Quona Writes? Quona Writes! An Aziracrow Rock Climbing AU

Look, I know you signed up for this Patreon expecting smut art, but I bet you never expected the Spanish Inquisition---err... smut writing!

Well, expected the unexpected, buddy.

Here's what I've been working on. And yes, it will absolutely be illustrated when I'm done.

UNTITLED GRATUITOUS ROCK CLIMBING AU FIC

Chapter 1 of God Only Knows

Crowley heaved himself up over the craggy, sandy lip of the rock face with a grunt, forearms like jelly and thighs burning acutely, orange-red hair plastered to his filthy face, hands caked in a paste of sweat, rock muck, and white climber’s chalk. Unpleasant, sure, but blissfully secondary to the thrill of topping out on Ars Serpentia, the twisty, overhung, ridiculously technical 5.14c route he’d sent for the first time more than a decade ago, when he’d first glanced against the sharp, gritty edges of fame.

Well, fame or something like it. Fame for a rock climber. Which is, to say, gear endorsement deals with Petzl or Black Diamond or La Sportiva and some enthusiastic YouTube channels devoted to live reacting to his climb videos. Not like… actual fame, fortunately. The thought of real fame made him want to unclip his harness and roll over the edge of the bluff, thanks. He didn't need any more rat-mustached thirteen-year-olds critiquing his form via shitpost than he already had. 

Crowley scuttled around the loose gravel and scrubby plants, wincing in sympathy as some small rocks plummeted toward Nat, below. He untwisted the rope secured to his harness from around his aching legs, plopped himself to the ground with a heaving sigh and dangled his feet over the ledge. He basked for a moment in the vertigo, the oxygen-deprived head swim. His hanging toes were numb in his extra fancy custom Crowley-endorsed climbing shoes (Coming soon to a R.E.I. near you!) that he took so much hell for in the comments of the aforesaid YouTube videos. Deservedly so, he thought. What kind of pompous prick has their own shoe line? Anthony J. Crowley, apparently. It's me. I’m the pompous prick.

Crowley took each ankle into hand in turn to shuck his shoes off with a long, low groan that was only slightly performative. He grimaced at the renewed blood flow to his toes. That was always his least favorite part, feeling his toes again as the compression of his ridiculous red and black snake print shoes released.

He abandoned the shoes to his side for the moment and scrubbed his face with the hem of his shirt. He wasn't sure if rubbing his gross shirt on his grosser face made the situation any better, but it felt nice and that had to count for something. Wait---was that blood on his face?! Fuck. When had that happened? Serps never got any easier, just… less unknown.

The bottom third of Ars Serpentia—he’d been the first ascender and thus named the route—was a distressingly glass-smooth rock face with finger and toe holds that might as well be bullet holes for all the good they do you. That was the first twenty-five feet. He'd groused time and again while trying and failing to conquer the bottom third that he'd be better off not having arms and legs at all for that bit, he could just stick to the goddamn rock and slither up!

That first sequence of Serps was a good job to get the pump going in your forearms early in the climb so you’re nice and worn out—Crowley snorted at this—before encountering the middle third: a long, convoluted, twisty crack in the wall that required any aspirant ascender to bodily wedge themselves into the grodiest, spideriest bit of rock-based misery he’d ever seen. After full-body shimmying like a particularly graceless snake (or a mouse being slowly digested by a snake, perhaps) up through the crack and spending far too much energy on rope management in the constricted space, the final third of Serps loomed ominously overhead. 

The final sequence was a treacherous overhang that was possibly more difficult to transition into, what with the climber’s arms behind functionally bound to their sides through the better part of crack shimmy, than to actually traverse. That’s what climbers called the crux move of a climb; the most difficult parts to maneuver. When Crowley bolted the anchors for Serps back in the day, he’d fallen between the first and second clips of the overhang while trying to set the third anchor more often than not. Hell, he’d fallen on it today.

