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And Then : Shortie

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He glanced at me, his devilish smile now gone, a slight frown having been drawn in its place upon his face. “I would rather know why you do not “just know” the answer to that—and why you did not “just know” you could duplicate contracts or that it was part of your duties to do so,” he stated.

“What? So you did think I would know that on my own, like how I knew those other things? I’m supposed to know this stuff out of the blue now?” I asked. Although my words might have seemed skeptical or sarcastic, my tone showed that my curiosity was sincere.

“Most employees of H.E.L.L., including but not limited to those who do work relative to contract formation and soul collection, have the job benefit of having instant, mental access to any and all information the company has collected related to the tasks they need to carry out to do their job. It makes it easier for said tasks to be carried out swiftly and smoothly, with little to no occurrences of error,” he explained.

“Really? Is that how you know so much about people you’ve never met before, including their deepest desires and the reasons behind those desires? And is that how those six—er, three people who gave me clearance to check into the main branch of H.E.L.L. the other day knew all they needed to know about me, when all they did was look at me?” I asked.

“Correct. It is also why you knew the rules of the contracts, and should have known that you, as my assistant, are able to and supposed to duplicate the contracts,” he stated.

“Why wasn’t I able to access those parts of the information, then? Was it just because I didn’t think to? And is that why I didn’t know any of what you knew about Bart?” I inquired.

“I don’t know, no, no. Because I had mentally registered that your beginning duty as my assistant is to assist in the duplication and explanation of the contract, you should have known about that without me telling you it was your duty. Right now, as that is your only duty, you do not need to know about those whom we approach to form contracts with to do said duty, so you will not have access to information about them as I do,” he stated, his brow slightly furrowed in thought and perhaps a bit of frustration.

“As for why you seem to be having trouble accessing the information you are supposed to, I suspect it may be because you are human. H.E.L.L. has never had a human employee before, so it may be that the information system is having difficulty registering that you are allowed to have access to it. Or it may just be that, as a human, you have an extremely low mental capacity and are therefore unable to properly access and process all of the information you need,” he mused, thoughtfully inspecting the hand of mine that he had yet to release as he spoke.

I just stared at him blankly, feeling a bit miffed. Did he actually believe his speculation that I was simply too weak-minded to mentally access information, or was he just presenting that option to frustrate me because he himself was frustrated by his lack of knowledge over why I lacked access to all of the knowledge I required? Either way, it was still insulting. “Well, however it is, I’m sure it will work itself out in time,” I stated flatly, abruptly pulling my hand from his.

He looked up at me with mild surprise now. This had been the first time I had pulled my hand away from him. Up until now, whenever he had grabbed my hand, I had let him continue to hold it until he felt like releasing it. He was swift to wipe the surprise from his face, then grabbing up my other hand. “Right you are. No need to waste further thought on it now. After all, we have other business to attend to,” he stated, stepping around me and thus pulling me around back toward the door.

“Are we going to make another contract?” I asked. He paused at my question, but did not look back at me or make any other motion that said he would answer me. Damn. I’ll bet that was something I should “just know”. “Are we collecting a payment?” I asked, hoping this second guess would be correct.

“Yes,” he stated, answering this time, though he still didn’t look back at me. Not having closed the door behind ourselves after our return, he did not have to pause to open the door after answering me before tugging me through.

As usual, upon stepping through the doorway, I found myself in an entirely different scene than what I had seen from the other side. Unlike the few times I had traveled in this teleportation-esque manner before, however, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of lightheadedness the instant we were on the other side of the door. I felt so faint that I might have fallen over. However, Sam seemed to have anticipated this, and had abruptly spun around to catch me. After he caught me, he decided to kill two birds with one stone, holding me to his chest with one arm while also reaching to pull the door closed with his other arm.

Somehow, I didn’t feel so grateful to him for catching me when keeping me on my feet seemed to be of equal importance to him as closing a door was. I was feeling too faint to feel agitated with him, though. On the other hand, I wasn’t feeling too faint to feel confused or curious. “Sam, where are we? Why is it so light? Um, wait, I mean, why am I so lightheaded?” I asked, squeezing my eyes closed as I tried to will away the lightheaded feeling.

