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“Well, somebody’s in love.”
Gabriel frowns at the bartender’s words and glances around the establishment. Sure he can feel some love radiating from certain patrons, but nothing that particularly jumps out at him and certainly nothing which would lead an ordinary human to take notice. Typically, the statement wouldn’t give him any sort of pause, but something about tonight…
He can feel the matchbox secure where he’d put it, in his breast pocket. Every now and again its new tenant buzzes about, the vibrations against his chest feeling something like a heartbeat. (He is admittedly not entirely certain what a heartbeat is supposed to feel like, but he figures he’s probably right. He usually is, after all.)
Maybe that’s what leads him to ask, “You think so?”
“Sure as anything,” the bartender confirms.
“Well, you’re going to have to help me out with this one because I’m not seeing anyone with that particular... vibe,” Gabriel says, once again looking around.
The bartender laughs heartily as Gabriel settles the tab, insisting he keep the change. Maybe that’s why the bartender seems so amiable just now. Humans are often like that with their currency. He doesn’t particularly understand it, but then, he doesn’t really care to.
“I was talking about you and your lady friend,” the bartender says, nodding towards the door. “If you can find someone to look at you the way she does, don’t take your chances waiting to pop the question.”
“Okay, well, first of all, they’re a ‘they’, not a ‘she’,” Gabriel scoffs. “Secondly… what question?”
“Oh, come on now,” the bartender says. “Do you Americans say it some other way? Asking someone to marry you?”
Oh, that. Those silly little ceremonies celebrating a relationship that had already existed for years and wasn’t really changing in any way. He never saw the point. Well, the clothes were nice, he did have to admit that. But apart from that, no, he didn’t really understand the concept of marriage.
“Marriage? No, no,” Gabriel says. “You’ve got it totally backwards. We’re actually sworn enemies.”
“Oh, sworn enemies, sure,” the bartender says with a nod, reaching for another glass to clean. “Easy to confuse the two.”
Gabriel squints. He thinks the bartender may be making fun of him, but it’s hard to tell. And it’s not worth wasting his time thinking about what one human might think of him. He’s wasted enough time here already.
“Anyway, thank you for the alcohol,” Gabriel says. “It was very… alcoholic.”
The man gives him another strange look, but Gabriel is already halfway towards the exit.
It’s brisk outside the pub, a light fog beginning to roll across the cobblestoned street, which is mostly vacant at this hour. Beelzebub waits for him, leaning against the wall in a way that’s so… unlike the way an angel would. Actually, most angels would never lean against a wall in the first place. But they look relaxed and unbothered, shooting him another grin as they languidly push off the wall.
“I was beginning to think something had happened to you,” they say.
“What could possibly happen to me in a place like this?” he laughs.
“It was a joke, angel,” Beelzebub smirks.
“I knew that,” Gabriel says haughtily.
He did not.
“You didn’t have to wait for me,” he says, moving on. “I know you’re as busy as I am.”
“I knew that,” Beelzebub says teasingly, throwing his own words back at him. They shrug, hands clasped behind their back as they study the mostly deserted street. “I do what I want.”
They both really should be going. But Gabriel can’t seem to make himself move, finding he’s content to let the fog swirl around them as they stand side by side. It’s comfortable. Well, mostly comfortable. He finds his thoughts are still unsettled by their gift. By the feeling of receiving it from them.
“But I suppose you’re right,” Beelzebub says at last. “We should probably get going before we arouse suspicion. You’re heading back Up, then?”
“Oh, no, I have to make a stop at a local church, actually,” Gabriel says. “If I do something that’s actual work, I have a good excuse for having been gone when I get back. Plus it’s good to check in on them once in a while, make sure everything’s in order.”
“You mean make sure my side haven’t tainted it,” Beelzebub says, sounding amused.
“More or less,” Gabriel replies. “Also, if I’m being honest? I just really like the stained glass. Humans are so messy, but they really nailed it with that one, in my opinion.”
“Well, you’ll forgive me if I won’t join you,” Beelzebub says, their dark eyes looking him once over.
“I forgive you,” he replies with a smile.
