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not-a-space-alien · 6 years

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Earth Helps Back, Part 1: A Dreadful Partnership

Hello friends! I am very pleased to share the results of my collaboration with @nemeankitten! I wrote the fic, the two pieces of art are by nemean as are some of the headcannons used! Hope you enjoy!

Title: Earth Helps Back

Summary: When Aziraphale and Crowley finally receive punishment for trying to save the Earth, they find unexpected help from new allies who decide it’s time for Earth to repay the favour.

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 30k

On AO3

WARNING: THIS FIC CONTAINS GORE AND TORTURE. READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED. this particular chapter also has a rape trigger warning

Somewhere on Earth under the gentle light of a full moon, a huge, celestial figure swaddled in white robes and six pairs of wings waited. Impatient is not exactly the right word to describe its stance, the shift of its feet, the way it peered at the treetops. It was more…expectant.

The Metatron did not often come down from Heaven, but he had made a habit of never refusing a summons.

There was a sound nearby like a horde of locusts all taking to the air at once, the throbbing hum of a million pairs of tiny wings beating out of synch. Beelzebub materialised directly from the shadows, stepping over the brush to face the Metatron in the middle of the clearing.

Beelzebub’s hand rested on the scabbard of his sword. The Metatron was armed with nothing more threatening than a rosary, but nonetheless the Voice of God looked unperturbed. “You asked for a meeting?”

Beelzebub buzzed disgustingly. Barely distinguishable in the half-light, his skin seemed to be moving faintly.

“We beg you to make this as fast as convenient,” the Metatron hummed. “So we do not have to look at your repulsive face for longer than is necessary.”

“Fine,” Beelzebub snapped. “If your conztitution izz really zo delicate. I have a great need to dizcuzz what happened at the rebellion of my mazter’z zon, the boy Adam Young.”

The Metatron moved a hand to his veiled face, smiling politely. “That’s not my jurisdiction, I’m afraid,” he said softly. “Adam Young belongs to Hell. We have no authority over him, beyond what is written in God’s plan about his role to play in Armag—”

“Yezz, I know,” Beelzebub said, and flinched to dislodge a fly crawling over his eye. “It izz not about him; it izz about the two who aided him.”

The Metatron’s eyes narrowed. “Ah, yes. Those two.”

“The one from our zide is a demon of temptation named Crowley,” offered Beelzebub.

“We know who they both are,” said the Metatron, face locked in a perpetual ghost of a smile.

Beelzebub sneered, revealing a cockroach that had been perching on his teeth. “If you know zzo much, then you muzt know why I azked you here?”

“Mmm, afraid not,” said the Metatron mildly. “So if you could…?”

Beelzebub huffed in an annoyed way and plopped down on a log. He took out his sword and started to wipe it down, despite the fact that it was not dirty. In truth, he just wanted to avoid looking into the Metatron’s eyes. “Heaven and Hell are not azz different azz everyone likez to think, you know.”

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” said the Metatron, voice flat. “Heaven and Hell are as different as night and day. One is pure, holy, and—”

“All right, all right,” said Beelzebub. “Zpare me the grandiozze monologue. I don’t care. My point izz, both of uz need order and obedienzze from our zubordinatezz to function. And if we don’t have it, order will collapze.” Beelzebub stopped polishing his sword and looked up at the Metatron. “Or am I wrong about that too?”

The Metatron hesitated. He did not want to agree with Beelzebub about anything, but he also did not want to lie.

“What happened at Armageddon waz the rezult of dizobedienze,” said Beelzebub. “Crowley and hiz angelic partner in crime threaten to turn the natural order on itz head.”

“I’d say Adam Young already did a pretty thorough job at that,” said the Metatron.

“They openly questioned uzz to our facezz, and with an audienzze!” Beelzebub said. “No demon in zix-thouzand yearz haz ever had the audazity to do that to me. Haz any angel?”

The Metatron was silent.

“We muzt ztamp thiz out az bezt az we can. Get it under control before it goezz any further,” said Beelzebub. “It will give otherz ideaz. Neither Heaven nor Hell will profit from the collapzze of zupernatural order. It’z true that Adam Young is the real culprit. But we can’t touch him. Leave him to our dark lord Zzz…Satan.”

