I haven't slept in so long
When I do, I dream
Of drowning in the ocean
Longing for the shore
Where I can lay my head down
Inside these arms of yours

All because of you
I believe in angels
Not the kind with wings
No, not the kind with halos
The kind that bring you home
When home becomes a strange place
I'll follow your voice
All you have to do
Is shout it out...

-"The Good Left Undone", Rise Against

It was incredible, really, how someone could adamantly protest that they were an ethereal being, Crowley, and as such do not require sleep, and in the very next instant, continue their uncanny, though unintentional, impression of a cranky toddler who has skipped several naps after refusing to sleep the night before.

Aziraphale was not a morning person.

"I simply do not understand what you hope to accomplish by marching down to the docks at the crack of dawn, looking for this Mr Faire!" he grumbled, tugging at the sides of his jacket and brushing non-existent dust off of the front. It was the same complaint he had issued no less than three times in the past half hour, and while Crowley had studiously ignored the first few exclamations, his already frayed patience was about to tear apart completely.

"Careful with that suit, angel, you might rip a seam," the demon snarked – it was his fourth barbed reference of the morning, and all of them so far had gone over Aziraphale's head. No matter. The day was young. He had time.

Like Crowley, Aziraphale was a professional at ignoring his associate's inane rambling, and paid him exactly no heed as he continued his irritated diatribe. "And just how are we supposed to find him? There will be thousands of people in the shipyard! Are we going to wander around that filthy place all day, hoping that the next person we randomly ask will happen to be him? You need a plan, Crowley!"

"We will figure it out," he snapped back, inching ever closer to the proverbial precipice where the last bit of his tolerance teetered, waiting to fling itself into the abyss at the very next comment that could be taken the wrong way. It seemed excited at the prospect. "Look Aziraphale, there have been three children killed in the span of a week. They were all burned, they all worked at the same place, and they all have connections to Louis Faire. He was the one who told Richard Cartwright to bring his son to the mill, and the child ends up burned to death not even seven days after two other boys, boys who lived with Louis Faire, turned up as charred corpses on the doorstep of your bookstore. That doesn't seem even a little suspicious to you? "

"You do not know for certain that those poor boys were the Dawson boys! You're making assumptions based on the testimony of a grieving drunk who was barely coherent at the time! You can hardly depend on his memory to be accurate or reliable, and –"

"Oh, his memory was accurate all right, sure as Hell remembered you –"

"I beg your pardon, but just what is that supposed to mean?"

"Not very angelic of you, is it, frequenting brothels, a brothel in the Shades, of all bloody places –"

"How in the world do you know about that?"

"Well you're not exactly subtle, are you? Prancing about, 'Ooh, Mrs. Palm, I need measured for a new suit, shall I take my pants off right here in the front, or maybe a few of your finest girls could escort me to a room' –"

"I – what – that is not what happened!" If Crowley's patience had swan-dived off the cliff's edge, then Aziraphale's was right on its heels, making a rude hand gesture at it as it passed, and speeding towards oblivion with reckless abandon. It did not seem excited. It seemed feral. "If you must know, I was originally sent there on assignment! One of the, the, the seamstresses was having a terrible labour, and it was unlikely that she and the baby would both survive without divine intervention! The baby was supposed to be important to the Divine Plan, you know, but I'd never been in one of those places before, and I panicked and just blurted out the first thing that came into my head!" His face was flushed from a mixture of embarrassment and exertion and he stopped walking, turning to fully face Crowley as he ranted on, arms gesticulating and voice passionate in a way it only became when he was truly upset. "I wasn't going to go back after that, after all, how would it look if, if Gabriel decided to pop in at exactly the wrong moment, but they needed me, Crowley! No respectable doctor goes anywhere near places like that, at least not to offer medical intervention, and – I won't apologise for saving people who would have otherwise died!"

