Work Text:
Angels have wings. It is a universal constant amongst them all. Large, down-right majestic limbs adorned with pristine white feathers.
Demons do not have wings. Usually, anyway. Their angelic wings burnt to eternally-smoldering stubs during their Fall.
That was what was supposed to happen, that was not what had happened to Crowley. They had woken after their Fall with a pair of wings still very much attached to their back. Only the feathers were now a deep inky (charred) black.
Wings full of feathers that were no longer exactly alive but weren’t quite dead enough to be considered ‘dead’, which made the yearly molts… interesting , for lack of a better word. More painful and irritating than those periods had ever been as an Angel, that was sure. A kind of pain that Angels couldn’t even fathom.
Something is wrong. And Crowley is trying to hide whatever it is from him.
Crowley saunters into the bookshop with all of their usual swagger mid-morning, and engages in their usual habit of lurking around the shop and scaring any humans that enter looking to purchase a book.
But the demon had on a different jacket that day. A long trench coat not unlike the one that Aziraphale himself owned, although in their usual black.
Aside from that difference in fashion choice, Crowley looks downright uncomfortable . Almost as if something is jabbing into their back or their ribs.
Had something — someone, perhaps? — got to them in the night? Had whoever it was attacked them?
They drape themself over their usual sofa against the wall just as Aziraphale is shooing the last customer out the door.
“Crowley, take off your coat,” the angel says with surprising decisiveness, as he turns back from the door to face them.
Crowley looks up from their phone sharply.
“Why?” They’re full of defensiveness while alarm shines clear in their eyes.
“Because I want you to materialise your wings so I can have a look at them,” Aziraphale explains, crossing the room to stand a few paces away from the other being.
Crowley’s phone slips out of their grip and clatters to the floor by the foot of the sofa.
“My wings are fine ,” they insist, their wings still very much hidden away in the ether.
“If they are indeed fine, then you wouldn’t have any qualms showing them to me?”
“No — they’re— just drop it , ‘Zira,” Crowley snaps as they shift so that their back is angled even more away from Aziraphale than it already was, not touching their jacket.
They pick up their phone.
The angel heads towards the bookcases and starts to shelve the books he had gotten that past weekend. He waits, despite his burning desire to do something to help alleviate Crowley’s rather obvious suffering; Which appears to be growing with each passing minute.
Sometime later, after the sun has set and the world outside the shop’s windows is dark, Aziraphale has his back to his demon when a shaky exhale rings out loud in the open space. A sigh with clear pain and exhaustion in it.
Aziraphale turns around in time to see Crowley shrug off their jacket and materialise their wings, once the garment has been removed.
“Alright fine , you can have a look at my wings,” they mutter, not meeting Aziraphale’s eyes. Spreading their wings slightly to give him a better view of them.
In the silence that passes between them, Crowley weighs up the decision: they could keep hiding their wings or they could do as their angel asked and have the pain finally stop . If not just for now.
Aziraphale is so clearly offering his help, and the only thing stopping them from accepting it is themself.
But their wings had been hurting. For so long. Years upon years upon years. They just want the pain to stop already .
A sigh tears itself from within their corporation, sending a ripple of surprise through them. They didn’t mean to do that .
“Alright fine ,” they say, before they have a chance to back out. “You can have a look at my wings,”
Crowley materialises their wings, shoving down an outward reaction to the burst of pain that action predictably causes.
Their eyes stay fixed on the floorboards, on a knot in the wood. They are afraid of what they will see if they look up, to look Aziraphale in the eyes. Didn’t want to see the pity that is bound to be in those blue eyes.
Crowley doesn’t deserve pity from anyone, least of all their angel.
Aziraphale murmured a quiet “Oh,”
The two-letter word holds so much despair and sadness that Crowley’s eyes snap up. Guilt bubbling within them.
This was a bad idea — should’ve kept their wings hidden — Aziraphale had offered help but that was before he’d seen the true state of their wings — he wouldn’t still want to help now he’d seen them — he’d retract the offer — should’ve kept better care of their wings and then they wouldn’t be in this position.
“Dear boy, how long has it been since you last groomed?” he asks.
Angels — and demons too, they suppose — need to groom their wings every other year, at the absolute minimum, if they want to keep them in adequate condition. Every year if they wanted to keep their wings in top condition.
It has been so long since Crowley has even materialised their wings that they are drawing a blank on the last time that they had groomed them.
“A while,” they admit.
“How long is a while?” Aziraphale has moved so much closer and they hadn’t even noticed. He stands just shy of being able to touch Crowley now.
“Two or three…hundred years?” They hadn’t meant for it to sound like a question.
Aziraphale’s face crumples and he looks somehow even sadder at their response, as well as horrified.
“Oh, Crowley ,” he says. “They must be so uncomfortable, so painful,” The angel makes as if he’s going to reach out and touch the limbs but stops before his fingers can make contact. His hand drops back against his leg. “Will you allow me to tend to them?” he asks carefully. Softly .
Coming from anyone else, the question would be mocking. Crowley would have been offended. They are a demon, softness isn’t a thing that they deserve to be offered, let alone have. But it is Aziraphale asking. Soft, kind, fantastic Aziraphale.
