Above, jubilation in Heaven; below, jubilation on Earth--or within the confines of Bethany's apartment, at least (though not in the bedroom, much to Prophet Jay's loud and continual disgust).
     Even *further* below, meanwhile...
     "Man, I can't believe it--Azrael was right, that pimp. This place sucks BIG-time."
     Loki nodded, glancing around. "Yeah. Where the, um...where are we, anyway?"
     Bartleby shook his smooth, dark head--now securely back on his shoulders, after so recently getting blown apart by the uncensored voice of God. "Leave it to the Italians." Adding, impatiently, at Loki's baffled look: "*Dante*, doofus. The Wood of Suicides? Bleeding bark, moaning trees..."
     Loki scoffed. "Be fuckin' serious. We didn't commit suicide."
     "Yes we did, ass-brain. You by letting me kill you, me by letting Herself Almighty kill ME."
     "Hey, I didn't *let* you do shit, fuckwad."
     "Got too fuckin' fall-down drunk to stop me though, didn'tcha?"
     Looking away, Loki muttered something--just under his newly human, damned and dead lack of breath--that sounded suspiciously like: "...only after you ripped off my fucking WINGS..."
     But Bartleby, as usual, wasn't listening.
     "You know," he said, at last, "all those people we judged are probably down here already. And I bet--they're pretty pissed off."
     "Just figured that out, huh, Mr Avenging Wrath Of God For A Day?"
     Bartleby pouted. "Man, fuck *you*. You started it."
     Thrusting out his bottom lip and narrowing his almond eyes even further while his lanky body shivered in Hell's surprisingly bitter wind, as Loki combed and impatient hand through his own blonde mop, shoulders rising automatically to ruffle invisible feathers. And feeling, all the while--like the ache of some amputated limb--a steady ebb and flood of unfamiliar sensations: Pain, cold, fear--
     --*arousal*?
     Well, something the former Angel of Death could only assume WAS arousal, never having felt it--or anything else, aside from the ecstasy of serving God--before. Just the briefest, tiniest twinge of something--unfamiliar, in a place where ALL feelings were pretty much unfamiliar...or had been, at least, from the dawn of time on.
     Looking at Bartleby, the most known quality of his immortal life, and suddenly seeing him as though for the first time ever, through increasingly horny mortal eyes. Not like he'd never suspected Bartleby *was* beautiful before, of course...hard to think otherwise, with all those human monkeys--female and otherwise--falling all over themselves trying to steer his narrow, talkative ass into the nearest available bedroom. But man, noticing it now--this way--almost HURT, it struck so suddenly close to home: Less a flash of insight than a low-grade form of torture. Like realizing your jock was full of sand--then realizing, at the same time, that you actually finally had something down there for the sand to make *itch*.
     //Part of the whole Hell-ish package, maybe,// Loki thought. Then: //Mmmm, PACKage...//
     Oh, for Christ's sweet sake.
     After a moment's silence, Bartleby--never one to keep quiet for long--began again. "Y'know, that Scion--"
     "Bethany?"
     "Well gee, I dunno: We meet any other distant relatives of Jesus recently?" Continuing, undeterred, as Loki glared blue sparks back at him: "She liked me."
     "Up until you tried to cut her throat with a bottle, sure."
     //I mean...how could she help it?//
     Bartleby shrugged, blissfully ignorant of his longtime celestial companion's current below-the-belt problems. "She though we were together."
     "We *are* together. STILL."
     "No, man, *together* together. Like people. Like the people at Sodom."
     //Wow. And I thought humans COULDN'T really read minds.//
     Through dry lips: "Wow."
     "No lie, bro." And now Loki could practically *see* the idea taking shape in Bartleby's always way-too-agile brain. "Heyyyyy, though: You know how those meat puppets think with their pants. If we could get in touch with her somehow, promise hot sex in return for some assistance, I bet she could even Harrow Hell for us--just like her great-, great-,  great-, great-, great--"
     "Oh, ENOUGH! E-fuckin'-*nough*, already!" Bartleby whipped around in mid-calculation, startled by Loki's vehemence. "You wanna scale the walls and rush the Heavenly Gate, that it? Don't think you got us into quite ENOUGH shit to last us the rest of eternity? Fucking Morningstar Junior."
     Now it was Bartleby's turn to shoot some sparks--bright but frigid, dark as coal on coal. "Stop calling me that, man," he warned, dangerously quiet.
     "Or what? You'll lay my soul to waste?"
     "Just *stop* it."
     "Luci-stooge. Bartleby-elzebub."
     "STOP it, cocksucker!"