Even as he says the words—so familiar to any angel—they feel different in his mouth. There’s a softness to Beelzebub’s smirk that could almost be called a smile, he thinks.
“Until next time?” they say.
“Until next time,” he affirms.
A hole opens in the Earth, unseen by any nearby humans, and swallows them whole—but not before they wink at him. He feels a strange sensation in the area of his stomach as he’s left alone to wonder what exactly that means.
The church is empty and still as Gabriel walks down the aisle, but then, that’s what he’d intended when he performed a miracle outside its doors. For obvious reasons, he likes to be alone for these ventures and it takes remarkably little effort for an archangel to ensure they go unseen, unheard, unnoticed. He lets the scents of the cathedral wash over him; the polished wood of the pews, the aging paper of the missals, the lingering traces of incense and oils. He takes in the stained glass windows, beautiful and glowing even in the moonlight. The immaculately painted proscenium arch ushers him into the sanctuary, where he comes to stand before the altar.
But these things don’t comfort him like they have before. Before they’d always reminded him of God’s presence, had fortified him. He visited Her houses of worship often under the guise of performing a few maintenance miracles, as he liked to call them. It’s just that he had more than one reason for these visits. A reason no one else knew of.
“I need help,” Gabriel says, speaking up into the rafters.
There’s no answer.
There never is.
He doesn’t remember the last time She had spoken to him. For nearly the entirety of the past 6,000 years, all Her directives were delivered through the Metatron. Which would be fine, except…
“I’m… I’m confused and I don’t know what to do,” he continues, hating having to even say it. He always knows what to do. “I can’t talk to any of the archangels about this and I can’t go to the Metatron. I don’t think they would understand.”
But there is an angel who would understand, isn’t there? One he’s painfully familiar with.
“Aaaaaaaaand the only angel who might understand is… well, we’re not on the best terms, uh—you know, Aziraphale? You know Aziraphale, of course you do, obviously.”
Gabriel doesn’t think even the failed Armageddon had drawn out of him such powerful feelings of anxiety and shame—and anger. Yes, anger. Because She had left him. All his prayers to Her had gone unanswered. He wasn’t sure he could even feel Her anymore. Does that mean he’s beginning to Fall? He can’t imagine it could be anything else. That’s why he needs Her now, more than he ever has before.
“I don’t know if you’re even listening, but I really, really need you to hear me,” he says. “I have never once questioned you or—or your wisdom or your Ineffable Plan. I have always followed your orders to the letter, precisely as you commanded. And I was happy to do so, obviously. I mean, who wouldn’t be? Right? I was more than happy.”
Until he wasn’t.
His mouth moves but his words remain cloistered in his chest. He’s been so alone. That’s not supposed to matter to the Supreme Archangel, but it did. It did matter. In his desperation, he’d begun visiting the churches of Her creations—those made in Her image, loved by Her more than anything else—thinking that if ever She were listening, surely it had to be here. Here in these places where She was worshipped, exalted. Surely She would hear him in this place. Surely She would be listening where Her most beloved creations came to commune with Her. Yet church after church, year after year, country after country, century after century, all he found was more silence and stained glass.
“…it’s just that I think something else makes me happy now,” he blurts out.
Gabriel thinks of the many meetings he had shared with Beelzebub since the night they had given him the gift still nestled safely in his pocket. How each time they had grown closer and closer, until the feeling of their body against his as they sat together lingered long after they’d parted. How they listened to him, and not just that, understood him. How he could listen to them talk for hours if they’d let him. How he cared what they were thinking, what they were feeling, what they wanted, what he could do for them.
He'd even found himself wondering if Aziraphale hadn’t been right about it all. About Earth, about Armageddon, about demons—well, certain demons, anyway. But it’s not like he could just show up at the little shop and pop in for a visit. He’d kind of tried to make the guy walk into hellfire and destroy himself over something he's now also guilty of, so… yeah, that seemed like it probably wouldn’t be happening any time soon.
So he’s been left alone to wonder why? He just doesn’t understand why this is happening to him.
“And I am… struggling to understand that and why it’s happening. I don’t know if you’re testing my faith in you, but if you are…”
He ducks his head and lowers his eyes, feeling uncharacteristically abashed.
