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

vi. Ye Of Little Faith

“I have a bad feeling about him,” Aziraphale says.  

Crowley snorts. “That's no surprise, everyone does, I think.”

“I know,” Aziraphale says, although it's with a wince that says no, he doesn't really, or if he does, it's not without guilt. “I meant… a bad-bad feeling, as Adam would say.”

“Isn't that also expected from Gabriel?” Crowley asks, but then sighs. “Yeah, what's he doing on Earth?”

“And looking for Adam too.” Aziraphale leans back in the seat, thinking.  

No, that wasn't quite right. Gabriel had been at the orphanage and then he'd asked for Adam. It was more likely that the boy had been a second thought and that he'd had business in the orphanage first.  

“Did anything in the orphanage seem off to you?” Aziraphale asks.  

“Not particularly, no,” Crowley says, “Hellish kids, but that's most kids, isn't it?”

“My dear.”

“What? It's true - Adam for one. Brian, for another. Do you know how many times I've had to clean the backseat of dirt? Too many. Not even a miracle could clean up the mess his shoes drag in.”

“His soles have deep ridges, that's all,” Aziraphale says, smiling at Crowley's poor attempt at masking the fond tone in his voice. “But nothing really stood out to you?”

“No,” Crowley says. “What are you thinking?”

“That maybe he’d had business at the orphanage but none with Adam. At least, not originally,” he says, and sighs, leaning a bit more into his seat. “I trust the boy, but still, I can’t help but worry.”

Crowley hums and floors the gas a bit more. Aziraphale smiles thankfully past his worry.

Still, he does hope nothing’s happened.

-

Beelzebub still hasn't taken off their platform shoes. They've had plenty of time to, walking all the way from the fair and to the cafe after Adam had restarted time - hell, it's been days since they've been on earth, they've had all of that too - but they haven't bothered to change out of their ridiculous outfit. Really, with all the impressive research and assimilation they've done (and they making a point on insisting on ‘acting normal’,  which Gabriel thinks he's an expert at, thank you very much), one would think they'd spare some time on figuring out their shoes don't go with their jeans.

Boots would be better. Or flats. Hell, even sneakers would be a lot more modern, even if they're horrendous.  

Gabriel isn't about to admit he's doing a bad job at distracting himself.  

Beelzebub slurps their milkshake loudly.  

Gabriel makes a face. Distasteful. “You don’t need to eat, so why are you consuming that?”

“I’m thinking,” Beelzebub says. “And it’s something to do. Besides, it tastes good.”

“Of course, you’re a demon,” he says. The wants of the flesh, including gluttony and all involving it would be pleasing to them.

“What? You’re too good for food?” they ask, unimpressed. “Figures,”

“My body is a temple - ”

“Of incompetency and pompousness.” They punctuate their sentence with a loud slurp. “Look, I don’t have time for you right now, so if you could bugger off somewhere where they tolerate arses like you?”

He gives them an irritated look, but he doesn’t. Adam Young had given them 'advice' on figuring out the Ineffable Plan, and if Beelzebub was going to act on it, then it would be foolish of him to not keep an eye on them.Not that Gabriel trusts Adam Young much, considering he's been hanging around Aziraphale and Crowley, of all people, but they - he is grasping at straws at this point and when he'd thought to ask the boy if he knew anyything, he'd given him something.

Although, perhaps he should keep an eye on the boy for a little while just to see if he's the wily sort who has a tendency for sending people on wild goose chases. Maybe that'll save him time on debating whether or not to take his words at face value.

“Adam Young technically did not tell us to have to work together,” Beelzebub says, bringing Gabriel's thoughts right back around to what the kid had said. “He just said you. Could’ave been a singular you, not a plural you.”

"My answer is still no."

Beelzebub presses their lips to a thin line and finishes their milkshake in silence.  

When they’re done, they lean back in their seat, staring at the table, deep in thought. Gabriel knows exactly about what, but he’s not going to be the first one to ask. It is in a demon’s nature to question. That’s why they’d fallen, after all. They’d questioned God, they’d questioned Her Plan, and so they got kicked out of Heaven.  

If Beelzebub questions the Ineffable Plan, that’s not for him to worry about. He’s just here to figure out the when and where, and then he’s getting out of here.

“Observe humanity,” Beelzebub says, “That’s what he said.”

“I’m not helping you with it.”

“I’m not talking to you, you git,” they say, and reach up to their temples to massage them, closing their eyes. “Not a which, where, or when to be found, just observe humanity. And not from afar. Up close, apparently.”