There was silence as his words echoed and faded into nothingness. Crowley rather wished he could follow suit - his face felt like it was on fire, and had he been required to breathe as a rule and not an afterthought, he would have found himself quite incapable of it. Shame, guilt, elation at the revelation that Aziraphale had not, in fact, been frequenting a whorehouse for its intended purpose - it all crashed through him like the breaking of a dam, followed swiftly by an intense embarrassment at allowing himself to jump to that particular conclusion in the first place.

He wanted desperately to apologise. He could even form the sentence in his head, but it perished before it could reach his throat, a single phrase from Aziraphale's heated denunciation holding the murder weapon – how would it look if Gabriel decided to pop in at exactly the wrong moment? Yes, how would it look if the archangel, or Beelzebub, or any one of thousands of their own kinds happened upon the pair even now as they stood face-to-face, barely a foot apart, close enough for Crowley to feel the warmth emanating from the corporation of his Enemy, his associate, blast it, his friend and suddenly his face was on fire for a different reason, the inferno raging in his chest spreading to his cheeks, his toes, his fingers, and –

"Angel," he murmured lowly, longing to reach out and bridge the gap between the two of them, to draw Aziraphale towards him in an embrace, or to throttle him, or perhaps both, to do something other than just stand there, staring at him like he was the only thing in the world – but wasn't he? And damn it all if the principality wasn't mirroring his exact expression, blue eyes blazing with an intensity matching the firestorm threatening to turn his entire body into a pyre, and for a glorious, single second, Crowley contemplating throwing caution, and decorum, and every other fearful thing to the wind and just surrendering to it, but -

But how would it look if Gabriel decided to pop in, at exactly the wrong moment?

And so Crowley stepped back, hands clenched into fists at his sides as though he could physically restrain the emotions that were coursing through his proverbial veins, hotter than hellfire itself and a thousand times more painful. His very presence here, next to Aziraphale, breathing his same air, put the both of them at risk. Better to keep the distance, keep up the pretence, than jeopardize the very thing he had worked so hard to protect. He would not push, so long as it meant there could be no fall.

"That's all I'm asking for here," he eventually finished, his voice hoarse. "Whatever's happening, it's already killed three people, three kids, Aziraphale. I just want to save the rest of them who might otherwise die."

Aziraphale gave him a long look, his eyes no less intense than they had been a moment ago, before his eyes softened, something akin to realisation in their depths, and his face regained its usual, casually optimistic appearance. "Why, my dear," he quipped in an almost sprightly tone, all traces of tension completely vanished, "I've always said that deep down, you really are quite ki –"

"Oh, don't," the demon groaned, throwing his head back dramatically and slapping a hand to his forehead in exaggerated exasperation as the pair resumed their pace towards the dock. "It's not about that, angel, it's simple common sense – don't want people turning to prayer out of fear, creates extra work…"

The docks were filthy, as it happened, and that was only their third worst quality. The terrible smell that hit Crowley's nose like a sledgehammer took the number two spot with a stench that resembled dead fish in the way that a tornado might be called a slight breeze – it was a vast underrepresentation, and a person might just die from it.

It was completely tolerable, when compared to the noise.

The sounds of voices, shouts, barked orders, casual conversations, and of course, the occasional fight breaking out between labourers all joined together to create a deafening roar, punctuated by the sounds of hammers, saws, and various other machinery used to build and repair the ships that lined the yard. Large crowds of men congregated near the foremen that called out the names of those chosen to work that day, while the rest were sent home empty-handed and desolate. The racket bounced around in Crowley's already crowded head, disorienting him momentarily and causing him to sway. His fingers twitched.

"Right," he spoke, stepping just a bit closer to the angel so that he could be heard over the commotion, "let's get this over with."

Three quarters of an hour later, the occult pair had trudged their way through the crowds, located one of the shipyard supervisors, spent a good chunk of time arguing and shouting to be understood and eventually obeyed, and learned that Louis Faire, in fact, was not in fact at the docks today, but had been spending increasing amounts of time at the textile factory, the very one that Aziraphale and Crowley had passed on their trek to the edge of the Thames nearly an hour previous. They would have to backtrack, and if the increasingly irate glances the angel kept shooting in his direction when he thought his red-headed companion wasn't looking were any indication, Aziraphale was even less pleased at this development than he had been when Crowley showed up in his bookstore at dawn's first light, without breakfast even, demanding that they begin this endeavour in the first place.

