isleofavalon | Be Bold, Be Bold, But Not Too Bold

"Don't be so dramatic." He rolled his eyes. "It'll be fine. It's just walking in and getting a crystal. What's the worst that could happen?"

Eyes forward then, he took a deep breath and strode confidently in.

"You said it again! Quests are never as easy as 'go here and get the thing!'"

And the dramatics continued but only for a moment more as Alec disappeared into the dark tunnel of the cave leaving Crowley to gape after him and chatter to himself.

"I'm not going in there after him... There is no reason to go in there after him. Even if he gets lost... or falls down a shaft... or hits his head on a stalagmite...

Shit...

Wait up!"

He took a few strides and was soon hot on Alec's heels but looking about the cave stones like he expected fire arrows to come raining out of the walls at them.

"Do you even know where these crystals are in the cave?"

Given the cavern's acoustics he could hear Anthony talking to himself outside. It makes him roll his eyes. It's as annoying as it is touching and while he might enjoy the company... maybe the fact that he would enjoy it made him hesitate.

"No. It's fine. You don't have to nanny me you know and I only have one torch." Since it is getting dark he takes it out and flicks it on. "Anyway, didn't you not want to be involved?"

"Good thing we only need the one torch."

He settled into a cautious saunter by Alec's side, confident that in the event the torch gave out or there would be any need for a second he could always magic up a fireball to light the way.

"I'm involved... in a retired, supervisory sense. Anyway if you wanted to go all 'one-man army' on this you should have told your pooch not to play Lassie."

"I didn't tell it anything. I don't want it involved... and I bloody well don't need you as a supervisor. You look like you're going to jump out of your skin at any moment. Get lost." There seems to be a diverging path here and he sweeps the torch back and forth, trying to decide which one.

Both pathways were given a blank stare before that same look as turned on Alec. This was all giving off 'Temple of Doom' vibes.

"We will end up lost if we don't come up with a plan."

Unfortunately his caving experience was pretty limited to stories and what you see in adventure movies.

"Keep to the left? And look out for floor traps. There could be anything in here."

"Trap doors it's a bloody cave." He goes right just to be an arse, looking around, trying to find traces of quartz.

"This is not the temple of doom. There aren't any singing tiki idols or whatever. You're just being paranoid. Shit!" An unexpected dip in the ground makes him trip and the torch goes flying, skittering along the cave floor.

Just like that the light went out leaving them both in total darkness. Oh the torch was around some where but it was either broken or in need of tightening to make the battery make the correct connections again... Which was brilliant.

"Why is it people never listen to the warnings about trap doors until some one falls in one."

It was a thing with humans, don't do 'THIS' and that's the very thing they go and do. As he raised his hand and summoned up an appropriately cave brightening fireball Crowley recalled that he had once been very keenly aware of that failing back when humans were new and apples hung on forbidden trees.

"You break anything?"

He flinched a bit at the sudden light and tried not to think what Anthony looked like standing there holding fire. Everything seemed more real somehow, he seemed more alien somehow. And maybe he'd always been.

"It wasn't a trap door it was a bloody hole in the ground."

He levered himself up by using the cave wall, put weight on his ankle and found that it was rolled but not broken. It'll hurt to walk but since he's not a complete whinger like others he could name, it won't stop him.

"Hold that up so I can find my torch."

It likely didn't help that Crowley stood there holding the ball of flame in his hand like it was the most natural thing in the universe, dutifully holding it aloft like some avenging devil so the stone floor could be given a proper search. He even took a few steps towards the last known location of the torch, though it had bounced or... clattered further down the tunnel.

"But if you have been looking for trapdoors you might have seen the hole."

It didn't help but he was trying his best not to think about it or the occasional glint of gold-yellow he could see when he stood at just the right angel. He continued to search for the torch which seemed to have gone just out of sight

"It wasn't a trap door, you ponce. Maybe I should be looking for giant rolling boulders or those swinging axe things. Come a little further in, would you?"

He skirted the hole with a dancer's grace and proceeded further into the gloomy cave. It grew damper as he went, the ceiling overhead sending a few droplets of water down to land on his head and shoulders, but it did nothing to the flame which glowed ever brighter as he tried to penetrate the gloom.

"I don't see that torch."

Crowley walked on, just a little further before deciding.

"You yeeted it!"

Ahead was a small bend in the tunnel and Crowley made his way towards it thinking maybe the torch had bounced its way down as far as this!

"Did you really have to throw it as far as you could? Overreaction to a small hole isn't it??"

And suddenly his flame went out, sending both of them back into the pitch black darkness.

"What the hell is 'yeeted'? And I tripped you shit!" Then banged his shin against a stalactite as the fire went out and cursed.

"Anthony! Are you alright?" As soon as the words came out he wondered if this was a prank and if it was he would find the devil tail of his and tie it into a knot.

