( continues...) flaming sword out of misguided compassion, had once helped to avert the apocalypse, and had accidentally fallen in love with a demon called Crowley, smiles.

“Shut up and make me some tea,” he says fondly. “And a sandwich. A cheese and pickle sandwich. With some crisps on the side. On a clean plate.”

And Manny does.

I don't know Black Books, but that was the best thing I've read in ages.

::beams::

Bless you! Black Books is splendid, though! 3 seasons of 6 episodes each, oldskool UK sitcom from 2001ish, about the grumpiest chainsmoking pisshead bookshop owner in the history of bookshop owners, and his 2 best friends.

Fay, I know nothing of Black Books and I'd forgotten the names of the angel and demon from Good Omens until you sprung it at the end, but I love what you did with them. I could tell that they were totally inhabiting/consumed by these other characters and the way you brought the truth out was genius. And I squealed to think of them together.

I love Black Books and you totally captured those characters.

dances the dance of joy

Thank you!

Lovely, Fay. A smiling kiss to crown the rest of my day, whatever that may hold, this is lovely.

Oh, Fay. I've missed your writing voice so very, very much.

That is wonderful stuff, Fay. I don't know Manny or Bernard, but they are so vivid here I find I don't mind not knowing the source material.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Encouraged by this - and procrastinating with masochistic abandon (rather than running in to do REALLY URGENT THINGS at school), here is another one. Doctor Who/Black Books this time.

LOST IN SPACE (AND TIME)

“Where have you BEEN?” Bernard's voice is ragged and hoarse, but that's probably down to the fact that he was smoking three cigarettes simultaneously when they walked through the door. He bounces upright on the leather sofa and stubs all three fags out against the cover of a battered-looking Cliff Richard autobiography, then fixes Manny with a look of righteous indignation. “I have been subsisting on a diet of old teabags and nicotine! I had to roast that dead pigeon that's been lying in the garden for three months! I was reduced to licking the ink off old wine bottle labels! We ran out of WINE! I could have DIED!”

“You could have gone to Tesco,” counters Fran, looking unimpressed, before Manny can start apologising.

“Tesco is not for the likes of me! My kind are not welcome there!” Bernard proclaims, his lower lip wobbling piteously. “You deserted me! My own flesh and blood! Well, well, well I don't need you, either of you, I was getting on just fine without you! I've got new friends now! Better friends! True friends! Friends who won't say they're popping out to get a pizza and then never be seen again!” He slings a possessive arm around what looks suspiciously like a grimy pillow with a face scrawled on its front in magic marker. “This is Petey. Petey will never ever pop out to get pizza and leave me all alone for a whole week!”

“So you missed us, then?” says Fran.

“I'm sorry, Bernard!” Manny has been feeling vaguely guilty this whole time, and now that he sets eyes upon Bernard once again the guilt has swollen into a mighty tidal wave that threatens to drown him where he stands. “I'm really, truly, terribly sorry!” He has just had the most exciting experience of his life, but the whole time he kept thinking that it would be so much better if only Bernard could be there too. (Even though he was fairly sure Bernard would be scowling and making disparaging remarks the whole time.)

“And where is this bloody takes-a-week-to-cook-it pizza, then?” adds Bernard, in mounting indignation, looking from Manny to Fran and back again. “Petey and I thought you must have been grinding the wheat by hand to make the flour to make the pizza dough to make the stupid pizza. In Italy. But I'm not seeing any pizza. Do you see any pizza, Petey-old-pal-old-mate-old-chum?” He squeezes the pillow and makes it bob in what might, if you were feeling very generous, look faintly like a puppet-like motion. “No I don't, Mister Bernard,” he answers himself, in a squeaky voice.

“See, the thing is, we were only gone for a day, really,” says Manny. Bernard switches his glower up to eleven, and Manny hurriedly tries to explain. Fran perches on a table and lets him. “In our time line, it was only a day. Only, we were travelling in time and space, you see, and, and, and...you're not believing any of this, are you?”

“What, you were kidnapped by aliens?” Bernard pours all the withering scorn of which he is capable into this sentence. Fran and Manny exchange helpless glances, and then they both nod. Bernard snorts. “Did you hear that, Petey? They were kidnapped by ALIENS. On the way to the PIZZA PLACE. And then I suppose the dog ate your homework, did it? Did it? Eh? A-ha! Not so clever now, are you, my fine treacherous former friends? You have to get up pretty early to fool Bernard Black, and it's the early bird that catches the... thing that birds catch. Cold. Probably. Or possibly seed. Or something.” Bernard seems to sense that the sentence has run away with him. “So there!” he adds, for good measure.

“No, but he really was an alien, though,” says Manny. He frowns. “Although he was from the North. Which was a bit confusing.”

“An alien. From Yorkshire.”

“Or Manchester, maybe? He didn't say.”

“Gallifray,” says Fran helpfully. “I think it's near Huddersfield.”

“So your (continued...)