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As a general rule, Crowley likes his body. He’s been through a lot with it, after all, and has spent a lot of time styling it to his satisfaction. He likes the way it looks. He likes the way it feels on satin sheets. He loves the way he can use it to get what he wants.
He could do without the pain, though.
If it’s all the same to anyone else, he really could do without the pain. But fallen angels don’t get to decide such things. They fall, they burn, and after white wings char to black, the burning stays inside, and it never leaves.
He can deal with it. He does. Obviously. The day to day became background noise centuries ago and the rest is just inconvenience.
Lying is (almost) easy. He’s a demon, after all.
The truth is he’s ugly inside. Charred and burned and burning, and he can’t dress it up like his outside. Sometimes he’s afraid he’ll look at himself one day and it’ll burn right through.
He tries not to think about it too much. What would be the point of that? But he supposes he must have done something terrible, something truly terrible for this to be his punishment.
At 11:29 am, Crowley wakes up, swallows, and shuts his eyes once more. Today is going to be a bad day. It isn’t supposed to be. He’s supposed to take Aziraphale out to the opening of a new restaurant later. He had magicked their names onto the list weeks prior. But he’s known this feeling before.
Pain prickles behind his neck and down his arms. He wants to ignore it. It isn’t new - he deals in shades of pain regularly. But it’s more this time. This is bruising. Through skin and muscle and bone…he can feel it all. He should look black and blue all over, though he knows it won’t show.
He flexes his fingers, feeling the knots in every one of his joints. He grits his teeth and pushes down his disgust.
This is ridiculous.
He takes a deep measured breath and pushes himself up, wincing at the myriad of cracks his body produces. His limbs are heavy, less responsive. His head feels heavy, too. Like it’s pushing out from the inside to make room for cotton and lead.
Exhaustion pulls at him. He pushes it away. He’s taking his angel to dinner. And this can just fuck off.
He plants his feet steadily on the ground and pushes himself shakily out of bed. He moves forward, each action feeling fragile and disjointed.
Pain stabs through his thigh, sharp as a dagger, and he stops short, his fingers biting into his palm. It’s gone almost as soon as it begins. He keeps walking as the next one hits and the next.
He swallows it down and pushes on, his movements controlled and carefully calculated. This is any other day and the intensity won’t last.
---
It’s not any other day. It’s 50 minutes later. And it’s worse.
His joints ache. His eyes sting. His body stands bruised and shaken.
Exhaustion has seeped down deep into his bones. He could sleep another 40 years, he’s sure. Once, when it had been this bad, he’d slept for almost a century.
His brain knows he hasn’t been beaten to a pulp in a London back alley, but that doesn’t seem to make a difference. It hurts - like Hell, for lack of a better word.
When his knees threaten to give out, he glares at them, viciously and with purpose. It does nothing. His glares hold weight - his plants would be trembling within a second. This body doesn’t seem to care.
It hurts to move, it’s all he can do to keep himself standing - and his body doesn’t even care.
His anger builds. With the familiarity and the frustration and the pain. With everything his body takes from him. It builds and builds and builds to bursting. He doesn’t have the energy for anger, though. It mills in him, wanting something, anything it can make pay. But there’s nothing. Nothing but him. So it flares and fades, and he lets it fall until he stands there, swaying, an empty space in his chest that seems more like a gaping hole than anything else.
He’s under no illusions. His evening with Aziraphale is cancelled.
---
He lies in bed, feeling useless and worn.
The phone rings three times before the bookshop picks up.
“Aziraphale.”
“Crowley?” he can practically hear the angel’s brow furrow. “Are you alright? I was just about to leave.”
“Yeah, I just…” he stops and swallows down the loathing at how hatefully tired he sounds. “I can’t make it.”
“What? Why?”
“I’m...feeling under the weather.” He stares at the ceiling and hates himself for cancelling. He stares at the ceiling and hates himself for a great myriad of things.
A pause. “Well, I’ll come over there then. I just got a new first edition I’ve been meaning to pour over. Just as well there than here.”
“You can’t,” he murmurs, not wanting Aziraphale to see him like this, not wanting the angel to feel obligated to help, not wanting him to realize Crowley is the one thing he cannot fix.
