First Gift Fic
Title: Destructive Influences
Recipient: fickle_goddess
Author: dreya_uberwald
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Adam and Pepper confront the nature of change, entropy and apathy whilst engaging in some rather interesting encounters. War/Pepper, Adam/Death and Adam/Crowley.
The train journey from the University to central London had taken over three hours and Wensleydale had complained vociferously for most of it.
“I still don’t see what dragging all of us down here is going to achieve,” he muttered, as the four of them alighted onto the platform at the tube station.
Pepper scowled as she wrestled the three placards she’d brought with her into a manageable position. “We’re here for the anti-war demonstration.”
“I know that,” said Wensleydale, rolling his eyes. “I just don’t see the point. I mean, what’s it going to achieve? It’s not as though Britain’s even directly involved in this one.”
“It’ll send a message to the government that there are lots of people out there who are opposed to the fact that they’re playing host to the nation that’s just invaded Kumbolaland.”
“Yes, but will it actually make Kumbolaland un-invaded?”
Pepper gritted her teeth. They’d had this argument seven times in as many days. “Probably not. But it’s important to do it anyway.”
“Why?”
“To show we’re not completely apathetic to injustices going on in other parts of the world. Besides, it’s not as though I forced you to come.”
Wensleydale’s expression strongly suggested that he didn’t agree. Fortunately for intra-group harmony, Brian chose that moment to snap out of whatever cannabinoid induced haze he’d been residing in since the previous night and demonstrate a hitherto unknown capacity for diplomacy.
“Look Wensley,” he said, eyes still not quite focussed. “It means a lot to the rest of us that you’re coming too, doesn’t it Pepper, Adam?”
Pepper nodded, albeit in the slightly grudging fashion of one who wished that all their friends were as committed to, if not changing the world then at least having a damned good crack at it, as they were.
Adam didn’t say anything; opting instead to gaze into space. It was not the sort of chemically assisted blank staring that Brian seemed to spend a significant proportion of his time doing; but rather a look of intense consideration, as if he was studiously contemplating something that nobody else could see. He’d been doing it on and off for a few days now, and though they wouldn’t say as much, the rest of the Them found it rather disconcerting.
“Doesn’t it, Adam?” repeated Brian, slowly and deliberately.
“Yeah,” said Adam, gaze shifting fluidly back to his friends. “It’s good to have you here with us Wensley.” And that was even more disconcerting; the way he could seem to be somewhere else one minute yet not demonstrate the slightest hint of ignorance when pressed to comment on events occurring during this period of apparent absence.
“Well, what are we waiting for then?” said Pepper, taking a purposeful stride in the direction of the exit.
Adam, Brian, and a reluctant looking Wensleydale followed.
The protest itself began as a rather uneventful affair: a bit of chanting here, a bit of placard waving there, an awful lot of Wensleydale complaining about the cold and the rain and the fact that his feet were killing. Brian, ever the optimist, said that the turnout of twenty-five thousand people wasn’t bad, all things considered. Pepper, more the pessimist, replied that given that there were over sixty million people in the country it was piss poor and indicative of the apathy and entropy that permeated British society. Wensleydale, cynical to the core, declared that none of it mattered, as none of it could actually change anything anyway. Adam for his part just seemed to be fascinated by the crowd.
Things continued in this peaceful and unexciting vein for precisely two hours, seventeen minutes and eleven seconds.
In the media post-mortem that followed a number of factors were suggested as the cause of the riot: from bad planning, to jittery newly qualified police officers who overreacted to a few small, and relatively harmless, projectiles, to a hard-core group of trouble makers - probably anarchists - who’d come with the express purpose of causing maximum damage. Funnily enough, none of them reported that the trouble seemed to begin from the moment a dangerously beautiful, red-haired woman in a scarlet dress and leather jacket began to stroll carelessly through the crowds.
When the bricks - of which there had been no sign ten minutes ago - began to fly and the riot police brandished batons, the Them very quickly found themselves split up. A panicked Wensleydale, dragging Brian by the arm, ran in what looked to be the safest direction. Pepper, seized by a curious feeling of elation, and a strange detachment of body from mind, found herself surging forwards into the fray. Adam stood and watched.
As the occasional firebomb joined the barrage of other missiles the staff and customers at nearby Burger Lord fled. All the customers that was, apart from the slim, black-haired man with the neatly trimmed beard, who remained calmly seated in his plastic chair.
The window shattered.
The sides of his lips curled as the woman in red stepped in through what was left of the door.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” he said by way of an opening.
“Just a flying visit,” she replied, with a smile and a flash of white teeth.
“Indeed.”
Swiping a super-large Styrofoam cup of extra-caffeinated cola that one of the fleeing diners had left behind, she took the seat opposite him. “And you thought I couldn’t do irony,” she said with a grin, as a wooden sign saying ‘Stop The Destruction’ was forced through the windscreen of a nearby police car.
The black-haired man gave a small, economical sigh. “Ironic it may be. But subtle it’s not.”
The woman threw back her head and laughed. “Subtlety’s over-rated.”
The man raised an eyebrow. “Subtlety’s the future.”
“For you maybe.”
“For all of us, unless….” He left the sentence hanging, as if suddenly unwilling to finish what he was about to say.
“Unless what?” demanded the woman. The breezy demeanour at once replaced by something far more feral.
“It’ll be apathy that finishes you,” he said quietly. “The rest of us thrive on it, but you, you need passion and anger and more than anything a cause.”
“There’ll always be war,” she said, though the confidence in her voice sounded somewhat artificial.
“We thought there would always be pestilence.”
“Pestilence was replaced by something that’s almost the same.”
“Exactly.”
She laughed once again. This time it quite obviously forced. “And what could I be replaced with?”
The man seemed to think about this for a while. “Self Mutilation, maybe.”
She snorted “Self Mutilation?”
“Humans have a natural talent for it. If there’s nothing out there to destroy them than they’ll do it themselves.”
And with that the man stood and walked out unperturbed into the chaotic street. As he passed, seven rioters were assuaged by acute hunger pangs that sent them scrambling desperately into the fast food joint’s interior, whereupon half-eaten burgers and cold fries were greedily devoured.
For a while the red-haired woman watched them indulgently. Then one of them, a middle-aged man in a Property is Theft t-shirt, angrily accused a young woman in khaki trousers of stealing his chocoshake (which had thirty seconds ago been liberated from table seven). This caused a young man with purple hair, ostensibly the significant other of said young woman in khaki trousers, to get very upset indeed. Within the space of ten minutes all seven of them lay on the floor in various states of consciousness.
Pepper felt body and mind reaching a state of reintegration as she was sent sprawling into a muddy puddle near the side of the road. She wasn’t quite sure what hit her; whether it was a fellow protestor or a police baton. But any remaining feelings of euphoria were very quickly extinguished by the icy cold water permeating her sweater and jeans.
“Oh fuck,” she swore, as she hauled herself to her feet. For a few seconds she stood there, not certain what to do next. She wasn’t really sure of her location and her friends were nowhere in sight. As she glanced around she could see various altercations going on, and they were no longer limited to the more traditional protestors versus police conflicts: people wearing clothing emblazoned with profusions of peace signs brawled under a poster advertising a new brand of energy drink, whilst two irate constables were hitting each other with chairs that had just an hour earlier been located inside the nearest Citizens Advice Bureau. The shops along the road were now shells of their former selves; with windows and masonry smashed and doors and decoration ripped off. The Burger Lord was by far the worst hit, with several small fires burning in the now completely exposed interior. And Pepper could see why.
At the only intact table inside the garishly painted building sat a woman with red hair, scarlet lips and an expression approaching delight. Around her lay a scattering of fragmented glass that twinkled pink, red and orange in the light of the flames, some very large blocks of concrete and several bodies, which one could only hope were still breathing. When her eyes met Pepper’s the blood red lips curled into a smile. Destruction had never looked so beautiful.
It was then that Pepper knew what she was looking at. It was not a eureka moment of sudden realisation, or even a heart stopping recollection of a long repressed memory. No, she’d known all along about Adam’s true nature, about that night nine years ago when she’d first come face to face with War, about the instant at which two sticks tied together had met a shining metal sword. She’d just somehow never been able to focus on it before. Any thoughts about that particular incident had, in the past, slid from her thoughts almost as soon as they’d bubbled to the surface.
