the good grace to know which is which (chapter nine)

ix. Under Trial

Gabriel is not reporting back to Heaven without anything to show, and he certainly isn't going back saying, The enemy was on the same mission as I was, I tailed them and then promptly lost them. 

So he looks for Beelzebub. 

It is not very difficult to find an angel or a demon on a planet as small as Earth. They give off a certain energy and an aura, and while most humans can't tell them apart, anyone of angelic stock easily can. On Earth, there are currently three other auras that Gabriel finds as he reaches out to sense them. 

Aziraphale, Crowley and Beelzebub. 

Aziraphale’s feels like something soft and warm, like a comfortable coat for a cold day, or a warm tailor's shop during a storm. 

Crowley's feels harsh and yet at the same time gentle, changing and coiling and uncoiling like his true form. 

Beelzebub's feels like a storm, the buzz of static during a hurricane. He thinks that if he scratches the very tips of his wing feathers across the charge of their aura, he'd trace lightning. 

They feel angry, but most demons are. They're wrathful little things. It's just how things should be, so he's not surprised. 

It takes him a little while, because they move a few times, but he finally pinpoints them in a city across the world, and flies after them. It's raining when he lands there, and he gets pelted by the raindrops for a few seconds before he glares at them to avoid him and get off his clothes. They do, fearfully. 

He's standing in front of a museum. He feels for Beelzebub's aura again, finding it inside the museum. 

People are coming in from the rain, showing their I.D.s up front, so he manifests one and clips it to the front of his suit. He gives the receptionist a polite nod and heads in, immediately searching for the stain of their aura. 

He  finds them standing in front of a glass case that appears to have a necklace in it. He doesn't feel anything remarkable from it, but Beelzebub appears to be checking out the plaque on it. 

They hum and turn to the child standing beside them, saying something. The kid laughs, bites down on his knuckles and looks around, and then responds, voice lowered. 

Gabriel pauses in his steps. Curious. The child doesn't seem to be a demon when he checks his aura. He's just a regular kid. 

He keeps his distance, but listens in. 

“I don't know, my dad’s not big on superstition,” the child says. “Just sucking up.”

“Shame,” Beelzebub says. 

“I'm determined enough to be a curse on his side, anyway.”

Beelzebub smiles slightly, amused and approving. Ah. Tempting little children to disobedience, then. Of course. Evil never sleeps. 

“He's already mad I'm out the hotel,” the boy says, “Thankfully, traffic is a thing.”

They hum, giving the glass case one last glance before walking away. The kid follows them as they move on to the next exhibit. So does Gabriel. 

“Can't punch them in the face, but at least we can piss'em off, right?”

“There is a certain sort of high you get from pissing people off,” Beelzebub says. 

“It's a lot better than most team-building exercises, I think.”

“Does your father have to attend many?”

“Not really, but sometimes he calls family time ‘team-building’. Mother hates it,” he says, “Not that he notices.”

“Do you hate him?”

“I don't know.” The boy shrugs. “I think hate is too strong. Resent works, maybe.”

“He'd probably deserve it.”

Teaching children to be hateful of their parents. Gabriel frowns. 

“Probably,” the boy says, “But - I don't know, I think I'm just going to be happy to get out the house. I'm already having fun pissing him off. Don't know much about what to do from there.”

“Plenty,” Beelzebub says. 

“Yeah, but if I'd be...as immature as he is,” he says, sounding like that's not quite what he's trying to say, so he tries again. “He's an idiot. I'd be just as idiotic as he is.”

“I see,” Beelzebub says. The kid shrugs, takes out his phone, and types a few things into it. 

“What about you, what are you going to do once you're out the workplace?” he asks. 

Beelzebub doesn't answer for a while. Then they say, “Celebrate. Gloat, maybe.”

“Gloat.” The boy laughs. “Do you hate your coworkers?”

“Yes,” they say. 

“Truly hate them?”

“Yes.”

The boy is silent for a moment. 

“Have you ever considered quitting?” he asks. 

Beelzebub glances at him. He shrugs again.

“If you hate it there, you're probably miserable,” he says. “I resent my parents. I don't like my house. Sometimes I hate it. I'm moving out as soon as I can. I can't imagine how it must be like to hate your job and still have to do it... “ He trails off. “Can you afford to quit? How long have you been working there?”

“As long as I can remember,” they say. Gabriel is impressed they're still entertaining this child and appear to not be irritated. “And… no, I can't quit.”

The boy's face falls. He takes out a wallet from his pockets. “I can give most of this to you so you can have something to tide you over if you quit.”

Nice kid, Gabriel thinks. Very charitable. And Beelzebub is working on corrupting his soul. He walks a little faster. 

“I'll be fine,” Beelzebub says. “It's more of - more of a family business, I'd say. And I can't leave it.”

“Ah.” The boy wrinkles his nose. “I get that. My dad's… he's got some credence to his name, and I think he expects me to follow in his footsteps.” He waves the wallet and then slips it back into his pocket. “Not gonna happen.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I'm leaving home. Just because my dad’s doing one thing doesn't mean I have to do the same. Most things aren’t really a have to. There's just stuff. And I choose what I want to,” he says, smiling. “And I've seen what my dad does. It's boring. It's messy. I wanna do something else. The world's pretty nice and wide, and there's a lot of options for me.”

Funny that. Gabriel would wonder if it's divine intervention lining up this conversation with what he and Beelzebub had just talked to Adam Young with, except he's divine intervention, and he knows he's not doing this. 

He considers if Adam Young is behind it, for a moment. Would the boy go that far? 