Fortunately, Nat (“Not Anathema, Anthony, that name is ridiculous.”) was the most experienced belayer in the world for this route, and she knew exactly when and how to manage the rope for the transition through the crux. She payed out the line just as Crowley popped out of the rock crack like a plastic snake exploding out of a prank Pringles can, and seemed to have an eerie sixth sense for when he was going to miss the first finger hold and needed slack taken up. Nat had been there, after all, through each and every one of Crowley’s miserable, early attempts at Serps, and had sobbed with relief and screamed and whooped with him when he finally topped out and declared the route his own.

Crowley was often miserable and grouchy while he climbed, really. It was a wonder that Nat dealt with his bullshit for all these years. Climbing hurt, and Crowley wasn't above bitching about it loudly and often. 

"Why the fuck am I doing this again?" He'd ask, staring dramatically skyward as if imploring God Herself for answers and Nat would level him with that look she had. The deadpan stare, the one that made him huff and grouse a bit more.

"Why the fuck does ANYONE climb rocks?" He’d carry on. Another look, more grouse.

"And whose bright idea was it to make this my job anyway?" A third look, a roll of her eyes. Crowley would crack a smile. Asking Nat dumb rhetorical questions was also part of his job, he figured. 

There at the crest, though, with the wind whipping in his face and threatening to steal his breath from his very lungs, the sun baking his damp skin dry, the pain in his muscles abating to a dull throb, and the view before him, Crowley had certainty. He was certain that the only thing he was ever truly meant to do was to ask questions like: "But why can't I climb that? Just because no one has ever done it? Fuck you, I'll climb it!"

Asking questions in general, even—he made that his job, for better or worse. Did it get him into trouble? Sure, plenty. Most sponsors would rather he shut the fuck up and wear the gear with a big cheesy grin and a thumbs up. But more often than not asking the obnoxious, nitpicky questions kept himself and his fellow climbers safe. He was proud of that bit, and he'd gladly take the fall time and time again if it meant his name wasn't attached to some piece of shit gear or sketch-as-fuck technique that got people killed.

But the point was... the point was that the catharsis of suffering through such intense physical and mental strain just to take that first big breath at the top of the wall and finally, finally let every muscle relax—there was nothing like it. The adrenaline high alone couldn't be touched, no matter how fast and reckless he drove in his ridiculous shitbox car (nicknamed The Bentley out of sheer irony) or which sketchy club drug he tried with Nat in some hole in the wall "nightclub" with dirt floors in a country whose language he couldn't speak. Frankly, he'd had orgasms less satisfying than a first ascent on a particularly challenging route. Like, a lot of them.

Crowley took a moment to lean back on his stinging hands and admire the view from the top of Ars Serpentia. Fuck, but it was worth the twenty-five-plus minutes of misery it took to sit there. There was no back path to the top of the cliff that Serps slithered up. The only way to see this view was to climb this or the neighboring route, which Crowley had also christened three years after Serps, another nasty 5.14b he’d named Serps 2: Snakelectric Boogaloo. Yes, that was the actual name printed in all the local climbing guides. No, he wasn’t sorry. He’d been shit-wrecked on endorphins when he’d hollered the name down to Nat.

Crowley rummaged with a grubby hand through a sack hanging from one of his gear loops and made quick work of unwrapping his victory sandwich and peeling a tangerine. He felt a little tug on the rope attached to his harness and peeked over the ledge at Nat.

"Gonna go off belay for now, you good?!" She yelled up.

"M'good! Off belay!" He responded around a mouthful of PB&J and unclipped from the rope, then secured the line at the top anchor. It wouldn't do, to need to free solo his way back down. Climbing without the safety of a rope, free soloing, was certainly doable, plenty of climbers did it, but that was not a risk he'd like to take on Serps. It always bore remembering that plenty of climbers died while climbing without rope. He'd even known one personally, and knew of plenty more.

That wasn't the best line of thought to be having at the top of a route, though, so Crowley took out his phone to snap some shots of the view, and, grudgingly, some selfies for Newt.

Newt was Nat's partner ("Not my boyfriend, Crowley, I'm fucking thirty-five years old.") and Crowley's hype man. Well, Media-Manager-slash-PR-Man-slash-Business-Manager. Newt was despairingly hopeless with technology, so Nat had spent a good bit of time a few years back setting up some automated social media posting systems to keep Newt from fucking that up too badly, but what Newt lacked in tech skills he more than made up with his knowledge of the business of climbing professionally. He kept the content rolling and Crowley's name out there. Newt had been a climber himself, but never tried to go pro. He'd realized his skill lay in bartering on Crowley's skill and left climbing as a hobby.

