the good grace to know which is which (chapter two)

ii. The Speck From Your Own Eye

First theory shot down, he's going to have to find another one. 

So, given that he's not inclined to sit outside in the sun for the whole time he brainstorms, and it'll also just be terribly inefficient if he popped back up to Heaven without actually anything of note to say (because he's going to have to make a detailed report of every visit he’s going to make, however many he needs to for this job - his own rules, really, for angels not permanently stationed on earth, and he's just now realizing the horrific amount of paperwork he would have to make), he wanders around and tries to find someplace he'd be inconspicuous in, which is significantly a lot harder than he'd thought. 

His missions had usually been easy. Find the designated human, pop by them, give them the message, leave. More or less, the only grief they've ever given him was attempt to faint every now and then (Daniel, ugh), and miss out on the message. 

Whenever he'd had to visit any of the Earth-stationed angels, it was pretty much the same. The only place he'd ever actually deigned to visit outside of work was his favorite tailor shop, and he can't very well loiter there. There are rules, after all. 

Well, there was the park, but he usually jogged there. And that was in London.

Still. It was a public place and no one would think it odd if he was there, right? He could just pretend to be doing something, or just sit there. People sit in parks a lot.

So he directs his steps there, or tries to, since this isn’t London and he doesn’t know where the nearest park is. He’s bound to find it eventually, though, with a bit of walking, so he’s not too worried. Worse comes to worse, he can actually just fly and say it was done to be efficient (he misses the carefreeness that came with the apocawasn’t as he thinks this - the fact that they could just do miracle after miracle with no regard for ‘blending in’ because there wasn’t going to be a world to blend in with for long anyway, so there weren’t going to be consequences).

He walks, and walks, and after a while realizes that maybe his plan of just stumbling across the park wasn’t going to work, so he ducks under the shade of one of the overhangs near him. Right, so, he’s probably going to need a map, or directions. He should ask one of the humans. They’re good for that.

He looks around. He’s by a cafe, and there’s tables nearby for the customers who wanted a seat out, so there’s plenty of people for him to ask. Good. Spotting someone nearby with a hat and a map, he walks up to them, faux friendly smile on his face, until he realizes that the owner of the hat is also wearing some infuriatingly familiar red aviators, even when he’s only seen said aviators once.

“Oh, Satan preserve me, you again,” Beelzebub lowers their map. “What are you doing here?”

“Working,” Gabriel says, smile dropping. “Which I also assume you to be doing. Evil never rests.”

“Evil wishes it did, though,” they mutter, and then follow it up with something about a need for vacation days. “If that’s all, then this should be no problem, as we’re both just doing our jobs. Off with you now.”

They pick up their map again, straighten it out by pulling both ends of it harshly, and lift it up in a way that he can’t see their face anymore.

“Evil wiles and good thwarts, you forget that,” Gabriel reminds. 

“He’s still talking,” Beelzebub says.

Gabriel smiles, because that’s really his go-to expression, whether he’s genuinely happy, confused about something, or irritated.  “He is right here and can hear you.”

“I pray he stops doing that,” Beelzebub says. Gabriel swats the map out of their hands. They look affronted. 

“I don’t take too kindly to blasphemy,” he says. They just pick their map back up again.

“You don’t take too kindly to anything, Gabriel, what’s new,” they say. “And I’m not here to wile, I’m here to do my job, so kindly - how do you say it - piss off.”

“And is your job not to wile?” he asks.

Beelzebub raises an eyebrow at him. “That’s a little below my pay grade, Gabriel. I organize. I assign. I figure things out, I hand out the jobs, I’m the reason hell is running smoothly despite all the paperwork that has to be dealt with.”

“So you’re a pencil-pusher.”

Beelzebub sneers. “Pot, kettle.”

He frowns. 

“If you weren’t, then what are you doing here, then?” they ask, “Oh great messenger. Glorified news boy.”

“I am on a holy mission,” he says, straightening up a bit. Had his wings been on the physical plane, they would have spread out. 

“To?”

