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Crowley cracked his eyes open as he swam unwillingly back to consciousness and eyed the dark walls of the MDR cell.
He’d been tossed inside and chained down while he’d been unconscious, leaving him to cautiously test his limbs and assess the scope of the damage.
Not… awful. Not yet.
Not compared to what they’d do to him now.
Just hold out a little while, he coached himself. Give Coeriel time to run. Then… then let them think they’ve broken me.
It’s going to be alright. My angel’s alive. I’m going to get out of this.
I’m going to see him again.
He chanted the thoughts repeatedly as Daebial appeared, still raging and violent. As Perathriel arrived, nodding to Daebial’s demands and swearing to discover what the demon knew.
And then they were alone. The colonel and captive.
“If you missed me this much,” Crowley panted hoarsely from where he crouched on his knees, his arms wrapped around his stomach, his body bowed over the fresh pain of Daebial’s relentless kicking, "you could have just visited."
“You will tell me what you know of the rebel’s movements,” Perathriel said.
“What makes you think they tell me anything?” Crowley growled back.
“You will tell me who your contact among the rebels is.”
“You don’t want to know the answer to that.”
Perathriel stiffened.
Crowley watched him from his barely raised eyes. There was no surprise in Perathriel’s expression.
“You’re lying,” the angel rumbled.
Crowley braced himself. He didn’t like the look of the little jar the torturer was starting to unscrew. “Demon,” he replied. “Aren’t we all liars?”
“You’ve betrayed the mercy you’ve been shown.”
“Mercy.” Crowley turned his head and spat out a mouthful of ichor. “Beaten day after day just for the pleasure of it. And you call it mercy.” He glared back at the colonel. “He dragged me to all those meetings, you know. Just so he could show me off and let his cronies do what they liked. And you know the things he did to me when we were alone? You think I tempted him into raping me? Tearing me apart? Parading me to gloat over what a triumphant hero could do to a broken-”
“Stop!” Perathriel snapped, and Crowley flinched silently back to the ground, cursing his automatic obedience to the command.
“You will tell me what you know of the rebel’s movements. And you will tell me your contact.”
Crowley warily lifted his eyes and glared back. “Unlike you, I’d never betray her.”
Perathriel’s face was schooled as he unstopped the bottle. “Last chance. You won’t be capable of even screaming after this.”
The demon shook, the burning scent of holy oil flooding his senses. “Don’t… please…”
“Tell me.”
Crowley swallowed hard. Too soon. I can’t confess yet. “No.”
“Very well.” Perathriel twitched his fingers.
Crowley managed a last gasp of terror before his mouth sealed itself shut. He clawed at his clenched lips as Perathriel impassively tipped the bottle and made a second gesture with his hand.
A sudden blackness slammed into Crowley’s mind, and he crumpled into sleep.
But not before seeing that the bottle was empty.
*****
“…He’s healed since the last session. It’s necessary since we don’t want him destroyed completely before we learn what he knows.”
Crowley swam back to consciousness and crawled his way drunkenly to his knees as Daebial and his entourage arrived with Perathriel escorting them into the cell.
It was the first time Crowley had seen any angels besides Perathriel since his arrest, and his soul sank with the certainty that there’d be no escape from pain this time.
He had no idea how long he’d been captive. Periodically he’d awaken to Perathriel loudly demanding answers and going through that pantomime with the holy oil before knocking Crowley out again.
Considering he hadn’t unsealed Crowley’s mouth since their first session, he wasn’t exactly getting answers even if he’d wanted them.
Daebial’s appearance was… almost a relief that at least now Crowley would be able to spread the lies he’d been instructed to convey.
But it was sure to hurt.
And when they attacked his wings…
He held out as long as he could. Held out what seemed convincingly long. Then he babbled in terror, begging them not to hurt him anymore as he recited the lies the rebellion had needed him to spread.
He hated how easy it was to swear to reveal anything they wished in return for relief.
But when Daebial too asked him who his coconspirator was, he looked Perathriel straight in the eyes as he whispered. “Please… please, he was kind to me… Letting me out of my room and letting me work in the garden… Please don’t hurt him…”
And he smiled inwardly as Daebial took out his fury at this fresh betrayal on the demon’s already broken body.
*****
Crowley opened one eye as Perathriel entered the cell, not moving from the crumpled heap he’d been flung into, too beaten and wounded for the guards to even bother with chains.
The colonel and the captive stared at one another.
“Was it all lies?” Perathriel asked.
Crowley scoffed and buried his head under his arm. “Demon,” he mumbled.
“But loving him… Aziraphale. That was real.”
Crowley stayed silent.
“And… I know it was her. I’ve known her feelings for a long time. It had to have been her.”
Crowley still remained silent.