“Your dark lord,” said the Metatron wryly.

“We can’t touch Adam Young, but we can touch thoze two. If we deal with them appropriately, it zhould give the otherz an idea about the conzequenzez of rebellion. Get them properly zcared again.”

The Metatron crossed his arms. “And you’ve called us here to discuss it because…why? You want this to be a joint effort?”

“You muzt punizh the angel while I handle Crowley,” said Beelzebub. “We can’t juzzt do one. They feed off each other. They help each other.”

“They do seem….inordinately fond of each other,” said Metatron. “We had noticed that.”

“There hazz been conzern it will make otherz in our rankz queztion the rulez,” said Beelzebub. “And queztion their zzuperiorz. On both zidez. It would be mutually beneficial to ztamp it out together. And…” Beelzebub sheathed his sword and stood. “I’m zzure you wouldn’t be averse to doling out a little perzonal attention to Aziraphale after what he did. You muzt have been punizhed for failing to ztart Armageddon as inzztructed, correct?”

The Metatron’s eyes widened, and his face contorted into anger. “How do you know about that?”

“Becauzze,” said Beelzebub, oozing forwards. “I wazz alzo.”

The Metatron managed to return his face back to a blank mask. “Maybe demons are motivated by things like the desire for petty revenge, but angels have no such inclination.”

Beelzebub smiled wickedly. “Mmm-hmm. I am zzure.” He took another step closer. “But if you were to, zzay, punizh your zzubordinate, and if you were to, zzay, do it a little harder than ztrictly nezezzary, would anyone zay anything? Would anyone care?”

Metatron stared at him.

“Doez anyone really care what happenz to Aziraphale and Crowley?” said Beelzebub.

The Metatron thought very, very hard. He had been uncomfortable with the state of affairs since having his understanding of the Ineffable Plan questioned at Armageddon, and he suddenly realised a very satisfying and clean way to stamp out the seed of rebellion he had sensed growing in Aziraphale. “No…” he chimed. “I suppose not.”

“I want to talk to Beelzebub.”

For what felt like the thousandth time that day, Crowley tugged at the manacles on his wrists, but he only succeeded in once again pulling the sharp metal to dig into his wrists. He had been blindfolded since coming in and had no idea the circumstances of his confinement, but the other demons who had been assigned to torture him were doing a bang-up job of making him loathe every single thing he could hear.

He was laid out on something cold and made of stone, and his arms were bent back and locked in a painful position, and that was basically all he knew.

“He wants to talk to Beelzebub,” said a snide voice. This prompted titters of laughter from elsewhere in the room. Judging by the sounds alone, there had to be at least four other demons in the room with him. The attention being paid to him made him more nervous than the eventuality of torture, in a way.

He wished he could at least see them. He didn’t recognise their voices, but knowing their identities might have given him an edge in trying to talk his way out of this. But no, they had gone straight for the damn blindfold.

Crowley shifted, wishing they had at least let him keep his clothes on. “B-Beelzebub summoned me. He said he needed to talk to me about something. I don’t think he’d be happy to f-find out you kept me from—”

He broke off as a hand seized him by the hair, dragging him forward until his arms hyperextended, chains taut. He felt a warm hand on his stomach.

“If you think Beelzebub doesn’t know exactly where you are and what’s happening to you,” said the same voice, “then you’re even more foolish than you look.”

The hands released him, and he fell back onto whatever hard surface was underneath of him. He tried to control his breathing, but he was starting to spiral into panic. “He said he wanted to talk to me—”

“Obviously you are not familiar with the way Lord Beelzebub communicates,” said a second voice, which prompted another round of snickers from everyone in the room.

Crowley shifted again, struggling to find a position that minimised his discomfort.

He felt something sharp prickling at his lower back. “S-stop that.”

“Lay him flat,” said a third voice. “I have an idea.”

Ideas from Hell were never any good, in Crowley’s opinion, unless they were from Crowley himself. However, Crowley doubted the idea happened to be Unchain him and let him go immediately, which was the idea he currently thought was the only good one.

