss. “Look at you, still pale from your lassst guh - bloody gavotte with death. You don’t have any extra life to spare, Aziraphale.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, solemn and serious, “I know myself. I know my form. I will be fine.”

Shoulders hunching, Crowley roughly shakes his head, “No. No.” Heaving a sharp breath, he shakes his head again for good measure. “Better idea. How ‘bout we off Gabriel - consequences be damned - and give Beelzebub all his miserable life energy?”

“Dear,” Aziraphale says, as Gabriel calls out—

“Fuck you too, buddy.”

And Crowley is standing, Aziraphale’s hand on his wrist as Gabriel turns, sword re-emerging from the aether-

“You are,” a halting, tremulous voice wheezes, “the actual fucking worst. And I hate... all of you.”

Aziraphale is first to react. Hands fluttering, he drops back to his knees.

“Oh, oh dear. You’d better — oh you really shouldn’t move.”

Ignoring him, Beelzebub claws the couch, attempting to rise - and promptly falls back, raking deep gouges in the cushions on their way back down. 

Crowley watches the spectacle, and for Beelzebub’s benefit, lifts a single, unimpressed brow.

Baring their teeth, the demon lord manages a wheezing cough in place of a snarl.

“While you’re up,” Crowley says, conversational, “You’re in support of us killing Gabriel to feed you his life force, yeah? He’s not really in the giving mood, it seems.”

Beelzebub’s dark, slitted eyes shift in Gabriel’s direction. 

“...what did you honestly expect?” Beelzebub says, matter-of-fact. “Angels don’t go... go around helping demons. And demons don’t help angels.”

It’s an echo of Gabriel’s own words, but the Archangel determinedly refuses to meet Beelzebub’s gaze. Fingering the edges of his pressed coat, he dips his chin once in silent agreement.

“...we exchange in trades...,” Beelzebub says, their voice little more than a sigh, “...and I’ve got information to trade...if, if you assholes can keep me alive long enough to share it.”

“So we kill Gabriel-”

“Stop offering to kill Gabriel,” Beelzebub snaps, and across the room, the archangel’s shoulders stiffen. “Just,” Beelzebub groans, “...it would be...bit ambitious to ask for a bit of Hellfire, huh?”

“A bit,” Aziraphale says, wincing.

Crowley and Gabriel, in what must be the first time in...well - ever, seem to have the same thought, at the exact same time.

“Now hold on a sec—.”

“Um. About that.”

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Two angels and a demon are TRYING to figure out how to save a friend complicated acquaintance, and they’ve all got different ideas of how to go about doing it...

Gabriel’s idea: steal borrow without, uh, permission, Heaven’s super secret stash of Hellfire, squirreled away after Aziraphale was supposed to be executed. It is well guarded at the best of times, and for reasons Gabriel refuses to talk about, Heaven is on high alert today...

Crowley’s idea: Get in touch with a reliable  mostly reliable contact from Hell. Crowley is sure that if he can get back down to the surface and - erm, pays his contact well enough - he’ll be able to get a flask of Hellfire, probably...

Aziraphale’s idea: Go through with the ritual and give up a portion of his life. Crowley is worried over nothing. Truthfully, Aziraphale feels fine. In fact, strangely enough, better than fine…

(AUTHOR’S NOTE - these are all possible plot threads that can and WILL be explored later, so even if it’s not picked this round, mysteries will likely be revisited as the story progresses)

Comment or reblog to vote :)

Read Part 10 Here

[orenstern]

I’d like to admit that I’ve never in my life read the Diary of Anne Frank. I’ve stood outside her house before, almost 14 years ago, and could feel something of her echoes, but never had before or since seen her words or witnessed her mind.

Up until a week ago, that is, when I chanced upon a copy of her diary. I picked it up the very moment I saw it, an instant reaction and so quick I forgot to realize I’d always been innately afraid to read her work, her letters to self. Because it somehow always seemed to me like, of all the work available by now-dead writers, her diary entries would feel the most like ghost stories, like real life talking to a ghost. It’s always scared me, the notion of talking to this particular ghost. No other ghost ever proposed to raise in me the slightest feather of a concern let alone fear.

But she always had.

And I can’t even remember having seen a portrait of her until last week. As hard as that might be to believe.

Where she was concerned, it has been like living in a house where all of the mirrors had blankets covering them. And believe you me, I’ve been in many houses where real life people were still living there and it was just precisely that, blankets over the mirrors, and the inhabitants were just looking at me without a hint of shame, sorrow or remorse in their eyes. Without any hint of knowledge of the display they had erected. If it fact it was them who had erected it. Just, this is the way it is here looks in their eyes.

The fucking things you see over a life. The understated non-plussed near-miss, oh boy did it hit though I am yet unstruck, horror you sometimes see. And how often it doesn’t even faze you. You just step over it like you would any old mound of dirt, not at all an active grave, except the low key and surpressed knowledge reminding you that all the earth is an active 5 billion year old Grave and Tomb and Monument and Pyre all wrapped into one, and all the universe a 20 billion year old same thing.

So I picked up the book. And I gazed at the front cover for a good long while. At her portrait. At Anne. I looked at her portrait for the first time, and I transported my mind back to her house, and I imagined she and I were standing there together, side by side. Outside. Looking at her own house in silence, together. And we both walked away, together, headed for a fast train to Paris, by way of a stroll along the Prisengracht, and short interlude at the Van Gogh museum. No other manifestations than that. I did not even imagine our bodies or our faces. I just remembered having done that before, peering out from the windows of my own eyes, with a companion by my side, and imagined this time, Anne was there with me doing the same.

And then after these thoughts, I opened the book. But I turned immediately to her very final entry. And I read only this Tuesday, August 1st, 1944 entry.

I’m sure I am not the only one who has read her writings and recognized themself in her words. But for certain, what she had written seemed and felt like something I’d written at least a thousand times. Her precise sentiments, and word choices, her very style. Parts of her style is my style. I must have picked that up either from writers who were familiar with her writings or just plucked it out of the wind somehow or some other way. But still that was not the eerie part.

The eerie part was the last two paragraphs. Which I copied down by hand into one of my own journals, with a blunt non-sharpened 3 inch pencil with no eraser no less, was all I had at the time. It was eerie because for at least a decade but more and more lately like the curvings of a quadratic formula, I’ve been hearing the phrase “Set Intentions” like you might hear during guided meditation or whenever someone wants to Exalt the Secret of Manifestation to you.

And I wasn’t at all going to share any of this with anyone. I had no plans to say any of this outloud to write anything on it or engage it any further or even ever again. I wrote the passage in my journal and I’d figured I was fully intending to never ever look back at that passage, or talk about it, or allow myself to recall it, and otherwise resolved to keep the blankets over this mirror forever.

But then I was scrolling this evening and just saw someone had shared a picture of Anne. And that too was a first for me to witness. Now I saw her face twice in a week, at the bookends of the week, both on Wednesdays at roughly about the same time of day. Happy to call that coincidence. Very happy to call it that.

But, I had also been just on a smoke break from my own writings, a letter I was writing to a loved one and the tenor of the letter of where I had left off when I stopped for my smoke break had just moved onto omens.

Oh boy, right?

Well now, still happy to be coincidentally maybe now just only synchronistically having this experience. But given it all, I’d resolved to share.

And by share, I’m not sure I can bring this all into any firm sense of things that could make it any less eerie. Though I will try. And if I don’t fully strike the right note in this attempt, I will know it, you won’t have to tell me, but I will publish the attempt anyway as an earmark of this encounter, and double back on it maybe whenever it is that I have found the right note or chord to strike or strum.

I’m thinking of two things, one I was going to save for my letter when I moved past omens. And one I was going to tell a friend of mine after watching a movie he recommended that I still have not told him. So I will choose neither and tell you both of them in this writing.

