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courtship rituals of the ethereal kind

Heaven had forgotten the old ways. That was the only explanation Crowley could come up with to explain away what Aziraphale had just asked him to do.

“You want me to what?” he asked. Just to make sure he’d heard correctly the first time. This wasn’t something he wanted - or could afford to - misunderstand.

“Fix a couple of my feathers for me?” Aziraphale gently flapped his wings for emphasis, looking over his shoulder at Crowley. “I was out for a flight, stretching my wings, and I may have had a little incident with a pigeon.”

Crowley burst into startled laughter. “Angel, did you hit a bird?” he asked, incredulously.

Aziraphale looked offended. “The bird hit me,” he protested, a sulky tone creeping into his voice.

“You know what this is, don’t you?” Crowley asked, still giggling. “This is revenge for all those poor doves in your magic acts. Their cousins are rising up against you, o murderer of innocent fowl.”

“Laugh all you like,” Aziraphale said, primly, “but I still need help with my wings. I can’t reach the feathers that got bent in the collision.”

“How hard did you have to hit the poor bird to really call it a collision?” Crowley asked, rhetorically.

“I told you-” Aziraphale started, an aggrieved tone in his voice, but then he broke off with a gasp when Crowley carefully took one of his wings and stretched it out to its full length. “Oh, your hands!”

“Sorry,” Crowley started to apologize, but Aziraphale quickly cut him off by shaking his head.

“No, the heat feels so good,” he assured Crowley. “Are your hands always this hot?”

“Demon,” Crowley reminded him. “Kind of comes with the territory. Hold still for me, will you?”

So saying, he reached out quickly to tweak Aziraphale’s bent feathers back into place. He didn’t let his hands linger long, no matter how much he wanted to, adjusting the troublesome feathers in a couple of seconds. Then he carefully settled Aziraphale’s wing back into place, forcing himself to let go and step back.

“Good as new,” he announced, curling his hands into fists to keep himself from reaching forward and burying his fingers into Aziraphale’s feathers.

“That was very quick,” Aziraphale commented, curling his wing around to look down at the feathers. “Are you sure you didn’t miss anything?”

“Absolutely,” Crowley said, quickly, nails biting so hard into his skin that he was afraid he was drawing blood. “Look, I know we had plans for lunch but I just remembered something I have to do.”

“Do what?” Aziraphale asked, frowning at him in confusion. “Crowley-”

“Rain check, yeah?” Crowley asked, and then he fled without waiting for an answer, Aziraphale’s shocked face lingering in his mind as he practically ran out of the bookstore.

---------

Maybe things had changed in Heaven after the Fall. Maybe the old ways hadn’t just been forgotten; maybe they’d been actively done away with. Crowley had been up in Heaven for Aziraphale’s sham of a trial, and he couldn’t imagine any angels living in that soulless expanse ever engaging in a little intimate preening.

Because that’s how things had worked when he’d still been an angel. An angel’s wings were sacred, for lack of a better word. Angels didn’t go around offering to let just anyone touch their wings. To be invited to touch another angel’s wings - more, to expose oneself to the vulnerability of another’s hands in their feathers… It was intimacy of the highest order.

No, angels only allowed those closest to them to ever touch their wings. Even after they’d fallen, his fellow demons had still respected that. Asking another to preen their wings was akin to proposing marriage - or at least it had been. Maybe Heaven had lost more in the Fall than Crowley had originally thought.

Aziraphale had probably had no idea what he’d been doing, asking Crowley to fix his wings like that. His request had to have been purely innocent. Crowley would simply have to explain it to him, the next time he saw Aziraphale. And in the meantime, he was going to try and find a way to forget the feel of Aziraphale’s feathers in his hands.

(Yeah, that was likely.)

--------

“How did you get covered in mud?” Crowley asked, staring at Aziraphale in disbelief.