The chains shifted slightly, and a pair unseen hands forced him onto his back, pressed against the cool stone.

“Spread his legs.”

Crowley groaned as clawed hands dug into his thighs, pulling them apart. “W-wait,” he said, trying to kick out, but without much success.

He heard the sound of metal on stone, a fire igniting, and something sizzling.

“Oh fuck,” said Crowley, voice jumping up an octave. “Wait wait wait wait—”

“I don’t think he likes the sound of that,” said one of the voices, and there were more laughs.

“There’s been a mistake somewhere, I know there has,” said Crowley as quickly as he could make his mouth form words. “If I could just talk to Beelzebub I’m sure he’ll clear everything up. If you could just—there’s been a—He said he needed to talk to me urgently.”

“You’ll speak to Beelzebub in due time,” said another voice. “But he’s a busy man.”

“We’ll take good care of you in the meantime,” said another voice, and a pair of hands pressed down on his shoulders, stifling his wriggling.

He heard the sound of hot metal again, and then a pair of footsteps coming closer to him.

“Fuck,” wept Crowley, “wait, please—”

As soon as he felt the scorching pressure between his legs, Crowley flailed and screamed and tried to break free, but the claws holding him down sunk in deeper.

All intelligent thought was scrambled in his brain, blotted out by the white-hot pain racking through him. The metal pushed in deeper, slowly, like a vicious simulacrum of a gentle lover.

Crowley thrashed to the very limit of his physical capability. “Please! Stop!”

“Aww, stop?” said a voice. “But we’re just getting started. We have so many fun things planned for you.”

Crowley had excused himself partway through the evening, saying he had an urgent message from his higher-ups that he should probably see to, though somebody knows how much he’d rather stay here drinking, but you can only ignore them for so long, you know—

Aziraphale bade him good night, then went upstairs to find his own urgent summons from Heaven on his desk almost simultaneously. The parchment sent an ominous feeling through his stomach, but he ignored it, because lying to himself about his feelings was one of the things Aziraphale did best.

Sure that everything was going to be fine, he went up to Heaven as commanded. He found the Metatron waiting for him exactly where indicated.

The Metatron smiled at him as he came into sight. “Aziraphale,” he said softly. “Good to see you. Thank you for coming up so quickly.”

“Of course,” said Aziraphale. He really did feel a rising sense of unease like a tidal wave beating over him, telling him he ought to run, but once again he forced it down.

“Please follow us,” said the Metatron. “There’s something very important we need to talk about.”

“All right,” said Aziraphale.

The Metatron led him through Heaven, beating his wings gracefully, moving almost completely silently. Aziraphale desperately wanted to ask for details of what this encounter was about, but he was thinking back now to the last time he had spoken to the Metatron and thought he probably shouldn’t do anything else to get on his bad side.

The Metatron didn’t seem particularly upset with him. But then again, it was rare for the Metatron to seem particularly feeling any way about anything.

Aziraphale soon found himself escorted into a plain white room with a plush couch. The door disappeared behind him as he entered.

The Metatron extended one hand and motioned to the couch. “Please lie down, Aziraphale.”

“O-okay,” said Aziraphale, trying to keep the nervousness out of his voice.

He lay back on the couch. Immediately, the Metatron’s aura surged outwards, and Aziraphale’s entire corporation went slack, his head lolling. To his supreme alarm, he could not re-engage any of the connections to his body.

He lay there completely paralyzed, feeling the Metatron’s aura rolling over him, prodding and examining him like a pinned insect.

Aziraphale’s body continued breathing on its own. His eyes were the only thing he could move, and they flew around the room wildly, but all he could see was the ceiling, bright and harsh. He tried again to take control of his limbs, but he slid right off where he had been previously been able to connect to them, as though he were clawing at a newly closed door with no knob.

Slowly, the Metatron’s half-obscured face moved into his field of vision, smiling that polite smile. “Tell me something, Aziraphale,” he said, and fresh horror washed over Aziraphale as he felt the Metatron’s aura constricting his like a snake. “What exactly compelled you to talk back and humiliate me in front of Beelzebub? In front of the Antichrist? In front of Heaven’s legions?”

