Before Job, Crowley had thought he'd been alone.

Sure, he'd met the angel of the East gate. He'd seemed kind, empathic; unique traits from an angel. Most of them couldn't get their heads out of their arses. Crowley appreciated it. But Aziraphale had also seemed so steeped in toeing the company line: heaven was a true and righteous home.

Crowley discounted the angel for it. He lived centuries among humans, with only those few run-ins with Aziraphale here and there. He'd never thought of finding a companion. Demons didn't do that in general, far as he could tell.

During the Job debacle, Aziraphale had said his take on hell (that he went along with it as far as he could) sounded lonely. Crowley objected on instinct.

On the heels of that, Crowley couldn't believe the sheer joy and smug satisfaction (he was a demon after all; he was allowed) of having Aziraphale join him. Crafty subterfuge to their respective home offices to save a few kids, going along with heaven and hell as far as they could...

He was lonely no longer.

He had a friend now. Kind of.

Over time, the term "friend" became real. It took up space in Crowley's thoughts. He found himself looking forward to seeing the angel next, to bantering and trading blessings, and sins and miracles.

Whenever Crowley appeared, Aziraphale smiled.

At some point, they became something else entirely.

It was the way Aziraphale called him for the slightest reasons, the way he looked at Crowley, eyes glittering, dimples deep and lips pressed like he was trying not to be as happy as he was.

It was the quality of their conversation over tea, wine, breakfast, inside or outside, it didn't matter. They went everywhere and Aziraphale was as adaptable as Crowley, maybe more so because Crowley tended to dismiss or ignore other people except when he could tell them off. He enjoyed focusing on the angel, watching his reactions, listening to his voice.

Crowley hadn't fully realized until Maggie and Nina sat him down. Love. Eugh. He really was the worst demon.

And now it'd been years since he'd last seen his- no- the angel. Since Aziraphale had been promoted to Supreme Archangel.

It had been tough but not impossible to carry on. He'd kept himself busy. The humans were still coming up with evil things he wouldn't have thought of. He kept implementing genius little ways to make all their lives worse on the whole. He still didn't report to anyone. He just worked out of habit; made him feel more like himself.

It wasn't much.

With hell ignoring him and Aziraphale having left him, he had no one to talk to even if he'd pulled off the greatest caper since Jane Austen's.

Crowley drifted.

It wasn't bad. It wasn't good.

Crowley learned to numb himself to how hollow life had become for him.

Only now, now, of all times, of course he was thinking about it.

He missed the Ritz, the bookshop. He missed hearing his phone ring and the giddy anticipation, knowing it was his angel calling for one reason or another, always worth a laugh, an interesting conversation, an adventure.

Crowley hated how much he missed Aziraphale's voice. The angel could find delight in so many things, and Crowley loved no less or deeply than he had as an angel: he matched the heavenly creature every step of the way, feigning surly reluctance. Aziraphale could always see through it.

Crowley adored the universe, humans, the changing times and fashions. Things didn't "get old" for him and he had fun with every minute of it. And he'd found Aziraphale, who in his own way, felt the same but about food and books and romance...

Aziraphale's eyes were so bright when he'd dragged Crowley out to dance with him that night. Even Crowley had to admit there was something special in it. He'd been stressed - he'd been the only one to know there were demon hordes outside waiting to lay siege to the bookshop - but still. Nice.

Disgusting four-letter word.

Crowley licked his dry, cracked red lips, thinking of that night.

I won't leave you here.

I know you won't.

Crowley bit his bottom lip to stave away the tears.

Why did he always think of Aziraphale when he was in trouble?

Crowley worked so hard to steer himself away from thinking of him during his regular empty days walking the Earth alone now, but when anything weird or distressing came up, the angel would pop back into his head like he'd never left.

And this definitely qualified as distressing.

Crowley was strapped to a rusty metal bed frame. It was angled like he was Frankenstein's monster, or Hannibal Lecter (although he was spared any kind of mask which he was grateful for). The frame was clamped to a car battery, and whenever he snarked, or whenever these brutal half-witted humans felt like it, he'd be reminded again that someone - either Down or Up There - had issued a miracle blocker, and his corporation would convulse like a human's would as the electricity sang pain through every cell of his body.