Aziraphale, dripping globs of brownish-gray mud all over the floor of Crowley’s flat, gave him a sheepish smile. “Well, you see, there was a young child, and a cat stuck in a tree-”

“Never mind,” Crowley interrupted him, “I’ve decided I don’t want to know. What I do want to know is why you decided to come here and make a mess of my clean floors? Why aren’t you messing up your bookstore?”

The look Aziraphale shot him at the mere idea of getting mud anywhere near his books was so wounded, so agonized, that Crowley almost apologized on the spot. But he forced himself to stay firm and not immediately give in to those big blue eyes. (And it was so hard not to give in.)

“Why don’t you just miracle yourself clean?” he asked. “I really don’t think Heaven’s keeping track of you, anymore. You’re a free agent, remember?”

“I can’t do miracles on my wings,” Aziraphale said, with a dramatic shudder that sent more mud flying from his feathers. “It never gets all the dirt out, and it makes me feel all itchy for hours after, and-”

“Still begs the question,” Crowley broke in, before Aziraphale could really get going on the subject, “what are you doing here?”

“Well you did such a wonderful job last time, that I thought you could help me out now,” Aziraphale told him.

“Help you with what?” Crowley asked, genuinely dumbfounded for a second. Then, comprehension struck and his shook his head. “You mean help you clean your wings?”

“Precisely!” Aziraphale beamed at him, smile as bright as sunshine. “My wings felt so much better last time, after you helped me with those wayward feathers. And I really would be so grateful for the help.”

“You want me,” Crowley said slowly, trying to figure out if he was missing something, “to put my hands in your wings again.”

This was torture. This was actually, literally hell. The devil himself had nothing on the angel currently staring him in the face and smiling without a care in the world. Waving his wings at him like he hadn’t just - hadn’t just-

“Excuse me for a second,” Crowley choked out, and then he bolted before Aziraphale could say anything.

Locking himself in the bathroom, Crowley half-collapsed against the sink as he struggled to regain control of himself. He wasn’t strong enough for this, wasn’t strong enough to resist the urge to lose himself in Aziraphale’s wings again. It had been hard enough last time - and that had only been a few, quick seconds of touch.

But at the same time, Aziraphale needed his help. Aziraphale needed him. And he couldn’t say no.

With that in mind, Crowley used a quick miracle to make some necessary changes to the bathroom, and then he went out to get Aziraphale.

He found Aziraphale still standing in the middle of the living room, wings drooping toward the floor. A veritable pool of mud had gathered at his feet that Crowley banished with a snap of his fingers.

“Come with me,” Crowley said, gesturing Aziraphale to follow him back into the bathroom.

Aziraphale blinked at him in surprise before scurrying after him, dripping more mud along the way. After he was finally in the bathroom, Crowley cleaned up the rest of the mud just as quickly as the first, then gestured for Aziraphale to sit in the chair he’d conjured up in the middle of the bathroom.

“Wings in the tub, please,” he said, even as he reached forward to help Aziraphale manipulate his heavy, dirty wings into the bathtub.

Crowley had changed the existing tub in the bathroom, making it taller and deeper to accommodate Aziraphale’s wings. A section cut out of the side gave him a place to rest his wings in relative comfort while the chair was designed to let him lean back toward the tub. Aziraphale looked positively delighted when he discovered that.

“Oh, just like my barber!” he said, happily. “Crowley, you’re so clever!”

His face suddenly hot, Crowley turned away quickly to hide the bright red he was sure his cheeks had become. He busied himself with stepping into the tub, mindful of Aziraphale’s wings, and then he took a little longer than strictly necessary to get the supplies he needed. Finally, when he’d stalled longer than he could reasonably explain away, he went to work.

He started with a soft-bristled brush to get the worst of the mud off Aziraphale’s feathers, brushing in slow strokes down the length of Aziraphale’s wings. Clumps of drying mud fell into the bottom of the tub, to be vanished with a flick of his fingers. Crowley was careful to keep from touching Aziraphale’s wings with his hands more than he absolutely had to, but he could still feel feathers brushing against his skin, the contact making shivers run through his entire body.

