In Extremis (Good Omens Fic)
A commission fic for @tessseagull Hope you enjoy ^_^
During a daring rescue while in Rome, Aziraphale and Crowley end up on the wrong side of some slavers who want retribution—and money. When Aziraphale ends up in the Colosseum to fight as a gladiator he thinks it’s all over, but he might just find help from an unexpected quarter.
This had been a terrible idea from the start.
Well, not entirely, Aziraphale supposed; after all, they weresaving children and that couldn’t possibly be a bad thing, but the plan itself left a little to be desired.
“Would you hurry up, angel?” hissed his companion urgently.
Aziraphale bit his lip. “Yes, I’m coming.”
Mainly he wasn’t sure about the fact that he was working with the demon Crowley. Yes, they had consistently been meeting purely on accident and, well, notthwarting each other, but Aziraphale still wasn’t entirely sure whatthat really meant and it wasn’t like notthwarting was the same thing as working together. Though sometimes, their…understanding call it—worked out quite all right for things like this, really.
Aziraphale had just been about to leave Rome on orders to go to Britain, when the demon, who he thought had left Rome days ago, had found him, looking a little urgent.
“Whatever is it?” Aziraphale had asked.
“Well, you see, there’s this bunch of kids…” Crowley had explained that a group of slavers in town had a bunch of children they were planning on shipping off to the salt mines the next morning. The salt mines meant certain death to anyone—hard to work and had the tendency to turn one mad. Aziraphale had been shocked at the idea that someone, even slavers, would think to throw children in one, but then, humans never ceased to surprise him with their cruelty.
“Look, I can’t…go around saving kids. Can get into a lot of trouble for that.” Crowley looked down as if he had indeed gotten into trouble for the same thing before. “But if I take out the guards, do the bad bit, then you can go in and save the kids—do the good bit. Then neither of us will get in trouble with the bosses.”
And of course, Aziraphale had agreed because they were children, which led to him creeping through the night with the demon with no real plan but that Crowley would take out the guards and Aziraphale would be the one to actually do the rescuing.
They were currently crouched behind a low wall that led to the place the kids were being kept. There wasn’t so much a guard as a man sitting half-drunk outside the door.
“We could just go in,” Aziraphale said.
“More inside,” Crowley told him. “Look, you head around the back and wait for me to open the door for you.”
Aziraphale nodded, and the two slipped off into the night, Crowley blending in a lot better with his dark clothing. Aziraphale tripped a bit on his toga as he hurried along in a slight crouch. He felt, rather than saw, Crowley roll his eyes and yanked the material up indignantly. This was certainly not one of his favorite pieces of clothing.
He slipped around the back of the building where there was a door and watched as Crowley disappeared around to where the front was. He wondered what the demon would do and suddenly had the fear that Crowley would kill them. He certainly didn’t want to be part of any plan that involved people, even slavers, being killed.
But he heard the low murmur of voices and, after a few more minutes, some thumps and then, after a couple minutes more, the door opened and startled Aziraphale.
“Well, come on, angel,” Crowley hissed.
Aziraphale stepped inside and gasped as he saw bodies on the floor. “Oh, Crowley, tell me you didn’t kill them!”
“Relax, they’re just asleep,” Crowley muttered. “Now come on.”
Aziraphale hurried after him and toward the barred door at the back of the building where at least twenty children were crammed into a small cell. They looked frightened at the appearance of the two supernatural beings, so Aziraphale smiled, trying to reassure them.
“Hello there. Don’t you worry, we’ll have you out of there soon enough.” He snapped his fingers and the lock on the door broke, and the door swung open. He stepped inside, and then noticed that all the children were locked to a chain, manacles around each of their ankles.
“Oh, just a moment,” he said and reached down to touch the chain. He gave it a slight flick and the chain and manacles rattled open to the ground and the children looked up in shock and perhaps a little fear at the angel. Crowley stepped forward and beckoned to them.
“Come on, we’re getting you out of here!”
Finally, a little boy stood up and the rest followed, trooping out of the cell as Aziraphale and Crowley herded them into a group.
“Everyone out? Good, good,” the angel said, then turned to the demon with a hiss. “Now where are we taking them?”
“I know a place,” Crowley said. “They’ll be safe. And there’s someone there who can find out where they belong, or if they don’t have anywhere, find somewhere for them to go.”
Aziraphale nodded and motioned for Crowley to lead the way, when there was the sound of a door shutting and a voice called out.
“Septimus? Porcius? Where the hell are you?”
“Damn,” Crowley muttered. “There must have been more at the house.”
Two pairs of footsteps could be heard coming their way and Aziraphale looked around, making a sudden decision as he reached to one of the unconscious guards and gingerly slid his sword from its sheath.
Crowley’s eyes widened. “What are you going to do with that?”
Aziraphale looked at it helplessly. “Cause a distraction, I suppose.”
“Look, you know where you’re taking the children, get them out of here. I’ll hold them off.”
Crowley looked skeptical. “You? With that?”
“I know how to use a sword,” Aziraphale said indignantly.
“Oh, that’s right, losingthem was always your problem.”
“I gave it…oh never mind. Just go!”
“I heard something in here,” a voice called from the other room and Aziraphale practically pushed Crowley toward the door where the children were huddled in fear.
Crowley nodded and opened his arms to usher the kids outside. “Come on, let’s go!”
The kids hurried out, Crowley behind them, and Aziraphale just barely shut the door behind them before two men barged into the room, swords raised. Aziraphale whipped around with his own weapon up. The two men stopped, frowning at the bodies on the floor then at Aziraphale when they saw he was alone, and then their eyes widened as they saw the children were missing from the cell behind him.
“What is going on?” One man, who seemed to be the one in charge, demanded. “Who are you?”
“Me? Oh, er, no one of consequence, I assure you,” Aziraphale stuttered.
“What did you do with those slaves?” the other man demanded, gesturing with his sword.
“Slaves? What slaves?” Aziraphale tried bluffing, but he had always been terrible at it.
“You know what I think?” the leader asked in a low, dangerous voice. They both advanced, forcing Aziraphale to back up, his sword held out in front of him. “I think you work for Maximus and he thought he could send you here to steal our property for his own profit.”
“What? No! I would never work with slavers,” Aziraphale said indignantly. But his back was not pressed against the bars of the cage and he had nowhere to go unless he miracled himself away.
“You know what I think?” the other man asked, a nasty smirk on his face. “A man goes for a bit of money to the Colosseum. It’s only fair, after all, him losing us all that money. He can start to pay it back.”
“Oh, oh no, that’s not…I’m not a warrior,” Aziraphale tried to protest, trying to find a way to get out of this.
“That’s all right. There’s plenty of other things they can use you for if that doesn’t work out, I’m sure,” the second man said with a leer as he lunged forward and lashed out with his sword.
Aziraphale blocked the blow and staggered back, only to crash into the other man from behind.
An arm snaked around his neck, and he fought, but the other man grabbed his sword arm and slammed it against the bars of the cell door. Aziraphale cried out as he lost his grip on the sword.
A fist was slammed into his stomach and he folded over with a gasp. Another was smashed into his face and he saw stars. He felt blood drip from his nose.
“Don’t damage him too much,” said the man still holding Aziraphale. “They won’t want him if he looks all thrashed. Get the chains.”
Before Aziraphale could do anything else, his hands and feet were clamped into manacles and he was being dragged outside to a cart and thrown in the back. He looked around for any chance of escape, highly disgruntled.
He really should have known better than to get involved with one of Crowley’s plans. And yet…well, he really just hoped that Crowley was able to get the children to safety.
Now he just had to figure out how to get himself out of his current bind.
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