The sensible thing to do, Pepper knew, would be to go and find the others. But Pepper knew herself well enough to know that she wasn’t always a very sensible person. So instead of trying to turn back she walked, with a slight limp, towards the terminally damaged former burger bar. As she approached War raised her Styrofoam cup what seemed to be a kind of salute.
“I know you,” Pepper said. It seemed on balance a rather stupid thing to say, but the words had left her mouth before she’d really had a chance to properly evaluate their suitability.
War’s smile widened to reveal even more of her white teeth. Images of blood and bone instantly began to spring into Pepper’s mind. “We’ve met before.”
“I suppose it’s not something that you’d forget,” said Pepper, slightly puzzled as to why she wasn’t feeling anything approaching fear; curiosity, apprehension and something that felt a little like excitement, yes, but not fear. “I thought you’d gone away though. ‘Back into the minds of men’, or whatever it was that your friend in grey said.”
“We always come back though,” said War, standing up. “We’re part of each one of you, in some way.”
“So you’re the one responsible for Kumbolaland getting invaded?” Pepper demanded, trying hard to get as much outrage as possible into her voice. It didn’t seem right somehow to bump into the anthropomorphic personification of War at an anti-war demonstration and not broach the subject. War however seemed to find the question highly amusing.
“I took a trip there a few months ago. Just a little flying visit. But given that I come from your mind too, I guess that make you responsible too.”
Pepper’s expression was one of horror and indignation. “I didn’t want that country to be invaded, or any innocent people to be killed or raped or tortured.”
“But you have a sense that there are things worth fighting for. All humans have it in some small way, but you’ve got more than most.”
It was Pepper’s turn to laugh. It was not however a particularly amused sound. “Is this some kind of weird variation on the ‘we’re not so different you and I’ speech?”
“But are we?” said War. “We both loathe inaction, entropy and apathy, don’t we?”
“Yeah, but I don’t go around killing people.”
“Neither do I. You do all of that yourselves.” Pepper was suddenly aware of a surprisingly warm hand - the fingers of which terminated in nails painted an extremely realistic shade of blood - brushing against her cheek. She once more surprised herself by not flinching. “Besides, can’t you imagine something that would be worth killing for?” War’s voice dropped to a seductive low. “Something worth dying for?” And with that images of causes and crusades and fraught bloody battles on hilltops began to crash through her head; cries of ‘freedom’, ‘liberation’ and ‘justice’ ringing out above the cacophony of the guns and bombs and screams. When they finally faded Pepper found herself with her lips pressed against War’s; tongue slipping into a mouth that tasted vaguely of metal, hand running frantically over hair, hips, breasts and back.
In the streets groups of combatants were hit by a veritable tsunami of disorientation, at once uncertain as to whether they wanted to kill their opponents or engage in acts of extreme public indecency with them.
Finally, Pepper pulled away, gasping for breath.
“You see,” said War, sounding satisfied and smug. “There are things you’d kill and die for.”
“Yeah,” said Pepper quietly. “I s’pose I would.” Her expression hardened. “You don’t give them to people though.”
War shrugged, looking slightly disappointed. “I’m the means, not the end.”
Pepper thought about this. “Can’t really blame you for existing then, can I?” And, without waiting for a reply, she stepped back out into the street, where battle seemed to have stopped, and the participants were sitting, lying or standing around with expressions of acute confusion on their faces.
**********
Eventually all four of the Them found each other once again. There was a fair bit of joking about Pepper’s dishevelled state on Brian’s part and more than a fair bit of lecturing on the dangers of getting involved in riots coming from Wensleydale, who was far more relieved about finding his friends safe and sound than he was prepared to let on.
“I mean, you just stood there staring, Adam. What the hell were you thinking?” he admonished as they sat, cold and wet, around a table in one of the capital’s more downmarket pubs.
“I knew I’d be fine,” said Adam, by way of explanation. There was something about the way he said it that made it an undisputable fact; as if the idea that anything bad could happen to him whilst standing idly around in the middle of a rioting crowd was completely absurd. “I was just watching to see what happened. Anyway, who wants another pint?”
On this issue there was unanimous assent.
“I’ll go to the bar with you,” said Pepper, who been rather more quiet and subdued than usual since Brian and Wensleydale had found her walking around in an ever-so-slightly dazed state.
Adam nodded and, steeling himself, prepared for direct confrontation.
“I can remember again,” said Pepper, as soon as other two were out of earshot.
He knew exactly what she was talking about. “Making you all stop thinking about it seemed like the right thing to do at the time,” he said, as they jostled for position at the bar. “Are you angry with me?”
Pepper shrugged. “A bit, I suppose. I saw her again today, you know?”
“I know.”
For several seconds neither of them spoke.
“Adam,” said Pepper eventually. “Why’ve you been acting so weird for the past few days?”
“I’ve been thinking about things,” he replied.
“About what?”
“Oh you know; destruction, creation, that sort of thing.”
Pepper gave a small half-smile. “What, you mean you’re turning all philosophical on us?”
“Maybe a little bit.” He paused, feeling quite at a loss as to how to explain his musings on his place in the universe to Pepper. In the end he decided that he couldn’t. “Look,” he said, pushing a ten pound note into her hand. “There’s somebody I need to go and see. You get yourself, Brian and Wensley the drinks.”
“How long will you be?” asked Pepper, looking at once rather perplexed.
“Don’t wait for me,” he said, turning to leave. “You three should get the train at half-eight like you planned.”
Pepper’s expression went from perplexed to mildly worried. “But what about you?”
“I’ll be fine,” he said.
This time he didn’t sound quite so certain.
After what felt like an age of walking Adam reached Mayfair. He wasn’t quite sure why he thought coming here would help, or what he was going to say when he reached his destination, or even quite what it was that was on his mind in the first place. It was just so difficult to articulate his thoughts and feelings, even to himself.
He’d been dwelling on things for just over a week now. It had all started at around half past three on a Tuesday morning, just after he’d awoken from a particularly unsettling, yet somewhat stimulating, dream about snakes. His bedroom had been almost pitch black, yet the presence of another entity had been easy to detect.
“Hello again.” Adam had said, not bothering to move from his bed.
Death had not responded.
“I saw you a few days ago,” Adam continued conversationally. “When next door’s cat got hit by that car. And last month when Mr. Tyler had that heart attack in the middle of the village green.”
I GET EVERYWHERE.
“Who’re you here for then, not me I take it?”
A SPIDER HAS JUST EXPIRED ON YOUR WINDOWSILL.
“Oh, okay. Suppose I’ll be seeing you around then?”
YES. Death replied simply. A swish of something that sounded like it could have been a cowl, or perhaps the noise that the fabric of the universe makes when a small tear is made, suggested that he was turning to depart. At the last moment however Creation’s Shadow seemed to pause.
NINE YEARS AGO YOU ONCE SAID THAT ONE DAY THERE COULD BE A WAY TO KILL DEATH.
“That’s right,” said Adam, feeling ever so slightly uneasy, yet not quite sure why.
AND HAVE YOU THOUGHT ANY MORE ON THIS IDEA?
“Not really,” replied Adam with a sleepy shrug. And this had been true; in the years since the apocalypse had been averted he’d been far more interested in questions of a less metaphysical nature: such as whether this band was better than another, or if England had a chance of winning the world cup this year, or whether, when it came down to it, he actually found boys more attractive than girls (the eventual conclusion being that he liked them both about the same). “I remember that you said that to destroy death would mean the end of the world, or something like that.”
AND IT WOULD.
There was another sound of what seemed to be movement.
Adam at once became aware that Azrael was now, for want of a better expression, ‘sitting’ on the left hand side of the bed.
“Don’t see why,” he said, uncertain as to what the personification of Death was trying to do. “I mean, how does somebody living forever stop the world from existing?”
DEATH IS MORE THAN JUST THE MERE CESSATION OF NATURAL FUNCTIONS IN THE HUMAN BODY.