“You’ve been condemned to death. No spectacle this time. Daebial’s too distracted to do it personally. He’s just ordered me to make it take as long as I possibly can.”
Crowley still didn’t speak.
“He’s given that order for quite a lot of demons who’ve annoyed him over the years. Told me to dispose of them. The incurably resistant. The ones that annoy him somehow. He gives them over to me for their final destruction. And I make them disappear.”
Crowley cautiously raised his head.
Perathriel gazed steadily back at him. “I have thought long about our conversations.”
“What conversations? You rarely let me talk.”
The colonel shrugged. “You said enough to make me… contemplate the… choices which have been made in the name of restoring Heaven to perfection.”
“And?”
Perathriel didn’t answer right away, his gaze now focused on the wall. “Daebial saw to Hauriq’s arrest personally,” he remarked incongruously. “He was outraged at the apparent betrayal. An angel he has always believed to be steadfastly loyal. One whisper of deceit, and all trust is shattered.” His shoulders slumped. “Once I would say it was the influence of an evil and demonic presence which causes him to turn so quickly against his friends.”
“And now?”
Perathriel whirled and exited the cell. “You’re to be taken for execution at nightfall. There is no opportunity to bring a healer here before then. Do try to be capable of walking.”
Crowley stared long at the closed door, then tucked his arms beneath his head and willed himself back to sleep.
If these hints meant anything, he would need the rest.
*****
The ‘execution’ went wrong from the start.
Perathriel released him from the cell with a declaration that he was being taken to his end. Crowley limped out quietly, too hurt to fight even if he hadn’t been clinging to hope that this would lead to deliverance.
And it certainly seemed like that was the intent as Perathriel led him up away from the cells…
…only for an anxious guard to notice that Crowley wasn’t in chains and to insist upon accompanying them despite Perathriel’s insistence that this demon was too docile to cause trouble.
And then the guard became too vocal regarding why they were heading towards a side door that led well away from MDR rather than to the courtyard where executions were typically carried out, and Perathriel’s snarls to not question a superior hadn’t gone over well in an organization where accusing a superior of treason was an excellent way to get ahead.
Perathriel smothered the guard’s screams before he’d gotten out more than one shout, but it was enough to bring two others running. Crowley managed to snatch a weapon from the first, distracting them long enough for Perathriel to rid himself of one assailant and attack the others.
But after that, it was only speed and Perathriel’s willingness to inflict fatal blows on those who’d been on his side seconds before that got them out the door and free of the precautionary block on teleporting surrounding the facility long enough for Perathriel to seize Crowley and transport them far enough from the city for them both to collapse amidst the wildlands, shaken by the nearly failed escape and the angel ichor now staining Perathriel’s clothes.
Crowley tactfully refrained from sarcastic comments. Refrained because he’d had fifteen years of beatings to silence his voice. Refrained because Daebial’s golden collar was still clamped around his throat which Perathriel tried and failed to unlock. Refrained because he was wholly in the power of someone who might have set this up as an elaborate ruse to see what Crowley truly knew about the rebellion.
In that case, it was fortunate that Crowley knew very little and would say even less. He wouldn’t reveal that the information he’d already related was a sham, nor that Aziraphale still lived, nor the names of those he knew to be spies. He kept his own council and looked meekly to his captor and possible liberator to decide where their escape would next take them as if he was the docile and trained demon he’d been broken to be.
Perathriel, Crowley quickly saw, had no plan. If he had spirited away other demons as he hinted, it had merely been to get them into the wilderness and leave them to whatever fate they could manage. A better chance than executing them outright, but one which would have left them vulnerable to being killed as feral and escaped captives if they were sighted by Imperion or impressionable civilians.
That he would have left Crowley adrift in his injured state hardly endeared him to the demon.
But, they were in this together now. The still collared demon and the Imperion colonel who’d become a traitor for reasons of his own.
There was no choice but to put tentative trust in the other and set off towards the rumor of rebel attacks in hopes of finding aid.
*****
“Explain it to me,” Crowley said, somewhere on their third day of weary and uncertain trudging toward circles where Perathriel would soon be as powerless as the collared demon and was already struggling with miracles enough to take the edge off Crowley’s injuries and conceal them from Imperion patrols. “How did Daebial’s most loyal lapdog end up lost in the woods with his favorite sextoy?”
The Imperion colonel flinched, and Crowley expected no answer as he limped along in the angel’s wake. Minutes passed before Perathriel spoke almost too quietly to hear. “It was the scriptures.”
“What?”
Another long stretch of silence.
“It was easy to find the ones that justified what we chose to do,” Perathriel continued at last, his voice still low and unwilling. “So many stories about driving out wickedness. Annihilating the unrighteous. You must drive this scourge from among you. It says that repeatedly.”
