Work Text:
“Do you remember what it was like before The Fall?”
Gabriel and Beelzebub were sitting on a bench in the middle of Regent’s Park in northern London (they had agreed that avoiding St. James was an overall strategic move). It had been a few hundred years since they had started having routine meetings as a safety measure to keep their respective sides in line.
“What? No.” Beelzebub responded with complete disinterest, not even looking up from the file they were reading, “Now stop asking stupid questionzz, we still have 5 more personal filezz to cross-review and I don’t have time for thizz to take all day.”
“Really?” Gabriel pushed. “Not at all?”
“No.” they said rolling their eyes and still not glancing up at him, “Not at all.”
Gabriel fell into an unsettled silence at that. Beelzebub could feel him thinking too hard.
They looked over, "Why are you even asking about thizz?"
"I dunno, just" he shrugged, "we've been meeting for some time now and I had this thought the other day 'Hey you know they used to be an Angel' and got really curious if there was any sort of story behind all that."
Beelzebub narrowed their eyes, "If thizz izz some convoluted attempt at redeeming me you're going to be sorely out of luck."
"Oh no, nothing of that sort." He waved his hand, "Just attempting to find some professional common ground too understand you better."
They groaned. Gabriel was in one of those weird conversational moods he got in sometimes. It was annoying because he was so persistent. They decided to just answer instead of continuing to waste both of their times.
“Look...after the rebellion failed Satan took all of our memoriezz of Before. Didn’t want to deal with a potential counter rebellion caused by hurt feelingzz or regret from anyonezz new demotion from my understanding. Itzz not a bad way to keep your people in line: make them think they've alwayzz been doing what you need them to do.”
Gabriel shuttered at that, "Remind me to give thanks that Satan isn't my boss."
"To each their own." Beelzebub tucked the file they were holding back into their briefcase and started rustling around for another, "But…now that you bring it up... I have my own question.”
“Uh….sure. Go ahead.” he asked, doubt prickling in the back of his mind. They'd never asked him a direct question that wasn't work-related before.
Beelzebub stopped what they were doing an looked at him directly in the eyes, “Do you remember me?”
Gabriel laughed, not condescendingly, but with genuine amusement. “I doubt I would have even known you!”
They tilted their head and gave him a pitiful look before pulling out the new file, “Yeah, juzzt keep on believing that.”
"I'm really not following.” his expression reminded Beelzebub of a dog waiting for someone to throw them a bone. So they did.
“Welllll… Azz far azz I know no Angel rememberzz any Demon from before The Fall. Perhapzz itzz a coincidence. Maybe all of those that Fell just didn’t stand out or something. But it alwayzz seemed highly suspect if you ask me.” They shrugged, “Since we weren’t allowed to remember anything, I alwayzz assumed your Angelzz weren't either. I bet all those personnel recordzz are gone too.”
Gabriel grinned, doubt leaving him, “Oh, I doubt that very much. Heaven would hardly be that underhanded.”
"Uh huh, I bet She just didn’t want a repeat performance." Beelzebub hit him on the head with the folder they were holding, "Now can we pleazzze get back to work."