“None of your business.”

“Okay, off with you then.” They wave a hand to shoo him off.

His irritation just flares at that. Demons. Nasty little things ought to be squashed under his heel. He reviews the conditions of the Heaven-Hell treaty for a moment. If the reason for violence is defense, it not considered a breach of the treaty. If the smited party is guilty of messing about humans (they had to put a stop to that in order to avoid behind the scenes operations and going around the treaty), it is not considered a breach of the treaty. Any interaction resulting in evident harm outside of these conditions is a breach of the treaty.

He’s already shoved Beelzebub around a little, anyway, surely everyone would let him actually do some smiting and just let it slide?

“Well?” Beelzebub asks.

“What are you doing here, Beelzebub?” he asks instead, forcibly plastering that smile back on his face again.

“Work,” they repeat.

“What sort of work?”

“Infernal work.”

“Specify.”

“I’m my own manager, thank you, Gabriel,” they say. 

“Our treaty specifies that the use of human agents or underhanded human influence is prohibited. If you have broken these rules, I am well within my rights to smite you,” he says. 

Beelzebub answers slowly. “Is that why you’re here, to keep an eye on me?”

Angels don’t lie, so Gabriel just smiles wider, this time a little more sincere with the glee of one-upping the demon.

After a moment, Beelzebub sighs. “I’m here on a mission to figure out the Ineffable Plan,” they say. They force a fake smile of their own for a second. “Happy?”

He - pauses. 

That’s a surprise. 

They hadn’t been looking to rise after all. In fact, they’re pretty much on the same job as him, which, now that he thinks about it, isn’t actually that surprising given that the stalemate affects both Heaven and Hell. Downstairs must be getting antsy too, as much them, and they’ll likely want a fighting chance when the End does hit. 

Not that they’d win. Good always triumphs.

“A church?” he asks.

“If I wanted to know the Ineffable Plan, I’d ask G - ” they catch themself and point up. “Her.”

“And you went to a church.”

“Not like that’s strictly Heaven’s anymore.”

He’s about to get angry, but they do have a point, so he just nods in a way that says, You’re not wrong, and lets it slide. 

“That was a bust anyway,” they say. “So there. I’m not doing anything to breach our treaty. Now go.”

“How can I be sure you’re not lying?” he asks. He can’t trust them, after all, even if Beelzebub is the type to keep appointments. That didn’t mean that extended to promises. 

They just level him with an unamused look.

“What’s with the map?” he asks. 

“I’m not an idiot and I don’t come up here much, so I’m not sure how the lay of the land works,” they say. “I’m not about to ask bloody Crowley. I got a map.”

He snorts. 

“Laugh when you get lost,” they say.

He immediately stiffles his laughter, if only to not let them know he almost had. He was, actually, but hey, he’s not anymore so that doesn’t really count, does it?

“What else do you want to ask? What else do you want?” They sound tired. “I have places to be, Gabriel.”

He looks down at their map, which they’ve lowered enough that he can see. He notices, for the first time, that they actually have a red pen on the table, just hidden by the way they were holding the paper, and that there’s red X’s all over the map. 

They said they were going to figure out the Ineffable Plan. 

He grabs the map, which turns out to be one of the city and the areas surrounding it, ignoring their protest of, “Hey!” and quickly memorizes the layout. The advantage of being an angel is that he’s not restricted by the same things as humans, like slow, faulty memory, and the maximum of two brain cells.

Beelzebub grabs the map from him. 

“Rude,” they say, “I could write that up as a breach of the treaty, if you don’t watch it.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“I would, big boy, sszzzo naff off  - ” They catch their speech impediment and pause. Then, again, “Naff off if you don’t want that.”

Gabriel narrows his eyes at them. But no matter, he’s already memorized the places Beelzebub is planning to pop by, anyway. He can just go to them first, and figure the Ineffable plan out before them. There has to be some merit to the places they’d marked. Beelzebub is a demon, but they’re not dumb.

