Chapter Text
Crowley wakes up in the dark.
He can hardly move, wrists and ankles trussed together. His entire body alight with agony.
There must still be lingering miracle dampeners because no matter how hard he tries, he can’t seem to do anything about it.
There’s a feeling of cold dampness around him and it takes him a long time to realise that it’s raining.
Raining?
Last he’d checked he was inside…
Crowley slits open an eye to find himself lying on concrete with the buildings of Soho stretching up around him.
He’d been dumped in some alleyway who knows where.
Great.
He lets out a groan. His head is pounding as if his brain intends to exit his head by drilling a hole through his damn skull. He can feel a string of bile and blood on the side of his face making a line from his mouth to the floor.
He takes in the extent of his injuries as he attempts to regain focus.
His entire body is bruised. Crowley isn’t certain if there is even a single ounce of flesh that isn’t purple by now. They hadn’t lied about the brass knuckles, he could feel the lingering pain of each and every hit his tormentors had inflicted upon him. He’s not even entirely certain if the regular beating had even occurred. They’d just gone straight in with the knuckles, sending an agonising fist into his gut, breaking a rib while it was there and sending him doubling over. Or, attempting to double over. What really happened was Crowley curled up in agony, the rope tightened around his neck, this abruptly took all of the remaining air from his lungs, out of his lungs and he was left to choke for a moment, wheezing as he struggled to regain his previous posture.
“Aw, not so tough now, Crawly are you?” A hand fisted in the hair at the nape of his neck, dragging his head backwards and Crowley blinked deliriously.
“Don’t nrrgn.” Crowley groaned, “Don’t think I w’s ever tough t’begin with.”
This particular statement achieved him nothing but another hit and a deeper bruise around the throat.
Crowley wriggles from his spot on the ground. Testing the restraints they’d left him in. Luckily they were mostly just thick coils of rope rubbing at his wrists and ankles. But they were a right pain to remove. Every single movement sent agony racing through his bare back and he became dimly aware of his ruined shirt to his left and the blood mess that was his back as a result of their ‘twenty’ lashes sentence.
He thinks he made it through the first lot of twenty almost without so much as a groan.
But then the twenty second lash had hit directly into the same spot as the previous one. Instead of tearing fresh skin, it gouged out a previous hit, going deeper, and it hurt.
Crowley distinctly remembers the anguished cry he had released. The hit it had received in response, and then an angry demon in his face cussing him out about making noises the general public might hear.
“They can find you when we’re gone for all I care, Crawly. But I have no interest in you bringing the popo raining down upon us while we’re busy.” Fingers had gouged into his cheeks, forcing their way into his mouth as a thick length of rope was pulled between his teeth. Apparently rope was all the demons had thought to bring other than their various torture instruments and Crowley had dearly paid for it.
He can still feel the shredded edges of his mouth from the rope burn.
He needs to get out of his bonds. He can feel his throat tightening in panic at the thought of being helpless if they came back.
It’s fairly easy to kick the ropes from his ankles now that they’re not bolted to the ground. His wrists take a little more work, but he eventually gets them untied as well. He’s exhausted by the end of it. Chest heaving, eyes hardly open.
“Sir?”
Crowley flinches at the sudden voice that fills his ears and he’s suddenly all too aware of how prone he is, lying soaking wet in the rain, bleeding into some drain he can feel that’s cold against his feet.
An elderly man enters his vision, Crowley drags a leaden hand up to cover his too bare eyes. No use scaring the guy even more than Crowley’s broken body already would.
“Sir, are you alright?” The man’s voice breaks off in a choked gasp of horror. “God, what happened to you?”
Crowley winced at the use of the almighty’s name and ran his tongue sickly over his lips. “S’alright.” He mumbles after some time and fuck he’s got a lisp from the missing teeth he’s suddenly made all too aware of again. His mouth had gone numb from the shock a while ago and Crowley can’t even begin to imagine what it looks like.
The man’s still hovering anxiously over him, muttering something about calling the cops, or an ambulance or something, and Crowley has to reign in the terror at the thought of being dragged off to some hospital where the doctors would find something abnormal about his corporation – most likely his eyes in this scenario – and send him off to scientists or something to live out his days strapped to a table with his guts on display.
“M’fine.” he insists. “D’nt call anyone. It’ll j’st waste their time.” And Satan, Crowley doesn’t want to waste anyone’s time. He has a dinner to get to with his angel.”
“But your back!” The old man insisted, “you’re bleeding! Surely that needs medical attention.”
“It has.” Crowley tries to come up with a lie on the spot. “I took a tumble, broke some stitches. Th’s all.” It’s a terrible lie, and they both know it because judging from what Crowley’s back had just been through and the man’s worry over the minuscule amount of skin he could see while Crowley laid sprawled on his back, covering the worst of his wounds, he doubts it would give him a discharge at a hospital.
The demons had gone at his lash wounds with some sort of blessed knife to finish off his sentence. The burning was quite possibly the worst pain he’d felt since the Edinburgh incident. Maybe not quite as bad, but Crowley could remember how impossible it had been to restrain the screams the knife had dragged from his gagged mouth.
He’d almost begged for them to stop.
Almost.
But it doesn’t matter.
What does matter, is getting this man – despite his good intentions – away from him. Getting back to his car, licking his wounds, and taking a stroll to play house with Aziraphale who was probably checking the time and expecting him soon.