Not trusting the stability of their voice amongst their swirling thoughts and emotions, Crowley nods. Yes . And follows the angel upstairs to the flat above the bookshop.
When they get inside, Aziraphale relocates the chair that had been originally beside the book-covered bed to the middle of the room.
“Sit down. Please,” he tells them. Crowley does so, sitting on it backwards and resting their arms on the back.
They hear the faint popping sound of a miracle and look over their shoulder in time to see the blond set down a bowl of water, coils of steam rolling off it, with a cloth hanging over the edge, before he takes a seat on the edge of the bed. Moving some books so that he can do so. Behind them but to the left slightly so that Crowley can still see him.
“May I touch your wings, Crowley?” Aziraphale requests.
The formality is a bit surprising given that they have already — technically — given their permission when they agreed to let him tend to their wings down in the bookshop. But it is also so Aziraphale it makes them chuckle at the notion.
“Yeh, you may,” they respond, angling both their body and wings so that he can reach the feathers better.
Aziraphale buries his hands in their feathers and starts to run his hands through them. Dislodging and removing the ones that are already very loose which should have been shed in the molts they ignored.
He does Crowley’s left wing and once he’s finished with that, moves onto the other one.
There are rather a lot of feathers that cover the floor by Aziraphale’s feet by the time he’s done with simply removing the already loose ones. But he’s not done yet. He moves onto the broken and twisted ones.
“I need to pull these ones out. Shouldn’t feel worse than a pinch,” he tells them. “Let me know the instant you need a break, okay?”
“Yeah, okay,”
Aside from the broken feathers, there are some that are stuck, crusted into their wings with all the build up and dirt.
The first one comes away easily, but the second one certainly does not. A muscle in Crowley’s wing spasms after Aziraphale has plucked it out. Another muscle pinches in their neck. But they don’t say anything so he keeps going.
Until he gets to a feather near the bend of Crowley’s right wing. This one is particularly stuck. As Aziraphale starts pulling on it, an aborted shout tears itself from their throat, making him pause.
“My dear, are you okay?” he asks, with concern in his voice and lining his face.
“Ngk — Yeh, I — ‘m fine, jussst hurt,” There is much more to it than just that, if the hiss is anything to go by.
“I reckon it did. Do you need a break, dear?”
The muscles underneath Aziraphale’s hands where he still has them buried in Crowley’s feathers as they roll their shoulders, wings shifting along with the motion.
“Nah, ‘s fine. If we stop now, ‘s gonna be hard to start again,” they say.
He disagrees with the ‘fine’ part but doesn’t press it, lest he risk scaring Crowley into running away.
By the time Aziraphale is finished clearing their wings of all the damaged feathers, leaving behind only healthy ones. There is a sizable carpet of midnight black feathers on the floor around the chair.
Their wings twitch, making as if they are going to close tight against their back but change their mind at the last moment.
Why did they ever have doubts over Aziraphale tending to their wings? This felt, well, heavenly .
As he worked through sections, the angel would ruffle up the feathers slightly to find the ones that needed to be removed before straightening them back out again afterwards.
The removal of the damaged feathers felt like scratching an itch that had been bothering them forever. Which it was, in a way. Some of the pain is gone, their wings feel so much lighter.
Aziraphale’s fingers ghost a path from their left allula up along their secondaries to finally reach the oil gland near the shoulder, leaving a trail of tingly warmth in its wake.
“I’m going to touch your oil glands now,” Aziraphale warns.
Crowley braces for more pain as memories bubble to the surface of their mind. The last time that they let another being groom their wings had ended in pain pain pain . Fistfulls of their feathers in hands not their own. Hands that only caused searing hurt when their owners had promised to just set things right. Even going as far as to snap a couple of flight feathers.
The demon is brought out of the memories by a pressure on their oil glands. Rubbing, steady strokes of constant pressure. Not the stuffy, congested feeling they had gotten used to over the last six millenia. Or the sharp, searing tearing one from the memories.
“Stay with me, love,”
The new name catches Crowley off guard but they have already sunken too deep into the bliss of the liquid warmth that’s being injected into their corporation and deeper, into their very being, all by the motion of gentle fingers.
Aziraphale finishes covering Crowley’s wings with a light layer of oil and settling any feathers back into their proper place which had managed to get ruffled as he oiled.
“I’m finished now, dear,” he says, taking his hands out of their feathers.
Crowley makes a sound of protest that the angel isn’t completely sure was intentional. He doesn’t comment on it.
“Next time, please come to me before it gets this bad again,” he tells them, miracling a hand towel to wipe his hands on.
As Aziraphale worked, they had draped themself over the back of the chair. And they remain in that same position now. Crowley doesn’t respond immediately and just as worry is starting to seize him…
“Ngk, yeah sure,” they say.
The words lack the demon’s usual certainty. In fact, it sounds similar to when he asks them a question too soon after waking up. But it’s good enough for now.
Years later in a cottage by the sea, Crowley chases down a fussy ex-angel who, in all the time he spends tending to them, had neglected his own wings.