HERP DERP SECOND CHAPTER.

Okay lol here's the thing, I made a few edits to the first chapter. If you'd be so kind as to go back and check out the bit about Transit again, that would be awesome.

Also, the entire story takes place over the course of a week, so I'll just go ahead and put the days in the chapter title so you're all more aware of the timeline, shall I?

Herp derp durr.

Francis giggled and rolled over into Arthur's lap. "What," he stopped, hiccupped and tried again. "What about the time you killed that duck?"

Arthur snorted into his drink, not bothering to remove Francis from where he was invading the angel's personal space. "Sh- shuttup. Wasn't my fault. Damn bread was too hard. Wasn't my fault French loafs are hard. Damn French food. Killing ducks like that. How was I supposed to know a duck would die if you lobbed a bit of French bread at it? Stupid duck. Should've ducked."

Francis giggled harder, making the drink in his hand slosh onto the couch, something Arthur was too intoxicated to notice and berate him for. "Mon dieu, I don't think it was a French loaf, I think it was one of those awful scones you like to bake. I notice they always come out burnt, no matter how long you put them in for. In a way it must be something of a talent. It can't be easy to cook food so consistently bad."

Arthur frowned at nothing, nearly spilling his precious brandy onto Francis's head. "Shaddap. I'm still surprised that whatshisname, Gabriel, didn't come over and yell at me for it because he's got a stick up his Holier-than-thou arse. Killing is bad."

"But it was only a chicken."

"Duck. And no, killing is still bad."

"But ducks are tasty."

"No, you're missing the point. The point is, stop groping me you bastard, the point is," he reached over Francis's head to get to the only bottle with any liquid left in it –he couldn't remember how many he'd had- and clumsily tried to refill his glass. "The point is, you're not supposed to kill fings- things- when you're an angel because killing is bad- bugger it, screw the glass, it's too much of a has- hassel- it's a big pain."

The angel batted away Francis's wandering hands and took a swig from the bottle, wiping his mouth off on his hand and offering the bottle to the demon sprawled all over his couch- and legs. Francis yawned and declined the drink, deigning instead to finish what he was still holding.

They were in Arthur's little apartment. It had not been redecorated since the Victorian era, much to Francis's chargin. It was tiny, but comfortable, and had quite a nice view overlooking the neighbourhood.

Many people are obsessed with the idea that Heaven is blue and white and populated by clouds. This was not entirely true; there are rather more clouds than one would find on Earth, but they are at least twenty feet off the ground, and one would have to fly (or at least be very tall) to get anywhere near them. Also, although Heaven resembles a quiet suburban housing area, there are quite a few key differences between Heaven and say, New Jersey. For one, nobody has to pay electricity or water bills. There are also no cars, but nobody minds because nobody gets tired anyway.

But the truly remarkable thing about Heaven, Arthur personally felt, were the clouds everyone took for granted. These were not the silly ghosts you got on Earth; these were real clouds, heavy duty ones. The kind that you dreamt about as a child. They were soft and bouncy and tasted, as Arthur had discovered one afternoon, faintly of lemon meringue.

"How long have we been drinking, anyway?" Francis asked, reaching up to try and grab a few feathers off Arthur's wing. Arthur shook him off inexpertly.

"Dunno, ol' chap. More than a day, methinks." Being divine entities, as they were, they were not restricted by human limitations and could keep drinking for as long as they could stay awake, or until they felt like sobering up. Arthur vaguely remembered getting drunk, and staying drunk, for an entire weekend. He'd done it as a bet. God hadn't been terribly pleased, but at least Arthur hadn't crashed or gotten arrested while transporting souls. That took quite a bit of skill, that did.

As it turned out, drinking at his place had proven to be a pretty good idea. Had he been at Francis's suite ('bachelor pad' indeed, Arthur scoffed), he would probably have gotten too drunk to return to sobriety, and Francis would have had to haul him all the way home. Again.

"Don't you have work to do?" Francis tried again, eyes unfocused and trying to figure out if he was really seeing an extra head growing out or Arthur's neck. "Mon dieu, did your eyebrows just get thicker?"

"Bugger off, stop making fun of my eyebrows. And I have the day off today, believe it or not. Been looking forward to it for months. 'S just a day, really, but at least I don't have to work today because Raphael's taking over for me because he hasn't had anyone to heal lately, nice chap, even if he is a little bit effenimate- efenemenate- foppish."

"Then we should celebrate by getting absolutely pished," grinned Francis triumphantly, holding up his glass for a refill. Arthur chuckled and obliged him. "Way ahead of you, snail-sucker."