“We’re in the higherworld, which is why you feel lightheaded. You are being overwhelmed by the vast, unbridled power contained in this world. The feeling of being overwhelmed will lessen in a little while, once you have adjusted some, so just bear with it in the meantime,” he stated simply. His second arm wrapped around me as he turned away slightly, wanting to lead me along even when I was still feeling so faint.

However, I didn’t want to move an inch when I felt like this, so I planted my feet as firmly as a lightheaded person possibly could. Although my resistance was nowhere near enough to keep Sam from forcing me to move along, he immediately stopped trying to make me move. That was enough to shock me into opening my eyes and looking at him with surprise, though my vision was a touch hazy. I opened my mouth, half wanting to question why he was willing to humor me when he seemed in a bit of a rush and half wanting to thank him for doing so; but I said nothing, my mouth simply hanging slightly agape as my difficult to focus gaze wandered off of him due to my equally difficult to focus attention.

It looked like we were in another office space. At least, I assumed that was what it was. It was difficult to tell, when I saw nothing which truly defined the space. There was not a single piece of furniture that I could see, though many people seemed to be sitting on invisible seats and working upon desks of thin air. Even the actual dimensions of the room were not readily visible, with the walls, floor, and ceiling looking to made composed of only a blue-ish white mist that just happened to form flat surfaces and that made it look almost as if the space went on indefinitely. I actually had thought for a brief second that the space of the room was indefinite, but rubbing my foot along the floor and touching my hand to a wall had proved that the misty boundaries were quite stable.

The occupants of the space were just as curious as the space itself. They all looked like porcelain dolls, with identical, uniform forms, flawless skin that was without the pores and hair that riddled the human form, and the hair on their head—the only hair on their form—having not a single strand out of place. Curiously, though there wasn’t a single angel with wings visible, their feet did not touch the misty floor as they moved about, or even when they simply stood or sat still. What struck me most, however, was that some of the angels were walking around—or, rather, floating around stark naked. It’s noteworthy that it was actually the bareness of the few that had helped me to determine that the only hair upon any angel was the hair upon their head.

“....Sam, am I the only one seeing some things and not seeing other things?” I asked, not quite able to register what I was (and wasn’t) seeing.

“In the higherworld, they do not require matter to form furniture, nor to move about. The only even have the boundaries of floors, walls, and ceilings forming rooms for the sake of organization. Also, angels have never had wings. Humans merely imagine them as such because, when they first learned of angels, they could not fathom the ability to move around without coming into contact with matter yet also without somehow being propelled through the air by obvious, logical means,” he explained.

“...Okay, so why are some of them naked?” I asked, unable to keep my eyes off of any of the nude angels in question.

“Clothing is entirely optional in the higherworld. Most choose to go without. Those who choose to don clothes here regularly usually only do so because some aspect of their work requires them to interact with residents of the netherworld. The naked angels you see in here probably don’t actually work in this section, and are just dropping off, picking up, or checking on paperwork,” he replied, sounding a bit like he was smirking now. He was definitely enjoying how I was absolutely transfixed by their nudity.

Only the knowledge that Sam was finding this amusing and might possibly tease me about this later allowed me to force myself to turn my eyes back to him. I thought for a brief moment that it was in my best interest to keep my gaze trained on the devil, until I saw the way he staring at me, which I could only describe as devilish. Immediately I averted my gaze, staring straight down at my feet, having decided now that this was better for me. “Okay, I think I’m good to go now,” I said, trying hard to fend off feelings of embarrassment.

“Well, we can’t go until we do what we came here for,” he replied lightly, though he undoubtedly knew I hadn’t meant that. Without waiting for me to respond he moved off, pulling me with him, as he still had his arms wrapped around me in case I had yet to recover the ability to stand on my own. I didn’t complain, mostly since I doubted I could stand on my own. I was still feeling far more lightheaded than I was comfortable with feeling.

After some moments of walking we reached our destination, which I was able to tell only because Sam halted, pulling me to a halt as well. I looked up from my feet only then, finding an angel standing before us and finding myself thankful that he was clothed. Unfortunately, the other angel that he was talking to was one of the naked ones. The pair of angels took notice of us and looked up just in time to see me blush madly and look back down at my feet. Sam didn’t make a sound, but I could feel his body shake ever so slightly as he silently chuckled at me.

“Sam Hill, I wondered when we would next have the misfortune of having you grace our world with your presence,” stated the clothed angel, confirming for me that he was the one we had come to see, “...Oh, pardon me, I meant to say fortune, not misfortune.”