Crowley had learned long ago not to answer when Perathriel was reciting passages. He swore he could feel his collar tightening even now and resisting tugging at it, movement never being permitted when Perathriel was in a lecturing mood.
“That night… after I took you to Astu… I needed to… I needed to know we were right. That She was on our side. I opened the book at random. I prayed She’d guide me to what I needed to know. And do you know what I read?” He stopped and whirled to look back at the demon.
Crowley froze, afraid to look away from the light of desperate fanaticism in the angel’s eyes and equally afraid to draw any attention to himself.
“I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.”
Crowley shuddered, looking away from the desperation now painted across the angel’s face.
He could have said that this was just cherry-picking of another variety. That he’d seen humans use holy books and cards and even dictionaries as auguries and had learned to trust few signs which didn’t include reading the whole of the message, not just the parts that were convenient.
He could have said any of that, but his heart with busy aching with his own longing.
I will rise and seek him who my soul loveth.
Tears pricked at his eyes, and he looked away, blinking furiously.
“It couldn’t have been possible!” Perathriel insisted. “Demons can’t love! Demons were cast from Her love. They couldn’t possibly feel… And for an angel to love a demon would be… like loving an animal. One-sided. The animal wouldn’t truly love back. It’s not capable… Only of taking advantage of another’s feelings. But…” He turned away. “…you weren’t the only one we captured who would have done anything to protect a love. Both angels and demons. There’s been…”
He started walking again, setting such a furious pace that Crowley fell far behind, following the sound of heavy footfall and harsh breathing.
Perathriel walked his emotions out eventually and waited for Crowley to catch up.
“Our prisons are filled with angels,” he announced while Crowley collapsed against a tree, barely able to stand amidst the pain of his throbbing wounds and aching limbs. “Angels who have been accused by their neighbors of acting against us. Blaspheming against Heaven. Against the righteousness of our rule.”
“So it’s blasphemy now to talk against Daebial,” Crowley observed. “Since when does he stand equal with Her? Or is he above Her now?”
Perathriel winced. “He… Not everyone likes the way he talks about himself.”
“But you let him. All of you. I’ve heard his councilors sing his praises to his face and call him delusional and power-hungry and idiotic behind his back. And yet you lot exalt him on high because of the power it gets you.” Crowley glared at him. “That’s why your prisons are full. Denouncing neighbors to gain favor. Not because anyone believes the accusations.”
Perathriel’s hand twitched as if he’d have liked to backhand Crowley. He slumped. “I know. I… I’ve known for a long time. But I told myself it was for the greater good. A few innocents suffering so that a new and greater Heaven could be born…”
“Like Aziraphale? Murdering an innocent on false charges. Charges you knew were false. Evidence you planted. How many others were like him? Sacrificed for your greater good?”
“Too many,” Perathriel whispered at last. “Too many for it to possibly be right in Her eyes… Hide not Thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble. Incline Thine ear unto me in the days when I call.”
Crowley scoffed. “You can find a verse for whatever you want. I didn’t see you being too worried about Thou shalt not murder when it was useful for stirring up Heaven against a fake rebellion which you made real!”
Perathriel couldn’t meet his eyes anymore. “It was blasphemy,” he murmured at last.
“What was?”
“Wondering if… if demons could be as innocent as the angels.”
Crowley swallowed down an angry retort. “We’re not all fallen angels, you know,” he said quietly after a pause. “There’s just as many who just had the misfortune of being born down there as there are angels who weren’t around to contemplate Falling.”
“I know,” Perathriel admitted. “I thought about that a lot. There was only ever one Fall. If She’d… She would have Fallen those demon sympathizers like Gabriel and Aziraphale centuries ago if She’d been… been against it. We said they deserved what we did for the audacity of loving the unlovable. But if demons could love… maybe those who hadn’t Fallen could have been redeemed. But no one tried to do that! They were just… slaves. Animals. Paying eternally for the sins of their forebearers. But it wasn’t about sin. It wasn’t about doing her work. It was just… just about us being right and powerful enough to subjugate another people. For any reason necessary. There’s even some talk about putting the rebel angels to the same labor and use as the demons! They say if they sympathize with the demons, they’re the same. That we have the right to…” He tore angrily at his uniform. “The atrocities we’ve allowed… that Daebial has justified… it’s the same as what we say your side should suffer for. How can we remain blind to the actions of our own hand while heaping condemnation upon those who are just as capable of… of love and friendship as we are?”
“There’s another passage in your book about that,” Crowley grunted. “About specks and boards.”
Perathriel looked up. “You’ve read it?”
“I lived it.”
“Did you meet…?”
Crowley smiled mirthlessly. “I’m still not convinced he was Her incarnate, but he was a good guy. Had some interesting ideas worth listening to and happy to debate. Knew how to party too.”
Perathriel stared.
