Dramatis Personae

God (?) as God
Ivan (or Russia) as The Metatron

Arthur Kirkland (or England) as Aziraphale
Francis Bonnefoy (or France) as Crowley
Ludwig (or Germany) as Hastur
Feliciano (or North Italy) as Ligur

Bernard (or Sweden) as a Demon Lord
Tino (or Finland) as the Demon Lord's Wife (NOT)"





Part 1

(The Beginning of the Story Regarding the Omniscient Beings... excluding The Beginning Beginning where Arthur and Francis were first put onto Earth for Part-time security reasons)


Francis' rose tinted glasses reflected Arthur's dismissive gaze. They had been at it for hours now, and while Arthur's hands were busy cleaning the dust off his precious collection of rare and valuable books, propped right next to him in heaps and mounds for its yearly cleaning -- literature which he took great pains in collecting ever since the birth of time and the written word and was now trying to sell as a part-time book dealer (well, kind of trying to sell) -- Francis was getting restless. And bored. A bored Francis was a dark force to be reckoned with. His whining could even compare to the wails of the damned in hell whenever the demon Cthulthu handed a fellow named Zan or something a viol(1).

“But you’ve scared off five visitors ever since I arrived, cheri –” he moaned.

“Six. Six visitors. And don’t you ‘cheri’ me you wannabe French twat, it’ll be another hundred years before I actually go to a pub with you.” Arthur snapped, obviously caring more about his books than Francis’ pathetic puppy dog expression.

The glowing man was propped, almost collapsed, upon Arthur’s cashier desk, dust failing to dirty his expensive Givenchy suit. After looking at Francis, you’d wonder if these beings ever washed their hands before a meal. But it was the subject of ‘meals’ as the reason why both of them were having this spat in the first place.

“But that traditional English restaurant,” Francis recalled as if recalling a nightmare, “Mon di-, why anybody would call any sort of dish ‘Spotted Dick’ I have no idea.”

“Francis, you are clearly pushing your luck. I didn’t tell you to wait on me for hours, whining about how sorry you were when you spat out half of the meal – ”

“It was disgusting! Worse than your crumpets. My flawless teeth almost fell out for pity’s sake.”

“And set the maître d’s blessed toupee on fire.”

Francis scoffed, “He was clearly provoking me by sending you flowers.”

Arthur thwacked the other’s forehead with a hardbound copy of ‘The Sunneshayn in Russia's Harym’, which must have been originally from Francis, since Arthur would never admit to owning something as lewd as this sort of literature, “It was a complementary gift.” He said, as if speaking to a skulking child, “I’m one of their valued customers, you twit.”

“You know, I wonder about that. You have no taste in food at all. That is the last time you send us off to those new types of restaurants.” The other said in a matter-of-fact kind of way, hopping with a flourish to sit on Arthur's cashier table and crossing his legs righteously.

“No. Might as well be the last ever.” a whole legion of books that might have weighed a ton was now settled in Arthur’s arms comfortably without falling off or teetering, with the way some of the hardbound tipped near the edge, “Don’t even think about presenting me that ridiculously expensive wine as an apology for trying to apologize.”

Francis’ face darkened immediately with one of his charming smiles, fingers tapping thoughtful beats on the desk. He wasn’t at all surprised that Arthur knew exactly what he would do, them being in a sort of partnership since they were both placed on Earth for the same purpose. He wasn’t an angel, far from it in fact, and he had perfected the art of pissing his friend off every time whenever he felt like it. Which prompted him to perfect the art of successfully charming the pants out of Arthur (figuratively, of course, as he still does not know how to get Arthur and his pants away from each other).

“Oh? You mean this?” Francis’ voice was soft and goading, almost challenging and arrogant as a bottle appeared in his hands out of thin air, it seemed. Bright and full and obviously very, very expensive, “Clos des Papes Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Exactly the same bottle that we had last year.” He commented smoothly. And Arthur could see his resolve cracking through his reflection in Francis' glasses.

Arthur’s mouth watered, but he held himself from accepting by deepening the scowl on his face. One of the books gave a slight shudder, almost falling off the top of the heap. “You think you’d tempt me that easily, Francis?”