“I’m sure you did. If you wouldn’t mind hurrying up with whatever business you are occupied with now, I haven’t all the time in the world to waste here in the higherworld,” Sam replied all too kindly. Well, it looked like devils and angels weren’t too friendly with each other, although they were on far better terms than humans imagined them to be.

“I am finished already,” the other man replied. Only at that statement did the nude angel turn and go off, signaling that, whether or not their business was concluded, they were finished with it for the meantime. “Before we move on to our business, however, perhaps you might introduce me to your companion,” the angel added now, turning his gaze to me as he offered a smile that was nothing short of angelic. I’ll be damned if angels didn’t seem just as angelic as devils did devilish.

“You should already have acquired knowledge that I would be accompanied by an assistant before our arrival; and you also should have thusly acquired knowledge of whom my assistant is,” Sam stated, quite suddenly not sounding so overly kind.

“Well, of course I did, Sam; but, just because I know of him, that doesn’t mean I know him. I still prefer to be properly introduced. If you won’t introduce me, though, then I can always introduce myself,” the angel replied lightly.

“Raip Terrace, Gentry Aloce. Gentry Aloce, Raip Terrance. There, you have been introduced,” Sam stated flatly. He was definitely becoming quite quickly annoyed with the angel.

“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Gentry,” Raip said, extending his hand for a shake. I accepted his hand without thought—which turned out to be a bad idea because, instead of shaking my hand like I thought he would, he yanked me by the hand right out of Sam’s arms. I might have simply stumbled forward a step and the straightened up, were I not still feeling fairly lightheaded. Fortunately, seeing that I couldn’t catch myself, Raip caught me instead. “So you are a human soul in an actual human body,” he stated with interest, holding me up on my feet but not to himself.

“You didn’t have to ask to confirm that, let alone to test. You can tell just by looking at him,” Sam stated snappishly, “But, yes, he is a human soul in a human body—and both his soul and body belong to me. I’ll thank you to give him back to me, now, as well as to give me the other soul you have in your possession that belongs to me.”

Raip let out a hum that was both thoughtful and pleased as he passed me back to Sam. “My apologies. I couldn’t help myself. Please, both of you, have a seat,” he said as he now took a step or two back and then sat down upon thin air.

I glanced at Sam, wanting to see if he would sit down on thin air as well. Not only did he take a seat on thin air, but he didn’t release me, pulling me down to sit on his lap without giving me the option to sit on air like it was an invisible chair as well. “Am I not able to sit on air here because I’m human?” I asked, unable to help my curiosity.

Sam went to answer my question, but the angel spoke before he could, drawing my gaze over to him. “Actually, there’s absolutely no reason you shouldn’t be able to sit for yourself. Even with you feeling lightheaded due to the heady power of this world overwhelming you, you still should be capable of sitting, since it is by my will that the air would stabilize beneath you, rather than by your will,” he answered in a manner that was simultaneously matter-of-fact and casual.

His answer only made my curiosity over why Sam had made me sit on his lap grow. I turned my gaze back to him, expectantly awaiting an explanation. “I assumed you would not wish to try sitting upon a chair of thin air any more than you wished to sit upon a chair that might bite,” he stated simply after a moment, not meeting my gaze as he was staring flatly over at Raip, “Might we finally get down to business now?”

“You know, Sam, in all my time, I’ve never known you to be so eager to get through a visit here. Usually it is you lingering on over unnecessary and sometimes trivial conversation, seeming to enjoy keeping me from other work,” Raip replied without actually answering Sam’s question. It was rather ironic how Raip seemed to be treating Sam in the same way that Sam treated me. I might have actually found it funny, were I not bothered by the lightheaded feeling I got from being here. “...Could it be that you are displeased that Gentry is struggling to adjust to the higherworld?” the angel added as an afterthought.

“My reasons as to why I wish to complete our business and depart as swiftly as possible is none of your business,” the devil stated, still speaking flatly.

“I suppose that is true,” Raip admitted, offering up a bright smile now as he reached over and picked up some papers that had simply been sitting there in midair, “Now, the soul you are to collect is Elizaveta Romuda, correct? I need to see your copy of the contract you had with her, as well as the paperwork proving you have finally fulfilled said contract. After I make sure that is all in order, I’ll sign the release form for her soul.”

