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I was left to my own devices
Many days fell away with nothing to show
In Crowley’s defense, he’d known the bloody volcano was going to erupt soon, he just hadn’t known it would be today. Soon could have been anywhere from sixteen years ago[1] to the next century.
Nope.
Today.
“Nobody here,” Crowley mutters to himself, “has any bloody idea what’s about to happen to them.”
Nobody, that is, except one particularly annoyed demon who recently changed his name. One particularly annoyed demon, who leaps to his feet and sprints out the door, because he does not want to be discorporated anytime soon, he’s not breaking his perfect record now. That, and he hasn’t exactly been doing much of anything… demony lately. Tempted some Pompeiians here and there, but nothing major. Whatever he could claim would pale in comparison to this .
He wonders, momentarily, if he could get away with claiming responsibility for the eruption. Probably not, but he probably could claim responsibility for heightening the death and destruction here. Which he isn’t going to do, of course, he’s going to get out of here. Fast.
At least, that’s what he thinks he’s going to do, and then the ground starts shaking harder. Crowley makes it maybe two paces before pitching forward and directly into someone who’d been watching Vesuvius.
Crowley doesn’t bother apologizing, just stands and brushes off his clothes. He risks a glance at Vesuvius, doesn’t know why he bothered.
“Definitely erupting,” he mutters to himself, not sparing a glance for the hapless Pompeiian he’s knocked down. What he doesn’t realize until said hapless Pompeiian speaks is that the individual in question is not from Pompeii at all.
“Crawley?”
Unfortunately, Crowley would know that voice anywhere. He still doesn’t apologize, but after a moment he offers Aziraphale a hand. The angel takes it, and he pulls him up.
Crowley doesn’t know what to think of the fact that Aziraphale didn’t hesitate, not even a little. So he doesn’t think about it. Or think in general, really.
“It's Crowley now,” he greets evenly, returning his attention to Vesuvius. “Fancy meeting you here, Aziraphale.”
And the walls kept tumbling down
In the city that we love
Great clouds roll over the hills
Bringing darkness from above
Interesting as the angel always is, the volcano currently erupting is all Crowley has eyes for at the moment. He’s got… maybe an hour to get out of here before it’s too late. Probably less. Definitely less.
Aziraphale, for his part, actually looks up when the crack of stone rings through the air, or more accurately rumbles through the air. He consequently sees what the demon Crowley does not: the wall of the building above them is crumbling. Of all the ways to discorporate, getting a wall dropped on his head is not one of Aziraphale’s personal favorites.
Probably not one of Crowley’s, either. He shouldn’t—
“Crowley,” Aziraphale says tersely.
“Not the time, angel,” Crowley replies, still extremely focused on the mountain shooting fire and ash into the sky and not at all on the building about to fall on them.
So Aziraphale does the only thing he can: he tackles Crowley out of the way and onto his back, and if the motion is a little bit miraculously assisted, well, it’s certainly not frivolous this time.[2]
But if you close your eyes
Does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?
Crowley blinks.
Again.
Of all the things he should be aware of right now, the fact that Aziraphale is currently on top of him isn’t even in the top fifty. His eyes meet the angel’s, and he’s suddenly very happy he’d come up with the idea to wear something over them because he’s blinking a lot suddenly, and it’s. It’s.
“Uh,” Crowley says coherently.
He never noticed his eyes before. Light brown. Not an unusual color or even an uncommon one, but they’re… nice. Could get lost at them. Crowley might even call them pre—
Nope, nope, nope nope nope.
And if you close your eyes
Does it almost feel like you've been here before?
For his part, Aziraphale isn’t getting lost in Crowley’s eyes, although part of it might be the fact that Crowley recently invented glasses. He’s still a little put out about that.
He is, however, very very aware that he’s. Ah. Currently on top of a demon in what would be a fairly compromising position in any other scenario. Certainly not in this. Nope.
“Right,” Aziraphale says to no one, getting up and pulling Crowley up with him as he does. “Sorry about that. We were, ah, both about to get inconveniently discorporated by, um. That.”
He gestures helplessly over his shoulder, to the pile of rubble that used to be a wall.
“Right,” Crowley echoes.
If Aziraphale didn’t know better he would have thought the demon sounded bewildered. As it is, he’s saved from an awkward conversation by what appears to be rain.
Except, rain isn’t grey and dusty, and—oh dear.
