Work Text:
The door beside Crowley opened, a crying toddler was pushed into the small dark room, and the door hastily closed again. Crowley scooped the child up and bounced him on their bony knee until the wails subsided into sniffles and then into sleep.
They eased the child down to doze on the floor, glanced around at the scant handful of other small boys, from the barely hours old (and his exhausted mother) to the toddler aged, and let their head fall back against the wall.
It was the season of killing kids again.
A quiet miracle hid the door from anyone with hostile intent, and muffled any sound from leaving the room, but neither ward would last forever. They had to maintain them, and if they got - called away - everything would be visible again.
It had been easier the first time, in the ark. No one had expected them to go anywhere, so they got to skulk the entire year or more in the little dark space in the bottom of the ark with the handful of children they had pulled to safety while the angel (silent pleading eyes, sad mouth, squared shoulders) had looked the other way.
He always looked the other way, unless some other angel was actively looking over his shoulder, forcing him to face whatever he didn't want to face. Especially at times like this. He might not be allowed to save kids himself, but nobody had forbidden him from letting others save kids. Crowley's mouth twisted. Passive aggressive loopholes to the rescue. Hu-fucking-rah.
Just find yourself a demon who's not up for killing kids, and make puppy-dog eyes at them, how hard can it be?
Not hard for their angel, their Aziraphale, they admitted grudgingly. If he called, they'd come, with a leash on their tongue and a leash on their heart, and all for a smile and a look of his eyes.
And he knew. How could he not? Which led them into the situation they were in now, holed up with kids that someone wanted dead, waiting for the killing to be over. At least this time it promised to be quick, a single rampage and then gone, unlike the time in Egypt. The earlier time in Egypt, not the firstborn time. When it's a standing order, not a one-off, when it goes on for months and years... You can hide a kid once, or twice, or maybe even three times, but sooner or later there's a slip up, the kid gets caught, and the kid dies. There was only one kid that came living out of that time, and they'd had to cast him in the river, in a basket, and trust in luck. The odds were ever in that one's favour, with Her thumb on the balance scale.
Aziraphale's mouth hadn't lost the sad look for years, not even when he could be coaxed into sharing a beer (one thing for Egypt, they made drinkable beer at least).
(Crowley was not going to admit they'd felt the same, they'd learned to hide it better was all. Can't go looking sad in Hell, it's as bad as admitting a weakness.)
There looked to be one kid escaping for certainty at least, other than the ones here. Aziraphale had his orders to get that child (and the child's family) out of here. So that was something, and he'd warned Crowley before he and the family headed for Egypt, which was something else. The king was angry, and the king was afraid and the king sent his soldiers to kill the kids because it'd make the damned king feel better about it, even if nobody else did.
But still, some things never changed. Whether you called it a plague or an act of Her, or a ruler lashing out in fear and fury, you gathered who you could, and huddled in hiding, and waited for the sounds that told you danger had arrived.
This time it came with a tramp of heavy feet and a thump of fist against doors and a raising of voices. The hiss of drawn weapons. And screams.
Always the screams.
They muffled the sounds below human hearing, but couldn't block their own. There would be no more children thrust into their hiding room.
The mother was awake, nursing her baby to keep him quiet. She and Crowley exchanged identical grim smiles. They both knew how this went.
But there were children to hush, and time to pass, and food and water, and a bucket for the inevitable consequences of food and water, and clean nappies for those that needed it, so they bent to their tending, their preserved few, and made no comment that a child's sharp ears might catch.
There was never any good answer to "Mama, why do people want us dead?" after all.
But there was a response. It came only when the soldiers had gone, and the screams died to sobs, and the grieving began - and they were still here to grieve.
It was a tired, bitter, pain-carrying victory of bare survival, but a victory nonetheless.
And Crowley, with their midwife's garb and their demon snake-eyes, would take the bitter victory and leave, carrying the blame on their back.
With Aziraphale gone and that child, whose birth they had (among others) midwifed, gone, there was nothing left to keep them here. Nothing to keep them, and too much to lose when the questions of "why my child and not thy child" began and the blame game ran wild and settled on the stranger, the outcast, the demon. The unforgivable always made the best scapegoat, and Crowley had no intention of staying around to watch it happen.
So when it was over, and the children returned to their mothers, they shouldered enough of a pack to pass muster as a traveller, and walked away. With any luck, they mused, in a few decades, they'd see Aziraphale again. That, at least, was something to look forward to. But for now, it was work, and an open road.