Aziraphale, of course, could not answer. The Metatron’s lip twitched in what might have approached a laugh, if the Metatron had had any sense of humour. “I’m sorry. I was just curious. But I suppose curiosity doesn’t have much use in the grand scheme of things, does it?”

Aziraphale felt the Metatron’s icy aural fingers prying into his corporation. He retreated deeper inside himself, withdrawing his angelic essence from his body’s extremities, balling up in his core, shrinking away from the invasion.

He felt the Metatron’s presence in his body, pressing against him, and he tried to pull away, to regain some sense of autonomy. But the Metatron tapped at his metaphysical form with one tendril of glowing aura, and there was nowhere to retreat.

Tell me, Aziraphale, said the Metatron. Or rather thought at him, because now Aziraphale was disconnected from his body’s senses and he couldn’t see nor hear the Metatron’s physical form, only the part of it that was intruding on him. Did you forget that there are consequences for your actions? Have you forgotten exactly what kind of power I have over you? Do you think you can do whatever you please without suffering for it?

Aziraphale bounced back and forth between the edges of the corporation, but Metatron was blocking the way out of it. And Aziraphale felt sharp, cold hands stick in his mind, grabbing him.

Out of all the possible thoughts that could have drifted to the surface of his mind, Aziraphale was a bit surprised at the one that materialised. It was, Crowley would never do anything this horrible to me.

The Metatron, appendages wrapped around Aziraphale like a spider, seized the thought and tore it out from him.

The action sent a chill of white-hot pain through Aziraphale, and he pulsed and tried to cry out, but the only outlet to express his agony was his communication link with the Metatron, who of course already knew.

Go on, said the Metatron. What were you saying?

Where Aziraphale’s last thought should have been, there now seemed to be a gaping hole. He could feel the Metatron absorbing the bit of glowing aura he had just torn off Aziraphale, the thought sinking down, lost forever.

What…what are you going to do to me? Aziraphale asked.

He braced himself, cowering, stuck in place, as he felt the Metatron rifling through his conscious mind, like ungentle hands dumping out the contents of a desk. Oh, I’m simply going to remove everything I find that’s inappropriate for an angel in your position.

Wh…what?

I hardly think anyone would deny it’s best for the Heavenly Kingdom, said Metatron. And if it just so happens to cause you a bit more suffering than strictly necessary, well…that’s what it means to be a servant of Heaven, yes? Suffering cleanses the soul.

What are you talking about?

Aziraphale tried to pull away again as the Metatron went deeper, pinning him to the wall and forcefully tearing out the memory of drinking with Crowley just before coming up to Heaven.

You’re a piece in a well-oiled machine, Aziraphale, said the Metatron, with another yank at Aziraphale’s essence. You’d do well to remember that. Anything that is not useful will be…burned away.

Aziraphale whimpered as he felt the Metatron tearing out huge swathes of his memories, his personality, his will.

Please no, said Aziraphale. Please…

He yelped as he felt a particularly precious memory yanked away, the time he and Crowley got drunk in the back room and Crowley convinced Aziraphale to try and stop Armageddon through reminders of sushi and snuffboxes.

I don’t want to forget him, said Aziraphale, absolutely panic-stricken, feeling everything about who he was slipping away like sand through a sieve. I don’t want to forget about loving the Earth. Please. Mercy.

Oh, you’ll remember, said the Metatron, and no one in history had ever heard his voice drip with such dark, sadistic delight. You’ll remember that you used to be close with him, and you’ll remember how much you used to enjoy Earth, but you won’t remember why. And you’ll remember just enough to feel sad about it.

The next few weeks passed as a blur for Aziraphale. He had no conception of the time passing or where he was, in a fog until he looked around and hazily noticed that he was standing at the gates of Heaven, with no memory of how he had gotten there.

A pair of crossed arms draped in ropes blocked his gaze. His eyes drifted upwards until he saw the Metatron’s face, looking at him expectantly, as though waiting for an answer.