And then there were fingertips caressing his face. They were not cold, as one would expect of the hands of Death, nor were they warm. They didn’t, in fact, really feel of anything solid or material. And it did not seem to be so much a touch, as the ghost of a touch. Almost as if five points of energy were somehow tracing their way across his skin. It was a curious and not unpleasant sensation. “What is death then?” he asked, tilting his head so that the left cheek could be stroked.
ENDING.
Adam considered this. “But why does life need to end?”
The fingertips trailed lightly down his neck.
IN ORDER FOR THE STATE OF LIFE TO REMAIN UNCHANGED THE REMOVAL OF THE PRINCIPLE OF DESTRUCTION FROM THE UNIVERSE WOULD BE REQUIRED. YET WITHOUT THE PRINCIPLE OF DESTRUCTION THE PRINCIPLE OF CREATION CANNOT EXIST. FOR CREATION CANNOT OCCUR WITHOUT THE DESTRUCTION OF WHAT WAS THERE BEFORE.
“I’m not sure I understand,” said Adam, arching his back as the touch that wasn’t reached his chest.
COULD YOU ENVISION A WORLD IN WHICH NEITHER DESTRUCTION NOR CREATION EXISTED? A WORLD IN WHICH NOTHING COULD CHANGE?
Adam confessed that he couldn’t.
There was the sound of rushing air and Adam saw the wings of Azrael unfurl. Even the darkness of the room could not cloak their blackness.
LOOK.
Adam obeyed and saw within those tears in the fabric of creation a world that had stopped. A world in which everything would remain static and changeless until the end of creation. It was quite probably the single most horrifying thing that he’d ever seen.
DO YOU UNDERSTAND NOW?
He nodded, or at least made the nearest approximation to nodding one could whilst remaining horizontal. “Yes, I think so.”
The fingertips removed themselves from his body; and something that felt like it might be the echo of a hand smoothed down his hair.
He’d gone back to sleep after that. His dreams filled with uneasy visions of a universe where nothing ever happened.
When he’d awoken, thoughts about changelessness and destruction had filled his mind. For nine years he’d attempted to avoid doing anything that might change the world. And now he was wondering why.
He needed somebody to talk to about it and none of the Them could really understand. Well, maybe Pepper now that she can remember properly again, he thought to himself as the door to the flat opened, but I’d probably just end up making her scared of me.
Crowley, whilst clearly too attractively dishevelled to have been expecting visitors, didn’t seem entirely surprised to see him.
“I came down for the anti-war demonstration,” Adam said, when faced with the obligatory ‘so what brings you here then?’ question.
“Yeah, I saw you on the news,” said the demon as he usher him into a living room that would have sent Brian into an envious five hour anti-materialism rant. “Just standing around in the middle of it all, weren’t you? Nothing to do with me, of course, this whole Kumbolaland situation. This one’s humans all the way.”
“I didn’t come here to have a go at you about it,” said Adam, as he sank down onto the immense white, leather sofa that seemed to take pride of place in the room.
Crowley looked mildly surprised. “You didn’t?”
He shook his head. “Knew it wasn’t you anyway.”
“To be honest I didn’t expect you to be there at all. Thought you’d renounced messing about with humans?” A bottle of something expensive and potently alcoholic materialised in Crowley’s hand. “Drink?”
“Please,” said Adam, imagining a large glass into his hand which he then proffered. “I wasn’t messing about with anyone, I was protesting. ‘Sides, Brian and Pepper wanted me to go with them.”
“Pepper? She’s the little girl with the red hair, right?” said Crowley, pouring the dark amber liquid.
“She’s twenty now.”
“Your girlfriend?”
Adam shook his head again. “Just a friend.”
Things went on in this stunted vein for quite some time, with glasses being refilled as a displacement activity and desperate statements being made as to the comparative merits of the Tadfield and London weather systems whenever it looked as though an uncomfortable silence was about to fall. Eventually however their blood alcohol content ran high enough and small talk reserves low enough for Crowley to finally bite the metaphorical bullet.
“Look Adam, what is it you actually want?”
“I’m not really sure. I’ve been thinking about how the universe works.”
“Bloody h…Manchester,” muttered Crowley, demonstrating his self-perceived ability to cope with the subject by taking a very long drink from the bottle (which still seemed to be miraculously full) and collapsing next to Adam on the sofa. Adam for his part tried his best not to dwell for an inappropriate amount of time on quite how sexy the demon’s stylishly unkempt appearance was. “Nothing important then?”
“And I can’t stop thinking about destruction and changing things.” It was a rather less than succinct way of trying to explain his thoughts, but it was the best he could do.
Crowley’s eyes widened. “You’re not planning to end the world, are you?”
The rather comical look of horror that crossed the demon’s face was enough to tip Adam out of awkwardness and into amusement. “No,” he said, trying without success to suppress tipsy laughter. “What I mean is that it’s inevitable, isn’t it?”
“Well, of course it is,” said Crowley, still looking rather edgy despite Adam’s protestation. “All change involves the destruction of something or other, doesn’t it? Even it it’s just the destruction of, I don’t know, an old routine or something. Look, where is it you’re actually going with this?”
“Well, it’s just that I spend a lot of time stopping myself from destroying or changing things in the world - important things I mean, not stuff like my sister’s boyfriend’s car, which was an accident anyway - but then I come down here to protest about a country being invaded and people who don’t deserve it getting hurt, where the basic idea is to cause a really big change. And when it comes down to it, it just seems hypocritical.”
“That’s different though,” said Crowley, taking another drink from the bottle. “You’re not using your powers to do it.”
“But when you think about it starts to sound, you know….” Adam struggled through the pleasantly inebriated haze that was settling around his mind to find the right word.
“Arbitrary?” Crowley suggested
“Arbitrary, that’s it. Besides, it’s not as though you’ve stopped trying to influence things.”
“Yeah, but it like….like,” there was a pause as an equally inebriated Crowley tried to come up with a suitable analogy. “Like, just say the world was a game of monopoly.”
Adam made a face. “A game of monopoly?”
“Yeah, trite I know, but it’s better than a box of sodding chocolates. Anyway, in a game of monopoly it’s one thing to try and get the pieces where you want them by playing by the rules, another to get them where you want by cheating and quite another to replace the board with Snakes and Ladders while everybody’s not looking. And changing the board’s exactly what’d happen if you started messing about. I mean, me and the angel can only cause limited damage, can’t we? You could do whatever the fuck you wanted.”
“But what if an asteroid was about to flatten the boar… world?”
“Well, obviously you should do something if an asteroid was about to obliterate everything.”
“Then what about a plague or a war that was going kill everyone?”
“Okay then too.”
“And a war that would kill half of everyone?”
“Yeah, probably then as well.”
“What about one that would kill a quarter of the world’s population.”
“I don’t know. Possibly. Maybe.”
“But then if you go down that path what’s wrong with stopping a war that’d kill a few million people, or getting rid of a really unpleasant dictator?”
Crowley threw his arms up in drunken exasperation. Unfortunately he was still holding an unnaturally full bottle of finest single malt and Adam and the sofa were treated to an unintended dowsing. Fortunately Adam was still in the giddier stages of intoxication and found the whole gesture rather amusing.
“It’s just, well, it just….” The demon trailed off, clearly unable to bring himself to utter the phrase ‘it just is’. “There has to be a difference between keeping the world intact and controlling everyone.”
“But when would I be changing things to keep the world intact and when would I be changing things that I shouldn’t? Where do I draw the line between doing the right thing and messing people about?”
“Oh for go… somebody’s sake, if you want to ask questions about the difference between right and wrong, why not just go and talk to the angel?”
“Well, I thought about that,” said Adam, feeling his cheeks heat up slightly. “But then I thought that if I went to see him he’d just give me tea and most probably say exactly the same things that you would. Whereas if I came to see you you’d give me whisky.”
For all his apparent frustration a few moments ago Crowley burst out laughing.
“’Side’s,” continued Adam, flush deepening. “You’re better looking than he is.”
“What?” Had he not chosen that moment to start concentrating studiously on the floor he would have undoubtedly been greatly amused to see the demon gape in the utterly astounded way that he did.
“I don’t mean anything by it,” he said hastily. “Jus’ joking really.”
“Oh right, well, that’s good.” Sneaking a sideways glance at the Crowley’s face Adam couldn’t help but think that there was something almost disappointed about his expression.
