logsinthenight | [Closed] Don't drink and fly!

Entry tags:

[Closed] Don't drink and fly!

characters: Xayah and Crowley
location: The Docks, at the start then wherever there's place to practice flying!
date/time: After hallucinations event, but before end of month, 25th?
content: Crowley is teaching Xayah to fly
warnings: Foul language, drinking, talking smack? General warnings for Beacon

She was nervous.

And who wouldn't be? More than ten years Xayah didn't shapeshift her cloak back into her wings, giving her best to blend into the surroundings and with humans she encountered. It never occurred to her that she should just try and fly- until Crowley suggested that.

She doesn't remember flying at all. What she remembers was being mocked for tall ears, tattoos on her face, her feet and her wings. Wings that she shapeshifted into a feathery cloak.

And now, she shifted it back to what they are. A pair of pretty purple wings, that have a soft blend to maroon red on the edges, the same color of her hair. They are as big as her body and she feels a bit odd wearing them after such a long time. But she's determined to learn. Flying will just give her a huge advantage in everything.

After not being able to find Crowley at the Invincible, she heads to the docks. It was one other place he told her she can find him once she's ready. And she's ready. Uh... she hopes?

She sneaks up to the docks and waits for people to clear out a bit before stepping up to where she spotted Crowley working on some planks and crates and whatnot.

"I see you can walk," her lips twitch as she jumps on one of the crates behind Crowley, her wings making a soft swishing sound. Man, she needs to get used to this now, huh? She tries to have a serious expression, but there's a twinkle in her eye and twitch in her lips that's telling so much how excited she actually is about all of this.

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"I always keep mine away so I don't stand out," Crowley admits. "First time you're put on a pyre for being a monster, you tend to keep things a bit...more subdued." Says the man who dresses like an 80's rocker made love to a gay fashion icon. All the same, his sunglasses and invisible wings keep him only somewhat of a head-turner as opposed to something to be gaped at.

"We'll see them in the light again once we're out of this place," he says. "Once we get back to where we belong."

Of course, that means that Xayah will go back to her world and Crowley to his. That shouldn't sting the way it does, but Crowley has become somewhat attached to her. She's different than the other people here, and he likes her for it.

He steps towards the clearing near where the docks used to be and puts his lantern down on the ground.

"A nifty trick," she admits. She wishes she had a spell that could make her wings or bird features just invisible and perfectly blend with everyone else. It would have saved her a lot of time and hassle. Maybe her life too. But she doesn't complain; she loves the magic that she has and she appreciates the wild granting it to her.

When they get to the clearing, she puts her lantern away as well, while she practices and then turns around, cracking her neck and rolling shoulders.

"Alright. Where do I start?"

He's not going to grab her and drop her from the air, right? She'll feed him to fishes, they are just nearby.

A nifty trick, she says. He shrugs. "It was survival. You know all about that."

Crowley's never taught anyone to fly before. Mostly, he figures the demons who can't fly are just the ones who can stay out of his way and he doesn't even give them a second thought. Still, he has spent some time thinking about what to do with Xayah, how to get her accustomed to floating, to flying.

"Let's get your wings stretched out, try to see if we can get you floating a bit above the ground, then I'll take you up," he says, gesturing to the sky above them. "Won't properly drop you or anything----" Not that he has any idea that's one of her worries, "---but it'll get the feel of some wind in your wings, get you used to how to move them when you want to steer."

That she does. And she still wishes she knew how to hide her wings like that. Just make them invisible. So much easier than shapeshifting.

She glances up at the sky and then squints at him, "Shouldn't I just jump from a tree as an attempt?" In case she drops down like a rock, it will hurt less.

But she does as instructed and rolls her shoulders back, wing slowly stretching once, twice, three times, making a gentle swish of air around her as she moves them in a testing motion. This part is easy, she floated before with her cape- she takes a step back, jumps and flaps her wings, getting herself off the ground. She doesn't stay in the air though, despite repeating the motion and lands on her feet, in a crouch, wings around her.

