Before you start reading, there are a few things I need to say. First, I wrote this because the entire idea seemed appealing. I'm not a philosopher and you shouldn't take anything I write here seriously. Secondly, although I mostly write crack, this time I went for something more quiet and thoughtful. I hope you'll enjoy it. Third, I mean no disrespect with the hold WWII reference, I was only using it because it was convenient for the point I was trying to put across. This is in no way historically accurate. Fourth, ange here means angel. Since, in fice, Francis always refers to Arthur as "Alglais", I thought it would be nice to change it to "ange" for this fic. And finally, Ludwig's name is not really Muller. I just made that up.
The angel took note of the absence of human life as he strode purposefully down the corridors of Hell. It had changed a lot since the last time he had been there. The fire and brimstone had been replaced with chic, modern furniture reminiscent of an upscale office building, and everything looked... expensive. Expecting to find the place swarming with bat-winged demons as it had been just a hundred year ago, the angel was greeted instead by perfectly normal-looking workers, dressed in impeccable suits and passing paperwork to one another, sipping the occasional coffee and taking important phone calls. That is, they looked normal, until you happened to notice the horns protruding from their foreheads, or the idly swishing tail on every single one of them. A few of them turned to watch him as he walked past, eyeing his traditional toga and halo with apparent disdain. The angel, not for the first time, felt a bristle of irritation towards Hell and its bloody obsession with fashion. It was no wonder, however. Hell did have all the best designers.
But the angel couldn't be distracted from his true purpose. Nodding politely to a passing demon (for he was an angel after all, and it would not do to be rude in someone else's domain, even if they were being insufferable), he stepped smartly into the lift and pressed the lowest button there was. Level 000 – the deepest level of Hell.
As the elevator doors slid open noiselessly and classy jazz music filtered out into the air, the angel couldn't help but let out a soft whistle at the sheer size of the redecorated plane. The room spread literally for miles, and every inch was decorated tastefully in luxurious mahogany. Dark leather armchairs were arranged in one corner. They looked comfortable, although angel found this ironic. Comfort in Hell? The devil really did have a sick sense of humour.
The angel's sandals squeaked slightly on the highly polished wood floor. He paid them no mind, however. His destination was the middle of the room, where a single receptionist's desk sat, dwarfed rather comically by the rest of the room. The handsome blond sitting at the desk looked up as the angel approached, and gave him a dazzling smile.
"Bonjour, ange," he said in a voice like black velvet. The angel remained unimpressed.
"Cut that out, you know I don't speak gibberish."
The other blonde's smile didn't falter, although he immediately switched to heavily accented English. "Ah, I do apologize. I forgot you were an angel, and therefore you have decided to speak the most boring language on Earth."
"Sod off. You and I both know you aren't really French. Besides, English is a bloody good language."
"But, mon cher, I choose to speak French because it is the language of passion! I am a very loving individual, although I'm sure you wouldn't understand."
The angel rolled his eyes, not bothering to even try to hide his disapproval. He had known this particular demon for years. For some unfathomable reason, he had chosen to follow the angel around and muck up his plans, insult his eyebrows and generally cause as much trouble as possible for him. Had the angel been anything but the very epitome of all things good and holy, he would most definitely have borne a monumental grudge against this particular demon for the amount of times he had ruined the angel's plans to do good. As it were, the angel suspected all this was done more out of boredom than any pressing need to get the angel in trouble with his boss.
"Shut up for a minute, you rotter, I have something important I need to talk to you about."
The demon batted his eyelashes and leaned across the table seductively, expensive jacket tightening around his waist in a way to expose a very attractive build. "Have you finally decided to leave those prudes and come join me down here in Hell?" he purred in a way that would make most mortals swoon. The angel, however, simply grunted.
"Now why would I want to leave a nice place like Heaven?" he asked, twirling his wand lightly. By right, he should really have been holding a harp, but he just found the thing so cumbersome, and besides, the wand was really much more useful. It wasn't like he actually knew how to play a harp, anyway.
"Heaven, a nice place?" The demon laughed this time, and really, something borne out of the fiery pits of Hell should not have such a smooth voice. "Come, mon ange, don't you think that Heaven gets boring after a few thousand years? The colour scheme has not changed once since it was created. How do you stand it?"
"Blue and white happens to be a very soothing combination," the angel replied, a little miffed. "Anyway, it isn't my fault that the designs haven't changed. Ask my boss. It's all his idea."