“Unless you want me to mean something by it,” said Adam, cheeks ablaze and rather startled by the fact that he actually seemed to be vocalising the words.
“Adam,” said Crowley, who was now almost as flushed as himself (though it was difficult to be sure whether this was due to embarrassment or alcohol consumption), “you’re not fucking about with my head here, are you?”
Adam shook his head, managing to bite back a comment about wanting to fuck with things other than Crowley’s head.
The demon sighed and put a hand on Adam’s right shoulder. It was, he thought, really quite amazing the charge that a light little touch like that could have; even through two layers of clothing. For a brief moment he was put in mind of Azrael’s caress. “Look Adam, I’m already, how should I put this, ‘a little out of favour’ with the boys downstairs. I don’t need ‘messing about with the boss’s son’, added to the list of things they could haul me up in from of a Dark Council for.”
“Well, I wouldn’t tell them,” said Adam, cautiously edging closer. “I’m just curious really.”
Crowley seemed to tense. “Curious?”
“Well, I heard that you could do dead weird things with your tongue.”
“Oh, and who told you that?” There was, despite Crowley’s quite obvious apprehension, a note of pride in his voice.
Adam replied with a shrug. “It’s just something that I’ve heard around.”
Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Around?”
It was Adam’s turn to tense. “Not that I’m trying to imply anything about you, well, you know being….”
Fortunately for Adam however he was saved from having to awkwardly expound upon what exactly he wasn’t trying to imply Crowley was being by the fact that he suddenly found his mouth being drawn into a tentative kiss.
Three minutes later he found himself undressed, on the floor and being enthusiastically enlightened as to just how deliciously weird some of the things Crowley could do with his tongue were.
**********
Whilst the protest had been a fun little afternoon’s diversion War decided that, for now at least, South East England wasn’t really the place for her; and it was thus that she found herself on a plane to a small, newly formed country in South America. Of the passengers that would survive the journey, nearly all would leave with very clear memories of the woman in red.
“Hi there,” she said with a grin as a figure materialised in the empty seat next to her.
YOU’RE HAVING A PRODUCTIVE DAY, I SEE?
War raised an eyebrow; it certainly wasn’t like Him to bother with human pleasantries. “Just messing about really,” she said. “Sable thought I couldn’t do irony. Still says I can’t do subtlety though, and I have to agree.”
WAR IS UNSUBTLE BY BOTH NATURE AND DEFINITION.
“He also,” she continued, lowering her voice to a loud, angry whisper, “seemed to think that I’ll be the next one to get replaced.”
A grey-gloved hand came to rest on hers.
“You don’t think so, do you?” Whilst her face remained the very picture of predatory amusement she was unable to keep the hint of anxiety out of her voice.
UNLIKELY.
War only just managed to keep herself from heaving a sigh of immense relief.
HUMANS, Azrael continued, LOATH POLLUTION AND FEAR AND DESPISE FAMINE. YET MANY OF THEM, HOWEVER MUCH THEY MIGHT PROTEST OTHERWISE, HAVE AN INEXPLICABLE LOVE OF WAR
Smiling she turned and planted a small kiss where a cheek would be had one existed. “Thank you.”
There was the sound of a bottle shattering, followed very quickly by the sound of several people screaming.
“Looks like duty’s calling,” she said, nodding towards the body now lying in the centre of the aisle.
INDEED. And with that Death went to collect his newest charge. As he stood however he cast a look behind him. Though his face - or at least what one might refer to as his face - was incapable of expressing either feeling or mood, she thought she could almost detect something faintly resembling fondness in the immobile stare.
**********
When Adam awoke he was draped over a sleeping demon and covered by designer bed sheets. They were, he noted, far cleaner and better maintained than the ones he had back at the flat. The digital display on the alarm clock proclaimed it to be 5:30 am. This left him in a quandary. He didn’t feel like going back to sleep, but it would clearly be rather impolite to wake Crowley up, and getting up and leaving would be even more discourteous still. So instead he opted to lie there and have another think about things.
When, five hours later, Crowley finally began to stir, Adam was ready to announce the conclusions he’d finally arrived at.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, as the demon drowsily opened his serpentine eyes.
“You have?” mumbled Crowley, who was still very much in the who, what, why and where the hell am I stage of consciousness.
“Yes,” Adam said, too enthused about what he was about to say to really notice that the demon probably wasn’t yet in the right frame of mind to appreciate it. “Well, I was thinking about changing things, you know, when it’d be right and when it wouldn’t and how there don’t seem to be any guidelines for.”
A rather pained expression settled on Crowley’s face. “I’m sure it’s too early for this,” he muttered.
“And I realised that when it comes down to it it’s the same as everything else people have to decide on. I mean there are some things that you definitely should do, like… like calling the fire brigade if you see a building on fire, and some things you definitely shouldn’t do, like stabbing somebody because they looked at you funny. But there’s a whole load of other stuff that you’re not sure whether you should or shouldn’t do and so you have to make a decision.”
“What, you mean it’s just another facet of being human?” said Crowley, seeming to grudgingly returning to cognizance.
“Yeah, I suppose. Like sometimes I might have to decide whether doing something would be too much messing about or not; and I’ll have to do it myself, because there’s nothing to say it would be completely right or completely wrong.” For a while he pondered the implications of what he’d just said, before reaching one indisputable conclusion. “It’s hard being human sometimes.”
Crowley snorted. “Trust me,” he said, pulling Adam back into an embrace. “It’s better than the alternatives. Now can we please talk about something more suited to this ungod… bloody hour of the morning.”
Adam, unable to come up with another, less cognitively taxing subject of conversation, settled for proving to Crowley that antichrists’ tongues could be almost as interesting as demons’.
**********
Seven hours later Adam arrived, exhausted yet very satisfied, back at the flat. As he’d uncomfortably anticipated Pepper was waiting for him in the kitchen.
“Are you still angry at me?” he asked, as she handed him a steaming cup of tea.
She shook her head. “I’m still not sure why you did it though; took away our memories, I mean?”
“I though it’d be better if things went back to normal.” He paused, trying to think what to say next. “Maybe I shouldn’t have done it, or maybe it was the right thing to do. But it seemed like what was best at the time. I can’t really explain it much better than that, sorry.”
“But if you can do things like that, you could stop loads of bad things happening. Like the invasion of Kumbolaland, or… or that accident at that chemical factory in South America that happened a few months ago.”
“But if I did that then where would it stop. Should I change every bad decision that everybody on the planet makes?”
“Of course not,” said Pepper. “That’d be being a sick control freak.”
“That’s what I’m saying. Sometimes I might end up changing things that need to be changed so that the world can carry on. Or I might even change something that I thought needed to be changed only for it to turn out that it shouldn’t have been and I was wrong. But the point is I can’t go thinking everything better for everybody. There’d be no point to existence if I did that.”
Pepper looked at him critically. “So what you’re saying is that if you interfered too much the world would turn into a giant game of The Sims, with you playing.”
“Yeah, that’s a good way of putting it.”
“Alright,” she said, after a long period of deliberation. “I suppose I can understand. Well, sort of, anyway.” Adam felt himself sag with relief. “I’ve just got one question though.”
“What?”
“How did you come to the conclusion that fiddling with Brian’s A Level grades was a world preserving move?”
Adam gaped. “How did you…?”
“Know? You forget that I knew exactly how much studying he was doing. Plus, I was sitting next to him in the sociology exam. I saw him fall asleep half way through.”
“I think,” said Adam carefully. “That there are some things that it’s alright to change; because they involve your friends and don’t mean that anybody gets messed about too much.”
Pepper looked at him speculatively. “What about if you just ‘thought’ two million pounds into my bank account? Not two million pounds that belong to anybody else, of course, just two million that didn’t exist before.”
Adam shifted uncomfortably. “Er…well, you see….” Of all of the imaginary conversations with Pepper he’d gone through on the train home, this permutation really hadn’t crossed his mind. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you that the global banking system is the one thing I can’t influence, would you?”
Smiling, Pepper shook her head.
“Thought not.”
Happy Holidays! For fickle_goddess, from a Super Sekrit GO Exchange participant! Her request listed multiple pairings and included the line: "Destruction never looked so beautiful."
