#dagon has a knack for staring at pretty angel

[shynrinn]

Eyes on the file Dagon.

...sort of HC on how their relationship started

[pengychan]

[Good Omens] Winging It - Daniel 7:4

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. Rating: T  

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

A/N: This chapter is brought to you by Gatwick Airport's free wifi and also sheer spite. Mine, not the airport's.

I'll only be able to be online on my phone for a couple of days, until I sort out my Internet key because wifi is still a mirage where I'm going. So I might be slow to reply to comment - but I'll get to it as soon as I can, I promise!

***

“I-- I didn’t mean to! He came out of nowhere-- I couldn’t brake on time-- oh God I never go that fast, I don’t know what came over me…!”

It sure had been a bad crash: as they ran up to the scene, Crowley could see that the car’s windshield was shattered and the bonnet crumpled by the force of the impact. A shame, that: it had been a nice car. As it was often the case with traffic accidents, there was a lot of confusion: the cries of the distraught driver, a small crowd of bystanders stopping to watch in horror, a few people trying to help and screaming for someone to call an ambulance. 

The person closest to Gabriel was a woman kneeling over his mangled form - hands hovering over him but without touching anything, the way humans do when they desperately want to help but don’t know how. Aziraphale had always found it endearing: without realizing it, they were holding their hands exactly the way an angel healing the sick would. 

“A doctor!” she was screaming. “Is there a doctor here? Anyone?”

“We’re doctors,” Aziraphale spoke quickly, causing Crowley to roll his eyes behind the lenses of his glasses; it’s not a clever lie to tell when you have just stepped out of the shop you have owned for something like two hundred years. Luckily, angels and demons both had a knack for getting mortals to believe them if they just willed it hard enough. 

“I’m not touching him,” Crowley muttered as the woman stepped back to make way for them, only to be entirely ignored. 

“Gabriel,” Aziraphale called out, turning Gabriel’s face towards him. He was alive and conscious, at least, eyes wide and fixed on him. He tried to speak, but he could only cough up frankly concerning amounts of blood. His legs were bent at an odd angle, too, and stark white bone poked out of his left arm; the shirt he had just miracled on him was in tatters, asphalt embedded in his skin. “All right, all right - could be worse. I’ll heal you.”

“Why?” Crowley asked, and lifted his hands quickly at Aziraphale’s exasperated look. “No, I mean it! Have you considered that if he dies, he might just-- go straight back to Heaven? I would be a win/win. Wouldn’t he want that? Hey, Archangel Fucking Gabriel, nod if you want that. Or, uh, on second thought, do not. I think your neck is broken. How about you blink?”

Put like that, Aziraphale supposed it would make sense. He probably wouldn’t return as an angel the way he used to be, but he would at least be home… or would he? “We don’t know that,” he muttered. “For all we know he might go straight to Hell, given that-- oh, don’t look at me like that!” Aziraphale protested, looking down to see Gabriel had somehow found it in himself to look offended, even with his face and… just about everything else a literal bloody mess. “You were cast out, and-- and--” Ah, they really had no time to argue, not with so many people around to watch and an ambulance approaching. “Crowley, can you buy us time?”

A sigh. “If I must,” Crowley muttered, but raised a hand without further ado, and snapped his fingers. Everything and everyone around them - time itself - came to a standstill. “There. Now we can end him without witnesses.”

“Crowley.”

“Just kidding.”

“No, you were not.”

“Mostly kidding,” Crowley admitted. Truth be told, the only reason why he wasn’t being very serious was the sheer relief upon finding out, in the most unexpected way, that not only Aziraphale was not in danger: somehow, he was under the direct protection of God. 

Not bad, that. It looked like Gabriel, the insufferable first of the class, had already received due punishment for what he’d tried to do to his angel. So maybe he shouldn’t give him an easy way out, after all. He may as well stay and face the music, live like the humans he so dismissed. And, as a perk, Crowley would take every chance to make the experience just… a little bit worse.