The demon's crooked smile widened somewhat. "But hell is a much nicer place to work, non? The benefits are much better than the ones you get. We have shorter working hours and better pay, also we get to spend every weekend on Earth. You angels get to go, what, twice a month? And the Devil allows us to change the design of the workplace every few hundred years. This theme was my idea, by the way. I thought it would be lovely to have a modern office building. So tasteful, too. Although I must say the others didn't help very much in designing this place," he sniffed.
The angel knew exactly who these "others" were. Two other demons were constantly hanging around this one. One of them was the most obnoxiously loud being the angel had ever seen, although for some reason he hardly seemed to work anymore. Most of the time the angel would just see him lounging around in bars on Earth, drinking his weight in alcohol. He was easily recognizable by his white hair and fiery red eyes. The other demon was one that, the angel was proud to say, he had defeated in quite a number of little scuffles. Although, as one of the angel's partners -an obnoxious, bespectacled blonde oaf who was constantly stuffing human junk food down his throat- would point out, this demon was quite painfully stupid. Many of the angels had noticed recently that he seemed to be hanging around Heaven a lot lately, making puppy eyes at one of the angel twins, the bad-tempered one with the sharp tongue and the ridiculous curl on his head. If the English angel had not known any better, he would have said that the twin was enjoying the attention.
"Speaking of which, where are those idiot friends of yours? Out bringing mortals into the realm of Beelzebub while you sit here and do nothing? Been demoted to the position of a receptionist, I see," said the angel conversationally, enjoying the momentary twitch of the demon's eyebrow and the sudden stiffness behind the smile. It was the angel's turn to laugh, a light, tinkling sound like the ringing of bells. The demon pursed his lips.
"Oui, they are out bringing back souls for my employer. And I shall have you know, ange, that this was most definitely not a demotion. Satan simply saw fit to put me in charge of greeting guests because of my, dare I say, devilishly good looks. It has nothing to do with the quality of my work. You should know I happen to be one of the most senior demons here."
"Yes, I do know that, you old frog. I also know you well enough to remember all the times you got distracted by mortal women –and men, come to think of it- and forgot to finish your job. I'm almost as old as you are, anyway, and I'm just as senior as you in Heaven," replied the angel, thinking of the only employee who had been around for longer than he- a slight, agile man with dark hair tied into a ponytail, who was far more childish than his age would suggest. Even the blonde angel had no idea how ancient the Asian-looking angel was. He was, though, for some reason always seen holding a deformed cat puppet from Earth. Shinatty, he called it.
The demon's back straightened with indignation at the accusation of improper work ethic, delighting the angel to no end. The demon sniffed haughtily. "I am extremely good at what I do, and your opinion does not matter to me."
"Stuff and nonsense," said the angel, purely out of malice. He softened, though, allowing a small smile to cross his features. "I happen to know that you aren't quite as bad as you claim to be. I remember a little boy."
The demon looked at the angel guiltily. Yes, the little one. Mathieu. Tiny and soft-spoken and unnoticeable and abandoned. Left out in the cold to fend for himself when his caregivers had been taken away to Heaven. The demon knew he should not have interfered. But seeing the child quivering in a corner, trying desperately not to cry, had awakened a feeling he didn't even know he was capable of experiencing, and he had taken the little mortal into his arms and brought him to the doors of a church. Stayed there all night until one of the pastors had found the child, half-frozen, and taken him in. Turned around to go back to Hell, only to find an angel sitting there watching him with an insufferably knowing look. Even after all these years, he still wondered why the angel had never reported him.
"I would have saved him, actually. I was about to, but you got to him first. I still went back to check on him, you know, until his time came as well," said the angel. "They raised him to be a clergyman, but he left the church and opened up an orphanage instead. He saved children who had no hope left. A bit like you did, actually." The angel regarded the demon from the corner of his eyes, making him squirm. The demon's head snapped up abruptly.
"You aren't all that holy either," he snapped, his control slipping for a moment to reveal a true demon's face, but quickly getting over his embarrassment and regaining composure, and the mask of a human. "Alcohol is a vice you have never been able to conquer," he said. The angel turned very red and sputtered for a moment, unsure of what to say. The demon grinned triumphantly. The angel scowled.
"Anyway! I came here on business, not to fraternize with the likes of you. There's a soul who just arrived in Hell."
"Many souls arrive in Hell all the time, ange, I'm afraid you're going to have to be more specific," replied the demon. The angel snapped in response. "There's one in particular, a German soldier by the name of Ludwig. Is he here or isn't he?"
"Hold on, let me check," the demon swivelled around in his chair to the computer on his desk –a Mac, the angel couldn't help but notice; everyone in Heaven was still using Windows- and typed quickly, fingers blurring over the keyboard with superhuman speed. "As you can see," said the demon conversationally, "souls are much easier to find now that we have upgraded all our systems. The method of torture has also changed. Fire and brimstone is so outdated. Now, we simply work our souls in these offices to the point of insanity, then revive their sanity, then work them some more. It is hardly an original idea, actually. It was borrowed from the humans. The things they bring upon themselves."
