The morning is bright and clear. Levi must have forgotten to close his curtains last night because sunlight is streaming in to blind him and condensation is dripping down onto his carpet. He rolls over and pulls the covers back over his shoulders and-
Something appears next to him. Someone.
“Levi you have to wake up please it’s very important-“ Shep shakes him, pushing off his covers.
“I’m awake already.” Levi rubs his eyes and groans. What’s Shep even doing here? It’s like 11am and that is way too early for anyone to be out of bed.
Also, apparently Shep can just teleport into Levi’s house? Either that or Levi was asleep and Shep broke in. They’re both equally weird.
“I need you to get up and look really uh- presentable? In about 5 minutes, my boss is coming soon and-“
“Oh, shit.” Levi rolls off the bed and stands up. “This is the boss I promised I’d cover you for, right?”
“Yes.”
“Right.” Levi stretches and goes to his wardrobe. “So I just have to make myself look like I’ve been awake for hours. In five minutes.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, fuck.” None of his shirts are ironed, at least half of them aren’t even clean, all his good shirts are on his floor somewhere…
Shep stares at the pile of clothes on the floor, looking mildly panicked and desperate.
“I’ll be back in a second.”
“Wha-“
Shep disappears. Has he always been able to do that? He’s never done that before. God, he probably can just teleport himself straight into Levi’s room.
He’s not sure if that’s a good thing or not.
Levi scans the piles of clothes. There’s legitimately nothing here that looks even remotely presentable, the best he has is a plain black t-shirt, everything else is too old or big or small or it has some edgy band logo on it from when he was 15. So. Not presentable. Levi takes the black shirt from the wardrobe and pulls it on.
Shep reappears in front of him with a white shirt. A fancy one. It has a collar and everything.
“Did you steal that?”
“It’s mine.” Shep undoes the buttons and pulls it onto Levi. “Alright. Good. We’re good. Presentable.”
“Is presentation a big deal for angels?”
“Dear lord, yes.”
This shirt is more comfortable than any of Levi’s clothes. He didn’t know shirts could be this comfortable. It probably cost more than everything that’s on his floor right now, and that’s saying a lot, because his jeans are buried somewhere in that pile.
“Alright. Just. Act natural. You’re not supposed to know I’m an angel. Do not mention our deal.”
“Good plan.”
“I was supposed to be using this five minutes to come up with a human excuse for Bantam to come here but- we’ll work it out when she asks. It doesn’t matter. Improvise. It’s all g-“
There’s a knock at the door.
“Fuck,” they both say at the same time. Levi kicks a pile of clothes under his bed as Shep pulls open the door.
“Hello, Shepherd,” says the woman as she strides in the door. Levi doesn’t know what sort of human excuse there would be for someone to walk into a stranger’s apartment with that much confidence. “And…Steve, is it?”
Why does she think his name is Steve?
“Levi,” he corrects.
Levi recognises Bantam. She’s shorter than him, and bright pink hair that’s neatly cut above her shoulders. And a clipboard. She’s clutching a clipboard. He wants to say something along the lines of ‘You’ve killed me before’ but Shep is here and he can’t.
He just looks at her. She doesn’t seem to recognise him.
Not yet, anyway.
He should probably keep it that way. It’s the safest option for everyone involved, and definitely the one which has him getting murdered the least.
“And Leslie-” Right. Okay- “You’re Shep’s friend?”
“Yep,” Levi says. “That…that be me.”
God this is going horribly already. He doesn’t know what she’s pulling. Maybe she’s just that bad at names. Maybe she won’t notice Levi’s horrible cover story. Hopefully she doesn’t notice that he’s wearing Shep’s shirt. She couldn’t possibly know what-
“Nice shirt.”
…she’s noticed.
“So, it’s great to have a visit from my cousin Bantam.” Shep shows her inside.
“Yes, it’s lovely to be seeing you too, cousin Shep.” She sits down on the couch, very properly. She’s got good posture, and she carries herself confidently. Her suit looks expensive. She’s just going out of her way to showcase how much better she is. “It’s been a while.”