Unaware of his thoughts, or perhaps able to guess them all too well, Aziraphale sighed and looked down at Gabriel. He was still, like everybody else, staring at nothing. It did make him easier to deal with, Aziraphale though, and proceeded to pass a hand over him for the second time in less than a couple of hours.

Ghastly as they looked, the injuries were made by mortal means, and closed much more readily than the deep holes on his back had. Within moments the bones were set, the neck straightened, the wounds closed. Gabriel’s eyes maintained that distant cast, of course, but he’d be fine as soon as time restarted. 

“Well, you’re welcome,” Crowley muttered sarcastically. 

“He can’t talk. His mind is frozen in ti--”

“What, you think he’d be thanking you if he could?” Crowley groaned, and stood. “All right, let’s drag him back in. Then we come back out, restart time, and convince everyone the car only ever hit a pole.”

“Sounds sensible,” Aziraphale agreed, miracling away the blood on the car’s shattered windshield and pooling on the ground with a wave of his hand. When Crowley began to drag Gabriel back - literally drag him like a potato sack, he just grabbed his arm and began walking towards the shop - he almost protested, then decided against him. 

Given the scope of the headache he was giving him, Aziraphale was fairly sure he deserved it.  He didn’t think he was supposed to have headaches, but then again angels are not supposed to turn human as punishment for trying to destroy other angels, and yet there they were.

The world was even more full of possibilities than he’d previously thought.

***

“It’s not possible. You must be mistaken.”

“I am not, my Lord. It was definitely the Archangel Gabriel - I met him when I went upstairs with the Hellfire, for the angel they couldn’t burn. Oh, I knew something was off about him. This Aziraphale, I mean. When I saw him I wanted to try punching him, but he looked at me and--”

A furious buzzing noise caused the demon - someone so insignificant, Beelzebub didn’t know his name nor cared to - to abruptly fall silent, cowering. Beelzebub stood from their throne and took a step forward, towering over him. Figuratively, of course. It’s hard to really tower over anyone when the form you use the most is several inches shorter than most.

“Are you telling me,” Beelzebub spoke slowly, “that you went there to have a look at the angel they couldn’t burn, tempted a passing driver into speeding while you were at it, and that the car struck the Archangel Gabriel.”

“It did, sir. It was him. Didn’t recognize him until a moment before the impact, but I’m sure.”

“And he stayed down. Bleeding. Like a mortal.”

“Yes. It did seem really odd. Then the demon Crowley came--”

More furious buzzing at the mere mention of the name. The demon swallowed. “I mean-- the traitor came. Along with the other traitor. The one from upstairs.”

“And?” Beelzebub snapped. It got tiresome, really, how underlings kept pausing while reporting as though waiting for a reaction. Why do that, anyway? It wasn’t like the Prince of Hell was known to offer pats on the back and cookies - although at one point in time they had appreciated the traitor’s idea to get humans to bake cookies with raisins instead of chocolate chips, as well as the samples he had brought to the meeting.

“Well-- the traitors ran to him. I think they told the mortals they were doctors, and talked to him.” 

“Did you catch what they said?”

“No. I don’t think he answered - he was in pretty bad shape. For a moment I thought he was dead.” There was a laugh, echoing in the mostly empty room. Standing by the throne, Dagon stood silent. The underling shifted. “Er… it’s funny because that would be absurd, of course. Angels don’t die in car accidents.” 

“Nor they lie bleeding,” Beelzebub said quietly, frowning. “Yet he did.”

You can’t have him, Michael had snapped when Beelzebub had inquired about the fallen angel who had, apparently, not fallen all the way to Hell. He's not a demon. He’s not one of yours. 

“I demand a meeting with Gabriel, at least he can--” 

“He is unavailable.”

… Well. Now that certainly painted an interesting picture. Could it be that the one to fall, and yet not to Fall, was an archangel? And Gabriel, out of all of them? Had he been punished with mortality for… for what? Strategic meetings aside, which were needed to maintain a certain… order until their final war, Gabriel had always done everything painfully by the book. 

“Do go on,” Beelzebub spoke quietly.