Aziraphale let his eyes wander all around. He was trying very hard not to cry. He was trying very hard to remember one single coherent thing about himself. There was a ragged hole where he thought his personality was supposed to be, as though he were an electronic device that had been factory-reset.

“Well?” the Metatron finally prompted after a few moments.

Aziraphale let his gaze drift back up to the Metatron, feeling completely lost, adrift at sea in a rowboat without a paddle.

The Metatron bent down to force Aziraphale to look into his eyes. “Have we made our point effectively, Aziraphale?” he said gently.

Aziraphale returned the stare blankly. His eyes started to rove again. The Metatron snapped his fingers in front of his face and said, “No, look over here.”

Aziraphale did so.

“We will repeat ourselves,” said the Metatron. “You will contact the demon Crowley one more time, to tell him that you will not talk to him anymore, and after that, he will be a target to kill on sight. Additionally, you are not to eat anything besides daily bread or drink anything other than communion wine. And you’ll be summoned here for another visit if your devotion to your angelic duties does not show marked improvement. You are to purge all Earthly attachments. Do you understand?”

“B-but…” said Aziraphale, the protest dying halfway between his brain and his mouth. He couldn’t remember what he would miss by following those orders.

Metatron let his face slip into a scowl. “Earth is not for your enjoyment, Aziraphale. You are not there to enjoy it. Demons are not there for you to befriend. Humans are not there to be friends with you, either. You are a servant. That’s all you are. That’s all you’ll ever be. Now. Do you understand?”

Aziraphale nodded, eyes safely on the ground.

“Good. Now return to your post.”

Aziraphale spread his wings and drifted back down towards Earth. The action caused none of the feelings of homecoming that it usually did, but Aziraphale couldn’t place what was off. He just felt a certain hollowness in his chest.

Crowley lost track of any sense of time. All demons know how to handle torture as a general rule, since it comes with the job, but this was unlike anything that had been done to him before. He was sure they must not have been aware of the full effect of what they were doing, because surely not even Hell would inflict this kind of agony on anyone knowingly, in so many different ways, and for such a length of time.

Crowley had been tortured before, but he had never, ever sincerely wished that he could die, never in his life before this.

The thing about being immortal is that you cannot die even if you want to. And certain causes of death, when brought about without the actual death at the end as a release, will simply drag on and on in a stasis, unable to be resolved, teetering on an unnatural boundary just before death, but unable to cross over.

For example, a being who can technically survive without breathing, but for whom holding their breath eventually does become painful all the same due to the sheer physiological needs of their vessel, could be held suspended at the threshold of drowning for a theoretically infinite duration.

Or for however many weeks, months, or years one’s captors deemed appropriate.

Beelzebub strolled down Hell’s dark stone hallways, feeling an immense sense of satisfaction in his work and the work of his underlings. The sound of water lapping against a cave wall grew louder and louder as he moved.

His boots clacked against the stone as he reached his destination. A pit filled with water lay in front of him, and a simple line of rope drew up from it to a hook in the ceiling, which connected to a winch right by his foot.

Beelzebub just stood there for a moment, basking in the dingy environment and listening to the cold water dripping and slapping against the stone.

Finally, he turned the hand crank on the winch, and the rope started to draw up slowly. Eventually, the end of the rope appeared, tied to a pair of bruised wrists.

Beelzebub let his victim rest like that for a few moments, with just his arms above the water, air so close and yet so infuriatingly impossible to reach. The hands started making a grabbing motion, and the rope shuddered with tension as the weight it held moved around.

Beelzebub relented and turned the winch the rest of the way. Crowley’s head appeared above water, dark hair plastered down his face, and he immediately retched violently, body shaking with the effort of clearing his lungs, vomiting water and then desperately sucking in huge gulps of air.

Beelzebub squatted down so that he could lock eyes with Crowley, who was still chest-deep in water. Crowley’s golden eyes, filled with fear, flickered up to his superior’s face.

“Have you learned your lezzon?” said Beelzebub. He smiled, and a fly crawled over his lips.

Shivering and heaving, Crowley looked down at Beelzebub’s feet.

Beelzebub frowned. “Crowley. Anzwer me.”

“Yes,” Crowley said quietly.