Most importantly, this is not at all about victim blaming, please have the courage to see past that, as Anne apparently might say that, at least, one of your two voices, if you only had two, would have such ability. And this, even if that means this courageous voice disappears after only 15 minutes.

First, I can remember back to a time when I am not more than a few months older than my son is now, maybe six months older. I am lying in my little boy bed, in my little boy bedroom in the house I grew up in, a little cape style enhanced cottage. It is night. The walls are blue. The headboard is all white and soft and plush to the touch, and riveted by silken buttons, smooth to the touch and shiny to the eye, though woven round by very fine white thread.

I am laying on top of the covers. This is colorful Snoopy and the Peanuts bedding. It’s not exactly yet bed time. But it must still be before the Vernal Equinox because the sun has been down for a good while and its not yet past my little boy bedtime. And the room is lit golden by a single 40 maybe 60 but really probably 40 watt incandescent bulb. It’s gold in there, it’s almost orange that low gold glow. And I’m laying at angle on the bed. And I’m pointed feet first at the east corner of the bedroom, which is also precisely lined up with Cardinal East. And I shit you not, but on this evening, a few weeks before my actual birthday and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was on my original due date, I was thinking to myself, “I must be dreaming in this life. I am going to remember this moment forever. When I get older. And I believe I am going to wake up someday from the distant future back here in this moment, back here in the age, back here just the way I am now.”

I’ve not tampered with this memory at all since then. I’ve remembered it precisely and often ever since. I’ve referred back to it thousands of times. In a sense, I in fact have never left that room or that night. I built it into every single night since. Like one of Tom Riddle’s horcruxes. And this before I had ever heard Row Row Row Your Boat. And this before I had enough speaking skills to say these thoughts outloud even if I wanted to but enough language understanding to think them and remember.

So that’s the first thought.

The second thought, it’s about that movie my friend suggested I watch over the summer. It was a horror movie, a new one. You may have watched it yourself. Called Ghosts of War.

My feedback to him the day after I watched it was pretty simple. A. I enjoyed it. B. The sniper I think is my favorite. C. It reminds me I have another horror movie That I do not mention to him by name then, but I only say that it is in the genre of horror that is not shriekingly scary, or rather does not rely on shriekingly scary moments. Because it does contain a couple of those potentially frightful jolts. But that is not it’s best foot forward. This type of horror is not the exciting amusement park kind. This type of horror is the kind that enters your bloodstream and stays with you and haunts you over a long period of time, long afterwards. The kind of horror you might find yourself waking up from sleep even a year or more later and not feeling right and having witnessed. D. I might get back to him someday with more commentary. Oh and E. I really enjoyed seeing Billy Zane. Particularly as the dichotomy of American Doctor and SS Colonel.

But wouldn’t you know shortly after I finished writing down that passage from Anne Frank’s final entry, pledging to not look at it ever again, I found myself in another room talking to a person about that actual movie that ghost of war reminded me of that I didn’t tell my friend what that movie was. To this new person I did say its name. It is paranormal activity. The first one. I said that movie is the first time I had witnessed a genuine horror film, That has the capability of genuinely haunting me for a long long period of time, in my adult years. And it doesn’t contain hardly any,if at all, shriek moments.

The horror of that movie is it’s power to slowly and steadily and surely wrap itself around your heart with fear and anxiety, and with full command, Sustain you in that state while flexing and relaxing it’s own valves, to show you who’s boss and who is in command.

Furthermore I told this person, that such a film as this paranormal activity is is not a film to watch when you are in a heightened state of consciousness. You’ve got to be half asleep at the wheel half dead inside to properly survive that film. Because in the final moment, and I admitted this to that person, when you see the demon at last, he jumps straight into your eyes. Straight into you. That movie is perhaps the ultimate act of transgression, that I’d ever seen to that date. And I admitted to this person that it took me a good long while of concerted and methodical effort, to rid myself of that motherfucking demon. Such is the exquisite accomplishment of that particular horror movie. I spared my friend this story, because I’m pretty sure he would’ve shit his pants if I told it to him in person. I think I’m only about 30% joking about that.

But tomorrow being that some stories stay with you longer than others. Some stories you actually have to exorcise from your mind. it’s very good training. Especially if you happen to frequently find yourself in other peoples houses and those houses have all the mirrors draped over by blankets. And those other people walk about aimlessly as though they have no idea how odd that appears to be. if you know what I’m saying. And if you can believe what I’m saying is actually true.

But no I don’t think I’ll ever tell my friend about the paranormal activity story. What I will tell him is another thought I had about ghosts of war. That I think on some level in someway we are all ghosts of every war. Wars that we’ve seen and wars that we haven’t seen, either depicted in books or movies or for trade for real on the news both of foreign lands and domestic. And even wars in our own mind, common place words with our neighbors or friends or family or loved ones. I think in someway we just are ghosts of it. Carrying the crosses of it.

And I remember a story I wrote or a poem maybe it was about a universal snake and a universal monkey. The universal snake head swallowed the universal monkey. Seemingly defeated him in battle. Seemingly killed him. Seemingly was digesting him. But unseeming to the universal snake, the universal monkey to this day will not die. And for all eternity the universal snake has had indigestion on account of the universal monkey’s eternal will not to be extinguished. They say it ain’t over til it’s over. They say don’t stop believing. I say that’s probably very good advice and we should all listen to it. The Monkey is listening to it right now, and has been forever. That monkey won’t quit. That monkey is in a pickle but he’s got a slim to none chance and yet he won’t quit.

How this works back to ghosts to war and how we’re ghosts of war with everyone, and how this works back to Anne Frank. It’s up to you what you wanna believe in, I believe in the fact that God won’t ever let us really kill each other. We might see it happen with our own eyes. Right before us. But I believe that even as it happens it also instantly unhappens.

We have the ability to look backwards in time and forecast forwards in time but we only have the ability to live in one moment of time at a time and that we called the present. We have no idea what actually happens in previous moments of time once we’ve moved past them. Except how they exist in our mind. But for all we know in a moment that someone apparently kills another, whether it’s a person to a person or an animal to an animal. How do we know it doesn’t on happen once we’ve left that moment? Natural law has a place in this world. So natural law gets its way in this world. But there are such things as the overlapping thesis of all the different laws. And divine law is a thing in that overlapping thesis. Just as well as natural law is. So it is totally possible that once we make a mess of things, the Custodian comes along to fix it.

It’s possible along the same probabilities or maybe even slightly better than Lloyd Christmas’ chances of getting the red head which he eventually did.

To another person who overheard me talking to that first person last week about paranormal activity, the next day she came to me with concerns. I listened to these concerns. And my response was what you do is up to you. Including whether or not you trust yourself or not. If I were in your shoes I would try to trust myself. Even as everyone around me might seem intent on leading me to betray my own trust. if I were in your shoes, I would choose to believe that no one actually has the power to do that. No one actually has the will to want to see you fail, to fail yourself. Because that would be them wishing them to fail themselves. And while they might get away with that in one moment in the next that moment is wiped clean. If I were in your shoes I’d be telling that to myself every moment I had these concerns you are telling me about.

I further said, and I stop talking about if I were in her shoes. I further said what you think is happening is happening. What you understand about what is happening is only ever coming into focus more and more. You may not have all the Time in the world, but you do always have the luxury of patience. There’s no rush when it comes to the process of understanding. Something tells me we’ll repeat the lesson infinitely if necessary. something also tells me that won’t actually be necessary. The lesson will come clear eventually. Have faith in that and likely all of your fears and concerns will be abolished. The probability of it being otherwise, however great it seems, as Pascal very effectively demonstrated, infinitely pales to the seemingly tiny probability, the Boson particle infinitesimally small and impossible to fathom yet there it is nonetheless almost something you can now actually reach out and grab but even still something you can see if only by way of prediction probability, of it not being otherwise.

So that in other words no sword actually ever really falls upon the neck but he’s only ever caught by the Hand.

I’ve been waiting to wake up to this reality ever since my two-year-old self woke up to that reality and said I will be waking up here someday again.