Recipient: fickle_goddess
Author: dreya_uberwald
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Adam and Pepper confront the nature of change, entropy and apathy whilst engaging in some rather interesting encounters. War/Pepper, Adam/Death and Adam/Crowley.
The train journey from the University to central London had taken over three hours and Wensleydale had complained vociferously for most of it.
“I still don’t see what dragging all of us down here is going to achieve,” he muttered, as the four of them alighted onto the platform at the tube station.
Pepper scowled as she wrestled the three placards she’d brought with her into a manageable position. “We’re here for the anti-war demonstration.”
“I know that,” said Wensleydale, rolling his eyes. “I just don’t see the point. I mean, what’s it going to achieve? It’s not as though Britain’s even directly involved in this one.”
“It’ll send a message to the government that there are lots of people out there who are opposed to the fact that they’re playing host to the nation that’s just invaded Kumbolaland.”
“Yes, but will it actually make Kumbolaland un-invaded?”
Pepper gritted her teeth. They’d had this argument seven times in as many days. “Probably not. But it’s important to do it anyway.”
“Why?”
“To show we’re not completely apathetic to injustices going on in other parts of the world. Besides, it’s not as though I forced you to come.”
Wensleydale’s expression strongly suggested that he didn’t agree. Fortunately for intra-group harmony, Brian chose that moment to snap out of whatever cannabinoid induced haze he’d been residing in since the previous night and demonstrate a hitherto unknown capacity for diplomacy.
“Look Wensley,” he said, eyes still not quite focussed. “It means a lot to the rest of us that you’re coming too, doesn’t it Pepper, Adam?”
Pepper nodded, albeit in the slightly grudging fashion of one who wished that all their friends were as committed to, if not changing the world then at least having a damned good crack at it, as they were.
Adam didn’t say anything; opting instead to gaze into space. It was not the sort of chemically assisted blank staring that Brian seemed to spend a significant proportion of his time doing; but rather a look of intense consideration, as if he was studiously contemplating something that nobody else could see. He’d been doing it on and off for a few days now, and though they wouldn’t say as much, the rest of the Them found it rather disconcerting.
“Doesn’t it, Adam?” repeated Brian, slowly and deliberately.
“Yeah,” said Adam, gaze shifting fluidly back to his friends. “It’s good to have you here with us Wensley.” And that was even more disconcerting; the way he could seem to be somewhere else one minute yet not demonstrate the slightest hint of ignorance when pressed to comment on events occurring during this period of apparent absence.
“Well, what are we waiting for then?” said Pepper, taking a purposeful stride in the direction of the exit.
Adam, Brian, and a reluctant looking Wensleydale followed.
The protest itself began as a rather uneventful affair: a bit of chanting here, a bit of placard waving there, an awful lot of Wensleydale complaining about the cold and the rain and the fact that his feet were killing. Brian, ever the optimist, said that the turnout of twenty-five thousand people wasn’t bad, all things considered. Pepper, more the pessimist, replied that given that there were over sixty million people in the country it was piss poor and indicative of the apathy and entropy that permeated British society. Wensleydale, cynical to the core, declared that none of it mattered, as none of it could actually change anything anyway. Adam for his part just seemed to be fascinated by the crowd.
Things continued in this peaceful and unexciting vein for precisely two hours, seventeen minutes and eleven seconds.
In the media post-mortem that followed a number of factors were suggested as the cause of the riot: from bad planning, to jittery newly qualified police officers who overreacted to a few small, and relatively harmless, projectiles, to a hard-core group of trouble makers - probably anarchists - who’d come with the express purpose of causing maximum damage. Funnily enough, none of them reported that the trouble seemed to begin from the moment a dangerously beautiful, red-haired woman in a scarlet dress and leather jacket began to stroll carelessly through the crowds.
When the bricks - of which there had been no sign ten minutes ago - began to fly and the riot police brandished batons, the Them very quickly found themselves split up. A panicked Wensleydale, dragging Brian by the arm, ran in what looked to be the safest direction. Pepper, seized by a curious feeling of elation, and a strange detachment of body from mind, found herself surging forwards into the fray. Adam stood and watched.
As the occasional firebomb joined the barrage of other missiles the staff and customers at nearby Burger Lord fled. All the customers that was, apart from the slim, black-haired man with the neatly trimmed beard, who remained calmly seated in his plastic chair.
The window shattered.
The sides of his lips curled as the woman in red stepped in through what was left of the door.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” he said by way of an opening.
“Just a flying visit,” she replied, with a smile and a flash of white teeth.
“Indeed.”
Swiping a super-large Styrofoam cup of extra-caffeinated cola that one of the fleeing diners had left behind, she took the seat opposite him. “And you thought I couldn’t do irony,” she said with a grin, as a wooden sign saying ‘Stop The Destruction’ was forced through the windscreen of a nearby police car.
The black-haired man gave a small, economical sigh. “Ironic it may be. But subtle it’s not.”
The woman threw back her head and laughed. “Subtlety’s over-rated.”
The man raised an eyebrow. “Subtlety’s the future.”
“For you maybe.”
“For all of us, unless….” He left the sentence hanging, as if suddenly unwilling to finish what he was about to say.
“Unless what?” demanded the woman. The breezy demeanour at once replaced by something far more feral.
“It’ll be apathy that finishes you,” he said quietly. “The rest of us thrive on it, but you, you need passion and anger and more than anything a cause.”
“There’ll always be war,” she said, though the confidence in her voice sounded somewhat artificial.
“We thought there would always be pestilence.”
“Pestilence was replaced by something that’s almost the same.”
“Exactly.”
She laughed once again. This time it quite obviously forced. “And what could I be replaced with?”
The man seemed to think about this for a while. “Self Mutilation, maybe.”
She snorted “Self Mutilation?”
“Humans have a natural talent for it. If there’s nothing out there to destroy them than they’ll do it themselves.”
And with that the man stood and walked out unperturbed into the chaotic street. As he passed, seven rioters were assuaged by acute hunger pangs that sent them scrambling desperately into the fast food joint’s interior, whereupon half-eaten burgers and cold fries were greedily devoured.
For a while the red-haired woman watched them indulgently. Then one of them, a middle-aged man in a Property is Theft t-shirt, angrily accused a young woman in khaki trousers of stealing his chocoshake (which had thirty seconds ago been liberated from table seven). This caused a young man with purple hair, ostensibly the significant other of said young woman in khaki trousers, to get very upset indeed. Within the space of ten minutes all seven of them lay on the floor in various states of consciousness.
Pepper felt body and mind reaching a state of reintegration as she was sent sprawling into a muddy puddle near the side of the road. She wasn’t quite sure what hit her; whether it was a fellow protestor or a police baton. But any remaining feelings of euphoria were very quickly extinguished by the icy cold water permeating her sweater and jeans.
“Oh fuck,” she swore, as she hauled herself to her feet. For a few seconds she stood there, not certain what to do next. She wasn’t really sure of her location and her friends were nowhere in sight. As she glanced around she could see various altercations going on, and they were no longer limited to the more traditional protestors versus police conflicts: people wearing clothing emblazoned with profusions of peace signs brawled under a poster advertising a new brand of energy drink, whilst two irate constables were hitting each other with chairs that had just an hour earlier been located inside the nearest Citizens Advice Bureau. The shops along the road were now shells of their former selves; with windows and masonry smashed and doors and decoration ripped off. The Burger Lord was by far the worst hit, with several small fires burning in the now completely exposed interior. And Pepper could see why.
At the only intact table inside the garishly painted building sat a woman with red hair, scarlet lips and an expression approaching delight. Around her lay a scattering of fragmented glass that twinkled pink, red and orange in the light of the flames, some very large blocks of concrete and several bodies, which one could only hope were still breathing. When her eyes met Pepper’s the blood red lips curled into a smile. Destruction had never looked so beautiful.
It was then that Pepper knew what she was looking at. It was not a eureka moment of sudden realisation, or even a heart stopping recollection of a long repressed memory. No, she’d known all along about Adam’s true nature, about that night nine years ago when she’d first come face to face with War, about the instant at which two sticks tied together had met a shining metal sword. She’d just somehow never been able to focus on it before. Any thoughts about that particular incident had, in the past, slid from her thoughts almost as soon as they’d bubbled to the surface.
