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 Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2016 12:50 pm
Tracey tried very hard to be heavenly in everything he thought and did and generally made it policy to never hate or dislike anyone.
B0nez made this particular resolution very very hard indeed.
It wasn't that he was horrible or truly evil the way so many of the demons in hell were, those were easy to pity or dispense firm justice to depending on what was warranted. He was just downright annoying, the relentless irritating sort of annoying normally reserved for very eager younger siblings.
And yet he was the best connection he had with Hell and what they were up to and sometimes, very rarely he was able to glean a small nugget of information from the demon.
And that was why he was there. The restaurant wasn't fancy, it couldn't be really, all the fancy places did ID checks and he had the misfortune of looking far, far too young to be drinking most of the time. But he did rather like his wine, so small concessions had to be made. This place looked like it mostly dealt in cheap pizza and burgers and most of the patrons looked like they'd stumbled in or out from bars.
A fly buzzed in the window, flying into the neon signage with said "OPEN" over and over. It made him wonder if B0nez was already here, or if it was just an incidental fly, in the right place at the right time. Ineffability was like that sometimes.
He waited, and he had a long time to wait if he had to, and for a little bit, he let himself look as weary as he felt lately.
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2016 10:06 pm
It was also difficult to tell if it was the neon buzzing or the fly. Or if the buzzing was coming from the glass door, which seemed to indicate it had become much, much darker outside.
The door jangled.
Helping himself to the booth, what looked like a 14-year-old boy (if you were being generous) hopped up into the seat across from Tracey, looking very pleased. His emotional state usually rocketed back and forth between excited and angry, and with Tracey it was mostly the first one.
He folded his hands on the table in a super business like way.
"Terry Rankle!" He commanded sharply, and one server in particular seemed alarmed. "We need six pizzas pretty much like right now. Two with every non-meat, two with every meat, and two with every all of those things."
He did not order a drink, slapping a thermos on the table instead.
"You'll like them," B0nez whispered to Tracey confidentially, "The red parts ooze out like blood, but it's not flesh at all! Heheheheheheh," He pushed up his glasses to wipe his eyes of a black ichor, then held up his hand.
The fly, who had gotten tired of the neon, hurried over to give him what looked like a tiny high five.
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Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2016 5:21 am
Tracey gave the boy a very long and irritated look, his expression almost always twisted into a stern look of disapproval around him, feeling like someone forced to babysit a very excitable and embarrassing younger sibling. Even when he intended to be cordial and friendly, he knew he'd end up getting annoyed about it within five minutes.
Tracey's disapproving levels seemed to level up at the use of a poor young man's name and he drummed one perfect set of nails on the table.
"Be nice." he said, and gave the alarmed man a he always does this sort of smile, it didn't seem to soothe him, he had the feeling he was working the wrong shift at the wrong time.
"And I can't imagine why I would like them due to that." Tracey said. He was already nursing a wine in one hand. "I primarily deal in literalities. "
Wearily trudging into formalities like a man consigned to walk in the mud he asked. "You've been well I hope?" It was obvious from his tone he didn't hope that at all. "Your people have been causing trouble. As usual."
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Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2016 10:10 am
"You don't like blood?" B0nez asked, surprised. "Come on, everybody likes blood. Altars, incense, temples, it's holy as s**t. And we did a focus group for it. You are...seriously missing out."
He put his phone on the table, fiddling with it while he talked.
"I've been great!" B0nez said, "And I hope so, if they weren't causing trouble we'd have to have, I don't know, some kind of synergy meeting. Is this a business thing? I thought you just wanted to hang out," he said, seeming slightly disappointed.
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Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2016 2:14 pm
"I don't mind blood, there are plenty of places where it is appropriate. But I don't want it spilled, nor do I endorse altars or temples unless it is the wine turned to blood sort. I don't think I am missing out on anything."
Tracey watched him mess with his phone and wrinkled his nose thinking it was rather rude to have one's phone out at a dinner. Elsewhere another him was doing paperwork, but he didn't think that constituted rudeness in the same way.
"Can't it be both?" he said. "There's just something going on and as always I know you know more than you let on. I know you are missing a duke and I know that thor's been flitting around Earth so gluttony are up to something, I hear things." He took another sip of the wine and let it take at least some effect on him.
"Mrost is chomping at the bit to get out there and I don't want him to have a reason to do so."
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Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2016 8:52 pm
"You can tell Ol' Lets-just-raze-every-city-because-they're-Sin-factories-anyway, 'Thanks for the free farming bro'. That's from me, you can say I said that. And he's not missing, he's on vacation, because we actually comp our side with actual time off, and since he hasn't taken any since, like, The Event, he has about a couple unclaimed centuries under his belt."
He plunked a straw in his thermos and slurped it noisily. Tracey could smell the pungent Sin in the air. It had a tendency (to Angel noses) to fill the room, like brewed coffee.
