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ragetti_wench! (part 2)
Dec. 7th, 2007 10:49 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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go_exchangePart I
As the demon forcefully shut the bedroom door the entity known as Pollution began to writhe feverishly.
It was not a calculated act, designed to make the angel blush a little at the very faint – and quite unintended – sparks of arousal this induced in his own material form (though this was the inevitable result), but rather one born out of the sudden surge in temperature that flowed through him, causing his body to shift about in a futile search for a comfortable position and his thoughts to fracture and fragment.
Had he retained any mental coherence the personification would quite possibly have started to wonder if the universe was delivering some sort of payback for the whole ‘global warming’ thing.
As it was, however, images and disconnected thoughts flittered through his mind, appearing and then dissipating without rhyme or reason: a snapshot of Chernobyl followed by the memory of the day the first disposable plastic shopping bag had fluttered away in the breeze followed by a flash of recollection of a time before he’d had a name to call his own.
The only external stimulus that penetrated his awareness was a quiet, uncertain voice that spoke hesitant reassurances and a cool hand that brushed against his brow. It was strangely comforting.
----------
When Crowley awoke the winter sun was streaming through the bedroom window, a pigeon was cooing on the other side of the window pane… and the stench of petrol was filling the flat.
For one panicked moment he thought that Hastur and Ligur had finally caught up with him and were about to exact revenge for that whole business with the holy water and answer-phone by discorporating him in the most horribly painful way possible. Thankfully, said moment passed rather quickly as he recalled the events of the previous evening. Truth be told he didn’t really mind having Aziraphale around the place. He really rather liked spending time around his stuffy, angelic counterpart; and, if he was entirely honest with himself (which often wasn’t one of his stronger points), he’d concede that he also really rather liked showing said stuffy, angelic counterpart some of the strange things that he could do with his tongue during the occasions when they’d both exceeded the level of inebriation needed to relieve them of inhibitions and good sense. Pollution though, that was another matter entirely. Despite having ‘worked’ in close contact with the entity more than a couple of times, the pale and unsettlingly pretty Horseman gave him a landfill sized case of the creeps.
With a groan he pried himself from the bed, wished on a pair of black boxer shorts (it did not, after all, really do to scandalise Aziraphale too much this early in the day) and stepped out into his living room. To his relief the room still appeared to be mostly intact, though the floor around the daybed did seem to have noticeably tarnished. However, the form lying upon the – in Crowley’s opinion – overly florid brocade cushions was looking a tad, well, critical. Pollution was on his back, shivering violently, sweating profusely, taking gulps of air and staring fixedly at the ceiling. More worrying though was Aziraphale, who was sitting hunched over on the floor next to the ailing entity and looking tired, uncharacteristically dishevelled and just a tad unwell.
“He’s not become infectious, has he?” the demon said, feeling mildly alarmed at the way the angel didn’t immediately entreat him to ‘go and put some clothes on’.
“Don’t be silly, Crowley,” Aziraphale replied. “He’s Pollution not Pestilence.”
“What I mean is that you’re looking a bit rough.”
“Well, last night was rather a trial.” The angel gave a weary sigh. “He got considerably worse during the small hours and I really wasn’t quite sure what to do for the best. I mean, I can hardly try any sort of divine healing on him. Goodness knows what the consequences of that might be; but I really do think that I should be able to do something other than just watch him.”
Crowley shrugged uneasily. “I don’t see much you can do.” He wrinkled his nose as the scent of refined hydrocarbons was joined by the smell of burning rubbish. “Though I would recommend giving him a good wash.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t do that. We don’t know what clean water would do to him,” said Aziraphale. “Besides,” he added. “There really wouldn’t be any morally acceptable way for me to dispose of it afterwards. I could hardly just pour it down the sink, after all.”
“Break it back down into raw firmament,” suggested Crowley.
“Yes, but it isn’t quite as simple as that, dear chap. Normal pollutants I could, but anything coming directly from him… well, that appears to be a different matter entirely.” To illustrate this point the angel held out the lapel of tweed jacket, which still bore several large stains. “I couldn’t get rid of them.”
“Oh shit.” Crowley groaned as he contemplated what the eventual irreparable damage to his flat might be. He was going to need new floorboards for a start. “So you’re just going to wait here, with him, until he either dies or gets better.”
“Is it possible for them to ‘die’, do you think?” said Aziraphale, at once looking deeply alarmed.
“G— who knows,” said Crowley, doing his best not to entertain thoughts of what horrible occurrences might transpire if one of the Four expired in his living room. “For all we know he could be stuck like this forever.”
“Surely Adam wouldn’t allow that… would he?”
The demon gave another shrug. “He’s a sixteen year old boy who’s upset his friend got injured. They’re unpredictable at best.”
For a few moments the angel stared glumly at his charge. “I don’t suppose you’d mind taking over here for a while?” he said, tone suggestive of hope rather than expectation. “Only I have three good deeds to induce and a moderate burst of divine inspiration to deliver this afternoon.”
“Sorry, too much on today,” lied Crowley, who’d planned to spend the morning superglueing coins and other valuables to the pavement and then watching the inevitable – and hilarious – demonstration of rampant human greed that would proceed.
“Oh well, if you’re sure.” The angel really did look tired.
“Whereabouts were you planning to manifest?” said Crowley, feeling the first nibblings of a guilt that would, were it somehow become public knowledge, have made him a laughing stock in Pandemonium, Dis and most of the underworld’s other little enclaves of demonic habitation.
“Balham for the divine inspiration, but the good deeds could take place anywhere.”
“I suppose I could take care of them for you. I was going to be tempting around that area anyway.”
“Would you? Dear boy that would be marvellous.” The expression on Aziraphale’s face was one of immediate relief. It was something that Crowley knew shouldn’t give him that tiny burst of happiness that it did. Thankfully, for his demonic pride the angel managed to refrain from calling him ‘a good chap’.
----------
Pollution was cold again. The hot, sticky, feverish feeling had started to fade sometime just before dawn, with some linearity returning to the personification’s thoughts. However, the unbearable heat had almost immediately been replaced by shivering, cold sweat and rigidity. Every muscle was now aching and every breath painful: a fact that was deeply problematic given that his form currently seemed to be determined to try and oxygenate itself.
As the morning wore on he became dimly aware of some sort of exchange going on between the angel who had taken him in from the cold and his demonic counterpart; and found himself feeling a vague sort of distress about the fact that the angel’s attention had been diverted to somebody else.
Thus it was that as the demon departed the angel returned to him, fussing and fretting, the personification experienced a momentary and very faint warm glow that had little do with the fact that his essential nature was eating away at the alien human components that had been forced upon him.
“We should just be glad that he didn’t find out that you almost spontaneously combusted last night,” the angel murmured after a few minutes had passed. “I’m not sure that I could convince him to allow you to remain here if he knew about that.”
“I’m cold again now,” said Pollution with a small snort.
The angel made a small motion with his left hand and the personification found himself lying under a blanket of bubble wrap.
“You’re being kind to me,” he said, grateful as it was possible for a being such as himself to be, yet a little perplexed as to why. When he’d made his way to the alley behind the angel’s shop the previous day he’d only done so in the hope that he could perhaps attempt to blackmail him into lending his assistance, or at the very most, play on his angelic nature enough to get him to grudgingly try and sway Adam Young into removing the affliction. He hadn’t expected any sort of genuine kindness, yet the angel had given it with only a modest amount of reserve.
“It is my job.”
“No, I don’t think it is. Your kind isn’t required to tend to creatures like me.”
“Well, that might be true in terms of what Crowley would call my ‘Official Mission Statement’ or some other such newfangled phrase, but one really has to take into account the spirit as opposed to the letter of the heavenly mandate, doesn’t one?”
Even in his present state Pollution was capable of picking up on the note of uncertainty in the angel’s voice. It was the same tone that junior lab assistants tended to use when questioning whether the company’s policy of avoiding basic safety checks was really justifiable.
“Thank you,” he said, before closing his eyes and settling into a restless slumber.
----------
Feeling acutely annoyed at what had become of what loosely passed as his domestic arrangements, Crowley went out and did Aziraphale’s job while the angel remained in the demon’s flat and fretted over the incapacitated Horseman.