But I did tell that second person, be careful the stories you tell yourself. They could be like that movie demon that enters your mind and poisons your body, like that story I told last night. The mind can make almost anything real. That’s a quote from a movie also, but it comes from somewhere. Didn’t it? So possibly probably in all likelihood whatever story you tell yourself whatever imaginary though you have as an objective: if somewhere in this universe. Somehow manifest itself. Somehow find a way to be born and become true. Often a lot faster and more hellishly than you thought possible.

The mind is it’s own place. It can make heaven out of hell and hell a heaven. I don’t need to read the whole diary of Anne Frank, to know beyond what her final entry says. That she was equally gifted at doing both. And that, my friends, is not victim blaming. That is just what it is.

And so behold the final two paragraphs of her final passage:

As I’ve told you, what I say is not what I feel, which is why I have a reputation for being boy-crazy as well as a flirt, a smart aleck and a reader of romances. The happy-go-lucky Anne laughs, gives a flippant reply, shrugs her shoulders and pretends she doesn’t give a darn. The quiet Anne reacts in just the opposite way. If I’m being completely honest, I’ll have to admit that it does matter to me, that I’m trying very hard to change myself, but that I I’m always up against a more powerful enemy. A voice within me is sobbing, “You see, that’s what’s become of you. You’re surrounded by negative opinions, dismayed looks and mocking faces, people, who dislike you, and all because you don’t listen to the advice of your own better half.”

Believe me, I’d like to listen, but it doesn’t work, because if I’m quiet and serious, everyone thinks I’m putting on a new act and I have to save myself with a joke, and then I’m not even talking about my own family, who assume I must be sick, stuff me with aspirins and sedatives, feel my neck and forehead to see if I have a temperature, ask about my bowel movements and berate me for being in a bad mood, until I just can’t keep it up anymore, because when everybody starts hovering over me, I get cross, then sad, and finally end up turning my heart inside g out, the bad part on the outside and the good part on the inside, and keep trying to find a way to become what I’d like to be and what I could be if… if only there were no other people in the world.

Yours, Anne M. Frank

[jinmukangwrites]

Hi Jin! Since you are looking for some DC hc what's your opinion on Flash? Honestly I like his character and his interaction with other heros, esp. Batman. I like to hc that sometimes Flash says/does something so deep and profound completely accidently but it shocks and touches others and they see him in renewed light. If you don't feel like Flash, what about some grandpa Alfred and his horde of superhero grandkids? xD Just some options for you, have fun and thank you for your amazing writing!

So I... don't reallllly have much experience writing for Flash or the Justice League in general? I based Flash's characterization off from what I remember from watching various cartoons and from pannels I've happened across over the years. I need to read his comics. He's such a dork. Anyway, sorry this took a million years DF, hopefully this is sorta what you were wanting <3

Also if you're wondering when exactly this takes place, just know I am constantly rejecting canon and substituting my own 😤

-o-o-o-o-

When Dick was nine years old, he wanted to join Bruce on a Justice League mission.

Bruce—being the clear-headed, calculative, newly foster father that he was—panicked and said he couldn't go on an official League mission until he was twenty-five years old... which is what Bruce was at the time. When Dick tried to argue back, well, Bruce pulled some strings—meaning he glared at the other League members until they agreed—and made it official.

No one under twenty-five would join an official Justice League mission.

Bruce wishes now he set the bar higher and told the young man to just deal with it. Because Dick is twenty-six now, and that's all Bruce can think about as Batman punches his way through an alien spaceship. Twenty-six, somewhere on this ship where Bruce can't see him with a different team comprising of newer members—not because he's untrained, but because there's no one else Bruce would trust to keep the newer recruits alive.

Meanwhile, Batman and other original powerful members of the League fight their way towards the leader of these attacking aliens. The mothership is large, practically a maze, and filled with soldier creatures with no individual agency to note. They're not an Apokolips level threat, but it would still be preferable to stop them before they enter the solar system.

Batman stops in his tracks, slamming his back against the wall to avoid getting blasted by an enemy soldier around the corner. Then, after a beat, he jumps out and launches a baterang at the attacker and takes them down with a few well placed jabs. There's the sound of something creaking violently somewhere behind him, probably Superman or Wonder Woman deciding doors are too tedious to find and the walls are weak enough for them to just plow through.

Which is why Batman is paired with none other than Flash for the moment. Despite his abilities, he can't go vibrating through walls whenever he finds it quicker to do so. He needs to save his strength; which means he's in the same boat as Batman, finding tedious doorways and navigating winding corridor filled with flashing red lights and steaming pipelines.

There's the sound of a blaster loading up to his right where he didn't notice another soldier hiding in the shadows. He just manages to pull up his cape in an attempt to lessen the damage when there's a blur of red and a flash of yellow lightning, the alien goes flying against the wall with a snap, falling limply to the ground.

"You good, B?" Flash asks, stopping in front of Batman with a grin. His voice is light, a little joking. Batman rolls his eyes. "I mean, it's a good thing I was here, It's not normally me who's doing the saving for destracted teammates."

"Let's move," he replies before moving on.

Behind him, he hears Flash sigh dramatically. "Good talk."

They move further into the ship, the blue glow of a fuzzy, half-detailed map hovering from Batman's wrist computer. Flash is a constant chatter behind him, which only serves to remind Batman further of a certain talkative, pun-slinging acrobat somewhere on the other side of the ship, taking down the ship's main controls.

Then, suddenly, the holographic map glitches violently like an old corrupted silent film as the entire ship jolts. A large boom crashes through the air, creaking pipes and tilting the entire gravitational system, causing Batman and Flash to throw their bodies towards the nearest wall as the ship struggles to realign itself.

Batman keeps his grip firm while Bruce keeps his eyes on the map, his stomach dropping when he sees a flashing red dot appear near the ship's main control room.

Nightwing...

"What was that?!" Flash wheezes as the gravity returns to something similar to what it should be, but it's shaky now, like one wrong move and everything will be sent spinning.

"Something exploded in the control room," Batman growls, pushing all thoughts that don't involve the alien leader and finding said alien leader out of his head.

"'Wing's on the other side," Flash says, his voice suddenly devoid of his constant joking and light tone. "You think they're oka-"

"We need to finish this."

And Batman is moving before Flash can argue. He doesn't say he's sure they're fine, or we should turn back, or let me attempt communications; he just moves forward because the mission is important. The world is important.

Whatever trouble the other's have gotten into... he is positive they can handle it.

Then, just moments later, they run into more trouble. Only this time, it's not just one or two mindless soldiers, but a whole group of them. Immediately, Batman launches himself into battle, cape fluttering behind him like an omen, using the shadows between the flashing lights to his advantage. He can hear the static of a speedster's energy all around him as Flash winds between bolts of enemy fire. Batman pushes his companion to the back of his mind, throwing his fist out into slam the door deformed jaw of an attacker.

The ship jolts again, along with the floor beneath him. He grunts as he's thrown into the wall, the explosion sounding like it came from the same area as before. Everything's sideways now: the ship, the gravity, his train of thought. He just manages to grab at clawing hands as an alien jumps on top of him, snarl in its lips and teeth dripping with drool.

The alien screeches, it's taloned feet digging into the Kevlar over his stomach, practically doing it's damnest to gut him open. Batman growls, his stomach twisting as the ship's gravity tries to fix itself once again, causing Batman and the alien to go rumbling from the wall into the floor. Batman grunts as he crashes through a branch of pipeline, landing harshly on the ground and sucking in a breath as his ribs scream at new bruises.

What is going on over there?!

And he doesn't even have a chance to think more into it, because he realizes he's been laying on the ground, worrying, when he should have noticed the alien finding it's bearings and scrambling forward with a scream to attempt to pin him down again.

