#such a delightful mental image

[marlynnofmany]

So this exists now, and I couldn't be more delighted. Have a brief Season Two fix-it fic / epilogue, because it definitely needed to exist.

~~~

I Will Face God and Walk Backwards Into Hell 1296 words

Aziraphale felt ill at ease from the moment he reached Heaven. He was always on guard there, ready to be judged harshly, but this was … unprecedented. Trying not to show it, he squared his shoulders and soldiered on. He’d made his clothes presentable to Heaven’s standards in the elevator as usual. He did his best to act as if following the Metatron to an extremely unexpected new post was nothing out of the ordinary.

But oh, the Metatron hadn’t told the other archangels yet. And that interaction went just as well as you’d expect.

They were polite, mostly. A bit shocked, which was understandable, and Michael visibly stopped herself from saying something unwise. Sandalphon did nothing but glare. Aziraphale managed not to fidget purely by force of will.

He told himself to remember the greater good, and he kept regally silent while the Metatron smoothed the way for him. This would be okay. A bumpy start, but nothing he couldn’t handle. He was going to change things for the better.

And he thought he actually could, for a while. There was an office, which was nice and posh, and there were meetings that the Metatron facilitated in which his now-subordinate archangels listened to the many ideas he had for the betterment of humanity. They even agreed to roll some out immediately.

But there were also meetings which the Metatron did not attend, and those were very different. The others talked over him ruthlessly, Michael in particular, and focused on the business of Heaven with little regard for Earth.

Aziraphale suspected that there were other meetings that he himself was not invited to, where they discussed the twice-delayed Armageddon that he was so firmly against. The Metatron still hadn’t brought up the subject of the Second Coming, which he’d hinted at before.

Never mind the fact that Aziraphale had put forth several well-thought-out measures for how to sway humanity as a whole toward the path of good, thus making any kind of conflict unnecessary. And the fact that God still hadn’t made any official pronouncements in a very long time. Aziraphale would have liked to question the Metatron directly on that matter, but he didn’t want to press his luck.

So he focused on doing good. Implementing what changes he could, keeping tabs on Hell’s actions as best he was allowed, and leading by example.

He tried not to think about Crowley. Sometimes it was hard not to, especially when checking up on Hell, but he did try. And he shared his thoughts with no one.

He’d managed to convince himself that he was doing a respectable job of things by the time he arrived at a regular meeting and found that all of his plans had been stalled, and some even rolled back entirely. Michael had a smug list of excuses. Uriel backed her up while Sandalphon grinned, and Saraqael just looked unimpressed. The Metatron acted as if everything was business as usual.

Aziraphale held his tongue and pressed with ultimate politeness for the resumption of at least the most important. Michael gave him the barest of concessions.

After the meeting, he cornered the Metatron in his office and demanded answers, afire with righteous indignation and no little amount of hurt. What was this insubordination, and why was the Metatron going along with it? Why even promote Aziraphale if this was what it led to? Was the role he was supposedly so well-suited to just as a figurehead? Was this God’s plan??

The Metatron was an unflappable as usual. He said simply that Aziraphale was welcome to ask God herself, if he doubted Her wisdom. The assumption was clearly that he would back down, shrink back into himself like he’d always done, and let the rest of Heaven have their way.

Instead, Aziraphale regarded him steadily. “I think I’d rather like a chat, if you please,” he said. When the Metatron didn’t move, he gestured for him to get on with it.

Aziraphale wasn’t privately sure who was calling whose bluff, but he stood tall while the Metatron went through the motions of requesting God’s presence. Was this even how it was done these days? He had no way of knowing. He pretended that he did.

A column of light shone into the room. The Metatron’s flourish for Aziraphale to proceed was more than a little sarcastic.

Aziraphale kept his cool and spoke into the light. He asked of his plans to improve humanity’s moral standing, to turn the Earth onto the path toward an endless Eden, with no need for war and no place for Hell’s influences to gain a foothold. He spoke of the resistance he’d gotten from the other archangels. He even spoke of thoughts he’d never shared with anyone: that someday even demons might redeem themselves enough to be forgiven. He could certainly cite one example that deserved it. He didn’t look at the Metatron as he said so.

Finally the voice of God filled the room. “You mean the Archduke Crowley? He’s served his purpose. Hardly doing much to redeem himself these days.”

Stung, Aziraphale demanded, “And is that part of your ineffable plan??”

The smile in God’s voice was absolutely infuriating. “That’s for me to know and you to find out, Aziraphale. Now why don’t you get back to work and do as you’re told?”

Aziraphale gaped, lost for words.

When the Metatron chuckled condescendingly and started forward, Aziraphale held up a hand.

“No,” he said to the Metatron. Then he repeated, “No,” to the shaft of light. “In fact,” he continued, making the first rude gesture in Heaven since Crowley had pulled one behind Michael’s back. “Hell no,” Aziraphale hissed, setting both of his middle fingers alight with holy fire.

He held them up proudly and strode backwards out the door while the Metatron sputtered and God was silent.

(If there was any ineffable snickering at how well this was playing out, God kept it strictly to Herself.)

