Chapter Text
I plucked one feather from my hood and left it on his forehead, for, his, head.
For a souvenir, for a warning, for a lick of night in the morning.
For a little break in the mourning.”
― Max Porter, Grief is the Thing with Feathers
Soft, sure fingers ran along the shafts of his primary feathers, rubbing manicured fingernails against the sensitive casings of the emerging ones. Crowley’s wings shivered under the intense attention, the rustling sound barely audible over the record playing Rachmaninoff’s Elegie. The mournful piano slightly distorted from Aziraphale’s insistence on using the outdated technology, a comforting sound he had grown accustomed to over the years. The demon lay face down on the bed, a thick duvet pulled just over the curve of his buttocks, secure and comfortable. One folded black wing wrapped in a warm, damp towel awaited the angel’s diligent ministrations whilst the other was flexed to its full extension, a soft-bristled brush taken in tiny circular motions over the more stubborn casings.
“This must’ve itched like the dickens, Crowley, however did you manage this long?” Aziraphale exclaimed gently, paying careful attention to a particularly sensitive blood feather that had been bothering him for far too long.
“Mmmm, feels nice, angel.” Crowley moaned into the pillow, wing quivering before giving himself into the diligent hands amidst the delicate piano and soporific warmth of the covers.
From his vantage point on the threadbare rug in the middle of his lounge, Crowley stared blankly at the scattering of black feathers that lay on the smooth, poured concrete floor. Wings haggard and throbbing, itching. They’d manifested themselves at the start of his moult, stubbornly refusing to be banished away to the ethereal plane where they were usually happy enough to be stored. He felt ungainly, clumsy in this cluttered human world with wings that caught on doorframes and cabinets.
Crowley couldn’t leave his flat, not while his wings continued to outstay their welcome. It was testing his very sanity and he sorely wished he could simply sleep until the whole damnable process was complete. Alas, there was no rest to be found. The pin feathers alone with their unforgiving sheaths of keratin were maddening! Itching, catching on other feathers, painfully inflexible and digging into the sensitive skin beneath. Not to mention the blood feathers. Fragile spikes that, if broken, would not only create an unfathomable mess to clean up, but would also result in the loss of access to his infernal miraculous powers while his energy diverted instead to fixing the broken feather. Stopping his life essence from draining out over time would be prioritised by his biology, and he'd be helpless until the process was complete. He’d only needed to learn that lesson once and had been meticulously careful since. Of course, the loss of celestial powers hadn’t been so problematic when he had others around him to hold him, to protect him.
Angels have wings with feathers, it is only logical that they need to renew themselves every once in a while to retain their splendour and flight. This, of course, wasn’t a problem while they were in heaven. Big loving family of angels willing to help a moulting pal out, smoothing and brushing, removing itchy casings and the like.
Then, The Fall.
Yet another punishment. Wings that sorely needed tending to, caring for, but damned never to be used in flight lest they burn like Icarus’ wings for daring to fly too close to the sun. Demons had to turn to infernal brethren to ask for help, to be vulnerable, to show weakness in a tumultuous power-hungry time of dominance and establishing of power. In the early days after the Fall, there were those unfortunate few who moulted shortly after. Singed feathers falling to burnt ground, fellow Fallen too weak or too hurt to assist. Itchy wings seemed trivial compared to those whose wings had all but burned up leaving skeletal stalks in their place.
Crowley remembered the time he had stumbled across Aziraphale’s first moult beneath the curtained boughs of a weeping willow, sequestered well away from prying mortal eyes. He had parted the green braids of leaves to find the angel surrounded by a nest of pure white feathers. Wings curled around his body - hard casings showing along the shafts of his secondaries - gently brushing at them with his soft-bristled brush. Crowley couldn’t look away, it felt so intimate, somehow. For such a natural process, the demon couldn’t get away from the idea of running his hands through those soft feathers, from grooming the angel who had always been so kind to him. Aziraphale had noticed him teetering at the edge of the tree’s embrace and smiled warmly, happy and relieved to see him.
“Oh, Crowley! I don’t suppose you might give me a hand with this? It is entirely too bothersome alone.”
After that, they had spent years assisting with moulting. Before their platonic friendship of millennia had evolved further, they had always had this. It had been Crowley’s only opportunity for unfettered access to his angel for such a long time that it remained at the centre of what they had become.
And now.
“Crowley?” A tentative voice echoed from the hallway, accompanied by the click of his heavy front door. “I know you're moulting, let me help. I brought my kit.” Muriel’s shoes tapped on the concrete, a quick staccato rhythm until they came into view. They placed a bag gently next to their wing-tipped shoes, a leather satchel, Heaven issued, if the winged embossed graphic was anything to go by. They took out a brush, even from here Crowley could see the bristles would be far too hard for his tastes.
"Go on then," he grumbled as he turned to glare at his furniture. He'd had to push the pieces to the edge of the room to make room for his full wingspan. Nervous fingers stretched out his wing, following the line of coverts to start near the middle.
Wrong. It felt wrong. Gone were the sure, capable, tender hands of his angel. The ones that would check each shaft, that would graze along the downy feathers close to his flesh and smooth them just right. Instead, these cold fingers seemed impersonal as they took the brush and began to comb against the grain. He growled, wing twitching as his feathers throbbed at the mistreatment.
“Sorry, I know it’s a bit uncomfortable, but it’ll be done soon.” Muriel tried to soothe him, but they had clearly not had a lot of experience grooming other angels as they hacked their way through a half dozen feathers before Crowley snapped.
“Get away from me! Go!” He roared, wrenching himself up to his knees, ragged wings outstretched to their full extent to occupy most of the room. Muriel dropped the brush, staggering back with a mix of fear and pity scrawled across their face. Crowley hated it, all of it. It should be his angel, not this immature imitation. Muriel fetched up their kit and fled, escaping in a flurry of tears without further protests. The demon couldn’t bring himself to care. The stubborn pin feather that always gave him grief flared up again, stabbing him with sharp, shooting pains that travelled out along his wing. With a frustrated growl he pulled the wing towards himself, flexing it further than it ought to go and impatiently grabbed at the offending shaft. With a bright flare of pain, a blood feather snapped, catching against his arm when he pulled the pin feather free, a dark red liquid oozing relentlessly in its wake .
Crowley screamed with pain and rage. He moved his hand instinctively to draw up a miracle and found his well of power blocked already, the tingling of it redirected to the broken feather. A wrenching sob ripped through his chest as he crushed the remnants of the feather in his fist, screaming his angel’s name to the uncaring ceiling in an anguished prayer.
“Aziraphale! I know you can hear me! Whatever it is I’ve done to make you go, I’m sorry! Just come back. Please.”
He lay alone on the cold concrete amongst fallen feathers, numb. Silent.
His wings unfurled and drooping, messy uneven feathers with odd tufts sticking up at unnatural angles and almost bald patches where ugly dots of pin feathers slowly broke through the surface. Crowley crawled to his desk, tips of bedraggled wings dragging on the floor. He pulled open the bottom drawer and took out a large leather bound book. Under its smooth, heavy cover; a single white feather. Crowley took it out reverently, cradling it, tracing his fingers along its shaft ever so gently so as not to disrupt the perfectly smooth vane. Brushing it gently against his cheek he curled his wings around his body, encasing himself in a dark cocoon.
And wept.