The same thing happened the day after (two brief moments of divine ecstasy in Lambeth and three affirmations of faith in Camden) and the day after that (four guilt trips in Kings Cross and a very small miracle in Greenwich), with the demon returning to his Mayfair flat each night to find his friend still sitting at the ailing personification’s side. It was, to his mind at least, utterly ridiculous that an angelic being should expend so much emotional energy on a creature that a) was the embodiment of environmental desecration; and b) couldn’t be healed by any of his ethereal powers: but the fact was that when it came down to it both he and Aziraphale were pretty ridiculous examples of their designated sides.
“Don’t you think that this is all a bit too much?” he asked each night as the angel tucked into the meal Crowley had delivered from the best restaurants in the immediate area (a service for which Aziraphale insisted they pay).
“It’s in my nature to care for all of the beings on this earth, Crowley,” Aziraphale chided each time. A statement to which Crowley could not help but retort that ‘caring for all the beings on this earth’ would sometimes include, say, Hastur and Ligur. A move that had Aziraphale looking a tad cross for a few moments before pointing out that there was a difference between ‘caring’ and ‘suicidal stupidity’.
Crowley managed to keep himself from pointing out that voluntarily interacting with a powerful and destructive entity whom one has helped – albeit in a very minor way all things considered – to vanquish would seemed to fall into the latter category. If he applied logical reasoning too aggressively he knew that the angel could and would one day retaliate in kind.
As for Pollution, well, he just seemed to lie on the daybed in varying states of consciousness, occasionally stare at the state of the art television and wax poetic about various forms of environmental decay at sporadic intervals. He was, quite frankly, driving Crowley up the wall: not least because he was taking up practically all of Aziraphale’s attention. It wasn’t jealousy as such… well, no that wasn’t quite true, being resentful of the fact that the interloper had come into his flat and orchestrated a situation where the only individual on the face of the earth who could really understand him was too preoccupied for so much as a quick drink very probably constituted jealousy; however, it was, to his mind, perfectly reasonable jealousy.
When he returned home on the evening of the fourth day (just two subtle urgings to forgive and forget in Westminster that afternoon) he found Aziraphale and a marginally more lucid Pollution watching what looked like some kind of terminally dull art history programs on the television. To which, after giving Crowley a rather – to Crowley’s mind at least – cursory hello, the angel immediately returned his attention.
“I really don’t think much of this modern rubbish,” Aziraphale said, shaking his head disapprovingly, as the painfully pretentious presenter talked about a piece of 1990s installation art that consisted of a busted up Ford Cortina and a Tesco bag filled with multicoloured pieces of polystyrene.
“I think it’s beautiful,” said Pollution.
“Well, yes, I suppose you would,” the angel conceded, “but that really doesn’t make it a meaningful work of art.”
“What does?”
“Erm… well, that’s a good question, I… Oh, look at that picture.” In a transparent attempt not to have to answer this question, Aziraphale gestured to a Lowry on which the camera was now zooming in.
Pollution gave a happy, if still slightly wheezy, sigh. “Wonderful times,” he said. “No Clean Air Act to stop the beauty blossoming from the chimneys.”
The angel shook his head. “But can’t you in any way appreciate the composition?”
The personification considered this for a moment.
“Apart from that of the smoke and chimneys, I mean,” Aziraphale quickly added, clearly anticipating what Pollution’s first answer would be.
“We have a different sense of aesthetics, angel.”
Crowley gritted his teeth. For some reason this exchange caused a stab of resentment to twist in his gut. Aziraphale was… was… practically bantering with another supernatural being and Crowley didn’t like it one bit.
“Now that one’s wonderful,” said Pollution, as an abstract by a lesser known 1950s artist appeared on the screen.
Aziraphale pulled a face. “Oh, come along, it’s nothing but big swirls of different shades of grey.”
“That’s why it’s so perfect. It reminds me of my work.”
To Crowley’s extreme disgruntlement, Aziraphale did not frown and launch into a denouncement of Pollution’s inherent nature, but gave a sigh that was almost fond. “Well, I suppose you are what you are.”
This, as far as Crowley was concerned, really was the last straw; and when, after yet another dinner sourced from Mayfair’s finest, Aziraphale made his nightly request that Crowley take on the next day’s Pollution watching while he went to check on the book shop, the demon, much to the angel’s obvious surprise (and after pointing out that the entity seemed to be mostly recovered for G— Mick Jagger’s sake and was probably now more than capable of fending for himself), said yes.
----------
Aziraphale was both surprised and pleased by Crowley’s acquiescence on the matter of taking his turn at tending to the still-wounded Horseman. Not being totally oblivious (at least not without first engaging some heavy duty ‘Fingers in the ears’ wilful denial), he was quite aware that the demon had not taken on the task for wholly altruistic reasons. However, he couldn’t help but experience a sort of warm glow when he thought of his diabolic companion wanting to be the focus of Aziraphale’s attention.
It was a thought that made him feel guilty in much the same way that his increasingly frequent and sometimes uncontrollable daydreams about his and the demon’s more… intimate encounters (after which the angel never failed to mentally exaggerated the level of intoxication that he had needed to get him to engage in such shameful and indulgent behaviour); and one that he tried to push from his mind as he sat in the back room, hoping that the young lady who’d just walked in through the shop’s front door would take the absence of a visible proprietor as a sign that she should give up on her quest to make a purchase.
Turing the page of Great Expectations, he looked at the pot of African violets on the windowsill, which was practically oozing contentment at the temporary reprieve it had been given from Crowley’s brutal nurturing. As much as he’d come to accept Crowley’s demonic inclinations over the years, he had never been able to shed his distaste at the way the demon treated his poor, unfortunate houseplants. He just hoped that Pollution’s presence in the demon’s flat wouldn’t have any sort of long term effect that might harm the poor things’ growth when they were returned.
As the young lady in the main area of the shop began to wonder whether she should try and pluck up the courage to knock on the door to the back room, the angel sighed and decided that there were some benefits to spending the day with Pollution. From his interactions with the personification, Aziraphale had gleaned that he didn’t seem to have any real interest in literature, though the angel had a feeling that the Horseman would probably have paroxysms of joy were he to read a lengthy poetic of some facet of his work. The personification, Aziraphale had found, had a definite lyrical streak.
The angel gave a small and ever so slightly fond smile as he recalled how Pollution had the previous day described board of directors of Chemipharm International as ‘a poisonous concoction of expensively educated effluent’ (he’d been complimenting them of course). It was funny really how he’d grown strangely attached to the entity over the last few days: he wasn’t sure why. Pollution, after all, didn’t have the spark of goodness that Crowley liked to pretend that he himself didn’t possess. Though, when it came down to it, Pollution didn’t really have any spark of badness beyond his designated and inescapable function either.
Aziraphale supposed that it might have something to do with his own innate angelic desire to care for someone: and Pollution had, despite the fact that of the Four he was the most seemingly disconnected from humanity, appeared to be welcoming and grateful for the care he had provided. He just hoped that Crowley wouldn’t be too neglectful of the recuperating personification, or – Aziraphale frowned at the thought – perceive Pollution’s writhing, squirming and craving for physical contact as some form of flirtation. The entity was, if one overlooked the filth currently caking him, in possession of a very physically attractive form (even if to Aziraphale’s mind he could do with a little more meat on his bones) after all.
Shaking his head, he told himself not to be silly, even if the demon did get the ‘wrong impression’ as it were, Pollution was highly unlikely to want to well… do anything sexual with him. The Horsepersons just weren’t constructed that way. They were inhuman and hence without normal human desires.
This was at least what the angel tried to mentally repeat as an unpleasant little voice in his head gave a quiet, but rather smug: “Ah, but aren’t you supposed to be ‘without normal human desires’ too.”
----------
While Aziraphale was at the shop, fretting over what might or might not be happening at Crowley’s flat, the demon was sitting at his computer, attempting to reset the online scene for the Flamewar of Mass Defriending. Alas, the scent of burning plastic and old rubbish that was currently lying thick upon the air was really quite distracting and Crowley found himself attempting, in vain, to banish the headache that the awful smell seemed to be inducing.
With a glower, he got up from the desk in his office and walked into his living room; where Pollution had moved from the – now unrecognisably tarnished – daybed to Crowley’s precious sofa and was staring raptly at a news report about an oil spill somewhere on the Welsh coast.
“So beautiful,” the personification murmured to himself, paying no heed to Crowley’s presence. “So absolutely fucking beautiful.”
“Feeling a nice warm glow are you?” Crowley said, in a none too friendly manner.
Pollution just smiled at him. “You should be grateful for this one, Crowley. Surely you can find a way to take credit for the wrath and despair and industrial cover-ups this is going to lead to.”
