Whumptober Day 27: Ok, Who Had Natural Disasters On Their 2020 Bingo Card?
Writing for the @whumptober2020 list here. More fics here.
‘The last time I found you like this my dear, it had been raining for five days not five hours.’
Crowley doesn’t look back to acknowledge Aziraphale coming up behind him, not even when the angel’s umbrella covers them both. Instead he stares down the hill, at the rolling mountains and the tiny village with a few flicking lights that gimmer in the wet darkness.
‘Crowley?’
‘The river is going to flood,’ he says, eyes still on that village. Aziraphale spends more time there than he does, what with church on Sundays and his fondness for the local bakery, but Crowley can’t say he’s never been. He knows these humans, in a way he hasn’t known mortal for millennium.
And now they’re downstream of a soon to be flooded river.
Lightning strikes, close to them. This does get Crowley to look back, glancing at Azirpahale’s umbrella with its metal pole.
‘Most of them have already evacuated.’ Aziraphale puts his umbrella aside and, after a Look that Crowley feels whatever is left of his soul, brings his wings out instead. They do make a much better umbrella when there’s lightning about, even if the cottage will be smelling of wet feathers for weeks.
‘Not all of them. Stubborn humans.’
Aziraphale moves closer, wrapping an arm around Crowley. ‘You can’t help everyone.’
‘I know that,’ Crowley snaps even as he leans into Aziraphale’s hold. ‘Your old lot taught me that the last time this happened.’
He regrets it a moment later, the memory of how much the angel had tried not to weep on the Arc still causing an ache in his heart. Thankfully Azirpahale just hums an acknowledgement and shifts closer.
‘The sun will come tomorrow,’ he says and the strike of lightning that thunders a moment later certainly has a sense of timing. ‘I’m sure of it.’
‘Won’t save the town,’ Crowley says eyes on the river. It’ll burst its banks soon, he can sense it.
‘So we’ll help them rebuild. Humanity has always been good at that.’
Crowley turns to look at Aziraphale. ‘Yeah and no restrictions this time.’
‘Exactly my dear, exactly.’
With a sigh, Crowley turns into Aziraphale and lets him lead him off the edge of the cliff.