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rcreveal · 8 days

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An Adjustment

Aziraphale meets Crowley at a crossroads in medieval England because of the Arrangement, but finds that there's something he really wants to adjust. This takes place after the Arrangement started in 1020 and before the Globe Theater. It’s prompted by my writer's group: @theriverspath’s question about how long Aziraphale has been preening Crowley’s wings from a little exchange the two share in my “Spring Cleaning” fanfic, @moons weakness for wing grooming fics and the prompts: “How we began again, with an illicit bargain.” and “The Arrangement”. Also inspired by @skyler’s description of Crowley as “grabable”.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

On a windswept moor a solitary figure trudged up the steep slope using trails of broken slate that slipped under his feet. The late winter sunshine would be brief and the storm crowding the horizon promised to be prolonged. Finally rounding the last bend to see the top of the isolated hill and the person waiting for him, Aziraphale spake thusly to himself, “Blow this for a lark! I pray that I win the toss this time!” before reaching the demon at the crossroads.

Crowley was hopping from foot to foot, grinning madly. When he saw the angel, he threw his arms wide to take in the desolate hill, the threatening storm, and the little village huddled near the local castle down in the valley. “Lookit! This place is perfect! I even found a crossroads and everything! Both the temptation and the …other thing are due to stumble through here at the height of the storm!” Clapping his hands together, he propositions, “So what do you say to a little wager?” the demon was still jigging around, apparently eager to beat Aziraphale at a game of chance…again. It was really getting on the angel's nerves.

“Fine, but I'd like to choose the game of chance,” the angel grumped a little.

“S’fair. You lost the last time.”

“ Three times.”

“Three times, three times, right. Really? So whadda ya chose?”

“Coin toss with my coin this time.” Aziraphale said a bit acerbically, pulling out an old Roman coin.

“Show me both sides, jus’ like I did for you,” Crowley insisted, still gamboling in place.

Aziraphale huffed in exasperation but made a show of demonstrating both sides of the coin, “And look, nothing up my sleeves!” He pushed up his sleeves baring his forearms. Heavens it was brisk out today!

“Call it.” Aziraphale said as the coin sparkled into the air and he caught it and slapped it down onto his bare arm.

“Tails, cuz I'd never ask an angel to choose to be an arse,” Crowley said with an ironic smile, still gyrating about.

“Crowley! That's uncalled for! Serves you right, you fiend, you lost this time! I'll see you at the tavern when you're done for the details. Good day to you!” Aziraphale spun on his heel and started to stomp down to the valley hearing Crowley’s frustrated groan.

Such a stream of swears came from Crowley that the air literally sparked and flared with sulfur and brimstone. Wheeling back on the demon and waggling a finger at him, Aziraphale admonished, “You lost! Swearing won't get you out of it, and will you stand still while I'm talking to you! ” Aziraphale shouted, beside himself at Crowley's continued capering.

“Can't. Stand still. Itches, too much!” Crowley whined, his face strained, moving his neck irritably.

“What is wrong with you!?” Aziraphale demanded, “You're usually more composed than this!” Usually, the demon was smoothly confident, no hair or garment out of place. Now he looked, well he looked haggard, frankly. “You look awful!”

Crowley’s face scrunched and he mumbled, “Got a thing with a feather,”

Cocking a hand to his ear, Aziraphale asks, “Come again?”

Louder this time, Crowley intones, “I have a thing with a feather !

“Well fix it, so you can meet your part of the Arrangement!”

“Can't reach,” explains Crowley.

Aziraphale huffs impatiently, “Then miracle it. Surely you can heal yourself!”

“Yah, but not this one!” complains Crowley.

“That's the absolute last straw!” Aziraphale cries, “Out with them!”

“Wot!?”

“Out with your wings! I want to see this ‘feather!’” Aziraphale stands with hands on hips, mumbling to himself, “If there even is a feather.”

“I heard that!” Crowley stomped around and threw his coat onto the ground, “Don't believe me?” his black wings strain out of his back, “Lookit that!” he stretched his right wing towards the angel. And indeed, in the most awkward place to reach is a patch of feathers that are either broken or twisted.

