for a large part of his life, ghost had a fear of snakes. with his father’s abuse planting that seed in childhood and roba only amplifying it through his torture, it isn’t much of a surprise at all.
but ghost… can’t stand for that. he doesn’t want this fear to have any power, because it means his father and roba still have a hold over him, even with the both of them long since dead. so ghost starts exposing himself to snakes, bit by bit. it isn’t the creature’s fault that he’s afraid of them, so he can at least try to do something about it.
and over time, with lots of therapy to pair with that exposure—ghost actually ends up falling in love with these creatures. they become his favourite animal in getting over his fear.
now—imagine snake shifter soap. a king cobra, large, powerful, venomous. he keeps his shifter form a secret because he doesn’t want people to be unnecessarily afraid of him; they have no reason to be, unless they give him one. only price and laswell know at this point.
then he catches word of ghost and his affinity. he’s already trusting with the lieutenant, more so than he should probably be, but he is. so there isn’t much thought behind revealing himself to ghost.
ghost is the first person to not show any sign of fear at soap’s shifted form. he instead just sits with this beast of a snake, trailing gloved fingers along the smooth pattern of soap’s scales. soap has never seen his lieutenant so… mesmerized. like a kid in a candy shop.
when soap shifts back, ghost asks a few questions, seemingly subconsciously rattling off a few facts about soap’s species that, honestly, some of which soap himself had no idea about.
some of which actually make soap deadlier in the field.
that little bonding moment propels their friendship forward, though it very well would have gotten to that point without soap’s shifter status. the process is just… sped up a little.
though, the snake shifter part does come with it’s benefits for ghost. when he’s already got a reputation and totes a skull mask around, it just makes him ten times more terrifying when he’s seen walking around base with a king cobra curled around his frame.
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look at me. look me in the eyes.
at the bandstand crowley says "let's run away to alpha centauri together [implied: let earth be destroyed by armageddon and the great war, but at least We'll Be Together]"
and aziraphale says "i can fix this, i just have to talk to the right person, everything can go back to the way it was [implied: this is not ideal, but at least everything won't be destroyed, and if god steps in and says 'This Is Not The Plan, The Rest Of You Are Wrong And Aziraphale Is Right,' we won't be punished for stepping in.]"
and crowley says "well im going with or without you [implied: this is the end of our longstanding dynamic unless you change your mind]" and aziraphale says "ok, then go [implied: you no longer have obligations towards me, i don't expect you to save me this time.]"
they have this exact same conversation on the street, when aziraphale says "i forgive you." whatever happens next is not crowley's fault. he's willing to carry it all alone. he is SO prepared to do this that he's Shocked to find out crowley is still on earth after he's been discorporated.
and at the end of s2, we have crowley going "let's run away, we can be together, im willing to admit to the full breadth of what i want to have with you [implied: the earth will be destroyed]"
and aziraphale says, in more words, "we can fix this. you're right; talking isn't enough, we can take over, we can take action, AND we can be together. [implied: this is not ideal, but we can stop it, we can be together, we can Show them that we're right and there's a different choice they can make and if we're in a position of power, what could they do to us?]"
and crowley says "well i'm not going [implied: this is the end of our longstanding dynamic unless you change your mind]"
and aziraphale says "i forgive you [implied: you no longer have obligations towards me. i don't expect you to save me. whatever happens to me is not your fault. i'll carry everything alone.]"
it's the SAME conversation, and aziraphale is not the only one repeating the same lines and refusing to adjust his worldview to account for the changes in their relationship and the material realities of what their action or inaction would bring about.
they are both right. they are both wrong. they are both hurting because they never talked until there was 5 minutes left on the clock and not enough time to sort all of their shit out. there could have been a compromise; they didn't have enough time to reach it, so it's all desperation and emotions and discovering that, oh shit, we should've had a real conversation at some point in the last four years.
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Once again, Zedaph finds himself outside the closed gates of the Deep Frost Citadel, tapping his feet with annoyance. Honestly, by now you’d think the stupid thing would understand Zedaph always gets his way, when it comes to Tango, but no, Tango’s stupid base keeps trying to stop him.
“I told you, I’m not here to negotiate, I’m here to pick up my friend,” Zedaph says irritably. The gates of the base don’t respond, and don’t open. “I have a very important nap to be taking, I’ll have you know, and I will not be stopped by… by base chicanery!”
