Hello lovely readers. The e-mail notification on fanfiction is being weird again. So maybe check if you have missed a chapter.
Back to Crowley now. Happy reading... :)
Chapter 5:
Crowley floated weightlessly in the water of the bathtub, struggling to keep his eyes open.
Aziraphale had told him to remain calm and quiet in the face of new danger, but even if Crowley had wanted to help in some way, he had to admit that he simply wasn't able to.
He was no longer bleeding out; the large cut of the demon blade was gone. But, regardless, Crowley was too exhausted to move a muscle. The burning pain of the blade had outmatched all his other aches and now that it was gone, he realized that he was still hurting everywhere all the way down to his bones.
The water was getting colder, but Crowley couldn't even do anything about that. His miraculous demonic energy had run out of him along with all the blood and to recover from that he felt like he needed to sleep for a whole century at this point.
"Crowley?"
A dull voice kept him from drifting into oblivion and he blinked his eyes open, searching for Aziraphale.
"Can you hear me? I'm right behind the wall."
Sluggishly, Crowley turned his head. "Yes. I can hear you." He wanted to speak at a normal volume, but only managed to whisper. Aziraphale probably thought he wasn't able to respond.
"It's… it's all good, Crowley," he could hear him say. "The angels are gone. They don't suspect a thing. But… unfortunately, they imposed a miracle blocker on me. I'm only allowed to do one per day for… I don't actually know for how long, but that means I can't get to you right now." There was a pause and then a very small, remorseful, "I'm sorry."
Crowley's heart clenched so much that he twisted in pain, stretching one limp arm towards the blank wall behind which the angel was hiding. "No," he cried. "Don't… don't blame yourself. This is all my fault. All of it."
It wasn't loud enough to reach the angel's ears.
Meanwhile, Aziraphale continued his own lament. "I should've been more careful with how many miracles I perform at a time, but… but you were hurting so much. I couldn't stand seeing you like this. I-I'm going to stay right here, alright? I'm not leaving you alone. Crowley? Oh, I hope you can hear me."
"I hear you." Crowley sobbed quietly. "I can hear you, angel." He wanted to reach out, but, at the same time, he felt much too guilty to seek Aziraphale's comfort.
Crowley had almost given up on him. Back down in Hell when he'd lost all hope, he was ready to leave Aziraphale on his own. Crowley couldn't fathom how he could ever be forgiven for that. He neither deserved the angel's care, nor his forgiveness.
"I'm… I'm glad to have you back." Aziraphale said now. "It was getting a bit lonely around here. Even if you're supposed to be my enemy, but… you're also the only one who understands." A long pause. "I was so worried. I thought I'd never see you again. I don't know... what I would've done..."
Leaning his head against the edge of the bathtub, the demon proceeded to listen to Aziraphale as he filled the silence with tales of his time alone on Earth. There were no traces of reproach in his voice. None at all.
If he only knew what I did, thought Crowley, his eyes filling with tears.
A some point while listening to Aziraphale's calm, soothing voice Crowley must've drifted off to sleep. The reason for his rather rude awakening now, was that the angel was shouting and shaking him gently.
Crowley opened his yellow eyes with a start, looking confused into the panicked one's of the angel. "Oh, Crowley!" he cried out. "Thank heavens, you're alive!"
"'Course I am, angel." Crowley slurred tiredly. He noticed that the water was gone and instead he was covered with a few fluffy, warm towels. "Y'know I can't die. Not like humans at least."
"Yes. Yes, I know that, but…" Aziraphale breathed through, relief obviously washing through him. "When I was finally able to miracle the door back in place and I saw you lying there… you were so pale and the water ice cold and you also stopped your habit of breathing. You know, I don't even have to remember it anymore, it just happens, and when you didn't…"
Aziraphale sighed again when Crowley carefully placed a limp hand right next to his arm, fingers just so touching the sleeve to calm him down. "You scared me for a moment there, old friend."
"I'm fine." mumbled the serpent, eyes staring unblinking into Aziraphale's blue ones until the frown on his face disappeared. Then he glanced off, no longer able to stand the warm intimacy of the stare. "How long did I sleep?"
"Well, at least for a whole day." said Aziraphale. "I don't know if you were able to hear me through the wall, but I won't be able to do more than one miracle per day and I just used it for the doorway. I'm so sorry that I can't do more to heal you right now."