“It has certainly been some time.” Shep sits down too and tries to follow the same proper stance that Bantam has. He looks awkward and kind of uncomfortable.
Levi sits down near Shep, hoping his thousands of years of being an actual literal king would give him some help here, but no, he can’t look fancy sitting down either.
“How did you meet Loki, Shep?”
“My name is Levi,” he says, again, but he doesn’t think she cares.
Though, she knows. Levi isn’t sure what she knows, but she definitely knows something. The way she looks at him, the way she’s kind of ignoring him – she could know who he is, she could be a transphobe who’s clocked him, could be anything, really.
He’s going to have to work it out.
Levi stares at her as Shep attempts to answer the question.
“Well- we- um- we met at a-“
“I was getting a burger.”
“And- um- I-“
“They only had one burger left.”
“That seems like an unlikely instance.”
Levi glares at her. She’s so fucking fancy. “It was the free burger day.”
“And I…offered to give the last burger to Levi since we were at the same position in the queue.” Shep nods. “And it escalated from there, and now we’re very good friends, and Levi has a nicer apartment than mine which is why we’re meeting here instead of my apartment.”
“Right.” Levi had an elaborate tale of him tackling Shep for the last burger but he guesses what Shep said works too. Anyway, judging by what Shep said about The Visit, Bantam will start to ask Shep a bunch of questions that don’t involve Levi so he doesn’t have to do much more lying.
Bantam stares at them. She says nothing. She is thinking something. Levi knows this and not much else.
There is silence.
“What do you do, Schnitzel?”
Schnitzel? There’s no way she’s not fucking with him right now. How do you get Schnitzel from Levi? How-
It doesn’t matter. Whatever she’s doing, it doesn’t matter, he just has to keep up all their lies just like he promised Shep. He has to think of something he’s doing with his time that isn’t ‘binge watching cooking shows’ or ‘feeling depressed’.
“What do I…do?”
“Do you have a job?”
“Knitting.” Good enough. Shep does it. If Shep can do it, Levi can do it too.
“Interesting.” She pulls a pen away from her clipboard and scribbles something down. Levi doesn’t like that. This wasn’t meant to happen. This whole meeting is supposed to be scaring Shep. Not putting Levi on the spot to make up answers to questions he doesn’t have the answers to. “And how is your…work, Shep?”
God, she sounds like a psychiatrist. Asking so many questions in that calm tone of voice, perfectly composed, but microanalysing everything you say to use against you later. Smiling an emotionless smile, trying to draw the answers out of you to have an impartial judgement until they’ve sapped out everything they can and they start tearing you to pieces.
Maybe Levi’s just had some weird psych appointments.
“My work is going wonderfully.”
“Has it been successful?”
“Absolutely.”
“Can you give me a success rate as a percentage?”
This whole conversation would have been so weird if Levi didn’t know what was happening. They’re both trying so hard to act like normal people and it’s just not working. They’re being so vague about everything that it’s barely even applicable to an everyday job.
Success rate? Percentage? What sort of job-
“87%,” Shep answers with confidence.
What does it all mean? This conversation better stop soon because it is making Levi very uncomfortable.
“What do you two like to do together?”
Jesus, they’re really being grilled. One question after another, just slapped down, give a response and on to the next one.
Levi waits for Shep to speak so he doesn’t say the absolute wrong thing.
“Walking,” says Shep. “We love walking.”
God, that can’t be enough to convince her. There has to be more. There has to be something else. Something productive sounding.
“Cooking,” adds Levi.
“Walking where? Cooking what?” Bantam has her clipboard armed and ready.
Why does she have so many questions?
“The park,” says Shep.
“We like to cook soup,” says Levi. She eyes him suspiciously.
That has got to be the stupidest thing he’s ever said.
Bantam doesn’t say anything else. She just continues writing in her clipboard.
“Do you run into demons often? While walking? Or while cooking soup. I don’t know what type of soup you cook.”
“Sometimes,” says Shep, probably not wanting to say how often they actually do run into demons.