For someone who, as a matter of furious anger, could fry from lightning and easily walk away from it, the agony was... Crowley tried to keep it together as he chose the words inside his head.

The agony was unexpected.

Choosing words in his head was all he had. His voice had long since given out, his screams more like gutteral chokes and gurgles. The last thing he'd been able to rasp out was several days ago, to Marcus, the sadist among this cadre of humans that had trapped him. "Y-you know, you're a loads better demon than I am." With blood on his teeth twisted into a grin, he added, "Hell's gonna love you."

Marcus was the one that had cut Crowley's clothes off when they first captured him (and with the miracle blocker, Crowley couldn't even make an effort to add reproductive organs, making him look far more inhuman; a creature, a monster on the slab).

Marcus was the one that liked to watch his face during the electrocutions as his body spasmed, vibrating under the loud hum of it, jaw clenched, muscles taut and straining. He'd be riveted when it was over too, the aftershock tremors, Crowley's involuntary gasping cries as he gulped in air with rattling lungs.

The cult (it had to be a cult, right? Must be, Crowley thought) had used archaic magicks only other angels or demons from the Great War could've known.

Crowley didn't really know what to do with that information. It was difficult to string a coherent path in his head at all, much less to a conclusion. The electrocutions were scattering him, when they weren't whiting his brain out altogether.

He always came back to Aziraphale, though. Just repeating his name in his head, recalling his face, replaying the best memories. It helped. It was comfort.

At first, when he'd been abducted (summoned to a circle surrounded by holy oil and these... clowns in robes that smelled like motor oil), Crowley had done his best to live up to his reputation. He ran his mouth off, mocked, challenged. It would be a boon to become known as the most annoying demon to exist even in captivity.

Unfortunately Marcus didn't respond to his barbs. Crowley wasn't even sure what language he spoke - he tried all of them and the wanker gave nothing away. The only reaction he got out of him was through no choice of his own. Marcus's dark pupils dilated with sick arousal for what would surely be another fun, raucous round of torture-the-naked-demon-in-the-basement.

Yes, he had that look on him now. Crowley kept his scowl of disgust fixed even as his torturer bent down and began to trace his fingers through the mix of blood, sweat, oil and dirt coating his skin, starting at his foot.

Crowley cringed; did his best not to shiver at the human's touch. His last words to the man had been a hundred percent true. In fact, Hell was probably going to take lessons from him when the time came for him to die. Hopefully a slow, painful one at Crowley's hands.

Marcus dragged fingers up Crowley's leg, up near his groin. The demon's corporation released adrenaline, making his breath come fast and shallow. His heart wasn't doing well under the stress and electrocutions, skipping beats and missing rhythms. A sheen of sick sweat developed over him despite the cold, freezing him more.

Marcus smiled, pleased, and dragged the pads of his fingers across the smooth, delicate skin between his legs, pushing and prodding as though with enough fondling, he'd get somewhere. Crowley squirmed and gasped under Marcus's rough hand. The bed frame wobbled and shook.

Finally, Marcus left the area red and oversensitive with an interior grin that left Crowley even more nauseous.

He wasn't done, though. Marcus moved his palms up and down Crowley's soft, vulnerable stomach, squeezing, kneading, digging into the center with his thumbs and pulling involuntary whimpers out of the demon.

Crowley's breath was ragged by the time Marcus slipped his hand around his neck.

"N-no," Crowley barely whispered, panting, knowing what came next. Marcus had done this before.

"Stop," Crowley didn't quite beg. Marcus watched, rapt, as he tightened his grip, glacially slow, to wring out every moment of Crowley's strangulation.

Crowley jerked and hissed, baring his fangs, his black-slitted eyes wide and gleaming bright gold under fluorescent light.

The sound was choked out of him in short order. Marcus's expression was crazed delight as Crowley struggled to stay conscious, his body straining to escape.

Black and white specks dotted his vision and clouded everything with static. Sounds echoed and muted.

Then Crowley's body went weightless.

He floated.

Aziraphale. That time when Crowley said he'd miracle Hamlet into popularity, when he'd said he could always count on him, when they'd touched hands dancing. Aziraphale's worn velvet waistcoat, his white blonde curls, those silly glasses he didn't need. The way he ate, the way he smiled so fondly. Those smiles were his forever. It didn't matter Aziraphale didn't want him anymore. Those smiles were real, and they had only been for Crowley, and there was nothing so precious to him as those memories, even now.

