AN: Originally posted on my Tumblr. This is just my kinda long one-shot fic response to the ever-wonderful speremint's heartbreaking artwork. Be sure to check their artwork out!

WARNINGS: Extreme angst, character death, possession, heartbreak, angsty angst, angst.

Crowley had long since resolved to find Aziraphale, wherever he may be. Not only in this moment, driving like a man without his senses through a wall of flames, but throughout his long existence. No matter where the angel was, no matter what situation or tribulation came between them, Crowley would find him. It was, for want of a better word, ineffable.

Heaven would not stop him. Hell would not tame him. And he sure as Heaven wasn't about to let a great, glorified maggot like Hastur stop him now.

Infernal fire may not have wounded either Crowley or his undesirable passenger on this insane car ride, but natural fire, ah, natural fire would cleanse. And cleansing was something rather unbecoming of a demon.

"You'll discorporate us both!" Hastur howled in the passenger seat next to him. Crowley had never cared less for his fellow demon's suffering. Instead, every ounce of his concentration was given to his beloved car — don't you dare burn now, he both thought and shouted aloud. Not today. Not now.

Hastur gave another howl of pain, and a final curse to Crowley: "I hate you!"

His physical form seared, scorched, burnt to dust next to him. Crowley's nose wrinkled, the only acknowledgement of Hastur's painful demise — now his bloody car smelt like burnt corpses. It'd take weeks to clean that out…

Crowley realised too late, so focused he was on imagining himself as fine and unharmed, that the ashes seemed to linger. They hovered in the air around him, flitting and floating in the hellish heat of the flames surrounding them…

...Then, all at once, Hastur's discorporated form surged towards Crowley. It crowded his eyes, suffocated his nostrils and gagging his throat. Crowley's whole form lurched, the car skidding wildly as the demon tried to fight off Hastur's attempts to possess him.

"—Shit! NO!"

One eye on the road, half a mind on the wheel and half trying to fight off the Duke of Hell's incorporeal form; it was hardly ideal. Lacking attention to either for a split second would be enough to sign chaos for Crowley. It was all he could do to spin three plates at once, holding off Hastur's influence crawling over his mind and body while not crashing his car and imagining everything was fine, everything was fine, everything was—

Like so many maggots on meat, Hastur swarmed Crowley's mind, throttling it and devouring it. Half a fight was as good as no fight against the Duke of Hell, and after a brief struggle Hastur had wrought control off of him. Crowley could only yell out in his own mind as the Duke locked him away in the dark, a distant window as a single beam of light in Crowley's consciousness that he could watch the show about to unfold, his body a puppet for Hastur's strings…

The Bentley had burned to cinders not long after, Crowley's imagination festering under Hastur's control. Still, Hastur managed to arrive at the airfield and swaggered out of the destroyed vehicle in Crowley's form. The old man and woman who greeted him didn't mean much at all, until the woman spoke in an angel's tone.

The angel Crowley was simpering after, Hastur realised. He smirked through Crowley's face at the woman.

Perfect.

He'd always hated Crowley, but the demon was horrifically detached from nearly everything. He gained no enjoyment from torturing souls, nor much pride in ruining lives. Therefore, finding a button to press Crowley's nerves was quite a task. Hastur rejoiced at the opportunity to finally bring Crowley down a few pegs...back to Hell with the rest of them, where he belonged.

Everything was already in place — the Four Horsemen, and the arrival of the promised Antichrist. Hastur had to maintain Crowley's cool demeanour, of course, or he would have dropped to one knee to bow to the power of the Antichrist. He had known of the son's power, but to see him effortlessly give the angel his old form back, splitting him away from the old woman, why, that was both frightening and wondrous in equal measure.

Aziraphale's bright blue eyes found Crowley's. For a second, there was hesitation, and Hastur wondered if the angel had somehow cottoned on to his command of Crowley.

"You've been awfully quiet, Crowley," Aziraphale noted.

"Just thinking," Crowley's voice replied. "I've imagined this day so much. Strange to see it unfold."

"Y-Yes, I suppose it is...come, we must—"

"Pick a side? I agree..."

Aziraphale paused, having been walking over to Adam. He turned to look over his shoulder at Crowley, eyebrows knotting in confusion. Crowley was still smiling, though there was no warmth to it at all.