The other being chuckled, eyebrow raised in that cocky manner of his, “I am a master of temptation, if I do say so myself.” Francis jiggled the bottle inches in front of Arthur’s face, letting the liquid inside flutter. And I am a master when it comes to tempting you, ma petite ange.


~~~~~

Arthur hadn’t had a chance in the first place once he found himself in Francis’ Renault4CV  car (that Arthur had once told Francis was obviously a sad rip off of the Beetle, of which the demon had cheerfully reminded Arthur of his success in World War II), and he clearly voiced his frustration while Francis drove them to one of his classy French restaurants. Why did he try to refuse in the first place when he knew this was where he'd end up later on? He was a Principality! The Guardian Angel of the East gate who once had a valiant unicorn for his steed (although truth be told his fellow angels thought of him daft after he tried to introduce Shinysparkle to them).

Arthur groaned, slapping a palm on his forehead; his shoulders slumping as if it held the weight of God’s gaze. Which it did, sort of. "I can't believe this."

“Mhm.”

“One of these days, Francis Aleister Bonnefoy (2), you’ll end up making me fall.”

“No I won’t. Unless you're talking about my silk bed sheets.” Arthur didn't seem to hear that mumbled quip (or he refused to). Instead he continued to moan:

“I’d lose all the feathers from my wings.”

“No you won’t.”

“And have the ground swallow me up in one of those ridiculous looking circles of hell… probably the third.”(3) he was kneading his forehead with his fingers now, tips white from the pressure.

“… I have perfectly fine, white, pristine, and well groomed wings, thank you very much. Unlike yours.”

"I beg your pardon?" Arthur said, affronted,

"Why don't you groom them once in a while? And they say Demon's wings were black." the demon scoffed,

“Well vanity might as well be the fault that could turn me into a bloody demon!”

“You won’t fall, mon ange,” Francis gleamed almost in a cat-like kind of way “Those devils shall ravage you with your angelic sexiness, after all, and I can't have that.” Arthur choked on his own spit. Well he definitely heard that. “Besides, you’re one of the best things that had ever happened in Heaven.”

“If not for our Arrangement, might I remind you? If the Metatron hears about this…” Arthur shivered at the thought. What if the Metatron did hear about his constant slipping toward temptation? Such as eating chocolate and fancy dining…?

And piracy. Arthur cringed, That dam- blessed demon Antonio and his tomatoes. He had enough of the Metatron's shadowed smiles and 'kolkolkolk's', please and thank you.

“Mon ange," Francis sighed, "We go through this every time, and every time you end up unconvinced." he whined, "Need I remind you about the Miracle of 1764?”

“I turned a perverted man with incestuous tendencies into a child who has a chest groping problem. Brilliant.”

“How about the time when you took in a poor, defenseless orphan – ”

“Which one? The one that you tried to molest?”

“Ohoho~ I beg you remember that I tried to molest all of them...”

“Who did you mean, then? Alfred?” that seemed to dampen Arthur’s mood even more, and he thwacked the back of Francis’ head, unfitting a benevolent Angel of God of his stature, “That cost me a lot of trouble from the higher ups as well, wannabe French bastard.” Francis was clearly not good when it came to reassuring a friend. Why wasn’t Arthur surprised…

“Well how should I know that turning him immortal would drive him insane, mon ange?”

The rest of the drive were spent arguing about who was responsible for toupees, and Arthur had to save a family of ducks from being run over by Francis’ beloved Renault. Later on Francis had them listen to Erik Satie’s most famous compositions, and one with the three tenors with La Traviata’s ‘Libiamo ne' Lieti Calici’, which Arthur had once been overly fond of in their days during the late nineteenth century. Both albums, however, sounded too much like Right Said Fred’s ‘I’m Too Sexy’ in endless replay.

It was a bit of a faulty bug in Francis' car after he enchanted his Renault to gain consciousness. A bug that he had yet to fix. The reasons were widely unknown to Arthur, but he did have an inkling about what the pansexual ex-incubus does to his car. Arthur didn't like the dashboard, especially.

“I don’t even know why you bother buying all these tapes, and all that comes out is this… this vulgar rubbish that I know your side helped become famous.”

Francis had merely gave him one of his hearty laughs (which oddly sounded like a perverted old man) and a rather subtly heated stare, which reminded Arthur that Francis might end up violating him later on.

Arthur moaned, “I think I’m doomed to fall, after all.”  

Indeed. His only friend was a horny demon with arousal problems. Charming.