He fixes his scarf and sniffs, even when Beelzebub makes a face like he’s being snooty, and walks away, leaving the demon with their map, and the stupid halfway-melted platform shoes they still had on. 

-

There were seven places that Beelzebub had marked on the map. Gabriel could fly from place to place, but the humans would probably notice it if he just appeared in their midst (and also, ugh, paperwork, when was the next apocalypse due anyway), so he takes cabs and walks down the right streets and asks for the right directions to get to them.

The first place is a homeless shelter. Upon asking around (because he’s still trying to figure out if Earth wi-fi works the same as Heaven wi-fi), he figures out that the place is a non-profit run by a bunch of volunteers who scrounge up what little they can and is supported by neighbors generous enough to donate. The whole place actually reeks of good, and bursts with a kaleidoscope of colors when he shifts his vision to look at the souls.

There really had been some merit to Beelzebub’s research, after all. This place is the real thing, an actual beacon of human goodness that should make him feel good and proud and so full of love for humanity, but instead, because he’s Gabriel, only brings up the usual nothing for him.

Only a few of the volunteers inside believe in the Almighty, though, so he’s passed around for a little while before he talks to a young college student who tells him the same thing the priest had told Beelzebub, and he thinks about the Request Center in Heaven again, where half of this young student’s prayers likely landed in. Another useless end, because he knows where prayer ends up and knows they’re all sorted out by his lot and it’s only through some actual miracles that things do happen without them having to pass by Heaven, so he politely excuses himself and steps out of the shelter feeling disappointed.

The next place he goes to is a center for troubled youth and children. Also legit, when he does a few days of legwork to check as to why it had caught Beelzebub’s attention. It takes in young people and children who want to stay, whatever their reasons, and gives them what they need, as much as the center can give. Another place that should give him the warm fuzzies yet still scrounges up a big blank in him. 

It’s also a bust. The head of the organization does practice faith, but she tells him the same thing. You pray, you work, you get a miracle. 

Gabriel knows all about work, but he also knows about prayer, so this is just frustrating. Maybe it’s less so, being human, trusting in the big silver city in the sky and believing that it’s going to be with them as they walk through life, maybe giving them small favors here and there that line up with their decisions. But actually being an angel and heading the big silver city in the sky, he knows what goes on behind the curtains, and it’s a lot of paperwork and also a lot of ignoring humanity in general. 

And then things still happen anyway. What he needs to figure out is that. 

The next two places give him the same result, and he actually considers just not doing the fifth in case it was going to end up with the same thing, but he’s an angel. He’s all about love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and self control. Patience. He knows how to persevere, and he knows how to not give up. 

He finds the place (a small clinic in the middle of nowhere, the one beacon of hope for healthcare to all the people there who couldn’t afford to go to the city), does his research, and pops by, knowing he’ll be out of place in his pristine outfit. 

Only, when he gets there, the door opens and Beelzebub steps out, a frown on their face. 

They look up and that frown gets deeper.

They close their eyes and lower their head. “I am actually being tested.”

“I think that’s my line,” he says. 

Beelzebub shoves past him, shoulder-checking him despite being a full foot shorter than him, which is impressive. 

He grits his teeth, deciding on whether to not take the bait - that won’t leave a bruise, after all, and they can just say they were walking past him from a really narrow door, which wouldn’t be a lie - and turns to ask, “Well?”

“Well, what?” They’re still walking away, and it’s in the middle of nowhere with no one around anyway, so he flies the short distance from the doorway to the spot in front of them and they nearly knock their head into his collarbone. 

“Did you get any answers?”

“If I had any, would I tell you?”

“No, but you wouldn’t be here either, would you?” he asks, “You have no tact in leaving.”

“Keep your prejudices to yourself, I’m not here to listen,” they say, and try to get around him, but he steps in their way. They step to the left, and he mirrors them. They go at this for a while, Beelzebub trying to walk past him and him blocking them, before they huff and flap their own wings just to get past him.

When he turns after he realizes they’ve done that, they’re running off as fast as they can go with their platform shoes, which is not very fast at all, given the rocky terrain they’re on.

