A/N: Big, big thank you to the readers who reviewed the last chapter. As with a few previous chapter, this one has been edited slightly (though only very slightly) to keep it PG-13. The unabridged version can, of course, be found be found in my livejournal memories (see profile for link).
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To say that Crowley found the whole situation a tad awkward and uncomfortable was an understatement on a par with saying that Aziraphale had a passing interest in books or that Hastur liked the occasional lurk; and, for the second time within the space of twenty-four hours, he found himself reduced to the startled goldfish impersonation. After around forty seconds of wordless gaping, during which the only clear thought that filled his mind was a very loud and resounding What The Fuck, Crowley managed to regain basic vocal capabilities.
"You were what?" he croaked.
Pollution, who had ceased writhing but was making no move to either cover himself up, regarded him with glazed eyes.
"Thinking about you," the entity said, voice suddenly taking on what sounded like it might just be a tinge of apprehension.
Crowley gave a weak 'oh'. Surely he couldn't be implying that he… he…?
"I had a dream, I think," said Pollution. "You might have been in it."
The demon's eyes widened. Common sense momentarily warred with morbid curiosity, as the former told him loudly and unequivocally to leave the room now and never return, while the latter demanded he determine whether the entity was implying what he possibly, maybe seemed to be implying.
In the end curiosity won.
"Er, when you say 'might have been in it' what exactly do you mean?"
"I dreamed that somebody was licking me. It could have been you."
Crowley was dimly aware of his jaw dropping at the statement, but was rather more concerned by the sudden jolt of excitement he found his body involuntarily experiencing.
Oh for Somebody's sake, he mentally cursed. He couldn't possibly be getting aroused by the idea, could he? All right, Pollution did possess a highly attractive physical form, what with all that pale skin, faded blonde hair, slender, well formed body and fine boned face; but the world was full of beings with highly attractive physical forms and Pollution was, well, Pollution: the personification of environmental wastage and ruination.
"You're shocked," said Pollution. Crowley wasn't quite sure if it was an enquiry or a plain observation.
Deciding that tact, subtlety and skirting around the issue was not the way to go in this situation Crowley looked the entity in the eye. "About the fact that you've just told me I 'might have been' taking a starring role in your dirty dreams? Of course I'm bloody shocked."
For a few extremely worrying moments Pollution regarded him with another of those indecipherable expressions. "Oh, they weren't very dirty," he said. "The laboratory was actually very clean before the accident. I remember that it was so sterile I almost couldn't stand it, but it was worth it in the end. At least, that's how it felt at the time. Now I can't really understand why I cared so much about it."
Crowley's eyes widened further as he mentally debated whether he wanted to know how a laboratory figured into the whole sordid scenario. In the end he decided that he didn't. Even the demon Crowley's curiosity had its limits. "I didn't mean dirty in a literal sense, I meant…." He trailed off as Pollution's unreadable expression morphed into something that looked like it could best be described as 'wounded perplexity'.
"Look, never mind; let's just say I find the idea of you dreaming about me... me licking you a bit disturbing." He decided not to mention that he found the idea of Pollution masturbating to anything to be deeply unsettling full stop. The demon really wasn't sure how thin the ice upon which he was walking really was right now (or indeed if he was walking on any kind of ice at all).
"Why?"
It was a simple, direct question asked in a bewildered, almost naïve manner, and one that Crowley didn't really have a blessed clue how to answer.
"Well, it's… it's not generally something that you go around telling people."
"But you asked."
This, Crowley had to concede, was completely true. If he'd fled the moment he'd registered what the entity was doing like the sensible, rational part of his mind had told him to, he could have shaken his head and put it down as just another weird, slightly disconcerting incident he'd witnessed during an existence that had been filled with many such weird and slightly disconcerting sights. However, as things stood, he now knew that he had somehow become the focus of the Horseperson's erotic fantasies and was severely freaked out.
"Do you want me to leave?" asked Pollution, after a lengthy and – from Crowley point of view at least - uncomfortable silence.
"Yes, yes please," said Crowley, wishing as soon as the words left his mouth that he didn't sound so desperately eager to get rid of the entity. Pollution might not currently be holding a grudge vis-à-vis the apocalypse that wasn't, but he was still deeply averse to placing himself on the personification's 'To Be Scourged' list.
