Chapter Text
“Crowley, dear, where do you want this crate of… oh!” Aziraphale paused in the doorway of Crowley’s bedroom, finding the demon kneeling on the floor beside his bed with a long, thin box in his hands, and a strange expression on his face. “Are you all right, dearest?”
Crowley looked up, startled, gripping the box tightly as though it were too precious to risk dropping. “What? Yes! Of course, I was just…” He looked back to the box. “It’s been a long time coming, hasn’t it, Aziraphale?”
Aziraphale gave him a gentle smile. “Yes, I dare say it has, and long overdue, yet I’m not sure we could have done it any other way.” The demon nodded absently, lost in thought again. “What’ve you got there?”
Crowley took a deep breath and stood up to bring the box to Aziraphale. The angel put the crate of kitchenware down before accepting the box with careful hands. It was delicately carved from olive wood in a style Aziraphale hadn’t seen in at least centuries. He glanced up for permission, and, at Crowley’s encouraging nod, opened the box, gasping to find one pristine white flight feather.
“Is this…?”
“It’s yours, yeah.”
Aziraphale looked up to meet golden eyes. “How long have you had this?”
Crowley gave him a tender smile. “Bit over six thousand years, Angel.”
—
Angels and demons were enemies. Both sides were entirely clear about that, after literally God only knew how long at war. So Crawly was well aware he was taking a risk by sliding up onto the Eastern wall beside the golden-haired angel to keep an eye on the two humans his advice had doomed. Still, this was the angel who had been kind enough to help them escape. There they were, off on the horizon, the man even wielding what Crawly immediately realized must have been the angel’s own flaming sword.
Crawly took another risk and prodded him about it, when the angel didn’t immediately smite him for saying hello. A bit of back and forth made it equally clear that, while the Angel of the Eastern Gate - Aziraphale - knew just as well as he did that they ought to be enemies, he was just as much at a loss about what to do with that information as Crawly was himself.
That was a bit surprising. But what really startled the demon was when the first thunder rolled, and the first drops fell from Heaven, instead of the burning agony of holy water he’d braced for, he felt the lightest brush of a flight feather against his shoulder as the angel sheltered him from the first rain. For all Aziraphale knew, that rain was intended to drive Crawly’s demonic influence from the world, and the first thing he thought to do was prevent it from touching him?
Crawly stood there, beside the kindest being he thought he’d ever known, his mind racing. What was he supposed to do with this kind of enemy? Was it a trick to lure him into a false sense of security? Were angels that creative already? None of the others he’d ever met were. He’d found out the hard way that creativity was rather frowned upon in Heaven. And this one seemed more sincere than most.
It was maddening, standing there, unsure he should risk letting the heavenly waters touch him, and thus effectively trapped beside this beautiful creature by his unexpected kindness.
Well.
It certainly gave him time to think.
As a demon, Crawly was expected to be entirely self-serving. Well, aside from them all serving the mutual cause of Hell in their eternal war against Heaven, and thus Satan, as everyone knew the Great Plan would someday bring the war to an end. But they all knew if they didn’t win the war, they’d be obliterated, and that was clearly not in their best interests. So even then, the guarded collaboration between demons was still entirely self-serving in the larger scheme of things.
So, turning down this angel’s inexplicable - which was emphatically NOT to say ineffable - kindness was clearly not within Crawly’s best interest… right?
Sometime after the rain ended, and the golden angel made his apologetic departure, Crawly emerged from his bemused reverie to find a single pristine white flight feather at his feet.