“I’m, um… I’m not sure it’s a test I can pass,” Gabriel says, the words emerging in a near whisper. “And I am begging you to please, please speak to me. Please guide me. Please.”
There’s no answer.
There never is.
“I want to give you something,” Gabriel says.
Beelzebub looks up at him curiously, no doubt wondering why he had said that out of nowhere. They’d been sitting together in silence for several minutes, watching the rain pour down from the warmth and safety of their compartment. He’d discovered one day that he actually quite liked trains and the ability to have a private compartment to themselves really just sweetened the pot. They’d spend hours watching the landscape pass across their window; lounging in each other’s arms, alternating between talking freely and simply holding each other in comfortable silence as the train gently swayed and rumbled in its journey. It never really mattered where they were going. It only mattered that they were together.
“Oh? I get a present?” Beelzebub asks, sitting up enough to look him in the face properly.
“I’m not sure I’d call it a gift, exactly,” Gabriel says. “It’s kind of something for me, too. It’s… Well, it’s important to me that I give it to you and I think it’s important that you have it. I’m not sure that you’ll actually like it or have any use for it, but I, uh, still want to give it to you.”
“Color me intrigued,” Beelzebub says with a huff of laughter.
Gabriel reaches into his jacket to retrieve the item, but finds himself pausing once his fingers have found it. He feels heat rising to his face and briefly wonders when he had begun to allow this body to behave so… humanly. He feels his heart thudding in his chest—not quite the same as a fly in a matchbox, but close enough—and his hands growing clammy. He must have been frozen there too long, because he feels Beelzebub lay a hand on his arm.
“Gabriel?”
He hates hearing the worry in their voice, but he will never, ever get enough of hearing his name from their lips. He laughs tightly.
“It’s just, um… it’s kind of embarrassing?” Gabriel says. “But if there’s anyone I would want to, uh—well. Just… here.”
He pulls the feather out from his pocket quickly, holding it out to them before he has a chance to change his mind. Beelzebub’s eyebrows rocket upwards as they stare at it in his hand before slowly, cautiously reaching out to take it. Their fingers brush gently against his as the feather passes between them. For a few very long moments, they sit silently beside him, delicately brushing their index finger down the lavender feather vane, the expression on their face unreadable.
“This is… one of yours?” Beelzebub asks.
“Well… yes. Yeah,” Gabriel says, clearing his throat. “I don’t know if you rememb—uh, it’s just that… y’know. Showing your wings is kind of a complicated issue with angels, and…”
He’s rambling. This isn’t going at all how he’d planned. He sucks in deep breath and pauses for only an instant before expelling it loudly.
“I’m going to Fall,” he says simply.
Beelzebub blinks and reels back as though slapped. “You what?”
“I’m going to Fall,” he repeats, finding it easier to say now that it’s been said.
“That can’t—They wouldn’t possibly—” Beelzebub splutters, looking more and more agitated with each passing second. “You’re the Supreme Archangel, Gabriel. Can they even do that?”
“They’re holding a trial tomorrow. They don’t think I know. They’ll determine whether I’ve been negligent in my celestial duties—which I have been—and will punish me appropriately,” Gabriel says. “Which in this case would almost certainly be to cast me out.”
“We can think of something,” Beelzebub says quickly. “We have time, we can come up with a way to prevent that from happening.”
“It’s okay,” he says, resting a hand on their knee. “I’m going to Fall and then we can be together without worrying. It’s okay, really. It’s all going to be okay. I promise.”
“How is that okay?” Beelzebub protests. “I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want them to do that to you. We can’t just let them.”
He’d been worried this would happen. Despite their relaxing surroundings, Beelzebub is quickly heating up to a proper tantrum. Which ordinarily he found cute, but now just leaves him feeling… sad. He’s sad for them, for having to deal with this.
Not knowing what else to do, he leans forward into their space. Before they can say anything further, he presses a chaste kiss to their lips. It’s something soft, something that makes warmth spread through his chest in waves, something that he hopes is able to communicate what he’s feeling since he can never seem to figure out the words for it. The sudden kiss works as intended and stuns Beelzebub into silence, but Gabriel hadn’t expected to get caught in his own trap. It feels as though his tongue has shriveled up and died as his mind screams for him to fucking say something.
