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“What? You want to what?” Crawly asked, eyeing Aziraphale suspiciously.
“I believe I spoke clearly the first time.” With a little huff, Aziraphale inched closer. Crawly hissed at him. “Don’t hiss at me, you old serpent. It’s quite evident that your wings are rather in need of grooming, and that you’re currently incapable of doing it yourself.”
That was true. Bloody annoying, but true. Crawly had suffered a firsthand encounter with some of the latest human inventions—namely, arrows—and hadn’t quite managed to heal himself. He’d landed safely, thank Satan. But he hadn’t managed to do much other than sit at the oasis and stare at sand since then.
“Admittedly, I don’t quite understand why you don’t heal yourself,” Aziraphale continued. “Can’t demons perform healing miracles?”
Crawly sighed and stared at his arm. Blood spotted the outside of the bandage, red dots against a vague sort of off white. “Yeah. Yeah.”
“I thought as much. I-I mean, you and I are of the same, you know. Nature.” Aziraphale gestured between them. “Angels. Although you, of course, are Fallen.”
Crawly blinked at him. “I noticed.”
“There’s no reason for sarcasm when I’m trying to help you,” Aziraphale said in an impressively bitchy tone. Crawly liked that bitchy tone a lot more than he should. Liked the warmth that spread through him whenever he heard it. “Anyway, I-I don’t know why you can’t heal yourself, but I think you should let me do something about your feathers. Some of them are broken, you know.”
“I noticed that too,” Crawly muttered.
Aziraphale rolled his eyes and stepped closer gingerly. Like he wasn’t sure if Crawly would turn into a snake and start biting.
Crawly didn’t turn into a snake. For one thing, he didn’t like changing shape much. He was always afraid he’d forget how to turn back. And besides, it could ruin a good set of robes.
He did hiss, just a little. It didn’t put Aziraphale off this time.
Aziraphale decided not to keep hassling him about why he couldn’t heal himself, at least. He also didn’t offer to try to heal it. That was fine with Crawly. They might have the same basic nature and all, but Aziraphale was right about the whole “Fallen” thing. No way to know if a healing miracle would work, or just set him on fire or something.
Crawly didn’t want to be set on fire or something. He also didn’t particularly want to just keep sitting here in the sand with his feathers all ruffled. Bloody uncomfortable, ruffled feathers. Made him itchy.
Aziraphale carefully extracted the broken feathers, dropping them to the sand. Some blood dripped down too. Probably a bit of an injury there. A scrape from an arrow or something.
“You’ve been scraped by an arrow or something,” Aziraphale said, fingers sifting through Crawly’s feathers with care. “It’s bleeding a little. Would you, um, like me to try anything about it?”
“Nonono. Just leave it. It’ll stop on its own.”
“All right, my dear boy.”
Crawly took a long, deep breath, and tried not to think about how good it felt to have Aziraphale call him that. Or about how good it felt to have Aziraphale touch him.
Each moment of contact was enough to make him shiver, and in a good way for once. As a rule, Crawly didn’t exactly get touched much. Definitely didn’t get anything like this kind of intimacy. He suspected he’d crave it, from now on.
“This is looking better,” Aziraphale said after a bit. “Um. How do you feel? Are you in too much pain to heal yourself?”
“Nuh. I can’t bloody heal myself because the humans prayed over their arrowheads. Some holiness in the wounds.”
“Oh dear.”
“Not feeling too bad, though. Better now. Kind of queasy.” That might be the holiness too. Either way, Crawly’s stomach was upset, and the smell of blood wasn’t exactly helping the nausea. “Er. Thanks for this. S’ nice.”
“Oh. Um.” Aziraphale cleared his throat, fingers still skimming through Crawly’s feathers. Putting them back in order, making his wings much less tattered and a lot more presentable. “Well, I-I suppose you’re welcome. I would offer to help you back to Uruk, but I’m not wholly certain you can put your wings away right now.”
“Hng. No, probably not.” Especially not with the lingering holiness in his system. “You could go to Uruk and pick up some wine, though? Or beer? And then come back?”
Crawly winced at himself. That wasn’t the sort of suggestion he should make. Aziraphale liked him—probably more than he should—but that might be pushing it.
“Oh! Um.” Again, Aziraphale cleared his throat, sliding a hand along the top of Crawly’s wing. “Yes. That sounds nice. I’ll do that.”
No longer suspicious, Crawly relaxed. Maybe too sentimental for a demon, but Aziraphale’s company reminded him of an oasis, just like this one. In the harsh desert of the world, a little kindness was pretty damn refreshing.