"All right, all right," the demon huffed in resignation as he snapped his fingers, the sound of horse hooves suddenly approaching at rapid speeds, "we'll take a bloody carriage this time." The blue eyes did not even so much as flicker towards him, and his golden ones answered with a pointed roll. "Oh yes, fine, and we'll make a quick stop at that café down the street for lunch."

The angel's smile was radiant as Crowley held the carriage door open for him, and though he would rather discorporate himself than allow Aziraphale to see it, a small grin stretched its way across his lips in response as he stepped in behind him, settling in to the rather comfortable seats and looking anywhere but at his travelling companion as the carriage pulled away from the docks and back into the world they knew.

The pair were in a better mood by the time they finished lunch, though it was short-lived. Though the factory itself was not nearly as abhorrent as the dockyards were, the heat was unbearable even in the frigid November air. The cotton dust filled the air in thick clouds, worse than the choking haze of the smog that smothered the city without a hint of mercy. Machines were spread out, and though a few older girls could be spotted here and there, the majority were operated by children too young to be one simple distraction or mistake away from the loss of life, limb, or perhaps both. Crowley felt horror creeping from his stomach up into his throat, temporarily rendering him mute; beside him, Aziraphale's expression mirrored his turmoil. He wanted to say something comforting, or snide, or anything, really, to turn that look of shocked sorrow into impatience, or amusement, or even (especially?) fond gratitude. Anything but the pain and despondency that radiated from every being in the room, himself included. He opened his mouth to speak – what words he'd say, he wasn't sure, but perhaps the right ones would simply fall out for once, and –

"Gentlemen."

A single word broke him from his inner reverie, catching him unaware and eliciting the smallest jump in his hands, though his legs, by this point, were too terrified to move of their own accord. Pathetic, he sneered at himself, irritated at being caught off-guard for even a second.

"Is there something I can help you with?" It was not a friendly voice, and had the face to match – doughy skin that had seen too many weight fluctuations, starved by failure then gorging success, seemed too tightly drawn over stark cheekbones, only to sag from them like the jowls of a bulldog. Pale blue eyes that once must have been large and entrancing were now sunken deeply into their sockets, giving them a bulbous and bulging expression. He was tall, though his shoulders hunched forward to give the impression of smallness, and bowl-legged. He was the very picture of tragedy – no matter where one looked, there was a suggestion of beauty, ruined by the living of a lifetime to survive, with no hope of anything more.

It was hardly a wonder that the stench of hellish despair, and hellish rage, and really, just Hell was rolling off him in waves, threatening to choke Crowley in the same way the pollution and cotton dust and disease of the world choked all these children around him. It was rare that a human was so irrevocably damned that they already smelled of the Pit, and his very presence was anathematic to the demon. He didn't know how Aziraphale could bear it so passively – his expression had not flickered even slightly, not even to send Crowley a look of covert alarm. What was he playing at?

"Oh, yes, quite!" the angel responded in a genuinely friendly voice, causing Crowley's eyes to narrow behind his shades. "We were rather hoping to speak to Mr. F – "

"Mr. Olom," Crowley interjected, fighting the urge to pinch the angel at his side as his bright azure eyes widened noticeably. Not a subtle bloody bone in his body, and here was living proof, so how was he so unfazed by the hell stink pouring from this rotting jack-o'-lantern of a man? "We understand that he is the owner of this factory, and we have urgent business with him."

"I'm afraid Mr. Olom is departed for the Americas, as of this morning," the man answered flatly. "My name is Louis Faire, and I oversee this factory in his absence. Perhaps I may be of assistance, Mr…?"

"Crowley," he supplied, seeing no reason to lie, and pointedly ignoring Aziraphale's huff of protest, who apparently did. "I've been sent by the magistrate to inspect this factory, make sure everything is up to standards, and the like."

