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The penthouse was dark and silent, except for the humming of the kitchen fridge and the rustling bedsheets, as the Prince of Hell shifted in their bed. Normally they slept at night, even though they obviously didn’t need to[1], but tonight there were so many thoughts buzzing through their head that it made resting impossible.
The Archangel next to them was not helpful either. Not that he ever had been helpful in anyway, but today was especially bad. If Beelzebub thought about it hard enough, the situation was even partly his fault.
It had been eleven years, eight months and six days earlier, they had been in the living room of the same apartment and the Lord of the Flies was considerably louder than now.
“I don’t know, I don’t know how antichristzzz feel when they grow in your stomach!” they had yelled at Gabriel, Crowley and Aziraphale, but mostly at Crowley. Instinctively, their hand found a place in their underbelly as if to protect the one-month-old life from the traitor.
“Nobody is saying that, Lord Beelzebub. I’m just saying that having the Archangel fucking Gabriel and Lord Beelzebub, Prince of Hell as parents doesn’t make great odds for a perfectly normal and non-world-destroying child.” Crowley explained, after ducking from whatever attack he expected from his boss, “My point is, it could be the Antichrist number two, but it doesn’t have to be. That should just be something for you to take into consideration before you decide on anything.”
Bee’s anger faded and they sat down again, on the sofa, next to Gabriel, who reached for the hand that wasn’t shielding his child in the mother’s womb. They let him take it without resistance.[2]
“You already made your choice, haven’t you?”
Aziraphale hadn’t talked much since he and his husband entered the penthouse belonging to their former bosses, but he could see the tell-tale look on their faces. Beelzebub swallowed the giant lump in their throat and looked at Gabriel, their enemy, their fucktoy, their lover, with his stupidly gorgeous eyes that stared into their pitch-black soul.
Would their child inherit his eyes?
“I would make a bad mum. We know nothing about children.” They buzzed, but the usually powerful and commanding voice was trembling, and they hated how weak and soft the cluster of cells in their belly made them sound.
“Well, you have eight months to learn. And you have us. We raised Warlock…”
Crowley placed his hand on Aziraphale’s knee to stop him, he knew that the mentioning the not-antichrist would only tense the mood.
“It’s true.” He said, “You have us to help, and if you want to keep it, we can be Godparents again.”
Beelzebub’s expression showed not a bit that this made them incredibly happy, and they faced the Archangel another time.
“What do you zzzink? We would have to hide it from upstairzzz and downstairzzz, not only for eight months but for yearzzz. It won’t be easy.”
Gabriel sighed.
“I think that you should decide. But apart from that, nothing had been easy since the apocalypse didn’t happen, and maybe this is all part of Her plan.”
“Of courzzze!”
That enraged the Prince of Hell and made Crowley and Aziraphale wonder how they had found the time to make a baby when they were fighting all the time.
“Of ourzzze it izzz my decizzzion and of courzzze you pathetic angel had to bring up your boss!”
Beelzebub had jumped up from the couch and towered their angel now.
“Bee I’m…”
“Don’t call me that!”
They turned their back and walked to the large window behind the seating area[3]. London was still the same, and they still hated and loved it, but as they looked over the Docks and saw their own reflection in the glass, they started to think.
Would the baby look like them? Tiny with a round face and a button nose? Would it be a demon, an angel, both, human? Would it really destroy the world at last?
There was really only one way to find out…
Beelzebub faced Gabriel and the traitors on the sofas again.
“I’ll keep it.” They announced calmly, “Even if it izzz the antichrizzzt.”
That had been their decision and they didn’t regret it. Not until this day at least, six days after their daughters eleventh birthday. It was a normal birthday, Samantha had her two best friends over and Crowley and Aziraphale had visited the penthouse in the morning to give their goddaughter her present[4], no hellhounds, storms or krakens appeared. And Beelzebub, Bee how Gabriel called them to not alienate any listening humans, was so glad about that.
They would never admit it, but they enjoyed life on earth. They enjoyed food, movies and sex with their Archangel, and oh Satan how they loved being a mother.
Eleven years ago, their daughter Samantha was a little worm in her mommy's arms with purple eyes and a bottom nose, that could only communicate through burbling noises and smiled when she saw Beelzebub or Gabriel. Now she was a bit taller, yet still small for her age, and could talk like a waterfall, but she was still excited when her parents came home and still loved to cuddle with the Prince of Hell, although the latter got rarer as she got older.
Beelzebub didn’t want Earth to be destroyed anymore, because that was where their family lived, where her daughter had friends and where they went on dates with their husband[5].
When the black-haired demon thought about how they were a huge-ass hypocrite, they noticed the light peeking through the curtains. Gabriel, who had wrapped his strong arms around them, seemed to notice it too, because he stood up from the bed to open the window.
“London’s still here, for better or worse”, he stated, “The rest of the world probably is, too.”
His spouse snorted and rolled out of the bed.
“I zzzee. Now clozzze the window, it’s fucking December!”
Gabriel did as he was told and flicked his hand to dress both before he cupped Beelzebub’s face and pressed a quick kiss on their lips. They let it happen, glad that he was still there to give Good-Morning-Kisses, but they would never admit that.
15 minutes later Beelzebub was sitting on the kitchen table, drinking black tea and watching the Archangel prepare their breakfast. He never ate anything, just drank coffee or the occasional glass of wine, but Samantha had to eat and ever since they first tried it, Beelzebub liked food too and got very unpleasant when they had to go without it for a long time, so the Archangel had learned to cook.
“Do you have to go to work today? I have to, so Sammy would be alone if…”, Gabriel asked as he prepared scrambled eggs.
“No, I’ll zzztay here. Dagon thinks I’m mezzing with politics, she won’t mind if I don’t zzzhow up.”
As they spoke, a smaller figure entered the kitchen and Beelzebub immediately showed a smile rarely seen outside the apartment.
“Good Morning Sammy!”
“Morning Mum, Morning Dad.”
Their daughter yawned and rubbed her eyes, she wanted to sit down on her usual chair, but her mother objected.
“So sleepy, bug? Won’t you greet me properly?”
The blonde smiled and rushed over to the Prince of Hell to give them a big hug, she was too focused on other things to notice how she was almost crushed by her mother’s arms. The two separated and Beelzebub cupped their daughter’s cheek with one hand.
“Honey, why don’t we go to the cinema today, juzzzt the two of us? To zzzelebrate your birthday.”
“We already celebrated my birthday, last week, you remember?”
Samantha sat down and reached for her glass of orange juice. It was still cold, and once again she wondered how it was always just the right temperature when she arrived for breakfast. There were many things that were irregular about her parents and her godfathers, but Sammy was an eleven-year-old girl, and there were so many other things to think about.
“Well then we will zzzelebrate your holidayzzz!”
The blonde nodded and then her father put a plate of eggs in front of her and a second one in front of Beelzebub, and so the family started to have breakfast, because, just like every other day, the world did not end.
[1] They had grown fond of sleeping shortly after they began the relationship with Gabriel, just because it was a relaxing thing to do after sex.
[2] Normally, Gabriel had to be very careful not to be hurt when he tried to touch Beelzebub without permission.
[3] If the Lord of the Flies had been to heaven recently, they would have noticed how much it resembled the apartment Gabriel lived in.
[4] A book, of course.
[5] Gabriel and Beelzebub weren’t actually married, for a lot of reasons, one of them being that the demon couldn’t enter a church, but the day after they decided to keep Samantha, he had given them a promise and a ring. Bee had hissed at him but when the angel wanted to take the ring back, they had hissed more and from that day on, they wore the ring on a necklace around her neck, to conceal it from the curios eyes in hell.