“I’ve done studies on humanity. Most angels have. They’re quite simple creatures, really,” Gabriel says. If they’re not talking to him, he’s not talking to them. IHaving a sounding board is quite nice, anyway. “Very easy to fool. Very easy to grasp the concept of.”

“They’re like demons but without disfavour, so they use what they have,” Beelzebub says. “What’s there to observe?”

Gabriel mulls on that. History, perhaps? Or behavioural habits? Life cycles? Cultures? He knows there’s around seven billion of them and they’re not all the same - is he supposed to find the similarities and the differences?  

“I don’t know anything about the Ineffable Plan,” Adam Young had said. “I reckon it’s called that for a reason, innit?” He’d laughed a little at that. “But I guess, best piece of advice I can give is just - stick around a little. Uh, see the sights. Live around a bit. Observe humanity, I guess you could say, and not like you already do, sitting in your desks and everything with your idea of what humans are. You're just going to keep having your ideas of what humans are because you can choose which parts of us you want to observe and which parts you'd rather turn a blind eye to. Get to know us. Really get to know us.” He’d motioned around, then. “Go to a fair. Ride a car. Feed some ducks in a park. S’what Aziraphale and Crowley do.”

Gabriel had very carefully held his tongue from saying that if that was what Aziraphale and Crowley did, he’d rather be found dead in a ditch.

But - anyway, observe humanity. Stick around a little.  

He knows what that means, but he wants to ask and turn it over again and again to see if it changes, anyway. Couldn't it just be observing them like in a laboratory, or something? One-off interviews? Movies?

He’s not about to stay on Earth any longer than he wants to, but -

Beelzebub is getting up.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

“Observing humanity,” they say. He gets up and tries to follow, but before he can even get out of his seat, he hears the flap of several wings and then Beelzebub is gone.  

Gabriel stills.

He’s just lost the enemy.

-

Shit shit shit shit shit.  

Beelzebub doesn’t panic a lot, mostly because when you’ve been damned for a very long time, there’s not much you can actually drop further to, and thus not much reason to worry. Whoever had said ‘when you’re at your lowest, there’s nowhere to go but up’ had been full of shit, but they did have a point. When you’re at the lowest, there’s literally nowhere lower to go, because then you wouldn’t be at the lowest point of everything.

But there are things that still shake them up a little, if only for the knowledge that these certains things were dangerous. One, the Great War - which, contrary to popular belief, has no set winner at all. Two, Satan, because really, who wants to piss him off? Three, the Antichrist, wildcard of a boy that he is.

Four, thinking about things they shouldn’t think of.  

Perhaps it’s remaining trauma from being kicked out of Heaven for doing so. Perhaps it’s merely the conditioning of six thousand years in Hell and following orders and doing things Just So, because otherwise Satan was going to be pissed. Perhaps it was because, in actuality, thinking about things one shouldn’t think of is the same as looking the unknown in the eye and trying not to get bitten when it opens its mouth.

Beelzebub is a leader. Beelzebub’s greatest strength comes in the fact that in situations of turmoil, they are able to find a semblance of order, or if there’s none, forge the semblance of order. A semblance of order means structure, and structure means foreknowledge, which means surety and steady ground.  

The unknown is the very opposite of that. The unknown is a catalyst for the wonder that comes with wanting to know.  

They land blindly, folding their wings back into their corporeal body somewhere they don’t know much about save for the fact that it’s not a gaping chasm or a trench, and there’s not a lot of people. They’ve done a good job on not letting Gabriel get much out of them, and they’ve gotten rid of him for now, but if he’s determined to keep an eye on them, they’re going to bump into him sooner or later, so they don’t have much time to themself. They need to get their head straight as soon as possible.

No war for the Ineffable Plan. Preposterous. They need a war. They have to have a war, otherwise, what was the use of having Heaven and Hell in the first place? Angels did their saving and demons did their damning - it was a whole deal and everything. Why wouldn’t there be a war?

It would be a little stupid, though, wouldn’t it, to not think of all possibilities? A good strategist always thinks ahead and thinks of every possible outcome, including the fact that the Ineffable Plan might just be -  

Beelzebub frowns. Stupid would be falling for whatever Adam Young had tried to pull on them. Observe humanity their ass, there’s not much to observe. Humans are flawed and messy and more hellish than they ever could be, and that was the gist of it, even for the few of them that did their best to not be those things.  

To play angel's advocate, humans believed blindly, too. Like in the concepts of goodness, or to be more realistic, decency. Beelzebub's never bought it much. What’s the use of being nice and good when it got you nothing in the end save for being stuck upstairs with a bunch of holier-than-thou prisses? Not much, if they’re asked.  