Aziraphale continued walking backwards through Heaven, fingers held aloft and aflame, now with his wings spread for maximum emphasis for anyone who was watching. Judging by the gasps from all sides, many were. He didn’t turn his head.

The escalator down was slow, but he was patient. He simply angled his arms upward at all the staring faces. Then when he reached the ground floor, he stepped to the side and continued downward.

An angel glowing with holy fire blazes quite a trail in Hell, even one walking backwards.

It didn’t take him any time at all to find Crowley. The door opened behind him, and he finally lowered his hands to turn around. He let the flames go out.

Crowley sat on a throne much more grand and terrible than the ostentatious chair in his old flat, with elaborate robes patterned in snakeskin echoing the scales that crawled across his face. His eyes blazed yellow. His expression was stony. Minor demons cowered on all sides.

Aziraphale gathered himself, saying nothing.

Then he did the dance.

“You were right. You were right. I was wrong; you were right.”

He held the final pose while Crowley quirked an eyebrow.

“Very nice,” said the demon, starting to smile.

Aziraphale stood and held out a hand with an answering smile. “I hear Alpha Centauri is lovely this time of year.”

Crowley was silent for just long enough to make him doubt, then he surged to his feet, shedding robes and pretense as he crossed the room. Ignoring Aziraphale’s hand completely, he grabbed his fancy shirt and kissed him deeply. His teeth were sharper than usual.

Aziraphale found that he quite liked it, and kissed him back. The scandalized noises of the crowd of demons faded away as they left to just be an “us.”

[arithmonym]

necro-cav pairs on tandem bikes. thank you for your consideration 🙏

[sporesgalaxy]

personal favorite megan thee stallion lyric is the opening to freak nasty

tina snow is in your mans house doing platforming challenges and stealing precious artifacts. i love that for her

[moongothic]

Y'know Crocodile's Mushroom Lore kinda makes sense though, like he seems like the kind of person who does appreciate some peace and quiet, having time to himself to relax and enjoy some fresh air (something that would be easy to achieve by just going on a walk in a forest), but also, what is mushroom foraging if not a low-level type of treasure hunting (the "treasure" isn't particularly valuable, but it's edible so it's rewarding in its own right); an oddly fitting hobby for a pirate

[thegreatyin]

here's the beast frolicking with her chickens. just in case you needed this footage in your life this morning

[nomstellations]

all these dominant and clever preds are nice and all but i want to see a pred that is so comically bad at eating prey. a pred that ACTS like they're big and bad and they're going to devour their prey but when it comes right down to it they can't actually fit their jaws around their prey. preds that make a big show out of eating a tiny but then they choke on them and have to spit them out. preds who shouldn't quit their day job

[kanerallels]

Me, paying for a singular peach with two one dollar bills: Hehehe the government shall never know about this purchase

[ickysmelly]

the only hard bit about drawing based off of fics is i just end up distracted rereading them </33

[trickstersaint]

april 7 2024 // portraiture

[joiedecombat]

When I tell y'all I am gripped with concern for the safety and well-being of this horse. 😭

[astriiformes]

My little sister is on her high school golf team, which is already really funny because she does not have the vibes or personality you would expect of a golfer, but she the other day she sent me a picture of her senior student athlete poster and the energy is so incredible. It's got her in her little polo shirt and glove and everything except instead of coming across as cute suburban golf girl she looks more like the sullen frontwoman of a sapphic grunge band.

Please picture a tiny Korean girl with half her hair dyed hot pink, a bunch of ear and nose piercings, eyebrows filled in with sharp red and black liner and a slit shaved into one of them, and a deeply unimpressed expression on her face, standing there in a golf uniform with a club slung over her shoulder looking more like she's about to hit you with it than she is a golf ball.

[aeipathism]

replaying da2 is so funny

last night i was SO offended and ranted for a good five minutes straight bc i ran into a blood mage forgetting she was one, and was going to turn her into the templars. remembered that fenris is in my party and i'm trying to romance him. pivoted and murder killed her then and there.

i got friendship points with isabela and no one else. what are we doing here. i'm having the time of my life

[arithmonym]

“how is harrow’s hair long enough to blow into her mouth during the fight with cytherea when it’s described as ‘short-cropped’ several times throughout gtn?”

consider: harrow has a VERY unusual tonsure.

[criticalcoruscant]

Gardenia Dreamy Waltz Gown by Teuta Matoshi

[offorestsongs]

actually every book should end with Lysander silently handing his glasses to the respective overblot boy to fix because there's no way they're surviving all that

[nerdierholler]

I have a multitude of things I should have been doing lately: checking my dash here, finishing a quilt I promised my dad months ago, working on a cover letter for a full time job that’s due Thursday. Have I done any of those things? Nope. Instead I listened to the recent fansplaining episode on fanbinding and decided I wanted to poke that. Specifically I wanted to do all of the fiddly typesetting bits and spend time really getting into minute details on something because I don’t ever really get to do that and I like it.

I decided on Pride and Prejudice because 3 copies isn’t enough lol Anywho! After taking a big block of html text from project gutenberg, I think I’ve almost wrangled it into a typeset resembling a real book. It’s very satisfying.