"Stop apologizing, 's fine." grouched Crowley blearily. "Haven't felt this good in years. I'm just... tired."
The frown reappeared. "You're still in great pain. I can tell." the angel said slowly. "You're tense and your limbs are twitching sometimes. I don't think you're even aware of it. And you say you haven't felt this good in years?" The frown deepened. "When did this cut with the demon blade happen?"
"Don't know." mumbled Crowley shamefully, not making eye-contact. "A while."
"W-What does that mean?" Fear entered the angel's features. "Did they torture you this whole time while you were in Hell?"
Well, what did you think? Oh, what would Crowley give to once more be this innocent. "It's alright." he whispered instead. "It's just what they do. I'll survive."
"I know that's what they do. It is Hell after all, but…" Aziraphale made some flustered, helpless gestures with his hands. "I-I didn't think… why would they do this to you? You didn't deserve this. You're a good-"
"No, don't! SShut up!" Crowley hissed sharply.
"But—"
"Do you want them to ssummon me back down! They'll never let me go again!"
The angel paused, eyes widening slightly. "What?"
Crowley removed his hand from the rim of the bathtub and slowly turned away from the angel, barely suppressing moans of pain when he pulled his aching muscles. He didn't mean to say this much. "Nothing." he grumbled.
"Did they say that?" asked Aziraphale.
The demon stared blankly. "And Crowley…" Ligur's voice echoed through his mind. "Should you miraculously manage to restore yourself and misstep again… be sure that you definitely won't leave Hell a second time."
"Crowley? Did they say they would keep you in Hell?" Aziraphale repeated more vigorously.
The demon blinked himself back to reality. "No." he lied. "Just a feeling. Leave me alone. I just… I wanna rest my eyes and forget about it."
His back was turned on him but Crowley thought he could still hear the fearful thumping of Aziraphale's heart in the heavy silence. "Very well." whispered the angel finally. "You're right, you should rest. But not in here. I have a room with a bed... I-I, uhm... sometimes I lie there to read." he added unnecessarily.
Crowley did try his very best, but he could not hide how much it was hurting when Aziraphale carefully helped him out of the bathtub. His legs felt like rubber and his skin prickled and was taut and hypersensitive to every touch. He had to pause and lean on the angel more than once on the short way to the next room to make sure he wouldn't pass out from the pain.
Aziraphale finally lowered him onto a simple, narrow bed that pointed into the middle of the small, but comfortable upstairs room. Crowley badly tried to mask his winces of agony with sighs of relief when the bed sheets made contact with his scarred back. At least he was able to lie down properly now.
Aziraphale covered him with a cosy cotton blanket, pulling it up just below his chin to warm the serpent up quickly. "Get some sleep." he said. "I won't force you awake again unless I think you're taking a turn for the worse. You'll heal in time and I'll do anything I can to speed the process along."
"You don't have to-" Crowley started again.
"But I want to." retorted Aziraphale. "You won't get rid of me, no matter how hard you try." He smiled softly. Like only a true angel could.
Crowley finally relented; it was costing him too much effort to keep fighting the angel. He fought for his life for over half a century. It was enough now, even for an eternal being like him. The serpent eventually fell asleep without dreaming. The exhaustion just overwhelmed him. So many years of hanging from chains, of passing out in puddles of his own blood, of just blacking out from the pain of hellish torture. It took its toll on him. And now he had a bed; Crowley was in metaphorical heaven.
He would awake quite regularly whenever he felt something change on his body. A little flare of pain that then vanished. Crowley found that it was always Aziraphale he woke up to. Every time the hand of the angel was hovering over one of the uncountable wounds, healing it. He did it slowly, one scar at a time, obviously scared of alerting his superiors once more, but Crowley was thankful.
What else could he do? He wasn't strong enough to physically stop him. Somewhere inside his soul the guilt was eating at him, but he was too out of sorts to really focus on it. So their eyes met… calm ocean-blue and tired pale-yellow… and then Crowley slept again, his pain easing daily.
The demon wouldn't have thought that he'd miss these pitiful early weeks of utter helplessness one day. Of course, he hated being this weak and out of control. Still at the mercy of someone else, just like it was before in Hell. Even if it was a being he trusted completely this time.