"A side? ...I thought...I thought we were our side?"

"That'sss because," Crowley hissed, forked tongue flickering a little as he walked forward to a fearful Aziraphale. "You're a naive fool, angel."

Hastur allowed his glee to stretch over Crowley's face as a broad, fanged smile as Crowley's true consciousness screamed and writhed deep in his mind. Meanwhile, Aziraphale's whole expression shattered before his eyes, watched through by both Hastur and the mind-bound Crowley.

"Wh-what are you saying?"

"I'm saying I picked my side long ago. It's always been my side: I'm a loyal soldier from the deepest pits of Hell. I'm a demon, Aziraphale….do you know what we do?"

"I—"

"We tempt. We lie. We deceive," Crowley spat, circling around Aziraphale like a wolf around a sheep. Hastur wanted his captive to see every moment of Aziraphale's inner collapse, to see how heartbreak could reflect on every part of a being, especially a pathetic creature built of love. "That's all I've ever done. I just needed an easy ride up till this moment, Aziraphale. I needed you not to be in my way. So..."

He stepped in front of Aziraphale once more, noting the clouded veil that fogged the angel's stunned gaze. "I tempted you. Your heart. I made you love me, and I lied to feed it all. I'm surprised I managed it, really — to think you could believe anyone could love a weak excuse for an angel like you..."

Aziraphale exhaled sharply, as though physically struck. Lips parted, his body shivered in pain, and he blinked rapidly as though to fight back tears. He failed in this endeavour.

"You...you wouldn't..."

"Wouldn't I?"

"No!" Aziraphale suddenly straightened up, tearful eyes staring resolutely at Hastur-as-Crowley. "This...this isn't you! It was never you! Crowley, what's gotten into you?"

Close, Hastur thought to himself. Too close. Better end this.

Snarling, Hastur unfurled Crowley's dark wings and struck out at the angel. His arm locked a little, but it wasn't enough to stop his fist striking against Aziraphale's jaw, sending the angel sprawling to the floor.

Internally, Hastur growled at Crowley. To think the man would have enough fight in him to resist a possession on a physical level. He really did need to end this quickly, before Aziraphale cottoned on to the possession or before, Satan forbid it, Crowley broke Hastur's hold on him.

Spitting golden blood, gasping and shaking, Aziraphale got unsteadily to his feet, his own pearlescent wings rising behind him.

"Crowley...what's wrong with you?"

"I'm a demon, that's what's wrong," he snarled back, crouching a little to ready himself to strike at the angel once more. "That's the whole point, you moron. Demons do wrong. If you believed my little nicey-nice act, then that's your problem."

Aziraphale's eyes were no longer tearful, for the tears had fallen down his face freely. Slowly, reluctantly, he held out his hand — War's sword, which had fallen as Adam and his friends turned on the Horsemen (much to Hastur's irritation; he would have to fix that before Beelzebub arrived and realised he'd neglected the Plan in favour of personal vengeance), flew into the Principality's grip, the steel blade catching alight with flame.

"Crowley," Aziraphale said, voice cracking and betraying him more than his words did. "Whatever's happening, I will find you again. But I won't let you set this world on fire. Not the world I know you care for."

In a blur of dark clouds and smoke, Crowley's form momentarily dissipated, before reforming rapidly in front of Aziraphale, leering down inches from his face.

"Go on then. Stop me."

Aziraphale's mouth opened and closed, nothing but a squeak breaking through. Hastur was willing to bet the angel wouldn't raise a hand to Crowley, let alone a blade. He couldn't slay this demon, and it would be his downfall.

In thinking this, Crowley's mind screamed and raged against the Duke of Hell once more, begging him to stop, begging him to let Aziraphale go.

Ah, Hastur thought to them both, you know me better than that, Crowley…

"Crowley..." The angel managed to plead the demon's name.

His hesitation was all Hastur needed. Striking like a coiled viper, he knocked Aziraphale's fear-loosened grip of the flaming sword, sending the blade clattering to the ground. Crowley dived, picking the blade up and turning it over in his hand. The motion turned the flames from brilliant scalding orange to sanguine, infernal flames. For angels, infernal fire would do as holy water did to demons; it didn't just discorporate a demon, it destroyed their soul entirely. No coming back, Hastur thought bitterly of the fall of Ligur. His friend was gone forever at the hands of Crowley.

