Welcome to "Agony in New Jersey", a fanfiction of Dogma (a View Askew film by Kevin Smith), which follows the ex-angel of death Loki after the events which took place in the film.

Loki/Bartleby slash! :D

This is probably the highest rated fiction I have ever/will ever write. Be prepared for very profane language, romance, certain vague innuendo, drugs, violence, gore, angst and religious parody if that kind of thing upsets you, in the whole story. Just remember - God has a sense of humor too... Just look at the platypus!

Characters, basically everything owned by Kevin Smith. Including the last quote I referenced too. Heck, Kevin Smith owns my soul. Wait no, that's a lie. I already sold it to Satan for good school grades.

Chapter 1 - The Genesis of Awakening

Loki opened his eyes suddenly, and found himself staring up at a high light cream surface, feeling nauseous and dazed. He was lying on a small bed, and the walls of the chamber he was currently situated in were the same unadventurous shade as the ceiling. There was no other furniture in the room, and the general atmosphere was similar to that of a recently discarded cardboard box.

Just like any good old Jersey Motel, he thought.

Instinctively, his shivering hand felt for the stab wound in his side which he presumed would have killed him – after all, having spent much of his existence as the angelic equivalent of a hit-man, assuming whether a wound was mortal or not was not a particularly challenging task.

Then he thought back to the events that had happened, and the one who had done this to him. The name burned into his mind, a brand-mark on his soul, of which he would carry the burden eternally.

Bartleby.

He should never have thought about trusting that angel's word, and going against that of God's. And even if he did get on the right side of the other angel's again (the chances of which, he imagined, would be very slim), he knew all of them would know it was him who provoked God to enforce the ban that no angel should drink, amongst other new rules relating to his friendship with Bartleby.. Metatron would most certainly not be happy about that, considering how much he had enjoyed the wine Jesus had created from water at the wedding all those years ago.

But he ignored all the consequences and joined the rebellious angel, for a reason much more than the alcohol he had consumed that fateful day he was persuaded.

He remembered the last time he had seen Bartleby. Uncut wings had framed his beautiful form, and high above the church his breastplate shined like a silver sun through ruby-droplets of human blood. Finest marble could not hope to replicate his perfectly sculpted features. But he just couldn't agree with the atrocities that Bartleby was committing, a result of his human conscience having either improved or corrupted his angelic mind. His friend had simply gone too far.

He could have done it. He could have fought Bartleby. But then Bartleby had embraced him.

Loki wished that moment would last forever, with his friend's hand softly caressing the back of his neck, an alien yet familiar touch between angel and human. But then Bartleby reminded him of his new human faults, which would cause him to implement his next actions. As the knife buried itself in Loki's flesh, those words were uttered which still repeated themselves over and over in his head.

"You lost the faith".

He winced as he remembered the pain of the knife point's sudden blow into his all too vulnerable body, lasting for what seemed like hours, until it felt like the very core of his being was pierced by the cold metal of the weapon and Bartleby's cruel eyes.

He had grown to love those eyes, when they were soft and warm.

Then darkness had clouded his vision, and he could almost hear the clash of his metal breastplate against the hard ground, his life flickering away, like a ribbon caught in a gale, into the distance.

As their time progressed closer and closer to Jersey he could feel him becoming more callous and cold, until he could hardly tell him and the Morning Star apart with his blazing ambition and arrogant justifications. But his final glances only told of savage darkness, a lost angel slaughtering a weak human.

With this, he felt his eyes ache, and a deep grinding in his chest as Loki cried for the first time in an eternity. Trails like iridescent liquid emotion fell around his face. He turned and pushed his head into the pillow to sob and whimper to himself and the absent Bartleby who he, even still, loved passionately and yet hated deeply.

In anger he spun around and cracked his knuckles against the bed's wooden panel, but then collapsed on the bedsheets with exhaustion, softly and repetitively choking out his lost friend's name, with intermittent bursts of anger.

"Bartleby. Bartleby... Why? FUCKING WHY? Shit... I just want to know why..."

After a long while weeping and reflecting about how things could have been, Loki was tired and curled up silently, feeling the stinging sensation of tears drying on his face, and the rhythmical thrumming of a headache.

Angelic love is like no human love. It is pure, true, without any sexual lusts and desires. Refined, unforgettable devotion, compassion. Though impossible, and could never last - as a slave can only have one master, an angel must only have God and no others. Angels never got much of a choice when it came to serving God like this. But that was the way of things. They were obliged to be servants, not asked to be, like humans.

But was he still angel? More memories came back to him. Did this mean he had a...

"Holy shit!" He exclaimed as he moved his hand down his body and quickly recoiled at the unfamiliarity of it's form. A wave of shock and surprise came over him as he realized how different being a human was than he had first expected when Bartleby constructed the plan, which had taken him to wherever he currently was.

Loki again ran his hand over his strangely alive skin where the blade had entered. But he felt nothing - not a blemish or scar was present on his flesh.

Where am I? he pondered for a moment, and turned slightly to see a window with curtains drawn, letting a gentle hue of warm morning light through the material. He couldn't be in heaven, because the universe would have been non-existent should that have been the scenario. And he knew just from what he had heard that this probably wasn't hell.

Eventually curiosity had got the better of him, and hastily Loki began searching his back and shoulder blades for the bedraggled stumps of his late wings. As he uncloaked them, their pathetic forms became visible, but they were bandaged up well and there was a noticeably lacking amount of blood and loose feathers from where they had been hacked off, as though someone had taken reasonable care into helping him.

But all those hopes of the possibilities of who it could be dissolved when Jay and Silent Bob's faces appeared from around the door frame of the small room.

"Rise and shine featherbitch!" The slim blond grinned. Loki shuddered nervously, and with a hint of embarrassment when he saw them as he recalled the events prior to their arrival in Jersey. Being thrown out of a moving train is not something easily forgotten.

Although Loki did feel better when he remembered disagreeing with Bartleby's plan to destroy them all, that was swiftly put aside when Silent Bob narrowed his eyes aggressively at the former angel.

"Fuck, me and lunchbox here never thought you'd wake up. I swear to God, that Metafuck guy's got some seriously fucked-up shit to explain to you – Hell, I haven't got a clue what this is about." Then, after a short silence, he seemed to lose interest. "What you lookin' at, tubby bitch?" he said turning to Bob, who raised his expressive eyebrows. "Come on, let's go to the Quick Stop."

The prophets then left, and there was a small gap of time between the click of the closing door and the sound of a lock being turned. No point of trying to leave the room then.

Loki exhaled, relieved to be back to his own thoughts, and closed his tired eyes to fight an oncoming migraine. He imagined that this is how humans feel when experiencing a hangover.

Great. He sighed as he remembered the bottle of wine. He had drunk it to ease the pain while Bartleby had comforted him as, using the same knife that he would use to stab him, he cut the tendons in his uncloaked wings. Bones cracked and feathers fell, soaking his back with blood, until both landed on the ground with a sickening thud. Bartleby then had marched around the side of the church and on returning had found the cowering Cardinal, and gave him the bottle which he had found with him.

It wasn't much, but it didn't take much for Loki to feel the effects of alcohol. Or trust in Bartleby, helplessly ignorant of what his friend was to do.

Thoughts like these plagued his mind like thousands of buzzing locusts. He tried to banish them, to finally rest in the quiet of the room.

But just when he thought he was alone, he heard the Voice of God.