Thunderstorms are angels playing baseball
Thanks for the prompt I’m assuming this was a prompt anon! I totally had no idea what to do with this prompt at first so I shared it with my wonderful gf and writing partner @trekmemes who helped me write this crack fic! Thank you babe <3
A spotlight seemed to shine down from the ceiling, and a faint stream of silvery sparkles rained down with the accompaniment of a heavenly chorus. The glitter resolved itself as the Archangel Gabriel, who sighed and brushed silver specks off the shoulders of his jacket.
“Aziraphale, it is my—” He paused as he scanned the couple up and down. He’d obviously caught the two of them snogging. Crowley’s long hair was a mess, and Aziraphale’s white button-up shirt had been pulled halfway open.
“Hi.” Crowley met his gaze evenly.
Gabriel pinched the bridge of his nose like he was developing a headache. “All right. We’ll deal with that later. You remember the Armageddon thing that the pair of you mucked up?”
“Hard to forget,” Aziraphale pointed out, not bothering to get up.
“We came up with an... alternative.”
“An alternative to blowing the planet to bits?” Crowley sniffed.
“Precisely.” He shifted his shoulders like he was adjusting his wings in a power display. “It is... partially a human problem. And since we picked the Earth for the setting of our final confrontation, we decided on a human solution to our disagreements. A competition.”
“Like the Olympics?” Crowley scrunched up his nose. “I don’t much go in for wrestling, you know that.”
“I like discus!” Aziraphale said cheerfully.
There was a crack of tectonic plates shifting, and a cloud of black locusts exploded in the flat. It carried with it a definite reek of brimstone, and the two angels began coughing.
“CROWLEY.” A voice like mud sucking the soles of one’s shoes oozed out from every direction.
“Beelzebub! Long time, no smell,” Crowley laughed.
A small humanoid figure with bright red eyes and fly’s wings stepped out of the billowing cloud. They immediately perched on top of the television set, swinging their feet and glaring at Gabriel, whose smile looked ironed flat.
“I was in the middle of informing them about the competition,” Gabriel said through gritted teeth. “I have this covered.”
Beelzebub ignored him. “Listen up, worm food,” they said, “we’re playing baseball. Heaven against Hell. Be there… or don’t.” They took in the compromising position the couple were in with a sneer.
“Oh, we’ll be there,” Crowley said with a grin.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Aziraphale agreed.
“Good.” Beelzebub sunk back into the floor. Gabriel rubbed his forehead, took some celestial antacids, and disappeared with the crack of a thunderbolt.
The redheaded demon swaggered onto the field. Aziraphale’s jaw dropped open. “Good Lord, Crowley, what are you wearing?”
He was clad in pearlescent pink booty shorts and a purple tanktop with side cutouts that read, ‘If you wanted a SOFT SERVE you should have gone to DAIRY QUEEN!’
“Baseball!” He grinned and pointed at the unmistakable white-striped vinyl volleyball in the center of his shirt. “It’s my uniform.”
“Crowley, that’s not...” He trailed off, unsure of where to begin. “This is a baseball uniform.” He gestured at his own outfit, which featured blue wool knickers, white flannel shirt, flat topped cap, bow tie, a leather belt cinched at his waist, and white stockings which clung (quite fetchingly) to his calves. Crowley circled him, admiring him from all angles. “The sport’s been around for almost two hundred years. That’s plenty of time for even an immortal such as ourselves to catch on.”
Crowley shrugged. “You think I pay attention to that kind of thing? Never been my arena. Literally. Hell has never paid me to sit around on some sticky metal seats, yawning myself to death.”
“Still, dear.” Aziraphale looked unimpressed. “You might take the effort to pick up something of the culture, now and again.”
His jaw dropped open. “You’re encouraging me to try and get with the times?!”
Aziraphale sniffed a bit haughtily. “I at least bothered to research baseball before coming.”
Crowley looked him up and down. “And was that research from the 1840s?”
Aziraphale glanced down at his outfit then shot Crowley a Look. “If you must know, the modern uniforms are bit too flashy for my taste. I prefer the older ones.” He paused and eyed Crowley’s shorts appreciatively. “At least I picked the right sport.”