He nearly gets there, too. Except he’s never quite seen anything like what he’s seeing now. Beelzebub’s cheeks are a bright pink as they press their hand to their mouth.
“That was… You… Oh, you little… Doing that after telling me what you’ve just told me? You rotten bastard!” they grumble.
“Sorry,” he says, swallowing thickly. “I just… I don’t want you to be upset.”
“How can I not be upset?!” they demand. “Falling isn’t something you should take lightly. It is… the worst pain imaginable, and that pain stays with you forever. I don’t want you to have to go through that, especially not for me.”
There are tears in their eyes. Actual fucking tears. He’s made the great Lord Beelzebub, Duke of Hell, cry. Over him of all things. Without a thought, he reaches out, pressing a hand to their cheek and brushing away tears that have only just begun to fall.
He’s weak.
He’s so damn weak.
“It’s worth it. If I can be with you, it’s worth it,” he says honestly. “I’d do anything. I don’t care what they do to me if we can—”
They beat him at his own game, surging forward and returning his earlier kiss. They press their lips to his, lingering only a moment before pressing a second to his forehead. He sighs, arms circling around their slim waist, drawing them in to him.
They go all too willingly, straddling his lap as they guide him to rest his head on their chest. He can hear a heartbeat. Their heartbeat. The heart that doesn’t have to beat but does for him. He feels their fingers running through his hair, again and again, the action soothing for both of them, in a way. They stay that way for a long while, each focused on the feeling of the other’s embrace.
“You’re a silly, silly angel,” Beelzebub sniffles after a time.
“Yeah, but you like me that way,” Gabriel reminds them.
“That’s exactly why I don’t want you to Fall,” they say, leaning back. They press their hands to his face, tilting it up so their eyes meet. “I don’t want them to change you.”
He frowns, alarmed by their words.
“Wait, so if I Fall, you won’t want me that—”
“No!” they protest quickly. “No, that’s not what I meant at all. Angel, demon, human… sentient blob—I don’t care what you are, I love you regardless.”
He feels a strange tingle along the back of his neck and cocks his head to the side curiously.
“You love me?” Gabriel asks, hearing the befuddlement in his own voice.
“Of course I love you,” Beelzebub says with a teary laugh. “Did you really think otherwise?”
“Well… no, I guess not. I’m just not sure anyone’s ever said…” he trails off. Has anyone? Ever? He feels like someone must have at some point. But if he’d heard it before, it’s been far too long for him to remember. “It’s just different. Hearing it. At me.”
They sigh. That same sigh that had come from them when he’d told them no one had ever given him anything before. That bittersweet expression on their face, like they both pitied and adored him in equal measure.
“I love you, Gabriel.”
They repeat themselves to him, intent on driving the point home. The way they look at him, gazing into his eyes as though he were the only thing in all of Creation that mattered… he could drown in it. Happily.
“I love you, too,” he murmurs back. The words feel strange, foreign coming from his mouth. But they feel right. “I don’t care about Heaven or Hell or whose side is winning or Ineffable Plans anymore. It’s just you. Only you. I know that doesn’t make me fit to be an angel in Heaven’s eyes, but I don’t care anymore.”
They give him a sad little smile.
“You’re not going to let me help you, are you?” they ask.
He shakes his head. “They can make me Fall, but the things they could do to you… No, I don’t want to risk it. If anything were to happen to you, I honestly don’t think I could stand to be here anymore.”
Their eyes lower, their gaze breaking away from his. He’s not sure if they’re embarrassed or… perhaps he’d offended them? Their strength is a point of pride—it is for both of them, really—so perhaps they thought he’d meant they weren’t strong enough to handle themselves in a fight against an angel.
When they move to, he helps them disentangle themself from him, allowing them to resume their seat beside him. They both face towards each other, knees touching, bumping against each other again and again as the train chugs on towards its destination. The rain is loud against the window and fills the space their silence leaves until they find their words.
Now he’s certain he’s done something wrong. Just as he’s about to speak up, Beelzebub asks a question he hadn’t thought they would.
