BAD GRACE - quantum witch © 2005
see Prologue for warnings, rating, and summary
In which Crowley takes cold showers, Aziraphale worries he will go blind, and Hastur is nauseated.
2:05 – DIRE NECESSITIES
THREE MONTHS HAD PASSED. Three sodding, dreadful, enormously tense months, like large white rather heavy seabirds dangling from one's neck. Crowley was virtually twitching, ready to explode with impatience and thwarted desires and, of all things, guilt. And all because of the angel. Though the angel himself hadn't personally done any of the thwarting.
"Blessed angel," he muttered to himself, fairly regularly, "What in fucking Heav- ngk's name possessed him to kiss me?"
He'd gotten no answer to that. Not that he'd actually gone about asking a question to get any sort of answer to.
Crowley felt like an idiot, which wasn't exactly his favourite thing to feel. Prior to all this, he'd have said that sensation belonged to several things at once. The Bentley as it drove along at top speed. Fine food and wine as it was savoured on his palate. Neat technological gadgets as he played with them. Fashionable clothes as they hugged his handsome frame.
Now the only driving, savouring, playing and, God help him, hugging he seemed interested in were aimed toward the damned angel.
And so far nothing had succeeded in duplicating the initial experience.
It wasn't entirely because Aziraphale now seemed shy. Actually he seemed rather oblivious, as if it hadn't happened. And it wasn't entirely because Crowley held back. Much. He didn't want to force himself in Aziraphale's face, though he certainly wanted to lock lips. He thought about that almost constantly now, much to his annoyance. The biggest reason was the freaking streak of bad luck with regards to repeating the encounter. Every time he came close, something bizarre happened during the attempt.
He waited a few days after that first kiss, mulling things over, before going back to the book shop. He barely slept, in fact, for all the thinking he'd done. It had hurt his head. Then he reached a decision. "That's it. Gonna do it. Gonna march right in, grab him, snog him stupid… see if I get discorporated…hope it'll be worth the effort..." And very nearly talked himself out of it.
But he did it anyway. Marched up to the door, fully prepared to grab the angel and express his desires in no uncertain terms. Threw wide the door to dramatically announce his intentions. And the door bounced hard against the wall, ricocheted back in his face and clocked him soundly. He'd actually briefly lost consciousness and was awakened by a very concerned Aziraphale, hovering over him on the sidewalk outside as he healed the demon's black eye and chipped tooth. This event flatly discorporated Crowley's desires for the rest of the evening.
His next attempt, about a week later, took them strolling through St. James Park. Aziraphale really liked his stupid waterfowl and Crowley had always indulged him. Winged things were drawn to the angel, small surprise. They went to the edge of the lake, Aziraphale tossed all his bread to the ducks and swans and grebes, and Crowley suggested they sit on a nearby bench to soak up the small amount of sunlight left before it disappeared for the entire season. Aziraphale joined him happily, and Crowley sat a bit closer than they usually sat together, and was slowly edging his thigh toward Aziraphale's thigh in a rather school-boyish effort to touch him. When suddenly the aforementioned waterfowl took it upon themselves to leave the water and swarm onto dry land. By the angry dozens. Aiming straight for the bench.
The reason, Aziraphale assured him (after Crowley miracled away the scratches from being pecked and the offending splatters of unmentionable bodily wastes on his shoes and trouser legs), "It's all because you've been, shall we say, less than hospitable toward them, dunking them and so forth, and they simply decided enough was enough. You really must learn to be kinder toward all God's creatures, you know." Crowley's ardour was as dunked as the ducks of the past, and he moped his way home, alone.
After that it was one blasted thing after another.
He took Aziraphale to an artsy film house and made the juvenile attempt of yawning and stretching his arm out to ostensibly put it around Aziraphale's shoulder. And punched a man solidly in the eye. The poor bloke had leaned forward to stand up, and was none too happy with Crowley's behaviour. Though he could have easily made the man forget the incident, he feared reprisal from Adam. There was very nearly a fistfight before Aziraphale forced him to apologise and they left the theatre quickly.
He went browsing with Aziraphale at an antique shop, feeling much abused by that very fact. The angel leaned over a glass case filled with trinkets and Crowley decided to lean over as well, hoping to brush his hand over Aziraphale's casually on the way. And his hand went straight through the glass plate and shattered several precious and expensive items, not to mention lacerating himself. He left his credit card with Aziraphale and excused himself out the door in order to heal things up without being seen. The angel paid for the damaged goods and gave Crowley quite a look of exasperation upon departing.
When he was very nearly flattened by a taxi in front of the Ritz, as he merely put his hand on Aziraphale's elbow after exiting the Bentley, Crowley began to think he was cursed. Well, of course he was already cursed, but now it was in a way that interfered with his libido. And that was not a happy thought.
Crowley had already taken as many cold showers as his quasi-reptilian nature could endure without inducing hibernation. He'd even tried a more hands-on method of reducing his frustration. But any hot-blooded (and he was, regardless of that snake-ish aspect) male-formed entity knew that was a weak substitute for the real thing. G-d, how he wanted the real thing. And G-d, how frustrating it was all becoming.