"And he is?"

The demon tried magnificently to keep from grinding his teeth, and mostly succeeded. "He is a duly appointed superintendent, who will be assisting me in the inspection."

"Does he have a name?"

"You know, it never occurred to me to ask." Crowley's voice was final, allowing no room to push the line of inquiry any further. On a gamble, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper that had not been there a second prior and handed it to Mr Faire. "I think you'll see that our affairs are all in order."

Faire took the paper grudgingly, and glanced down at it for no more than half a second. "What's this, then?"

"The edict from the magistrate himself, granting us the authority to inspect the facility with no prior notice, make note of our findings, and report said findings directly back to said magistrate," Crowley explained quite slowly, his voice a perfect imitation of every other bureaucrat in the world who was tasked with interacting with inferiors. 'Condescending' did not even begin to cover it.

"Mm. I'll take your word for it, then," the overseer grumbled, crumpling the paper in his hands and dropping it to the ground. In a stunning display of an outraged submissive on behalf of his superior, Aziraphale bent down and reclaimed the decree, making quite the show out of smoothing the wrinkles and wiping off the dirt. "Gimme just a second and I'll let you have a look around."

As Louis Faire trudged away to bark orders at some cringing children at the far end of the room, Aziraphale unfolded the note in his hand, and sighed. "Crowley."

"Hm? What is it, angel?"

"This just says, 'I can do what I want,' in four different languages."

"Does it? Huh. Could've sworn it was an official bestowal of authority from the local magistrate upon our persons. Lucky for me that he doesn't seem to be able to read, I suppose."

"Oh, my dear…"

When He-Who-Would-Be-Crowley Fell, he had landed on the shores of the Lake of Fire, mostly unconscious and in intolerable pain. Everything inside of him burned, but as he pulled himself from the tides of molten rock and up onto fully solid ground, the air was frigid agony to his charred form. The stench of sulphur scorched him just as deeply as any open flame, and the cries and weeping of his fallen brethren shattered through his mind like a sledgehammer. Every moment, he froze to death while the hellfire in his veins burned him alive, a grotesque dichotomy of a killing cure. Eventually, scales formed over his seared flesh, offering scant protection and the beginnings of a form, and so he began to slither, to crawl, forward. It was his first act of true Rebellion – refusing to lie down and die, as he had considered so many times and would consider even more in the days to come, when the ground cut through his soft underbelly like knives and there seemed to be no point in going on.

Crowley had seen Hell, in all its eternal torments, and sufferings, and how it changed its denizens, warping them beyond recognition as they gave in to the madness around them, embracing the darkness that absorbed them. The Fall stole bits and pieces from all of them, leaving only scattered remnants of the angels they were before their wings turned to bleeding smoke and shadows. There were no advocates for humanity left, no outraged questions or protests – there was only resentment, suspicion, bitterness. There was hatred, and an unquenchable thirst for revenge upon a people that did not even truly exist yet, because there could be no vengeance upon the One who, in their eyes, truly deserved it. The whole spectacle disgusted Crowley down to the very core of his essence.

He had seen Hell, and while this factory was not, of course, the actual fiery, freezing Pit that had been his dungeon cell for Time Immemorial, it was quite possibly the closest he had come upon this godforsaken planet. He had seen wars, and genocides, and countless cruelties that these clever humans had devised for each other more creatively and unashamedly than his cursed brethren could ever manage, but this…

Children as young as five cleaned still-running machines with tiny hands in constant danger of being caught and snapped entirely off, their eyes red from the dirt and cotton dust and long, arduous hours they were forced to endure. Most resembled skeletons, and their already ill-fitting clothing hung off their frames in baggy piles, increasing their danger as the cold steel fingers of the looms and throstles grabbed at them, pulling them in, in, in. Some were missing fingers. A few little ones here and there seemed to have been crying, but the majority of them merely sat there, staring at the tasks in front of them from eyes that seemed to see nothing, that had seen too much.