“Nonsense, I’ll be right over.”
“Angel, please.”
There’s a long pause on the other end of the phone and Crowley closes his eyes, knowing he’s given up any chance of keeping Aziraphale away with that one word.
“I’ll be right over,” Aziraphale repeats, his voice softer and laced with concern.
The line clicks off and Crowley is left alone, afraid that if his insides somehow did burn through him that they would surely burn the angel, too.
---
“Crowley?” Light enters the room as Aziraphale peeks in.
He hadn’t even heard the angel come in the front. Crowley swallows, curled up, his back to the door.
“Go away, Angel.”
Hesitation, and then the sliver of light grows larger.
“Crowley…are you hurt?”
That draws an odd grating laugh from him. He shifts, and it turns into a hiss.
Aziraphale starts forward. “What’s going on?”
“It’s nothing you can miracle, Angel…it’s just me,” Crowley says, voice tired and resigned.
He feels Aziraphale’s heavenly form reach out anyway, feels it search for the unknown, watches as his friend recoils back as if burned. He swallows and focuses on the slope of his bed, the folds of his sheets.
“When did this start?” Aziraphale asks, and Crowley can feel the worry coming off the angel in waves.
“6000 years ago, give or take.”
“What!?”
“It’s my prize. For falling.”
“Your prize?” Aziraphale says incredulously. “Crowley, you’re in pain!”
Crowley closes his eyes. “It’s what I deserve.”
There’s only silence and then...
“Don’t you dare,” Aziraphale says loudly. He sounds upset. “You can’t honestly think that.”
“It’s what She gave me.”
Aziraphale swallows. “Crowley...”
“6000 years...I don’t...I don’t know what I did, but it got me here,” Crowley murmurs, closing his eyes. “I must have done something worth the pain.”
“Crowley...” there’s a muffled thump. His eyes open and he finds Aziraphale kneeling by his bedside. He stares at the angel, his snake-like pupils bare.
“You’ve done nothing to deserve this.”
“I must have done something,” Crowley says softly.
“No,” he presses. “None of this is your fault…I promise you...”
Bitterness trickles into his veins, exhaustion and despair paving its way - all now directed at this angel who’s just waltzed in, who has no clue, who doesn’t understand.
“Then how do you explain it?” He rasps, emotion seeping through like oil through a sieve. His voice is louder, vitriol bubbling in his throat. “Fate? Happenstance? Ineffable plans?! If it’s not my fault, then whose fault is it?!”
“If I haven’t done anything then why does it HURT?!” his voice breaks on the last word and his energy flees. He shouldn’t have yelled. He feels worse. He’s shaking.
“It hurts, Aziraphale,” he forces out. And the demon is mortified to feel tears in his eyes. His voice is quieter now. “Things don’t just hurt for no reason.”
He closes his eyes against everything he’s said, against the possibility that Aziraphale might just realize he’s right and walk away.
But the angel does the impossible thing. He stays.
“Plenty of things happen for no reason,” Aziraphale says quietly. “It’s unfair and rotten and it happens to the best of people. But none of it is their fault....and this isn’t yours. No one will be able to convince me otherwise, my dear. Not even you.”
Clothes rustle, and the bed dips. Cool lips press to his forehead, and despite himself, Crowley can’t help but want them there.
“You’ll burn,” he whispers, voice hoarse and tired.
Fingers card through his hair, and he can’t help but relax into the feeling.
“You could never burn me, Crowley,” he says softly, a promise if there ever was one.
Aziraphale’s hand leaves Crowley’s hair but only for as long as it takes for the angel to slip in next to him. His wings unfurl, and he pulls in close. He shelters Crowley, presses their foreheads together, and Crowley feels warm and safe and...loved.
“You can’t fix it,” Crowley whispers.
“I know,” the angel’s voice sounds sad, but he doesn’t leave. “But I can be with you.”
Fingers smooth over his hair once more.
“You’re not alone, Crowley,” he murmurs, another promise on his lips. “You’re not alone.”
Crowley swallows, and after a moment, allows himself to lean into Aziraphale’s arms. He lets himself be held, hoping Aziraphale understands. Aziraphale’s answering squeeze tells him he does.