So he decided to forget it for a while. Just wipe the idea of touching Aziraphale from his mind. Concentrate on something else, anything else. And after a week of that, he realised it was not only futile but he really didn't have anything else to concentrate on. His existence to this point had been tempting and messing about, and it really had been a lot of fun. He'd been good at it. He was a pro. Being retired in his prime was tragic, a real loss to the world of wickedness.
There no other choice before him. It was either get into Aziraphale's pants… or get into someone else's.
Good old Adam Young hadn't said that would count as messing about, had he? Crowley wasn't about to phone the lad and find out. But he would happily test it for himself if it meant getting rid of this chronic irritation.
He hit the hottest Soho spot known for that sort of action, a fairly trendy (by Soho standards) night club. The girls were mostly dressed in space-age clothing that resisted gravity entirely. The boys apparently were all aiming for soprano in their church choirs, judging by the cut of their trousers. Crowley was easily flash enough to draw the eyes of both genders and he knew it. He first considered a pretty young woman who was chatting him up shamelessly at the bar, but brushed her politely off when an even prettier young man caught his attention. While Crowley had never been particularly concerned with how his orientation might be viewed, especially since he'd never really considered it to be an issue, he'd only ever tumbled with women. Suddenly he found himself with a pressing need to try the other side. And this boy was fair haired and blue eyed, but definitely not soft in any fashion. They danced a bit, bumping casually into one another, then retired to a dark corner to see what other sort of dancing might develop.
There was a bit of Frenching, a bit of pawing and petting, all very pleasant. And best of all, no bodily damage. Nobody's important fleshy parts getting dashed to bits by zippers, tongues getting pierced without it being deliberate, nothing Crowley secretly feared. It was all very promising… until Crowley felt a twinge of guilt. At first he mistook it for an odd bout of indigestion. But when it persisted through several minutes of heated making out, he lost his edge and had to concede defeat.
The truth was, he saw nothing but Aziraphale reflected before him in his choice of partner. Though Aziraphale may have recently confirmed his status as twixter, and though he wouldn't have been caught dead or alive wearing leather trousers, a mesh shirt, black eyeliner, or nipple rings... Crowley simply could not banish the vision.
He regretfully pushed away from the young man and stomped out of the club. Pausing under a streetlamp, he sighed into the cool night air, his breath blowing steam that looked more like smoke.
But he never noticed the steamy, indeed actually smoky, breath from the doorway behind him. Nor the red glinting eyes behind red tinted glasses, above a grinning row of fangs.
LITTLE TO CROWLEY'S KNOWLEDGE, Aziraphale was suffering terribly as well. At least, he told himself, he had lots of things to occupy his mind and his hands. Reading books. Fixing the binding on books. Selling a few books. Lots of things. Yes, lots.
Unfortunately, for the last three months since the Apocollapse¹, he'd been reading books of a nature that only heightened his suffering, though he always hid them when Crowley came around. Allowing the demon to see such things would have been like tossing filet migņon into a den of peckish wolves – they didn't give a fig about the fancy cut of meat but would still eat it whole. And Aziraphale wasn't even close to a conclusive answer on the matter. He was still utterly unsure about how to handle the problem now developing, all thanks to his impulsive move.
What the hell had he been thinking, kissing Crowley like that? Had he really thought the demon would accept it as chaste and meaningless, just an 'old and dear friends' thing? He was losing his touch in his old age, entertaining that notion.
And he wasn't blind. He knew what Crowley was trying to do. It was getting stupid, all the feeble attempts at a pass Crowley was making. One would have thought the demon, he who had tempted Eve, was a tempting novice. But Aziraphale couldn't give in to that temptation, not yet.
Damn and blast, he had let his own libido escape its ancient and ironclad bonds, which had cleared rusted straight through. The wretched thing was constantly pestering him now, creeping up on him during the long nights he sat reading. It brooded like a cranky old hen. It whined like an newly weaned puppy. It hissed in his ear like, well, like a snake. Ignoring it was becoming more bothersome than indulging it.
And then one night he fitfully locked himself in his never-before-used toilet, turned out the lights so the right hand (and his eyes) didn't see what the left was doing, and ministered to a human function of very bawdy nature, for the very first time. It was certainly not recreational, far from it. The action had been purely necessary so he could concentrate on his normal daily routine. At least he'd assured himself beforehand that it wasn't a sin. If one wasn't expected to fulfill a command from On High to produce an heir for anyone (and since one didn't even possess procreative faculty in the first place) then it clearly didn't count. Probably. And anyway, it hadn't helped for very long. So he'd had to do it a few more times.
Damn and blast again, he didn't know how much longer either of them stand it before they simply gave up and assaulted one another, probably in some inconvenient place like the middle of Piccadilly Circus. Right under the statue of Eros², probably, appropriately. Bloody Angel of Christian Charity, his arse.