It was the sheer hopelessness of the whole thing that caused the creeping panic at the back of Crowley's throat that tasted like bile and sulphur, burning sulphur, burning him, and for a moment, he was blind again, crawling on the banks of the Lake, praying for it all to end all the while refusing to let it. He might have remained there indefinitely, eyes wide behind dark spectacles and unnecessarily breathing shallow breaths of boiling air, had it not been for the cool but not freezing hand that briefly touched his, grounding him, bringing him back to himself.

Mercifully, the angel did not speak aloud, though the concerned expression written blatantly across his face conveyed his feelings quite adequately. Crowley swallowed hard, yanked his arm uncharitably out of reach, and cleared his throat. "Come on then, we still need to see to the boiler room," he declared harshly, refusing to meet Aziraphale's gaze.

For his part, the angel did not seem to take any offense to his colleague's brusque demeanour. He merely nodded in silent assent and, after a quick glance around to make sure that they were still alone in their endeavours, began their descent down the poorly-lit, narrow stairway that led to the basement-level room where the furnaces were kept. The heat was overwhelming and blasted Crowley squarely in the face, momentarily taking his breath away and causing his eyes to water.

The room, with its several boilers that kept the air up above at the sweltering, humid temperatures that melted and drowned one's lungs, or so it seemed, was completely devoid of human life, which seemed... wrong. Where were the men at work, stoking the fires, checking the pressure of the steam, and keeping the entire factory from going up in a broiling deluge? And why, for the bloody love of Whomever, Wherever, were his fingers twitching?

"My dear, whatever is the matter?" Aziraphale's whisper broke the bubbling silence of the room, but Crowley barely heard him. He was dimly aware that the angel was still speaking, or murmuring, or otherwise making noise in his general direction, but he was beyond the point of comprehension. Every single inch of his true being was desperately trying to claw its way out of his corporation's skin in an attempt to make a run for it, and only the sheer force of Crowley's stubborn demonic will wrestled the hellfire and brimstone back into place, so to speak. He felt claustrophobic, he was suffocating. What the Hell was going on? Crowley ripped his shades from his face in a last-ditch effort to obtain even metaphorical breathing room, hardly registering Aziraphale's gasp as he did so. "Crowley," the angel almost whimpered, "your eyes…"

They were almost completely yellow sclera at this point, the slit iris barely visible to the casual observer. They bulged out of his corporation in a truly terrifying manner, one that Aziraphale had certainly never seen before, and darted to-and-fro restlessly in their sockets as though searching in vain for a hidden enemy. The angel took a step towards him, hand outstretched once more in hopes of bringing him back…

And Crowley struck.

It was not dangerous, not truly, but it startled Aziraphale badly as he felt the demon's finger's curl around the top of his wrist, and the unease grew as the infernally jaundiced gaze met his, wild with dread. It was not fear for himself that filled him, but the rising realisation that something was terribly wrong that flooded his chest with anxiety. He needed Crowley return to himself, to snap out of it – he was so horribly out of his league, and while he had ridden with the Hosts of Heaven against the banners of the Damned, been the Guardian of Eden's Eastern Gate for a reason, there was no flaming sword here, no tangible enemies to vanquish. There was only Aziraphale, who had nearly gotten discorporated for his love of crepes and bad timing, and he had not been anyone's rescuer or protector in millennia. He was not sure he remembered how to be.

Tearing his gaze from that of the demon's for just a split second, to ensure that they were still quite alone, Aziraphale rolled his wrist in a fluid movement to twist under the demon's grip, clasping his own fingers along the underside of Crowley's forearm and returning the hold. There was strength in his grasp, though no pain or aggression to it – it was steady and reassuring, an anchor, not a shackle, and the weight seemed to stay the oncoming storm, if only momentarily.

Turmoil clung to Crowley like a second skin, and the agitation tearing around inside him transferred to Aziraphale greedily, ravenous for a feast of terror and horror in this new host as it spread throughout his ethereal veins, seeking to sap his strength, his will power, to drain him dry and utterly destroy him. It was hungry.