Crowley noticed where his eyes were drifting and shrugged, modeling a little for his datemate’s benefit. “They make my butt look good.”
Gabriel had managed to assemble a semi-accurate modern baseball uniform, but he had included a bicycle helmet for some reason. His whole uniform was white, except for the purple cursive “Angels” written across his chest.
Sandalphon proudly presented the ball.
Beelzebub and Gabriel stared at it blankly.
“Sandalphon,” Gabriel began. “You are so very clever, it astonishes me sometimes.”
“Thank you,” he droned, beaming from ear to ear as Gabriel steered him away from the pitcher’s mound.
“But, Sandalphon,” he continued, “this is the wrong ball.”
Together they investigated the brown, ovoid ball with white ribbing in the center.
“It’s certainly a genuine sports ball,” Sandalphon said flatly. “I picked it up from a stadium myself.”
“I understand that, Sandalphon. But the humans have lots of sports.” He turned the football over in his hands. “So many different sports. And each one has its own ball, or equivalent. This simply won’t do, I’m afraid.”
“Oh. Okay.” He took the ball and cradled it in his arms like a baby, trundling away with his head hanging low.
Beelzebub, who was beyond irritated by this whole interaction, summoned a baseball from the particular pit of hell where they tortured out-of-shape, insecure geeks. It burst into blue flame in their hands. “Ladies, gentlemen, creatures, beings, and assorted bastards!” they shouted. “Let the games begin!”
Aziraphale and Crowley were now sitting in the bleachers watching the game.
They had both been benched for the entire first four innings. Crowley wasn’t even sure why they had been invited in the first place; everyone on either team was still too frightened of them to try talking to them. Bored and lonely, Crowley had snuck out behind the Devils’ dugout to play on his phone. He was soon joined by Aziraphale, and together they’d wandered into the stands to watch the game on the huge screen (or in Aziraphale’s case, with binoculars).
Michael was fuming. “You have clearly duplicated a player in order to load the bases!”
The Erics waved cheerily at her from the field.
“Unfair! Unfair! Reverse the call!” Dagon shouted from the bench.
“Dear, I don’t think any of them have any idea what baseball is,” Aziraphale commented.
“No, I don’t think so,” Crowley agreed, as Hastur tried to hit the baseball with a golf club instead of a bat. He took some time to admire his angel, who was ‘oohing’ as he watched Dagon go nose-to-nose with Michael, still arguing fervently over some rule. Uriel was in the shortstop’s position. She was wearing a catcher’s mitt on each hand and laying flat on her back in the field, apparently in utter despair.
Their attention was pulled away when Hastur began shouting at Sandalphon. He started swinging his golf club at Sandalphon, while Gabriel tried to shield the other angel with his body. Beelzebub was laughing so hard that they looked in danger of falling over.
Aziraphale sighed at the display. It was starting to rain, dismal grey clouds dappling himself and Crowley with damp. The field would soon be a muddy mess.
“Wanna go home and snog some more?” Crowley asked him.
“That’s a wonderful idea, my dear.”
Anathema and Newt were sitting around the dining nook in Jasmine Cottage sipping tea and watching a thunderstorm rage outside.
“You know,” Newt began. He paused a moment to watch a lightning bolt flash across the sky. “I thought I heard somewhere that thunderstorms were angels playing baseball.”
Anathema turned her head to give him a bemused look. “I’m pretty sure you’re thinking of Twilight.”
“Because in Twilight, the vampires can only play baseball when there’s a storm out. The sound of them hitting the ball is like a crack of thunder, and it would scare the humans otherwise. Remember?” Anathema was a millennial, like Newt, and she had once forced him to watch Twilight with her, reasoning that ‘Every millennial should see Twilight at least once!’
Newt scrunched up his face as he pondered this. “I think I was thinking of Twilight,” he finally said.
“And anyway,” she added, “can you imagine Crowley or Aziraphale playing baseball?”
Newt let out a giggle. “That would be a sight to see.”
I hope you enjoyed our silly fic! If you have a GO prompt feel free to send it my way!
