Chapter Text
Somewhere in the Atlantic, circa 1140
He’d come to the island in a boat, a boat filled with children and excitement and, admittedly, a fair bit of water. It was a boat, after all, and as long as the proportion of water to air stayed such that said boat stayed afloat, no one really cared about a few puddles.
He’d been doing some diving in a remote area of ocean where he wouldn’t be bothered while trying to sort through some of the more recent ups and downs of human and Hellish politics. Only, apparently it wasn’t so remote after all, because the kids had found him floating in the waves in what turned out to be right next to their home, and there really wasn’t anything for it but to allow himself to be hauled aboard and shipped back with the fish and seaweed and interesting driftwood. He could have just disappeared beneath the water and stayed there until they left, but he hadn’t been in the mood for making kids worry about the random stranger drowning in their ocean. It was easier to just go along.
On the ride back Crowley sort-of-accidentally started a water fight, which was extremely justified considering the inherent chaos factor of inspiring large groups of humans to fling things at each other, and had nothing whatsoever to do with the shrieks of glee that accompanied each new splash.
By the time they reached an island — home, as Crowley was quickly informed — it was clear that a rapid and unobtrusive departure wasn’t going to work out. He couldn’t bring himself to be annoyed. Sulking in the ocean only worked up to a point, and it seemed that that point had been reached some time ago. The local adults were far less perturbed by Crowley’s appearance than he’d expected. So unperturbed, in fact, that he had to wonder if their children regularly found strange people swimming in the ocean and brought them home.
He didn’t ask. He just accepted the meal he was offered and set about making trouble amid the youngsters. Successfully, too. So successfully, in fact, that by the time evening rolled around, he had been labeled “most interesting adult ever” and invited to stay the night.
He stayed the night.
He stayed the next night, too, and on and on until it had been a week and then a month. It was calm here, where there were humans but not too many humans, where Hell had never contacted him and no one had ever blamed him for their misfortunes.
Not that he wasn’t doing his job, of course, he was a demon. He encouraged the children to fight one another, to shirk their duties and play in the ocean, and all around be proper little scamps. What did it matter that the fights were always filled with giggles or that the work always got done in the end? He was doing his job, spreading chaos to the humans of the land.
He spent lots of time in the water. How could he not, living on a tiny island such as this? The land got boring after a while, but the ocean...the ocean was always changing. The ocean was wild and unique and Crowley loved it.
And then one day, as he loped across the sand to where a small cluster of humans were repairing their boat, something wasn’t right. The air down by the water felt thicker, somehow, stinging more than the salt spray normally did. He wondered if a storm was coming, but the sky was clear, the wind calm. He must be imagining it.
A wave crashed against a nearby rock, spitting drops into the air. Crowley ignored it, thoroughly used to the more mundane actions of the ocean by now.
One of the drops hit his arm.
One of the drops hit his arm and it burned. It burned like nothing had in thousands of years, not since the very fabric he’d been created from turned on him and cut him from its web. It burned like nothing could, nothing except-
A second drop landed on the same arm, lower, behaving for all the world like any ocean spray. Only it hurt. It hurt, it hurt, and he threw himself haphazardly away from the water, up the beach, toward dry land. He was making noise, he realized as he collapsed against a tree, a kind of high-pitched howl that definitely wasn’t like him. He tried to stop.
It didn’t work. His arm hurt, hurt so much he wished it would go away, fall off, leave him alone with one arm and no pain. He burned, he ached, he couldn’t-
The boat-repairers were coming toward him, running toward him, their faces so concerned he could tell even through the haze of pain and panic. He realized then that he couldn’t let them catch him. They would ask questions, want to know why and how and he couldn’t tell them, he couldn’t, no one wanted a demon in their village and they could kill him-
Crowley staggered to his feet and ran.
~
They’d caught him after all. He wasn’t fast, not in this state, and he couldn’t hope to hide from them on their own island. The holiness coursing through him put any hope of miracles far from reach, and his legs had given out after barely a minute. He was trapped. He was trapped, and helpless, and it hurt, Satan, it hurt.