His imagination melted to darkness, streams of black paint dripping over the reels and snapshots of the past.

At this point, Crowley always wondered with a mild curiosity (and some unspeakable measure of hope) if this could mean he was dying.

He didn't want to. This was a bad way to go out, a demon captured and tortured by a regular sadistic human, maybe a serial killer if he was lucky. But really: not practiced clergy from the Vatican or anything. What a disgrace.

But on the whole, he wasn't particularly against dying. The past four years he didn't know what he was even supposed to be doing from one day to the next, and whatever he did, it didn't feel like anything mattered much. He'd lost the only person he loved years ago, and surviving that made him realize how much of a double-act he was.

He wasn't a main character, and he'd lost his foil. The torture was getting to him, he knew. Not existing anymore sounded fine.

A gunshot, loud and close, rang out.

The explosive concussion shocked awareness back into him. He could breathe again. Marcus's hands were off him.

The sadistic bastard stumbled backwards, breathing labored and clutching his chest, eyes wide, mouth agape as he hit the concrete wall. Red blossomed on his shirt, spreading rapidly.

He crumpled to the floor, clutching the gunshot wound, breaths coming in quick now. He didn't have long.

Crowley blinked, not quite believing it, his vision like smudged glass thick with oil. His ears were going too, ringing so loud he couldn't hear. He had to focus on breathing, getting air into his corporation's lungs.

"Crowley," a voice, soft with horror, whispered behind him.

The demon froze at the voice. His heart in his throat, he stopped breathing. It couldn't be.

"Az-"

A sharp gasp, and then a cold wind chilling Crowley to the bone swept through the space.

Silence. Crowley could sense there was no one in the room now, not even behind him. He glanced at Marcus on the floor. Definitely dead now.

I keep a Derringer in a hollowed-out book.

Fuck off, memories.

...had that been Aziraphale!?

Crowley tried not to let out the sob building in the back of his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut and breathed.

The seconds ticked by. They turned into minutes.

Had he been hallucinating?

For fucking sakes. He huffed, and blinked. Focus, Crowley scolded himself, stifling the desperate hope. He would never see Aziraphale again, not for the rest of eternity.

Shuffling sounds echoed distantly, then louder shouts and more gunshots filtered through.

With a jolt, Crowley realized the rest of the cult members were likely defending themselves against whatever force had come in to kill Marcus. Hoping it was Aziraphale was a hallucination, and thinking the trespassers would take one look at him and decide to let him free was equally bonkers. It was worth it to escape right now.

The straps dug into him, tight and unrelenting. He was weak too, muscles sore and twitching. He let out a frustrated cry and focused on the strap over his wrist, using the sweat and grease coating his skin to loosen it. Crowley stopped to catch his breath. It didn't seem to be working. Maybe if he broke a bone or two. It'd hurt like hell but it'd be worth it.

"Shh, stop," said a voice deep and low, right next to him, scaring the shit out of him.

"No!" The demon cried out as a hand covered the one he was about to break.

Panicked, Crowley looked up to find his angel's soft blue eyes.

"It's me, Crowley. Sweetheart, it's okay, it's me."

Crowley heaved and choked on his own breath, tears falling, as Aziraphale stroked his hair, wiped his cheeks.

"I'm getting you out of here," he promised. He took his cream-colored coat off and covered the demon, careful to tuck the collar over Crowley's bony shoulders.

The coat's scent overwhelmed him: books and parchment, cinnamon tea, buttery shortbread, Aziraphale's cologne that recalled warm sunshine.

"N-no. Th-there's no way."

Crowley looked into distraught blue eyes, wet with tears. Gentle, trembling hands pushed Crowley's hair off his face, cupped his cheek.

He didn't say anything.

There were no words.

Crowley pressed his lips together, clenched his jaw. His chest hurt. He couldn't swallow; he could barely breathe.

"Um... so, Miracles are blocked in here," Aziraphale said, looking around, rubbing Crowley's chest soothingly through the coat. "We're - my team - is in the middle of rectifying that. I'm going to take these off but we can't go until that's done."