There’s a deep, rolling growl from somewhere in the bowls of the citadel. It sounds like ravagers.
“Oh, don’t you threaten me, you know I’ll run around and die in there all you want as soon as it’s ready. Not even afraid, am I? You’ve had your taste of the good old Zed flesh, but no sir, you aren’t getting me today. The high-voltage wires were a good trick last time I came to bother Tango, I admit, but it won’t work again!”
Another rumbling growl. Zedaph huffs. It would certainly be nice if Decked Out spoke in human to him, so he wouldn’t have to keep guessing. Even sheep would be better—Tango may have an affinity for beasts, but Zedaph only has an affinity if the beasts are also silly.
He makes an educated guess. “Yes, yes, I know you’ve ‘eaten him’ or whatever. Well I’ll have you know that Tangos have more nutritional value after watching me take a very important nap. And also dying. Its enriching. You like enriched Tango—okay, okay, that wasn’t the complaint, geez, you don’t have to shout at me. At this rate I’ll just use my pickaxe to break through the door, and then what will you do, huh? Nothing. You’ll do nothing, because you’re a big stupid building in the ground, and Tango was my friend first.”
A rumble.
“Haha, yeah, take that. We’ve been friends for years. You might be his magnum opus, but you’ve never made him sign a custom body pillow with your beautiful face on it, have you? That is the bond of men! No base can do anything about that.”
A louder rumble. Zedaph feels what he thinks is supposed to be fear and desire to wander into the depths and die or something silly like that. Zedaph isn’t certain, because it’s not as important as Zedvancements. This is one of Zedaph’s special abilities: if it’s not as important as whatever he’s doing right now, he’s very good at ignoring it until it becomes important. So, like, the Citadel is trying to lure him to his death, but that’s less important than taking a very deadly nap while Tango watches with horrified awe, so he’ll just ignore it until later.
Works every time.
“Listen, I’ll bring him back in one piece! Have I ever lied about that? I never do. He always comes right back to work, even when I do distract him, and he’s chipper again, right? I barely even disrupt things. Not that you could do anything if I did, of course, you hunk of stone and ice.”
Zedaph stares at the closed doors for a bit longer. He thinks this is about when anyone else would either die on the spot, or run away screaming, or maybe just come in and feed themselves to a ravager, but the that’s because the other hermits very frequently don’t have anything better to do than to get caught up in other people’s nonsense, in Zed’s experience.
Zedaph simply has so much nonsense of his own that he can out-stubborn even Tango’s base. Like he said: a special talent.
Slowly, as though greatly reluctant, the gates open.
“Thank you, geez! Was that so hard?”
Zedaph stomps through to the hidden access door of the Decked Out maintenance tunnels, grabbing one of the supplemental oxygen masks as he does. He sighs as he realizes that Tango, once again, has forgotten he needs to breathe. Hopefully, the fact Zedaph is currently keenly aware of needing to breathe on account of planning to not do that ten times in a row does not remind Tango.
He finds Tango taking a nap tangled in some high-voltage redstone lines. This time, Zedaph knows better than to touch them. It had been a mite embarrassing the last time. “Tango! Hey, Tango!”
“Wuh?” says Tango, eloquently. “I’m up, I’m up, level three’s almost done I swear—”
“Tango, get up, I have bedroom tricks to show you!” Zedaph says.
“I’m up! Zed? Oh hey! What are you doing all the way out here?”
“I told you. It’s urgent, Tango, urgent. I have bedroom tricks only you can assist me with.”
“Well, that’s a good time I wasn’t expecting,” Tango says.
“No, you idiot! Get your head out of the gutter, and come on! I have things to do!”
“Okay, Zedaph, geez, geez, lemme just—”
“I’ve already asked your stupid base,” Zedaph says. “It’s fine. Now, get out of those wires before I get shocked or something, and we’re going to go have fun.”
Tango slowly uncoils himself. “Right. I’ll get ready and—” Zedaph whips a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket. Tango pauses before smiling brightly. “Oh, you’re the best.”
“I really am,” agrees Zed, and he grabs his best friend’s hand and leads him out of the Deep Frost Citadel to show off his latest contraption. He turns around and sticks his tongue out for good measure at the base as they go. Hah. Take that. The best. There’s no beating it.
And there’s no keeping him away from Tango. Zedaph guarantees it.
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