He was still whimpering, he knew, but he couldn’t stop, even as they carried him to one of the homes he’d spent so much time in over the past months — he could see the corner where two of the children had taught him a stone-tossing game — and settled him on a bed. The humans were talking all around him, over and around and on top of each other, those who had been on the beach trying to relay what they’d seen.
“He has burns on his arm,” he heard, and then “Get me some dressings.” Someone was talking to him too, trying to ask him questions, trying to get him to speak, but he had nothing to say, nothing that wouldn’t endanger him, even if he could get words out. He wished they’d left him alone, to die or heal without the extra burden of having to figure out what to say.
Holy water killed demons. No one had ever talked about how much of it was needed.
He screwed his eyes shut, refusing to say anything. Maybe they would leave him alone if he didn’t talk.
Someone picked up his arm, and the pain flared. Crowley gasped against it, and the voices picked up a notch in speed and volume.
Then suddenly it was all quiet and dark as his consciousness fell away.
~
He was hot. He was so hot, and he was shivering at the same time. His head ached. What had happened?
Then he remembered pain, the searing burn that blocked out every other sense, and then he realized that it was gone. Oh, he hurt, achy and groggy as he was, but the sharp, overwhelming pain was gone. And he was alive.
He didn’t know what it was like to be dead. No one really talked about it, if anyone even knew, but he was pretty sure it didn’t feel like this. Not like a bumpy bed and light fabric and terrible chills. That would be an odd way to experience death.
“You’re awake,” someone said.
Crowley groaned a protest of this fact.
There was a sound of movement, and something wet touched his forehead. Wet- water, there was water on him-
There was no pain, even as drops of the cool water fell on his ears and rolled down his nose, falling against his lips. He licked it off automatically. No salt. Freshwater. It was freshwater.
The ocean...the ocean no longer cared for him. The ocean was poison, death, pain. But apparently not all water would kill him. Only that one, enormous body of it, the one that surrounded him entirely, leaving no escape.
If he didn’t open his eyes, maybe he wouldn’t have to talk to anyone.
“How do you feel?” someone asked. Bother.
“Fine,” Crowley managed.
“That,” the voice said, “is completely unhelpful. And untrue.”
“Mmph,” Crowley retorted, because he really didn’t need to be called out like that when he was already feeling like this.
“Can you open your eyes for a minute?”
“No,” Crowley said, and fell asleep again.
~
The water had almost a warm radiance as Aziraphale meandered down to the docks for the day. It was a calm day, sunny and almost warm, and he reveled in it.
It wasn’t until he was out on the docks proper, water all around, that it occurred to him to wonder about the unaccustomed...radiance. It wasn’t until he reached down to dip a hand in the gentle waves that he realized what it was.
Holy water. The ocean was holy water. The entire ocean was holy water, and terror struck Aziraphale before he’d even finished enjoying the water’s new soothing aura. Beings of holiness might well enjoy such changes, but those of evil…
Where was Crowley?
Aziraphale hadn’t heard of him in some time, which wasn’t unaccustomed and had previously been extremely unworrying. The fact had now become the exact opposite of “extremely unworrying”, and Aziraphale had no way to resolve it. Crowley hadn’t exactly told Aziraphale his travel itinerary. Why should he? They weren’t friends.
Come to that, Aziraphale shouldn’t be worried. He didn’t need to spare a thought for a demon’s wellbeing. Certainly, the Arrangement was useful sometimes, but Aziraphale could do his work just fine on his own. Crowley’s safety was his own business, not Aziraphale’s.
Aziraphale curled his fingers into his palms, still staring at the deceptively welcoming water. He was worried.
He was more than worried.
He was terrified.
~
Crowley had to open his eyes eventually. He could hear the undercurrents of worry in every voice that neared his bed, and he knew they wouldn’t stop that while he was lying there. There also wasn’t a way to stop lying there that didn’t involve interaction. So he opened his eyes.
It took him several seconds to realize that someone had taken his sunglasses off.
He closed his eyes again very quickly.
“Where are my glasses?” he demanded.
“Hello,” someone said. “How are you feeling?”
“Where. Are my glasses?” Crowley replied.
There was a scuffle and then, oh thank badness, familiar wire frames pressed into his hand. He pushed them on and opened his eyes again.
“I’m fine.”