An explanation of the word might have followed if he wasn't so busy looking at his invisible-in-the-dark hand. That hadn't happened to him before. Sure in New York he hadn't had powers but during that time he had never had them... they hadn't just stopped in the middle like that.

"Yeah, fine..."

He was a touch upset actually but he covered that with a sigh.

"Must be an anti-magic zone, forcefield or something. Really could use that torch now. Last I saw there were a few more of those branching tunnels, but I think I can make my way back."

Just follow the echo of Alec's voice, right? Simple. When Alec spoke, Crowley moved, guided by those familiar, yet not family, tones. Only the echoes betrayed him. Instead of stumbling over Alec in the dark what Crowley ran into was a wall of flame. Fire licked up from the floor, covered every rack of books and ate away at everything just as it had the first time. There was a difference though, one he had to blink his eyes against the thick smoke to see. A white and slightly charred lump lay in the middle of the floor.

"Aziraphale?!"

His feet moved of their own accord, bringing him to the center of the fire and to the bundle which turned out to be more than one, a pair actually. A darker figure laid beside the first, his arm around the angel's waist like he had been helping the both of them struggle towards an exit that they had never found.

"Alec too? No... This can't be happening! Not again!"

Crowley's eyes panned the scene as if he might discover the truth of this but he only found more. Ellie over there by the kitchen, she must have been making dinner when the fire broke out. His dear sweet not-mother was nearby her hand holding that of his not-sister. Not-brother, Oliver looked the worst off of all of them. He must have held back to fight the flames or rushed in to find his... oh Satan... Crowley knew that if he went into the kitchen beyond Oliver's family would be in there, his kids and wife.
The demon's knees weakened as he dropped to the charred remains of the floor.

"You BASTARDS! YOU KILLED ALL OF THEM! AZIRAPHALE..."

The words choked for only a moment before the fury returned.

"MY FAMILY! BASTARDS!!!"

Was it fine? In the pitch darkness it was hard to tell. He cursed again and tried to find the torch, bent low, skimming the cave floor with his hands. The acoustics of the cave were coming into play again, or maybe there was an opening somewhere hidden, because he was hearing the sound of the ocean-- that steady huge push and roll of tide, the endless drawing strength.

The rough floor of the cave became gritty and cool. Sand. Sand on a chilled day. The ocean rolling at his feet, washing cold over his shins under a blistering blue sky. Broadchurch? He scanned the horizon. The tall cliffs, the sea, and his heart squeezed painfully in his chest when he saw a too familiar body face-down in the surf, the tide tangling in her curls.

No...

God no...

Please...

He couldn't move. Or breathe. Or speak. The salt stung his lips and eyes and he took a churning step through the water, then another. Tess' scream cut through the sharp air and he saw her race through the water to lift the young body from the water, hold it to her, but it was too late. It was all too late.

"It's what you deserved," said Ricky Gillespie from somewhere behind him. "Why couldn't you find for my daughter? My baby? How could you let that go? How could you let that happen?"

"If you were there to begin with it wouldn't have happened," added Beth Latimer. "If you spent time with them, but you didn't, did you? You just let everything go. Let everyone down. Like you'll let me down. Let Danny down. Where is my justice? Where is my peace? Why do we have you and not anyone else?"

It wasn't right. None of this was right. There were too many things wrong with it and he knew on some level what it was. That he would have to approach Tess and go to face what he had done and failed to do.

Couldn't move--

Couldn't--

But then he heard Anthony screaming, garbled and far off. He couldn't make out the words, but he could hear the pain in them.

Right. He was... here somewhere too. Getting in trouble. And this... this wasn't real.

"I'm coming." He realized he had whispered it and said it louder, loud enough to hear his own voice bounce impossibly back under such an open day and clear sky.

But first he had to go through. So step by step he did. Toward Tess and--

--something too horrible to contemplate.

There was no way to know that somewhere out there Alec was going through the same thing. Alec was here, dead. Laying next to the one he had spent centuries beside... Loving from afar, not realizing that was the feeling, denying it, sticking together through the good times and the bad, facing down the end of the bloody world together! They were going to spend eternity together!!

Not this...

Grief mixed with fury as his hands clawed at the ashes, pushing himself up and away from the grim scene. He didn't burn. He was the only one here who hadn't.

Alone he trudged forward, through the burning wreckage of his once happy life. There was something he had been trying to do before this, find a bloody torch was it? What good was that anymore?! Still he walked on until the flames died down behind him and his eyes could be rubbed free of the soot that must have landed in both of them making them misty.

The world became dark as the water washed over him. He had looked. He had seen. Not her face, but the face of the Gillespie girl, which was somehow almost worse. And then he had walked and the sea had welcomed him, the deep, the cold, everything that was waiting for him sooner rather than later--

And then the dark.

