#moceitweek2022

Janus wasn’t quite sure what he was anymore.

There wasn’t really a word for the liminal space between an angelic being and a demonic one – well, actually there was, but ‘fallen angel’ wasn’t quite descriptive enough for his purpose; for one, he hadn’t been an angel, he’d been a principality, thankyouverymuch. For another, he hadn’t so much fallen as been slam-dunked out of Heaven like the pearly gates were the net and Earth was the cold and unforgiving wooden floor, ‘fallen’ implied that he’d done it to himself.

In any case, he wasn’t yet a demon, wouldn’t become one unless he burned away the last remaining dregs of his divine power and went to Hell. Not that he had any intention of doing so of course, no matter how far he’d been demoted – it was a ghastly place from what he’d heard. But he wasn’t a principality anymore, that was clear as the scars on his back. Damn it all, is this really where asking questions could get you? 

Well fuck that noise, Janus didn’t want any part of that heavenly nonsense anymore.

What exactly he was didn’t matter much, really. Not nearly as much as what he could do. 

Which still wasn’t much – he hadn’t lost all of his powers, but even the few that he still had were weakened – but it was just enough to keep his mortal (or at least humanoid) form alive and out of prison. The humans really had made just suddenly appearing somewhere so much more complicated over the past century or so, hadn’t they? 

Nothing that he couldn’t handle, of course.

“And this will be your desk,” said his new boss – Angela de la Cruz, she’d told him, because his Dad really must’ve had a sense of humor when They’d been coming up with Their plan for Everything. “You’ll be sharing it with our clerk, Patton Smith, but don’t worry, there’s plenty of room. 

“Thank you, Angela,” Janus said smoothly, setting down his small box of supplies on the mentioned desk. It was, in fact, large enough for two people to work on; it was a square table, half of it stacked with papers and folders and a laptop sitting closed towards the center, a few pens scattered haphazardly through the thing, and a cup of coffee that seemed to have already gone cold. Janus had no doubt that within the week his side of the desk would look similar, if a little neater.

“Not a problem! I’ll let you get settled in, you can come to my office in a few minutes to receive your first assignments.”

“That sounds wonderful, thanks.” Janus flashed her a practiced smile, and she sent him one back that looked just a bit more genuine, then turned and left for her office.

Janus turned and surveyed the desk for a moment, then started unpacking. He took out his laptop, its cord, the small box of black ink pens, and a pad of paper.

Right. Unpacking done.

He wasn’t entirely certain how this job would go, but he wasn’t too worried about it. Surely working in human law couldn’t be that different from his administrative duties Upstairs.

He was debating whether or not he should take the time to figure out how to get his computer started up, when he heard a door open and he glanced up at the man who’d stepped into the room.

The little snip of divinity still in him recoiled, and Janus barely stopped himself from flinching. The man stopped in his tracks, staring at Janus.

No, not a man.

Janus’s upper lip curled back. “Hello, demon.”

It seemed to shake the being out of his stupor. “Ah, hello,” he said, smiling politely. “Should I refer to you as the same?”

“No.”

The demon tilted his head, examining Janus. His round glasses magnified his eyes, making them look bigger behind the gold-colored wire frames. After a moment of scrutiny, he seemed to relax. “Alright then!” He sounded chipper. “It’s nice to meet you. You can call me Patton.”

“...Janus.”

“How are you doing, Janus? You must be the new secretary.”

“...Yes.” Janus stared as the demon sat down, slowly doing the same. “I’d ask what a demon is doing working at a human law office,” he said slowly, “but given how few lawyers I ran into Up There, I can make a guess.”

The demon – Patton, he supposed, may as well start calling it that before he slipped up and called the being a demon to his face in front of their human coworkers – just laughed, polite and practiced. “Oh, no, nothing like that.”

“Sure.”

“I’m working up to animal rights law,” Patton said cheerfully.

Which.

What?