"He just forgot to fill out the forms for it. ....So I did. It's not a big deal. Let the guy have some tits and tequilas."
It had better be a vacation. At least filling the Temp position was going to be hilarious.
"Maybe he texted one of the other dukes to meet up for drinks. Or they both wanted to get back to basics. Get their hands dirty with fresh Sin right at its dirty, dirt-made earth source. I have absolutely zero scheming going down except, you know, the usual scheming."
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Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 6:05 am
“You know if I tell him that it will set him off immediately.” And that was probably why he said it, Tracey thought. Mrost always teetered precariously on the edge of sinning, flawed and imperfect and holding on only through sheer force of zealotry and fear. He was guilty of many vices, wrath and pride foremost of these and it took a great deal of manoeuvring to keep him out of hell’s clutches. Sometimes reminding him that B0nez still existed was enough to push him back from the brink, even if it did trigger an unsightly episode of wrath. One had to weigh one’s options and in this case it might be best to let the army go in and stamp around a bit to flush out the snakes in the grass. “But can’t say that I didn’t warn you.”
The idea that the duke of Envy had been permitted some sort of holiday on Earth was both ridiculous and yet under the supervision of the demon in front of him, it made sense. Of course that was what it was, of course. However, that didn’t mean it was all it was and that there weren’t larger machinations at work neither of them were about to discuss. After all, he didn’t expect him to lay all of Hell’s plans out on the table
Tracey looked queasy at the smell of SIN. It always irritated him, getting into everything and reminding him of the very singular smell of the old laboratories and those who had worked in them too long. The most distressing part of it had always been that it smelled so good, so wonderfully delicious. LIFE was sweet and high and light, clean and crisp like a breath of air across a grassy hilltop but SIN smelled like something hearty, something that would settle in the core of you and fill you up, satisfy you in ways unimaginable. Tracey wasn’t tempted by it though, even though he was aware of its allures, of all angels he was committed in a truly absolute fashion to LIFE and its properties. The cloying smell simply turned his stomach when he considered what it would do to him and what the shift in the balance might do to everyone else.
“Envy and Gluttony never got along.” He said. “Gluttony’s generous but there’s only so much one can give to someone who wants literally everything you have and then more besides.”
He shrugged and as the pizzas arrived, took a bite of one, if only to get rid of the way SIN was filling up his human shape’s sinuses. He daintily chewed, swallowed and said. “So you haven’t heard anything about The Garden? Because a little bird told me that’s what Thor had been asking about. If you don’t know, maybe you should.”
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Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 12:16 pm
"I don't actually care about him putting all of his considerable attentions on Nowheresville."
B0nez wiggled a wedge of meat pizza loose and pushed it to the side, where a bunch of flies immediately covered it. He surreptitiously began piling the other pieces on his side of the table.
"Okay, first, both sides have been looking for that since forever. And if we did find it, we both already kind of technically if not entirely agreed we are turning the contents over to The Labs in Purgatory so we can make, like, mutual progress and blah blah blah. Except for Thor. Who probably wants to eat it."
B0nez looked alarmed, then slapped the table and pointed at Tracey.
"We have to find it first! ...Except let's face it, it will probably be me."
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Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 12:17 pm
“I care.” Tracey said testily. “The last time he thought that it was worth eradicating a Hell problem at the expense of humans we had an enormous fertiliser explosion problem in a quaint little town. He’s already been talking about how it would be really easy to get rid of the corporeal forms of the troublemakers and set them back a few hundred years than do anything to stop them. I don’t want more people to get hurt as collateral” he sighed. “Sorry, these aren’t your problems.” There was just frankly no one else he could even discuss any of it with and it was always stupidly easy to forget that the demon sitting opposite him was potentially one of the biggest threats moving in the world right now when he was also one of his most significant allies in the cause of saving their entire species from a destructive civil war.
He was used to the flies for the most part, though they still were completely repulsive, and he moved his own small slice of pilfered pizza away from the others and hunched just a little over it protectively before chiding himself that that was covetous and setting it more openly in front of him.
“I’m just concerned he has found something we haven’t and am yes, concerned exactly for the whole eating it reason you mentioned. Not to mention I know that some of our people would like it to essentially reset the world if the rumoured powers are true. I’m with you, progress in the labs would be the ideal end, but there are plenty of yours and ours I don’t want to get hold of it first.”
He looked a little bit alarmed at the idea of getting tied to something as /involved/ as hunting down the garden. He’d managed to keep his head down for thousands of years, nothing more than an admin chasing up silly technicalities and trivial principality missions. Getting involved with The Garden would be Serious.
“I might have already started amassing the ambient LIFE in heaven and Earth.” He said, finishing off his wine as he looked out of the restaurant’s grimy windows. There was always some degree of ambient power floating around in places, if a host of sufficient power pushed it all together, then new Host would have a very high chance of forming from the resultant energy. “Just out of /caution/, you know.”