The demon’s glower intensified. It was true that this was exactly the sort of thing he would report to Hell as a success. However, he really didn’t like this bout of incisiveness that Pollution seemed to be having. But then, the personification’s propensity to gazing dreamily into space, did perhaps sometimes act to mask the powers of observation that came along with his position.
“When you helped me with the Rompton Executive Housing Development you were never this hostile.”
Crowley snorted. “Yeah, more fool me.”
“You seemed to enjoy it at the time.”
The demon groaned in embarrassment as he recalled the last day of that particular project, on which the tempter had been tempted by the allure of the youngest Horseperson’s admittedly beautiful form and…. He visibly cringed as he was assailed by the memory of being stripped, coaxed to the floor of the woodland clearing that was destined to become a three bedroomed detached with en-suite, double garage and room for a conservatory and taken from behind – with mild to moderate roughness – by the personification. This in itself would not have been a particularly humiliating recollection (after all, the pleasures of the flesh were a standard part of the tempter’s repertoire), if it hadn’t been for the fact that just before climax he’d looked up to see six of the workmen from one of the nearby builds having a break-time cigarette just outside the clearing, each of them sniggering like there was no tomorrow. As a general rule Crowley had no objections to the occasional bit of exhibitionism; however, he couldn’t help but think that it was only ever enjoyable when one a) knew one was being watched and could avoid silly facial expressions accordingly; and b) chose one’s audience. This on the other hand had just been utterly humiliating, even if he had visited an embarrassing and very itchy revenge on each of the sniggering workmen.
“Look,” he said, not particularly keen on the idea of pursuing this line of conversation any further, “could you do something about that bloody awful stench…. And get off the sofa; you’re going to stain it beyond repair.”
With a decided pout the personification slid from the sofa onto the floor, revealing a dull grey – but hopefully banishable – imprint on the white leather and began to exude Pinefresh of such a chemical intensity that Crowley found himself trying to seal his nose, mouth and eyes against the burn. Worse than the irritation however was the fact that the stench of toxic pine forest was not so much supplanting the scent of burning plastic and rotten rubbish so much overlaying it.
“What I meant,” said Crowley, through clenched teeth, “is that I want you to get rid of the smell altogether.”
“I can’t.”
“Of course you can,” he snapped, “you don’t normally go around stinking like this, do you? Naturally predisposed to invisibility you might be, but there isn’t a human with a functioning sense of smell on the planet who could overlook this.”
“I could under normal circumstances,” said Pollution, an unpleasant element of smugness creeping into his tones, “but at the moment I don’t really have much control over my form’s functioning.”
Crowley considered the situation: the Horseman was probably telling the truth, yet there was no way that Crowley could put up with the stink for much longer.
In the end he decided that there was only one thing for it.
“You’re taking a shower.”
“What?” The look that Pollution gave him was pure poison.
Crowley snapped his fingers and a transparent plastic case containing several bottles of brightly coloured liquid appeared in his left hand. “It’ll give you a chance to degrade the local water supply.”
For a moment he thought that Pollution would refuse to cooperate. However, after a few seconds the Horseman picked himself up off the floor and allowed Crowley to usher him into the bathroom.
“Er… you might want to take that boiler suit off first,” he said, raising an eyebrow as Pollution stepped into the space-aged shower fully attired.
Pollution looked at him questioningly.
“Oh, for G— fuck’s sake, I’m not hitting on you. I just want to banish the sodding things somewhere where I don’t have to smell or look at them.”
The personification folded his arms.
Crowley sighed. “Look, I promise to banish them somewhere where they’ll mar the view.”
Acquiescing, Pollution began to remove his soiled and ragged apparel. He did this efficiently: with no hint of coquettishness, or coyness, or seductiveness, or any other “-ness” that was known for inciting lust in the hearts, minds and loins of the unwary. Yet for some unfathomable and utterly stupid reason the sight of the personification’s nude form caused the demon’s blood to rush in a distinctly southerly direction.
Chiding himself for being thus affected by a pretty, slender body that could probably be found on a million other far less toxic individuals, the demon forcibly redirected his gaze to the sleek, chrome controls for the shower.
“Well, that’s the heat control,” he said, gesturing in a decidedly agitated manner towards one dial. “And, um, that dials for the intensity of the flow… and that thing here… well, I’m not quite sure what that one does, so it’s probably better to avoid messing about with it. Um, so now you know how it all works – apart from the thing that you don’t – and I’ll be in the office doing work… and things.”
As he turned to leave a dirty hand grabbed him by the shoulder.
“Aren’t you going to help me? I’ve never done this before.”
Crowley honestly wasn’t sure whether this was a really clumsily orchestrated come-on or a literal enquiry and Pollution’s expression of mild amusement combined with moderate curiosity didn’t give him any clue.
“I’m sure you can manage by yourself,” he said, slithering out of the personification’s grip.
And with that he fled to his study, whereupon he collapsed into his desk chair, exhaled deeply and cursed the fact that the only place in the flat where he could get a cold shower was currently occupied by the being responsible for him currently being, to put it bluntly, ‘hard as a rock’. He really should have known better than to give Aziraphale the day off. This whole Pollution supervising thing was ridiculous: especially given that the entity was now perfectly capable of getting up, walking around and possibly maybe making sexual propositions to demons. Still, he had given Aziraphale his word and the angel would doubtless be most disgruntled to return from the shop and find that he’d thrown the personification out. Not that he was in any way confident that he’d actually be able to forcibly eject Pollution from his property; in fact, he suspected that it was deeply unlikely.
Opting not to take care of his present state of arousal in the usual manner owing to the fact that getting himself off while thinking of Pollution would open a whole can of awkwardness, he mentally recited the briefing on administrative restructuring Dagon had delivered via the ten o’clock news fifteen years ago. It worked, of course, even if he did start to lose the will to exist after five minutes.
Having managed to hold back the tide of idiotic lust, he switched on the computer and proceeded to go about the task of sending out virus ridden spam emails. It was an activity Crowley always found therapeutic, and he was just a little disgruntled when a knock on the door interrupted his endeavour.
Cursing, he got up, left the office and went to open the front door.
A move he promptly regretted when he saw who was standing outside.
“Ello Crawly,” said the short squat being, with a horrible toothy grin. “Bet you thought you wouldn’t be seeing me again, didn’t you.”
The demon stared in horror
“Just look at the little Creep, will you,” sneered his taller, thinner, but no less repulsive companion. “He’s gaping like a bleedin’ fish.”
As Hastur and Ligur leered at him, Crowley desperately tried to think of a way out of the situation. When, after five long and deeply horrible seconds, he couldn’t think of one, he decided that the only thing he could do was play for time and desperately hope that an idea occurred to him.
“Er, hi guys, long time no see. How are things downstairs? Minions not getting you down, I hope. Of course….”
“Save it, snake,” snarled Hastur. “You’re coming with us.”
With that the diabolic duo lunged at him.
Knowing that unpleasantness was imminent, he stumbled backwards, a mantra of Ohshitohshitohshit running through his mind. As Ligur reached out to grasp him however a most peculiar thing happened. The two arch demons froze and, with horrified looks on their faces began to do a very accurate impression of a chronic asthmatic in the middle of a severe attack.
Turning round to flee while he still had a miraculous chance he saw Pollution: naked, wet and soapy, leaning against the wall and gazing serenely at Hastur and Ligur.
“What the…?”
“I think they’re going now.”
As the two Dukes of Hell headed unsteadily for the stairs, Crowley gaped at Pollution.
“What did you do to them?”
The Horseman gave a happy smile. “Toxic dust from the tombs of saints.”
Shit Crowley took a step away from the entity, fearing that a radioactive holy water shower could be imminent.
“I wouldn’t do anything like that to you,” said Pollution with a breathy laugh that was almost devoid of the wheeze that had afflicted him for days. “I like you too much.”
“You do?” said Crowley, not sure quite how to take this statement.
Pollution closed the gap between them in a fluid and slightly predatory way. “You entertain me, even if you do resent me: and sometimes you have the most wonderful ideas for things for me to do.”
The demon gulped as a pair of wet arms wrapped around his waist and a lean body pressed against his front; positioning itself in such a manner as to cause maximum distraction.
“I’ve heard you can do interesting things with your tongue,” murmured Pollution.
“Who told you that?” asked Crowley, unable to stop himself from unconsciously sliding a leg between Pollution’s thighs.