Without a word, Pollution slid of the bed, leaving a chemical sheen in his wake and proceeded to dress himself in the, now very rumpled clothing that Crowley had materialised for him the previous day, before silently exiting the room.
When he was certain that the entity was well and truly gone, Crowley breathed a sigh of relief and set about trying to will the bed back into some semblance of cleanliness. With any luck the personification would find somebody or something else to occupy that wandering, unfocussed mind of his.
Crowley just wished that that look of utter disappointment on Pollution's face as he left had caused him to experience such an unpleasant, queasy sensation in the pit of his stomach.
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It took Aziraphale just a few minutes of conversation with Howard Goode to ascertain that the poor man exactly as Crowley described: kind, pious and not the least bit suited to becoming a metaphorical battleground in the latest skirmish between good and evil (or at least good and evil's grudge bearing bureaucrats).
The angel had turned up at the Willowholme lending library, where the man worked a Saturday afternoon shift and introduced himself as a friend of a deceased local vicar, with whom Howard's family had been closely acquainted. This was not a lie. Aziraphale had enjoyed exchanging frequent correspondence with the late Reverend Rustford who had been a fellow Regency silver snuffbox enthusiast and Antique Roadshow devotee.
"He was a great bloke," said Howard as he placed a set of dog eared Charles Dickens paperbacks on a shelf labelled Classics. Aziraphale, avid bibliophile that he was, couldn't help but feel a little horrified at the distressed state that most of the books in the library seemed to have fallen into. "He used to visit my grandmother every evening after granddad died."
"He was always very considerate," said Aziraphale, decidedly not mentioning the fact that the man had once guiltily confided to him that he was having a long term affair with a married woman whom he'd known since his schooldays.
"Not that the new one isn't, of course," Howard continued, as he inserted a poor, mortally tattered copy of Hard Times between David Copperfield and Little Dorrit. "But I always felt more… more connected to the old vicar."
Aziraphale politely refrained from pointing out that this was quite possibly because there was a fifty-fifty chance that the man had been his grandfather and instead listened to the man talk about what an inspiration the Reverend Rustford had been. There was, to Aziraphale's mind, something both worrying and endearing about the utter genuineness and sincerity with which Howard Goode spoke about his faith. Endearing, because so very few openly pious people were genuinely, well, pious. Worrying, because those who wore their hearts so openly on their sleeves tended to rather vulnerable to long term bruising of the soul.
"Will you be staying in Willowholme for long, Mr. Fell?" the man asked, once he'd finished reminiscing about the sponsored walks, litter picks and parachute jumps for famine relief the reverend had organised during the last few years of his life.
"Well, that really depends on how my latest little project goes."
"Project?"
"I'm interested in finding out more about the town." This was, strictly speaking, not an untruth. Aziraphale was interested in looking around the place while he was there and doing as much good as the Arrangement would allow. He just hoped that Howard wouldn't press for any details that would require any kind of serious truth distortion.
"We have a lot of books in the reference library about local history. Though you do need permission from Isobel to get access to the older records; they're a bit delicate, you see."
Aziraphale involuntarily shuddered at the thought of the treatment that delicate manuscripts would receive in this den of book mistreatment. The angel had always been somewhat torn on the idea of public libraries. One the one hand he was all for helping to facilitate the joy of reading. On the other, he never failed to shudder at the fates that seemed to befall the poor tomes that lined the shelves of such places.
"And I'm sure that Reverend Hailey would be more than happy to let you look at the church records."
The angel was about to thank him for the kind offer when a truly horrifying sight caught his eyes. Three younger teenagers were sitting at a table in the non-fiction area and in the process of sadistically taking a red biro to a defenceless atlas.
"Oh no, not again," said Howard, with a sigh, after turning to see what had caught his new acquaintance's attention.
"You mean this happens frequently?" he asked, utterly aghast, as a middle-aged woman wearing a name badge that proclaimed her to be Isobel Black: Head Librarian walked over and delivered a sharp telling off, which, if the youngsters' smirks were anything to go on, didn't have much of an impact.