“I ‘ppreciate your concern.” Crowley mumbles to the man who still hadn’t left. The guy was definitely securing his place in Heaven at this point. Too bad it was Crowley he was attempting to help. For all Crowley knew, with God’s fucked up plan and all, attempting to assist a punished demon was a sin and the poor guy would find himself in the pits of hell alongside him. “But m’fine.” He continued. “Just need a moment… Alone,” he adds after the man makes no movement.
“I mean if you insist.” The poor guy still looked torn and Crowley’s chest heaved in frustration as he struggled to gain the willpower to move his agonised body.
“I do.” Crowley bit back the frustrated tone in his voice. Trying to sound reassuring. “Please go.”
It takes a long moment, but eventually the guy shuffles away, past Crowley’s trembling body, and out of the rain.
He needs to get moving now. The chances of the guy still calling for an ambulance are extremely high, and Crowley can’t risk being taken in.
He heaves in a deep breath of air, filling his lungs and steeling his resolve. Then he forces himself to roll onto his side, teeth sinking into his lip as the movement threatens to drag a noise from his damaged chest. Another moment and then he’s rolling onto his stomach. He can feel as all the gashes in his back shift, and the cracked rib in his torso grinds against the rest, and every bruise cries out in agony all at once. This time he does make a noise. It’s a ragged, wheezing, whimper , and Crowley clenches his hands in disgust at the sound.
Weak .
Pathetic.
Good.
He squeezes his eyes shut, panting raggedly. He was a demon for fucks sake.
“Pull it together.” He tells himself aloud.
Then he drags his battered hands beneath himself and strains onto all fours, biting his lips bloody and almost asphyxiating himself from the lack of oxygen reaching his corporation's brain at his restrained sobs.
Then. Slowly and surely. He drags himself to his feet, leaning heavily on the wall beside him. He can feel his legs begin to shake immediately. His eyes leak with angry tears that he wipes away with shaking fingers before they drip onto his cheeks and he has some other holy injury to worry about.
Okay. He thinks to himself. Next, Bentley .
He attempts to kindle his connection with the sentient vehicle but she feels distant.
There’s a pit in his stomach that fills with anxiety at the thought of his missing Bentley. Crowley has nowhere else to go. They’d stolen his apartment, his shoes, and now his car. It’s not as if he can burden this on Aziraphale, that’d neither be fair, nor healthy for the angel who had his own problems.
Crowley’s throat tightened, which was not helping his strength come back, and pain was washing over him again. He really did not need to have a panic attack right now.
When his Bentley suddenly limped around the corner, Crowley nearly doubled over in relief. Stumbling towards her, he all but collapsed against her hood.
“Hey you,” he murmurs, “where’ve you been?”
His Bentley hums a sad tune over the radio that he’s surprisingly never heard. But that doesn’t matter.
Nothing matters anymore. Crowley pulls the driver's door open and collapses into her seat, using his hands to drag his numb legs into the footwell and nearly passing out from the effort of it all.
His head is spinning. His vision is faltering. Everything seems too loud. Too bright.
When he allows himself to lean back in the seat he severely regrets it when his back lights up on fire and his vision really does give out. The world blinks out into nothingness around him, and all Crowley can feel is the fire racing down each and every laceration that massacres his abused back.
He can feel a choked groan bubbling its way up his throat and bumps his head against the steering wheel, gritting his teeth hysterically.
“ Fuck .” He finally manages to grit out, “mmnng.”
Several hours pass. He’s certain of it. As he tries to pull himself together enough to make a decision about whether or not he should still go back to Aziraphale’s. He’s honestly not certain if it’s still the same day though, and all he can envision is the snarling faces of his demon conrads prying his back molars from his mouth with a dirty pair of pliers while another clamped a tight hand around his throat, choking his agonised screams, and two others held the rest of his bound body immobile.
The laughs of their alleged leader as they voted to tear out his canines as well.
“Defang the snake.” They chanted.
He can miracle them back when he’s not so exhausted but until then he can still feel the bloody holes the teeth left behind. He can’t see his face but he can feel the pulsing bruising he knows will be there to greet him along his jaw if he looks in the mirror.
All he can hear is his own choked and muffled screams as the blessed whip tore into his tender flesh. There had been nowhere for him to go. No one to come find him when they grew bored and dumped him in an alleyway in the rain.
Crowley doesn’t want Aziraphale to see him like this.
He drags his head from where it’s resting against his steering wheel. “Call ‘ziraphale.” He mumbles to the car. “Put m’on speaker.”
The soft rumble of his dialling phone fills his ears until Aziraphale’s voice beautifully graces his ears.
“Crowley dear, were you running late? I haven’t heard from you since earlier. Oh, I am so sorry for brushing you off like I did. I was quite busy.”
“M’not coming anymore, ‘ziraphale.” Crowley mumbles. “Something’s come up. We gotta postpone.” He cuts himself off before he can finish with a cursed sorry .
“Oh.” Aziraphale’s voice trails off. “I do hope it’s not my fault, dear.”
“S’not.” Crowley promises. “I’ll call in another day. Kay?”
“Okay.” Aziraphale sounds uncertain, but Crowley hangs up before anything else can be said.
He’ll pick up his pieces later. For now he just wants to sleep…