The emptiness of the cave.

He couldn't see a bloody thing, but he could hear and that was enough. There were footsteps ahead of him, echoing and angry and he caught up as best he could, resting a hand between Anthony's shoulder blades.

"It was nothing."

If he weren't trapped in some dreary dank cave he would have settled himself in for a good long round of drinking to dull the senses and forget everything he had seen. If he had been able to do that his nerves wouldn't have felt as raw and he wouldn't have leapt skyward when Alec's hand appeared so suddenly on his back.

"Shit!"

Crowley turned but in the dark there was nothing to see except for the empty blackness of where he presumed Alec might have been standing.

"That wasn't nothing... That was everything, everyone I've ever given a shit about."

A searching hand reached out to pat around in the gloom, brushing against a bit of sleeve before landing squarely in the middle of Alec's scruffy beard.

"Are you really here?"

"Of course I'm here." He took Anthony's wrist to stop getting smacked in the face. "I was here before it started. It's an illusion, that's all. Talk to Fell if you don't believe me. Here I'll ring him up."

Hopefully the communication device still worked. He fumbled it out of his pocket in the pitch dark, wincing at the sudden flare of light and rang him.

The phone rang across the room. Aziraphale didn't immediately pick up, though he was surprised to have a caller at all, and then, once he saw who was calling, fretted a bit over accepting at all. It felt like a time between spats with Crowley, ages ago.

But Alec wasnt Crowley. Crowley, or on occasion Aziraphale, eventually caved and came around, lonely for the other's company. Crowley sulked, brooded, was dramatic while Aziraphale was equally so. He might even call in anger and they'd have it out and resolve to go to lunch. Or he'd bring flowers and pastries, like they were lovers trying to make amends.

Alec could play the long game, indefinitely do without someone in his pigheaded drive to be a loner. Alec, Aziraphale decided in a moment of panic that finally had him accepting the call, wouldn't make a social call to try and agree to be friends again: this was something important.

"Alec-- ah, Hardy!" He was a little breathless. "Are you alright?"

Took him bloody long enough.

"Fine. Tell your idiot boyfriend that whatever hellscape he saw wasn't real and you're still alive." And with that he thrust the communicator in Anthony's face.

"Oh! Oh," he sputtered, thrown off as if he was being pushed at Crowley and not the phone. "Don't call him an idiot!"

But his tone softened and he called out, "Crowley? Crowley, are you there? ...Where are you? Are you alright? Would you like me to come to you?"

Crowley gaped at the phone making some sort of unintelligible noise that might have been words if they hadn't decided to be unreliable. Alec had called Aziraphale? Actually called him over like... Like this was forty years ago, he had fallen from his bike given his knee a bad scrape and required a few loving words from his mummy to kiss it all better?

THE NERVE!

But... Aziraphale did sound alright didn't he? Shell-shocked maybe but not dead or... lightly toasted. Crowley in his mind's eye could even see him there by the phone, holding it primly even if he was concerned. It felt normal like nothing had changed at all.

"Tch... yeah fine," He didn't exactly sound fine. Crowley spoke slowly like he was picking out each word very carefully as one tended to do when they had awakened from a terrible nightmare but were still hazy from it. "Just... bad cave. They really ought to put a warning sign on it."

He exhaled.

"But then I guess more people would wander in here."

Don't do it was the surest why to make some one do anything which was why he didn't ask Aziraphale not to come. No, don't, it's dangerous and magic doesn't work here... That silly loving Angel would be by his side in no time! So he cleared his throat and tried a different tactic.

"How about I bring takeaway back for dinner tonight? Shouldn't be long... couple of hours maybe..."

He lied as he had no idea how long it would be or what this stupid mission his idiot of a cousin had gotten him into.

Crowley didn't sound fine. But, his idiotic demon liked to be brave, so Aziraphale wasn't going to coddle him. Or he would try not to. He wanted to. He want to coddle and scold, but there were other ways to fuss.

"Hours?!" Settling on the edge of the bed, he focused on just continuing to sound very assuredly not dead. They had always been so good at camouflaging their concern for one another within the trappings of their duties. It was different now, and they only had their egos not their secrecy to protect these days, but he latched on to the one thing they could hide behind.

"Did you bring anything to eat while you're there? Some hardtack? Jerky? YOU may not need to eat, but you have a human with you, now, Crowley. Do you at least have a canteen while you're out there spelunking into the abyss? I won't have you letting him get dehydrated. He needs to eat regularly, contrary to what he might say."

"Oh for fuck's sake. Go home you great knob. Go cuddle him or something before he molts himself a new pillow."

He gave Anthony a shove in what he hoped was the exit and continued off into the darkness himself. As much as he wanted the company, he couldn't risk Anthony being separated from the one he loved. Also he resented being treated like a child. He could look after himself thank you very bloody much.

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