Howard gave a regretful nod. "We've had a bit of a book vandalism problem for a while now."
"And you haven't done anything about it?"
"Oh, we try," the man said helplessly, "but nothing seems to work. People just don't seem to respond to the Please Don't Write In The Books signs."
For a few seconds the angel's expression hardened as he thought of all the poor violated tomes that must lie upon libraries ineffectually guarded shelves, before settling back once again into it's previously amicable state.
"Mr. Goode," he said. "I think I might be able to help."
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Half an hour after Pollution had gone Crowley forcefully pushed all niggling thoughts about the Horseperson aside, got out his mobile phone and called one of his London offices.
Ten minutes later he was being connected the private line of one Luke Mackenzie, owner and proprietor of Saint Delilah's. After seven rings the phone was answered.
"Hello, Macca 'ere," came a gravelly, cheerful voice on the other end.
"Hi, this is A.J. Crowley from—."
"Heard of mate, heard of you," said the man, whose accent was probably best described as 'Mancunian with East End overtones'. "You were the bloke who got Big D signed, aren't you?"
"That's right," said Crowley, inwardly shaking his head at the fact that white, Home Counties rapper 'Big D' and his 'Little Whinging Home Boys' had recently enjoyed such astronomical success.
"Got him and Goil doing a special joint gig at Delilah's this Saturday," he said proudly. "Goil got signed straight after their first gig at my club, you know. Great night that was, great night… well, until we found the collection human eyeballs in the ice bucket, but then, that's the creative temperament for you. And they did apologise for the hassle."
"Actually, I wanted to talk to you about a band you've got playing this Friday."
"What, Necrotic Future?"
"Satanic Firetrap, actually."
"Them boys from Willowholme?"
"Those are the ones."
"Well, truth be told I wouldn't usually give a spot to a bunch of kids who haven't so much as played a local boozer, but I've just had two bands cancel on me: one lot are in hospital those riots in London on Thursday and the other's bass player's just been killed in a freak litter picking accident."
Crowley's brow furrowed. "Freak litter picking accident?"
The man gave a snort. "I know. Mental isn't it? But then there's been a lot of that whole 'Green Fever' thing going on round here. Anyway, fortunately for me, this German guy – one of Goil's new security blokes, as luck would have it – offered to do this mind reading and hypnotism thing, so I booked him as a bit of a novelty item. But I needed another band and there was nobody else available, so I thought, what the hell, let's give that Leon a ring. Haven't confirmed they can make it yet though."
"Maelbolge Records are thinking of signing them," said Crowley.
"Bleeding hell."
"Of course, the band's having a few financial difficulties—"
"Look, I'm not made of money, Mr. Crowley," the man interjected, obviously having a very clear idea of the direction in which the conversation was heading. "I'll pay 'em seventy quid apiece and a few rounds on the house. I mean, my little cousin Jenny has heard them practicing and she says the bassist still has trouble hitting the right cords."
"Well, obviously we couldn't expect you to foot the bill," said Crowley. "However, if we gave you the money and you give the money to the boys, then I'm sure things would work out fine."
"Why don't you just give them the cash upfront?" the man asked, sounding perplexed.
"Because we don't want them to know we're thinking of signing them yet," said Crowley.
For a moment there was a long pause and the demon began to fear that Mackenzie would start to ask awkward questions. Fortunately, the man was distracted when a second, rather urgent sounding, voice on the other end of the line said something about 'the Japanese vice squad'.
"All right," said Mackenzie, "how much are you giving them."
Crowley told him.
There was another long pause.
"Bleeding hell, you're mental."
As he pressed the 'end call' button the demon made a mental note to bestow a little temporary musical aptitude on Leon's bandmates before the big gig. Complete and utter public humiliation had its place in the tempters armoury, but it really wouldn't help him get his quarry where he wanted him to be in this case.
Feeling rather pleased with himself he kicked off his shoes, lay back on the bed and was promptly hit by an incredibly vivid and wholly unsolicited mental image of Pollution lying next to him: naked, eyes glazed. Lips parted and hips arching.
"Oh for G- Somebody's sake," he muttered, immediately hastening back to his feet. "I need a drink.
