I finally finished the fic that @wouldyouknowmore won in my 666-follower Satan-themed giveaway. Yours is next, @shine-of-asgard… sorry I’m slow :-

The prompt wouldyouknowmore gave me was: “what would you think of writing Loki and Thor as personifications of two of the seven deadly sins? Patron demons, if you will. I’ll let you choose which sins, of course.” I suggested writing it as a workplace comedy taking inspiration from Good Omens and “The Good Place”; this is what resulted. It’s almost 3000 words rather than the intended 1000-2000… I’ve never been good with word limits.

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It was virtually inevitable that Loki would end up both loving and hating Thor; it was in their natures.

They worked in the Deadly Sins department of the Pre-Death Acquisitions division of Hell. It was a common misconception that there were seven of them—there was definitely something satisfying about the number seven, and “Seven Deadly Sins” had a nice ring to it—but there were in fact eight. Someone should have told Pope Gregory that Pride was a very different sin from Vanity; it would have been obvious, Loki thought, if only he had met both Thor and Fandral. Vanity is the obsessive preoccupation with outward appearances and with the opinions of others; pride is an excessive inner confidence in one’s own abilities and worth. Loki found vanity (and Fandral) to be contemptible, servile, and therefore unattractive. Pride, on the other hand… there was an alluring swagger to it (and Thor). It may have been a moral vice, but Loki considered it an aesthetic virtue.

Loki envied Thor his prideful swagger. Of course he did; he was, after all, the embodiment of Envy. Which he might have found contemptible in himself, but he comforted himself with Nietzsche’s argument that envy was a Homeric virtue which spurred its possessors to great deeds in the agon, and was moved by the inscription from Hesiod: “Two Eris-goddesses are on earth… the one, the cruel one, furthers the evil war and feud! … Zeus the high-ruling one, however, placed the other Eris upon the roots of the earth and among men as a much better one. She urges even the unskilled man to work, and if one who lacks property beholds another that is rich, then he hastens to sow in similar fashion and to plant and to put his house in order; the neighbor vies with his neighbor who strives after fortune. Good is this Eris to men. The potter also has a grudge against the potter, and the carpenter against the carpenter; the beggar envies the beggar, and the singer the singer.”

And if that didn’t help to make him feel better about himself, he could always console himself that “whoever despises himself still respects himself as one who despises.” Loki read a lot of Nietzsche.

But Loki’s envy of Thor wouldn’t have spurred him to much if it weren’t for Amora—fittingly, for she was the spirit of Lust.

For about a century Loki had been carrying on an affair with the Grandmaster, who worked in Post-Death Retribution. His specialty was to pit the damned souls (conveniently re-embodied for the purpose) against each other in gladiatorial combat—not to the death, of course, since that was a fait accompli, but certainly to the painful mutilation. He was more than a little eccentric, but he was very high up in the demonic hierarchy and accordingly well compensated. He doted on Loki, constantly lavished him with fine new clothes in every style imaginable, displayed him proudly on his arm (as if he were some kind of designer bag) at the most decadent restaurants and clubs in Pandemonium.

The Grandmaster, whose true name was En Dwi Gast, claimed to be one of the original angels who rebelled with Lucifer. Loki wasn’t sure he believed that, but he did have enough access that at an incredibly exclusive party, he was able to introduce Loki to Satan himself. The Prince of Darkness (in a dazzlingly well-tailored suit that Loki instantly coveted) briefly eyed Loki up and down and, without a change in his cool expression, said, “You know, they always say that Pride was my cardinal sin, but I think they underestimate the… pull of Envy.” Loki thought the Grandmaster’s simpering smile in response had a touch of sourness in it; and perhaps he was only imagining it, but it seemed that when he glanced over later to the dais where the Lords of Hell sat, Satan winked at him.

For all his caprice and possessiveness, the Grandmaster was an attentive and extraordinarily creative lover. All in all, Loki thought as he lay sleepless beside his softly snoring patron and paramour, he should have been satisfied with his situation. But of course, since he was the personification of Envy, satisfaction was not in his nature.