Truthfully, it was only fear of Falling, fear of missing some crucial but minute detail in Scripture, or something official he'd been told and somehow forgotten in the distant past, which kept him from simply throwing Crowley to the floor and ripping the demon's clothes off with his teeth. God help him, he was terrified of being wrong.
So now he had taken to actually getting out and exercising a bit, walking through the neighbourhood more often, taking more time to talk with people and less time just sitting about and enjoying his own company, because his own company was getting rather tetchy. Being around other people lifted his mood most of the time, and when he encountered anyone needing a morale boost, he felt the familiar happiness of simply being an angel, meting out his own special brand of encouragement. A little divine light was hardly amiss, even Adam would have to admit that it made the world a slightly better place.
Often, when he returned from his solo perambulations, there was a tall, thin man-shaped being that watched him from the shadows, long coat fluttering lightly in the chill night winds. But Aziraphale never noticed.
"BONCOS, BOTH OF 'EM. Pair o'nudgers. Makes ya wanna puke, dunnit?" The tall man grinned around his stub of cigarette, enjoying the acrid smoke in his eyes. Reminded him of homefires and brimstone.º
He was mostly talking to himself. There were a few street people lurking (not so well as him, of course) in the shadows nearby, but he hadn't directed the comments to them. They clung to his presence like psychic fleas, especially in the larger cities. It had surprised Hastur just how often the mentally ill saw him for what he was and didn't cringe. Pity they were useless twats.
He stood watching the bookshop as its lights went out for the evening, and put out his cigarette. He didn't stub it out, merely smoked it down to the final ember, after which he lapped out his slightly barbed tongue to pull it into his mouth. Smoke curled from both nostrils for a moment. Then he turned and walked away.
First he had followed the demon, then the angel. And then both of them together. He'd been doing it for months now, off and on, and hadn't found the right opportunity to strike. "Summat wrong with it all," he grumbled to himself, "summat tainted 'bout Crawly. Can't get through it, can't get the bloody bugger… Gotta be that jobby angel. Some kinda divine mojo he's worked. Bloody Crawly's halfway ta being rogered and halfway back ta Heav-t'Other Place. Pissin' me right off." He slashed out his claws at a nearby brick wall and left marks that would, the next day, be pointedly ignored because they clearly could not possibly have been caused by anything resembling a hand.
Watching these two was turning his stomach into marshland – squelchy, full of unseen wiggly life forms, and often a bit gassy. Normally this would have been fine. But he preferred to achieve that level of disgustingness on his own time. And since it was proving fruitless, it was time to move on, time to work on the rest of his Plans.
Hastur wanted to raise an army, gain control of the sort of people who could influence other people into giving him everything he wanted. Which was partly Crawly, partly the world. But his Big Plans weren't manifesting very quickly. Also pissing him off.
He'd counted on the blindly religious to be his key to success. It hadn't turned out as planned. True, they had all bowed before him. But a goodly number had suffered immediate heart failure or brain implosion, rendering themselves useless. A large part of the remainder had followed up by suddenly re-devoting themselves to the Other Side, making themselves even more useless. And most unfortunate of all, the few servants he had fully bound to himself were very nearly the most useless of the lot. Because they were poor. The only real patron he'd garnered was an old lady in Wales who had a bit of money and stronger heart than most.
Generally, the rich and well-off weren't nearly as religious as the poor, it seemed. Come to think of it, that was the way it always had been. The leaders of the Church were often the richest and the most debauched. He remembered the Borgias with great fondness. Some of his work, actually. He missed those days. Big money bred big wickedness. Whereas the poor seemed to get by on promises of glory in proportion with a life of pain. If that was the case, there were a hell of a lot of poor sods larfing it up Upstairs now. None of which remotely helped Hastur's current situation.
He wasn't nearly clever enough to have thought of robbing a bank. But that just goes to show how old fashioned he still was. Earth wasn't changing him, because he was too busy trying to change the world his way. He did, however, know that taking over the world in one fell swoop ºº would raise alarms that he wanted to keep silent for a while longer. And the worst part was he couldn't use as much of his normal powers as he'd have liked for the same reason. Short bouts of changing appearance was virtually all he dared do. Causing mass damage and teleporting were right out, would be noticed instantly. Thus he'd learned the annoying way about buses and trains and hitching rides. Pissing him off still more.
He was, however, clever enough to have read a few newspapers and listened to a bit of gossip. There was a lady who might be of use to him, and she didn't need to be religious for him to get what he needed. She just needed to be less clever than him.
º Except they didn't allow it inside the Gates, to the continued bafflement of most Hell dwellers. Perhaps management considered the usual smoke to be adequate for ruining one's lungs… not that anyone used them anyway.
ºº Which he was utterly convinced he could do, thanks to his Great Hellish powers. Also utterly failing to remember that a young boy in Lower Tadfield would have known faster than even Hell and sent him back there with all due haste. The former Duke hadn't become a duke through mental prowess.
1 – Borrowed from whom, I truly don't immediately recall, but I think it may have been Vulgarweed. Mea culpa, yet again.
2 - Actually this statue is Anteros, brother to Eros. Seriously, do a bit of homework, not kidding here.