He bunches up, preparing himself to defend himself at last moment, before there's Flash, once again, coming in at the perfect time. Flash slams the alien into the wall, it's skull making a terrible thunk noise, before it slides to the ground unconscious.

Batman pushes himself to his feet, his ribs throbbing, and opens his mouth to command they keep going, but Flash—in the blink in an eye—ends up right in front of Batman, his mouth twisted in a rare frown.

"What is wrong with you," Flash demands, grabbing into the clasps of Batman's cape and holding Batman in front of him so he can effective snarl in the other man's face. "I was joking before, about you being destracted, but now I think you actually are."

"I'm not destracted," Batman growls back, moving to shove Flash off of him, but the Flash doesn't back down. He tightens his grasp and glares.

"You are. You're destracted and worried for Nightwing because you're a dad-"

"We have a mission to finish-"

"The mission is a failure if you die, Bruce! I can't watch them be told you've died again!"

Everything goes still, nothing but the flashing lights and creaking pipes exists while Barry clutches the clasps of Bruce's cape and breathes hard. Barry swallows roughly, and then gives Bruce a narrowed look.

"When will you realize that?" He asks, sounding close to hysterical. "That your self preservation is worth more than the world to them?"

And Bruce remembers Wally, and Bart, and Iris, and their plans to have kids and find a better house with a bigger lawn. Bruce takes a deep breath and lets Batman take the backseat.

"What do I do?"

Relief flashes through Barry's face. He lets go of Bruce's cape and a smile twitches in his lips. "Go find him. Check on him. Get yourself un-destracted."

"What about you?" Bruce asks, and Barry shrugs, looking way too relaxed now. Like a weight is off his shoulders. Like he can really run now.

"I'm sure Oli is around here somewhere. I'll meet up with him." Barry looks Bruce right in the eye. "We'll finish the mission, it'll be a done in a flash. Just go make sure your kid is okay first."

And for once, Bruce doesn't groan at the pun or argue the phrase his kid. He just nods and turns back the way he came, his legs pumping, to make sure his kid is okay, which he should have remembered in the first place was always the mission. Always the top priority.

He'll have to thank Barry later... and send Iris some flowers.

[warcats-cat]

Staying Up Late (Good Omens)

I Live!!!!!! This was written for @indigowallbreaker who gave me the prompt: “trying to stay awake for a loved one to come home; with Aziraphale and Crowley” from a prompt series. This was really great to get some writing going, since I’ve been in a slump for quite a while. Thanks for the prompt Indigo!!! 

Feel free to send me prompts! I’m always excited to try something new!

Read on Ao3.

-----

It was rather late, all things considered. Truly, at this point, one might even consider himself early if the pun could be minded. The town outside of sparsely lit tents was silent and sleeping quite peacefully. The tents were mostly to protect from the rain; the little night-market had popped up rather suddenly only a few days ago, and Aziraphale had been itching to investigate it when he heard of several rare biblical texts that may (or may not) have been up for sale.

He had only found one, of low value and intermediate interest to him; however, since the angel was roughly as stubborn as an angry mule, he was resolutely leaving with it.

It helped that he had found a few trinkets he thought Crowley would enjoy; particularly a button cactus carefully cradled in a terrarium less than the length of his littlest finger. A friend for his wonderful demon to carry with him. Aziraphale considered the idea of having a tiny plant around one’s neck absolutely adorable, and knew exactly how to talk Crowly into wearing it.

And Crowley would; although he would fuss that he wasn’t adorable, and how dare Aziraphale even SUGGEST such a thing, and it was a CACTUS after all, so it wouldn’t be any effort to even keep it alive.

But the distraction certainly had its drawbacks. Aziraphale found himself holding a thoroughly water-proofed briefcase while standing in the rain at roughly four in the morning while waiting for a bus. His mobile had died quite a while ago, although he wasn’t sure why, and poor Crowley would either be worried sick or at least slightly put out. His poor husband.

Thankfully, the bus ride was uneventful and quiet, and Aziraphale could take the time to examine what he had collected at the market: his new book, to be examined at home, the necklace, and an interesting little pin of a crow curled over the top of a little moon. The last Aziraphale couldn’t really explain; it had struck him as something essentially Crowley, once again, with the pun unintended, and he experienced a strange feeling of wanting Crowly to have it. The demon may not even wear it.

Oh well.

By the time Aziraphale finally walked up to the front of their cottage ( their cottage! He could never really get over it. Their cottage, together; openly and happily!) there was a faint light struggling to break over the horizon. The door unlocked with the slightest wave of his open hand, and he let himself in. The kitchen and halls leading off to the bedroom were dark, and yet the living room was spilling light out into the hallway, as was typical. One light left on seemed to be a comfort to Crowley, whether or not the demon would ever admit it. Additionally, it kept him from tripping on dust in a half-asleep haze when looking for Aziraphale in the wee hours of the morning.

“Crowley?” he called, while taking his briefcase into his book-mending office. “My dear, are you awake?”

He received no answer, and so emptied the case of book and trinkets, and headed down the hall to check for the bedroom. Aziraphale savored the quiet; the cottage was dark but warm, like wrapping himself in a comforting blanket and covering his head with it like a hiding child. Aziraphale could spend hours in the dark, savoring a book or watching his husband sleep (as non-creepily as possible. He still didn’t understand the odd reference Crowly had made to sparkling skin when Aziraphale had mentioned this activity once. )

The angel opened their bedroom door as quietly as possible, and padded over to the bed. He sat down on the edge and reached out to put a hand where Crowley’s back was, only to find the space empty and comparatively cold.

A spark of panic lit in Aziraphale’s stomach as he realized Crowley wasn’t there. The angel hurried off, checking his husband’s indoor-plant-room first, and upon finding it dark, moving to check the rest of the house. The worry built each time his call went unanswered.

Just as Aziraphale was beginning to fear someone had actually come after them, he rushed past the lit living room and stumbled to a stop in the doorway. A muss of red hair peeked out over one armrest of the couch, while three blankets were roughly formed into a nest along the cushions, and a fourth very soft knit mess-called-blanket (that Aziraphale had worked very hard on, thank you) covered the rest of the demon. One pair of expensive-looking sunglasses sat flopped over at the foot of the couch.

Aziraphale smiled to himself; “Oh dear.” he sighed lovingly. As carefully as possible, the angel removed the top blanket, to find a glasses-free Crowley very quietly snuffling in his sleep. The demon looked entirely too peaceful, and yet was twisted rather strangely along the couch; the best way Aziraphale could describe it was a corkscrew noodle. Crowley’s eyes and nose scrunched at the sudden light, and he began to turn the top half of his body into the couch cushions with a sleepy grunt.

The angel couldn’t stand how sweet the other looked, and shoved both arms under his husband to lift him off of the couch. Crowley squeaked, took approximately one-half of a second to realize it was his Angel lifting him, and wiggled to curl up and cuddle against Aziraphale’s chest while pushing his face into the other’s neck.

“‘Missed you.” he said, voice low and tickling Aziraphale’s throat, “Knew you’d be back. Jus’ got tired.” The angel adjusted his grip onto the now ball-shaped demon, and began to carry him back into the bedroom.

“I’m terribly sorry, my dear. I lost track of time.” He said softly. “I did bring something for you, although I think you should sleep a bit longer before you receive it.”

Crowly hummed appreciatively, and almost the second Aziraphale was sitting on the bed, the demon had snuggled into his side.

“Tha’s fine. Jus’ want you right now. Warm.” he replied, eloquently.

“I do hope you didn’t stay up too late. I know you have gotten rather used to sleep.” Aziraphale began to comb fingers through Crowly’s tousled hair, which earned him the demonic equivalent of a purr.

“You’re’good cuddler.” was his only response, leading Aziraphale to believe Crowley had stayed up well past his usual hour for sleeping. Well then, he supposed, he would just have to sit here and make absolutely certain Crowley got all of the comfortable sleep he required. Breakfast and gifts could wait.

