✝ First Trick; And now you find yourself in '82. The disco hot spots hold no charm for you.

[uberboned]

 A. 306 Miller Street Street ✝ Interior

[Gabriel wakes up, which is unusual because he doesn't sleep, but that fact is less unusual than the fact that he was fairly certain he was dead. That part he remembers clearly and while, for all his knowledge both godlike and angelic, he has no idea what really happens to angels when they die, because it didn't use to happen quite this often, he's fairly certain that waking up in the vessel he just violently vacated on account of being demoted to being very dead, in a bed beside a beautiful woman was not on the list of possible angel afterlifes.

...Rewind.

Bed. Beautiful woman. He's pretty sure his brain needs to be in on this fantasy, because the last time he was in bed with anyone was, like, an hour ago when he was putting his last will and testament in a sex tape and this was not some buxom lady straight out of a porn. This was... More "take home to Mother" and less "hope Mother never finds out." 

And the woman isn't even the important part, something that hits him a second later. He doesn't know who this woman was. He can't just pick her brain and find out. He can't feel anything. ...He can't feel anything- nothing at all. No tenuous thread to Heaven, no Grace boiling away underneath the flesh.

He bolts out of the bed and nearly slams into the nightstand. Great. Five seconds as a human and he's already learning he's uncoordinated. He swears under his breath and realizes he's just upset a picture- a nice picture of him (in a suit???) with the same beautiful woman he doesn't know (in a wedding gown??)] Ohhhh no. No, no, no, no. Not happening. Not to me.

[And that is how Gabriel ended up downstairs rifling through every corner of the house to confirm what he already knows.

He's dead and he's trapped in Suburbia. He's in Hell. For real.]


B. 306 Miller Street ✝ Exterior

[Later in the morning, you will find Gabriel exiting his house with a butter knife. He found the letters with his last name on them. Someone thinks they're cute. And when he finds out who, he is going to demand his Grace back (what is he supposed to do without it??), and then demand a change of last name... But not before he beats the person into letting him out. Yes, in that order. 

In the meantime, he's going to set to work scraping the name off the mailbox. It's something to do. Don't judge him.]

C. Phone ✝ Late afternoon

[Well, here goes nothing.... Gabriel has finally figured out that this is how people get shit done, so this is... Happening.]

Okay, I get it. This is a joke, right? Ha ha funny? Trick the Trickster? Good on you, Whoever the Hell You Are, but, uh, I don't play these kind of reindeer games. I like being on the other side of this kinda shtick, which is probably why I'm here. "Oooh Mr. Trickster, for so callously trying to choose how mortals live and die by their sins, you must be tricked as they were tricked, blah, blah, blah." Bullshit. It's in my nature. It's what I do. And, as you may or may not know? I kinda bought it back. Someone owes me a lot more than suburbia.

I'll take an explanation, if that's order's too complicated for you.

Comments

[eyesofaserpent]

I've no bloody clue. Usually you wake up the next day or so after you die.

Er, I'm Crowley, by the way. [Of course he pronounces it "crow-lee" like the bird.]

[uberboned]

...Is that really how that's pronounced?

[eyesofaserpent]

Of course it is. I've been pronouncing it that way since just after Eden.

[uberboned]

Huh. Learn something new every day.

[Soooo...]

Guess that makes you a demon, right?

[eyesofaserpent]

I am indeed.

[uberboned]

Wow. Give me a prize. That oughta be a Jeopardy category- Things That Are Really Obvious.

[eyesofaserpent]

There isn't really a need to hide it here. And it's kind of impossible with my wings out all the time.

[uberboned]

Since when do demons have wings? Did I miss evolution again?

[eyesofaserpent]

I didn't lose my wings when I fell. They even stayed bloody white.

[uberboned]

[Headtilt.] Okay. Wow. This whole "alternate universe" thing's gettin' way too heavy for me.

[eyesofaserpent]

Oh? Getting your feathers ruffled?

[uberboned]

Am I really that obvious?

[eyesofaserpent]

Only a demon or an angel would be bothered by the differences in demonkind. And while you don't sound like a stuff-shirt, pompous, do-gooder, you sound even less like one of my kind. So which one are you?

[uberboned]

I'm an angel. Technically. My species status on Facebook is permanently set on complicated.

[eyesofaserpent]

I meant which angel are you. I could tell you're a halo polisher despite the fact that you seem like someone I could easily see myself having a jolly good time with.

And how the bloody hell can your species be complicated?

[uberboned]

'Cause I'm also a Trickster. [Being vague is Gabriel's life, okay?] Gabriel. That's who I am.

[eyesofaserpent]

Gabri---- You're very different where I come from. [Snort.] Oh, I can't wait until Aziraphale hears about you.

[uberboned]

I've been getting that a lot today. [...Yeah, he doesn't know that name, but it sounds like an angel name.] Who?

[eyesofaserpent]

Aziraphale... He's a Principality in London. He was the angel at the Eastern Gate of Eden, but obviously that job was short lived. That's where we met, actually.

[uberboned]

[SNORT. Principality. They make jokes about that, you know. :|] Never heard of him. Then again, I never really saw the glitz in Eden. [Except where he did- all angels did. It was nothing they'd ever seen before. In retrospect, however... It was just a bunch of trees.]

[eyesofaserpent]

It was fun while it lasted. I still say He overreacted about the whole apple thing. And Aziraphale was the idiot who gave the humans his flaming sword.

[uberboned]

...There's a part of the story I never heard before. Sounds like the hardcore version. Next you're gonna tell me they went on the world's first crime spree.

[eyesofaserpent]

No, but that sword became War's sword if that tells you anything...

[uberboned]

[Whistles] Bravo.

[eyesofaserpent]

In Aziraphale's defense, he thought he was doing the right thing... You know... Giving them fire when she was already pregnant and a storm was coming.