The sensible thing to do, Pepper knew, would be to go and find the others. But Pepper knew herself well enough to know that she wasn’t always a very sensible person. So instead of trying to turn back she walked, with a slight limp, towards the terminally damaged former burger bar. As she approached War raised her Styrofoam cup what seemed to be a kind of salute.
“I know you,” Pepper said. It seemed on balance a rather stupid thing to say, but the words had left her mouth before she’d really had a chance to properly evaluate their suitability.
War’s smile widened to reveal even more of her white teeth. Images of blood and bone instantly began to spring into Pepper’s mind. “We’ve met before.”
“I suppose it’s not something that you’d forget,” said Pepper, slightly puzzled as to why she wasn’t feeling anything approaching fear; curiosity, apprehension and something that felt a little like excitement, yes, but not fear. “I thought you’d gone away though. ‘Back into the minds of men’, or whatever it was that your friend in grey said.”
“We always come back though,” said War, standing up. “We’re part of each one of you, in some way.”
“So you’re the one responsible for Kumbolaland getting invaded?” Pepper demanded, trying hard to get as much outrage as possible into her voice. It didn’t seem right somehow to bump into the anthropomorphic personification of War at an anti-war demonstration and not broach the subject. War however seemed to find the question highly amusing.
“I took a trip there a few months ago. Just a little flying visit. But given that I come from your mind too, I guess that make you responsible too.”
Pepper’s expression was one of horror and indignation. “I didn’t want that country to be invaded, or any innocent people to be killed or raped or tortured.”
“But you have a sense that there are things worth fighting for. All humans have it in some small way, but you’ve got more than most.”
It was Pepper’s turn to laugh. It was not however a particularly amused sound. “Is this some kind of weird variation on the ‘we’re not so different you and I’ speech?”
“But are we?” said War. “We both loathe inaction, entropy and apathy, don’t we?”
“Yeah, but I don’t go around killing people.”
“Neither do I. You do all of that yourselves.” Pepper was suddenly aware of a surprisingly warm hand - the fingers of which terminated in nails painted an extremely realistic shade of blood - brushing against her cheek. She once more surprised herself by not flinching. “Besides, can’t you imagine something that would be worth killing for?” War’s voice dropped to a seductive low. “Something worth dying for?” And with that images of causes and crusades and fraught bloody battles on hilltops began to crash through her head; cries of ‘freedom’, ‘liberation’ and ‘justice’ ringing out above the cacophony of the guns and bombs and screams. When they finally faded Pepper found herself with her lips pressed against War’s; tongue slipping into a mouth that tasted vaguely of metal, hand running frantically over hair, hips, breasts and back.
In the streets groups of combatants were hit by a veritable tsunami of disorientation, at once uncertain as to whether they wanted to kill their opponents or engage in acts of extreme public indecency with them.
Finally, Pepper pulled away, gasping for breath.
“You see,” said War, sounding satisfied and smug. “There are things you’d kill and die for.”
“Yeah,” said Pepper quietly. “I s’pose I would.” Her expression hardened. “You don’t give them to people though.”
War shrugged, looking slightly disappointed. “I’m the means, not the end.”
Pepper thought about this. “Can’t really blame you for existing then, can I?” And, without waiting for a reply, she stepped back out into the street, where battle seemed to have stopped, and the participants were sitting, lying or standing around with expressions of acute confusion on their faces.
**********
Eventually all four of the Them found each other once again. There was a fair bit of joking about Pepper’s dishevelled state on Brian’s part and more than a fair bit of lecturing on the dangers of getting involved in riots coming from Wensleydale, who was far more relieved about finding his friends safe and sound than he was prepared to let on.
“I mean, you just stood there staring, Adam. What the hell were you thinking?” he admonished as they sat, cold and wet, around a table in one of the capital’s more downmarket pubs.
“I knew I’d be fine,” said Adam, by way of explanation. There was something about the way he said it that made it an undisputable fact; as if the idea that anything bad could happen to him whilst standing idly around in the middle of a rioting crowd was completely absurd. “I was just watching to see what happened. Anyway, who wants another pint?”
On this issue there was unanimous assent.
“I’ll go to the bar with you,” said Pepper, who been rather more quiet and subdued than usual since Brian and Wensleydale had found her walking around in an ever-so-slightly dazed state.
Adam nodded and, steeling himself, prepared for direct confrontation.
“I can remember again,” said Pepper, as soon as other two were out of earshot.
He knew exactly what she was talking about. “Making you all stop thinking about it seemed like the right thing to do at the time,” he said, as they jostled for position at the bar. “Are you angry with me?”
Pepper shrugged. “A bit, I suppose. I saw her again today, you know?”
“I know.”
For several seconds neither of them spoke.
“Adam,” said Pepper eventually. “Why’ve you been acting so weird for the past few days?”
“I’ve been thinking about things,” he replied.
“About what?”
“Oh you know; destruction, creation, that sort of thing.”
Pepper gave a small half-smile. “What, you mean you’re turning all philosophical on us?”
“Maybe a little bit.” He paused, feeling quite at a loss as to how to explain his musings on his place in the universe to Pepper. In the end he decided that he couldn’t. “Look,” he said, pushing a ten pound note into her hand. “There’s somebody I need to go and see. You get yourself, Brian and Wensley the drinks.”
“How long will you be?” asked Pepper, looking at once rather perplexed.
“Don’t wait for me,” he said, turning to leave. “You three should get the train at half-eight like you planned.”
Pepper’s expression went from perplexed to mildly worried. “But what about you?”
“I’ll be fine,” he said.
This time he didn’t sound quite so certain.
After what felt like an age of walking Adam reached Mayfair. He wasn’t quite sure why he thought coming here would help, or what he was going to say when he reached his destination, or even quite what it was that was on his mind in the first place. It was just so difficult to articulate his thoughts and feelings, even to himself.
He’d been dwelling on things for just over a week now. It had all started at around half past three on a Tuesday morning, just after he’d awoken from a particularly unsettling, yet somewhat stimulating, dream about snakes. His bedroom had been almost pitch black, yet the presence of another entity had been easy to detect.
“Hello again.” Adam had said, not bothering to move from his bed.
Death had not responded.
“I saw you a few days ago,” Adam continued conversationally. “When next door’s cat got hit by that car. And last month when Mr. Tyler had that heart attack in the middle of the village green.”
I GET EVERYWHERE.
“Who’re you here for then, not me I take it?”
A SPIDER HAS JUST EXPIRED ON YOUR WINDOWSILL.
“Oh, okay. Suppose I’ll be seeing you around then?”
YES. Death replied simply. A swish of something that sounded like it could have been a cowl, or perhaps the noise that the fabric of the universe makes when a small tear is made, suggested that he was turning to depart. At the last moment however Creation’s Shadow seemed to pause.
NINE YEARS AGO YOU ONCE SAID THAT ONE DAY THERE COULD BE A WAY TO KILL DEATH.
“That’s right,” said Adam, feeling ever so slightly uneasy, yet not quite sure why.
AND HAVE YOU THOUGHT ANY MORE ON THIS IDEA?
“Not really,” replied Adam with a sleepy shrug. And this had been true; in the years since the apocalypse had been averted he’d been far more interested in questions of a less metaphysical nature: such as whether this band was better than another, or if England had a chance of winning the world cup this year, or whether, when it came down to it, he actually found boys more attractive than girls (the eventual conclusion being that he liked them both about the same). “I remember that you said that to destroy death would mean the end of the world, or something like that.”
AND IT WOULD.
There was another sound of what seemed to be movement.
Adam at once became aware that Azrael was now, for want of a better expression, ‘sitting’ on the left hand side of the bed.
“Don’t see why,” he said, uncertain as to what the personification of Death was trying to do. “I mean, how does somebody living forever stop the world from existing?”
DEATH IS MORE THAN JUST THE MERE CESSATION OF NATURAL FUNCTIONS IN THE HUMAN BODY.