Aziraphale watched the sun begin to rise through the closed bedroom curtains. Everything in this peaceful little world of theirs seemed to be just in its place. He allowed himself to relax, holding onto the only being in the universe he loved, and one he knew with a full heart loved him back. Perhaps even breakfast could wait. They could always sleep in, after all.

A late-afternoon picnic sounded like the perfect thing for a day like today.

[veliseraptor]

If you wanna rec some of your fave Good Omens fics. . . I’d be pretty grateful

okay, I’m still doing a lot of reading but here are a few to get started with. a lot of these, uh, feature Crowley suffering because I’m the person I am and I’m sort of sorry but also not really. I’m consistent, you can say that for me.

this is also just based on, like, a week of really aggressive reading, so I’m sure I’m missing a lot of things.

Eden!verse by ImprobableDreams900

I blitzed through the entirety of this verse in about three days while reading nothing else and crying a lot on the subway. Like...holy shit. It starts with your basic “Crowley gets kidnapped to Heaven” premise, with some crunchy torture/whump, and that’s the easy part. It goes so much deeper, and so much further, from there. Heavy warning for the first fic - I spent roughly 80% of it bawling, and if you’ve ever had a family member or loved one die of Alzheimer’s...well. But oh, it’s so good.

Don’t Play With Holy Water by ImprobableDreams900

Hastur shows up post-canon and he’s got bad plans for Crowley. Some very good classic and nicely creative whump.

Mirror, Mirror by ImprobableDreams900

Mirror universe fic is good in any fandom! And this is Mirror!verse fic, with a significantly eviller Crowley showing up in the main universe, and a significantly less evil Crowley showing up in a very dark future.

I Run Into You and Just Keep Running by meganbagels

I really can’t put this one any better than the summary: “Through the years Crowley and Aziraphale keep running into each other in compromising scenarios or just when they're on the pull. To be fair, it's mostly just Aziraphale in compromising scenarios. That hardly makes it better.”

The Last Temptation of Crowley by irisbleufic

Post-book, growing into their new relationship. Awkwardly. (But it’s good.)

Any Other Name by mostlyanything19

So it turns out that Crowley can’t say Aziraphale’s original name because it’s holy, and holy things don’t get along with demons. A little change in name can fix that problem, though. Just some early-days-of-Crowley-and-Aziraphale fic, showing some small development in their relationship.

Those Golden Eyes by NeverNooitNiet

Just a character story, sort of about Crowley and his eyes, and Aziraphale and Crowley’s history, but also about Aziraphale and his perspective on Crowley, and Aziraphale being pretty fond of the snake eyes, really.

such selfish prayers by Lvslie

I don’t really know how to give an appropriate blurb for this one, but mostly what’s important to me about it is the really quality feverish and aggressively cuddly Crowley.

Anytime. by sergeant_smudge

Classic whump, and I’m about it. It’s also really well described.

Black Dog by HoloXam

I didn’t know I wanted fic of “Crowley has a depressive episode” but apparently I did want that, and really I shouldn’t be surprised, and this one really did me good.

where do we begin (the rubble or our sins) by procrastinatingbookworm

Crowley and Aziraphale in the aftermath of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

is it that we are dying? by NeverNooitNiet

Crowley gets the plague. And then someone has to go and bless him. Includes some fairly nasty descriptions of bubonic plague, major character discorporation, and some real nice angst and pre-Arrangement Crowley and Aziraphale.

Modern Love by punkfaery

Apparently I am a sucker for “stories that bounce around historical periods with Crowley and Aziraphale”, and also this is just a really beautifully written piece with the two of them and developing relationship feelings and I’m just very fond of it.

Under the Apple Tree by NotaSpaceAlien

Crowley runs into a bit of a situation with some angels, and Aziraphale helps out. He thinks that maybe things might be starting to change, a little. More early-days (earlier days) Crowley and Aziraphale, more of that hurt/comfort stuff that I love so much.

Game Over, Insert Coin by irisbleufic & procrastinatingbookworm

Am I always going to be a sucker for time loop fic in any fandom? Yes, yes I am. aka - this is the one where Crowley repeats the day of the end of the world over and over until he gets it right, in this case meaning “more hand holding, you dumbass.”

how big the hourglass, how deep the sand by Handful_of_Silence

A severely unfortunately accident results in Aziraphale being kidnapped by a human sorcerer just as his and Crowley’s relationship is starting to get off the ground, and I’m making this fic sound a lot funnier and more light-hearted than it actually is.

such surpassing brightness by Handful_of_Silence

The one where Aziraphale has been a queer icon for centuries, and Crowley finds out about it. I love fic that uses some kind of multimedia/creative formatting, and the way this fic plays with using film summaries/academic articles/fake blog posts in building itself...is just very well done. Just read this one this morning and I love it.

every angel is terrifying by punkfaery

A great fic about cosmic horror angels - or, well, eldritch angels(/demons) and their true forms. I really liked this one, not least for its descriptions of Aziraphale and Crowley’s true forms.

the prophet’s song by ApprenticeofDoyle (WIP)

So this one is still in progress but I really like what’s posted so far - Crowley gets yanked across universes (or rather, swaps universes) into one where he and Aziraphale never had an Arrangement and the Apocalypse is night. (And the corresponding Crowley’s swapped into the other one.)

the still point of the turning world by punkfaery

A fic where Crowley, post-Apocawasn’t, having a bit of a crisis about the idea that he might have actually forever lost Aziraphale.

[bigskydreaming]

kai06leaf replied to your post:

Ended up all night, with sleep derailed by a RUDE...

Um I had asked for a link for your batman related works?:)

Oh score, this is actually weirdly timely then! FlashinthePan is my Batfam pseudonym (https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlashInThePan/works), its just it hasn’t been useful for much other than to use my bookmarks page there as a fics rec list. Since the only other things still up on it are the YJ WIP I haven’t updated in a couple years and an elephant’s graveyard collection for the random ficlets I often write on here while forgetting they’re usually long enough to be actual one-shots...and that I then forget to actually add to that one, that I created for the specific purpose of putting all those in one place. My mind. Its just....*staggers at the Legend of it all*

I’ve been on a pretty committed “No more posting unfinished WIPs kick” for the past couple years but am finally at a point where I have stuff to post without cheating, so that streak officially ends today, when I finish my read-through of the first fic* in question and hit publish. “The Requiem Rites of Robins,” the ten chapter first story in an AU Battle For the Cowl fix-it series, “A Legacy of Robins,” with TRRoR being roughly 40K, focuses on Dick and Jason and their issues with each other and Bruce’s believed death, picking up and going AU at an indeterminate time not long after the end of BFTC. 

Specific goals of focus with this particular fic were addressing Bruce’s bullshit last will and testament to Jason (ugh), the eternally unremarked upon moment that was Dick watching his brother refuse to take his hand and instead fall to what at the time must have seemed very likely to be Jason’s second death, in a pretty fucked up parallel to his parents’ death (ugh), various other unaddressed issues between the brothers that kept them making like they were Cain and Abel instead of two people who loved each other and very much could use each other while grieving for their father or even just pretending they weren’t....and also steadfastly jumping their combined train of events well off the tracks before Morrison’s whole...”Jason” thing ever happened at all (ugh).

Just a headsup for readers for whom certain characterizations of Bruce are a dealbreaker - full disclosure, this fic and its sequels do consider various less pleasant moments between Bruce and his two eldest to be in character and canon, with NTT #55 and the ending to UTRH the most touched upon and relevant. For what its worth, my intention there (and hopefully my execution of things) was not to vilify or bash Bruce, or to make it at all a question of whether or not both really loved Bruce and he them. 

To be clear...I do categorize Bruce’s actions towards Dick and Jason at those times/specific others as abusive, but a huge part of my reason for even writing this particular fic was to explore and examine the reality of loving a parent even despite a history of actually abusive behavior on their parts. Of how to mourn for someone you loved at some times and hated at others, who was both the person who made you feel whole again and the one who made you at other times feel the most broken. 