“How do you know they’ll stop at making you Fall?” they ask slowly.
He hadn’t really put much thought into the possibility. Because it certainly is possible, but he finds it enormously unlikely.
“I don’t, I guess,” he admits. “But Heaven is typically pretty, y’know, consistent with what kind of punishment it doles out.”
“So, Crowley and Aziraphale were consistent then?” Beelzebub counters, raising an eyebrow at him challengingly.
“…okay, yeah, that was a bit of a step outside the norm,” Gabriel says, ceding the point. “But I know how the Metatron thinks. Destroying me wouldn’t be teaching me a lesson. But stripping me of my station, casting me out of Heaven? He knows I’d have to live with that forever. What he doesn’t know is that it’s not entirely the punishment he thinks it is.”
Beelzebub doesn’t look entirely convinced.
“It will hurt. I know I’ve said so already, but I feel like you really don’t understand just how much,” they say. “As someone who’s felt it, please believe me. Holy water and hellfire don’t even come close. Having a part of you ripped out like that…”
They shake their head.
“I’m afraid of what that would do to you,” Beelzebub explains. “Not because I think being a demon is any worse than being an angel, but because the only other archangel of your station to Fall was Lucifer, so I’m just not sure what will happen. There’s just… there are too many unknowns here. I don’t care if you’re an angel or a demon as long as you’re you, but I’m scared by the possibility that you might not be after that. I’m scared that they might take too much from you.”
For them to admit they’re frightened is… no small gesture. He knows they’re trying to convince him to fight, to do everything he can to avoid this. Still, all he can hear is the way they talk about what it had felt like when it happened to them. He doesn’t like picturing them hurting in any way, much less experiencing the sort of agony they’d alluded to.
“I’m sorry that happened to you. I’m sorry you have to carry that kind of pain,” he says. “If I could take it from you, I would. In an instant.”
Beelzebub sighs, bringing up a hand to cover their eyes. For some reason, Gabriel feels he’s said the wrong thing.
“Gabriel. Please focus,” they say. “This isn’t about me—”
“But it is,” he insists. “Now, I’m not doing this because of you. And I’m not just doing it for you. I’m doing this for me and I’m doing this for us.”
“But you don’t have to,” Beelzebub pushes back in frustration, lowing their hand from their eyes to punch at his shoulder. “We can think of another way if you just… try.”
“You know there’s no other way,” he says gently. “Be honest with yourself.”
“I just think you’re being too flippant about this,” Beelzebub says. “It makes me think you’re not fully aware of what it entails.”
“I can assure you I am,” Gabriel says, laying his hand atop one of theirs. “I’ve actually been thinking about this a lot. I’ve considered all the angles, what’s at stake. And this is what I want. I want to be with you, whatever it takes. Whatever I have to do. Being…”
He lets out a breath, squeezing their hand.
“Being without you is causing me greater pain than anything they could ever do to me,” he says. “I need you to trust me with this. Please.”
They’re wavering, Gabriel can tell. Beelzebub is likely realizing that for all their insisting that there’s another way… there really isn’t. Not with him facing a trial. Not with that trial being tomorrow. Not when they both know he’s guilty of what they’ll accuse him of. Their hand moves beneath his, turning over so they can thread their fingers between his.
“I’ll take care of you,” Beelzebub says quietly but resolutely, squeezing his hand. “After.”
He squeezes back. “I know you will.”
They fall back into silence, each preoccupied with their own thoughts on the matter. Gabriel could never before have imagined himself reaching this point. It now that he’s here, he can’t picture anything else. He could never have imagined it was possible to want and be wanted by someone like this. If being an angel meant he couldn’t have that, then he didn’t want to be an angel.
After all, he'd done enough, hadn’t he? He’d given it his best up until the failed Armageddon. But to see Aziraphale and Crowley work with the Anti-Christ to prevent the end of the world and walk away from it with no repercussions? (Well, apart from the ones he and Beelzebub had attempted and failed at.) How could he be expected to just… smile and keep going like he always had? Especially now that he knew it was possible to have this.
“That’s part of why I wanted to give you that feather,” he says at last.
Beelzebub twists it delicately between the fingers of their free hand, studying it once more.
