AN:
Hey everyone! As promised, the quick follow-up to the last chapter, full of a bunch of fresh triggers! Read with your self-care in mind, and as always, a summary is at the bottom for those of you who want to keep following, but can't make it through the mess that is Anthony J. Crowley.

Today's words include:
self-destructive tendencies, suicidal ideation, self-harm, self-hatred, feelings of worthlessness, depression, blood, and an uncomfortably high amount of religious imagery

Thanks for reading, friends! Now, on with the show!

The Cambridge boy was sweet. Too sweet. Crowley had never had to work so hard to get someone to fuck him in his life.

In their passion, they'd only gotten as far as the kitchen, where Crowley had been hurriedly stripped bare-arsed and hoisted onto the counter. He bit muffled curses into the stranger's neck while said stranger added another finger beside the first. He'd been so fervent a minute ago, and the restraint now was infuriating.

"You're great, sweetheart," Crowley groaned, twisting on the maddeningly gentle intrusion. "I'm ready for you, really."

"I won't hurt you?" Those soulful brown eyes cared so much and Crowley was going to scream. "I know I'm a little…"

"Hung?" Crowley asked through a coy grin. "Yeah, I can see that. Why do you think I want you in me so bad?" He reached for the long, thick cock resting against his own and gave it a few quick, teasing strokes. The pleased shudder he elicited emboldened Crowley to lean in, to taste the beads of sweat collecting at the man's temple. "I'll tell you if it's too much," he breathed. "Promise."

Once, Crowley had been excellent at temptation. Once, he'd barely needed to call upon Hell at all.

Now, the infernal power that dripped from his suggestion almost wasn't enough; he could see the hesitation written in every crease of the other man's face. Crowley dipped his head until their lips brushed, and guided the stranger's cock until it caught on his rim. One thumb swirled through the excitement that welled at the blush-red tip, and Crowley used that bit of slickness to ease his palm down the man's considerable length.

When he reached the base, Crowley blindly thrust his other hand in the direction he'd last seen lubricant. He managed to find it on the second try, and leaned forward so that he could anoint them both. At this angle, Crowley was taller, much taller, and the eyes that were the merest hint of brown surrounding a swollen black pupil were filled with awe as they gazed up at him.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Crowley ground his hips in a dirty little circle that usually drove men wild. "Take me like you mean it. I want to feel you."

Hung, he'd said.

The broad, blunt head that breached his entrance was much girthier than two stout fingers. The burn as he was forcefully stretched to accommodate it made his breath catch and his legs shake, and fuck, yes. Crowley wrapped his legs around the stranger's waist, gasping for air he didn't need. It hurt, Satan it hurt, and it was exactly what he needed to get out of his head—not enough prep, not enough lube, just a cruel, stabbing torture. In the other man's attempts to be careful, he was driving into Crowley slow and powerful, making every delicious inch count. Tears clung to the corner of his eyes and it was everything.

"Doing alright?" The question, gasped against Crowley's neck, shook with the vestiges of self-control.

"Yeah, fuck, sweetheart, you're perfect." He reached up to sweep some of the blond strands away from those kind brown eyes. "Don't hold back. I want to walk out of here with a limp."

He didn't expect to have to goad the other man quite so much, but a few more words, murmured low and husky, urged those nicely-muscled hips to push harder, faster, deeper. Once the stranger was lost in his pleasure, Crowley could get lost in his pain.

It was too much. It wasn't enough. It was a high that no drug or drink could ever hope to achieve, and Crowley wanted to bury himself in it, a blanket of suffering like warm oil against his scales. He'd thought there was no heart left in him, after giving it all to Aziraphale, but there must have been. There must have been, because, upon realising how deep Heavenly apathy could run, something small and quiet in his chest had broken in two. If his options were to feel that or to feel this, well.

This was only physical. He knew how to deal with this.

Crowley was so absorbed in his own misery that the other man's orgasm took him by surprise; the blond doubled over though ragged thrusts, driving the air from Crowley's lungs as the places that were already torn and bleeding stung with a ferocity that made him lightheaded. The irregular drag of a wilting erection was normally one of his favourite sensations; a partner pushing their mutual pleasure to the very brink, where aftershocks tipped into too much—and maybe, sometimes, just a little bit further besides.

This was… not at all like that. He dropped his head back and stared at the ceiling with vacant eyes as the man's softening cock slipped free, leaving him just as hollow and bereft as he'd been abandoned on a stoop in Soho.

Crowley eased off the counter and had one leg stuffed in his jeans before the Good Samaritan had a chance to catch his breath. "What about— You didn't—"

"All good," he muttered, tucking himself carefully away. The throbbing in his cock was secondary to the feeling of broken glass jutting up into his abdomen every time he shifted. "You should clean yourself up."

The stranger looked at him, puzzled, then down his own front, where his groin was streaked with red. Brown eyes, full of hurt, turned back to Crowley, the only emotion in a face otherwise gone ashen and blank. After a long, tense moment, the blond silently stepped out of his trousers where they'd been caught around his knees, discarding them on the linoleum as he stalked deeper into the flat.