Crowley nodded along, not fully understanding. With a squeeze to his arm, Aziraphale pulled away and began removing the bindings starting at Crowley's feet.

The demon squirmed under the straps around his ankles and just above his knees. There were bands across his waist, shoulders, wrists as well.

"Where are we?"

"Somewhere in Missouri, USA, I believe."

"Ughk," Crowley grunted.

"I agree," undertoned in a petty way and Crowley couldn't laugh and cry at the same time but it was some approximation of it.

The angel unfastened the rest of the straps. Crowley moved restlessly against them as each bond released.

Aziraphale finished by Crowley's side. "There we go."

"Aziraphale," Crowley whispered.

They moved as one, Crowley blindly reaching with a choked-off sob as Aziraphale got his hands under his arms. Aziraphale raised a knee to the slanted metal frame and pushed it parallel to the floor. He sat on it and pulled Crowley into his lap. In the process, Aziraphale's coat snagged on a wire, leaving Crowley nude again but the demon couldn't have cared less. Aziraphale wrapped him in such an embrace, he felt covered all the same.

It was Crowley's clammy cold, greasy skin against Aziraphale's soft, plush clothes now, the warmth of his body slipping through and heating him. Crowley would've been scared to stain it - his whole body a mess of oily dirt and sweat - but Aziraphale was pressing him into the hug, hands against his bare back, his neck, the crown of his head. They were everywhere, petting, stroking, rubbing feeling into his limbs.

Crowley's body quaked with tremors. He had never been touched like this. Not in the days he'd been tortured, the four years he'd been living without Aziraphale, the past six thousand years on earth.

"It's over." Aziraphale kissed Crowley's cheek, his neck. "It's all over."

Crowley cried. He let a real sob out when Aziraphale kissed him, then another, and clutched onto his angel.

Aziraphale tucked him back into a full hug. He rocked them. Every touch and gentle stroke and whispered reassurance shattered and healed Crowley at once.

"Another garrison of angels are coming in to disable the miracle blocker," Aziraphale explained quietly.

By now Crowley had relaxed somewhat. Still limp, shivering from shock. Aziraphale had retrieved his coat from the floor and wrapped it around Crowley for another layer of warmth.

The angel stroked his hair, hugged him closer. "And then we'll be on our way."

"Where?" Eyes wide, Crowley weakly clawed the angel's velvet waistcoat.

Aziraphale hefted him up and closer, re-wrapped his arms around him. Crowley shivered and melted into it.

"We'll go to the bookshop."

"We'll be found."

"Ah," Aziraphale looked into the demon's eyes, "but we won't be hiding."

Crowley made a face.

"I am still the supreme archangel, Crowley," he said, falsely indignant.

"What?" Crowley reared back. "What are you doing?" He pushed away from the angel. "You can't be seen with me."

"Oh-Crowley, no, stop, it's okay," Aziraphale handled the demon carefully but held on.

"Go back to heaven. You have to." Crowley didn't know where this was coming from. He just knew that he'd put it all on the line once, and Aziraphale had rejected him, and now he had to be on Earth, and Aziraphale had to stay in heaven. They couldn't meet again.

"You don't understand. We can't be together," Crowley yelled, but realized he was crying.

"Crowley-"

"We can't. You said. You left to be an archangel for eternity, and you can't do what you do, and be seen with me, at the same time. So that was that. We are done for eternity."

The angel's eyes welled up with tears, his throat working, his gaze on Crowley so hopelessly pleading. "But you need help. And I want to go to the bookshop with you." His breath caught and a tear slipped free, trailed down his cheek. "Things have changed," he whispered.

Hearing Aziraphale's small plaintive voice had the demon shaking apart, his own tears breaking though.

The angel pushed his hand into Crowley's and steeled himself with a deep breath. "First-First order of business," Aziraphale struggled to get on track, "we need to get out of here. You need to heal. Then we'll talk." Aziraphale stared into Crowley's eyes, sincere to the core. "And no matter what we choose, it'll be alright, Crowley. I promise."

They both startled at footsteps suddenly clacking around them.

"It's done," someone said.

Aziraphale pulled his hand out of Crowley's.

A sharp snap of the supreme archangel's fingers, and they vanished.