“Speaking of being inconveniently discorporated,” Crowley says in a tone that conveys his doubt about there being any other kind of discorporation,[3] “you should get out of here.”
How am I gonna be an optimist about this?
How am I gonna be an optimist about this?
“Excuse me?”
Crowley sighs. Unfortunately, in the action of doing so he also inhales a good deal of ash and dust, and immediately starts coughing. It takes a small, vaguely hellish miracle to render him able to breathe and more crucially, talk again.
He’s going to regret this. In one way or another.
“Listen. Angel. Downstairs has been planning this—” He points vaguely at Mount Vesuvius, still erupting, and oh no there’s the first of the pyroclastic flows. “—for a long time. We need to get out of here. Nobody who stays in Pompeii is going to survive, and if we stick around for much longer it’s going to take a miracle[4] to get out in time.”
Aziraphale, naturally, just stares at him for far too long. If Crowley’s body was any bigger, he’d grab the angel, throw him over his shoulder, and start sprinting. If his corporation was any bigger, and if that were the sort of thing he could actually get away with, which is a solid probably not. And if he actually wanted to.
Which—shoot, maybe he does, but now is really not the time.
“This is your doing?? ”
Indignantly, Crowley shakes his head, opens his mouth to protest—but the ground rumbles again. Second pyroclastic flow. He remembers someone saying that the fourth one would be the one that kills everyone.
Instead of a protest, what comes out of his mouth is the word, “Run.”
We were caught up and lost in all of our vices
In your pose as the dust settles around us
Aziraphale runs. Crowley is close behind him. They’re not the only ones running now—some of the other Pompeiians have evidently decided to take their chances with the rocks and dust outside instead of the potentially collapsing buildings inside.
The ground is still shaking, quaking beneath them and making it hard to stay standing, never mind stay running. A part of Aziraphale wonders why he is—for all he knows, being discorporated here could be a part of the Great Plan.[5]
The rest of Aziraphale really, really doesn’t want to be discorporated, so he keeps running, not knowing where or if they’ll get there in time, or if they’ll be run over by hundreds of panicking Pompeiians first.
He happens to catch a glimpse of a sign—docks. Of course!
It’s then, naturally, that something, someone’s leg or a poorly placed cobblestone, trips him. And he goes down . Something breaks, but that’s the least of his worries as everyone else just—keeps running. Over him, around him, and before he’s trampled by someone on a horse, he’s dragged roughly out of the way.
Crowley, he realizes, partially because who else? Partially because his glasses are gone, and Aziraphale has yet to meet a human or even another demon with a snake’s eyes.
He shouldn’t be glad to see a demon , and yet he is.
Oh, where do we begin, the rubble or our sins?
Oh, where do we begin, the rubble or our sins?
“There isssn’t going to be enough room on thosssse boatsss,” Crowley hisses, slipping into sounding rather more like a snake than he’d like to right now. “I know another place outssside the city. Come on!”
He tugs the angel to his feet, but as soon as he puts weight on his feet Aziraphale cries out in pain and collapses again.
“I… I think I may have broken something,” Aziraphale whimpers. Whether he knows it or not, he’s on the verge of tears, and Crowley rather suspects he doesn’t know at all.
Despite the fact that they should be running for their lives, Crowley can’t keep himself from raising an eyebrow and snarking, “You think?”
“I can heal it, just give me a…” He breathes in hard, looks to Crowley and says, “I can’t… it’s too much. I can’t focus. Go on without me.”
“Excusssse me?”
“I said, go on without me. You’re a demon. You’ll probably get a commendation for getting my hopes up and then leaving me to die. Ah… discorporate. Get discorporated. Yes.”
For a few, precious seconds, Crowley just stares . Then he loops Aziraphale’s arm around his shoulder and drags him up.
“Hell doesssn’t really do commendationsss,” Crowley mutters. “Put your weight on your good foot, we need to move."
But if you close your eyes
Does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?
And if you close your eyes
Does it almost feel like you've been here before?
They both should be dead.
Er… inconveniently discorporated.
Except neither of them are. Aziraphale’s leg is still hurting too much for him to focus, but he’s somewhat aware of the fact that Crowley had half-dragged, half-carried him all the way to this boat before unceremoniously dumping him in. Now, he’s paddling frantically, trying desperately to get away from the shoreline before it’s too late.