“Crowley! You're bleeding!” Aziraphale has closed the distance and uncovered a broken feather, bleeding slowly but steadily and some twisted feathers and irritated pinfeathers? Maybe blood feathers? but he only catches a glimpse before Crowley mantles and hisses at him, pulling the wing out of reach.

“I didn't say you could touch it!” the demon snarls.

Aziraphale takes a deep breath through his nose, blue eyes flashing towards the incapacitated demon scratching his wings against each other and the incipient weather. His desire to win this contest warring with his instincts to help. He lets out a long breath and suddenly regains his composure. He can do both!

“Fiend! I’ll thwart your wiles!” he cries.

“What are you nattering on about? We already settled this! I’ll stay out here in the weather and you’ll be cozy indoors somewhere. Fair toss and all that.”

“You may tempt his Lordship with a “falcon”, but I can’t condone leaving it hurt like that! I insist that you bring that creature to the mews so I can mend those feathers!” Aziraphale is pointing at Crowley and winking.

“Wot?”

Dropping out of the pantomime, “I’m his Lordship’s falconer, Crowley!” Aziraphale said a little exasperatedly, “I said bring the “falcon” with the injured feathers to me and I’ll fix them! So the “falcon” can do its duty. Come now!”

“You want to fix my…?”

“Just get the, the “creature” to the mews. Immediately! Or I’ll have to take steps!” Aziraphale blustered.

Crowley looked at the angel open mouthed, then started to hop up and down with his fists balled at the sides.

“Oh, right, you got me, angel,” he says stiltedly, “I’ll bring you the “falcon” and you’ll fix its feathers?” ‘ How?’ mouthed Crowley.

‘Trust me!’ mouthed Aziraphale.

“You go first, demon! I’ve got my eyes on you!” Aziraphale ushered the demon ahead of him. “Pull in your wings!” he whispered.

“But it itches less with them out,” Crowley grumbles. Craning over his shoulder as he walks by, he offersd. “Look, you don’t have to do this. I'll just stand here with them out till the storm comes. Everyone will think it’s just one of those wretched swan cloaks. Really, I’ve got it covered,” he’s reaching back to scratch.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale remonstrates, slapping his hand.

Crowley pulls in his wings and goes back to his itchy dance down the moor to the castle mews with the angel shooing him onwards.

Sitting uncomfortably in the back of the dimly lit mews, having sidled past all manner of hooded raptors, Crowley asks, “You’re really the falconer here?”

Bustling about with pots of glue, dowels, some wicked looking pliers and knives, Aziraphale assures, “Oh yes! I’ve been doing falconer work off and on for centuries!” arranging his tools, “There. Now let out “the falcon’s” wings again. I’ll fix them up, then you go do what you were going to do.”

Crowley unfurls his wings.

Aziraphale reaches for the damaged patch, lifting the feathers gently and sucks at his teeth.

“That hurts!” Crowley snarls. All Crowley’s feathers puff out and he snatches the wing away. Aziraphale spends a fruitless few minutes trying to catch Crowley’s wing, with many a “Will you settle down!?” and “Not if you’re going to hurt!” and “If you’d hold still it’ll hurt less!” and “I am holding still!”

Finally at the end of his patience, Aziraphale raises a hand over the demon as though he really were a tetchy raptor and intones, “ SETTLE DOWN!”

“Did you just try to work a miracle? On m…” Crowley starts, incredulously.

“No! It was nothing like that!” Aziraphale yelps, thinking, ‘It was exactly like that, why hadn’t it worked? Oh right.’

“Even if an angel ever did try to work a miracle on a demon, I expect they would need the demon’s permission. Look, can you do anything to calm “the falcon” down?” Aziraphale asks.

“Got any alcohol? It’s partial to a good red wine,“ Crowley retorts cheekily.

Aziraphale rummaged under his bed and came up with a leathern flask that smelled of apples. “No, but the locals ferment apple cider around here,” the angel tops off a smallish horn cup, and offers it to the demon.