“As though I did not already know all of that,” Sam stated, pulling out some papers from thin air and laying them out on thin air.

“Well, I was saying all of that for the benefit of your assistant. He clearly has no knowledge of what is occurring here,” the angel replied as he leaned forward and picked up the papers Sam had just laid out.

“What is occurring here? I thought that devils paid souls to angels, not the other way around,” I said with obvious confusion, cocking my head curiously at the angel. Raip looked quite please that I appeared to be directing my curiosity to him rather than to Sam

“Well, you see, if the terms of a contract between a devil and human are such that they are enacted within the human’s lifetime but are not fulfilled within said time, then the human’s soul is collected by angels and brought to the higherworld as any soul without an attached contract would be. However, we cannot process the soul because it is still bound to the devil by the incomplete but in-process contract. We will then hold the soul in reserve for a hundred years, giving the devil time to complete the contract. If they do not complete it in that time frame, then the contract becomes null and void, and the soul is defaulted to us,” he explained cheerily.

“If the devil does complete the contract in the given time, however, he can come to collect the soul that is being held, provided that he has paperwork to prove the contract has been fulfilled,” Sam added, seeming to not like that the angel had conveniently left that part out, “And it has been over a millennium since the last time any devil was unable to complete a contract and the soul said contract pertained to became property of the higherworld by default.”

“It had also been a millennium since Sam last made a contract he was unable to complete within the lifetime of the human he made the contract with, until Elizaveta,” Raip added.

I gave off a thoughtful sound, cocking my head to the other side now as a thought suddenly came to my mind. “...Would this Elizaveta, by chance, be the Elizaveta from Bart’s childhood?” I asked softly, directing my gaze and thereby my question to Sam this time.

“She is the one and the same, yes,” he answered lightly, as though it meant nothing.

It didn’t mean nothing, though. As a matter of fact, to Bart, it would have meant everything if he had known that. “But...you...you said it was beyond your power to bring her back. You said you couldn’t do it, because you had never had her soul in your possession! How could you say that to him, and then turn around and come to claim her soul!?” I exclaimed, my voice slowly escalating as I worked my way through shock. I considered jumping to my feet in to display my disgust, but I about fell over just from leaning back from him slightly.

“I did not lie. I have never had her soul in my possession, as I could not claim it until the contract I had with her was completed; and I could not complete my contract with her unless I had made that contract with him,” Sam stated simply.

“And just what was your contract with her that required you to make a contract with him?” I demanded.

“Sam’s contract with Elizaveta was to, when her dear friend Bartholomew found someone he loved more than he loved her, help him be able to marry that person and have a good, long life together with them,” Raip said. We both looked over at him as he spoke, and he now glanced up from the papers he had been reading over, which were clearly copies of the contracts Sam had with Elizaveta and Bart. “Interesting. So, though the contract you had with her was to help him marry his beloved when he found a new one, you still created a second contract with Bart that was for the same purpose,” he mused.

“The girl was too young and foolish to think to include a clause in our contract that stated I could not also make a contract with him to serve the same purpose. There is no rule that I cannot create a contract with multiple persons that each have the exact same deep desires in their hearts; only the rule that I cannot create a contract which will conflict with another contract that was written before it. Therefore, it is perfectly allowable that I created a contract with him that guarantees I will fulfill my contract with her, allowing me to collect her soul now and also his soul in the future,” Sam stated without remorse.

He did not feel at all bad that he had basically cheated Bart out of his soul—or was it more correct to say that he had cheated Elizaveta out of hers? Either way, it was reprehensible. “How could you do that, Sam?! Even if it wasn’t written in Elizaveta’s contract that you couldn’t make a similar contract with Bart, it still should have been an unwritten understanding, the way that it’s an unwritten understanding that you have to take care of me!” I shouted.

This time around I actually shoved up to my feet because I was just so appalled at him. Naturally, I was still too lightheaded to stand on my own, so I almost fell over; but again I was caught, this time both Sam and Raip as they had simultaneously jumped up and grabbed onto me to put me back on balance. Curiously, neither of them released me, even after seeing that the other one had hold of me.

“The only reason that unwritten understanding is an understanding is because I am obligated to show such kindness to you for you to live long enough that you can repay me and our contract can be fulfilled. However, I am in no way obligated to show any form kindness to that girl, least of all to pass up a perfectly good and all too easy opportunity to obtain another soul,” Sam said flatly. I couldn’t tell if he was aggravated because I was acting so repulsed, or because Raip wasn’t backing off of me.

