Title: Fragments
Author: lardencelover (lardencelover@livejournal.com)
Fandom: Dogma (Askewniverse); Bartleby/Loki
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine, no profit.
A/N: Thank you to thisside for the truly excellent beta. This was supposed to be my (very late) 
entry for the Askewniverse Holiday Challenge, but I conveniently forgot to give it a holiday 
theme of some sort. Clearly, I'm a genius. Back to the drawing board.

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Fragments.

Loki was simple. Not stupid by any means, but simple. Simple entertainments, simple jokes, 
simple, straight-forward words. He liked Sunday morning cartoons, sour cream and onion potato 
chips, and he used to like drunken conversations in the wee hours of the morning until one in 
particular got him fired and sent to the second ring of hell-- also known as Wisconsin. He 
eventually came to like cheese, snow and football, but the location didn't matter. Wisconsin was 
boring, but then again, anywhere was compared to the life he'd formerly led. And even in the 
fucking Bahamas, he'd've felt that empty confused ache that Bartleby always seemed to understand 
the reason for but never wanted to talk about.

He knew they were lost-- or more aptly, flat-out abandoned. He knew they were left for something 
like dead, incapable of going home and yet unable to connect with anything like real soul or 
higher consciousness - the only consciousness they were familiar with - while on Earth. He knew 
that Bartleby would get so frustrated sometimes he would cry and he even felt like crying himself
 on occasion (even though he never really connected the emotion to the void), but he also knew 
that being surrounded by humans wasn't the worst that could've happened to them, and that as 
much as he missed home, there were things here that they couldn't have up there.

Thing number one being they could pretend they didn't know of God. God didn't exist. Loki knew, 
of course, that He did, but the joy of talking to people like he didn't, sitting around on 
Sundays doing nothing but vegetating on a fucking sofa and ignoring Him, those were the kind of 
liberties you didn't get in Heaven. Getting into conversations with people on the streets about 
whether God existed, pleading his case that He didn't, and to change minds around him. Sure, it 
was sick, slightly vengeful, too, but it was a right people on Earth, people not in Heaven or 
Hell, had. Loki didn't fool himself - the knowledge, the emptiness that knowledge brought, was 
still there - but he could be defiantly oblivious on the outside, and that was kind of nice.

But Bartleby... he was like some jilted fucking bride, bitter and bemoaning, trying to talk to 
God all the time and never heard, not even for a second. He was waiting for change, for 
forgiveness, for the unconditional love to finally kick in. Loki didn't bother to remind 
Bartleby that they were never promised unconditional love; humans were. The only time they ever 
fought was when Loki would try to give Bartleby a little perspective on the rift, so he avoided 
it at all costs. Just watched the Simpsons and learned how to play NBA basketball on the 
PlayStation.

Sometimes, Loki missed the genocide. He missed the fiery sword and the righteous deliverance of 
death. He missed fury, he missed staring someone in the eyes the moment before he sent them to 
Hell. Those good old days, full of the clichéd fire and brimstone, but also with power and the 
intention of weeding out the bad for their treatment of the good, feeling like the protector of 
all things great and holy and pure.

He missed most that feeling when sword hits bone and meets resistance, right before it slides 
through the flesh on the other side like butter.

The pent-up aggression was terrible; building, growing, swelling, until it just overwhelmed, 
and for a night, Loki would lose his mind. It didn't happen often, maybe every few months, but 
when it did-- well, Bartleby still felt bad for humans back then, felt he'd done the right thing 
in protecting them and continued to try to do so. But he was also a good friend, whatever things 
may've seemed like from the outside. He helped. Loki simultaneously dreaded and looked forward 
to the times when he lost himself.

There was a room in their house. They never cleaned it, or even went in it unless they had to. 
It was empty. The wallpaper was shredded, the walls themselves dented in at places, the sole 
window cracked and the lower part of the pane nearly broken off. This was where they locked 
themselves in when they felt Loki's control slip. It was "they," because Bartleby always knew, 
sometimes before Loki did. He really was a good friend. For all the suffering he put himself 
through talking and waiting and praying to no one, self-pitying and bitching about all the 
human-like little habits Loki picked up, he watched Loki, and he loved him.

Bartleby would lock them in and they'd fight. Fist and tooth and claw. Loki would feel his jaw 
swell when Bartleby got off a good one, and he'd taste the sweet, metallic tinge of blood and 
feel his stomach twist and whatever soul there inside of him sing. The door would eventually get 
knocked off its hinges and that's usually when they stopped, bruised and bloodied and kind of 
laughing in a I-miss-Home-don't-you way.

Loki thought Bartleby knew better than God what unconditional love really was.

Of course, Loki watched out for Bartleby, too. He'd be heading to bed at three in the morning 
after a marathon of Full House and two whole bags of microwave popcorn, and poke his head in 
Bartleby's room to see if he was awake. Angels didn't need to sleep, technically, but both of 
them did anyway because there wasn't much else to do; sleep made the eternity pass a little 
quicker.

Bartleby was awake in the darkness a lot, lying there with his back to the door. Sometimes he 
was sobbing, but usually it was just that pained quiet, the rustle of sheets and nothing else. 
Loki would walk over to touch his shoulder and, if Bartleby didn't bark for him to go away, he'd 
always climb in underneath the blankets and curl up against his back as best he could with 
Bartleby's wings in between them. Angels being so ill-equipped, they had no sex drive, no deeper
spark or itch or even choice as to whether they can connect with someone physically, and Loki 
believed it kind of cruel that God allowed them to love, but never to act on it. Pieces of life, 
always only just pieces and fragments, shadows of the lives humans got to lead, and immortality 
was not a fair trade for pleasure and free-will.

He knew that if they could, they would have fucked long ago.

They touched, held, sometimes even kissed, but it was always so chaste and fond and affectionate 
and never anything more, never passionate or surreal. It would always end with Bartleby's jaw 
locked tight, staring at the window opposite the bed, and Loki curled up on the other side of 
the bed, absently rolling and shifting his shoulders, feeling the stretch and pull of the muscles
attached to his wings. Sometimes he'd dream about cutting them off and wake up frantic, a 
compassionate Bartleby shaking him out of sleep and murmuring things like, "let it go," and "it 
was a dream."

It was a dream, but somehow Loki was sure it wouldn't always be.

He was right.


end.