“Well, I remember they knelt next to him, and then… nothing. I swear I blinked and they were gone, and everyone was acting like the car had hit a pole - they must have done something.”

“Time,” Dagon spoke. “The traitor can pause time. They must have taken him somewhere else."

"Or destroyed him," Beelzebub mused. They crossed their arms, their scowl deepening. "I doubt either has warm feelings for him." Or for us, they thought. 

"But one of them is an angel - surely he wouldn't… er." The demon - Beelzebub settled to call him Disposable 24601 - paused, having clearly realized how utterly stupid the statement was. Angels had killed plenty of times, and there had been that business of drowning out a sizeable part of Earth's population which, as far as Beelzebub was concerned, amounted to Heaven taking over what should have been Hell’s job. 

It was almost as annoying as the swarms of flies unleashed upon Egypt. That had been nothing short of a personal insult given that those were supposed to be their trademark. Was God the Lord of the Flies? No. Was Moses? No. That was Beelzebub and Beelzebub only, and yet of all of the insects they could have picked, it just had to be flies. 

It was one of many things they had meant to make God regret dearly once the Armageddon was underway, but now it looked like they’d have to wait indefinitely for a new chance. That really pissed them off. 

"But they could have left him to die," Dagon was muttering, unaware of Beelzebub’s thoughts of vengeance. She was better at quiet observations than at rallying troops, really, and her observations were rarely wrong. She wasn't the Lord of the Files for nothing. 

"Or ended him there while time stood still," Beelzebub agreed. "No need to take him elsewhere."

A nod. “The situation is-- unusual. Even by the current standards of unusual. Shall we send--”

“I’ll look into it myself,” Beelzebub cut Dagon off, causing her to blink. For good reason, too - they rarely left Hell, leaving work on Earth to lesser demons - but this was no ordinary matter.

 An archangel had been cast out of Heaven, one of those most loyal to God’s plan, and they had every intention to find out why. Plus, as far as they were concerned, Gabriel belong in Hell now - just like every angel cast out of Heaven up to that point. Beelzebub wasn’t going to give him a pass, losing out on a new soldier for Hell, because Heaven had decided to pull a distinction between fallen and Fallen out of their halos. 

Michael could take the fine print and shove it; Hell had a claim on the being formerly known as the Archangel Gabriel, and Beelzebub had every intention to uphold it.

***

“I can’t stay here.”

“I agree with him there.”

“Can you not agree on-- listen. You need to at least eat something.”

“I am not eating that. Never.”

“It’s sushi. It’s good, I told you. There’s the soy sauce, and--”

“And you drink it.”

“Crowley, please.”

“Oh, come on. Let me have some fun. Hey, Archangel Fucking Gabriel, see the green thing? It’s wasabi. Eat a spoonful.”

“Gabriel, you absolutely do not do as he says.”

“I have no intention to consume any of this. The smell alone makes me sick.”

“Mhh, maybe you should try having a toast…”

“Whatever that is, I refuse.”

“All right. You should at least drink some water, you must be dehydrated.”

“Give up, angel. It’s worse than trying to force Warlock to eat his vegetables.”

“You never tried to get Warlock to eat any vegetables.”

“And it made meal times a whole lot easier.”

“He got scurvy!”

“And you healed him, so no harm done. He sent Nanny Ashtoreth a postcard, by the way. He and his mother are going to the States now that his father was moved. Said he’d have preferred to return to England.”

“Oh, I received one as well! He said he’d try to convince his mother to come back for a visit. He’d like to say hi to Brother Francis. A darling boy, considering his upbringing.”

“Yes, his father is a prick.”

“... We also raised him as we would the Antichrist.”

“Don’t all nannies do that?”

“You and I remember Mary Poppins very differently.”

The discussion went on, and Gabriel paid attention to precisely none of it. The word ‘Antichrist’ would have made him listen intently before, but not anymore. What did it matter? The Armageddon had not happened, the war had not happened, the plan he’d spent his existence following and preparing for was null and void. And even if it weren’t, he had no say in such matters anymore. No mortal did.