“If you could quit, and nothing would happen after - no family chasing you, and no trouble at all, and you just had all these possibilities,” the boy asks, halting. They've both almost crossed the threshold to the other room. “What would you do?”

Gabriel glances at Beelzebub, also stopping, but a few steps later than the boy had, immediately turning to look at an item. Beelzebub stops walking.

“Well,” they start, and don't answer for a good while, but the boy is patient. “Well - I…”

Gabriel looks at their reflection on the glass he's facing. Their back is to him. 

“I don't know,” they say. 

“That's alright,” the boy says. “Most people don't figure it out for a long time, but I'll be rooting for you. Having to stuck in a family business you hate seems dreadful.”

He takes the wallet out again and then hands Beelzebub some cash.

“I think the way things go is that when an adult notices a child needs help, they're the one to offer it, not the other way around,” Beelzebub says. 

The boy just smiles.

Beelzebub takes the money, maybe just to get the boy out of their hair already. 

“You're an odd one, Warlock,” they say. 

That sounds familiar. Warlock - very infernal name, and very rare too, but he's heard about a Warlock recently. 

The kid can't be the mistaken Antichrist, right? Too much of a coincidence. 

“Thanks, I have a specific aesthetic and aura I'm committing to,” he says. He takes out his phone and then checks the time. “I'd better run now, though, meet my parents somewhere nearby. I'll say hi if we run into you here when we come back.”

Beelzebub gives him a wave, and he dashes off back to the entrance, walking past Gabriel obliviously. 

Gabriel waits until he's gone. Then, he turns to Beelzebub, who turns to him. He smiles and gives a little wave, almost mocking of the one they'd given Warlock. 

They huff, immediately back to their usual irritation. 

-

“That was a pleasant conversation, wasn't it?” he asks, standing with them as they look upon a painting. “And did you really think flying away from me would work?”

“It worked for a while,” they say. “Getting sloppy since you rarely come down here, are we?”

“There are three celestial beings aside from myself on earth, it takes time to pick you apart, but it can be done easily. Not to mention there is still the Antichrist,” he says. Then, as an afterthought, “And a hellhound.”

“Pride cometh before the fall.”

“Snark cometh before the punch.”

“Mm, we both know you won’t risk breaking the treaty,” Beelzebub says. “Still unable to do your own research?”

“I’m perfectly capable of doing better than you, I’m just being a good soldier.”

“Soldier, right,” Beelzebub says. They walk off. Gabriel follows them.

“This is futile.”

“If the Ineffable Plan is ineffable, then you’re not figuring it out any more than I am.”

“Ah, giving up, are we?” Gabriel asks. He feels Beelzebub’s wings stretch out and puts a hand on their shoulder. They grit their teeth, glaring back at him as they pause in their steps.

“No,” Gabriel says.

“We are getting nowhere,” Beelzebub says, “How many times have we had this argument? What’s it going to take for you to understand and give it up?”

“Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial.”

“You are thick,” Beelzebub says. “Just completely daft. I don’t understand how you still exist.” They slap his hand off their shoulder, straighten out their jacket, and turn so they’re facing him. “Okay,” they say, taking in a breath. “Okay. We can - we can deal with this like proper occult forces.”

“I’m ethereal.”

“Still just as shady as I am. But, since you’re an idiot, I’m willing to be the adult here and propose a compromise. A treaty, maybe, if that’s the term that’s going to get through to you,” they say.

The insults don’t do anything for the argument, but he’s listening, mostly because they look livid and it’s entertaining to watch.

“A treaty?” He raises an eyebrow.

“No violence, with the Heaven-Hell treaty already in place,” they say, “And - since following me around is obviously putting a damper on you being able to showcase your talent with research and solving things, how about you leave me alone?”

He drops the eyebrow.

“And,” they continue, “In return, I promise no funny business.”

“You’re a demon. Lying’s one of your strong suits.”

“You can check in at the end of a - ” they pause and glance at one part of the room. Gabriel sees them looking at a clock. “A twenty four hour period.”

“You could still lie.”

“Not if we make it an official treaty.”

“No,” Gabriel immediately says. He’s not dealing with the mess that a contract suddenly manifesting in Heaven is going to make. “Absolutely not.”

“Then you’re just going to have to chase me all over the globe unless you give up.” They give up on the pleasantries and sneer. “I hate you, you hate me. You insist on trying to be a spy anyway when you’re terrible at it. I don’t like my own suggestion any more than you do, I just want you to leave.”

“And the feeling is mutual,” Gabriel says, frowning. “I would prefer it if no agent of Hell were on Earth at all.”

“Tough luck, then,” Beelzebub says. He sees them getting ready for flight again, and immediately chases after as soon as they move. They both land in the middle of a busy city. Beelzebub makes an irritated noise at the sight of him, and then flies again. He follows. 

They do the same thing, again, and again, and again, and Gabriel falls back behind for a few times, but he keeps following. They fly around for a while, startling too many humans along the way and no doubt filling up Heaven’s records, but this is important, and they’d understand, surely. 

Beelzebub suddenly stops, corporation folding in between the spaces of the planes of existence so their true form could slip out, many-eyed and many-winged and furious, turning on Gabriel with a staff in their hands, aiming it at him. He stops, still in his body, staring at them. They’re mid-air, hovering over a large ocean, so no one’s around to see anything, except maybe for Her, Heaven and Hell.

Gabriel waits to see what they’ll do, and Beelzebub doesn’t move. They just glare at him, a black hole behind their heads in place of a halo. 

Then, they twist their staff backwards, fold their wings in, and shove themself back into their body. They fall towards the ocean, flap their wings, and end up landing on a nearby island. Gabriel can see the frustration of their aura from where he is, still above the water.

He follows.