~~~~

Angels and demons. These two could be used as references for our two protagonists of this tale. Arthur Kirkland and Francis Bonnefoy. Heaven and hell. Both beings had been stuck with each other ever since the creation of the world. Of course, during the time of Adam and Eve their companionship was almost nonexistent, but was more of a bitter reminder for both angel and demon of why they were working to topple the opposite side of the war in the first place. Their apparent hatred for each other was the reason why they were both surprised at how the Arrangement had worked out well enough for them in the end.

The Arrangement was an unspoken, but otherwise agreed and shook upon pact that both Arthur and Francis formed when they found out that human influence had given them a connection, which spanned from beyond human comedy (such as limericks), human tastes, human fashion, human food (maybe not), and especially alcohol and wine. Occasionally Francis would rebuke Arthur's supernatural claims and asked him once why an angel like him believed in pixies in the first place.

And occasionally they would discuss with fervor which artists were the best during the Renaissance, and throughout the following centuries; which composers, and who influenced who (it was a common fact between the two that Arthur had Satie and his minimalism, while Francis had Marquis de Sade and his literature). It was simply a realization that their fellow angels and demons who were all snuggled up in their respective places and ranks in Heaven and Hell were clueless toward the ways of mortals. For both Arthur and Francis, well, they required this sort of knowledge in order to successfully influence humans toward the side of good and evil respectively.

It was a rather keen agreement which prompted them to have meetings in order to recount who did who, and what had happened afterwards in order to balance out the light and dark. In a nutshell: they were both going under the noses of their bosses.

These were the sort of meetings where they spent hours being drunk off their rockers, held six times every week when Francis didn’t have his beloved thirty-six hour beauty sleep.

This was clearly one of those days.