And then there were fingertips caressing his face. They were not cold, as one would expect of the hands of Death, nor were they warm. They didn’t, in fact, really feel of anything solid or material. And it did not seem to be so much a touch, as the ghost of a touch. Almost as if five points of energy were somehow tracing their way across his skin. It was a curious and not unpleasant sensation. “What is death then?” he asked, tilting his head so that the left cheek could be stroked.
ENDING.
Adam considered this. “But why does life need to end?”
The fingertips trailed lightly down his neck.
IN ORDER FOR THE STATE OF LIFE TO REMAIN UNCHANGED THE REMOVAL OF THE PRINCIPLE OF DESTRUCTION FROM THE UNIVERSE WOULD BE REQUIRED. YET WITHOUT THE PRINCIPLE OF DESTRUCTION THE PRINCIPLE OF CREATION CANNOT EXIST. FOR CREATION CANNOT OCCUR WITHOUT THE DESTRUCTION OF WHAT WAS THERE BEFORE.
“I’m not sure I understand,” said Adam, arching his back as the touch that wasn’t reached his chest.
COULD YOU ENVISION A WORLD IN WHICH NEITHER DESTRUCTION NOR CREATION EXISTED? A WORLD IN WHICH NOTHING COULD CHANGE?
Adam confessed that he couldn’t.
There was the sound of rushing air and Adam saw the wings of Azrael unfurl. Even the darkness of the room could not cloak their blackness.
LOOK.
Adam obeyed and saw within those tears in the fabric of creation a world that had stopped. A world in which everything would remain static and changeless until the end of creation. It was quite probably the single most horrifying thing that he’d ever seen.
DO YOU UNDERSTAND NOW?
He nodded, or at least made the nearest approximation to nodding one could whilst remaining horizontal. “Yes, I think so.”
The fingertips removed themselves from his body; and something that felt like it might be the echo of a hand smoothed down his hair.
He’d gone back to sleep after that. His dreams filled with uneasy visions of a universe where nothing ever happened.
When he’d awoken, thoughts about changelessness and destruction had filled his mind. For nine years he’d attempted to avoid doing anything that might change the world. And now he was wondering why.
He needed somebody to talk to about it and none of the Them could really understand. Well, maybe Pepper now that she can remember properly again, he thought to himself as the door to the flat opened, but I’d probably just end up making her scared of me.
Crowley, whilst clearly too attractively dishevelled to have been expecting visitors, didn’t seem entirely surprised to see him.
“I came down for the anti-war demonstration,” Adam said, when faced with the obligatory ‘so what brings you here then?’ question.
“Yeah, I saw you on the news,” said the demon as he usher him into a living room that would have sent Brian into an envious five hour anti-materialism rant. “Just standing around in the middle of it all, weren’t you? Nothing to do with me, of course, this whole Kumbolaland situation. This one’s humans all the way.”
“I didn’t come here to have a go at you about it,” said Adam, as he sank down onto the immense white, leather sofa that seemed to take pride of place in the room.
Crowley looked mildly surprised. “You didn’t?”
He shook his head. “Knew it wasn’t you anyway.”
“To be honest I didn’t expect you to be there at all. Thought you’d renounced messing about with humans?” A bottle of something expensive and potently alcoholic materialised in Crowley’s hand. “Drink?”
“Please,” said Adam, imagining a large glass into his hand which he then proffered. “I wasn’t messing about with anyone, I was protesting. ‘Sides, Brian and Pepper wanted me to go with them.”
“Pepper? She’s the little girl with the red hair, right?” said Crowley, pouring the dark amber liquid.
“She’s twenty now.”
“Your girlfriend?”
Adam shook his head again. “Just a friend.”
Things went on in this stunted vein for quite some time, with glasses being refilled as a displacement activity and desperate statements being made as to the comparative merits of the Tadfield and London weather systems whenever it looked as though an uncomfortable silence was about to fall. Eventually however their blood alcohol content ran high enough and small talk reserves low enough for Crowley to finally bite the metaphorical bullet.
“Look Adam, what is it you actually want?”
“I’m not really sure. I’ve been thinking about how the universe works.”
“Bloody h…Manchester,” muttered Crowley, demonstrating his self-perceived ability to cope with the subject by taking a very long drink from the bottle (which still seemed to be miraculously full) and collapsing next to Adam on the sofa. Adam for his part tried his best not to dwell for an inappropriate amount of time on quite how sexy the demon’s stylishly unkempt appearance was. “Nothing important then?”
“And I can’t stop thinking about destruction and changing things.” It was a rather less than succinct way of trying to explain his thoughts, but it was the best he could do.
Crowley’s eyes widened. “You’re not planning to end the world, are you?”
The rather comical look of horror that crossed the demon’s face was enough to tip Adam out of awkwardness and into amusement. “No,” he said, trying without success to suppress tipsy laughter. “What I mean is that it’s inevitable, isn’t it?”
“Well, of course it is,” said Crowley, still looking rather edgy despite Adam’s protestation. “All change involves the destruction of something or other, doesn’t it? Even it it’s just the destruction of, I don’t know, an old routine or something. Look, where is it you’re actually going with this?”
“Well, it’s just that I spend a lot of time stopping myself from destroying or changing things in the world - important things I mean, not stuff like my sister’s boyfriend’s car, which was an accident anyway - but then I come down here to protest about a country being invaded and people who don’t deserve it getting hurt, where the basic idea is to cause a really big change. And when it comes down to it, it just seems hypocritical.”
“That’s different though,” said Crowley, taking another drink from the bottle. “You’re not using your powers to do it.”
“But when you think about it starts to sound, you know….” Adam struggled through the pleasantly inebriated haze that was settling around his mind to find the right word.
“Arbitrary?” Crowley suggested
“Arbitrary, that’s it. Besides, it’s not as though you’ve stopped trying to influence things.”
“Yeah, but it like….like,” there was a pause as an equally inebriated Crowley tried to come up with a suitable analogy. “Like, just say the world was a game of monopoly.”
Adam made a face. “A game of monopoly?”
“Yeah, trite I know, but it’s better than a box of sodding chocolates. Anyway, in a game of monopoly it’s one thing to try and get the pieces where you want them by playing by the rules, another to get them where you want by cheating and quite another to replace the board with Snakes and Ladders while everybody’s not looking. And changing the board’s exactly what’d happen if you started messing about. I mean, me and the angel can only cause limited damage, can’t we? You could do whatever the fuck you wanted.”
“But what if an asteroid was about to flatten the boar… world?”
“Well, obviously you should do something if an asteroid was about to obliterate everything.”
“Then what about a plague or a war that was going kill everyone?”
“Okay then too.”
“And a war that would kill half of everyone?”
“Yeah, probably then as well.”
“What about one that would kill a quarter of the world’s population.”
“I don’t know. Possibly. Maybe.”
“But then if you go down that path what’s wrong with stopping a war that’d kill a few million people, or getting rid of a really unpleasant dictator?”
Crowley threw his arms up in drunken exasperation. Unfortunately he was still holding an unnaturally full bottle of finest single malt and Adam and the sofa were treated to an unintended dowsing. Fortunately Adam was still in the giddier stages of intoxication and found the whole gesture rather amusing.
“It’s just, well, it just….” The demon trailed off, clearly unable to bring himself to utter the phrase ‘it just is’. “There has to be a difference between keeping the world intact and controlling everyone.”
“But when would I be changing things to keep the world intact and when would I be changing things that I shouldn’t? Where do I draw the line between doing the right thing and messing people about?”
“Oh for go… somebody’s sake, if you want to ask questions about the difference between right and wrong, why not just go and talk to the angel?”
“Well, I thought about that,” said Adam, feeling his cheeks heat up slightly. “But then I thought that if I went to see him he’d just give me tea and most probably say exactly the same things that you would. Whereas if I came to see you you’d give me whisky.”
For all his apparent frustration a few moments ago Crowley burst out laughing.
“’Side’s,” continued Adam, flush deepening. “You’re better looking than he is.”
“What?” Had he not chosen that moment to start concentrating studiously on the floor he would have undoubtedly been greatly amused to see the demon gape in the utterly astounded way that he did.
“I don’t mean anything by it,” he said hastily. “Jus’ joking really.”
“Oh right, well, that’s good.” Sneaking a sideways glance at the Crowley’s face Adam couldn’t help but think that there was something almost disappointed about his expression.