“Oh, I hear things. Even your kind doesn’t notice me listening sometimes.”
Crowley was about to give his views on loose lipped incubi and succubae when it occurred to him that there were better things he could be doing. Even if he would regret it in an hours time
“My tongue’s not the only bit of me that’s interesting. Would you like a demonstration?”
Pollution gave a blissful sigh. “Oh yes, that would be wonderful.”
----------
Aziraphale was fretting.
He didn’t quite know what he feared the most: Crowley taking advantage of Pollution or Pollution seducing Crowley, but the fact was that, despite the fact that he kept trying keep up the mantras of ‘envy is bad, envy is wrong’ and ‘I really am being quite silly about this whole thing’ it was starting gnaw away at him.
After around forty-five minutes of valiantly fighting the urge to rush back to Crowley’s flat he finally gave in. Putting Great Expectations back in its place, giving the tenacious would-be purchaser who’d been hanging around in the shop waiting for the proprietor to appear a very terse ‘we’re shutting for the day now’ and willing the sign on the door from open to closed, he exited the shop by the front door (now blessedly devoid of literature stalking would-be customers) and hailed the first black cab he saw.
----------
Pollution was in a state of ecstasy that he usually only associated with nuclear disasters and the most serious of toxic waste spillages.
He was lying back on the previously clean, crisp off-white duvet of Crowley’s bed as the demon moved inside him: slit-pupils dilated, face flushed and breaths harsh and uneven.
With the exception of the Apocalypse that Wasn’t, the Horseman had always been entertained by the demon; even if the demon didn’t tend to reciprocate the emotion. However, right now he was feeling especially well disposed towards him.
“You’re really dirty, you know that,” said Crowley between pants, quite obviously unable to resist the allure of a really predictable pun, even now.
Pollution merely responded with a hoarse laugh.
There was, he decided, as the demon’s thrusts brushed a spot that made him gasp and moan, possibly only one thing that could make this scenario any better.
----------
After an unbelievably long journey by cab and an outrageously exorbitant taxi fare, the angel found himself in the hallway just outside Crowley’s flat.
He knocked on the door.
There was no answer.
He knocked again.
Once again, no answer was forthcoming.
Feeling a tad guilty, he placed his hand on the doorknob and turned.
“Hello?” he said, tentatively stepping inside.
There was no response.
Now rather concerned he cautiously entered the living room and was immediately faced with the sight of a vacated daybed.
Frowning, he took a deep breath, walked over to Crowley’s bedroom door and opened.
The vision of debauchery that met his eyes caused him to freeze. Crowley and Pollution were resting, completely naked, partially entwined and covered with what appeared to be little bruises and bites
“Er… Hi Aziraphale. Wasn’t expecting you back quite so early.”
“Crowley, what on earth have you done to him?” he cried out, with as much moral indignation as he could muster: while attempting to desperately ignore the ‘anatomical extras’ that the sight of them flushed, nude and despoiled seemed to suddenly be causing to manifest.
Crowley’s jaw dropped with the even more poisonous indignation of the unfairly(ish) accused. “Me? It was him that started it.”
“Well, you quite obviously took advantage of him. He’s ill for goodness sake.”
The demon snorted. “Believe me, nobody who moves like that is at death’s door.”
“Azrael doesn’t have a door,” said Pollution, who was watching the whole exchange with interest.
“A metaphorical door,” said Crowley.
“I don’t know if he has one of those or not.”
“Look angel.” The demon gave a laboured sigh. “I really don’t see what you’re so up in arms about. We’re both consenting, er… entities. And he’s bloody well closer to my side than yours in the grand scheme of things.”
“That is not the point Crowley. Besides, you’re six-thousand and he’s not even eighty yet.” The angel folded his arms. “The fact is… fact is that, well… Oh for goodness sake Crowley, I thought you liked me this way.”
For several seconds Crowley just stared at him. “Oh, bloody Manchester.”
On the bed, Pollution shifted around in a manner that went straight to Aziraphale’s loins and caused the angel to entertain the most shameful thoughts.
“You’re jealous, aren’t you,” said the personification in an utterly matter-of-fact manner.
Aziraphale quite literally squirmed. “Erm… I….”
The sides of Pollution’s mouth quirked upwards into an amused smile. “I like you too, you know.”
“What?”
“You were kind to me; and your hands felt nice when they touched my skin.”
To say that this left Aziraphale dumbstruck was quite possibly the understatement of the year. Indeed, before he could gather his wits, he found a pale and rather oily hand wrapping around his wrist and pulling him downwards towards Crowley’s – now somewhat dirty – sheets.
“Now, steady on,” he said. “I not sure….mph”
His protestations were silenced when Crowley, obviously now catching on to what Pollution was quite clearly suggesting, pulled his mouth into a lingering and slightly apologetic kiss.
Pretty soon however the angel found himself completely forgetting that he was supposed to be protesting at all as two pairs of hands set about squeezing, undressing and generally caressing him.
“My dear boys, this is most unorthodox,” he murmured, as the demon dipped his head between the angel’s legs and proceeded to do the most unusual things with his tongue.
Crowley, replying in as polite a way as one could whilst one’s mouth was full, gave a low ‘hmmm’: a move that sent a jolt of pleasure right through Aziraphale’s body. Pollution, for his part, merely gave a small laugh and continued to run slick hands over his chest and belly.
It all felt so good that when it was all over Aziraphale quite forgot to be thoroughly ashamed of himself.
----------
Several miles away, in a sleepy Cambridgeshire village two boys were sitting on one of the benches that bordered the village green.
“It was just so weird,” said one of them, a tall and rather scruffy brown-haired young man, who still had the pallid complexion and slight gauntness of one who had recently recovered from a serious illness. “I saw this guy - he wasn’t like any of the other workmen, but nobody seemed to pay attention to him – and… and I saw him take out this canister of teargas – well, that’s what I assumed it was. So then I sort of ran at him, trying to stop him from throwing it. And then everything just sort of exploded and the next thing I know I wake up in that horrible plastic tent thing in the Tropical Diseases Unit.”
His blonder and slightly shorter friend’s eyes widened. “You mean it was you that went for him, not the other way around?”
The scruffy young man nodded. “Yeah, it was a stupid thing to do, running at him like that, but I was just so angry.” He gave a snort and a small grin. “You should have seen the look in his eyes just before I crashed into him. He was scared shitless.” The grin turned to a frown. “Adam, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just that I think I might have got something wrong.”
“Oh, like what?”
“Nothing you need to worry about, Brian.”
As Brian shrugged and launched into a description of the new Playstation game his cousin had given to him the previous day, Adam experienced the unpleasant prickling of guilt. He’d been so angry that Pollution had harmed his best friend that he hadn’t considered that whole situation might have been partially caused by Brian being Brian.
Still, he thought, as his friend gave an enthusiastic monologue on what exactly one could do if his new game was put in Ultra Mega Thrill Kill Mode, it wasn’t too late to put things right. All he needed to do was locate Pollution and remove the debris of the collision with Brian from his material form.
It was an easy task to spread his consciousness, locate the target entity and… blush furiously as a clear image of the being known as Pollution and what he was presently doing snapped into focus.
“Adam, what’s wrong. You spaced out for a minute and then went bright red.”
“It’s nothing,” mumbled Adam. “I just remembered something I have to do. But I think it’s probably sorting itself out all right.”
As the demon forcefully shut the bedroom door the entity known as Pollution began to writhe feverishly.
It was not a calculated act, designed to make the angel blush a little at the very faint – and quite unintended – sparks of arousal this induced in his own material form (though this was the inevitable result), but rather one born out of the sudden surge in temperature that flowed through him, causing his body to shift about in a futile search for a comfortable position and his thoughts to fracture and fragment.
Had he retained any mental coherence the personification would quite possibly have started to wonder if the universe was delivering some sort of payback for the whole ‘global warming’ thing.
As it was, however, images and disconnected thoughts flittered through his mind, appearing and then dissipating without rhyme or reason: a snapshot of Chernobyl followed by the memory of the day the first disposable plastic shopping bag had fluttered away in the breeze followed by a flash of recollection of a time before he’d had a name to call his own.
The only external stimulus that penetrated his awareness was a quiet, uncertain voice that spoke hesitant reassurances and a cool hand that brushed against his brow. It was strangely comforting.
----------
When Crowley awoke the winter sun was streaming through the bedroom window, a pigeon was cooing on the other side of the window pane… and the stench of petrol was filling the flat.