Gabriel chases after them for a solid minute before deciding that he can just list out lengthy excuses in the paperwork and flying ahead of them again.

Beelzebub skids to a stop, nearly trips, and holds their arms out to steady themself. “What do you want?”

“An answer,” he says, ready to block them again if need be. “I want to know if you’ve been breaking the treaty.”

“I haven’t broken no bloody treaty, you daft blithering melon of a man, I’ve only been doing my job.”

“And what did you do?”

“None of your business, that’s what!”

“It is, considering I am, in fact, head of Heaven’s negotiations team.” And he is. Beelzebub’s eye twitches, in full view since they’ve rested their red aviators on their head, sitting on the brim of their hat like a more fashionable version of the fly on their head for their more hellish form. 

They deliberate. Then, “I asked them the same thing I asked in the church, they gave me the same answer.”

Ah. Shame.

“I see,” he says. He tries to think of anything to say that’s going to infuriate them, just before he leaves, but then they ask - 

“And you? Why are you showing up in all the places I was going to go to before I’ve even gotten there?”

He pauses. “Excuse me, what?”

“People notice when others ask nearly the same questions within such a small span of time,” they say, “Of course the humans said, oh, funny that, some man was here a while ago.”

Hm. Alright, maybe he’s miscalculated this a little. But weren’t humans supposed to have terrible memory? They forgot about things every five minutes or so, right?

“I asked them about the man, and it sure sounded a lot like someone man-shaped I knew,” Beelzebub said. “What’s your business?” Before he can say anything, they say, “And I’m head of Hell’s organization department. That includes PR and negotiations.” They smile, a mocking mirror of his usual own, only with a lot more teeth. “I can write you up if you break the treaty.”

Gabriel frowns. He could feed them something or another about checking if they would get any info but - hm. Angels don’t lie. They smile and don’t answer, yes, but that’s not lying. That’s just smiling and not answering. 

But then again, he was, technically, checking if they had any info on direct contact with the Almighty, so is that really lying?

“Trying to figure out the Ineffable Plan too, are you?” Beelzebub asks him before he can get anything out. 

Gabriel blinks. 

His silence appears to be damning, because Beelzebub’s smile gets wider. “You’re not here at all to check up on me, are you? You’re here because your lot decided to saddle you with the legwork.”

“I’m here on what mission I am supposed to be on,” he says.

“Pencil-pusher,” they say, voice tinny and mocking. 

“Watch it.”

“Ah, well, you got promoted, didn’t you? To field agent? How’s earth?”

“As unremarkable as it usually is,” he says, drawing himself up to his full height like that’s going to scare them. It doesn’t, of course. Beelzebub’s still a demon. 

“That sounds like blasphemy, not loving all Her creatures.”

“It’s angelic objectivity. Besides, the world is to be rejected anyway,” he says, sounding smug like he’s dealt a good argument. He thinks for a moment. “And yes, I have been assigned to figure out the Ineffable Plan, which isn’t coming too badly along.”

“And that’s why you stole my map and went off of my work, sure.”

“That’s what you call resourcefulness, Beelzebub,” Gabriel says, “Which I doubt Hell knows, evil being stuck in its ways and all.”

“It’s a lot better than you minimalist bastards,” they say. “And it sounds like you’re having as much luck as I am, anyway.” 

The wind goes out his sails a little. “Perhaps.”

Beelzebub snickers. “Well,” they say, moving their aviators and sliding them onto their face. “Since you’ve been going off on work that’s not yours - how unangelic, Gabriel, positively demonic - I’d say good luck actually getting anywhere.”

He crosses his arms, frown deepening, and Beelzebub just shoots him another grin, before speedwalking past him like Heaven was on their heels. 

Well, he still did have a couple more places to visit. It’s not like he can’t figure things out on his own, and it was resourcefulness. 

Evil always sows the seeds of its own destruction, and good always triumphs. He’s going to figure the Ineffable Plan first before them, he’s sure of it.