“Unless you want me to mean something by it,” said Adam, cheeks ablaze and rather startled by the fact that he actually seemed to be vocalising the words.
“Adam,” said Crowley, who was now almost as flushed as himself (though it was difficult to be sure whether this was due to embarrassment or alcohol consumption), “you’re not fucking about with my head here, are you?”
Adam shook his head, managing to bite back a comment about wanting to fuck with things other than Crowley’s head.
The demon sighed and put a hand on Adam’s right shoulder. It was, he thought, really quite amazing the charge that a light little touch like that could have; even through two layers of clothing. For a brief moment he was put in mind of Azrael’s caress. “Look Adam, I’m already, how should I put this, ‘a little out of favour’ with the boys downstairs. I don’t need ‘messing about with the boss’s son’, added to the list of things they could haul me up in from of a Dark Council for.”
“Well, I wouldn’t tell them,” said Adam, cautiously edging closer. “I’m just curious really.”
Crowley seemed to tense. “Curious?”
“Well, I heard that you could do dead weird things with your tongue.”
“Oh, and who told you that?” There was, despite Crowley’s quite obvious apprehension, a note of pride in his voice.
Adam replied with a shrug. “It’s just something that I’ve heard around.”
Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Around?”
It was Adam’s turn to tense. “Not that I’m trying to imply anything about you, well, you know being….”
Fortunately for Adam however he was saved from having to awkwardly expound upon what exactly he wasn’t trying to imply Crowley was being by the fact that he suddenly found his mouth being drawn into a tentative kiss.
Three minutes later he found himself undressed, on the floor and being enthusiastically enlightened as to just how deliciously weird some of the things Crowley could do with his tongue were.
**********
Whilst the protest had been a fun little afternoon’s diversion War decided that, for now at least, South East England wasn’t really the place for her; and it was thus that she found herself on a plane to a small, newly formed country in South America. Of the passengers that would survive the journey, nearly all would leave with very clear memories of the woman in red.
“Hi there,” she said with a grin as a figure materialised in the empty seat next to her.
YOU’RE HAVING A PRODUCTIVE DAY, I SEE?
War raised an eyebrow; it certainly wasn’t like Him to bother with human pleasantries. “Just messing about really,” she said. “Sable thought I couldn’t do irony. Still says I can’t do subtlety though, and I have to agree.”
WAR IS UNSUBTLE BY BOTH NATURE AND DEFINITION.
“He also,” she continued, lowering her voice to a loud, angry whisper, “seemed to think that I’ll be the next one to get replaced.”
A grey-gloved hand came to rest on hers.
“You don’t think so, do you?” Whilst her face remained the very picture of predatory amusement she was unable to keep the hint of anxiety out of her voice.
UNLIKELY.
War only just managed to keep herself from heaving a sigh of immense relief.
HUMANS, Azrael continued, LOATH POLLUTION AND FEAR AND DESPISE FAMINE. YET MANY OF THEM, HOWEVER MUCH THEY MIGHT PROTEST OTHERWISE, HAVE AN INEXPLICABLE LOVE OF WAR
Smiling she turned and planted a small kiss where a cheek would be had one existed. “Thank you.”
There was the sound of a bottle shattering, followed very quickly by the sound of several people screaming.
“Looks like duty’s calling,” she said, nodding towards the body now lying in the centre of the aisle.
INDEED. And with that Death went to collect his newest charge. As he stood however he cast a look behind him. Though his face - or at least what one might refer to as his face - was incapable of expressing either feeling or mood, she thought she could almost detect something faintly resembling fondness in the immobile stare.
**********
When Adam awoke he was draped over a sleeping demon and covered by designer bed sheets. They were, he noted, far cleaner and better maintained than the ones he had back at the flat. The digital display on the alarm clock proclaimed it to be 5:30 am. This left him in a quandary. He didn’t feel like going back to sleep, but it would clearly be rather impolite to wake Crowley up, and getting up and leaving would be even more discourteous still. So instead he opted to lie there and have another think about things.
When, five hours later, Crowley finally began to stir, Adam was ready to announce the conclusions he’d finally arrived at.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, as the demon drowsily opened his serpentine eyes.
“You have?” mumbled Crowley, who was still very much in the who, what, why and where the hell am I stage of consciousness.
“Yes,” Adam said, too enthused about what he was about to say to really notice that the demon probably wasn’t yet in the right frame of mind to appreciate it. “Well, I was thinking about changing things, you know, when it’d be right and when it wouldn’t and how there don’t seem to be any guidelines for.”
A rather pained expression settled on Crowley’s face. “I’m sure it’s too early for this,” he muttered.
“And I realised that when it comes down to it it’s the same as everything else people have to decide on. I mean there are some things that you definitely should do, like… like calling the fire brigade if you see a building on fire, and some things you definitely shouldn’t do, like stabbing somebody because they looked at you funny. But there’s a whole load of other stuff that you’re not sure whether you should or shouldn’t do and so you have to make a decision.”
“What, you mean it’s just another facet of being human?” said Crowley, seeming to grudgingly returning to cognizance.
“Yeah, I suppose. Like sometimes I might have to decide whether doing something would be too much messing about or not; and I’ll have to do it myself, because there’s nothing to say it would be completely right or completely wrong.” For a while he pondered the implications of what he’d just said, before reaching one indisputable conclusion. “It’s hard being human sometimes.”
Crowley snorted. “Trust me,” he said, pulling Adam back into an embrace. “It’s better than the alternatives. Now can we please talk about something more suited to this ungod… bloody hour of the morning.”
Adam, unable to come up with another, less cognitively taxing subject of conversation, settled for proving to Crowley that antichrists’ tongues could be almost as interesting as demons’.
**********
Seven hours later Adam arrived, exhausted yet very satisfied, back at the flat. As he’d uncomfortably anticipated Pepper was waiting for him in the kitchen.
“Are you still angry at me?” he asked, as she handed him a steaming cup of tea.
She shook her head. “I’m still not sure why you did it though; took away our memories, I mean?”
“I though it’d be better if things went back to normal.” He paused, trying to think what to say next. “Maybe I shouldn’t have done it, or maybe it was the right thing to do. But it seemed like what was best at the time. I can’t really explain it much better than that, sorry.”
“But if you can do things like that, you could stop loads of bad things happening. Like the invasion of Kumbolaland, or… or that accident at that chemical factory in South America that happened a few months ago.”
“But if I did that then where would it stop. Should I change every bad decision that everybody on the planet makes?”
“Of course not,” said Pepper. “That’d be being a sick control freak.”
“That’s what I’m saying. Sometimes I might end up changing things that need to be changed so that the world can carry on. Or I might even change something that I thought needed to be changed only for it to turn out that it shouldn’t have been and I was wrong. But the point is I can’t go thinking everything better for everybody. There’d be no point to existence if I did that.”
Pepper looked at him critically. “So what you’re saying is that if you interfered too much the world would turn into a giant game of The Sims, with you playing.”
“Yeah, that’s a good way of putting it.”
“Alright,” she said, after a long period of deliberation. “I suppose I can understand. Well, sort of, anyway.” Adam felt himself sag with relief. “I’ve just got one question though.”
“What?”
“How did you come to the conclusion that fiddling with Brian’s A Level grades was a world preserving move?”
Adam gaped. “How did you…?”
“Know? You forget that I knew exactly how much studying he was doing. Plus, I was sitting next to him in the sociology exam. I saw him fall asleep half way through.”
“I think,” said Adam carefully. “That there are some things that it’s alright to change; because they involve your friends and don’t mean that anybody gets messed about too much.”
Pepper looked at him speculatively. “What about if you just ‘thought’ two million pounds into my bank account? Not two million pounds that belong to anybody else, of course, just two million that didn’t exist before.”
Adam shifted uncomfortably. “Er…well, you see….” Of all of the imaginary conversations with Pepper he’d gone through on the train home, this permutation really hadn’t crossed his mind. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you that the global banking system is the one thing I can’t influence, would you?”
Smiling, Pepper shook her head.
“Thought not.”
Happy Holidays! For fickle_goddess, from a Super Sekrit GO Exchange participant! Her request listed multiple pairings and included the line: "Destruction never looked so beautiful."