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Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 10:13 pm
"Just send him out on an even more nonsense task. Tell him some really fishy stuff has been going down on an abandoned asteroid."
B0nez rolled his eyes at the reset idea.
"...Oh, yeah, because the last reset totally got rid of SIN. Really worked for you guys. THE PURGE II: This time it's totally happening! Look, no one really knows what certain gardens actually could do. I mean, that was way back, when He still..."
B0nez looked at his thermos awkwardly.
"Anyway, it was before humans could be used as a farming source, and our, eh, R+D head came through but it was a really long time ago. It's probably not even better than what we've got going now."
B0nez grinned though at the mention of amassing something.
"Hoarding it, even?" He asked, and resting his chin in one hand and making an almost lovey circle on the table with one finger. "Greedily, you might say?"
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Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2016 4:10 am
Tracey couldn’t help but laugh at the suggestion. “Frankly I’d love to.” He said, imagining with no small amount of satisfaction something which would get rid of Mrost for any amount of time. The other angel did not relent in his campaigning to get Tracey overthrown and to run heaven himself instead. He had amassed a sizeable degree of support by being agreeable to everyone except Tracey and by having a party line which sounded like definitive action but which was in reality absolutely horrible. It was a problem and though Ashley - his assistant and stand-in for the role of General of Patience - relayed the grievances of the militant masses to him there was not a great deal he could do, the lull of relative peace on Earth had made them hungry for a return to the bad old days of oppression, guilt and fear and in places seemed to even be having an effect, one which incidentally played right into Hell's hands most of the time.
"Exactly. It didn't work then, it wouldn't work now, all it would do would end up with the people who shouldn't be strong even stronger and Earth more helpless than even those days without ..." he trailed off, aware that if he (and especially him) spoke the King's name on Earth it would cause a rather significant Incident and opting to sidestep instead "the most holy to oversee how it plays out in person. We were entrusted this, all of us and it's up to us to deal with it without always looking for a do-over every few million years."
"If we had the garden we would use it for what it was supposed to be used for."
B0nez got a cool look for his comment and Tracey fidgeted with the pizza crust awkwardly, looking a little on the spot and flustered. He pointed it at demon. "No! Not greedily. Just.. patiently. Preparing for a disaster. Not hoarding, it's being shared all right? Shared with whoever forms from it."
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Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2016 11:31 pm
"Who knows, maybe there's a Reason they've been trying to keep it out of everyone's hands. Makes it even more tempting, eh? I mean, I'm pretty curious at this point. ...And yes, yes, I know, I'm kidding, it's good to prep."
He drizzled some of the Sin on his pizza, which sizzled and changed in reaction, twisting into gently hissing spirals.
He took a bite, and it trailed black, oozy cheese.
"Okay, okay," he waved the air peskily, "So that's business, right? So how are you? What have you been up to? Nothing fun, as usual?"
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Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2016 4:04 am
"Maybe, or it could be a test of faith and self control we can't afford to fail." Sometimes he yearned to be able to really hear the song in LIFE again, to be able to lean back and decipher the words writ impossibly large in the sweet sonorous echoes of it all. He felt lost and like a child even now. It wasn't Hell, but it was difficult regardless.
He moved his glass away from the pizza which was becoming slowly more nightmarish.
"How do you even have time for fun? I always have to be dealing with something. Heaven doesn't get vacation days, I don't think I've ever really had one." he sighed.
"What sort of things do you do for ...." and he looked uncertain if the word was a scandlous one "..leisure?"
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Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2016 7:48 pm
"Earth's a great one. Vegas, Miami, London, Amsterdam, Ibiza! So eh, so I hear, anyway. I mean, I've obviously been. I party all the time," B0nez said, taking a nervous sip of his drink.
His leisure time was mostly video games and messing with Above.
"Oh!" B0nez snapped his fingers, "They have reviews now! Review services, for things! FOR LEISURE! We could both take some time. Mrost can come too. If you drug him, like, just a little. I could get Sloth to whip something up. We can roadtrip! Multi-tasking! It'll be fun! You could say I drugged you too."
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Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2016 2:13 pm
Tracey smiled faintly "Oh I'm sure you do. Well known for it, parties non stop." He wasn't about to accuse B0nez of being a workaholic when he counted himself certainly as one. In fact, in spite of being ranked how he was and part of the faction he was he could definitely see the demon spending long hours in a computer lab over a party of any sort and often had.
"Oh." Tracey said. "Those sites. I don't like review sites, they always say such very mean things and then people get despirited. It can be very spiteful. I would prefer a review site where you could only say nice things, never mean ones. That would be more positive."
He smiled at the suggestion about Mrost. "...As tempting as it would be to quiet him down a little ....relax him from his troublemaking, I think the repercussions afterwards would outweigh the fun." Fun. That was a word he didn't use very much. "And I don't think anyone would believe you could drug me. I don't even think it would work. I'm already so very zen, I'm like the good sort of Sloth, the kind that still gets work done."
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