Aziraphale swallows, collects his thoughts enough to voice a question: “Why?”
Crowley doesn’t answer for a long time, just paddles harder.
How am I going to be an optimist about this?
How am I going to be an optimist about this?
“Because,” Crowley says at last, once he’s satisfied they’re far enough away. He sets the paddle down inside the boat, finds he can’t look at Aziraphale. Part of it’s that he lost his glasses.
“Because—that’s not an answer!”
Crowley sighs, this time without inhaling anything beyond air and the faintest scent of ash.
“Tell you what, angel. I can give you a proper answer, or I can fix that leg of yours. Try to, anyway.”
Aziraphale, for his part, glares down at his leg before snapping. He exhales, audibly relieved.
“That’s much better,” he says, partially to himself, but partially to Crowley as a way of making his choice perfectly clear.
Shit. Now Crowley has to come up with a proper answer. The truth won’t do, and even if it did Aziraphale wouldn’t believe him.
“Downstairs’s been planning this for a while. Since before last time we met, I think.”
“Thirty-eight years.”
Crowley can’t hide his surprise at the fact that Aziraphale’s been counting, and immediately starts cursing himself, internally that is, because this is why he’s been keeping his eyes hidden, damn it.
“Right. Yeah. That. Maybe not quite that long, but you know downstairs. You wouldn’t have died quickly.”
That, actually, is a lie—Crowley had been one of very few demons actually paying attention, and anyone still in Pompeii at this point will have died relatively quickly. That was kind of the point—make them panic, loads of sin comes from panic, and then make them die fast before they can even begin to try to redeem themselves.
“That’s it?”
“Lots of paperwork. Downstairs doesn’t know I was there, downstairs doesn’t need to know I was there because that would be so much bloody paperwork. If I was taking credit for your discorporation, there’d be even more.”
Satan, if he doesn’t accept this Crowley genuinely doesn’t know what he’ll say next. Fortunately, Aziraphale’s nodding, and he seems to be accepting this.
“You know, for a demon,” Aziraphale says at last, “you’re really a very—”
“Finish that sentence and I’m turning this boat around.”
If you close your eyes
Does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?
Until now, Aziraphale has never truly understood the appeal of sleep. Until now, of course, he hasn’t ever been quite this close to being discorporated, and it’s been a very long time since this body’s broken anything.
He very nearly drifts off on a couple separate occasions, and does on at least one because one moment, he was watching Crowley attempt to navigate using the stars, and the next Crowley’s found a blanket and draped it over him.
Crowley, naturally, is sitting fast asleep on the other side of the boat, to all appearances, anyway. Except he’s… shivering.
“Crowley?” Aziraphale says softly.
He doesn’t get a response. So, he stands, taking the blanket as he does, and in a few steps and some quick motions, it’s now tucked around Crowley’s shoulders.
It doesn’t help. He’s still shivering, and Aziraphale realizes with a start that it’s not from the cold. It takes him a few moments to decide, but eventually just decides not to think about it and takes a seat next to Crowley.
Before he can second-guess himself, he wraps his arms around Crowley’s midsection as tightly as he dares.
Crowley stops shivering, which Aziraphale counts as a victory.
Unfortunately, he also opens his eyes, and his find Aziraphale’s.
Please, Aziraphale silently implores, please, please, PLEASE don’t say anything about this.
Crowley closes his eyes. And, after a few minutes, Aziraphale lets his own fall shut as well.
Eh, eheu, eheu
Eh, eheu, eheu
Eh, eheu, eheu
Eh, eheu, eheu
Neither of them talk about it the next morning, and they still haven’t talked about it when Crowley brings the boat into port at a different coastal city, one that wasn’t caught in the eruption.
If Crowley had been paying better attention, and hadn’t been avoiding Aziraphale’s eyes for some time now, he might have noticed that Aziraphale almost looked like he wanted to talk about it. If Crowley was feeling a little bit braver, the pair might have at least gone together to imbibe copious amounts of alcohol.[6]
As it is, Crowley isn’t paying him enough attention to realize that his eyes look more blue than brown now, never mind anything else, and he’s not feeling brave in the least. So, he nods curtly to Aziraphale and says, “Be seeing you, then.”
Aziraphale nods back.
The next time they see each other, it’s been nearly five hundred years, they're far away from what little remained of Pompeii, and anything they might have been close to having that night is long since buried.