On instinct, gossamer wings unfurled from between Aziraphale's shoulder blades, lighting the room around them with a pure, shining glow. They drew around the pair like a shield, driving away the shadows and dank air, a muted beacon in the darkness to lead the way Back. Even as the raging fear seemed to fight back against them, the angel could feel Crowley's grip slacken, saw his eyes recede into his face ever-so-slightly; he was almost there.

"Asssiraphale...?" It was barely a hiss, though the elongated sound was still there; Aziraphale tightened his hold. If he was Crowley's tether, he would not be derelict in his duty - he would not let go until he was sure that his demon was on solid ground again. "A bit bloody bright, isssn't it? Why the hell are your wingsss out?"

He couldn't help it – Aziraphale let out a bark of slightly hysterical laughter as he relaxed his grip, then released it entirely. "Oh, my dear, are you quite alright?" He queried, his wings disappearing from sight as he felt the tension drain from him. "What happened?"

But Crowley was shaking his head, eyes still retaining a bit of the frantic gaze that had overpowered them only seconds before. "I don't – I don't know," he managed, his voice both utterly destroyed and forbidding all at once. "It felt like – it felt like…" The words trailed off, and he simply shook his head again, clearing his throat and turning his gaze away from the overwhelming distress etched across Aziraphale's face. "I don't know what it was," he tried again after a moment, this time stronger and more stable, "but it came from behind that door."

As a compass drawn to true north, gazes of topaz and sapphire shifted to look at the unobtrusive wooden fixture that hung on the southern wall. It stared back innocuously, the picture of passive innocence. Aziraphale hesitated – truly, he felt nothing emanating from the door or the room behind it, had felt nothing the entire time apart from muted horror and sympathy for the children in the factory and the lives to which they'd been condemned. It was tragic, and reprehensible, and it sickened him down to the very bones in his corporation, but it was also so very – well – human.

On the other hand…

Crowley was known for being quite dramatic, of course, it was simply a part of the demon's being, no different from his serpentine eyes and tendency to hiss under duress. He was larger than life and lived every second of it to exaggeration and excess – he loved the flair, the flamboyance, but only ever to entertain. When it came to weakness, or what he would perceive as weakness, Crowley became nearly feral in his protestations that he was infallible, untouchable, invincible. Where Aziraphale was frightened and timid, Crowley was brash and fearless, always ready to step squarely into the fray, to stand up when Aziraphale was quite content to sit back. He may have been a demon, sworn to temptation and discord, but he was not a liar. Not in all the long history of their time together, and not now.

This time, Aziraphale could lead the charge. This time, he could be the one.

Drawing himself up to his full height, the angel strode across the room, Crowley close behind him, and threw open the door with more force than was strictly required. It submitted with a strident bang, the reverberations echoing around the small room to which it yielded entry, and Aziraphale continued onwards without a second thought.

The chamber, it appeared, was mostly empty, and mainly furnace. Large, looming, one unlike the world of the 19th century had seen until now. The enormous, iron furnace hold was built back into the wall, and somehow still managed to assume half the room. Unlike other furnaces, there was no grate, or door, or anything to keep the blistering inferno contained – only the opening where the barrier had been removed from its hinges, wide enough for a grown man to easily stand in, looking for all the world like the doorway to hell. In front of it, perhaps to the surprise of no one, stood one Louis Faire, a dark silhouette against the flickering blaze. He startled as the door flew open, turning away from the furnace to face and stare at the intruders. His pale eyes seemed to have lost all colour, the reflections of the flames dancing across them like unholy irises; from behind, those same flames set his lanky flaxen hair dimly a-glow, a tarnished, limp halo that had lost all memories of holiness across untold millennia.

Aziraphale saw none of this. He was frozen in place, nearly causing a collision as Crowley barely managed to side-step his rigid form, coming to stand at his side. The demon followed the angel's horrified gaze, through the room, past the ember-lit figure of the man who seemed Hell incarnate, and directly into the flaming pyre where one could just barely make out the tiny, flailing form of a small girl, writhing inside its flames.