Francis hummed a thanks. "I'm surprised you're still cheerful, ange. Normally by now you would have started moaning about that ungrateful son of yours. You're a very depressed drunk."

Arthur grunted unhappily. "Thanks a lot, now you've gone and reminded me. God dammit, Alfred's not really my son, I only found him when he was a cherub but still, the silly twit hasn't got a lick of sense in him, or any manners! I know I raished him better 'n that, I know I did. I'm the bloody Transporter, that brat should respect me! But what does he do, he goesh and leaves me, just moves right out of my own house without telling me, had me worried shick, and when I finally find him he just laughs at me and calls me a clingy old man and tells me he needs his freedom and doesn't want to be oppressed any longer, I'm not a clingy old man! Am I a clingy old man?" he turned to face Francis, big green eyes beginning to go wet. Francis laughed and patted him on the head; or tried to, anyway, he might have missed a few times.

"That's more like it," was all he said, flopping back on the other side of the couch. Arthur let out a dry sob.

"That ungrateful bastard of a boy, I thought we could be friends and bond over our mutual dislike of you, Francis, but he didn't want to be my friend, he just wanted to tell me what to do, what to do, he doesn't even know what to do anyway I think that's total bollocks..."

He began to tilt dangerously to the side. "Am I Catholic or Potestant? God, I don't know anymore."

Francis seemed to ponder this for a moment. He furrowed his eyebrows in concentration, about to say something, when there was a sudden knock on the front door.

"Blaaaaaaaast. Who is it?" Arthur called over his shoulder, not in the mood to get up and investigate. Francis propped himself on one elbow to peer around the couch curiously. "Ange, you get visitors to your room? You didn't tell me you had services like that," he giggled, making the angel smack him.

"Shut up, you pervert. I- damn, who keeps knocking?"

A voice called through the door. It was young and melodic-sounding, cheeky and refreshing and as old as time.

"It's God."

"Bugger." The angel sat up, immediately sober. Francis made an odd noise somewhere between a curse and a yelp, and dived behind the couch as Arthur rushed to answer the door.

Before he could yank it open, the door sort of exploded inwards, revealing a robed cherub with an impish grin. In a blur of blue and white, He barrelled across the room and into His subordinate's stomach, effectively knocking him over and making him gasp for breath.

God sat up on His angel's chest. "Hullo," He said cheerfully.

"Hello," replied the angel, staring up into big blue eyes and fighting the urge to swear –not so much because he was in front of his boss, but because his boss took the form of a child, and the prospect of teaching a child such bad language didn't sit well with him.

"I have things for you to do today," said God conversationally, apparently not mindful of the fact that He was making himself comfortable on His employee's stomach. Arthur struggled to breathe.

"What kind of things exactly?"

"Lots of things. There's a lot of paperwork you need to do because Michael's off smiting things and he's forgotten to do them, and I need those reports on the Haiti earthquakes by today or everything will be thrown off-schedule, also you remember those horses I made a while ago and Raphael stuck some horns on them so they'd become unicorns? Well apparently some of them got loose and it turns out that those horns are rather more like drills and you need to find them before they make holes in Heaven and everything falls right smack down on top of Earth. And Gabriel's gone into one of his moods again and locked himself up in his room. Last I saw him he was ranting about how he was surrounded by idiots, and well, I need you to get him out because he promised to play with me this afternoon because it's my day off."

Arthur blinked and tried to process all this information. "I have to do all that?"

"Yup."

"But... but it's my day off too, sir."

"So?"

"So, I've been looking forward to this for weeks. You can't just go and give me work to do on my day off, it's not fair. And it's not even important work like smiting or saving people, it's silly things that anyone can do. Why does it have to be me?"

"There's nobody else."

"Bollocks, this place is swarming with people who aren't doing anything. Why don't You ask one of them?"

"But Aaaaaaaarthur," the child on his chest whined and shifted positions, "you know I can't trust those guys to do stuff. You're the only reliable person I know. That's the only reason I'm asking you to do this."

"Ridiculous!" snapped the angel, beginning to grow testy. "What do I look like, an intern? Find someone else to do all your ridiculous chores."

"No buts about it, Arthur. Don't make me demote you," replied God cheerfully, climbing off Arthur's chest and dusting Himself off.

Arthur glared at his boss from his position on the ground, furious. He opened his mouth to swear, but the words that came out were, "Sure thing, Boss, and might I add You look quite handsome today."