They should have let me die. Let me go home.

The thought made something ache in his chest. He had never thought of Heaven that way - home - until now. And why would he? Heaven was simply Heaven, his obvious and natural place; he’d never been anywhere else for this long, nor wished to be. You don’t quite think of any place as home until you’re away from it and longing to return.

I want to go home.

For all we know he might go straight to Hell. Oh, don’t look at me like that! You were cast out.

No, not Hell, never, not him. It was impossible. Incomprehensible.

Ineffable?

Gabriel had never needed to ask himself as many questions as he did now, nor had he ever felt so lost. It made his head hurt in ways even the earlier incident and the bickering going on in the background hadn’t. Was this what humans had to do day by day? Question everything and make choices without guidance, on the hope they weren’t the wrong ones as they played a game whose rules were unknown? No wonder they had turned so self-destructive. Gabriel held back a groan - why oh why was his throat so parched - and tried to stop thinking. He could not. 

How could this be happening? Why was it happening to him-- he had done everything right. He had followed the instructions, the orders. He’d done everything he had for the greater good, and yet there he was, exiled and doomed to walk on Earth for… how long? Was it temporary? Would he have to wait for the end of a mortal lifespan before he was allowed to go back?

… Would he be allowed back at all?

Too many questions and not a single answer. It would drive him mad; however insignificantly short human lives were, the idea of spending the next decades with that doubt in mind and no answers made it feel like half an eternity. Was he supposed to do something to return home? Was he supposed to earn it, to atone for… whatever he had done wrong? But how? He had no plan, no instructions, no nothing. If only God could send him a sign, any sign as to what he had to do--

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

There was a low, keening noise; Gabriel didn’t even realize it had come from him. All he was aware of through the veil of despair was a sudden silence as he burrowed his face in his hands, the bickering gone. There was a touch on his arm. He didn’t flinch away. 

“There, there.” Aziraphale’s voice sounded just a touch awkward. He slid something across the table - the glass. “Have this, at least. It’s only water.”

“I don’t want--” he croaked, his throat and mouth so dry it hurt, but Aziraphale cut him off by waving a hand. How many times had he done that, silenced him with a gesture because his blabbing was of no importance? He shut his eyes. “I can’t stay here.”

What he had meant to say was that he couldn’t stay on Earth; where that would leave him, since Heaven was closed to him and the thought of descending to Hell filled him with yet more dread, there was no telling. The universe was vast, but he lacked the power or means to travel it now. He was trapped.

Aziraphale, however, seeed to understand it differently. “Yes, it is a little awkward-- listen, there is a decent hotel nearby. The Underlook Hotel. You can stay there for now, all right? You’ll be safe. A room has just been reserved and paid for.”

“A hotel-- that’s--?”

“A place where humans like to get naked. You walk in the hall and take off your clo--”

“You definitely do not take off your clothes,” Aziraphale cut him off, giving him an annoyed look. “I’ll explain you everything you need to know, Gabriel. But you need to drink.”

Gabriel stared at the glass; there was ice in it, and the sight made the thirst even worse. He almost spoke again to say he didn’t know how - he knew it went in through the mouth, but then humans did something with their throat to get it down and he wasn’t sure what it was - the thirst was so bad, he just reached for the glass and brought it to his lips, anything to make it end. 

The water was cool relief in his dry mouth, and the act of swallowing for the very first time came without any thought at all; the water went down the right way, he didn’t choke and oh, the relief was immediate and so great he couldn’t even muster the pride to pretend otherwise.

The demon, Crowley, looked more than slightly disappointed. “Well, you know how to drink,” he muttered. “By the way, do you know what to do when the water needs to come out again?”

Still reeling over how good that drink of water had felt, Gabriel blinked at him in confusion. 

“... I’ll take it as a no. So, you’re fully human, no? With all that it entails?”

“What?”

“Got anything in your pants?”