“Oh, what, so you always go around making contracts with two people that both lead to the same ends?!” I asked, not sure if I felt more repulsed or horrified by the idea.

The devil now gave out a dark bark of laughter at that, suddenly and surprisingly relinquishing his hold on me. “Ha. Hardly. Very rarely does one human know what is truly the deepest desire of another human, and even more rarely is the deepest desire of one human to fulfill the deepest desire of another. Cases like this are one in a billion,” he said, a smirk upon his face, his devilish sense of humor allowing him to find amusement in my absolute abhorrence over his actions, “That is why I can so easily and even quite happily take advantage of the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.”

I was...speechless. The emotional side of my brain was still disgusted, but the logical side could understand his side of things when he explained how rare an occurrence this was. It was more than just an understanding dawning on me, though—there was a realization, too. My brother had been a one-in-a-billion person, who had not only known my deepest desire, but it had been his deepest desire to fulfill my deepest desire. That was perhaps why I had actually been so upset by how Sam had taken advantage of Elizaveta, because she had been a selfless person like my brother was.

...It....It raised a new question for me, though... Why had Sam not taken advantage of the situation with my brother and I, as he had done with Elizaveta and Bart? Why had he not made a contract with me the same as the one he had made with my brother? That also brought up another question I’d actually had all along but had not dared ask: Why did he tell me about the deal with my brother and then allow me to make an addendum to it? He hadn’t told Bart of the contract with Elizaveta, let alone allowed him the chance to change it. I didn’t dare to ask my questions any more now than I had before, though.

Seeing that he had successfully shut me up, Sam sat back down upon thin air again. “Now, if you are done being self-righteous for the time being, please stop butting into business that has nothing to do with you. I have not yet made it any part of your duty to deal with the collection of souls owed unto me, so all you are doing is wasting my time and wasting my patience with you,” he stated, still seeming to be amused in his devilish way even though his words might lead you to think he was agitated. Or perhaps he was still agitated, and was merely masking it with amusement.

“Pardon me, Sam, but I do believe that bringing Gentry with you when you go to collect a soul does make it his business simply because you are forcing him to be present at the time of said collection,” Raip stated, attempting to lend me a hand even though he seemed to have up until now been avoiding actually taking a side between us.

“No,” I said as I shook my head softly, speaking before Sam could, “He only brought me because he has to keep me with him to keep me safe from other netherworld residents. My presence here does not automatically make this my business. I had nothing to do with forming the contract, and I therefore have nothing to do with collecting the soul unless he makes it part of my duties, which he has not. It was asinine of me to interject in the first place, let alone to argue over it. I apologize for having done so.”

With that, I brushed Raip’s hands off of me, unsteadily stepping away from him and turning around, sitting down next to Sam. I couldn’t help but mentally thank God that I had sat down successfully. Despite what the angel had said earlier, I had half expected to fall flat on my ass just now. “...Right. Let’s get this over with, then,” Raip said, moving to reclaim his own seat in thin air. Finally we all three seemed to be agreed that we wanted to finish up and then....what? What came next? What came after “and then”?
I don't remember how to edit text properly in these darn comment boxes...

Prequel: The End || Afterward

Character Profiles
Name: Gentry Aloce.
Position: Uke.
Gender: Male.
Race: Human.
Age: 33.
Eyes: Pine green.
Hair: Neck length, slightly messy, ash blond.
Build: 5' 7", barely muscular, pale.
Other: None.

Name: Sam Hill.
Position: Seme.
Gender: Male.
Race: Devil.
Age: Unknown (appears 30).
Eyes: Red-violet.
Hair: Mid-back length, bangs waist length, straight, angled cut in back, straight cut in front, bangs tied back, bistre brown.
Build: 5' 8", partially muscular, deeply tanned.
Other: None.

Story, characters, and everything else © Me
© 2014 - 2024 KillMePleaseGod
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I've been a fan of your writing for years (read all your stories and poetry, the majority more than once) and just want to say that this is awesome as usual and I'm super excited to see you back on the wagon so to speak. Also I'm a chronic lurker, like dedicated to lurking all over the internet, so I'm not sure I've ever commented on something of yours before. Sorry!