For one panicked moment he thought that Hastur and Ligur had finally caught up with him and were about to exact revenge for that whole business with the holy water and answer-phone by discorporating him in the most horribly painful way possible. Thankfully, said moment passed rather quickly as he recalled the events of the previous evening. Truth be told he didn’t really mind having Aziraphale around the place. He really rather liked spending time around his stuffy, angelic counterpart; and, if he was entirely honest with himself (which often wasn’t one of his stronger points), he’d concede that he also really rather liked showing said stuffy, angelic counterpart some of the strange things that he could do with his tongue during the occasions when they’d both exceeded the level of inebriation needed to relieve them of inhibitions and good sense. Pollution though, that was another matter entirely. Despite having ‘worked’ in close contact with the entity more than a couple of times, the pale and unsettlingly pretty Horseman gave him a landfill sized case of the creeps.
With a groan he pried himself from the bed, wished on a pair of black boxer shorts (it did not, after all, really do to scandalise Aziraphale too much this early in the day) and stepped out into his living room. To his relief the room still appeared to be mostly intact, though the floor around the daybed did seem to have noticeably tarnished. However, the form lying upon the – in Crowley’s opinion – overly florid brocade cushions was looking a tad, well, critical. Pollution was on his back, shivering violently, sweating profusely, taking gulps of air and staring fixedly at the ceiling. More worrying though was Aziraphale, who was sitting hunched over on the floor next to the ailing entity and looking tired, uncharacteristically dishevelled and just a tad unwell.
“He’s not become infectious, has he?” the demon said, feeling mildly alarmed at the way the angel didn’t immediately entreat him to ‘go and put some clothes on’.
“Don’t be silly, Crowley,” Aziraphale replied. “He’s Pollution not Pestilence.”
“What I mean is that you’re looking a bit rough.”
“Well, last night was rather a trial.” The angel gave a weary sigh. “He got considerably worse during the small hours and I really wasn’t quite sure what to do for the best. I mean, I can hardly try any sort of divine healing on him. Goodness knows what the consequences of that might be; but I really do think that I should be able to do something other than just watch him.”
Crowley shrugged uneasily. “I don’t see much you can do.” He wrinkled his nose as the scent of refined hydrocarbons was joined by the smell of burning rubbish. “Though I would recommend giving him a good wash.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t do that. We don’t know what clean water would do to him,” said Aziraphale. “Besides,” he added. “There really wouldn’t be any morally acceptable way for me to dispose of it afterwards. I could hardly just pour it down the sink, after all.”
“Break it back down into raw firmament,” suggested Crowley.
“Yes, but it isn’t quite as simple as that, dear chap. Normal pollutants I could, but anything coming directly from him… well, that appears to be a different matter entirely.” To illustrate this point the angel held out the lapel of tweed jacket, which still bore several large stains. “I couldn’t get rid of them.”
“Oh shit.” Crowley groaned as he contemplated what the eventual irreparable damage to his flat might be. He was going to need new floorboards for a start. “So you’re just going to wait here, with him, until he either dies or gets better.”
“Is it possible for them to ‘die’, do you think?” said Aziraphale, at once looking deeply alarmed.
“G— who knows,” said Crowley, doing his best not to entertain thoughts of what horrible occurrences might transpire if one of the Four expired in his living room. “For all we know he could be stuck like this forever.”
“Surely Adam wouldn’t allow that… would he?”
The demon gave another shrug. “He’s a sixteen year old boy who’s upset his friend got injured. They’re unpredictable at best.”
For a few moments the angel stared glumly at his charge. “I don’t suppose you’d mind taking over here for a while?” he said, tone suggestive of hope rather than expectation. “Only I have three good deeds to induce and a moderate burst of divine inspiration to deliver this afternoon.”
“Sorry, too much on today,” lied Crowley, who’d planned to spend the morning superglueing coins and other valuables to the pavement and then watching the inevitable – and hilarious – demonstration of rampant human greed that would proceed.
“Oh well, if you’re sure.” The angel really did look tired.
“Whereabouts were you planning to manifest?” said Crowley, feeling the first nibblings of a guilt that would, were it somehow become public knowledge, have made him a laughing stock in Pandemonium, Dis and most of the underworld’s other little enclaves of demonic habitation.
“Balham for the divine inspiration, but the good deeds could take place anywhere.”
“I suppose I could take care of them for you. I was going to be tempting around that area anyway.”
“Would you? Dear boy that would be marvellous.” The expression on Aziraphale’s face was one of immediate relief. It was something that Crowley knew shouldn’t give him that tiny burst of happiness that it did. Thankfully, for his demonic pride the angel managed to refrain from calling him ‘a good chap’.
----------
Pollution was cold again. The hot, sticky, feverish feeling had started to fade sometime just before dawn, with some linearity returning to the personification’s thoughts. However, the unbearable heat had almost immediately been replaced by shivering, cold sweat and rigidity. Every muscle was now aching and every breath painful: a fact that was deeply problematic given that his form currently seemed to be determined to try and oxygenate itself.
As the morning wore on he became dimly aware of some sort of exchange going on between the angel who had taken him in from the cold and his demonic counterpart; and found himself feeling a vague sort of distress about the fact that the angel’s attention had been diverted to somebody else.
Thus it was that as the demon departed the angel returned to him, fussing and fretting, the personification experienced a momentary and very faint warm glow that had little do with the fact that his essential nature was eating away at the alien human components that had been forced upon him.
“We should just be glad that he didn’t find out that you almost spontaneously combusted last night,” the angel murmured after a few minutes had passed. “I’m not sure that I could convince him to allow you to remain here if he knew about that.”
“I’m cold again now,” said Pollution with a small snort.
The angel made a small motion with his left hand and the personification found himself lying under a blanket of bubble wrap.
“You’re being kind to me,” he said, grateful as it was possible for a being such as himself to be, yet a little perplexed as to why. When he’d made his way to the alley behind the angel’s shop the previous day he’d only done so in the hope that he could perhaps attempt to blackmail him into lending his assistance, or at the very most, play on his angelic nature enough to get him to grudgingly try and sway Adam Young into removing the affliction. He hadn’t expected any sort of genuine kindness, yet the angel had given it with only a modest amount of reserve.
“It is my job.”
“No, I don’t think it is. Your kind isn’t required to tend to creatures like me.”
“Well, that might be true in terms of what Crowley would call my ‘Official Mission Statement’ or some other such newfangled phrase, but one really has to take into account the spirit as opposed to the letter of the heavenly mandate, doesn’t one?”
Even in his present state Pollution was capable of picking up on the note of uncertainty in the angel’s voice. It was the same tone that junior lab assistants tended to use when questioning whether the company’s policy of avoiding basic safety checks was really justifiable.
“Thank you,” he said, before closing his eyes and settling into a restless slumber.
----------
Feeling acutely annoyed at what had become of what loosely passed as his domestic arrangements, Crowley went out and did Aziraphale’s job while the angel remained in the demon’s flat and fretted over the incapacitated Horseman.
The same thing happened the day after (two brief moments of divine ecstasy in Lambeth and three affirmations of faith in Camden) and the day after that (four guilt trips in Kings Cross and a very small miracle in Greenwich), with the demon returning to his Mayfair flat each night to find his friend still sitting at the ailing personification’s side. It was, to his mind at least, utterly ridiculous that an angelic being should expend so much emotional energy on a creature that a) was the embodiment of environmental desecration; and b) couldn’t be healed by any of his ethereal powers: but the fact was that when it came down to it both he and Aziraphale were pretty ridiculous examples of their designated sides.
“Don’t you think that this is all a bit too much?” he asked each night as the angel tucked into the meal Crowley had delivered from the best restaurants in the immediate area (a service for which Aziraphale insisted they pay).
“It’s in my nature to care for all of the beings on this earth, Crowley,” Aziraphale chided each time. A statement to which Crowley could not help but retort that ‘caring for all the beings on this earth’ would sometimes include, say, Hastur and Ligur. A move that had Aziraphale looking a tad cross for a few moments before pointing out that there was a difference between ‘caring’ and ‘suicidal stupidity’.
Crowley managed to keep himself from pointing out that voluntarily interacting with a powerful and destructive entity whom one has helped – albeit in a very minor way all things considered – to vanquish would seemed to fall into the latter category. If he applied logical reasoning too aggressively he knew that the angel could and would one day retaliate in kind.
