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Gabriel had developed a weird fondness for paperwork.
He’d never cared particularly about this part of bureaucratic work before; it was boring, too repetitive and made all processes go slower. The Archangel honestly didn’t see the need to so many files and reports, he thought it was mostly because lower ranked angels would have something to do and wouldn’t be idle.
Then Heaven and Hell agreed on a truce (just until the two traitors were executed, of course) and, due to unexpected factors (they survived), they never ended it properly. In fact, there was a huge pile of paperwork on his desk on the very next day in order to extend their arrangement for the foreseeable future.
Soon enough, Gabriel realised that working with Hell meant paperwork. Loads of paperwork. Apparently, demons couldn’t so much as breathe without filling and signing two copies of a report. The Archangel had filled more paperwork in the months working with Hell than he had in the previous 6000 years.
He should be sick of paperwork by now. He really should. But then Beelzebub offered to teach him to fill properly a report (“since you’re too dumb to even sign your own name right”) and they started meeting just to correct reports together. Beelzebub would snicker at how careless angels were with paperwork and sometimes they’d laugh together at some silly mistake that would doom some poor intern (angel or demon) to redo everything.
Hence, the sight of another huge pile of files to review didn’t bother Gabriel nearly as much as it should. He even liked it a little, because he knew he could use it as an excuse to meet with Beelzebub.
“Look at this one,” Gabriel handed Beelzebub the file he’d just corrected “everything is right, but the signature isn’t aligned, so they will have to redo it.” He smiled at Beelzebub’s subtle sneer. Gabriel learned soon enough how much The Prince of Hell enjoyed rejecting reports for silly little details.
“Seemz like you’ve finally learnt how to correct paperwork properly,” It was the closest to a compliment he’d get and Gabriel knew that. “But look at the one I just rejected.” Beelzebub handed him a file and took a sip of their extra-sweet frappuccino, looking smug.
“Everything seems right in this one,” Gabriel skimmed through it once again, but didn’t find anything wrong. “What’s the problem?”
“I don’t like the pen’s colour” They sounded too pleased with themselves. Gabriel found that endearing.
Not that he would ever say it out loud. He quite enjoyed the sensation of not being discorporated.
They spent some time correcting the pile of files in a comfortable silence. Gabriel used to get anxious in these silent moments with Beelzebub, but now it seemed different. There was no need to fill the silence with random remarks or endless speeches.
Beelzebub drained the last drop of frappuccino and licked the cup clean for good measure, then they threw the cup in the bin (“becauzze littering iz a too low-grade mischief for a Prinze of Hell, it izzn’t worth my time”, they told Gabriel once) and resumed dooming some poor interns lives with rejected paperwork.
Gabriel gestured to the waitress to order a new one out of habit. Beelzebub usually accepted it without a word, too concentrated in their task, or even gave him a soft “thankzz” if they were in a good mood.
“I’d like another frappuccino for my…” He vacillated. It was the time he usually says ‘business acquaintance’, but somehow it seemed… Wrong. “For zir” He gestured vaguely towards Beelzebub. “Decaffeinated, extra chocolate syrup, no chocolate chips and light ice, please.”
“Coming right up, sir.” She smiled politely, unfazed by his momentary confusion.
The rest of the meeting proceeded as usual, but Gabriel was left with a question on his mind.
Gabriel had been pacing back and forth his office for the past forty-five minutes. He thought the clean environment of Heaven, with its white walls and minimalistic décor, would help him to think straight.
He was wrong.
The question was: What Beelzebub and he even were?
Well, not literally… Obviously, he was an Archangel and ze was a Prince of Hell. But what they were together? Enemies who put up with each other? Business acquaintances? Heads of their respective departments who like to meet and commiserate together about the utterly incompetence of their coworkers?
….Friends?
No, it was ridiculous. They weren’t friends. Couldn’t be. They weren’t like those two traitors! Their interactions were completely business related!
…Except for that one time they had ice cream together. (Several times actually, if he was being honest)
Or the times Gabriel went to Beelzebub’s office just to chill and spend some time away from his stressful duties.
Or that time Beelzebub invited him to go to a park and observe the local fauna. They’d given him some poor excuse, but Gabriel believed they just wanted to take a break from work as well (they did seem oddly fond of catching bugs though).
And there was also that one time Gabriel—
Fuck.