Especially when you’re two people who pride themselves on being heroes, who are ‘supposed to know’ that there’s no defense, no excuse for some of the things their father did, but that doesn’t always change or erase how much they want to. And who are both looking for an answer in the other, as to how they’re supposed to live with the fact that deep down, there’s a part of them that will always still be those ten and twelve year old orphan boys who came to believe their father was a man who could literally do the impossible...even mend what was broken, make things right with them and the world as they knew it just like he’d managed once before, when he’d first come into their lives and they’d been just as certain then that there were no more happy moments in their futures at all. 

And with the both of them still, even after everything, having held onto that secret hope that someday he was going to find the secret loophole, the magic words that let them forgive him, that let them let the past all just be in the past and the future all that really mattered, that their best days as a family weren’t all behind them yet and there was still time for things to be different, for him to be different....because their dad wasn’t like other ordinary dads, their dad was the Batman, he was a superhero.....

....who was also still just a man, and sometimes men die with their most important deeds still left incomplete.

This first story is centered firmly on just Dick and Jason, because I have a tendency to let things get too widespread and expansive plot-wise the more characters I focus on, and because this first story, about mourning Bruce and finding a way to move on, needed to be just Dick and Jason, although Cass and Tim and Damian, as well as Steph and Babs and Alfred all have things in the wake of his believed death that IMO they needed explored, and that were never explored in canon. But Dick and Jason had to be the first two and a solo act except for each other, especially as this series is still geared towards Bruce’s eventual return, and just to a much different status quo....because the thing about Dick and Jason at this specific point in time, is that they were quite possibly the only two people in the world who would ever have the relationship with Bruce that they did, to see him the way they both at times did, and nobody else ever fully grasped. 

They knew him at his highest and his lowest points, the best parts of him and the worst, the center of their whole universes and the destroyer of them....and for them, at this place and time, its about being forced to realize that for as much as come between them over the years, they each are the only ones who will ever fully be able to speak to the entirety of their father as not just Bruce Wayne, the Batman, the myth and the legend, but Bruce the man, the flawed father who was supposed to be better than his worst mistakes with them, because he was supposed to be a hero. 

Even as close as others were to Bruce, there were specific slants to the light they saw him in....for Alfred, even when making his worst mistakes, he was still his son, for Cass he was still the father who fought her personal demon not because of what he wanted her to be but so that she could be who she wanted to be, for Tim, he was imperfect but still larger than life, the hero he’d still first only come to know through the lens of a camera from a great distance, a perspective he’d yet to entirely shake, and for Damian he was still largely a figure of make believe, a bed time story he’d been told all his life. 

There’s an inherent goodness, a nobleness around the idea of Bruce for most others in his life, that defies coming face to face with the realities his failings could be.....which only Dick and Jason could ultimately attest to, as losing the ability to keep sight of that innate shine was why they’d found themselves so disillusioned by their father at the lowest points between them. And so in a lot of ways, the ultimate goal of writing this fic was trying to get Dick and Jason to a point where they could share their full, messy, complicated as hell feelings about their father with each other, but simultaneously feel a need to preserve the way each of their siblings still saw him, because the truth is that if there’d been someone who could have preserved that shine for their own eyes, to keep their memories of him clear and unobstructed by complication....they would have been glad to have been left just missing Bruce their father, and not the mess of feelings forever tied up in a Gordian knot upon by his death.

So yeah. LOL. That’s the link to my Batfam works, though there hasn’t been much on their for ages, but stay tuned for Chapter One of The Requiem Rites of Robins, later today.

“In the wild, a group of robins is called a round. But Gotham’s birds have always been of a different sort, something entirely unique. And the only proper plural for them, I’ve found, is a legacy.”

An investigation leads the newly minted Batman to London, alone and without Robin’s back-up for the trip. In the past couple months, Dick Grayson has barely found time to breathe, let alone to grieve for his father and come to terms with his new role as the Dark Knight’s successor. But his distracted state leaves him vulnerable, and when a new villain’s one-man war threatens to make a casualty of him too, he’s left with no alternative but to work side by side with his rescuer - at other times better known as his brother, his successor, and a couple times his would-be killer.

(Their family always has been one of over-achievers. And if you’re going to pick a pair of brothers to play compare and contrast against with that in mind, its hard to go wrong with something biblical.)

But Dick seeming no more happy about it than he is, doesn’t do much to pick up Jason’s mood. He’s come to London for his own reasons, and no, he’s still not inclined to share. Curiosity killed the cat, but he’s sure Selina wouldn’t mind if innate nosiness knocked off a few birds here and there as well. Well-earned paranoia aside, however, secrets and cynicism can only carry them so far when the two are forced to rely on each other to fight their way free of a city turned death-trap. Both are keenly aware that the last time they’d fought side by side like this, they’d been all the way back on the other side of Jason’s first untimely death. And as far as potential omens go, that one’s about as shitty as they come.

But a mixed curse and blessing are nothing new for them, and so that’s not just a painful reminder, but also proof that things were different once. That the brothers they’ve become were not always the brothers they were supposed to be. It was time and pain and bloody loss that weighed them both down so much further than the altitudes that came most naturally....not fate, or destiny, or even them. And as their new enemy forces them deeper and deeper below ground, it becomes all the more clear there’s only one skill in either of the brothers’ arsenals that will see them through to the other side of all this: 

And only if they can not just remember, but rediscover, how to shed all of that and finally fly free again.

[anathtsurugi]

All right, my fellow chickadees, a lot has been going on in the world of Anath Tsurugi. Much more than computer breakdowns and the allure of a shiny new fandom. While I don't imagine those of you who've recently started following me for my Good Omens content expected anything like this, I feel like those of you who have been with me for Star Wars and Red vs. Blue and longer might want to know some of this. Might want to know some of the things that have gone into the recent chapters of my work. I just feel like, maybe, I owe you all some sort of explanation?

No. That's wrong. I know I don't owe anybody anything. I suppose I just want to get it out into the world, get my thoughts in order, as it were. It doesn't matter so terribly much if nobody reads it; it will be a lot to take in. Mostly, I just want to tell you all a story. Because telling stories is how I cope, how I interact with reality. My need in all of this is to try and create something beautiful out of something that was painful.

So...would you mind if I told you a story?

As most things are with me, this is a story about love, about love and friendship and heartbreak and family and resilience. At the end, though, it's nothing more and nothing less than a story about love.

As some of you may have heard or picked up on, my wife and I have been attempting to have a baby. At this point, it's been roughly a year since the process began (financing, insurance coverage, choosing a donor, etc.). The first attempt didn't take, but the second one did. My wife got pregnant and we were both suddenly anxious/excited/hellafuckingnervous parents to be.

As honesty is the name of the game tonight, I would have to say that 'The Colder the Winter, the Warmer the Spring' has largely been fueled by my own anxieties over becoming a parent. Like...am I good enough to properly raise another human being? What human in their right mind would even give me the chance? What is it possible for someone as emotionally stunted as I am to give to a child? Is the love between my wife and I strong enough to do for a little one in a world that will already be against them merely for the crime of being born to two women?

Whether intentionally or unintentionally, I imagine you'll have seen a lot of this in my telling of the story of Zeb, Alex, and little Arkalia, and will probably see it more now that you know it's there. But really, that seems to have happened with a lot of the major storytelling undertakings in my life. The 400K Sleeping Beauty epic I wrote for the Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle fandom was fueled almost exclusively by my pining for my then roommate, now wife. The MCU and Red vs. Blue verses I crafted sprang up around the planning of our wedding. I suppose this was just the natural next step, for us and for my craft. If you see genuine terror in my writing of Zeb's and Alex's fears over not being good enough parental figures for Ari, that is why. This is my way to ask and to hopefully deal with the answers to these questions.