When he’d gotten as much as he could with the brush, Crowley set it aside and steeled himself with a deep, fortifying breath. Then, he started to comb through Aziraphale’s feathers with his fingers, straightening disorderly feathers and brushing away smaller pieces of mud stuck in between the deepest layers of feathers. Aziraphale’s wings were soft and silky and Crowley could feel his hands shaking as he touched them.

The bathroom was completely silent as Crowley worked. Under his hands, he could feel tremors running through Aziraphale’s body.

“You all right, Angel?” he asked. He knew why he was shaking, but he couldn’t imagine why Aziraphale would be reacting the same way.

“Just a little cold in here,” Aziraphale said, the words coming out in a rush.

Crowley waved a hand, raising the temperature in the room by a few degrees. Aziraphale’s shivers lessened but didn’t stop, but Crowley didn’t bring it up again. He wasn’t sure what kind of answer he was looking for - or what he’d do with the answer he got.

He combed his fingers through the feathers at the very ends of Aziraphale’s wings, supporting the heavy weight with his shoulders to take some of the strain off Aziraphale’s back. He’d tried to make his makeshift grooming station as comfortable as possible, but sitting in one place for so long had to be tiring for Aziraphale.

“Almost done,” he told Aziraphale, as he summoned a bottle of oil and a small brush into his hands. “Just got to get you oiled up-” He winced at the unintended double entendre. “Your wings,” he corrected himself, hastily. “Oil your wings up-” Nope. That wasn’t any better. Maybe he’d better just keep his mouth shut.

Instead, Crowley dipped the brush into the oil, focusing on getting the bristles coated. He slowly, carefully ran the brush over Aziraphale’s feathers, coating each individual feather in a thin waterproof covering. He was meticulous, using his fingers to work the oil deep into Aziraphale’s feathers. It seemed like it took him forever to finish, yet was over far too quickly.

“All done,” he announced, reluctantly, after he’d finished the very last feather. “You’re as good as new, Angel.”

“Oh, better than that, I’m sure,” Aziraphale told him, making him blush. “Crowley, you did wonderfully.”

“Right, well.” Crowley coughed, trying to clear the lump in his throat. “I don’t know if I’d go that far.”

“My dear-” Aziraphale started, his whole face practically shining with sincerity, and all of a sudden Crowley couldn’t take it any longer.

He’d just spent the last hour or so with his hands buried up to the wrist in Aziraphale’s wings, handling every single feather, and Aziraphale wanted to thank him, like Crowley had done him some kind of favor, and he just - he just couldn’t do it.

“Y’know, I just remembered that I have an appointment,” he said, quickly, smashing his knee painfully as he clambered out of the tub. White-hot pain shot up his leg but he gritted his teeth and forced himself to keep moving. “I’ll see you later, Angel.”

Then, for the second time in as many days, he ran away from Aziraphale as fast as his legs could take him.

--------

Okay, so running out of his own flat was probably a new low.

After leaving his flat in a blind panic, Crowley had driven aimlessly around London for hours, until his heart stopped racing in his chest and he could think straight again. Darkness had fallen while he was out driving, and he eventually found himself parked on the sidewalk outside his building, staring up at his darkened windows, too scared to get out of the Bentley and go inside. Too scared to face Aziraphale and explain himself.

But, he couldn’t hide out there forever. Finally, some time after midnight, Crowley left the safety and security of his car and headed upstairs. Maybe he’d been out there all that time for nothing. Maybe Aziraphale had left after he had, and he was going to open the door to an empty flat-

Or maybe he’d find an angel curled up on his couch, staring out the window into the dark. His back was to Crowley as he came inside, but he could see Aziraphale’s reflection in the window, could see the tear-stained cheeks and heartbroken expression.

“Angel?” Crowley said, softly, shutting the door quietly behind him so as not to startle Aziraphale.