Well, not really.


~~~~

It was in the middle of the night when both of them found themselves draped all over each other, pissed above all accounts, especially when Francis ended up making out with his shiny Louis Vuitton shoe earlier, and Arthur had to distract him with cherry pie. The angel was guffawing quite loudly, sometimes crying about a boy named 'Alfred' and how he had betrayed him for hamburgers, which nobody seemed to hear at all or bothered to call the police for in order to arrest both of these ‘men’ for disruptive behavior in a popular posh restaurant.

“He didn’ listen, you know? He jus' din' listen.” Arthur said, taking another sip from his glass. Apparently being drunk gave him a sort of silly cockney accent which Arthur would later on deny, “Bacon was all ‘Oh no no no no no’,” he wagged a tipsy finger in front of Francis’ drunken, grinning face, “He was all ‘the fowl this’ and ‘snow that’ and ‘science’ whatever. Bloody daft…”

“Your side’s responsible for science, Ange. Ruined the plague and all.”

“Bacon froze his bloody bits to death, that’s what. If it wer’nt for science we’d still have Bacon.”

“That was like 1600s, Ange. I loved that century, though. Lovely dresses... contemplated my pretty pretty figure...”

“We’d still have Bacon.”

“And I still say otterpops lay eggs.”

“You mean ducks.”

“Those mammals with the beaks. They have quite the sexual appetite. Like elephants.”

“They don’t lay eggs, Francis.”

“They have stingers, too... hurr” Francis chuckled in that perverted way of his.

“Stingers don’t bloody lay eggs, you gay tart...”

… of which both of them promptly let their foreheads fall on the dinner table with a dull thud, the cutlery and whole plates of Devil's Cake, tacos, and chinese food around them shuddering. Demon and Angel were both quite enjoying the silence, and the way everything seemed to do 180 degree dances before their glazed eyes...

FRANCIS...

And thanks to their (Francis’, actually) divine (or demonic) intervention, the owners of the restaurant left them both alone, even long after their customers left and they closed the restaurant.

FRANCIS.

“Hm?” Francis stirred, almost recovering from his drunken stupor, a thin thread of saliva hanging from the corner of his mouth.

FRANCIS. YOUR LORD CALLS UPON YOU.

Arthur’s head shot up from the table after hearing the rather doom-like disembodied voice, “Whu that?”

FRANCIS. YOU BETTER NOT BE SHIRKING YOUR DUTIES…

Francis and Arthur looked at each other, their eyes larger than those desert rolls they had for appetizers, and they forced themselves out of their drunkenness not a microsecond later (one of the positive sides to being an angel and demon).

“Yes, Seigneur?” Francis’ voice almost squeaked, staring at the radio right next to their table which had been playing a nice rendition of Carl Orff’s ‘O Fortuna’, which was most befitting of their current situation. The voice from the radio boomed:

BERNARD, SON OF DAGON, HUSBAND OF THE DEMON TINO.

_{I AM NOT YOUR WIFE!}

LORD OF THE ONCE FEARED WARRIORS, THE MIGHTY PHOENICIANS…

“Oui, mon Seigneur?”

YOU HAVE RESPONSIBILITY, FRANCIS. WE ARE ALL COUNTING ON YOU.

Arthur and Francis both looked at each other, confusion etched on their expressions, especially Francis' who looked as if he had swallowed a whole starter course of Arthur’s cooking. Francis hadn’t forgotten about one of his missions, did he? He must have, since he usually reported everything that Hell had ever planned to his enemy and all.

“S-S-Seigneur… th- there was this child, you see.”

According to Francis’ grimace… yes, the said angel concluded, he forgot.

UNFORGIVABLE, FRANCIS.

“It was tempting. I was wearing a stolen nun’s clothing…”(4)

“What?” Arthur gasped, trying to keep his voice inaudible, “I thought you said you left the child alone?”

Francis shrugged sheepishly.

"You pedophile~!"

WE ALL KNOW HOW HARD WORKING YOU ARE, FRANCIS…

Arthur snorted.

BUT OUR TIME IS NOW. YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO MEET LUDWIG AND FELICIANO HOURS AGO.

“I’ll be there, Seigneur.”

I AM MOST DISAPPOINTED IN YOU, FRANCIS.

“I’m sorry. Please do forgive this little demon.” Arthur almost wanted to wring Francis’ neck after hearing the other sob with that sort of naughty and submissive look on his face. He didn’t doubt for a second that Francis must have laid with this Bernard character once during his time in Hell as an incubus. Manslut.

And with a married demon, too.

Can demons even get married? Arthur thought.

WE FORGIVE YOU, FRANCIS, OF COURSE WE DO.

“Why thank you mon Seigneur.” he sobbed. Francis’ teary face disappeared, however, and shifted to that of a lusty French maiden with an unwrapped lollipop in hand. You knew what he would do to it, and he had a feeling that perhaps the demon Bernard anticipated it.

_{IS THAT FRANCIS IN THE TELEFONE AGAIN, BERNARD?}

STRICTLY WORK RELATED ISSUES, M'DEAR.

Arthur kicked Francis under the table, his angel senses catching upcoming subjects related to marital issues and Francis.

“Nghr- I’ll be…” the blond demon glared at the angel principality and returned the kick almost as strongly, “I’ll be there, Seigneur.” How Francis managed to make that sound even slightly lustful while he was continually kicking his leg was beyond him.

“Will you stop kicking me?!”

Francis jumped up in shock and forced his hands on Arthur’s mouth, looking around the dark, empty restaurant cautiously, “Mon seigneur?”

Nobody replied.

“Seigneur? Are you teasing me – ah… once more?”

Still nothing.

Livid, Arthur forced Francis’ hands off his face and stood up, “Go off now and find out what it is. It’d be a fine day in Hel- Hea- the blessed world until I get out of your side’s loop.”

“But we were having so much fun, ange~”

“You moron, I still need to report to the higher-ups about this.”

“Don’t you want me to drop you off to your house?” The suggestive tone in Francis’ voice and that dark grin of his had Arthur teetering out of the restaurant in no time.

“Get back to work and quit trying to tempt me, demon!”

After Arthur left Francis to his devices and thoughts, the demon sat back on his chair with a huff, took a last winding gulp of wine, and set off to meet the two dynamic lurkers amongst graveyards. Eyeglasses glowing in the dark, Francis sighed when he realized that the bad feeling he thought he had been imagining earlier was now tenfold pulsating in the pit of his stomach.

All because of sausage obsessive compulsive and pasta boy's sudden desire to do business with him.

And he still had a bad feeling about this.