Crowley takes the horn cup with a sneer, “Quaint. You think you’re going to get me drunk on apple juice?” and empties the cup in one gulp. When his eyes water and he coughs, a small fireball erupts over the candles for a moment. Eyeing the liquor through streaming eyes, Crowley wheezes, “What do the locals call this stuff?”

“Scumble. Word to the wise, don’t ever pour it in metal.”

“Why?” asks Crowley.

“Scumble dissolves metal,” explains the angel matter of factly.

“I think I’ll take another draft,” Crowley says with a grin.

Some time later, Crowley was draped bonelessly over the back of a chair, to say he was in his cups was an understatement, but it certainly made him pliant. About the feather work.

Just now Aziraphale had rendered him incoherent with an old joke about a Mesopotamian pastry, a popular Greek play, and a Roman urn.

Shoulders shaking with laughter, Crowley finally dissolved into hiccups,“Ya know wha’ ‘m sayin’, angel? Right?”

“Oh, certainly!” Aziraphale found that he'd been having quite a convivial time. They had been sharing jokes and anecdotes that spanned thousands of years and dozens of civilizations. Burying the thought that he was giving ‘aide and succor’ to the ‘enemy’ was easier since that enemy was acting like any other hurt bird he'd cared for. Crowley had initially mantled, hissed, snapped, rattled his pinions, growled, snarled, and sworn whenever the angel had gotten anywhere near the bad feather. Which was still dripping blood onto the floor. But finally alcohol and Aziraphale's gentle ministrations were having the desired effect. The ‘falcon’ had settled enough that the skin around the bad feather just shivered when the angel touched it. Aziraphale pondered while his hands busied themselves with the damaged feathers: So Crowley couldn't heal that feather himself for some reason, but he could ‘build himself up’ and he hadn't done. That troubled Aziraphale, as he'd seen such injuries take the last of some bird's strength.

A cold little thought suggested itself, ‘What if Crowley…left and didn't come back?’

Lose contact with the only being in heaven or on earth who would reliably laugh at his jokes? That…wasn't acceptable. Anyhow, there were meant to be both of them, endlessly opposite, ah, …opposed to each other.

Aziraphale noted that Crowley had drunk enough that the demon kept forgetting how he'd started a sentence, so on to the hard bit.

Aziraphale opened with, “Now, I’ve cleared out the pinfeathers and imped…,”

“Imped?” Crowley giggled.

“ Splinted the bent feathers. But the broken blood feather will have to come out. You’re…”the falcon” is just going to keep bleeding!” argued Aziraphale.

“Ngghh,” finger raised, “Stops event.. ually. When it grows in,” disagreed Crowley.

“And how long does that take, pray?”

“Praying doesn, doesn’t help, angel. Doncha know? Tha’ featherrrr takes as long as it takesss.”

“Well it needs to come out! Do I have your permission?”

“Wha?” Crowley looked over at the angel blearily.

“Do I have your permission to fix this blood feather?” Aziraphale persisted.

“Yah, do wha’ever you like. ‘S not gonna make it worse,” Crowley laughed, flapping his hand vaguely at his wing.

Aziraphale went very still. That was far more leeway than he thought Crowley intended, but…he grabbed the opportunity (and the demon), anyway.

“Let’s get you comfortable on the bed!” he said airily, grasping the languid demon under his arms. “You might get a little light-headed when I deal with this.” Aziraphale quickly shifted Crowley towards his bed, the demon was anything but steady with the sudden move, chuckling “‘’m flyin’” as the angel steered him around in a controlled fall onto the bed, landing him safely belly down and ebony wings all a clatter.

Not giving Crowley a chance to take back his permission, Aziraphale commanded, “Now, SETTLE DOWN .” Crowley immediately dropped off to sleep, not fighting the suggestion at all this time. That was unsettling in and of itself, Aziraphale had the demon entirely at his mercy.

Aziraphale picked up the pliers that would frighten the life out of anyone seeing them coming. Thankfully, Crowley wouldn’t see them. Aziraphale had been considering what he had to do for most of the time he was working on the other feathers. This broken one was well and truly bolloxed. It looked like it had been injured then grew in worse every time it molted. No wonder the demon was so tetchy today. Who knew how long the thing had been bleeding. Even as tough as Crowley was, that had to be wearing on him.