The next day Amora noticed Loki looking even more dissatisfied than usual, more wan and distracted and with deeper shadows under his eyes. As soon as Heimdall, their supervisor, left the room to meet with Odin (an exceptionally successful embodiment of Greed who had been promoted to Temptation Coordinator), Amora sauntered over to Loki’s desk.

“You look like someone who needs some cheering up,” she said with a little sympathetic pout.

If he had been anyone else, Loki would have thought Amora was trying to seduce him; but he knew her well enough to know that that was just her default manner, and she knew him well enough to know that she was definitely not his type.

“Why, do you have any suggestions?” he asked dully. He imagined that she might recommend some truly depraved sex act he could try with En. The thought didn’t exactly appeal to him.

But no, Amora directed her heavy-lidded gaze significantly toward Thor’s desk at the front of the room.

“Amora, you know I have an arrangement with the Grandmaster.”

Amora gave him a disdainful look that somehow managed not to be sexy. “Loki, we are demons who are literally the embodiment of sins.” 

“It wasn’t a moral objection!” Loki protested, indignant. “You know how jealous the Grandmaster is. If he found out…” 

Amora scoffed. “What would he do? Kill you? Force you to battle some pathetic mortals?”

“He could destroy my career!”

Amora snorted. “That’s what you’re worried about? You really want to work in your daddy’s corner office, filing paperwork and drawing up presentations?”

Loki flushed a little at the description but insisted, “You know who I am, what I am. Anyway, I definitely don’t want to go back to being an imp, whispering in mortals’ ears about how shiny their neighbor’s new car is and how delightful it would be to put a little scratch in the paint. I’ve been doing really good work here! Reality TV? The explosion of social media? That was me! I made that happen!” 

“Of course, you’re very talented,” Amora said soothingly. “Someone who works as hard as you do deserves to do something nice for himself.” 

Loki glanced over at Thor, who at that moment happened to be stretching his shoulders in a way that seemed to make all the muscles in his upper body ripple and bulge. 

“And by ‘something nice’ you mean seducing my coworker who also happens to be my adoptive brother.”

“When you put it that way, it’s almost irresistible, isn’t it?”

Loki looked over at Thor again. Now he was gathering his abundant golden locks into a loose bun, exposing the tantalizing angle where his surprisingly slender neck met his powerful shoulder. Loki sighed. Thor was the one thing he had always wanted most but had never allowed himself to dream he might have.

“And you really think it will work?” he asked, more plaintively than he had intended.

“Of course! You’re the most desirable demon in Hell… excepting myself, of course. Satan himself made a pass at you. Why wouldn’t he want you?”

“Thor, he’s… not the type to want something just because everybody else wants it.”

“Did I suggest anything of the kind? No, he’ll want you because you’re beautiful and stylish and smart and ambitious.”

“But how do you know?” Loki insisted. His insecurity was something else he hated about himself, but it seemed inescapable.

Amora sighed and leaned closer. “Loki, it’s my job to know. I watch people. I watch people watching other people. And shit like that—that ridiculous stretch, that unnecessary fussing with his hair—Thor doesn’t do that unless he thinks you’re looking.”

“Oh,” was all Loki could say to that.

“And Loki…” Amora added as she got up to return to her desk. “If the Grandmaster isn’t making you happy, you should break it off with him.”

“I’m surprised to hear you say that. I would have thought you’d want me to be getting as much as I can, wherever I can.”

“Only if you’re actually into it. I’m the spirit of Lust, not distasteful, calculating sex for career advancement.” 

“No, I suppose that’s more in my purview,” Loki acknowledged.

