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The car was an incredible gift. Crowley still wasn't entirely over the tragic end of the last one, but she hadn't intended to get another one. She knew the true reason behind it was that her resident demon didn't want to learn how to drive and having Crowley be a chauffeur brought her a strange pleasure.
The neon signs of the diner behind them lit up the interior of the car in a lovely purple and red haze. Crowley took a deep breath and gripped the steering wheel tightly, oh, what a wonderful thing. "I really can't thank you enough. You didn't have to do this."
"There's…something else." The demon rifled through her purse as Crowley beamed. The harsh red lighting softened many of Aziraphale's already soft features, giving Crowley a chance to glimpse a feeling the demon left concealed most of the time.
"Something else? You'd think it was my birth…day." She trailed off as a little tin was held out to her.
"It's preening oil."
Crowley smiled, "Ah, there it is. A little tame for an insult don't you think? Yeah, silly angels and their scruffy wings." She opened it to smell the oil, a faint but soft and earthy scent coming off of it.
"Its mine."
Crowley paused to think on that, "what?"
Aziraphale checked her nails nonchalantly, "My preening oil. If you light it, it will burn hellfire."
"H-hellfire? Why?" Crowley shut the tin quickly.
Aziraphale held her hands up in clear embarrassment of the gift. "Obviously it's a precaution. Don't play dumb. You know what it's for."
Crowley pushed the tin back in Aziraphale's direction, "I can't accept this-"
A sharp hand shoved it back into her lap as Aziraphale growled, "do not argue with me principality! I'm conflicted on this as it is! Just accept the bloody stuff and don't-" she brought her hand up to cover her mouth where her teeth had rapidly shifted into something more demonic as she lost her temper. Her forehead came to rest against the car door as she tried to calm down, taking a deep breath.
"...Aziraphale?" Crowley asked, keeping her hand tight around the tin. "Are you…alright?"
A shaky exhale was Aziraphale's reply as she brought herself back together. After a second when she was more in control she said, "You're too kind to me, Crowley." She opened the car door and got out as she said this, unable to face whatever Crowley would give as a response.
Crowley was left wishing she'd at least said goodbye. Of course she was kind, it was her job to be kind. She bit her lip and looked down at the tin. This little thing had the power to destroy her with the right application of a spark.
She opened the tin to smell it again, taking in the familiar earthy scent. It smelled so distinctly like Aziraphale; the warm notes mingling with something almost dusty like sand. She closed it again and put it in her pocket. Aziraphale was kind too, despite all her boasting and bravado. No other demon would give her something like this.
The car started up beautifully. It was a vintage Bentley, similar to the one she'd already obliterated but not quite the same. This one seemed to know what she wanted from it before she even asked. Crowley highly suspected there had been some yelling and demonic insults involved with the car's incredibly good behavior. A well-behaved car was a well-behaved car though and she certainly wasn't going to turn her nose up at it.
--
Inside her flat she found herself playing with the tin, twirling it in her hands and staring at the intricate little patterns. Aziraphale had decorated it in her scale pattern, a lovely filigree that Crowley assumed only she would recognize.
It was inert like this. Hardly any different than Crowley's own. It was just the spark that made it dangerous. She touched her finger to the waxy surface, coming out with a small dab of the oil. Between her fingers she could tell it had a smoother texture than her own. Not that hers wasn’t smooth, but Aziraphale’s had a slickness to it that stayed on her fingers after the fact. Lack of a waterproofing agent, perhaps.
Crowley brought out her wings and rubbed the excess oil off into her primaries. Aziraphale would never let her live it down if she knew what Crowley was doing. Not only was it dangerous to put a hellfire accelerant on herself but using someone else’s preening oil was…intimate. Intimate in a way Crowley was desperate for.
She ran her fingers through her feathers and sighed, straightening and adding her own oil as needed. She wouldn’t use more of Aziraphale’s than that first dab. It had a purpose, after all, and she didn’t want to waste it.
She raised her wings and fluttered them, letting the oil settle into the waxy texture that protected the feathers. The bed creaked as she fell back and wrapped her wings around herself in a soft downy barrier from the outside world. Even with the addition of her own oil it just smelled like Aziraphale.
Crowley wanted it from the source, wanted those large hands running through her wings and applying her oil fresh. She was so sure Aziraphale knew how to be gentle. She would hold Crowley down and lovingly trail her fingers through the soft down of her back. She would lighten the pressure as she moved further along the wing, threading her fingers between sturdy primaries. She could tell Crowley what she really thought, whisper those soft words Crowley knew she was thinking when she was caught staring.
Crowley grabbed a handful of her wing and nuzzled her face into the feathers, undoing much of the preening work she had just done. She felt her face grow hot in embarrassment; this wasn’t something an angel should be doing. She shouldn’t want to cover herself in the demon. She shouldn’t want to offer to preen Aziraphale’s in return. Oh, to have the demon running around with her own essence on her. Everyone would know, the divinity in Crowley was a lot easier to recognize than the lack of it in Aziraphale.
She flopped her wings back onto the bed and sighed before sending them away. She couldn’t use the oil again. Aziraphale couldn’t know about this. Crowley would have to make sure she covered herself in her own oil next time she preened. Maybe this was just another temptation, in which case Crowley certainly failed.
But Aziraphale wasn’t in the habit of trying to upset her. This wasn’t supposed to be upsetting.
Could she use it against her fellow angels? She didn’t know. It wouldn’t take much to smear it over a surface and ash a cigarette over it. It was terrifying, and was enough of a reminder that she had currently rubbed it all over herself. Well, at least she wasn’t in the habit of catching herself on fire. She’d just have to be careful and not repeat the process.
She got up to put the tin into a wall safe. Hopefully she wouldn’t need it. Both so she wouldn’t have to dispatch any fellow angels, and so she could keep it for herself.