“What type of demons?”
Demons that look like people, apparently.
“Rat shaped ones.”
There are lots of demons that look like people.
They just don’t know it yet.
“And your magic?”
That one catches Shep off guard. He opens his mouth but says nothing. He’s stuck. He’s thinking.
“It’s- it’s alright.”
“Have you been practicing?”
He sighs and shakes his head. “I know I have to, but-“
“You know you need to practice, Shep.”
That one seems to hurt him the most. Shep is significantly less dedicated to appearing put together and chirpy and he’s just sad. And Bantam just keeps going at them, rapid fire questions with no chance for Shep to get anything in. And then she finally asks,
“Is there anything else you want to add before I leave?”
The Bantam being Shep’s cousin thing has been dropped completely. She’s not even pretending any more.
“Um…”
There is so much Shep could say here that could ruin everything. He could let it all out and this thing would end now. Anything about that demon that looked like a human. Anything about their deal. Anything about the Gay Thing would probably go down horribly. Anything at all.
“No.”
Oh, thank God.
Then she Stares. Bantam would be pretty fucking good at staring contests because she’s just got this gaze that pierces your eyes and tells you she knows she’s better. She knows she has the power here. And then you stop making eye contact because you haven’t blinked and your eyes are burning but that means she wins and it worked.
Shep is holding that stare back at her. Maybe it’s different. Maybe this is a secret angel telepathy thing. They’re speaking to each other through ultraviolet frequencies that only angels can understand.
That’d be fucking ridiculous. Levi knows way too many angels for that to be true.
And yet the length of their staring gives Levi a speck of doubt.
“Alright.”
Shep blinks and looks away and Bantam gives this smug ‘I won’ kind of grin though Levi wasn’t even really sure it was a staring contest in the first place. But that’s sure what it looks like.
“I’ll take my leave, then.” She clips the pen back into place on her clipboard and stands up. “Farewell, cousin Shep.”
“Goodbye, cousin Bantam,” says Shep and they’re still failing to be normal human beings in even the easiest part of pretending to be a human.
“Bye, Bantam,” says Levi to give them a good example to work off.
“Yes.” Bantam stares at Levi again before she shuts the door.
Well that was fucking horrible.
“Oh God.” Shep lets out a sign of relief. “Was that good, Levi? Did I- did she- I-”
“I’m sure you did fine, man.” He isn’t actually. He isn’t sure of anything that’s just happened. He’s the King of Hell. He’s been around for thousands of years. But he honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he woke up and this whole thing was a dream because that was the most alien thing Levi has ever experienced.
“Really?” Shep pulls on his scarf. “I’m not sure, I think it was alright but I’m really not sure-“
So they’re in the same boat. Good to know.
“I’m sure it was great. She didn’t start shouting or anything. If she had a problem, she’d tell you, yeah?”
Shep nods. “I- I guess you’re right?” He pulls his scarf over his face. “I just need a moment to calm down, I think.”
Levi gives it to him. He needs a moment too. To sit down and register what the fuck any of that was.
So he definitely recognises Bantam. And she’s definitely tried to murder him before. He isn’t sure if she was successful because he doesn’t remember the last time he died but she definitely had something to do with it.
More importantly, does she recognise him? Of course he looks a little different to how he usually looks, a lot younger and smaller and cheaper clothes (except for the shirt) but he’s still somewhat recognisable. Maybe not to the average demon but this is Bantam he’s talking about, she’s an angel and she keeps everything meticulously organised in a filing cabinet. Hell, she probably knows more about Levi than he does himself.
“Levi, I think we need to do more work. I think if we find more demons then she won’t want to fire me.”
“Will this make you less anxious about this whole interview thing?”
“Most definitely.”
He doesn’t want to do this. He’s sick of killing demons. He’s sick of all of it. He just wants to lie down and be free of responsibility for the rest of eternity.
But also, he doesn’t want Shep to get fired.
“In that case,” Levi puts on his most determined face. “Let’s go do some vigilante justice.”
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