Disclaimer: I own none of the characters or settings to be found herein.
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As Crowley surveyed the smoke-filled, sweet-wrapper strewn disaster-zone of what had once been his very stylish bedroom, he first found himself wondering how the hell Pollution had managed to get in there and create this mess during the ninety seconds in which the demon stepped out to steer two Jehovah's Witnesses into the path of a short-fused advertising executive(1). He then reminded himself that this was Pollution, for whom ninety seconds was probably an aeon of mess wreaking time.
As his slit-pupilled gaze drifted from the petrol smeared laptop on the windowsill to the overturned ashtray on floor, it struck him that four very distinct mistakes had led to this... this situation (he wasn't sure what else to call it) arising.
The first of these had been his decision to meet his latest client, one Gregory Greengate: corporate bastard extraordinaire, at the flagship plant of Greengate's newly acquired chemical processing franchise.
The second (and rather more obvious) mistake had been to offer more than a brief nod of greeting to the youngest Horseman of the Apocalypse (currently employed in some junior capacity in the firm's quality assurance division). To be fair, he had only started out by briefly enquiring how things were going in the Apocalyptical Horsepersoning business(2) However, a prolonged conversation subsequently resulted on the subject of Famine and what an insufferably, uptight prig he could be. It was a prolonged conversation that had, somehow, led to an even more prolonged drinking session in a sleazy dive bar in the East End, which had in turn led to what he had since come to think of as 'Mistake Number Three'.
He still wasn't quite certain as to the situation had become quite so...charged (he had after all just consumed the best part of a bottle of Jack Daniels on an empty stomach). However, sometime during the swimming head stage of drunkenness it had started to dawn on him that the personification of environmental ruination was actually a very attractive being if you overlooked the whole 'turns everything he touches to filth' thing. Stoned-looking pretty boys weren't usually his thing, but the way the pale Horseman's lithe body moved in that decidedly seductive fashion had its definite charms. It was a realisation that had very quickly led to the lithe body in question being pressed up against his in a very insistent and rather frenzied manner.
He couldn't quite recall the exact sequence of events that followed this encounter: partly as a result of alcohol he'd consumed, partly as a result of Pollution's lips being dusted with just about every recreational, euphoria inducing substance known to man. He did recall a square of card being pushed into his pocket, accompanied by a breathy voiced "call me"; but wasn't certain if this occurred before or after the sour-faced, middle-aged woman with the fake Louis Vuitton handbag had screamed at them to get out of her back yard. Though he was sure sure that it was some time before he staggered into Aziraphale's bookshop and declared in mildly panicked tones that he'd just engaged in base, licentious acts with one of the Four and needed to know if this was going to cause anything to drop off (he suspected that Aziraphale wasn't going to let him live that one down for millennia).
As for the fourth mistake: well, that clear from the words that had been scrawled in leaky felt tip onto the very expensive (formerly) white cotton duvet that lay on the bed.
You Didn't Call!!!
With an irritated hiss, he picked up the crumpled, stained business card that had been place in a very deliberate under the scrawl.
Bianco White: Environmental Health Specialist
Call: 666 666 666 69
This hiss turned to a sigh. He supposed it couldn't hurt to drop 'Mr. White' a line. It might, if nothing else, protect the rest of his interior decorating.
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(1)The sheer amount of moderate-to-low-grade wrath that would be generated by this single encounter would fill his temptation quota for the entire week.
(2)...and thus try find out one way or the other if War was still annoyed about that peace treaty he'd recently helped to broker in sub-Saharan Africa(3).
(3)It wasn't his fault. Aziraphale – angelic bastard that he was – had made him do it as a forfeit after winning the last 'Guess the number of times the Archangel Michael will use the phrase 'battle against the forces of infernal turpitude' in his Christmas address to the Heavenly Host' competition. Crowley was almost certain that his divine counterpart had somehow managed to get a sneak glimpse of the speech in question beforehand. After all, no being in their right mind should have been able to predict that the words would pass Michael's lips a grand total of thirty-seven times; fifteen more times than his previous record of twenty-two.