“I want to give you a part of me before they take it,” Gabriel tells them, unable to stop himself from feeling a sort of excitement as he watches the way they gently brush the feather to their lips. “And it’s meant to be a promise, kind of. A reminder that I will always choose you, above all else. I’m yours, for as long as you want me.”
Beelzebub looks from the feather in their hand to him. “I want you forever.”
Feeling something welling up in his chest, he raises their joined hands and presses his lips to their knuckles.
“Forever it is.”
Somebody is in love.
Aziraphale had spoken the words quietly, but Gabriel had heard them all the same. He turns his gaze from Beelzebub to their counterparts, standing opposite them in the shop. One of Aziraphale’s hands clutches at Crowley’s arm—the action seeming familiar yet also freshly insistent—but the other is pressed firmly to his chest. Angels can feel love; or they’re supposed to be able to. But Aziraphale in particular seems to have a talent for it.
Their eyes meet from across the room and instantly Gabriel can see him putting the pieces together. He lets out a shocked little huff of air as his eyebrows draw up in the center and his eyes shine with an emotion that Gabriel can’t quite figure out.
“…oh,” Aziraphale breathes.
That’s what it is.
It’s love in his eyes.
Gabriel had simply never expected to see it there, aimed at him. With a start he realizes he has yet again underestimated Aziraphale. Gabriel could have come to him at any time, even with his memories intact. Because Aziraphale is just… well, he’s just like that, isn’t he? Just can’t stand to see anyone in trouble. Just can’t stop himself from forgiving even those who may not deserve that forgiveness.
Still, Gabriel thinks it’s probably best he hadn’t. Somehow he knows it would have turned out a lot messier if he had—for all of them. But it seems in choosing this way, they get a clean break. Undoubtedly Michael or Uriel will step forward to fill his vacancy, given the way they were always bickering about it. And it seems that, once again, Aziraphale and Crowley can return to the way things have always been for them.
Beelzebub’s hand is warm in his own, their thumb stroking his as they stare back at the others, daring them to try something. Gabriel looks down at them, feeling a certainty settle into his being that everything really is going to be alright. As long as they were together now, they could make it.
Aziraphale noisily rings a hand bell, clearly flustered by the group’s persistent arguing and ordering them to speak one at a time. They continue to quibble regardless, until Aziraphale suggests an alternative: asking them.
“Um, Gabriel, Beelzebub… what do you want?”
He smiles back at Aziraphale, knowing he owes him a proper apology, but knowing he doesn’t have the words for it yet. Someday. Someday he’ll know what to say and have the humility to actually say it (he’s going to work on it, he swears).
There are a lot of things he doesn’t know at the moment, but looking into Beelzebub’s eyes, he knows what he wants.
“Well, somebody’s in love.”
Gabriel had heard the line from the bartender before, but given his miracle to make sure his and Beelzebub’s visits weren’t especially memorable, he’s not surprised that the man is saying it as though it’s for the first time.
Alpha Centauri had been nice and all—beautiful, really—but it kind of got… boring. It’s not that they got sick of looking at it so much as they got sick of that being the only thing to do out there. So they’d come back to Earth, finding themselves missing the places they used to go together, missing the comfortable familiarity they’d formed there.
(And if he was being honest, Gabriel was a little curious about trying to consume other things. Just a little. Hot Chocolate had turned out to be nice and so he supposed it was possible there were other things he might like. Maybe.)
Earth had admittedly grown on them. Humans weren’t so awful to deal with all of the time and admittedly they come up with some fairly interesting things. (He’s still rather fond of the jukebox and has been contemplating rollercoasters.) When he was with Beelzebub, it made the Earth interesting. It made him curious to see what kinds of places he could take them and what kinds of things they could experience together, now that they had the freedom to.
And sure, their respective sides might not be too happy to catch wind of them coming back around, but Gabriel’s honestly not that concerned. It’s not worth it to either side to try to do anything about them.
So here he is now, standing in a familiar pub, hearing a familiar question. Gabriel thinks of the last time he’d answered this question and laughs. He picks up the two pints in front of him as he delivers his revised answer:
“Somebody certainly is.”