The man standing next to him sighed. “That still isn’t helpful. What I do know is that you’re not overly hot anymore, and the burns on your arm seem to be improving. That doesn’t tell me how you feel.”
Improving. He was healing. He might survive. He hadn’t known a demon could survive holy water.
“I’m tired,” he growled, which was far more accurate than it seemed like it should be, considering how little he’d been conscious recently.
“That makes sense. Can you sit up?”
Crowley could, apparently, and the room only spun for a moment before he was feeling remarkably normal, if somewhat achy and fuzzy-headed.
Then he was being handed a cup of water, and he recoiled before he’d even thought it through, trying to keep the cup as far away from himself as possible.
“No water,” he said.
“You have to drink."
“No. Water,” Crowley repeated, and continued trying to stay as far away from it as he could.
There was a sigh, and the cup disappeared. “All right, for now. Do you have any idea what happened? No one can figure it out.”
Crowley wanted to say no, because there was no way he could explain this. But if they didn’t know, they might not be careful, and he was stuck on an island in the middle of the ocean. If they weren’t careful, he would die.
Then again, if he explained, he might die anyway.
“Was the water,” he said finally. “Ocean water, I think. I’ve got- an allergy or something. Really dangerous. Can’t touch it.”
“But didn’t you swim before?”
Crowley had thought he was doing pretty well, brain-wise, but he was beginning to think he had been wrong. That wasn’t the sort of thing he forgot, typically. Now what?
“Hereditary!” he blurted. “It- runs in my family. Comes on suddenly. I didn’t expect it.”
The answering hm he got sounded unconvinced, but no one questioned him further.
“It’s just really, really important that I don’t touch any,” Crowley continued, suddenly worried that he hadn’t made it sound serious enough. “I could die. I’m not even exaggerating here, don’t let any ocean water near me-”
A gentle hand settled on his shoulder. “Yes. I hear you. You’re safe, and you’re still injured. Rest now.”
“I’ve been resting,” Crowley grumbled.
He was asleep less than two minutes later.
~
Crowley took to pacing circles around the island, once he was healed. On the one hand, the people here had shown him nothing but kindness, and he did — almost — like them. On the other, he was now on a very small piece of land, surrounded by liquid death, and he had no way off of it. It was quickly becoming claustrophobic.
He could fly, he supposed, but the idea of what would happen if anything, anything happened during flight that might knock him too close to the water was petrifying. Unfortunately, the only other option he could think of was a boat, and that was almost worse. Boats were notoriously damp, and the dampness was always due to various puddles and splashes of seawater. It was one thing to fly over certain death. It was another to try to sail through it and avoid getting splashed.
So he ignored the entire idea of leaving, instead pacing the island and trying to enjoy enticing the children to find the most weapon-like stick they could and hit things with it, or other things of that ilk. But the disquiet only grew, the knowledge that he was trapped gnawing at him, the scrap of land he’d ended up on growing more and more boring.
Finally he asked the leader-woman if they would help him sail to the mainland. He knew the general area it was in, and was pretty sure he could hit something useful by dead-reckoning toward it. The problem was he didn’t know how to sail, and he didn’t have a boat.
“The water is not safe for you,” she said, reasonably.
“No,” Crowley agreed. “But I can’t stay here forever.”
“Why not?”
Other lives. Other responsibilities. Boredom. Fear of watching you all grow old while I stay the same. Fear of what you’ll do when that happens.
“I’m just not from here,” Crowley said, and shrugged.
They equipped a boat for a long journey. A whole crew descended on it to build as waterproof a cabin as they could manage, just for Crowley. The gesture made him feel some decidedly too-emotional emotions, which he tried to ignore. He wanted to stay.
No, he wanted to leave.
He wanted to do both, and it gave him an ache in the heart that he couldn’t manage to miracle away.
He left.
He left, adding waterproofing miracles to the loving, meticulous work of the humans who’d cared for him and protected him and never questioned him further than he could answer. He left with a crew of those same humans, until they set him ashore in Spain and cautioned him to be careful, turned their boat around, and went home.
He didn’t try to repay them. Demons didn’t acknowledge debts to anyone.
Besides, he could never give them enough.