“In my--?” Gabriel reached down, entirely missing the way Aziraphale rolled his eyes, and stilled. There was something, a bulge beneath the fabric that hadn’t been there before. He’d seen enough humans naked at the dawn of time to have a vague idea of what it would look like if he disrobed. Which he had no intention to do. “... This wasn’t here before.”

“Well, there you go. A pair of wings for a pair of testicles.”

Gabriel gaze him an unimpressed look. “It doesn’t seem a fair exchange.”

“It’s not,” he agreed, and turned to Aziraphale. “Well, angel, I won’t be the one to explain him biology. For when, you know, the water needs to come out.”

“The water needs to come out?” Gabriel repeated, now rather lost. “But I just consumed--”

“And he’ll have to eat at some point.”

“What-- I’m not-- I have a book,” Aziraphale said suddenly, and stood. “I’ll go fetch it - you’ll find it useful,” he added quickly, and left before Gabriel - who would later read the children’s book about potty training Aziraphale was about to throw at him, and come to the conclusion that humans are positively disgusting - could say anything. 

He gave Crowley a wary look. “What are you talking about?”

The demon grinned widely. “Oh, I could tell you,” he said, letting the dark glasses slip down his nose to look at him with snake-like eyes. “But why spoil the fun when you can find out all by yourself?”

***

“Ah, to be a fly on the wall!”

Beelzebub knew that was something mortals said often, whenever they wished to be able to see something they shouldn’t be able to. They were on to something: there was a lot to be said in favor of being, literally, a fly on the wall. Or rather, right now, on the window. 

Not quite as good as being inside, but it offered them a good view of their target. He looked… bad.  Relatively bad, because when you dwell in Hell your idea of looking bad is very, very different from that of most being in existence. And they liked bad, anyway; Beelzebub took no small measure of satisfaction in knowing that, should they show themselves to mortals with their true visage, they would run screaming. 

However, for an angel’s standards - and for what had been Gabriel’s standard, especially - he did look bad. More dishevelled than Beelzebub had ever seen him and tired; dark shadows under his eyes, skin gray-ish, his hands shaking as he drank some water. 

There he was, one of the Almighty’s lap dogs until he’d been kicked out by his master to become Hell’s newest recruit. Maybe he wouldn’t make too much of a fuss; he was ill-suited for life as a mortal, and there were perks to joining the forces of Hell. Either way, Beelzebub had said they were going to claim him and they would. Their honor was at stake, at that point, however questionable said honor was.

Hell’s concept of honor was a tiny bit skewed, too.

As they kept watching, both traitors stood and so did Gabriel, more slowly, slipping something that looked like a small book in his pocket. Honestly, Beelzebub have burst in to claim him already if not for the traitors sitting right there. 

So, you're probably thinking, "If he can do this, I wonder what else he can do?" And very, very soon, you're all going to get the chance to find out. 

It wasn’t that Beelzebub was in any way scared of them, of course, it would be laughable, but...

I think it would be better for everyone if I were to be left alone in the future. Don't you?

… Well. Best to avoid unnecessary confrontations. Gabriel would be alone, at some point. And when that happened, the Lord of the Flies would be ready to act.

***

The Underlook Hotel, where they dropped him off after an unnecessarily fast car ride that would have made Gabriel throw up if his stomach hadn’t been emptier than a pint glass after Nigel Farage’s passage, was a small but clean establishment, with large windows that let in what sunlight was to be found in London, which wasn’t much that day. The entrance hall had a long front desk and a smiling receptionist sitting behind it, and Gabriel headed towards it - more on a guess because he actually knew what the process was supposed to be at that point.

“Good afternoon,” the woman at the reception said, voice entirely too cheery. Truth be told she would have been very happy to personally set fire to about half the guests and a quarter of the staff, as do many people who work in the hospitality sector once their will to live has taken enough blows. This usually happens within the first two months and a half, a scant couple of weeks more than it takes to destroy the soul of a retail worker. Still, like most people working in the hospitality sector, she could hide it with a smile. “Can I help you?”

Gabriel nodded. “I have a reservation,” he said, and glanced down at the card. “Room 217.”