He stopped pacing and nearly face-palmed. They had had many extra official meetings, hadn’t they?
As if on cue, his phone rang. It was a message from Beelzebub inviting him for “a dumb concert of that kind of music you like for some reason”. He grinned despite himself and texted back that they could meet up by 7:00 pm on their usual meeting place.
Their usual meeting place.
…When did things reach this point?
Beelzebub replied right away with an “okay”, even though Gabriel knew they’d arrive at least fifteen minutes late claiming they “had work to do” (Beelzebub just liked to mess with him a little, but the Prince of Hell would never admit it).
Well, it gave him the rest of the afternoon to sort out this problem minor inconvenience.
He and Beelzebub weren’t like those two traitors after all. It’d be absurd!
Gabriel put more thought in this problem than he had in all angelic issues so far.
He’d actually bothered to look for Heaven’s policy guideline, and no one had even touched this thing in centuries.
He read the damned think through and through again and again. Apparently, there were no rules about “associating with demons”, or “associating with Princes of Hell”, not even about “associating with other angels”. It was like whoever wrote that thing never thought an angel would have a deep relationship with anyone at all.
Or maybe they just thought “hey, angels can have whatever relationship they’d like with other angels, we are on the same side! Why would we need legislation for that? And no angel will ever associate with a demon”.
… Well, Gabriel conceded that, two years ago, it was his exact train of thought as well.
So Heaven had no policy whatsoever about it and he’d most certainly not ask Beelzebub about Hell’s guideline. Not until he had the flimsiest excuse for a plan at least. There was just one place left for his research then…
He sighed and opened a Google tab.
The human way it is…
“Lord Beelzebub,” Eric, one of the low-ranked demons, opened slowly their office’s door and stood awkwardly there “pardon my intrusion, but the Archangel Gabriel is here and demands to speak to you, even though he hasn’t scheduled it.” He took a step back and waited to see if his Prince would smite him for interrupting or let it slide.
Lucky for him, Lord Beelzebub was way more reasonable than Hastur. Or maybe they were just having a good day. It was hard to say with their always-present frown.
“Fine, you may let him in,” They dismissed him with a gesture. He bowed slightly and complied.
A few minutes later, the Archangel entered their office with some paperwork in hand and his typical holier-than-thou pose, that he just dropped when the door was closed and they were alone.
“Zo?” Beelzebub didn’t bother to conceal their speech impediment, just like they didn’t bother to miracle away the festering spots on their skin. It wasn’t like Gabriel had never seen them before. “What bringz the mighty Archangel Gabriel to the depthz of Hell?” They asked mockingly “Couldn’t wait until our meeting tonight?
“Well, you see,” Gabriel fiddled with the papers on his hands a little “that’s exactly what I want to discuss. We seem to spend a lot of time together outside our working hours, so I thought we should make sure we are on the same page,” He put the papers on their desk and Beelzebub automatically dropped their half-mocking tone, resuming their usual frown. Paperwork was always to be taken seriously after all.
Consensual Relationship Agreement.
Beelzebub would have arched their brows at the title if they weren’t so used by now to weird stuff in contracts and reports. They remembered that one time one of the demons made a full and rules-complying report by gluing dead ants to the paper. It was almost amazing how she managed to use ants’ bodies to make perfect commas and an impeccable calligraphy.
Anyway, back to the contract. It was obvious Gabriel had gotten it somewhere and just filled in the blanks. Too generic. Not that Beelzebub expected something different from an angel, they could barely fill paperwork correctly, let alone make a contract from scratch.
It read: The Archangel Gabriel, employed by Heaven as an Archangel, and Lord Beelzebub, employed by Hell as a Prince, hereby notify Heaven and Hell that we have entered into a voluntary and mutual consensual social relationship.
In entering into this relationship, we both understand and agree to the following:
- Our personal relationship is voluntary and consensual.
- We are both free to end the relationship at any time.
- If the social relationship should end, we both agree that we shall not allow the end of this relationship to negatively impact our job performance.
- We will act professionally in the workplace without public display of affection.
- We have received and reviewed Heaven's and Hell’s sexual-harassment policy, a copy of which is attached.
- We acknowledge that the social relationship between us does not violate Heaven's or Hell’s policies and that entering into the social relationship has not been made a condition or term of employment.
