Title: a devil put aside for me
Fandom: Good Omens
Rating: PG-13
Length: 551 words
Content notes: Implications of rape & character death. AU.
Author notes: Also for the "Date" square in my FFW bingo card and the 'Conflicting Obligations/Oaths' square in my genprompt_bingo card.
Summary: Crowley makes a deal with a devil.



“I am Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies— why do you call for my service, human?”

Anthony Crowley blinks at the sight of him. She has short hair down to her jaw, the blackest black hair he’s ever seen (it doesn’t look possible to get with dye, even), with a huge fly sitting atop of his head, smaller ones moving around her, but it could easily be the flies from the attic and not some he carries around.

He swallows nervously as the devil looks around the attic, still sitting with his legs crossed, too afraid to even move or shift positions, barely able to breathe. He didn’t expect it to work, for starters— he thought it would fail like most things in his life had. If his father had taught him anything, it was that all those entities didn’t exist.

“I want a punishment for my father,” he says.

Beelzebub’s face twitches and she bends over to be closer to him, the smell of the flies and the rot getting to his nostrils. He pulls a face, and Beelzebub laughs a little.

“Ah, of course you want that.” She keeps observing him carefully— he’s pulled apart, every little part of what his father has made him go through being judged by the devil. She pulls away for a second. “It’s understandable. When he dies I’ll make sure my men take good care of —”

“No!” he interrupts. She raises a brow. “I want him to suffer now. While he’s alive. I want to see it.”

“Oh!” Beelzebub exclaims joyfully, clapping her hands together, hellfire at her fingertips. “I see. An old-fashioned deal with the devil— it has been a while ever since I did one of these.” She tilts her head and scoots closer to Crowley. “I just need a good part of your soul.”

He fidgets with his hands, trying not to think about the many implications that has. “That’s it?”

“That’s it?” she echoes before cackling maniacally, her face twisting and the flies around her doubling in size. “Yes, that’s it. Your stupid positive feelings will be largely inhibited, let me tell you that much.”

He swallows.

“So,” Beelzebub says, tapping his foot against the attic floor. “Will you do it?”

He tries not to think about his mother taking his hand and squeezing, making him promise he won’t ever dabble in anything dealing with the occult. His dear mother kissing him and whispering tales about people who made deals with the Devil, with demons, how they always end up dead or worse than dead.

But his dad is downstairs and Crowley’s body is unclean because of him. But his mom is gone and he needs to do something about what he’s going through. Even if this date is always etched in his mind, even if he’ll never truly forget what he’s had to do for his father to have a taste of his own medicine.

“One more thing,” he says. “I’ll have a good life. I’ll have a stable income, a good income.”

Beelzebub looks disgusted but she doesn’t complain. “That’s a bit more of soul I’ll have to take. But—”

“Yes,” Crowley says. “I’ll do it.”

She smiles and her claws extend. She reaches for his chest, cold seeping through his torso, and he promptly blacks out.