It ties us together, but I've never been more afraid

Chapter 11: After the Graveyard

CW: Graphic descriptions of pain (in reference of being tortured)

Aziraphale was worried about Crowley. First he hasn't heard from the demon in years, then they meet up in a graveyard, help a girl rob graves, another girl gets shot by a graveyard and then-

Well Aziraphale was still confused about what happened after then. It was hard to wrap his head around it all, in all honesty.

He had been walking with Crowley after they went their separate ways from Elspeth. Crowley was very drunk on the Laudanum, which was honestly very funny to Aziraphale. He had seen Crowley drunk on alcohol before, but this was something else.

It was honestly quite silly, but at the same time Aziraphale was worried about Crowley. He had drank poison and it might hurt his cooperation.

"Laudanum, whoo-wee! Last time I do that!" Crowley shouted and Aziraphale laughed a bit. Crowley spun himself around, and seemed to have lost Aziraphale. Aziraphale wanted to laugh again at how silly it was. "Where are you?"

"I'm here. I'm here. That was very kind of you, Crowley. You saved that young woman." Aziraphale told him but Crowley made a face before pointing his finger in Aziraphale's face.

"Not kind! Off my head on laudanum. Not responsible for my actions." He half hissed and Aziraphale wanted to roll his eyes. He had known Crowley for thousands of years now, he knew when Crowley was being nice and when he was refusing to admit it.

Aziraphale liked to think that Crowley liked being nice, but just never wanted Hell to know that.

"Will you get into trouble? Well, they'll surely have noticed downstairs. You just did a Very Good Deed indeed." Aziraphale pointed out but Crowley didn't seem too stressed as he stumbled forward.

"Trust me, if hell noticed that little display, I'd already be" He gasped a bit and stopped where he was standing. "Ah I'd already-" and then he was gone.

At the same moment that he disappeared Aziraphale felt an odd sensation, like his body was being squeezed through a tube of sorts. He didn't think too much of it and kept walking through the graveyard.

His mind was still filled with worries, mostly about Crowley. Hell just dragged him back down, so who knew what they were going to do.

Turns out, Aziraphale didn't have to wait very long to find out.

Aziraphale's body suddenly felt like it was on fire, and at the same time it felt like knives were ripping through him. All the pain was distant, but it was still so intense he crumbled to his knees still in the graveyard. Aziraphale let out a loud scream, and he heard the night men in the distance.

It took several moments for Aziraphale to try and breathe and think enough so he could miracle himself away. By the time he did the night men were about to close in on him, but he barely made it away.

He miracled himself back to his shop. He landed in the front room of the shop, still on the ground, still in pain, but at least alone.

Aziraphale continued to scream as more pain ripped through his body. It was all over, it was intense, it felt like he was about to pass out from the pain.

Several times Aziraphale lifted his own hand in front of his face to make sure that he wasn't actually injured, to make sure that his cooperation wasn't dying, but there was nothing. He let his hand fall back down on the ground and tried to stop screaming.

At some point, he wasn't exactly sure when, he started crying. A puddle of tears collected on the bookshop floor beneath him as he stayed curled in the fetal position. Everything hurt so bad, and in that moment Aziraphale would rather discoperate and have to deal with the paperwork then deal with this pain a moment longer.

He might have passed out for a few moments, but he was in so much pain it was very hard to tell. Conscious or not, he was still suffering.

The pain fogged Aziraphale so much that he wasn't able to make the connection on what was happening. He knew the pain was his soulmates of course, but he wasn't fully able to make the connection on who his soulmate was, not in this moment.

Aziraphale didn't know how long the pain went on for, he didn't know how long he had been screaming, didn't know how long he had just been laying on the floor crying, but by the time the pain went from excruciating to more of a dull sharp pain it was light out.

He knew for sure he wasn't opening the bookshop today, and maybe not even for the next few weeks if the pain he felt had anything to do with it.

Aziraphale peeled himself off the floor and sat up. The motion felt like too much and the pain in body was letting him know that. He took several deep breaths to try and get through it, but they weren't really helping.

He was eventually able to work up enough strength to stand up and used the remaining strength to make it to his bed in the bedroom in the back. He rarely used his bed these days, but he would rather lay on that than the floor.

As soon as he laid down the pain started up again, worse than it was before. Aziraphale's vision went white for a brief moment and he thought that maybe the pain was too much, he thought he had discoperated and wound back up in Heaven. But this was not the case.

When his vision returned the room felt like it was spinning. He hurt so badly that the parts of him touching the bed felt like they were being stabbed over and over again. Different parts of his body were in different amounts of pain, and different sensations plagued him all over.

His hands felt like they were being squeezed so tightly they might break, his torso felt like it was being stabbed repeatedly, his legs felt like they were on fire, and his throat felt like he was being strangled. It hurt to exist and it wasn't even his fault.

When the pain subsided again Aziraphale tried to think of what his soulmate must be doing to cause this much pain. He knew deep down the answer, he knew what was happening, but a lot of him didn't want to admit it.

He tried to think of any other answer, any other reason why an angel would be in this much pain, but he knew there wasn't one. He knew his soulmate wasn't an angel, so by that logic he knew his soulmate was a demon.

And he only knew one demon who had just messed up enough to piss Hell off big time. His thoughts drifted for a moment before the pain resumed once more.

For the next week, or perhaps longer than that Aziraphale had lost track of time, the pain was on and off. Aziraphale's soulmate was getting tortured relentlessly and there was nothing he could do to save him.

Once or twice Aziraphale wondered if he would be able to miracle him here, just to save him from the torture Hell was putting him through, but he didn't know if his miracles were strong enough to do that. On top of that Heaven wouldn't be happy if he did, he wasn't supposed to save demons. In any case he barely had the strength to sit up, so he wouldn't be able to perform a miracle of that size even if he tried.

When the torture finally seemed to stop, when a few days had gone by and the pain lowered a bit, Aziraphale finally got out of bed. Every part of him ached and screamed for him to get back in bed, but he had been crying and screaming so much that his throat was hurting too. Maybe it was his soulmate's throat hurting too, but it was hard to tell what was his own pain versus his soulmate's pain.

Aziraphale made his way to the kitchen, intent on making a cup of tea. He had thought it over many times and decided the pain and ache from getting up and making a cup of tea was less than miracling a cup of tea. He put the kettle on, grabbed his mug and a bag of tea and set them all on the counter.

While the kettle was boiling he sat on the floor, he barely had the strength to stand. He tried catching his breath, but it wasn't working well. If his pain was this bad, how bad was his soulmates? How bad was Cro-

Aziraphale stopped his thought mid sentence, but he knew he couldn't deny it anymore.

"Oh Crowley." Aziraphale said aloud to no one, before bursting into tears.

Word count: 1500