Arthur blinked, wondering what just happened. His features suddenly melted into a scowl. "You conniving- You made me say that, didn't You?"

"So it's settled, then?" God asked, with a wry smile that looked out-of-place on His round face. From his position behind the couch, Francis gulped. As much as he complained about the Devil, it seemed God was a force to be reckoned with as well.

The angel raised his head off the floor and sat up slowly, rubbing a sore spot on his elbow. God smiled fondly at him and gave him an affectionate pat on the head. "Cheer up, old guy. I'll make it up to you somehow. You can have another day off sometime and go and get drunk and smite things like you used to. Won't that be fun? By the way, demon guy, I can totally see you from behind the couch there. Say hi to the big jerk for me." With a final wave, God turned around and skipped out of the apartment.

Francis emerged cautiously from behind the angel's cream-coloured couch, not sure what to make of his boss being referred to as "the big jerk". He looked around for Arthur, only to find him still seated on the floor, head hanging rather dejectedly. Feeling sorry for him for once, Francis allowed himself to slide to the floor beside the angel. Arthur seemed apprehensive at having the demon so close, but relaxed as Francis's hand rested innocently on his shoulder and didn't wander anywhere south.

"Cheer up," he offered, knowing he wasn't helping much. Arthur let out a mournful sigh and drew his knees close to his chest. "This happens every time." His voice was muffled because he was speaking into his knees.

The demon nodded sympathetically, knowing full well that Arthur was right. Every time the angel got himself a day off –which was close to once a century, actually- something always seemed to come up at the last minute, forcing him to give up his vacation to go do his boss's bidding. It had been difficult trying to spend time with Arthur outside of work precisely because of this.

"I mean, who does he think he is?" Arthur suddenly lifted his head, gesturing with one hand while the other remained curled around his knees. "Really? Well, okay, he's God and everything, but does he really need to be such a slave driver? And the worst part, the absolute most infuriating thing that makes me want to find that flaming sword from the Roman Empire and go around chopping off some people's heads, is that I'm the only one being overworked like this. I haven't had a decent vacation in more than six thousand years. Do you know what it's like to have to work every day for six thousand years? My superiors aren't terribly helpful either. They call themselves Archangels but all they really do is goof off. The only one who ever does any real work is Gabriel, and even then he's prone to these ridiculous mood swings and bouts of depression and I always have to end up taking over. As if taking people to the gates of Heaven every day isn't enough work, I have to pretty much run Heaven single-handedly as well. It's not fair."

"You're right, it's not," said Francis thoughtfully, absentmindedly rubbing circles into the angel's back as Arthur let out a muffled sob. "They don't appreciate you here. It's really the exact opposite of what happens in Hell. There I always feel I can do more but I never get the chance because Hell's organization is so bad that nobody knows what goes where. Even when asked we just make things up. I'm bored out of my mind down there. Ferrying is literally the only thing I do every day."

"I'm sick of it. I'm sick of everything." Arthur sniffled pathetically and put his head in his hand. "I wish I could just leave. Go away for a bit and maybe live like a human. Don't they have it easy? Live a few decades, then die, then they have nothing to worry about. But I have to keep taking care of people because my job starts in the afterlife, which lasts for bloody eternally, oh yes. It's horrible."

Francis hummed noncommittally and continued patting his long-time rival on the back. Truth be told, an idea was beginning to form in his head.

"Ange," he said suddenly, making the angel look up. "Ange, you know how I keep saying Hell has better pay than Heaven?"

"You're not seriously going on about that again-"

"Non, listen. Hell also gives better working hours, doesn't it? As it is you barely have any time to go to Earth for leisure, am I right? When was the last time you went there when it wasn't work-related?"

"Aeons ago. I do believe it was around... well, probably around the Renaissance period."

"And when you are in Heaven, do you have to buy many things?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know, like groceries, electricity, wing-grooming items, things like that."

Arthur tilted his head and thought for a second. "No, nothing I can think of. Essentials are provided. Besides, angels are like demons in that they don't really need to eat. And you don't need many things to groom your wings. What's your point?"

Francis grinned broadly. "So what exactly do you spend your pay on?"

"Not much."

"And you've been saving it up all this time because you have nothing to spend on, am I right?"

"I suppose."

"And since Hell pays more than Heaven, I actually still have quite a lot of money left over despite the fact that I tend to buy more things on Earth than you do."

"Okay, so?"

"So," the demon stood, dusting off his pants and offering a hand to Arthur, smile still in place, "I think I know exactly what we're going to do!"