CRAWLEY IS MY NAME preview

EDIT: despite the warnings It seems the post violated Patreon's guidelines. I removed the final part and left the rest as a preview. Now all that's left to do is post it on Ao3 when it's finished, and if you want, you can read it there. 🥲♥️If anyone wants to be a beta reader, they can send me a private message. 🫶🥰

Ps. Of course I will finish this sketch and you will be able to see it ✨♥️

Hi guys, I'm still sick and I suspect it's COVID... but the anger of illness helped me write this really dark fiction I've been planning for a while. I gave you a preview with Crowley's serpent dream, remember? Good.

It starts well before that point and there's a really heavy dose of angst.

It’s written in first person and it could be very easy to identify with, so I DO NOT RECOMMEND READING IT TO ANYONE WHO'S GOING THROUGH A BAD PERIOD; there will be a happy ending, but the horrendous road to getting there is long. For now, I don't intend to put it on Ao3, especially given the controversy surrounding the topics covered, so I don't have a beta reader, but if anyone wants to, I'd be happy to accept your help with the English. What you'll read has been translated exclusively through Google Translate.

Here the tags so you're aware of what you'll find in this episode:

• Crowley’s fall, physical and mental suffering, feelings of guilt, Crowley believing he deserves everything, verbal humiliation, mental manipulation by Lucifer.

Once you read the tags you've been warned, stay away if it's not your thing, I'm an ANGST maniac and Igo to a therapist for this, I don't want to pay yours too. 😆

READY? 😈

Crawley is my name.

Crawling is what I do, it's part of my new nature, the one they imposed on me.

The bare land is my place, what I deserve is to lie face down in the mud because I am a filthy traitor to my kind. What I deserve is to suffer outside the grace of the Lord because I dared to rebel, because I dared to ask uncomfortable questions whose answers no faithful blind man would want to hear. I don't even remember what they were, I remember almost nothing of the BEFORE. Only celestial spheres and constellations that these serpent eyes will never admire again.

It's a just punishment, they tell me. They say I deserve it. I flew too high, I dreamed too much. I dared to doubt, and now I have to crawl. That's what my inner voice reminds me, echoing those who decreed my fate. Those who, in RIGHTEOUSNESS, cast me in chains, hands, feet, and wings, unable to react, into a pit of boiling, pitch-black water.

Ah yes, I remember this very well. I remember the agonized screams of those like me who were trying to emerge tooth and nail, who begged for mercy, who hoped to be forgiven or saved. That it was all a joke because She loved us and would never do this to Her children.

I, too, screamed, and cried. It took so long that my voice disappeared and my tears dried up. Then I began to crawl, my hands behind my back and my wings rotted by pitch and sin. I crawled until I emerged changed. I was what my soul contained. A being of rage and resentment, black as the darkness that had swallowed me.

So many others managed to escape, all changed, all ugly and cruel. We hated the One who had done this to us, we hated those we once called Brothers, but who had thrown us into a dark pit without batting an eyelid. Above all, we hated each other for allowing us to Fall, for not stopping everything before it was too late.

He who had led us into the Battle was also the one who brought us together in despair. When he emerged from the pit, he remained unchanged. We were all abominable crawling things, he remained the most beautiful of all.

And for this, we hated him even more, but we also loved him for having resisted the contamination that had eroded us from within. At least on the surface.

He also remembered, he remembered each of us, he knew our true names but never spoke them.

So he gave us new ones, which reflected our rotten souls.

He called me Crawley because that was what I did best: crawl at his feet seeking comfort and understanding.

He spoke to me softly; his voice was still an angelic voice that enchanted, captivated me, he said I had been so beautiful, he said I had been intelligent.

He said that was why he loved me, as he caressed me and I wrapped myself around him, living in the residual light of Heaven that never abandoned him.

He let me do it, until he remembered that he hated me, and then he would violently tear me away and kick me. He spoke as he unleashed his anger on me. He hated me deeply for having whispered in his ear, telling me I was the cause of all his misfortunes and those of our species. He would plant my head on the ground with the sole of his foot and tell me I must never lift it again because I deserved nothing more than to crawl.

And I believed him; every single word was true.

I had no memories other than those he recounted. There was so much real anger in everything he said, in every torture he inflicted on me, why lie to me?

I DESERVED MY PUNISHMENTS AND HELL, so I GAVE THANKFUL FOR EVERY LITTLE CRUMB OF MERCY HE GAVE ME.

Eons had passed since the fall, he had regained power as prince of the underworld, but he still wanted me by his side. I had always been his advisor and would continue to be so, he said.

So I crept behind him in the councils with dukes and demons who divided up hell. I was entitled to nothing; creeping in his shadow was reward enough for a lowly being like me.

And that was what I did without complaint. I eagerly awaited those rare moments when he told me of the Before, of how she had loved us, of how She Loved Him more and for that, aroused the envy of all. Except me. Of those admitted into the presence of the Almighty, I was the only one who dared ignore him, even contradict him, and he didn't like that. But at the same time, it made him feel like never before. He wanted to shackle my independence, my curiosity, he wanted to possess my intellect. And that's how he began to draw closer to me.

“TO POSSESS YOU ENTIRELY AND ERASE YOUR NAIVE SMILE, serpent”

“But you said you loved me.”

“I loved you to the extent that you were useful to me, that I could deceive you and use your ideas to gain prestige. Oh, you were so easy to manipulate.”

I hissed as he grabbed me by the neck and squeezed, my jaws opening, but there was no threat in those long fangs. He knew I would never dare bite him.

“BUT there was one thing I REALLY LOVED about you. YOUR TRUE FORM. That lean, tapered figure that bent and flexed with my every touch. Show it to me.”

As he squeezed my neck tighter, he instilled in me a vague memory of who I was. Nothing he showed me could fit back into this tainted shell. But I could imitate him, I could try, to appease my Lord. Maybe he would LOVE me again. Maybe he would show me what it meant to feel something other than absolute despair.

I mimicked that form with all my might, the coils fading, replaced by long limbs and hair the color of flames. What didn't change was my vision. I was unable, I realized, to change the true punishment inflicted on me for my Sin of Pride. THOSE EYES WOULD REMAIN, but at least my Lord seemed satisfied with everything else.

The grip on my throat eased to a gentle touch that rose up my jaw and pulled my lip down until he opened my mouth and slipped his exploring fingers inside. He examined the canines and the serpentine tongue, deciding they could stay, then grabbed the back of my neck with his other hand and did something that shocked me: With his own mouth and his own tongue, he entered mine.

My eyes widened as he insinuated himself and made me melt into a flavor I didn't even remember, but so close to the divine, so close to home.