     "Like you ever had a cock to suck, you flying fuckin' eunuch--"
     As if on unspoken cue, the two fallen angels jumped at each other, knit in mid-rush and fell once more--kicking, punching, flailing. Bartleby landed on top, momentarily, 'till Loki tangled his best friend's long legs in a far sturdier wrestler's hold and flipped them over, banging Bartleby's head on Hell's floor.
     "Ow!" Bartleby snarled, annoyed but undaunted, and tried to struggle upright. So Loki knocked him back again--a little harder, this time--and felt a nasty little rush, that aimless *itch* partially scratched at last, as the taller angel's narrow eyes widened, then glazed over.
     //Yeah, THERE we go. Hurts, huh, bud?//
     Bartleby opened his mouth: "You--"
     --only to hear his own vowels deform into a startled, avian *squawk* of surprise, as Loki swooped down on him tongue-first.
     "--yuhou, ooh, oh. Ohhhh, my..."
     Wet heat, teeth-click, and a fierce jerk of something not quite pain but definitely NOT quite nice enough, in any sense of the word, to qualify as pleasure. It made Loki gasp for air, but suck Bartleby's lungs reflexively dry instead rather than disengage for even a micro-second--taste his partner's oxygen-starved wail, that lean body squirming underneath his superior weight, pinned flat and held fast with all the extra bulk of two broad shoulders more seemingly suited to football pads than holy armor. Their hands double-fisting, lips working hungrily, electric-shock sharp and oh so SWEET, again and again and again...
     Bartleby nipping hard, rearing back, gulping deep. And moaning, faintly:
     "Oh, Lok, oh, wait--oh, no, *stop*--"
     Loki gave his buzzing groin another slow thrust against Bartleby's, smirking at the way it made the other's red-flushed face contort. "Stop--this?" He suggested, sweetly. Then: "That really what you want, B?"
     Almost a whisper: "...no."
     //Yeah. Me either.//
     Because--if this was how it felt for humans, Loki found himself thinking, dimly, then no WONDER they kept on doing it, even when God told them not to. Kept on sucking face in public, risking their souls to slip the pork to people other than the ones they'd married, and not even looking 'round even when somebody--an angel, say--stuck a nine-mil to the back of their whacked-out, sex-drunk, Original Sin-driven heads.
     And: "Man, this is so BAD," Bartleby announced, voice cracking just a bit, as though amazed by his own temerity, by just how *much* he was actually enjoying this. Making Loki bury his face in the sweating side of his neck, and snort in reply, muffled and moist--
     "We're already in *Hell*, dude. On the bus with Leary and Scorsese; one-way elevator, goin' DOWN. How much worse you really think it can get?"
     Knowing, though, at the exact same time: //Well, my first thought would be, a LOT...//
     Eternal damnation, and all that. Way too sin-heavy to float any boat except the Devil himself's after that last big judicial blow-out, the both of 'em, and never did manage to get through that doorway, either--claim that plenary indulgence, get washed clean and clear--
     But: Screw it. Later for regret, for strategy. For--everything but...
     ...this.
     Yanking the tail of his hoodie free, now, and hiking Bartleby's hips to meet his as he somehow managed to pop both their flies at once, one-handed--minor miracle right there, for sure. And WOW, haaah: That unexpected, leaky, nerve-soaked *thing* whapping up from between his thighs, soft and rigid at once, velvet-skinned paradox--spring-loaded, met and matched again by Bartleby's own version of the same brave new equipment.
     Bartleby mewling into his collarbone, hunching and huffing, biting down on a bicep and making Loki twist with profane joy. Then back into that same barely-broken kiss, thrumming against Loki's voicebox like some oh-so-UNholy word made flesh--
     "Quit 'cause you said so," Loki reminded him, between licks. "Tagged along when you got us thrown out. Could'a been happy anywhere, you dumb fuck, we still had each other..."
     //...even in Wisconsin.//
     Locked in each other's arms, under the shade of the bleeding trees. And thrusting, moaning, sobbing together, arching tight and locking fast in a tangle of monkey-boy meat puppet muscle and flesh and aw, shit, arrrrr--
     Up and up. Flying, wingless. Soaring high, black against blue--the sun's lost face reflected in each other's eyes, a hole burnt in Heaven's hide.
     Loki screamed aloud as he came, and felt something burst apart inside him like a flaming sword igniting; felt seed splash and burn between them, like a spurt of sulphur rain. Thinking:
     //Man, that was better than turning cities to salt *any...damn...DAY*.//
     And hearing, at the same moment--as if from far, far away--
     "Guh, uh--muh, uh, oh..."
     //No//
     "...oh...my..."
     //Shit, fuck, *no*//
     "...myyyy..."
     Choking back his own ecstasy and barking, right in Bartleby's face: "No, man, NO!"
     "*GOD*"
     //Too late.//

...which is when the demons--finally--found them.
THE END