----------
"Just five miles to go," said Wensleydale, as they passed yet another road sign.
A tired looking Pepper gave a grunt of relieved acknowledgement, while Brian continued to snooze on the back seat.
It was half past five in the evening and, despite the hours that had been added to their journey, all three of the vehicle's occupants were now certain that the choice to remove themselves from the motorway had been a wise one. Radio Otter was reporting literally dozens of serious accidents on the roads that seemed to have been incited by acts of kamikaze litter picking. 'Green Fever' as the presenters were calling it, didn't seem to just be affecting road users either: stampedes to buy the latest in automotive carbon reducing technology also seemed to be causing mass hospital admissions, while light bulb changing fatalities were a thousand times higher than the usual rate.
"Weird, isn't it?" muttered Pepper, as the presenter went on to describe a particularly gruesome accident involving a discarded crisp packet, an ill fated primary school teacher and a train going at speeds in excess of one hundred miles per hour.
Wensleydale, feeling tired, hungry and decidedly shaken didn't respond. Being of a naturally anxious disposition he tried his level best not to allow himself to become as emotionally invested in current events as Pepper and Brian did. However, there was something about this whole 'Green Fever' epidemic that was, well, completely freaking him out. It wasn't just that he'd had a few near-misses with a few of those apparently afflicted with the 'condition', it was also the fact that it seemed as though something was going around taking over peoples' minds. He was, after all, pretty damned certain that humanity as a whole was not likely to volitionally ditched it's thinly veiled apathy towards the environment so suddenly without a very immediate threat to wealth, comfort or general quality of life. Wensleydale had had a horror of the idea of mind control since about the age of eleven. He wasn't sure quite where it came from, but the thought of somebody or something taking over his head never failed to induce a mental shudder.
"I wonder where we're supposed to meet him," he said, turning the radio down to a level at which it was difficult to discern what was being said.
"Adam, you mean?" said Pepper.
He nodded. "I tried to call him when we stopped at that pub a few hours ago, but his phone was switched off."
"He'll turn up," said Pepper. "He always does."
This, Wensleydale knew, was probably true. Adam did always seem to know where to find them. A fact that he found worrying and comforting in about equal measure.
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On leaving the Willow Tree Inn White didn't really know what to do with himself. He also couldn't work out quite why he was experiencing the urge to walk right back in there and ask the demon let him stay a while longer. He therefore began to wander aimlessly around the town, occasionally stopping to watch the humans interact with each other (a move which earned him a lot of glares and a few threats of violence) or gazing at the pretty, useless, glittering, shining things in the shop windows.
The Horseperson did not have a name for the emotion he was feeling, but it was not a pleasant one. In fact, it was almost identical, though not quite as potent, to that which he'd once experienced when he found out that he hadn't been invited to Carmine, Sable, Gelb and Azrael's little reunion in central Africa a few years ago. He wasn't really certain why he should have this reaction to the fact that the demon had wanted him to vacate his bed and hotel room. After all, it wasn't as though he actually needed him for anything. Not that he'd ever actually needed Sable or Carmine either, but that wasn't the point. The point was… well, he wasn't sure what the point was, but he knew that there was something about both situations that made him discontent.
Eventually, he found himself sitting alone town's main plaza, idly defacing the bench on which he resided with a leaky marker pen he'd picked up off the floor and trying to stop himself from wondering what the demon and his fellow Horsepersons was doing right now. In the end he found himself wilfully trying to dwell on something less emotionally loaded, and eventually succeeded in drifting into sedate recollections of Chernobyl.
After an indeterminate amount of time had passed he was shaken from his reverie by the realisation that there was someone, or at least, something standing behind him.
He looked up to see a tall, grey-clad figure looming over the spirit of a deceased and very disgruntled looking pigeon.
YOU'VE ABANDONNED YOUR POST
"Yes," White said, apprehensive but not seized by any urge to explain himself.
THE EFFECTS ARE UNPRESEDENTED
White didn't reply.
THE BOY IS LOOKING FOR YOU
Before White could make any sort of enquiry about this last, rather ominous statement, Azrael faded from awareness, leaving White alone and uneasy.