But it was still better than what came next.
Once the constant, overall pain and the exhaustion diminished slightly, the nightmares began. There was room in his mind for fantasy, now that it wasn't permanently screaming with real pain. Curiously, fantasy was often times much more cruel than reality.
Crowley saw Mazikeen's dead eyes. Black and gleaming like blood. Blood running over his skin, dripping from his body onto a pile of bloody scales. His own scream of pure agony and Mazikeen was laughing.
Sharp teeth. Sharp knives. Carving patterns into his body. Slicing his chest open. Pain so hot and endless.
The angel's face. Sad. Disappointed. He could never go back. Never see him again.
Crowley was falling. Falling from Heaven. Falling from grace. He was not worth being in the angel's presence. Not worth feeling… loved? He belonged to Hell. He should be rotting in Hell for all eternity.
With Mazikeen and Brut and Hastur.
They were all laughing at him. Disgusted by his weakness. Cracking lashes, coming down on his back. The sound of the whip like thunder in his ears. Blood flowed while he was cut into pieces by the lash. Smaller and smaller pieces until he vanished and eternal blackness took him.
Crowley woke up screaming. The soreness of a throat worn out over years of torture resurfaced in all of its raw agony.
His breath was pumping as was his heart. Beating so hard that it hurt his chest. In the next second he was crying. He couldn't stop it; a sudden, pressing flood of tears surged up inside him and needed to find a way out. The sheer force of it had him shaking.
A gentle voice tried to break through his state of absolute terror. Crowley ignored it; it couldn't be real. He was all alone in Hell. He was just daydreaming about being rescued, but it was hopeless. He'd never escape.
Hands touched him without warning and Crowley leapt off the surface he was sitting on and tumbled to the floor. He cried out, landing on a patch of fresh snake scales surrounded by tiny demon blade cuts. A blanket got entangled with his legs and chafed the blistered red markings around his ankles. He tried to shake himself free, but the blanket only wrapped itself tighter around him, hurting him further.
"Crowley!" The voice finally came through clearly, but the demon still refused to acknowledge it. Hands were reaching for him again and Crowley scrambled away. All he could see were claws. Four of them. Much too strong.
"No-no-no, don't hurt me. Please, no more. I-I c-can't." the demon sobbed.
"Crowley, dear, I won't hurt you." the voice spoke softly. "It's me, can't you see me?"
He looked up. Eyes of watery blue suddenly turned to oily black pits and a wicked grin grew on half a face. Crowley sucked in a startled breath and began trembling even more. He tried to get away, crawling backwards over the floor but a wall made painful contact with his bare back. "Mazikeen." he gasped. "No! Please. I'd rather be flogged. Please, not you again!"
"No, dear, it's me. Aziraphale." the voice claimed desperately. "You're safe. You're back on Earth."
Crowley's shoulder was touched and, huddled into a corner, he had no chance of escaping anymore. He flinched, expecting pain. Heart racing. Thundering. Waiting. And when no pain followed he dared to look at the figure opposite him again.
"It's Aziraphale." the angel said once more, his real face shifting back into place, wrinkled with worry and tears in his blue eyes. "I would never hurt you, Crowley."
Finally, the demon realized what must have happened. He looked around in the little room and recognized the bed he'd fallen down from. In his panic he'd taken the lamp beside the bed with him, which now lay shattered on the floor. His hands were freshly bleeding again where the glass had cut into his skin.
He looked back at Aziraphale, who remained perfectly still. Obviously afraid of scaring him more. One tear slipped over the angel's cheek and it made Crowley react immediately.
Turning away, shaking the hand from his shoulder, he quickly wiped over his face, hiding it in shame while struggling to his feet on wobbly legs. Aziraphale reached out to steady him, but Crowley fought him off with a hand upheld. The other clutched the blanket to him, hiding the still pretty battered state of his body.
He shouldn't see me like this. He shouldn't see me so weak, Crowley worried silently. He trusts me to be there for him.
"It's alright, Crowley. You obviously had a nightmare." Aziraphale said carefully, swallowing his tears. "But you're safe now. I promise. No one can hurt you anymore. I wouldn't let that happen."
Crowley's throat was tightening again. His shaking fingers clutched at the blanket hard, wishing that it would swallow him whole and hide him away from so much care and compassion he didn't know how to deal with.