Crowley snapped a picture with a shit-eating grin and a mouth full of partially-chewed PB&J just for Newt. He took another with the tangerine peel over his teeth. Crowley tossed the photos into an email to Newt that he'd have to send when they got back to a phone signal, and briefly wondered if Newt hadn't had the right idea, keeping climbing a hobby. Crowley's inbox (5,195 unread) was a disaster of inquiries, promo emails, newsletters he'd subscribed to two decades ago and couldn't unsub no matter how often he clicked the button, and emails from Nat and Newt with increasingly frustrated subject lines like:

"CROWLEY YOU NEED TO READ THIS ONE -- PETZL GRIGRI DEAL,"

"CROWLEY FFS OPEN THIS EMAIL OR PETZL WILL BACK OUT," and his favorites:

"CROWLEY YOU FUCKING SHITBIRD I WILL DROP THE ROPE NEXT TIME I BELAY IF YOU DON'T RESPOND."

He summarily ignored his inbox and dropped his phone back into his pocket. That was an issue for another time, like when Newt or Nat physically confronted him with a print out of an email that couldn't wait any longer. For now he'd enjoy his hard earned tangerine and the spectacular view from the top of Serps. 

Autumn had just begun, so the trees beneath his feet were turning leaves into a riot of oranges and reds and yellows, stretching clear to the freshly snow-capped mountains at the horizon. Serps was always worth the effort to see this again. How many people had topped out on this route and gotten to see this view? He wasn't the only one, he knew that. Nat had climbed it plenty of times. But it had to be a terribly small group of folks. Serps wasn't an easy route, and the trek to the rock face from the parking spot was a four mile hike in and four miles out. 

It made him feel... special? Which was fucking ridiculous. Crowley was definitely not special. He was a dirtbag, weed-smoking, smart ass rock climber who had spent more years living out of The Bentley than he had in an actual dwelling. If it hadn't been for the benevolence of Nat and Newt allowing him to live in the mother-in-law's suite of their house, he'd probably still be living in The Bentley. And if he hadn't been decently skilled at hauling his meat sack up the side of mountains with his bare hands, he'd probably be working some dead end job to this day.

Crowley had never been much for school. He did well enough and sometimes fancied himself going into engineering, at least when the guidance counselors had asked. But he didn't care for reading—the words swam and made his head ache—and he couldn't stomach the idea of spending any more time trapped in an educational system than was legally mandated. He’d graduated early as he could, sixteen years old, and gotten the fuck out of his backwater, East Bumfuck hometown chased hot on his heels by scandal. Typical Crowley.

He'd bummed around for years, well into his twenties, couch surfing across the States to climb all of the places he'd seen in climbing guides. He was tiny as a teenager, even after puberty; tall but lanky, barely a buck twenty soaking wet, ideal for rock climbing. He also had a shockingly low sense of self-preservation, so he was always willing to climb the routes that looked too difficult or make the dyno that seemed too far.  He'd done a head jam once into a gap in the rock in front of him to take a break and shake out his hands and Nat was still giving him shit for that dumbass decision to this day.

The line beside him quivered again at the anchor. He peered over the edge once more. Nat was waving up at him.

"Ready?!" She yelled up. He held up his hand, three fingers. Three minutes.

He hurriedly repacked his lunch detritus into his gear sack, checked that his equipment was still buckled, double checked that it was still buckled, and clipped back into the rope.

"On belay!" Nat yelled up.

"Belay on!" Crowley returned and sat backwards off the edge of the cliff, sinking into the tension of the rope as Nat began to lower him back to the ground.

---

Crowley drove the return trip home that afternoon, after the climbing day finished with both Nat and himself thoroughly scraped up, grimy, and exhausted. That was a mistake on Crowley's part, the driving arrangement. Nat in the passenger seat with cell signal and nothing to do for the two hour drive but batter the shores of Crowley's sanity with business inquiries was a dangerous creature.