So things were going well on planet Earth, or at least they were in our little corner of it. First trimester was plugging along. We were dreaming up names and having conversations about how we wanted to parent. I was going ugly early on the whole 'wait on your wife hand and foot' thing and upping my nutritional game in the kitchen. We were designing a Miyazaki nursery of epic geekdom and talking about how we'd be covered on all bases, since she's such a huge Harry Potter fan and I'm nothing if not an uber Star Wars nerd. I was learning she considered me a more fit parent (which makes zero sense to me, given that she's the one with a decent head on her shoulders, whereas me? I'm just a dreamer, and sometimes it seems that's all I'll ever be, but...yeah, that's a conversation for another time), but the point is that it was all fine. Sure it was nerve-wracking, but we'd figure it out somehow, just like we did everything else. It was what we wanted. We were in it together.

Then we got back the results from the genetic testing the doctor's office advised we have done.

And oh, no. No, it wasn't fine at all.

Trisomy 18.

I had never heard of Trisomy 18 before we got those results. I suppose Trisomy 21 is the one you hear about because it's actually survivable. With Trisomy 18, the 5% of babies who aren't stillborn largely don't make it past the first year. It was not, they informed us, an infallible diagnosis. They would schedule us an ultrasound to be certain, but the numbers were not in our favor.

We didn't talk to anyone but each other that week, not really certain how we wanted to handle things until we knew more. Some of the extended family is fairly religious and conservative and we just didn't need that bullshit on top of everything else. We didn't need other opinions. It was our decision, and the conclusion we came to was that if the diagnosis was truly that bleak, then we would terminate the pregnancy before things got out of hand...before continuing would bring harm to my wife or suffering to either her or the baby. At that point, it becomes a question of 'Do you love your child enough to take the decision onto yourself, even though it will break your heart? Do you love them enough not to force them to suffer for someone else's misguided notion of what is and is not life?'

I didn't consider much during that week the effect all of this was having on me. I told myself I had accepted and was prepared to move forward should the worst happen. My concern was largely for my wife and what she was going through. She was, after all, the one who'd been experiencing it all. We were barely out of the first trimester and she wasn't showing yet. So far as I knew, we hadn't reached the point of quickening. It was all still distinctly her experience. If I hoped for a miracle, it was for her sake, not my own. I thought, 'I can take it. I'm tough. Put the world on my shoulders and I'll carry it for you. I would give everything I am to take your pain from you.'

I am, as I mentioned earlier, very emotionally stunted. I know it was far from their intention, but the impression I received from my own parents growing up was that my thoughts and my feelings on any given matter were not particularly important. Oh, I was consulted, certainly. The veneer was there, but if the correct answer was not given, it was little better than if I'd said nothing at all. So I had long since ceased to say anything of any real value out loud. (In truth, my wife was one of the few people to make me feel that my thoughts and feelings had value, but again, that's another story.) I don't often give of myself outwardly. Trying to draw words from my throat is oftentimes comparable to trying to pull a ball of razor wire up from the pit of my stomach. Sometimes the only way I can give of myself is in writing. All the things I can't give voice to come out in my work. So I am, probably to an unhealthy degree, somewhat proud of my own stoicism. With me, it's always 'No. You don't get to break. No matter what they throw at you, you will not feel it. You will remain unharmed, unbent, and utterly unbroken.'

(Heh, shit. Writing it out like that now, I'm suddenly left wondering if that isn't the reason I'm so damn good at breaking characters. Because writing out those moments of absolute shatter are the only way I'll ever allow myself to feel them...because it isn't me breaking. But...in a way, it is. Isn't it.)

Point here being that allowing that mentality to boil beneath the surface will eventually erupt to sucker punch you in the face. That happened to me as I was leaving work to go and pick my wife up for the ultrasound. The thoughts I hadn't allowed myself to think all week suddenly started to creep in on me.

Is this...somehow my fault?

(At the level of logic, you know it's not. It's a bloody game of genetic roulette. A one in five thousand chance. But there's always the one. Somebody's always going to take the bullet.)

Was I not ready for this? Did I not want it enough?

(Ridiculous. I know what it's like to get shafted at the genetic lottery. I've been dealing with PCOS since I was 18. While the disease isn't fully understood, there is a genetic component. Saying that this was somehow either of our fault was akin to saying that my own illness was somehow my fault. Even so...even so, you can't help but ask...)

Bloody fucking hell! Did I do this? Was there something- anything I could've done to stop this?

(You know. You know you couldn't have done. But still the thought haunts you.)

I hadn't allowed myself to feel it...to cry. I don't doubt that we both hoped for their numbers to somehow be wrong, but I think we both already knew at that point that it was over, and I hadn't let myself start to grieve. So there I was, hurtling down the highway with tears pouring silently down my face.

Traffic depending, it takes anywhere from a half hour to an hour to get between the bookstore and her office, so I had time to get myself back in order. I didn't want to make this any worse for her than it already was. I know what it does to her to know I've been crying, since I do it so rarely.

(You don't get to break.)

But...well...then something happened on the way to the hospital. I had my iphone on shuffle playing the playlist I'd compiled to listen to while working on Star Wars fic, and while we were driving, our wedding song came up in the shuffle. 'Boxes' by the Goo Goo Dolls. We had our first dance to it and I sang it to her while we danced.

I need a family to drive me crazy

Call me out when I'm low and lazy

It won't be perfect, but we'll be fine

'Cause I've got your back and you've got mine

I should probably have it understood that I have 'Boxes' on all of my writing playlists. It's just the love song to me now, and as far as fic writing goes, I tend to gravitate to ships that reflect the relationship my wife and I share. Kalluzeb, KuroFai, Bagginshield, Stucky, SpiritAssassin, MaineWash, Shallura, Kanera, Klance, Sterek, Zutara, and now, of course, the Ineffable Husbands themselves. The list goes on, believe me. Every word I write for each one of my couples is my love song to her, and my experience of the love between us. If you've ever commented on the depth of love and emotion you felt when reading one of my stories, then you've felt what I've felt, and I hope I've made your world a little brighter for it. In this particular instance, though...this...our love song...if we were going to have a miracle that day, that was it. (I know. One song on one playlist, nothing particularly miraculous there. But a one in seven hundred chance during a fifteen minute drive? I was going to take what I could get.)

You are the memory that won't ever lapse

When twenty-five years have suddenly passed

Wherever you take me, it's clear I will go

Your love's the one love that I need to know

You are the sun in the desolate sky

Your life's in these words and it can't be denied

Wherever you take me, it's clear I will go

Your love's the one love that I need to know

If I hadn't been driving, I would've reached out to hold her hand then. Normally, we sing the song together when it comes on, then we play it again, maybe a third time if we're really feeling it. I couldn't sing this time, not during the first play through, anyway. I was a little too choked up. But I managed a few of the lyrics the second time through.

I don't have the words to tell you what a comfort that song was in that moment. It could've been any song on that playlist, but it just happened to be that one.

(This hurts. We're both writers, but I don't think either of us could hope to express just how much it hurts. But remember...I chose you and you chose me. You were my dearest friend and I love you more than I can ever hope to say. It hurts now. It may never not hurt, but we'll get through. We'll be fine. We'll get through it together, like we came through everything else to stand at the altar together...and how we'll come through it all again to hold a new little someone. We're here together.)

So we faced it together, got the news we were expecting. There were other tests they could've done, but neither of us saw any point to it by then. Even if it wasn't specifically Trisomy 18, it was plainly something just as bad. We made the call there, and I do want it understood that we made the decision to  terminate the pregnancy. Despite what ultimately ended up happening, I won't have that spun any other way.

So calls were made, insurances were checked out, and the procedure was scheduled. We were, unfortunately, just a touch too far outside the first trimester to safely be able to just take a pill. The abortion had to be done surgically, and my wife preferred to be put under for it, fearing she might panic if she were conscious.