They both knew that the shower that hissed to life a moment later wasn't going to be enough.

Crowley wanted, very, very badly, to feel sorry for what he'd done.

Instead, he left without a word.

Balanced precariously on the edge of his tub, Crowley stared at the container that had fueled almost an entire century of dispute. Insurance, he'd said. And at the time, he'd meant it; no matter how lengthy his discorporation, no matter what fresh new torments Hell devised for him, he would suffer it all, and gladly, as long as he could stumble back to the surface, back to his angel.

Now, he had nothing. No one. Crowley was more alone than he'd been since the moment of his Creation, and the two inches of liquid in the bottom of that gaudy thermos were the most tempting thing he'd ever seen. More tempting, even, than Aziraphale, loose and laughing in his favourite chair, that little smile he reserved only for Crowley playing around his lips.

Everyone knew that the Fallen weren't capable of love. It had been stripped from them at the same moment they'd been removed from Her grace. No longer able to experience affection, or friendship, or camaraderie, or tenderness, they were condemned to spend the rest of eternity desperately searching for something to fill an unfillable void.

In his blackest moments, Crowley had considered returning Downstairs. Becoming a Duke. Pitting his own cleverness against Aziraphale's. Showing the Dark Council what a properly motivated traitor could do. If he couldn't live a life of love, he could certainly live one of spite.

But there had been Hastur. There had been Beelzebub.

Ligur, when he fell victim to Crowley's trap, had gotten liquified so fast that he'd barely gotten a chance to scream. Hastur, on the other hand, had let out such a bone-chilling howl that the sound was stitched in the fabric of Crowley's very being. He knew the feeling that was encompassed in that sound; he'd nearly made it himself, the day he'd searched for Aziraphale in a burning building and found nothing.

A different afternoon, he'd watched the play of emotion across Beelzebub's face as they looked into the eyes of the angel they loved, and saw no recognition. The Lord of the Flies had had a single moment, an instant, there and gone, that they allowed themselves before schooling their features back to neutrality. It was an expression Crowley could recognize at a hundred paces, because he wore it so often himself: fear. Fear, for someone who adored you so deeply that they held your entire being in their hands, whose loss would destroy you.

He'd seen demons mourn. He'd seen demons grieve.

It couldn't be so, everyone was told. Everyone knew.

Everyone was so, so wrong.

Crowley rolled the bottle between his palms, light reflecting prettily off of the surface. He'd never been a gambler, but this particular game of roulette—how close he could come to spilling the contents without actually losing any—was a kind of thrill he hadn't chased in millenia.

His hands moved of their own accord. Up. Down. Back. Forth. Tipping it, holding it yes, there, until the surface tension threatened to break. The smallest of bubbles, hanging minutely over the edge, teased him as it glittered with promise.

The phone rang.

Swearing, Crowley fell back against the shower wall, and only the thinnest sliver of self-preservation kept him from actually dropping his entire supply all over himself. As it was, a wet stripe of cloth clung to his skin with all the intimacy of a lover, nearly igniting his protective layers. Agony—an interweaving of this sudden rush of sanctity and the place he'd been fucked bloody—crackled up his spine and completely disrupted the signal between brain and arms. At length, Crowley got his shaking hands to screw the God-blessed cap on right and threw the whole thing over the side of the tub. He ripped his shirt off overhead with the same desperation, gritting his teeth as some of his flesh went with it.

After several deep, steadying breaths, Crowley cautiously managed to get his knees under him enough to assess the damage. A rash, looking much like he'd been dragged over gravel, began just under his heart and travelled the length of his torso, threatening to wrap around the jut of his hip. The worst of it seemed to span his ribs, trailing off toward his abdomen, but every bit was tender in the flat's cool air, and when Crowley prodded at the sides, the nearby muscles spasmed.

"Fantastic," he muttered.

It took him three tries to get out of the tub. Crowley thunked the tartan flask down in an arguably safer place in the sink and scowled at himself in the mirror. Yet another thing the blasted angel had been right about; he certainly did have a way of everything coming back to bite him. Throwing a murderous look at his landline until it caught fire was probably high on that list, but the momentary gratification as he passed the black lump melting down the table made up for it.

He swiped his shirt from the floor and gingerly made his way toward the bedroom. If he didn't put the blessed thing somewhere, he was going to have a rude awakening one bleary day, stumbling about post-nap and pre-coffee.

Tingling, barely noticeable in the hall, erupted into a volcanic heat that forced Crowley's hand to snap open of its own accord. He stumbled toward the bed, pulling the fabric behind him with one booted foot. His palm was a deep pink that could nearly be called red, cracked and peeling along the creases, and each finger was an individual monument to pain that was impossible to ignore.

But he wasn't obliterated.

He wasn't even discorporated.

A splash of divinity, delivered secondhand, wasn't enough to send him back to Hell, let alone total annihilation.

