Feedback: Please. Greatly appreciated, especially constructive criticism. lacorneille@earthlink.net

Time: Post-"Dogma," mid-"The Sandman: Season of Mists"

Pairing or Characters: Bartleby, Loki, Death (from Sandman), mostly. No pairing yet. ^_~

Rating/Warnings: PG-13/R for language. If you can watch the movie you can read this

Spoilers: Ending of "Dogma," some implied spoilers for "The Sandman: Season of Mists," but you might  not notice the spoilers if you haven't read the book anyway

Archive: Uhhh...if/when there is one, yes, but I'd kinda like to revise first.

Disclaimer: Bartleby, Loki, and these particular versions of God and the Metatron belong to Kevin "Master of Subtext" Smith and...Miramax? Or somebody. People like that who aren't me. Death belongs to him/her/itself, but this particular incarnation belongs to Neil "Too Brilliant For His Own Good" Gaiman and DC Comics. I have no money and only the highest respect for the aforementioned people; please don't sue. Oops, it is betaed (Sorry, Joanne!). I copied a disclaimer from another fic. I have no mind. Any mistakes are still mine.

Note: This section desperately needs serious rewriting. Suggestions very welcome. 

with thanks to my wonderful beta, Joanne Collins 
 

III.

Loki woke up in a back alley that smelled like fish. Very, very dead fish. He had the mother of all headaches and his last memory was of being dead and chatting with a chick who dressed like someone who'd seen *The Crow* too many times. Damned gorgeous, though. Times like this made him wonder if his life (death?) would always be this surreal.

He sat up carefully and realized that he was human. Very, very human, with all that entailed. It was strange to be human again, to know that sense of fragility he had known before so briefly and it hurt to know what he had lost. He remembered everything. Remembered Bartleby.

He noticed that something was jabbing him in the ass and discovered a wallet in his back pocket. Money. Driver's license in the name of Larry Madison. Loki almost smiled.

Which meant this was probably Wisconsin. Fuck. He'd never escape the stupid place, although at least he'd get to eat this time around. Loki got up, groaned, and checked his pockets again, hoping that the creator of the driver's license had thought to give him aspirin.

Oh, good. Now he just had to find something to swallow it with. He staggered out of the alleyway. Definitely Wisconsin. Nowhere else would have quite the same collection of bait and tackle shops and cheese stores in one area.

***

Bartleby woke up in a cheap hotel room, next to an empty pizza box and a battered TV guide. This did not make sense, since the last thing he'd done was take the hand of a chick who claimed to be the anthropomorphic personification of Death, and probably was.

He knew instantly that he was human, painfully aware of things like cocks and hunger and pain that he had not known for millennia, except briefly before he died. Even back when angels were allowed to eat and drink and fuck, there had never been the compulsion, the *need* mortals had, and he hadn't had time to understand it before.

He understood now.

Bartleby rolled out of bed, experimentally running his hands over this new body, remembering that Loki had done that after Bartleby had cut off his wings. Bartleby had done the same when he lost his wings, touched his new mortal flesh and laughed because he hadn't known what he had lost until it was gone. Not just the wings and power but the awareness of God. He had thought they had known the absence of God's presence before, but that was nothing to a human's complete non-awareness of God, both less painful and more tragic. Nothing compared to his new knowledge of what it was like to be fragile, to be mortal.

He looked down and saw a pair of jeans and a plaid flannel shirt lying on the floor (*plaid?* Someone had a nasty sense of humor). He dressed and left the room. Bartleby paid the clerk at the front desk with money handily present in the wallet he found in the back pocket of the jeans and headed off to find a bar so he could get drunk.

***

Loki found a job at a bar and tried to settle into mortal life, but always with the nagging need to see Bartleby, to learn why. He wondered if he could be angry at Bartleby forever, when he had no one else, and then wondered if he was even angry anymore.

Sometimes Loki wondered what he would do if he saw Bartleby again. Hit him, kill him, forgive him, ignore him? Was the anger or the loneliness stronger? He might be human in body now, and the absence of God's presence no longer bothered him, but he still remembered being an angel, and humans, while nice enough, were still *different.* Bartleby, wherever he was, was the only one who would understand, who *could* understand.

Bartleby had to see Loki again and apologize, beg forgiveness even. So he went from small town to small town, working odd jobs and looking for Loki, without much hope of success other than a vague thought that some remaining scrap of angelic essence might draw them together.

And what would he do if he did find Loki? He'd be a fool to assume that Loki would forgive him, but he didn't know how he could live if Loki turned him away. To live among humans, with no one to remember with, no one who understood what they had both lost and gained, would be worse than death. At least, it would have been worse than death had he had any idea what death would hold this time around.

***

Two years passed. Loki moved into an apartment; Bartleby moved on to the medium towns.

Then Bartleby found the bar. Late afternoon sun warmed his back as he pushed open the door and went inside, blinking in the sudden cool darkness. He was halfway to the bar before he noticed Loki next to the bartender, holding a tray of sandwiches. Blue eyes met his, a flash of pain and fury, and then turned away.

The bartender tapped Loki's shoulder, gesturing towards a table and Loki shook his head. He grabbed the arm of a red-haired waitress and shoved his tray at her, mumbling something, and then slammed out the back door of the bar.

Bartleby stood in the middle of the floor, stunned. Despite all the times he had imagined meeting again over the past two years, despite his remembered image of Loki, it was still shocking to see him there. Loki looked ever so slightly older; not so much because of the years but because of his mortality. Bartleby had noticed the same effect in himself but somehow had not thought of it in Loki. Loki looked...not frail, precisely, but no longer as unbreakable, no longer as innocent. Which was odd, because he had never associated innocence with Loki before that moment.

Breaking out of his reverie, Bartleby followed Loki, ignoring the waitress' yelp of annoyance. Outside he saw Loki leaning against the opposite wall of the alley, his arms and forehead pressed to the concrete, his shoulders shaking convulsively.

"Loki?" he said softly.

Loki whirled and dove at him, knocking Bartleby to the ground and landing hard on top of him. He looked into Bartleby's eyes for one long moment and then hit him. Some dam seemed to break in Loki and he kept hitting Bartleby.

Dizzy, Bartleby curled himself around the pain, isolating and noticing the dull ache of forming bruises, the sharper sting where his head had hit the ground. It was right to let Loki have his justice.

Loki sat up, straddling Bartleby's waist. "Why?" he asked, his voice rough and his eyes glittering. "Damn you, why?"

Bartleby shook his head weakly, trying to speak. "I don't know," he said, raising one hand but stopping short of touching Loki. "I'm sorry." He felt dampness on his cheeks and remembered dimly that angels don't cry. "I'm so sorry," he whispered.

Loki rolled off Bartleby and stood in one quick motion. "I hope so." His voice was even and cold. "I don't get off work for another hour. We could get some food and have a chat then." So flippant, as if it meant nothing.

Bartleby stood, brushing himself off and wincing at his bruises. "I'd like that," he said. He wouldn't like it, but it had to be done and maybe, just maybe, things could change. It could never be like the old days again, but that didn't mean there was no hope. Fragile mortal bodies could hold strong spirits.