Bells Up (A Good Omens Fanfic)

Chapter 9

Gabriel opened his eyes and immediately closed them again as the bright light coming from a corridor temporarily blinded him.

He was in a bedroom and the white wooden door leading to the narrow corridor was wide open.

Two people, most likely men, were talking to each other in the corridor in hushed tones.

"Crowley, I can't do it. They're guests. I can't hurt him!" sighed a fussy exasperated voice that could only belong to Aziraphale. "I know we need to take precautions but he is too weak to be a threat!"

"Not even a miracle or, ya know, locking the fucking door? Look, Angel, I love you. I really do. But sometimes I just don't get how the fuck you can forgive him."

"I... I haven't forgiven Gabriel, in spite of Oscar's advice. Not yet at least. Still, we can't stoop to the same level of cruelty he had been showing us so far. If we did, we would've become just like him."

Gabriel frowned.

Why would Aziraphale talk about forgiving him when he should be asking for forgiveness for betraying Heaven and fraternizing with a demon?

The Archangel sat up, suppressing a groan of pain, too arrogant to show weakness in front of traitors.

He looked around the room and found his suit, shoes and that purple backpack God had given him perfectly untouched.

At least that filthy cowardly fat Principality had enough common decency not to rob his superiors.

Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly enough, Belle was nowhere to be found, so far at least.

Gabriel could vaguely remember that the mortal who he was still obligated to help with finding her biological parents had passed out due to the overload of memories of her past life as none other than Oscar Wilde himself, Gabriel's greatest mortal enemy.

Was it really that surprising that Aziraphale wouldn't want to leave someone who used to be his lover in the past life one on one with Gabriel?

The Archangel sighed in powerless anger.

He couldn't even call it a day and abandon Belle, even though in his opinion she was little more than an annoying little patronizing know it all. No instance of breaking a sacred oath had ever ended well for anyone, be it a mortal, an Angel or even a Seraph.

Swearing on the Heavenly Host and not keeping your word was a one way ticket to wherever the victims of God's smiting usually went.

All that Gabriel could do now was going back to sleep because he didn't have enough strength nor desire to look for the girl who had gotten on his nerves so many times.

Judging by the dialogue between those traitors, so far Belle was safe and sound and that was already good in Gabriel's opinion.

Not that he actually cared about her wellbeing as much as the fact that without her he couldn't do his sentence and return to Heaven.

His only hope was that Michael wouldn't mess anything up while he was forced to be in the human world.

***

Belle only woke up in the morning and only because the weather had decided that it was going to have a bad day.

A crash of thunder boomed in the distance, forcing Belle to leave the land of her dreams with a loud gasp.