“Let’s see...” The woman typed, stared at the screen, then nodded. “Gabriel F. Archer?”

No. I’m the Archangel Gabriel. The Messenger. That’s all I ever was and will ever be, it can’t be gone forever, it just cannot. And what does that F stand for, anyway?

But of course, that was not a viable answer. With a knot in his insides and a weight in his chest, he nodded. “That’s me,” he said, and managed to smile. It would have probably looked more real if he’s pulled up the corners of his mouth with his fingers, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“Lovely. Now let me-- oh, I see you completed your check-in this morning.” That was good, he supposed, because he knew nothing of what a ‘check in’ would entail. “Need help with your luggage?”

“I don’t have any--” Gabriel began, then paused, and glanced down. By his feet there was a single, black suitcase. He stared down at it for a few moments, and worked his jaw before speaking again. “... I think I can manage,” he said, and picked it up. It felt heavy, but of course it was not. He was just laughably, ridiculously weak. His very name - God is my strength - felt like a mockery now.

“Good. The lift is that way - your room is on the second floor. Do you need anything else?”

Gabriel hesitated. He didn’t want to ask, he really did not; it would feel like admitting defeat, that he truly was a mere mortal in need of gross matter for nourishment. But his stomach was almost cramping up, and he felt faint, and he gave in. After all, he couldn’t really keep pretending after finding himself, bleeding, on the hard ground. “Would you happen to know where I may be able to acquire some edible matter?”

That gained him a startled look. “Some... what?” she asked. In the back of her mind the Weirdo Alert light - it comes free after the first month working in the hospitality sector, along with several neuroses - began flashing yellow.

Right, they had a name for it. What was it, again? “You know… food?”

“Oh! Of course. It’s a bit late for lunch, but dinner is served from six - would you like to reserve a table? I’ll do it for you. You’ll find some snacks and drinks in the mini fridge in your room.”

“... I see. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome! Here for business, or are you on vacation?”

“Exile,” Gabriel muttered, turning her Weirdo Alert light red, and walked towards the lift without another word, dragging the suitcase and focusing on nothing but putting one foot in front of the other. Once alone in the room, he’d-- he didn’t know. He’d tried to ask, after Aziraphale gave him a mobile phone and his number, desperate for any indication of what he should do.

“What am I supposed to do now?”

“You figure it out, Gabe,” the demon Crowley had muttered, still sitting behind the wheel, sneering. “It’s the gift of free will.”

It didn’t feel like a gift at all; it was terrifying, and he’d thought at least Aziraphale would understand, but he… didn’t. 

“It doesn’t have to be a bad thing. You do whatever you want from here on.”

Wanting was a foreign concept to Gabriel. He’d never wanted anything, only ever done what he had to do for… for the greater good. The only thing he wanted now was to shut his eyes and open then again to find he’d been living some sort of nightmare, to be vanquished by daylight. He only wanted things to go back the way they were.

He only wanted to go home.

By the time the lift stopped on the second floor, something peculiar had happened - his vision was blurry. Gabriel blinked it away, and found his cheeks wet. Oh, wonderful, now that mortal body was leaking the water he’d been forced to consume. Was that what the demon had meant when he talked about the water coming out? He’d probably have to read the book he’d been handed, although the illustration on the cover looked absolutely puerile and unlikely to hold any meaningful information about his condition. It would give him something to do, if nothing else. 

Or maybe that could wait. Maybe he’d pray, first thing - throw himself on his knees as soon as he found himself finally alone and pray like he never had before. Maybe God would listen. Maybe he’d receive a sign, guidance, anything that would tell him what to do. Yes, he’d do that; it wasn’t much, but it was still the closest thing he had to a plan. 

As he walked down the corridor and to the door of his room, he didn’t notice the fly that buzzed after him.

***

“The first beast was like a lion with eagles’ wings. As I watched, its wings were pulled off, and it was left standing with its two hind feet on the ground, like a human being. And it was given a human mind.” Daniel 7:4

***

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