Chapter Text
The angel in his arms is sweaty and cold. Why is he cold? Shouldn’t he be healing? Is he not healing?
Crowley draws a shuddering breath and grits his teeth. Don’t be stupid. He can feel every twitch and tremble of the wounded wing with how tight he is gripping Aziraphale. He can feel severed tendons growing back and blood vessels recovering, slowly webbing across the delicate inner map of a corporeal angel wing. He grimaces at the wet crackling sound of hollow bone mending its shattered fragments back together. It’s slow and the bloodstains won’t come off without a molt or a miracle but he is healing.
It doesn’t do much to reassure him, Crowley notes grimly, not when Aziraphale is so cold. It’s wrong. Angels, or just this one, fuck if he knows, shouldn’t be cold. Aziraphale has always been warm, almost like the sun, in a way that makes Crowley amenable to the idea of completely forsaking his favourite shape in favour of spending the rest of eternity coiled around the angel.
His breath hitches and he curses, fuck, Aziraphale will be fine, stop crying. To distract himself with something, if just for one moment, Crowley moves on the straws to lean against a wall and attempts to make himself more comfortable. He pulls Aziraphale closer, lifts a shaky hand to the side of his head and gently cradles him against his chest, thumb softly caressing the silvery blond curls. They are cold and damp at the roots and Crowley hates it.
The demon doesn’t pay much attention to the time until the first light of dawn trickles from the cracks in the hovel’s walls. It promises warmth that’s not yet there but will be, in due time. A lone ray of sunlight kisses the angel’s cheek and as if by some sort of magic he wakes up.
Crowley feels him stir and has to bite back a sigh of relief - it wouldn’t do to let the angel know how worried he was - resulting in a much more acceptable huff. However, he doesn’t look at Aziraphale even when the angel shifts in his arms to look up. There is a soft inhale, as if he saw something that touched him to the core. Crowley clenches his jaw. Too soft.
“Crowley…” Aziraphale starts but the demon cuts him off.
“Shut up”, he says, voice rough and tight. “Shut up, it’s fine, couldn’t very well leave you out there, now could I. Shut up.”
Aziraphale must be utterly exhausted from healing his wing since this time that’s all it takes for him to give up trying to thank Crowley. He just smiles against his chest, not just settling back into his lap but actually embracing him and finally, finally, finally the angel is warming up. Crowley’s heart swells with something unnamed and suddenly it doesn’t matter anymore that Aziraphale saw the tear-stains on his face.