An eye for an eye, Hastur hissed at his mind-captive.

Before Aziraphale could snap himself out of shock, Crowley had, in Hastur's puppet master grip, plunged the flaming sword into the angel's torso.

Then and only then did Hastur relinquish his grip on Crowley's body and mind. Ashes flitted from Crowley's mouth, hardly noticeable, and drifted off into the air before sinking below the soil, heading deep down below…

Neither demon nor angel moved. To move would be to make this real, to send both hearts shattering to the ground.

Aziraphale's eyes were wide in anguish, gold bubbling at his lips and trickling down his chin from both corners of his mouth as he searched Crowley's eyes for something, anything of his beloved companion. The other man was blank-faced, serpentine gaze unfocused for a moment, before life suddenly burst back into his amber orbs.

Crowley looked down at his hands gripping the sword now buried in Aziraphale's stomach. The golden blood blossoming out over Aziraphale's waistcoat.

It wasn't...a nightmare?

Crowley's battered mind struggled to regain its pace in the real world once more, flung so inelegantly as he was back into full control of his body. He looked up in horror at Aziraphale's face. The angel was staring at him, locked in shock, tears now cascading down his face in bloody, gleaming rivulets of gold.

Then everything splintered. Aziraphale's knees buckled. Crowley lunged forward, catching him before he fell to the floor on his knees, cradling the angel's form close to him.

"Angel? No...no no no no, Aziraphale, don't go, don't you dare go! Not again!" Crowley begged, voice cracking and wavering, chest heaving as panic tensed every muscle in his body. He could hear his wings quaking behind him, twitching and spasming. "Angel?"

Aziraphale dragged a bubbling breath through his parted lips, a ghost of a smile dancing there.

"I knew...it couldn't really...be you..."

Me? Crowley looked down at the sword still piercing Aziraphale. He'd seen...he'd seen himself...pick up the sword….no no, it was Hastur...wasn't it? Not him. Not him. It couldn't have been him.

"Who? Who did this to you?" Crowley begged, voice rising to a near-hysterical yell. "Who hurt you?!"

"Don't—"

Aziraphale was trembling in Crowley's arms, and the blood rising and spilling from his lips choked his words. Desperately, the demon's own hand pawed at Aziraphale's face, tears spilling from his own eyes.

"Aziraphale! H-Hold on, just...I-I can-"

He turned to the sword, moving his hand over it, summoning a blessing to try and remove it, to miraculously remove it.

Nothing.

He tried again. And again. The infernal fires refused to budge under a holy command.

"No...no no, wait, we can...we can…ah! No! No this isn't..." Crowley stammered, half-delirious in fear of what was unfolding before him.

Still, for reasons Crowley could not see in this hell, Aziraphale smiled up at him.

"I—I...I should have told you...that I love you," he said simply, barely more than a whisper. And yet, it was enough to coax the last shard of Crowley's heart from its branch and send it falling to shatter with the rest. "I should have told you...oh….oh, I wish I'd told you back then..."

Then? Wherever 'then' was, it clouded Aziraphale's eyes as a beautiful memory the angel had contented himself to revel in.

But the cloud never lifted. His eyes never resurfaced from the warm embrace of that nameless yearning.

"Aziraphale. Aziraphale?" Crowley said, hollow, disbelieving. "No. No no you...you're not dead. Y-y-you can't be..." his voice began to rise once more as panicked tendrils took root. "Az...Aziraph...Aziraphale?"

His voice trailed off to a gasp, his throat tightening and constricting before all the anguish and agony of Crowley's heart and soul burst forth:

"Someone's killed my best friend! Someone's killed my best friend!"

Hands clawed despairingly at Aziraphale's face, at his shoulders, at his arms, shaking him and pleading. "Someone's killed him! Someone's...someone's killed...I-I love him...who...who took him away…?"

Crowley's voice collapsed into loud, wretched sobs as he hugged Aziraphale close to him.

The demon broke down weeping, mind spinning in a whirlwind of what he ought to have said, what Aziraphale had said...and a vow to find who had killed the love of his damnable life and make him pay. Crowley would live out eternity if he had to. He would find who did this.

The haunting memory of his own hands on the blade became quickly buried in sorrow, in grief — in denial.