When work hours were over, Thor, as usual, made his way to the work station of his three best friends, Volstagg, Fandral, and Hogun. Volstagg was the spirit of Gluttony; Hogun embodied a less-understood sin, not Sloth as it is commonly called (which causes it to be mistaken for laziness), but Acedia, which is perhaps best translated as Apathy. Their other good friend, Sif, the spirit of Wrath, had joined them. She was, as usual, griping about something; this time it was her girlfriend’s boss. Sif was in a passionate, tempestuous, but remarkably constant relationship with Brunnhilde, the Apocalyptic Horsewoman of War; and Hela, the chief Apocalyptic Horsewoman representing Death, was by all accounts a heinous bitch. 

Loki, as was not usual, steeled himself and wandered over with affected casualness to join them. 

“Brother!” Thor greeted him with his typical booming joviality. “It seems that we have not spoken in an age.” 

Thor’s friends did not share his enthusiasm. They said nothing, but their cold suspicion spoke clearly enough from their faces. 

Loki forced himself to ignore them. “I have almost certainly bidden you good morning a few times in the past age.” 

Thor laughed. “There is speaking and then there is speaking, and we have hardly spoken of late. Come, Loki, have a drink with us; I want to know how my brother has been passing his time.” 

Do you really? Loki wondered. “A drink sounds good” was all he said.

“I’m afraid I have a date night with Brunnhilde,” said Sif. Loki didn’t know if she was making that up as an excuse not to have to interact with him; she always spoke in that brusque tone, so it was hard to tell if she was being hostile.

“I’m having dinner with the wife,” Volstagg said, patting his belly in anticipation. Volstagg was married to a Retribution demon whose specialty was forcing people who in life had spent their obscene wealth only on their own enjoyment to gorge themselves on endless gourmet meals of nauseating richness. Needless to say, her vocation and Volstagg’s were perfectly suited to each other. 

“Fandral, would you care to join us?” 

“I, too, have a date,” Fandral said, running a hand through his artfully mussed hair for the umpteenth time that day. Loki neither knew whether he was lying (to avoid Loki? for the sake of appearances?) nor particularly cared. 

“Hogun?” 

“Nah,” was all Hogun said. No one pressed him further.

“Well, I suppose it’s just us,” Thor said, turning back to Loki. If anything, he looked even more cheerful than before. Loki wasn’t sure whether to be hopeful or suspicious. 

They walked to the little pub around the corner from their office. One might have considered its dim lighting romantic, but it was loud and grungy enough that Loki usually didn’t. Thor ordered a beer; none of the wines were up to Loki’s increasingly exacting standards, so he ordered a gin and tonic. It was hard to go wrong with that, even in Hell. 

“So, how has my brother been passing his time?” Thor asked.

Loki felt his face heating, but he couldn’t have said whether it was from shame or from the disarming warmth of Thor’s smile. “Work has been taking up most of my time lately,” he said, not untruthfully. “The social media project has really taken off… which is gratifying, of course, but also creates more work. No rest for the wicked.”

Thor chuckled at his witticism, then said, “Ah, yes; Fandral talks endlessly about the success of his collaborations with you on ‘social media.’” 

Loki nodded. “Our joint efforts have been very productive. Together we came up with the ‘selfie’ and the ‘humblebrag’… but the selfie stick was all Fandral.” He was good at his job, Loki had to give him that. 

“Yes, he’s extraordinarily proud of that… or vain about it, perhaps I should say.” Thor smirked at his own joke. 

“Rightly so,” Loki said graciously. “It’s exactly as infernal as something invented in Hell should be.” 

Thor laughed aloud, so boomingly that Loki glanced around to see if other patrons were staring at them (not many, fortunately). 

“What about you? How have you been keeping yourself occupied?” Loki asked, half fearing the answer. What if he had a lover Loki knew nothing about? 

“Like you, mostly work. Envy and Vanity are certainly more widespread sins than good old-fashioned Pride, but I’ve been focusing my efforts on a few powerful industries and it’s really paid off.” 

“You got that award for the financial crash ten years ago…” 

“I did! And I made sure no one on Wall Street learned any lessons about the danger of hubris. The tech sector was a little more cautious after the bubble in the ’90s, but they’ve gotten well past that now. And they might have learned something after the last American election, but it certainly wasn’t humility.” 