Crowley nodded his head toward the wilderness. “Shouldn’t we keep going?”
*****
Perathriel was, Crowley decided, the religious sort he would have actively avoided on Earth.
The sort poised on the edge of an existential crisis that could wobble one of two ways.
Crowley didn’t want to be around for the fallout of either renewed mania or nihilism.
But he didn’t have much choice.
The angel prayed whenever they rested. Crowley fell asleep to Perathriel’s whispered chants for deliverance and guidance… and awoke to the colonel still on his knees, still whispering cries for Her to show him the true path.
Crowley, who’d long accepted that he’d never hear his Creator’s voice again, felt stirrings of pity for the angel who’d held a special place of hatred in his heart, and then perplexity, and now…
He didn’t precisely trust Perathriel. He certainly didn’t trust his fragile sanity. One hint from God that he was on the wrong path was sure to send him into fresh spirals of uncertainty.
But Perathriel’s appearance of being against the Imperion and not trying to extract information from Crowley… that, he was beginning to believe.
It seemed true that Perathriel had been liberating demons from the MDR to ease his conscience, even if Crowley had only Perathriel’s word for it. Still, the facts seemed believable.
He’d been a deeply imperfect ally, if he could even be called that. Demons had still been tortured under his observation and direction. Had still broken and suffered and died.
But some had been granted escape.
And somewhere in those years, Perathriel seemed to have reached a breaking point where the doubts screamed louder than past convictions.
Crowley’s injuries healed sluggishly, helped along by untrained and unfocused bursts of healing from Perathriel before they drew too far from Daebial’s seat of power. But the wilderness brought renewed dangers.
They were hunted by pursuing guards who kept them fleeing and hiding for weeks. And entering the conflict area brought more encounters with Imperion patrols, fleeing civilians, and deserters.
They fought when they had no other choice. Perathriel killed those wearing the same uniform as himself without hesitation. Crowley tried to fight, but his limitations left him vulnerable and frequently in need of rescue.
They were outnumbered and outclassed. So deep in the wildlands of the warzone that they had no idea where they were going or if relief lay ahead. Both wounded - Crowley with barely the strength left to crawl.
“We have to keep going,” Perathriel prodded the collapsed demon with a foot as he returned from scouting a mostly abandoned village. “The rebels are close. We’re nearly there.”
“Mmmhh,” Crowley responded in a groan, struggling to rise and collapsing back almost at once. He clawed deliriously at his collar, more certain that it was shrinking. Squeezing the life and energy out of him.
He’d carved a half dozen oozing furrows into his neck in his desperation to be rid of the weight he’d worn too long.
No freedom in sight. Not with Daebial’s sign clamped around his throat.
“Crowley!” Perathriel hissed, giving him another nudge. “We have to hurry! There’s Imperion in the woods. They’ll find us if we don’t move.”
Crowley struggled, managing his hands and knees.
I will rise and seek him who my soul loveth.
I will rise and seek…
Perathriel grabbed him around the middle and hauled him upright. “Come on!” He slung Crowley’s arm over his shoulder and dragged him onward, cursing the demon’s weight as he went.
“You could leave me,” Crowley mumbled. “Run on your own.”
“Don’t be an idiot! You won’t survive out here. I’m getting you to the rebels.”
“Why? Why do you care?”
“It’s… something I can do… To atone…”
Crowley scoffed. “That’ll take a lot more than this. You want to do something good? Something worthy of that righteous path you’re always praying to find? Undo the harm you lot have done! Give the rebellion something to bring down Daebial’s mad regime.”
Perathriel dropped as they heard movement nearby. They stayed silent and breathless for several minutes before the angel cautiously rose and resumed dragging his companion. “You want me to betray…”
“Yes! They’ve already betrayed that God of yours, and you know it. You can pick and choose your way through the scriptures all you want, but it won’t help you find what you’re looking for! Whether She’s still listening or not, whether my lot was on the wrong side back then or not, your side is the one doing all the raping and murdering and genocide now. And if you still think for a second that Daebial and his power-mad cronies are in the right or have the best intentions for Heaven at heart… you’re the idiot here.”
Another stretch of silence as Perathriel labored onward. “I could…” He took a deep breath. “I can tell them about the Pith. I know how to get to it. I can-”
Afterwards, Crowley swore the sword thrust came from nowhere.
Afterwards, Crowley had to admit that anyone would have jumped to the same conclusion.
A ragged Imperion colonel in full uniform dragging a bleeding and collared demon - it wasn’t a picture to inspire the belief that this was an enemy seeking redemption.
But as Aziraphale clasped Crowley to his chest and wept for joy, his sword dripping gold with angelic ichor, Crowley felt such a mingling of delight and despair, relief and regret, ecstasy and misery…
…that he felt he’d never be whole again.