As for Pollution, well, he just seemed to lie on the daybed in varying states of consciousness, occasionally stare at the state of the art television and wax poetic about various forms of environmental decay at sporadic intervals. He was, quite frankly, driving Crowley up the wall: not least because he was taking up practically all of Aziraphale’s attention. It wasn’t jealousy as such… well, no that wasn’t quite true, being resentful of the fact that the interloper had come into his flat and orchestrated a situation where the only individual on the face of the earth who could really understand him was too preoccupied for so much as a quick drink very probably constituted jealousy; however, it was, to his mind, perfectly reasonable jealousy.
When he returned home on the evening of the fourth day (just two subtle urgings to forgive and forget in Westminster that afternoon) he found Aziraphale and a marginally more lucid Pollution watching what looked like some kind of terminally dull art history programs on the television. To which, after giving Crowley a rather – to Crowley’s mind at least – cursory hello, the angel immediately returned his attention.
“I really don’t think much of this modern rubbish,” Aziraphale said, shaking his head disapprovingly, as the painfully pretentious presenter talked about a piece of 1990s installation art that consisted of a busted up Ford Cortina and a Tesco bag filled with multicoloured pieces of polystyrene.
“I think it’s beautiful,” said Pollution.
“Well, yes, I suppose you would,” the angel conceded, “but that really doesn’t make it a meaningful work of art.”
“What does?”
“Erm… well, that’s a good question, I… Oh, look at that picture.” In a transparent attempt not to have to answer this question, Aziraphale gestured to a Lowry on which the camera was now zooming in.
Pollution gave a happy, if still slightly wheezy, sigh. “Wonderful times,” he said. “No Clean Air Act to stop the beauty blossoming from the chimneys.”
The angel shook his head. “But can’t you in any way appreciate the composition?”
The personification considered this for a moment.
“Apart from that of the smoke and chimneys, I mean,” Aziraphale quickly added, clearly anticipating what Pollution’s first answer would be.
“We have a different sense of aesthetics, angel.”
Crowley gritted his teeth. For some reason this exchange caused a stab of resentment to twist in his gut. Aziraphale was… was… practically bantering with another supernatural being and Crowley didn’t like it one bit.
“Now that one’s wonderful,” said Pollution, as an abstract by a lesser known 1950s artist appeared on the screen.
Aziraphale pulled a face. “Oh, come along, it’s nothing but big swirls of different shades of grey.”
“That’s why it’s so perfect. It reminds me of my work.”
To Crowley’s extreme disgruntlement, Aziraphale did not frown and launch into a denouncement of Pollution’s inherent nature, but gave a sigh that was almost fond. “Well, I suppose you are what you are.”
This, as far as Crowley was concerned, really was the last straw; and when, after yet another dinner sourced from Mayfair’s finest, Aziraphale made his nightly request that Crowley take on the next day’s Pollution watching while he went to check on the book shop, the demon, much to the angel’s obvious surprise (and after pointing out that the entity seemed to be mostly recovered for G— Mick Jagger’s sake and was probably now more than capable of fending for himself), said yes.
----------
Aziraphale was both surprised and pleased by Crowley’s acquiescence on the matter of taking his turn at tending to the still-wounded Horseman. Not being totally oblivious (at least not without first engaging some heavy duty ‘Fingers in the ears’ wilful denial), he was quite aware that the demon had not taken on the task for wholly altruistic reasons. However, he couldn’t help but experience a sort of warm glow when he thought of his diabolic companion wanting to be the focus of Aziraphale’s attention.
It was a thought that made him feel guilty in much the same way that his increasingly frequent and sometimes uncontrollable daydreams about his and the demon’s more… intimate encounters (after which the angel never failed to mentally exaggerated the level of intoxication that he had needed to get him to engage in such shameful and indulgent behaviour); and one that he tried to push from his mind as he sat in the back room, hoping that the young lady who’d just walked in through the shop’s front door would take the absence of a visible proprietor as a sign that she should give up on her quest to make a purchase.
Turing the page of Great Expectations, he looked at the pot of African violets on the windowsill, which was practically oozing contentment at the temporary reprieve it had been given from Crowley’s brutal nurturing. As much as he’d come to accept Crowley’s demonic inclinations over the years, he had never been able to shed his distaste at the way the demon treated his poor, unfortunate houseplants. He just hoped that Pollution’s presence in the demon’s flat wouldn’t have any sort of long term effect that might harm the poor things’ growth when they were returned.
As the young lady in the main area of the shop began to wonder whether she should try and pluck up the courage to knock on the door to the back room, the angel sighed and decided that there were some benefits to spending the day with Pollution. From his interactions with the personification, Aziraphale had gleaned that he didn’t seem to have any real interest in literature, though the angel had a feeling that the Horseman would probably have paroxysms of joy were he to read a lengthy poetic of some facet of his work. The personification, Aziraphale had found, had a definite lyrical streak.
The angel gave a small and ever so slightly fond smile as he recalled how Pollution had the previous day described board of directors of Chemipharm International as ‘a poisonous concoction of expensively educated effluent’ (he’d been complimenting them of course). It was funny really how he’d grown strangely attached to the entity over the last few days: he wasn’t sure why. Pollution, after all, didn’t have the spark of goodness that Crowley liked to pretend that he himself didn’t possess. Though, when it came down to it, Pollution didn’t really have any spark of badness beyond his designated and inescapable function either.
Aziraphale supposed that it might have something to do with his own innate angelic desire to care for someone: and Pollution had, despite the fact that of the Four he was the most seemingly disconnected from humanity, appeared to be welcoming and grateful for the care he had provided. He just hoped that Crowley wouldn’t be too neglectful of the recuperating personification, or – Aziraphale frowned at the thought – perceive Pollution’s writhing, squirming and craving for physical contact as some form of flirtation. The entity was, if one overlooked the filth currently caking him, in possession of a very physically attractive form (even if to Aziraphale’s mind he could do with a little more meat on his bones) after all.
Shaking his head, he told himself not to be silly, even if the demon did get the ‘wrong impression’ as it were, Pollution was highly unlikely to want to well… do anything sexual with him. The Horsepersons just weren’t constructed that way. They were inhuman and hence without normal human desires.
This was at least what the angel tried to mentally repeat as an unpleasant little voice in his head gave a quiet, but rather smug: “Ah, but aren’t you supposed to be ‘without normal human desires’ too.”
----------
While Aziraphale was at the shop, fretting over what might or might not be happening at Crowley’s flat, the demon was sitting at his computer, attempting to reset the online scene for the Flamewar of Mass Defriending. Alas, the scent of burning plastic and old rubbish that was currently lying thick upon the air was really quite distracting and Crowley found himself attempting, in vain, to banish the headache that the awful smell seemed to be inducing.
With a glower, he got up from the desk in his office and walked into his living room; where Pollution had moved from the – now unrecognisably tarnished – daybed to Crowley’s precious sofa and was staring raptly at a news report about an oil spill somewhere on the Welsh coast.
“So beautiful,” the personification murmured to himself, paying no heed to Crowley’s presence. “So absolutely fucking beautiful.”
“Feeling a nice warm glow are you?” Crowley said, in a none too friendly manner.
Pollution just smiled at him. “You should be grateful for this one, Crowley. Surely you can find a way to take credit for the wrath and despair and industrial cover-ups this is going to lead to.”
The demon’s glower intensified. It was true that this was exactly the sort of thing he would report to Hell as a success. However, he really didn’t like this bout of incisiveness that Pollution seemed to be having. But then, the personification’s propensity to gazing dreamily into space, did perhaps sometimes act to mask the powers of observation that came along with his position.
“When you helped me with the Rompton Executive Housing Development you were never this hostile.”
Crowley snorted. “Yeah, more fool me.”
“You seemed to enjoy it at the time.”
The demon groaned in embarrassment as he recalled the last day of that particular project, on which the tempter had been tempted by the allure of the youngest Horseperson’s admittedly beautiful form and…. He visibly cringed as he was assailed by the memory of being stripped, coaxed to the floor of the woodland clearing that was destined to become a three bedroomed detached with en-suite, double garage and room for a conservatory and taken from behind – with mild to moderate roughness – by the personification. This in itself would not have been a particularly humiliating recollection (after all, the pleasures of the flesh were a standard part of the tempter’s repertoire), if it hadn’t been for the fact that just before climax he’d looked up to see six of the workmen from one of the nearby builds having a break-time cigarette just outside the clearing, each of them sniggering like there was no tomorrow. As a general rule Crowley had no objections to the occasional bit of exhibitionism; however, he couldn’t help but think that it was only ever enjoyable when one a) knew one was being watched and could avoid silly facial expressions accordingly; and b) chose one’s audience. This on the other hand had just been utterly humiliating, even if he had visited an embarrassing and very itchy revenge on each of the sniggering workmen.