Suddenly glad that he had something to collapse onto, Crowley allowed his legs to buckle. He sat heavily, shock able to render him almost completely detached from the jagged sparks that shot through his insides. While he'd been contemplating destruction by holy water, the joint fluids that had leaked into his jeans had dried, sticky and shameful, on the back of his thighs. Washing as the humans did was an insurmountable task; willing the mess away with a thought left him feeling just as dirty.

Which was fine. He deserved it.

Bending each newly-injured finger, Crowley curiously watched blood seep slowly from the wounds. His demonic miracles wouldn't work, even as a quick fix; if the source of trauma was holy, any healing would have to be given by an angel. Considering that Crowley was in this situation because of an angel, and that he would rather stroll enthusiastically into Hell before he asked sodding Gabriel for anything, it appeared he would need to do as the mortals did, with clean bandages and time.

Never one to be still while he thought, but unable to force himself to stand and pace, Crowley drummed his gauze-wrapped fingers on the sheets. Gnawing on his lower lip, he gazed curiously at his hazardous clothing, as if it might burst into flame just by mere proximity to his evil aura. Another click of his fingers, and his feet were bare. Crowley hesitantly nudged one forward until he found the wet patch, counting the seconds until the sizzle became too much to bear.

The dark puddle on the floor, so innocuous, was rich with opportunity. Normally, he would have simply tossed it into the place between space and time and forgotten about it. But now…

"Alright," he finally said, contemplative. Through massive effort, Crowley kicked the wad of dangerous material into a corner, allowing himself one agonised groan before he flopped back on the bed. "Alright," he said again, with far more confidence. "I've got something to use as a… a last resort. Yeah? Once in a while, when things get bad."

He could keep his vices in check. Definitely. He'd been doing it for six thousand years.

Crowley had always been excellent at negotiation. At least with himself.

He lasted six hours.

Long, slender fingers, wrapped in a damp flannel, curled around his cock. He tossed his head back at the contact, hissing through the sting. Punishment, for following his thoughts down a path he'd promised never to follow again. Atonement. Self-flagellation, for his sins against an angel, sins committed in thought if not in deed.

For his desperate urge to pin Aziraphale's wrists to the headboard and sink into him, steady and deep, taking, taking, taking, until their frail human corporations had nothing left to give. His need to mark, to claim, to own. His desire to watch Aziraphale come undone below him, atop him, eyes blown wide and mouth bitten red, with colour high on his cheeks and Crowley's name on his lips. He wanted those pale, plush thighs to clamp tight around his ears, close around his waist. He wanted Aziraphale debauched, defiled, by his hand, to open a new world of Earthly pleasures to his angel the same way Crowley would so fastidiously open him on his fingers.

Or, he thought as the fantasy shifted, as he squeezed himself differently, rougher, or maybe…

Maybe those large, broad hands were moving over him. Aziraphale's mouth could follow in their wake, tracing each of Crowley's angular lines and see how perfectly they lined up with his own softness. Perhaps Crowley was restrained, unable to dispel bonds created by an archangel, as he was brought oh-so-close to the shuddering edge without being allowed to plummet over, again, and again, and again. Trapped there, at Azirphale's mercy, until it was decided that he'd served his penance. After, if Aziraphale allowed him, Crowley would plead on his knees to be allowed to worship, every action dedicated to his angel's pleasure, every motion a prayer for absolution.

Crowley screwed his eyes shut and pretended, just for a moment, that if he cried Aziraphale's name with enough desperation, his angel would appear to him, as Gabriel once had to Mary. His fingers counted a rosary of memory in this liminal space: sunshine and nightcaps, fleeting touches and shared smiles, the scent of fresh ink on parchment, an angel as brilliant as the stars. It was impossible for him to stop now that he'd begun. He was reciting the beads too quickly, images dissipating almost as quickly as they arose, but he didn't have the will to slow himself.

Six hundred and thirty-two days he'd spent wandering the Earth. Holding onto cruelty, holding onto venom—his only allies, his sword and shield. Six hundred and thirty-two days he'd spent patently not thinking about Aziraphale. About his own loneliness. About the people he'd used and discarded.

About anything at all.

But no matter how far he ran, no matter how many mortals he seduced, no matter how much evil he tried to fill his heart with, this was where he was always going to end up: writhing in his sheets, hoping that Aziraphale might hear the way he came with a broken shout of "angel" on his lips, his reddened and blistered cock spitting into the flannel he still gripped in a stranglehold.

He told himself that this was the price, restitution for tempting one of the Host, but the bitter truth caught in the back of his throat: He was a demon. And demons lied.

Summary:
After the events of last chapter, Crowley's depression spiral starts off with a bang. He convinces the stranger who woke him to have sex in a way that would hurt him, without the man's knowledge. Later, at home, he contemplates suicide by holy water and finds out, quite accidentally, that it won't kill him if used on his skin, but that it does leave a Heaven of a burn. Crowley promises himself that any self-harm will be "once in a while," but caves that night while touching himself.