Notes: For cumaeansibyl.
Written for The TricketyBoo 2020 gift exchange.
"I regret to inform you, my dear, but Master Warlock is dead."
Crowley looks up, his eyes wide and vacant. "W-wot?" He shakes his head slowly, disbelieving. "I don't … I don't understand. Wot did you say?"
"Master Warlock is dead," Aziraphale repeats, flippantly and without lifting his eyes from his task, the papers he'd been sorting shifting beneath his arm as he continues his work.
"Wh-when did that happen?" Crowley asks, caught between a mumble and a roar.
"Just now, apparently. Look, it does you no good to go on about it. You have tasks to do, too."
"Tasks!? Tasks!? How do you expect me to do tasks when you've just told me that Warlock is …?"
"Look! You're the one who wanted to do this, alright?" Aziraphale retorts, his voice tight, but more from frustration than sadness, which skewers Crowley to his very ... well, not soul. He doesn't have one of those anymore. Heart? Ehhh, kind of hazy on the existence of that one. Skewers him to his black, gooey innards. There. Sounds 'bout right. "You put me, all of us, in this situation! Warlock knew what he was in for. There's no use going catatonic! Finish the mission!"
"Mr. Crowley! Mr. Fell!" Adam's voice cuts through over their headsets. "What's going on?"
"No worries, Master Adam," Aziraphale says, trying to locate the boy on his monitor in the midst of everything else that needs to be done. "Mr. Crowley just heard about Master Warlock, I'm afraid."
"Yeah, about that …" Adam breathes in a deep, shuddering breath before he answers. "Seems we've lost Brian."
"What?" Crowley checks his screen, on the search for the boy he knows only by name, lost in the schematics for the Them's location. He was never all that good at reading maps, which is why he never uses them.
Probably explains how he ended up lost in the middle of what is now Northern Canada during the Conquests of Timur. Good of the humans to sort that one out. 35 years. Just a drop in the bucket, really.
And Crowley got a commendation for that, too.
But today, his inability to manage a compass rose might be his downfall.
"Yeah," Adam confirms. "Wensleydale, too."
"He's probably off getting a snack," Aziraphale offers. "You know how he gets."
"No," Adam says seriously. "No, he's gone! Warlock, Brian, Wensleydale …" The conversation drops into tension. "Mr. Fell?"
"Yes, my dear?"
"The last I saw, all three of them were with you. And now … now they're gone."
Aziraphale's arm stops moving, the papers caught beneath ceasing their persistent shh-shh'ing across his desk. "What are you implying?"
"Well, it seems a little sus to me."
"And me," Pepper pipes in. "Especially since I was just in the corridor, and I swear Mr. Fell tried to kill me!"
Crowley, still confused, looks over at his husband. The love of his life.
The angel he thought he knew.
"Aziraphale?"
Aziraphale locks eyes with him, his face drawn and paler than Crowley has ever seen. But Aziraphale recovers quickly and rolls his eyes.
"Do you really think I'm capable of murdering children?"
"Your side always has, hasn't it?" Crowley gets up from the sofa and stalks over to his husband, leaving his laptop behind.
"Crowley?" Aziraphale squeaks, startled when Crowley's eyes start to go from slightly human to full-on serpent. "You can't possibly believe that I …"
"Now Pepper's dead!" Adam yelps, his breath quickening. "What the Hell, Mr. Fell?"
"Language, my dear," Aziraphale snaps. "Language."
"We have to get him off the …!"
"Crowley …" Aziraphale stares at his husband, swallowing hard at the hurt, the betrayal in his eyes "… you have to listen to me. How long have we known one another? Hmm? 6000 years. You love me. You trust me. That's the reason why the two of us work together so well, even though we've spent centuries on opposite sides."
"Mr. Crowley!" Adam cries. "Don't listen to him! Don't believe him!"
"How did he do it then?" Crowley interrupts, crowding against Aziraphale who, for some reason, refuses to take his arm off his desk. "How did he kill them, Adam? How did they die?"
"Warlock was shot." Adam's voice shakes. "Brian and Wensleydale both had their necks broken. And Pepper was stabbed."
"Kids ..." Crowley shakes his head. "They were just kids, Aziraphale."
"Yes. And kids lie. That's what they do. You and I, my love ..." Aziraphale stands, appealing to his husband's better nature - to the angel behind the demonic eyes "... we belong together. You know me, inside and out. You know I would never do a thing to hurt you. I would never betray you or take away something you love. Y-you put me in this situation. Remember that, dear. And now, you have to believe that I …"
"Uh … Mr. Crowley?"
Crowley, caught under the spell of his husband's voice, of his emotional words, jerks back to reality. "Yes, Adam?"
"He just stabbed you in the back."
"Wot!?" Crowley's eyelids narrow, and he glares into Aziraphale's smug face. "Aziraphale!"
Aziraphale laughs. "Gotcha, my dear!"
"Great. Mr. Fell killed everyone," Warlock drones.
"I still can't believe he managed to get me first," Adam remarks. "And in front of Dog, too. That was cold."
"Can we play something else now?" Wensleydale moans. "This game's lame."
"That's because you keep dying," Pepper laughs.
"That, and because Mr. Crowley doesn't know how to play, so he and Mr. Fell keep kinky flirting. I'd like to keep my lunch down, thank you."
"Great!" Brian chirps. "Zombie Exploder it is!"
"Been a zombie once," Crowley says, giving his husband a kiss on the lips before going back to his laptop.
"As have I," Aziraphale mentions.
"Right. So if you lot think that's going to keep us from being kinky, think again, rugrats."
Notes:
Just as a note - I know nothing about the game 'Among Us'. I just thought the prospects of them all playing via Zoom and acting like total drama queens was hilarious. XD