Loki smiled, but couldn’t help thinking that Thor was doing better than he was, achieving far-reaching results by instilling his sin in fewer people with a greater concentration of power and influence. 

“What about your social life?” Thor asked, trying to sound offhand. “Who have you been spending your time with? Since I know it isn’t me.”

“Oh, I get out enough with Amora and Lorelei.” Amora’s younger sister was a succubus, which is what Amora had been before she was promoted. 

Thor gave him a look that said he knew Loki was being evasive. “Any… romantic entanglements?” he pressed. 

Loki looked down into his drink. How had it gotten empty so fast? He waved to get the bartender’s attention and answered his grouchy “Yes?” with “Another gin and tonic, please.” 

Thor cleared his throat, not too overtly but with definite purpose, to indicate that he wasn’t going to let his question drop. 

“You’ve probably heard about me and the Grandmaster,” Loki mumbled. 

“Just rumors.” 

“It’s not… serious. Not official.” 

“That’s not what the rumors said.” 

Oh, thank Lucifer the second gin and tonic had arrived, and it was strong. Loki drank about a third of it in one pull, then asked testily, “Why are you so nosy about my sex life all of a sudden?” 

“I didn’t ask about your sex life, I asked about your love life,” Thor pointed out. “And I’m interested because you’re my little brother. I care about you.” 

Loki snorted. “We’re demons, Thor. Love and care isn’t exactly what we do.” 

“Says who?” 

“God. The Devil. Everything.” 

“I know you read a lot of philosophy and you’re smarter than I am, and that’s great. It’s part of what I love about you. But I’ve been doing some thinking myself, and I’ve been thinking… maybe only bad people can truly love, completely and unreservedly.” 

“All right, I’m intrigued. Why would you think that?” 

“Because good people can be forced to choose between someone they love and doing the right thing. Maybe they have to leave the person they love to go fight for a just cause. Or maybe the person they love does something evil. Do you turn them in, punish them? We never have to choose. I can always choose you.”

Loki was at a loss for words. Fortunately he still had some of his drink left, and he bought a few seconds by taking a slow sip. “What if you had to choose between me and doing something exceptionally evil?” 

“Fortunately for me,” Thor said, matching Loki’s mischievous tone, “you are something exceptionally evil.” 

Loki’s face was feeling hotter than ever, his heart going uncomfortably fast. “I didn’t think it was a question of doing me.” 

Thor put an enormous hand over Loki’s on the bar, gave him the cockiest grin Loki had ever seen, and said, “Isn’t it?” 

The air seemed to leave Loki’s lungs like an untied balloon. “But we’re brothers,” he managed to say wheezily with the little breath he had left. 

“We’re demons, Loki,” Thor parroted back at him. “Who gives a shit?” 

Loki’s mouth was hanging open, and Thor seemed to take that as an invitation. He leaned in and kissed Loki slowly but firmly, with an air of confident ownership that only the spirit of Pride could convey.

After they parted, Loki had to take a few moments to recover. “So you don’t care about the Grandmaster?” he said eventually. 

“You don’t love him,” Thor declared. “So he can get fucked.”

“Oh, I’m sure he will,” Loki muttered. He wondered if that bothered him—the idea of his old lover, the powerful demon who had showered him with favor, finding another favorite to pamper. Oddly enough, he didn’t think it did.

Thor laughed heartily; he had always seemed to appreciate Loki’s sense of humor. “And so shall we,” he announced. He put some cash down on the bar to pay for their drinks—well over what they owed, Loki noticed; typical of Pride—extended a hand as if to help Loki down from his seat, and led him toward the door. Loki’s already rather tight trousers were now feeling uncomfortably tight; he very much hoped no one would notice that they weren’t quite lying the way they were supposed to… but he also hoped they would notice whose arm he was gracing now, and eat their hearts out. 

Thanks, Amora, he thought, and he mostly meant it.