Chapter Text
Drip.
Another drop of blood strikes the floor, stark against the blinding expanse of white. The sound echoes faintly before the silence swallows it again, as if Heaven itself refuses to acknowledge such sacrilege.
Drip.
The intervals blur together. Time has been reduced to the rhythm of his own blood betraying him. Crowley had stopped counting long ago. Numbers mean nothing here. All that matters is the slow, deliberate erosion of himself, drop by drop, against the purity Heaven so zealously clings to—staining what was once pristine white a dark crimson.
Once, he would have simply scoffed at such a ridiculous and melodramatic thought. But now it’s difficult to remember that the irony of it might have even made him laugh: a bitter, hollow laugh, earned from millennia of watching Heaven claim moral superiority. Underneath the righteousness and the endless proclamations of divine order, Heaven is not so different from Hell. They were two sides of the same coin, weren’t they? Though one side was wrapped in more whites and beiges and had far better branding.
There is no laughter now.
The latest proof of Heaven’s hypocrisy hangs in chains in its deepest reaches, kept in a place where angels, too, rarely tread. Even by celestial standards, it inspires instant uneasiness. The room—if it can be called that—is disorienting in every possible sense. There are no walls, no ceilings, no corners… just an infinite void of blinding white, stretching far past the limits of perception.
It isn’t the kind of vastness that inspires wonder. No, this is the kind that devours. It stretches endlessly in all directions yet somehow feels as though it is closing in, suffocating him beneath its emptiness.
The silence is oppressive, broken only by the occasional rattle of chains or the faint, hateful sound of blood meeting the floor. The dark stains look almost obscene against it, as though the floor itself were offended by them. The sound is one he has come to despise. There is no reprieve here, no distractions… only the pain, the endless white, and the slow passage of time—and himself, whether he wants the company or not.
But of course, the freedom to lose oneself in that emptiness would require the ability to move. Crowley has none. His body is chained, bent to Heaven’s will the moment they dragged him here.
“To comply with the issued decree for the demon Crowley to be brought to where Heaven is able to monitor his actions,” they had said when he had hissed at them. “To avoid any diversion to the Supreme Archangel,” they had said as they bound him with carefully prepared cuffs: one around each ankle, two more for the wrists, and the last one—the one he despises most—fastened around his neck. Each of them was attached to thick iron chains.
His struggles had been pointless. He was outnumbered and no match for them in raw strength. As soon as the first cuff snapped shut, Crowley had felt his infernal power drain away. It slipped through his grasp like sand between his fingers. Startled, he had glanced down. Small intricate symbols had been engraved along the metal, circling the restraint like a delicate halo. At their centre sat a name sigil. It was unmistakable: the Voice of God.
That single moment of distraction had been enough. The remaining cuffs were secured before he could properly resist. He had struggled anyway, at first, out of instinct rather than hope. His defiance earned him nothing but more restriction and rougher hands.
The angels who had dragged him here hadn’t spoken again. They moved with eerie precision, their steps synchronized, their expressions carved from perfect indifference. Crowley had growled at them, snapped defiantly in his usual sarcastic tone. His words only bounced uselessly off the walls.
When they left, they did so with the same unsettling precision, vanishing into the white expanse without a sound. No doors opened, no footsteps echoed away. The brightness simply took them. Crowley never saw where they came from or where they went. The absence of any visible exit was clearly intentional, another clever design meant to disorient its prisoner.
Alone now, as he was after the first time the angels had left, Crowley has nothing to occupy his thoughts but his pain. He had fought too much this last time. The restraints had been tightened in response, the collar forcing his head upward until his throat remained permanently exposed as though presenting him for judgement.
Any movement pulls at the chain, sending a sharp pressure against his windpipe. He had learned quickly to stay as still as possible. It doesn’t help, not really, since the ache never truly fades. His back throbs from the unnatural positions they’ve forced him into. Each shallow breath sends a burning protest through his ribs. The fabric of his tattered clothes scrapes against the wounds now carved across his back.
It would be easier, wouldn’t it? If they were right. If all of this, the pain, the restraint, the humiliation, was simply… fitting. Crowley shifts against the chains, irritation flaring—at them, at himself.
Beneath all of it, however, lies an ache that is deeper still. The one that had brought him here in the first place. He can almost see Aziraphale standing in the lift, hands folded too tightly, eyes not quite meeting his. There was something worse than anger there. Resolve.
Crowley exhales slowly, like that might dislodge it. It doesn’t.
Afterwards, he had left the bookshop in anger, in grief, in despair. His confession had been turned down, and he hadn’t been able to contain the storm of emotions that followed. A moment of carelessness, of letting his guard down, was all it took for them to seize him. He doesn’t know how long it’s been since then. It would change nothing if he did.
Now Crowley is here, paying the price. Another drop of blood splatters onto the floor. He can’t tell if it comes from his wrists, his back, or the corner of his mouth where he had bit through his lip during their last session. It hardly matters.
What matters is that, in Heaven’s eyes, it is not enough that the post of the Supreme Archangel isn’t vacant anymore. It is not enough that the angel Crowley once called his best friend—his only friend—has abandoned him, has chosen the side of light—the side of good—over probably the one being in existence who had been there for the angel whenever needed.
Crowley had offered everything. He had laid himself bare; and in return, he had received rejection. Even that is not enough. Heaven demands everything, and it always believes it deserves it.
Drip.
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