“Look,” he said, not particularly keen on the idea of pursuing this line of conversation any further, “could you do something about that bloody awful stench…. And get off the sofa; you’re going to stain it beyond repair.”
With a decided pout the personification slid from the sofa onto the floor, revealing a dull grey – but hopefully banishable – imprint on the white leather and began to exude Pinefresh of such a chemical intensity that Crowley found himself trying to seal his nose, mouth and eyes against the burn. Worse than the irritation however was the fact that the stench of toxic pine forest was not so much supplanting the scent of burning plastic and rotten rubbish so much overlaying it.
“What I meant,” said Crowley, through clenched teeth, “is that I want you to get rid of the smell altogether.”
“I can’t.”
“Of course you can,” he snapped, “you don’t normally go around stinking like this, do you? Naturally predisposed to invisibility you might be, but there isn’t a human with a functioning sense of smell on the planet who could overlook this.”
“I could under normal circumstances,” said Pollution, an unpleasant element of smugness creeping into his tones, “but at the moment I don’t really have much control over my form’s functioning.”
Crowley considered the situation: the Horseman was probably telling the truth, yet there was no way that Crowley could put up with the stink for much longer.
In the end he decided that there was only one thing for it.
“You’re taking a shower.”
“What?” The look that Pollution gave him was pure poison.
Crowley snapped his fingers and a transparent plastic case containing several bottles of brightly coloured liquid appeared in his left hand. “It’ll give you a chance to degrade the local water supply.”
For a moment he thought that Pollution would refuse to cooperate. However, after a few seconds the Horseman picked himself up off the floor and allowed Crowley to usher him into the bathroom.
“Er… you might want to take that boiler suit off first,” he said, raising an eyebrow as Pollution stepped into the space-aged shower fully attired.
Pollution looked at him questioningly.
“Oh, for G— fuck’s sake, I’m not hitting on you. I just want to banish the sodding things somewhere where I don’t have to smell or look at them.”
The personification folded his arms.
Crowley sighed. “Look, I promise to banish them somewhere where they’ll mar the view.”
Acquiescing, Pollution began to remove his soiled and ragged apparel. He did this efficiently: with no hint of coquettishness, or coyness, or seductiveness, or any other “-ness” that was known for inciting lust in the hearts, minds and loins of the unwary. Yet for some unfathomable and utterly stupid reason the sight of the personification’s nude form caused the demon’s blood to rush in a distinctly southerly direction.
Chiding himself for being thus affected by a pretty, slender body that could probably be found on a million other far less toxic individuals, the demon forcibly redirected his gaze to the sleek, chrome controls for the shower.
“Well, that’s the heat control,” he said, gesturing in a decidedly agitated manner towards one dial. “And, um, that dials for the intensity of the flow… and that thing here… well, I’m not quite sure what that one does, so it’s probably better to avoid messing about with it. Um, so now you know how it all works – apart from the thing that you don’t – and I’ll be in the office doing work… and things.”
As he turned to leave a dirty hand grabbed him by the shoulder.
“Aren’t you going to help me? I’ve never done this before.”
Crowley honestly wasn’t sure whether this was a really clumsily orchestrated come-on or a literal enquiry and Pollution’s expression of mild amusement combined with moderate curiosity didn’t give him any clue.
“I’m sure you can manage by yourself,” he said, slithering out of the personification’s grip.
And with that he fled to his study, whereupon he collapsed into his desk chair, exhaled deeply and cursed the fact that the only place in the flat where he could get a cold shower was currently occupied by the being responsible for him currently being, to put it bluntly, ‘hard as a rock’. He really should have known better than to give Aziraphale the day off. This whole Pollution supervising thing was ridiculous: especially given that the entity was now perfectly capable of getting up, walking around and possibly maybe making sexual propositions to demons. Still, he had given Aziraphale his word and the angel would doubtless be most disgruntled to return from the shop and find that he’d thrown the personification out. Not that he was in any way confident that he’d actually be able to forcibly eject Pollution from his property; in fact, he suspected that it was deeply unlikely.
Opting not to take care of his present state of arousal in the usual manner owing to the fact that getting himself off while thinking of Pollution would open a whole can of awkwardness, he mentally recited the briefing on administrative restructuring Dagon had delivered via the ten o’clock news fifteen years ago. It worked, of course, even if he did start to lose the will to exist after five minutes.
Having managed to hold back the tide of idiotic lust, he switched on the computer and proceeded to go about the task of sending out virus ridden spam emails. It was an activity Crowley always found therapeutic, and he was just a little disgruntled when a knock on the door interrupted his endeavour.
Cursing, he got up, left the office and went to open the front door.
A move he promptly regretted when he saw who was standing outside.
“Ello Crawly,” said the short squat being, with a horrible toothy grin. “Bet you thought you wouldn’t be seeing me again, didn’t you.”
The demon stared in horror
“Just look at the little Creep, will you,” sneered his taller, thinner, but no less repulsive companion. “He’s gaping like a bleedin’ fish.”
As Hastur and Ligur leered at him, Crowley desperately tried to think of a way out of the situation. When, after five long and deeply horrible seconds, he couldn’t think of one, he decided that the only thing he could do was play for time and desperately hope that an idea occurred to him.
“Er, hi guys, long time no see. How are things downstairs? Minions not getting you down, I hope. Of course….”
“Save it, snake,” snarled Hastur. “You’re coming with us.”
With that the diabolic duo lunged at him.
Knowing that unpleasantness was imminent, he stumbled backwards, a mantra of Ohshitohshitohshit running through his mind. As Ligur reached out to grasp him however a most peculiar thing happened. The two arch demons froze and, with horrified looks on their faces began to do a very accurate impression of a chronic asthmatic in the middle of a severe attack.
Turning round to flee while he still had a miraculous chance he saw Pollution: naked, wet and soapy, leaning against the wall and gazing serenely at Hastur and Ligur.
“What the…?”
“I think they’re going now.”
As the two Dukes of Hell headed unsteadily for the stairs, Crowley gaped at Pollution.
“What did you do to them?”
The Horseman gave a happy smile. “Toxic dust from the tombs of saints.”
Shit Crowley took a step away from the entity, fearing that a radioactive holy water shower could be imminent.
“I wouldn’t do anything like that to you,” said Pollution with a breathy laugh that was almost devoid of the wheeze that had afflicted him for days. “I like you too much.”
“You do?” said Crowley, not sure quite how to take this statement.
Pollution closed the gap between them in a fluid and slightly predatory way. “You entertain me, even if you do resent me: and sometimes you have the most wonderful ideas for things for me to do.”
The demon gulped as a pair of wet arms wrapped around his waist and a lean body pressed against his front; positioning itself in such a manner as to cause maximum distraction.
“I’ve heard you can do interesting things with your tongue,” murmured Pollution.
“Who told you that?” asked Crowley, unable to stop himself from unconsciously sliding a leg between Pollution’s thighs.
“Oh, I hear things. Even your kind doesn’t notice me listening sometimes.”
Crowley was about to give his views on loose lipped incubi and succubae when it occurred to him that there were better things he could be doing. Even if he would regret it in an hours time
“My tongue’s not the only bit of me that’s interesting. Would you like a demonstration?”
Pollution gave a blissful sigh. “Oh yes, that would be wonderful.”
----------
Aziraphale was fretting.
He didn’t quite know what he feared the most: Crowley taking advantage of Pollution or Pollution seducing Crowley, but the fact was that, despite the fact that he kept trying keep up the mantras of ‘envy is bad, envy is wrong’ and ‘I really am being quite silly about this whole thing’ it was starting gnaw away at him.
After around forty-five minutes of valiantly fighting the urge to rush back to Crowley’s flat he finally gave in. Putting Great Expectations back in its place, giving the tenacious would-be purchaser who’d been hanging around in the shop waiting for the proprietor to appear a very terse ‘we’re shutting for the day now’ and willing the sign on the door from open to closed, he exited the shop by the front door (now blessedly devoid of literature stalking would-be customers) and hailed the first black cab he saw.
----------
Pollution was in a state of ecstasy that he usually only associated with nuclear disasters and the most serious of toxic waste spillages.