It didn’t work. Aziraphale whirled around to face him, eyes wide with shock. “Crowley! You’re back! I was just leaving-”

“Save it, Angel,” Crowley cut him off, with a wave of his hand. “You’re a worse liar than I am.”

Aziraphale deflated, slumping back against the couch cushions. “I really should leave,” he said, dejectedly, even though he made no move to get up, and Crowley felt his heart leap wildly in his chest at the thought of being alone.

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” he said, trying and probably failing to keep his voice casual. “I could summon up a nice bottle of wine, we could have a drink-”

Aziraphale shook his head, lips pressed tightly together. He looked like he was holding back more tears. “You don’t have to do this,” he said, quietly. “I got the message loud and clear. You don’t have to worry about me asking again. I won’t ever bring it up, I promise.”

“Wait a minute,” Crowley said, slowly, feeling like he was missing something incredibly important. “What message? Ask me what?”

“I know now that you don’t feel the same way about me,” Aziraphale went on, as if he hadn’t even heard Crowley. “I can only hope that I haven’t irreparably damaged our relationship and that we can still be friends. I don’t want to lose our friendship.” He shot Crowley a watery smile, still clearly on the verge of crying.

Crowley, for his part, was feeling more and more off balance with every second. “What do you mean,” he asked, “that I don’t feel the same way about you?”

“Oh, Crowley.” Now a couple tears did slip down Aziraphle’s cheeks, tears that he dashed away with the back of his hand. The sight of those tears nearly broke Crowley’s heart. “Hasn’t this been embarrassing enough? Must I spell it out for you in every painful detail?”

“If you would,” Crowley said, more than a little desperately. “Please, Angel.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes for a moment, a wave of agony washing across his face. “I know you don’t love me,” he finally said, sounding as if every word was being forcibly pulled from him. “I know you don’t want to marry me-”

“When the hell did I ever say that?” Crowley burst out, staring at Aziraphale in astonishment. “You never said anything about love! You certainly never asked me to marry you!” At least not intentionally, but Crowley was sure that he hadn’t meant that-

“I asked you to preen my wings!” Aziraphale exploded at him, the words coming out in a rush. “I had your hands in my feathers - I knew Hell had forgotten a lot of our ways, but I didn't think you could ever forget this.”

Crowley stared at Aziraphale in stunned silence, unable to find the words he so desperately wanted to say right then. Aziraphale must have taken his silence for a further rejection, because he shrank back further into the couch, curling protectively into himself.

“Like I said,” he said quietly, “message received.”

“You-” Crowley trailed off, shaking his head in disbelief. “You mean, you knew that you were proposing to me?”

“Of course I - what?” Aziraphale stopped himself mid-sentence, staring at Crowley in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“I thought Heaven had forgotten,” Crowley tried to explain. “I thought the old ways were gone, I thought you didn’t know what you were doing when you asked me to preen your wings. I never thought-”

“Never thought what?” Aziraphale prompted him, gently, when Crowley found himself trailing off.

“Never thought you’d want to marry me,” Crowley admitted, quietly. “I mean, I’m just a demon, and you deserve so much better than me.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, looking heartbroken all over again. Crowley hated seeing that look on his face.

“I still don’t understand why you’d want to marry me,” he confessed, crossing the room to kneel in front of Aziraphale, reaching out to grasp his hands. “But if you really mean it, if you want to, well, I’d be crazy to say no. I’ve been in love with you for so long, how could I not want to marry you?”

“Oh, Crowley.” There were tears on Aziraphale’s face again, but he was smiling, and Crowley found his hand trembling as he reached up to wipe the tears away from Aziraphale’s face. “My beautiful, wonderful, foolish demon.”

“I’m a bit of an idiot,” Crowley agreed, “but if you marry me, Angel, then I’ll be your idiot. Forever.”

“Forever,” Aziraphale echoed, leaning forward to rest his forehead against Crowley’s. “I like the sound of forever.”

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