“Not the division I’d expect one of your sort to choose to enter,” Janus said. “What…you looking for the next soul to corrupt?”

“Oh, I don’t do that sort of thing,” Patton said breezily, waving his hand.

“You’re a demon.”

“And you’re not an angel,” Patton said, poisonously sweet. Janus didn’t flinch, but something must have shown in his expression because Patton’s face shuttered for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he said, in the most genuine tone he’d used so far. “That was cruel of me, my apologies.”

Janus leaned back, suddenly uncertain. What in the…

“What are you?”

Patton giggled. It was eerie. “Oh, no no, you had me pegged from the start. It’s just…well…” his eyes went a little soft as they looked into the middle distance over Janus’s shoulder. “You’ve fallen, yeah?”

“...Yeah.”

“Yeah.” Patton met his eyes then, and the metaphorical fire in them didn’t look so much hellish as determined. “I want to rise.”

Janus made a noise halfway between a laugh and a choke. “You want…to rise?” he said, disbelief coloring his voice.

“Yep!” Patton was smiling sunnily, like he hadn’t said the most insane thing that Janus had ever heard.

“That – that’s impossible.”

“Just because no one’s done it yet doesn’t mean that it’s impossible.”

“No, I mean –” Janus’s voice trailed off as he suddenly wondered…was it impossible? He’d never thought to ask. It wasn’t one of the questions that got him demoted, though now that he thought about it, if he had asked it, he probably would have been punted down to Earth way sooner than this.

Patton shrugged. “Humans can do it. Why not me?”

“Because you’re innately evil?” Janus said, just a tiny bit hysterically. 

“Well some people say that humans are too, and they still go Up There.”

“Humans are born neutral, there’s hundreds of different things to influence them and thousands of choices for them to make. We don’t have that choice.”

“But you fell,” Patton said simply, like that made his case.

“All part of the Almighty’s plan, I’m sure,” Janus said, proud of how little bitterness he’d managed to let seep into his tone. “But I’ve never heard of Them raising one of you up.”

Patton shrugged again. “Like I said, just because no one’s done it yet doesn’t mean that it’s impossible.”

Janus scrubbed a hand over his face. “Why do you even want to rise?”

“Because I want to help people,” Patton said immediately. “I want to do good. I want to be good.”

“And you can’t do that from where you are?”

“Well, I’m doing my best now, aren’t I?” Patton said, smiling. “That’s how I’m going to do it, do so much good that They’ll let me Up. But imagine how much more good I could do if I was Up There! Directly serving the Almighty’s plan, not just…doing the little that someone of my place can do for good.”

Janus chewed his lip for a moment. “I…don’t think that’s how that works.”

Patton’s smile was serene. “I have faith that it will.”

“...Right.”

Janus didn’t really know what else to say. What else he could say. Was it more cruel to let Patton continue with his impossible task, or burst his bubble now and let him face harsh reality? Should Janus even be feeling sympathy for the demon?

The door to Angela’s office opened. “Oh, I see you two’ve met!” she said brightly behind Janus.

Patton beamed at her. “Sure did!”

“Awesome! You settled then?”

“I am,” Janus said to her. “You mentioned assignments?”

“Yeah. You don’t know how much having you here is going to help, our legal assistant has been going nuts trying to get everything done herself.”

“Mm.” Janus stood up and started over to her office.

“Oh, and Janus?” Janus turned and saw Patton offering him a genuine smile. “Welcome to the office.”

Janus inclined his head in acknowledgement. “Thank you,” he said, before turning back around and following Angela. 

What the Hell. Why should Janus care? He wasn’t aligned with the Upstairs anymore. There wasn’t any reason for him to be concerned about some upstart demon trying to worm his way Up. Patton seemed to be taking the most boringly respectable route possible to his unreachable goal, and him burning himself out to do so wasn’t any of Janus’s business. There was no reason for Janus to be interested in Patton.