Gabriel had already signed his name on the bottom of all the copies and there was a blank line where Beelzebub’s signature was supposed to be. Beelzebub looked at him somewhat puzzled.
“Zo you want to send copiez for both our departments about our zupposed ‘social relationship’,” They kept a straight face despite the absurdity of the situation “Why?”
“We’re not like… Well, them.” He explained “So, if we’re going to keep our social meetings, I thought it should be fully documented and we should make it clear we’ll still be enemies when the next War comes,” Beelzebub nodded, it kinda made sense “Which brings me to my next question: does Hell have any sexual-harassment policy?”
“Of courze we do,” Beelzebub snapped their fingers and a copy of it appeared in his hands, but he had barely skimmed through it when Beelzebub quoted it for him:
“One is allowed to fight back, try and discorporate anyone who makes an attempt to sexually harass them, never mind their rank. If one is unable to fight back, they can either accept their fate or choose to discorporate themselves. Demons who choose to discorporate themselves to avoid sexual harassment will have slightly less paperwork and will be assigned a new body within three days, while demons who get discorporated by trying to sexually assault others will have to wait from a week to a month, since they gain no privileges,” They shrugged “What? Don’t tell me your side doesn’t have one?”
“Of course not, we are angels! We don’t need a sexual-harassment policy,” Gabriel feigned superiority to hide the fact that their guidelines lacked many vital aspects “We are holy.”
“Yezz, of courze, how could I forget?” Beelzebub rolled their eyes “I ztill can’t see how Heaven managed to even work before Hell assumed the bureaucratic part,” They moved to get a pen nonetheless. The sooner they signed that holy thing, the sooner they could get back to work.
“Where did you even find thiz ‘consensual relationship agreement’? It doesn’t seem like a Heavenly thing,” They gave Gabriel his signed copy and kept the other.
“Well… It’s a human thing,” He looked sheepish for a second.
“I thought so,” Beelzebub decided against pointing out that “Archangel” and “Prince” aren’t really jobs, but titles. Or that this agreement was probably meant for people working for the same company. Or that he was a complete moron about filling paperwork properly. Not that they wouldn’t like to point these things, but if they did Gabriel would want them to come up with a proper one, and Beelzebub wasn’t looking forward to reviewing Heaven’s and Hell’s respective rules and policies so as to make an appropriate contract. “If that was all, you may go,” They gestured towards the door, which was miracled open.
“Fine…” Gabriel vacillated “Just to be clear, as soon as the next Armageddon comes…?”
“I’ll zzzmite you fiercely,” Beelzebub agreed.
“Yes, well, good,” He smiled politely “Me too” He said in a reassuring tone, although he wasn’t sure who he wanted to convince.
Beelzebub hummed absentmindedly in agreement and Gabriel left.
Gabriel found their evening meeting much more enjoyable now that they’d solved that issue. He patted himself on the back for coming up with such a good solution.
Now they were both at a jazz concert, since Gabriel had found out some time ago he quite enjoyed jazz music. The way humans played the trumpet was simply stunning (even though he liked to believe he could do better if he resumed playing. He used to be the best at the trumpet after all and some millennia with no practice shouldn’t make any difference).
Beelzebub didn’t mind the music at all, but they liked the munchies and the way Gabriel’s purple eye’s looked mesmerized during the whole performance. Also, the disgusted faces of the one’s who saw them chewing their food thoroughly before spitting it and eating it again were pretty funny. (Personally, they preferred spilling digestive juices and saliva over their food, wait for it to melt and them just drink it; but the last time they did it in a fancy place they both got banished, so chewing and spitting was a good enough alternative)
They wondered vaguely if Gabriel realised the contract they got from the humans was, actually, meant for romantic relationships, not simply ‘social’ ones. Then they dismissed the idea, of course he didn’t, he could be such a dumbazzzz (with four Z’s).
Gabriel thought it’d be a shame to lose jazz music and the nice suits if the next Armageddon came to happen.
And Beelzebub assumed they’d somewhat miss the grossed out looks of pretentious people in fancy places (although they wouldn’t miss the fancy places per se) and catching insects in the woods if the next end of times worked out.
None of them realised they started thinking about it as “if it happens” rather than “when it happens”.
Beelzebub still couldn’t see the appeal of jazz music, but they were quite content in being there.