The computer made a beeping sound. The demon peered at the screen, handsome face frowning slightly. "Here he is, Ludwig Muller. Born 1919 in the Federal Republic of Germany, drafted into the German army at age 20. Blonde, blue eyes, 180 cm in height. Involved in the second World War. Deceased at age 86. Is that the one you were looking for?"
"Yes, that's him. My boss tells me that he doesn't belong here."
The demon looked up curiously and allowed his head to tilt slightly to the side. "Doesn't belong here? Ange, he was a Nazi. He did unspeakable things. How can you say he does not belong here?"
The angel chewed thoughtfully on his bottom lip. "You're right, he has done unspeakable things. However, we've been looking through his records and found something quite interesting. Apparently he used to hide Jews. Did you know that?"
"Non, I did not know that. What exactly did he do?"
"When there wasn't any actual fighting going on, he was usually put in charge of guarding concentration camps. Most of the time all he did was give out extra food rations. But after a year or so, he started to sneak prisoners out of their camps in the dead of night and set them free. Mostly he would rescue women and children. Sometimes he would let them stay in his own home for a while until they found a place to go. Had he been found out, he would have been put to death."
"That is something very unusual. Perhaps he is not such a bad person after all. But what difference does it make? He was still a Nazi soldier. They were one of history's biggest regrets."
The angel sighed uncomfortably, finally allowing himself to slide into a seat opposite his demonic counterpart. "I know he was. But you know, he was risking his life to save other people. Things like that are what good people do. Not the ones who belong in Hell."
"Are you saying that you want to take him back to Heaven?"
"I don't know." The angel rubbed gently at his temples. "Things get fuzzy here. There are times when you simply cannot decide where a person should go. Some of them commit unspeakable evil that even the Devil would never have thought up, then they turn around and show more grace than Heaven would ever have expected from a human. What do you do with people like these?"
The demon allowed a small, bitter smile at this. "I know what you mean. Humans, they can be... complicated, non? Some of them can make our jobs quite difficult. It would be easier if they chose just one path."
"They make things so difficult for themselves. Doing one thing when they believe in another. You would not believe how many pious people go to Hell because they have darkness in their souls."
"I have quite a good idea, actually," the demon smiled sardonically. "What would you have me do, ange? I could report this to my boss for you if you like. I shall see what he has to say about it."
The angel and the demon both shuddered involuntarily at the idea of the ruler of Hell. Despite Hell's routine makeovers, the Devil never changed. He was still always the big man with the perpetual smile and cold, cold, dead eyes. The man who wore a scarf despite the fire of Hell. The one formerly known as Lucifer.
The angel nodded and stood, straightening out his robes. "Request for him to put a hold on this man's retribution, will you? It would be best to keep him in limbo until we can come to an agreement. Thanks, frog."
"You are most welcome, my wonderfully unfashionable friend. Do say hello to your friends for me if you get the chance. Would you like me to walk you back to the exit?"
"I think I should be able to keep from getting lost, thanks. I'll come back when my boss has figured out what he wants to do. If he can ever stop mucking about with humans and be serious for once, that is," he muttered darkly, heading for the elevator and giving the demon a grudging wave which was cheerfully returned.
In the recesses of his mind, the angel wondered why his job was so difficult, and if he and the demon were really all that different. Both had near impossible jobs dealing with humans, and both were overworked mercilessly by their bosses. Really, the only difference between them was the sides they worked on. That, and the demon had a better sense of fashion.
But then again, perhaps it wasn't so bad. It was certainly better that being human, wasn't it? Imagine living for no longer than a few mere decades, being stuck between all sorts of decisions, having to feel intense emotions and do stupid things. The existence of a human was like a candle's flame. Bright, burning, passionate, and brief. But at the same time, beautiful in its own way. The light and warmth a human could give was remarkable, even if most of them never realised it. How many centuries would it take before one of them did?
As he stepped into the elevator, the angel shook his head to rid himself of such thoughts. It would not do to get involved with earthly matters. Humans were not his concern. He had to stay focused on his own duties and not get distracted. Things were hard enough without having to watch and wonder at the lives of mortals, as interesting as they were.
After all, it wasn't an easy job, being an angel. Especially one working for a blue-eyed child in a sailor's hat.
Yes, Sealand is God. The blue and white theme was a hint. :)
I'm kind of proud of this. Tell me what you think.
PS: Thanks Alina, for listening to me rant :D