"I-If you want to," Aziraphale continued, noticing the demon's white-knuckled grip. "You could wear this." He indicated a pile of dark-grey fabric hanging over the back of a chair. "I went out the other day and bought some clothes for you. It's just sleepwear. I-I thought it'd be more comfortable right now. But… once you're feeling better, you could miracle something that's more to your liking."
Slowly, Crowley managed to get his heart rate back under control and he contemplated the offer that was made. He nodded his head mechanically and Aziraphale sprung into action, bringing the clothes over and holding them out to him. Crowley refused to let go of the blanket.
"Do you need my help, putting them on? I-I wasn't sure if you were well enough until now."
"I can do it on my own." rasped Crowley quietly, voice still sore. He wasn't meeting Aziraphale's eyes when he made his way back to the bed, sitting on the edge. "Leave me alone." he said even quieter.
"No." the angel decided firmly. Crowley gave him a suffering look of distress. "I'm sorry, no, I'm not leaving you on your own. Not after you've given me such a scare. You didn't even realize that you were awake, did you? And the things you said-"
"Don't." Crowley cut him off. "We're not gonna talk about it."
The angel prevailed. "I-I know that you must've been…" His voice faltered, uncomfortable to even use this scary word. "F-Flogged." he whispered, gravely looking down at his feet. "I've seen your scars. But who is this Mazikeen then? What did they do that was so much worse that you preferred having your back… slashed in such a cruel way?"
The demon remained still and silent like a statue. The painful horror carved into his stony face, however, spoke volumes.
Aziraphale's lip trembled, seemingly feeling as helpless as the serpent did. He, too, sat down on the bed, but Crowley refused to look at him. The angel reached out with one hand, putting it on his shoulder, hoping to give him the comfort that Crowley so desperately needed and that Aziraphale was more than willing to give. But somehow their needs passed each other by without ever meeting.
"Was Mazikeen the one who nearly discorporated you?" asked the angel, receiving no answer. "Crowley?"
"Just…" he began sharply, rolling his shoulder to shake Aziraphale's hand off once more. Then he sighed broken-heartedly. "Leave it, angel."
From the corner of his eye, Crowley could see his friend swallow more compassionate tears. Then he sighed, too, deeply saddened that his offer of comfort was rebuffed. "Very well. How about I just read to you then, while you dress? In case you're finding it hard to settle down after…" he trailed off. "You know? Err…"
Aziraphale stood up and grabbed a book out of the shelf in the room, apparently at random. "Are you familiar with the works of Charles Dickens? Remarkable fellow. He's been writing very popular novels these past decades, you must've…" Aziraphale halted again, realizing the error he just made and the excitable glint in his eyes vanished. "Or rather… no, you couldn't have heard of him yet. I'm sorry."
Unblinking and with his emotions carefully hidden, Crowley gazed at the angel. Then he inspected the clothes Aziraphale had bought for him more closely. "Never met the guy." he mumbled. But knowing how much the angel loved telling him about books, he added, "Tell me about him."
There was a pause and an intake of breath. "Well, this is one of his novels." said the angel with an audible smile in his voice. "It just came out last year. It's called 'A Tale of Two Cities'. One of them being Paris during the French Revolution. Do you remember those times?"
"How could I forget. You got yourself locked up in the Bastille because of a food craving."
"And you got me out." said Aziraphale. "I wasn't even allowed to thank you for it."
"You still aren't!" Crowley grumbled, lifting his legs, heavy as lead, into the grey pants that were provided for him.
He continued to listen to Aziraphale, reading from the book. Chapter for chapter taking him away into another world. The tale was captivating but the angel's calm voice still made the demon sleepy. Like intended, a successful distraction from his bleak worries.
At least until blood-curdling nightmares plagued Crowley once more.
But Aziraphale was always there and he read to him. One novel after the other. Never again did he ask about the things Crowley dreamed about. He could probably imagine more than enough from his delirious ramblings, when he was caught between waking and the horrible grasp of the nightmare.
The angel kept worrying in silence. Crowley could tell. And it was only then that guilt reared its ugly head again and not even Dickens' stories managed to distract him from that.
Only one more chapter to go!
Now would be the right time to let me know what you think of this story... ;)