They both carry their anger in the shoulders; that's one thing they have in common. When they're forced to meet, that's the visible part: they stare at each other and speak in short, clipped, barely-tolerant words, shoulders so tight that if they are seen, people fear the explosion of shirts. (Not so when Baal meets Michael: their shoulders relax. If there were observers, they might note this.)

Laurence cannot suffer Baal. It is who and what he is, but it is not always his choice. When there are the lives of others that he must consider, Laurence fights his oath down, winds the chain up in an invisible fist and thinks at it soon.

Baal simply cannot stand Laurence. To him, Laurence is young and foolish and no fitting replacement for Michael as Lord Commander. He'd hated Uriel as well when Uriel had been there, but Uriel was gone and there was no point holding on to old grudges out of fond memory. He hates Laurence now.

When they meet, they sometimes fight, but they almost always fuck. There's no other term for it, not this. Anger, debate, an inability to take out their agression for political reasons (it would destroy this tactical point - is the death of so many worth it when I can draw him in private and fight him there?) - they build, these things. They propel the two up hotel stairs, into hotel bedrooms, onto hotel beds. They force Baal to hold Laurence pinned face down on his neck and force Laurence's shoulders tight and angry and resentful. Biding his time.

After, of course, Laurence tries to kill him; sometimes he even succeeds. But by then, it's already done.