"We got another one from Black Diamond," she muttered, holding the too-bright screen too close to her face.

"You could put your glasses back on, probably."

"I do what I want," she said. She always did.

"What does Black Diamond have to say?" Crowley asked, hoping that if he gave her this one, she'd not make him go through the whole roster of emails. He'd hate to be too productive in one day.

"Ahhh... looks like more of the same promo for the harnesses. They just want another set of pictures."

"Hm." Crowley hated having ad pictures taken. They always made him feel itchy, like his skin didn’t fit.

"Yeah. More of your gorgeous face and weirdly veiny hands on the ads," she wiggled her eyebrows like the lecher she was.

"Fine," he sighed.

"Gods above, don't sound too excited about making money." She side eyed him, but he didn't respond, pretending instead to be very consumed by changing lanes.

"Oh," she began again, "There's a thing here about the documentary, too."

"The what?" He asked, really only to be saying something and seeming alert and aware.

"The docu—Crowley for fucks' sake you never read the emails, did you?" She'd put her phone down and openly glared at him.

"No no no, of course I did!" He insisted with one hand raised in submission. It didn't work.

"You're such a fucking hack sometimes, you didn't read shit and I can tell. The documentary about you that you agreed to."

"The WHAT?" He almost swerved off the road, such was the honest, visceral shock. Anthony J. Crowley would agree to a good many things in pursuit of being able to eat at least one meal a day and put gas in The Bentley, but he would never agree to a documentary. Especially not a documentary about him!

"Fucking shit, keep it to one lane," she said and relaxed her claw grip on his knee and the passenger door, "Yes, the documentary about you that you agreed to two months ago. After the business meeting about the shoe sponsorship? I came up to you and had it printed out on actual, honest-to-god paper, you read it, and you said, and I quote, 'Yeah we can do that.'" 

Crowley wished at that moment that he'd ever once had the discipline to develop a mind palace or something. Anything to keep his memories in some semblance of order. He did remember that business meeting, at least. La Sportiva wanted to make a second version of the Crowley shoe and wanted him to come talk out a possible deal. They'd spent three hours in a meeting room with mediocre coffee and a couple of very enthusiastic brand outreach folks. He'd been so exhausted by the end that he'd...

He'd…

Oh.

Oh no.

Crowley calmly, so very, very calmly, signaled with his blinker, pulled The Bentley to the shoulder of the road, and parked. He felt like he was in a horror film, turning his head slowly to stare at Nat, his eyes wide and terrified.

He remembered.

"You stupid fuck," she admonished with a smirk and looked back down at her phone.

"They're gonna start shooting the early material in a couple weeks, do some interviews with you about the lead up to the Big Climb," she continued when he didn't respond.

His mouth gaped. The Big Climb was what they called his latest project. That's what they always called his truly career-making climbs, any time he was pursuing one. He'd been working on a new route for two years now, and it was gonna be a groundbreaker. No one had ever climbed anything to completion even on the same rock face as The Big Climb. He'd get to name the whole wall, if he got his way.

But he sure as fuck did not want to be interviewed about it. Or filmed while falling off it, over and over again. Or filmed at all, even! Though he always conceded to Newt's "content needs" and let him film when Crowley felt like he'd finally complete a route, that was Newt and his iPhone. 

This was... 

This was… another beast, entirely. Exposure. Invasion.

Nat interrupted his panic spiral, casual as anything. "The documentarian is... A. Z. Fell? Know him?"

"Huh-uh," Crowley continued to gape.

"Ahh, looks like he's done a few docs before,” she flitted her thumb across the touchscreen, scrolling quickly, “Oh, quite a few. Well, at least you'll be in good hands!" She was now entirely too chipper and smirky and Crowley sort of hated her a little.

"Hngk."

"So eloquent," she patted him on the knee.

Crowley turned away from Nat, his eyes casting a glassy, thousand-yard stare through the windshield. His mouth remained agape.

"A documentary?" He rasped.

"Yup. And close your mouth, you look like a carp."

"Hhhhngk.”

Crowley let his head fall dramatically to The Bentley’s steering wheel, just for the satisfaction of hearing the horn blare.