So there’s that. Misguided faith and a penchant for evil. That’s it. They have it. They don’t know what’s so great about it that Adam Young thought to give them that advice. Just because it worked for Aziraphale and Crowley didn’t mean it would work for them.

Well.

Wait.

Aziraphale and Crowley had been around humans for 6000 years, and if Adam Young's playing a game with them, surely…

Beelzebub shakes their head. Laughable, the idea of even trying to get a second opinion from Heaven and Hell’s greatest messes. They’d rather drink a bottle of holy water than ever try to consult with Crowley on matters.  

They’re just a little confused from overthinking things, that’s all. And Adam Young’s just grown up around humanity that he’s a little biased of it. Of course he’s going to tell them to stick around and watch humanity a little. He hadn’t been there at the beginning. He hadn’t been there when the schism had started and then Heaven had descended to war. He doesn’t know anything.  

Right. Beelzebub straightens out their jacket, determined. There’s no need to be sidetracked just because the Antichrist had been messing with them. They’re better than that.  

They take out their phone from their satchel, and somehow, the wi-fi deadzone they're standing in suddenly finds itself making way for internet connection as Beelzebub pulls up a map. Time to make an actual plan.

-

"Everything alright?" Pepper asks.

"What is?"

"Whatever just happened," she says, motioning around them.  

She's no Antichrist, no angel or demon, but hanging about one of each for quite a while, and surviving the apocalypse after facing the Four Riders head-on (even when her brain is still trying to push the memories of said face-off down every once in a while) does things to one's sensitivity to the supernatural.  

She's not the only one. Even Brian and Wensleydale have it. And once, Newt had paused while watering the garden at the back of Jasmine Cottage and turned to Anathema and said, "I think we're about to have visitors." Thirty minutes later, Crowley and Adam pulled up at the house, racing on muddy, borrowed bikes.

Adam's never felt comfortable trying to 'fix' it, because as far as he knows it's not anything to do with their brains or their bodies. And it's his friends, after all. He wouldn't want anyone messing with him even if he started getting a weird sensitivity to things, not without his permission, and they haven't given him permission to mess them about.  

Brian and Wensleydale turn to him expectantly, at Pepper's questioning. They're all sitting on a bench near the entrance of the fair, waiting to be picked up. Dog has fallen asleep on Adam's lap.

"Ah," Adam says. "Gabriel and Beelzebub were here."

"Don't remember them," Brian says, and turns to the others.

"Me neither," Wensleydale says.

"You didn't miss much," Adam says. "They showed up once to tell me off at the air base."

Brian nods like he knows what Adam is talking about. He doesn't.

"What were they doing here?" Pepper asks.

"Business," Adam says.  

"What sort?"

Adam shrugs. "Dunno," he says. "Reckon it's got something to do with endin' the world again."

"I thought that was done with," Wensleydale says. He frowns, clearly trying to strain for a memory he knows he should remember but can't. "Didn't we do something about that?"

"We did," Adam says. "It's nothing you have to worry about. This is different."

"Did you take care of it?" Pepper asks.

"Not really? They weren't here to end the world, they said," Adam says. "Not that I believe them."

"So why don't we have to worry about it?" Brian tears off a piece of the cotton candy he's eating. Bits of it melt and stain his shirt.  

"'Cause they were actually telling the truth, at least to an extent," Adam says. "They're not here to end the world. They were just trying to - " He searches for his words. "Figure out a plan."

"To end it?"

"I think that's what they want," Adam says, "But what they want and what the Ineffable Plan is, could be very different things."

Pepper nods. She knows what he's talking about. She's heard Aziraphale and Crowley debate over this same topic plenty of times, even when they hadn't meant for her to.  

"I told them to stick around, see the sights," he says, and then lifts a shoulder. "I dunno if they're gonna, but I hope they do."

He really does. He thinks they'd really find earth cool, if they just stuck around long enough to actually learn about it. It's a neat little place, where people make new things every day even if they destroy things some of them sometimes. They make fairs where they rig the games but people still win them. They've got 31 flavors of ice cream somewhere, even if it's not America.

Adam smiles to himself. He doesn't know what Beelzebub and Gabriel are doing, but he hopes they keep going where they're going. He doesn't even need to give them a push, really. The look in Beelzebub's eyes had told him he hadn't needed to do anything at all.

So he just waits with his friends on the bench. Minutes later, the Bentley pulls up by them.