He was lying back on the previously clean, crisp off-white duvet of Crowley’s bed as the demon moved inside him: slit-pupils dilated, face flushed and breaths harsh and uneven.
With the exception of the Apocalypse that Wasn’t, the Horseman had always been entertained by the demon; even if the demon didn’t tend to reciprocate the emotion. However, right now he was feeling especially well disposed towards him.
“You’re really dirty, you know that,” said Crowley between pants, quite obviously unable to resist the allure of a really predictable pun, even now.
Pollution merely responded with a hoarse laugh.
There was, he decided, as the demon’s thrusts brushed a spot that made him gasp and moan, possibly only one thing that could make this scenario any better.
----------
After an unbelievably long journey by cab and an outrageously exorbitant taxi fare, the angel found himself in the hallway just outside Crowley’s flat.
He knocked on the door.
There was no answer.
He knocked again.
Once again, no answer was forthcoming.
Feeling a tad guilty, he placed his hand on the doorknob and turned.
“Hello?” he said, tentatively stepping inside.
There was no response.
Now rather concerned he cautiously entered the living room and was immediately faced with the sight of a vacated daybed.
Frowning, he took a deep breath, walked over to Crowley’s bedroom door and opened.
The vision of debauchery that met his eyes caused him to freeze. Crowley and Pollution were resting, completely naked, partially entwined and covered with what appeared to be little bruises and bites
“Er… Hi Aziraphale. Wasn’t expecting you back quite so early.”
“Crowley, what on earth have you done to him?” he cried out, with as much moral indignation as he could muster: while attempting to desperately ignore the ‘anatomical extras’ that the sight of them flushed, nude and despoiled seemed to suddenly be causing to manifest.
Crowley’s jaw dropped with the even more poisonous indignation of the unfairly(ish) accused. “Me? It was him that started it.”
“Well, you quite obviously took advantage of him. He’s ill for goodness sake.”
The demon snorted. “Believe me, nobody who moves like that is at death’s door.”
“Azrael doesn’t have a door,” said Pollution, who was watching the whole exchange with interest.
“A metaphorical door,” said Crowley.
“I don’t know if he has one of those or not.”
“Look angel.” The demon gave a laboured sigh. “I really don’t see what you’re so up in arms about. We’re both consenting, er… entities. And he’s bloody well closer to my side than yours in the grand scheme of things.”
“That is not the point Crowley. Besides, you’re six-thousand and he’s not even eighty yet.” The angel folded his arms. “The fact is… fact is that, well… Oh for goodness sake Crowley, I thought you liked me this way.”
For several seconds Crowley just stared at him. “Oh, bloody Manchester.”
On the bed, Pollution shifted around in a manner that went straight to Aziraphale’s loins and caused the angel to entertain the most shameful thoughts.
“You’re jealous, aren’t you,” said the personification in an utterly matter-of-fact manner.
Aziraphale quite literally squirmed. “Erm… I….”
The sides of Pollution’s mouth quirked upwards into an amused smile. “I like you too, you know.”
“What?”
“You were kind to me; and your hands felt nice when they touched my skin.”
To say that this left Aziraphale dumbstruck was quite possibly the understatement of the year. Indeed, before he could gather his wits, he found a pale and rather oily hand wrapping around his wrist and pulling him downwards towards Crowley’s – now somewhat dirty – sheets.
“Now, steady on,” he said. “I not sure….mph”
His protestations were silenced when Crowley, obviously now catching on to what Pollution was quite clearly suggesting, pulled his mouth into a lingering and slightly apologetic kiss.
Pretty soon however the angel found himself completely forgetting that he was supposed to be protesting at all as two pairs of hands set about squeezing, undressing and generally caressing him.
“My dear boys, this is most unorthodox,” he murmured, as the demon dipped his head between the angel’s legs and proceeded to do the most unusual things with his tongue.
Crowley, replying in as polite a way as one could whilst one’s mouth was full, gave a low ‘hmmm’: a move that sent a jolt of pleasure right through Aziraphale’s body. Pollution, for his part, merely gave a small laugh and continued to run slick hands over his chest and belly.
It all felt so good that when it was all over Aziraphale quite forgot to be thoroughly ashamed of himself.
----------
Several miles away, in a sleepy Cambridgeshire village two boys were sitting on one of the benches that bordered the village green.
“It was just so weird,” said one of them, a tall and rather scruffy brown-haired young man, who still had the pallid complexion and slight gauntness of one who had recently recovered from a serious illness. “I saw this guy - he wasn’t like any of the other workmen, but nobody seemed to pay attention to him – and… and I saw him take out this canister of teargas – well, that’s what I assumed it was. So then I sort of ran at him, trying to stop him from throwing it. And then everything just sort of exploded and the next thing I know I wake up in that horrible plastic tent thing in the Tropical Diseases Unit.”
His blonder and slightly shorter friend’s eyes widened. “You mean it was you that went for him, not the other way around?”
The scruffy young man nodded. “Yeah, it was a stupid thing to do, running at him like that, but I was just so angry.” He gave a snort and a small grin. “You should have seen the look in his eyes just before I crashed into him. He was scared shitless.” The grin turned to a frown. “Adam, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just that I think I might have got something wrong.”
“Oh, like what?”
“Nothing you need to worry about, Brian.”
As Brian shrugged and launched into a description of the new Playstation game his cousin had given to him the previous day, Adam experienced the unpleasant prickling of guilt. He’d been so angry that Pollution had harmed his best friend that he hadn’t considered that whole situation might have been partially caused by Brian being Brian.
Still, he thought, as his friend gave an enthusiastic monologue on what exactly one could do if his new game was put in Ultra Mega Thrill Kill Mode, it wasn’t too late to put things right. All he needed to do was locate Pollution and remove the debris of the collision with Brian from his material form.
It was an easy task to spread his consciousness, locate the target entity and… blush furiously as a clear image of the being known as Pollution and what he was presently doing snapped into focus.
“Adam, what’s wrong. You spaced out for a minute and then went bright red.”
“It’s nothing,” mumbled Adam. “I just remembered something I have to do. But I think it’s probably sorting itself out all right.”
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-07 07:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-09 12:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-07 08:42 pm (UTC)I loved the plot and how the characters are written, especially Pollution (bonus points for making him all art-freakish and naive)
Thanks for sharing and happy holidays!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-09 12:25 pm (UTC)Happy holidays to you also.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-07 09:47 pm (UTC)And gods yes, the scent of 'air freshener' is almost worse than the smells it tries to cover!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-09 12:28 pm (UTC)Heh, I've been in many a building in which the occupants clearly thought that spraying around a gallon of toxic scented air freshener was a good substitute for either a) cleaning the place; or b) opening a window.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-08 03:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-09 12:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-08 03:31 am (UTC)I love the plot-
I think Pollution's illness as a result of a collision with Brian is really cleverly done.
excellent!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-09 12:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-08 06:38 am (UTC)Awesome, Secret Author. <3
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-09 12:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-08 10:21 pm (UTC)*excessively*
Oh my great gods of guh. It's funny and ASDFJAJFDSA HOT, and Pollution is so *fabulous* - I love the idea of him being lyrical! - and the toxic dust from the tombs of saints, and asdkfhakjsdhfka. And the workmen!
Look, I'm just going to go incoherent and quote bits from all over the story if I keep on going, but omg. This is absolutely fabulous and wonderful, and I love it.
:D
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-09 12:35 pm (UTC)and the toxic dust from the tombs of saints
Pollution knows how to think creatively.
And the workmen!
I do hope that the itchy, embarrassing ailments Crowley afflicted them with wore off eventually, or were at least able to be banished with the help of a qualified medical professional.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-09 03:45 am (UTC)One of the most interesting aspects, at least for me, is the juxtaposition you've created between Brian and Pollution. What Adam did to the Them and the Horsepersons is ambiguous, at best, in the source material. I love how you've interpreted what happened to those characters.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-09 12:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-09 05:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-09 12:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-09 09:40 pm (UTC)P.S.- I especially enjoyed Pollution and Aziraphale discussing what counts as "art". That was delightful!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-16 10:59 pm (UTC)I really enjoyed writing Aziraphale and Pollution's conversation on the nature of art (it just seemed like the sort of disagreement they could bond over). I can't help but think it's going to be an oft repeated and never resolved argument between them.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-12 03:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-16 11:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-13 02:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-16 11:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-19 03:33 am (UTC)