And I did, of course, promise to tell you how this all started to align with the writing of the more recent chapters of TCTW, along with my beginning scraps of Good Omens fic. It began that same day, actually – the day of the ultrasound. Because I had to come home from that and write Ash's birth scene.

That wasn't all that difficult. Largely numb at that point, I didn't have much trouble writing out the dream of a happy birth. But it started to get harder a few days later when I was sitting alone in the waiting room. By then I was working on the scene where Kallus is finally able to contact Zeb after coming out of his two week coma. It wasn't even a little bit of a stretch for me to write Zeb's desperation and panic during that scene because they were my own (though I suppose I managed to spare myself a little grief writing the scene from Kallus' POV instead of Zeb's).

Another thing I ought to tell you about myself is that I'm...something of a method writer, I suppose is the term, in that I will attempt to write when I'm angry, when I'm in pain, when I'm exhausted, when I'm heartbroken, in an effort to convey the experience of these things faithfully. So, in some strange way, this was almost...familiar territory for me. To write my own feelings into the scene as it was happening. Everything came off without any trouble. The doctors came to me after it was over and told me that he'd already had no heartbeat by the time they'd begun the procedure. It was comforting in its own way. Eliminated several question marks as to whether or not we'd made the right choice. I brought my wife home once she was awake enough to be discharged, and it seemed we were pretty well on the road to recovery. But, as some of you may have already noticed, this is where we come to the part of the story where something more is lost.

My wife needed something to turn her attention to, so it seemed to us a good time to handle OS updates for my eight-year-old laptop, which was an odyssey of itself. Point being that somewhere in the middle of all this my WIP draft of that chapter was lost to the digital ether.

Everyone around me was asking why it should be so hard to rewrite the lost scene. After all, I'd written it before, hadn't I?

Yes. Yes, I had.

I had written that scene when I was alone in a hospital waiting room, heartbroken and afraid, conscious every moment for an experience my wife was blessedly able to sleep through. This was why it was so devastating to me to lose that scene. Bitter as it was, it was a piece I'd poured a large part of my heart into in a moment of despair. In its own odd way, it had been beautiful in its desolation. I had already lost something precious that day. Why did I also have to lose what I had managed to create from that anguish?

It was a moment I knew I never wanted to revisit. Nor could I ever hope to recapture the emotion of it in writing, no matter how many times I tried. I could never portray the rawness of what I'd felt in that moment. So I didn't try. The scene as it exists now is particularly disheartening to me, not because it's bad, but because it's just...not what I wrote. The scene currently in the story is hollow and has no heart. There's no truth in it. The piece of my self that I gave in that moment was lost, and I can never get it back.

So, with yet one more loss endured, I continued on. I managed to make the rest of that chapter what I wanted it to be, so I could at least be proud of that. Chapter 15 was also easy enough to handle, as it was far removed from the family and childbirth aspects of the story, simply building upon what already existed in Rebels canon. But then the time came to write chapter 16, and once again I struggled.

By its very nature, TCTW has always heavily featured pregnancy and childbirth, so there was never going to be any skirting that, but another aspect I had always planned for was Zelina experiencing the death of one of the babies she was delivering. It was always meant to be part of her character arc as a rising medic and I knew I couldn't turn away from it. My wife asked me if I could change it, but I wasn't going to do that. If I was going to change something like that, it was going to be because the story merited it, because it would benefit from such a change. It was not going to be because of my own weakness. Even so, I know I delayed writing it for as long as I feasibly could. (That was also when Good Omens started to come into the picture, but we'll unpack that in a moment.)

For all I claimed to be a method writer just a few paragraphs ago, I can tell you now that I've never had such a visceral response to a scene I was actively writing as I did that one. My fingers trembled on the keys, feeling a little weak as I moved through the words. In fact, my whole body felt weak and I had to bite down hard on my lip to keep back the feeling of nausea, everything inside of me rebelling at the notion of describing the death of this little baby. For all Zelina's experience with Akinah and her stillborn son is such a small part of the overall chapter, of the overall story, it was still the hardest thing I'd ever had to write. As with everything else, though, it seems I managed to keep this in, too, as my wife tells me none of this was outwardly visible while I was writing. I sat next to her the whole time and, apparently, the only indication I gave that anything was wrong was the fact that I was still and quiet throughout. (To give you a better standard of comparison for what she's used to, I'm normally much more expressive when I write. I'll start mouthing dialogue or testing out expressions or gestures I'm describing. I once had to explain to my brother-in-law that I was actually channeling a character when he was concerned over a horrified look I had in my eyes at the time. If I, personally, were horrified, you wouldn't know it. All you would get would be a blank slate. So of course my wife would notice something was off this time.)

It was such a little thing...such a little thing, but still it was hard. It was a relief to move on, to have death and despair conquered throughout the rest of the chapter, but even near the end of it, when Zeb is lingering over saying goodbye to Arkalia, knowing he'll have to give her up...in some small way, he speaks with my voice...saying goodbye to the son my wife and I might have had.

Of course, that particular goodbye will turn out much happier than my own did in the end. But will you be seeing me continue to deal with this a lot in future pieces? Most definitely. TCTW will continue to bear most of the emotional fulcrum (yup, little in joke there), but it's also why I've been getting into writing Good Omens fic of late. Though the theme of parenting's remained the same, it's allowed me to turn my energies toward things a little more light-hearted. This was all about the time I started piecing together my little Good Omens 'Star Wars' AU, and when I put out my mini one shot of Crowley and Aziraphale as parents. Though I have started to come up with a wider verse for that particular ficlet (because it's me; how can I not? There's actually an in joke with my wife and I whenever the subject of long fic comes up with me. She'll ask, "What's the one thing I asked you not to do?" "Write Sleeping Beauty." "And what did you do?" "Wrote Sleeping Beauty," I respond meekly.).

And for all I said my Good Omens fic is giving me the opportunity for more light-hearted fare, I have also got a story idea that deals with Crowley and Aziraphale losing a pregnancy, but also with the one they don't lose. So you'll be seeing me deal, yes, but hopefully you'll also see some worthwhile stories come out of it all since, as I said, telling stories is how I cope. You'll be seeing my newly blended concoctions of angst, loss, and sorrow, but you'll see joy from me, as well. Because, as a great storyteller once said, "...let there also be Hope. It may be a grim, thin hope...but let us know that we do not live in vain." Really, that's what writing and storytelling are to me, whether they be fan fiction or any other kind – torches against the long nights that are pain and sadness, and blades against the endless tangles of thorns that are self-doubt and fear.

Wow. Heheh. Waxed hella poetic for a minute there. But no. I don't think I'll tone it down. It's a truth, and whether that truth is used to discover the strength to be a parent through a Rebel warrior and an ex-Imperial, to find a way to live through pain with an angel and a demon who have endured for over 6,000 years, or even just to find the way to a smile with a ninja and a mage in a coffeeshop AU where everything is beautiful and nothing hurts...a truth is a truth. My wife and I might not ever be facing down giant planet-killing super weapons or averting the Apocalypse with nothing more than a flaming sword and a tire iron, but when our IRL challenges feel as insurmountable as those things, well...it helps to be able to weave a story and begin to find some of those truths.

And yes, we are doing better. It's been a few months now and we're starting over again. The going can just be a little slow since not every attempt is successful and, let's face it, assisted reproductive technology don't come cheap. And as much work as I put into my fic writing, there's not a whole lot of money to be made in the field (none at all, in fact, but...turning away from it...who really wants to read another publishing hopeful's dewy-eyed delusions of sci-fi grandeur?). So if the going seems slower with me, I do apologize. Know that I never cease to write (as I'm quite certain that if I did, I would simply go mad...*backward glance* er...well...madder, at any rate, but that's neither here nor there) and I'm hopeful of creating some good things from all this. It just...sometimes it takes a while to slog through everything. So, as always, I hope I continue to do for you. Whatever capacity you might support me or my work in, know that my wife and I appreciate it.

It won't be perfect, but we'll be fine.