Beelzebub’s frown deepened. He put his hand on the winch and started to lower it back down.

Crowley immediately came to life, thrashing and screaming. “Yes! Yes! Fuck! Yes!”

Satisfied, Beelzebub turned the winch all the way up so that Crowley’s body came up all the way out of the water. The weight that had been tied to his legs to hold him down came up next, and Beelzebub grabbed it and dragged him over onto solid ground, untying him.

Crowley shuddered, trying to stand on his own and failing miserably. Beelzebub grabbed his arm tightly, layering another bruise on top of his already impressive collection. The bigger demon hauled him up, then leaned right into his face.

“Do not queztion me again. Do not dizobey Hell. Do not even think about humiliating me like that ever again.”

“Yesss,” panted Crowley, head resting on the wall, feeling utterly drained like he had never had before. “Yesss. Pleassse. Anything.”

Beelzebub held out a small scroll. “Here are your inztructionz. Now get out of my zzight before I change my mind.”

Crowley took the scroll and staggered out as fast as he could.

1. The only contact you will have with the angel Aziraphale will be aggressive in nature. You are to kill him if the opportunity presents itself.

2. You are not allowed to sleep.

3. You are not allowed to eat or drink anything other than water.

4. You are not allowed to engage in sexual activity with others or to masturbate, and you are not allowed to manifest genitals, except when it is necessary for a mission given to you by a direct superior.

5. All activities you carry out while on Earth will be directly for the advancement of the Kingdom of Darkness. You must provide accountability and justification for all activities. You will be monitored periodically to ensure your reports are accurate. Your use of miracles is being monitored and you will be required to provide a written justification for each use and how it contributes to your current project for the glory of our Dark Master, Lord Satan.

Failure to follow these guidelines will result in another visit to Hell to answer for your motivations.

Those were the contents of the scroll. It seemed like an awful lot of words to say If you try to do anything for enjoyment, I’ll beat the shite out of you.

Crowley’s immediate instinct was to grab a bottle of wine and get smashed as fast as inhumanly possible. The irony was not lost on him.

He managed to claw his way back up to Earth at three in the morning, smelling of brimstone and blood and looking like literal and metaphorical Hell. The only humans he saw were a couple who rushed to cross to the other side of the street when he limped into view.

He wanted to go back to his flat, but he was afraid whoever was monitoring him would take issue with him having even that modicum of comfort.

So he just stood there on the dark street, wishing that it was raining so he could tell himself these weren’t tears on his face. He slipped his mobile out of his pocket and dialed Aziraphale’s number.

“Hello?” answered a voice, sounding faint and vague in an unfamiliar way.

“Angel,” said Crowley softly. He was shocked by how hoarse his own voice came out and realised dully it must have been from all the screaming.

“Oh, hello,” said Aziraphale foggily. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Been in Hell.”

“They only let you out just now?”

“Yeah.” The tears dripped from his chin. “Aziraphale, I think it’d be best if…i-if we didn’t see each other again.”

There was a very long pause on the other end. Then: “I think so too.”

“So,” said Crowley. “That’s it, then?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Crowley sniffled and was about to hang up, then put the phone back to his face. “For what it’s worth…”

“Yes?”

“I liked it. Our arrangement. It was good.”

“Likewise,” Aziraphale choked out. He just barely managed to resist adding my dear on the end in case the Metatron was listening, as though his voice wasn’t thick with sadness, as though it wasn’t damn obvious to anyone listening what his feelings were.

“I…had fun,” said Crowley. “I mean, I thought it was nice. Being friends.”

“You think we were friends?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“You think people like us can do that? Have friends? Real friends?”

Crowley looked up at the sky. He didn’t think he had any tears left. He had put on a blank, emotionless mask. “No…I suppose not.”

He pulled the phone down, when he remembered the wording of his instructions. Aggressive in nature.

He put it back to his face and said, “I’ll kill you if—”

The phone was already on a dial tone. He was glad Aziraphale hadn’t heard that part. And he hung up, tossed the phone onto the sidewalk, and walked off into the night.

#good omens #my writing #not my art #nemeankitten #my good omens fanfic

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