Right then.

Aziraphale pulled the broken, bleeding feather.

And released a torrent.

Quickly, Aziraphale wove a healing miracle. He’d done it before on falcons, eagles, hawks, whose injured feathers threatened to end their flying. It wasn’t enough to just pull the feather. He had to heal the follicle, or it would never be right again.

The bleeding stopped, but Aziraphale still frowned in concentration. Something was keeping him from completing the healing. It was better. Much, much better. But, he’d have to see to it again. Maybe every time it molted.

So be it.

Crowley snored drunkenly on Aziraphale’s bed, his ebony wings softly furled, every feather gleaming and in place. The promised storm was just starting to pelt the castle.

Aziraphale pulled out two Roman coins from his pocket. One had heads and tails and the other had double heads. Aziraphale palmed each coin in turn and flashed them into the air, displaying first heads, then tails, over and over with the regularity of a pendulum. Flipping a final coin, he gazed down at the sleeping demon.

Waking Crowley and sending him out into the winter storm to uphold his end of the Arrangement would just undo all of the angel’s diligent work! Plus the unguarded look on Crowley’s sleeping face reminded Aziraphale of…Before.

Grabbing an oiled leather cape and a stout walking stick, Aziraphale left Crowley in the warm and headed out into the night.

“Ngghh, my head!” groaned Crowley. His tongue felt furred, his stomach was in revolt, his skin felt too big, his wings…

His wings did not itch or hurt.

‘Nggk,’ he thought between the pounding, ‘what the heaven happened last night?’ He tried to rack his untrustworthy memory: his wings had really acted up, he lost the toss, jokes, alcohol, a fuckery about fixing “the falcon”... The angel got strangely formal and asked permission for…

Crowley needed not to be epically hung over for this, so he expelled the poisons from whatever he’d gotten well and truly sloshed on, and looked at his right wing. Someone had expertly imped the bent feathers, the pinfeather sheaths were out and the broken, bleeding, festering blood feather...

Was gone.

Instead of the usual stinking hole, the follicle was in better shape than it’d been since before it’d been injured so long ago, so very, very long ago. And that was impossible, because that feather was never going to be right again. Only an angel could heal it and no angel would…

“Angel?” Crowley said softly, identifying gentle breathing nearby, looked down to see Aziraphale curled up asleep on a straw mattress on the floor.

Blue eyes opened softly and looked up at Crowley sweetly, until a smile that took on gleeful delight crossed the angel’s face. “You owe me double!”

“Wot!?” Crowley said in surprise.

“I did my blessing and the other thing at the crossroads in the storm last night. And I performed that little service for the “falcon”, so,” ticking off his fingers, “You owe double!” Aziraphale crowed and sat up.

“Is that really chivalrous when you obviously got me completely crocked?” Crowley rolled up on his side, “What the heaven did I drink?”

“Scumble, it’s made from apples.” Crowley finds the empty leather flask and sniffs it dubiously. “Stop changing the subject, Crowley! You. Owe. Me!” Aziraphale sang out happily.

“All right, all right!” Crowley said, amused to think ‘the angel has a bastard streak, who knew?’ “Obviously, for the temptation, but this…” he waves at his wing, “this is…” Crowley looks at the angel at a loss for words.

“Just a little adjustment to the Arrangement,” Aziraphale said airily, “That I hope you remember should I ever meet you in similar circumstances.”

Crowley nodded, “Sure, that’s…Alright, then…but,” he stumbled over his words.

“And if “the falcon” needs any further help, you’re welcome to bring him back here,” Aziraphale said more warmly. “Actually, I insist!”

“Insist, do you?” Crowley asked, face going from unguarded to a wry smile. Aziraphale’s heart melted a little at the brief flash of hopefulness in Crowley’s orange eyes. “Indeed, I do insist upon it!” the angel said firmly, a bit of the bastard in his twinkling smile.

Could they make a subtle adjustment to the Arrangement?

Aziraphale was certainly willing to wager it.

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