"Dammit..." She... shouldn't feel disappointed. She knew she didn't know how to do it but still...

She may feel disappointed, but Crowley looks especially impressed. "See, I thought I'd have to teach you a bit more just to get you floating, you've already got that bit down."

He looks back, taking in the shape of her flight feathers in comparison to his own. She could easily get some height with a bit more stretch to her wings, and probably a bit more confidence.

"Now, try a bit of a harder flap, get a bit more wind underneath," he says. "Watch."

He doesn't jump, not with his leg, but he stretches out his wings and gets about a foot off the ground with some simple movements of his wings.

She observes the movement of his wings (as much as the light of their lanterns and moon lets her), eyes narrowing in concentration. Okay so, make bigger wingspan. That should be- easy?

Cracking her neck, she stretches out her wings again as wide as they can be, and with a slight push of her foot, she gets herself in the air. She manages to keep herself a bit longer in the air and holy fuck she can feel her heartbeat in her throat. The landing is a bit of a mess, she tumbles a bit and groans.

"Ow, ow..." she tries to crack her back, but it doesn't really work. "My shoulders are killing me." She's silent for a moment, eyes moving from Crowley to their lanterns, "--for a moment I thought they wouldn't be able to hold my weight and they would snap..." Yep. That's a bit of fear in her voice.

Edited 2019-10-27 23:35 (UTC)

"They won't," he promises. "Your muscles just need work, need practice lifting you up."

He holds out a hand.

"Here, lean on me a bit, let's go up again. I'll take some of the weight."

Clarification is in order here. Crowley is not a nice person. He is gruff, he is a bit cruel, and he's a bastard. But in this exact moment, he has absolutely no desire to see Xayah frightened of her own wings. He is, deep down, soft and he's going to help her, which is mostly annoying because it would be far more demonic just to let her falter.

She wouldn't be surprised even if he did, honestly. She'd smack him for it, but she wouldn't be surprised. Xayah's used to humans not treating her well, so he wouldn't be an exception.

Even though he was one of the extremely rare humans that did end up treating her nicely overall. He blew up the ferry, yes, but he didn't let her sink with it either. It will take a bit more to change her opinion of people overall, but he's... he's fine. For now.

"If I break into pieces, I'll haunt you," she warns as she takes his hand. Spreading her wings, she readies herself to fly by herself once Crowley gets them up in the air. But no matter of readying is helping with the jitters she's having. "Let's do this-" before she chickens out.

"You won't," Crowley says. "Stop being dramatic."

He gives his wings a flap, getting them about a foot in the air. He grips her hands tightly, holding onto her weight. He's stronger than he looks----not as strong as Aziraphale, but demons were never as strong as angels---and he can hold her up without any issue.

"Give them a flap, feel them hold you up," he says. He adjusts his wings again, flapping them to maintain the height of about a foot up.

"I'm not dramatic I-" 'didn't move my wings properly in over ten years!' dies off when they get up in the skies.

She's not that heavy to begin with- she's short and light on her feet. And she does, indeed, follow his instructions. Her wings flap around, making her own weight not depend on Crowley as much. She can feel the wind coursing around her and holding her up, and she gives her best to ignore the burning feeling in her shoulder blades. Just a thing that happens when you don't fly in over a decade

Her eyes glance down and she almost loses her breath and slips, but catches herself in the last moment, with the firm movement of her wings.

He goes higher, and higher. He doesn't have to hold her up as much as he expected, her wings are quite strong. He imagines it'll be not long at all for her until she's doing this on her own. What would it have been like if Crowley forgot how to fly? How humiliating? How frightening? He can't help but sympathize with the girl, at least a little bit.

"We're going to go for a soar, now," he says. "Ten feet back for me, ten feet forward for you. I want you to feel the way the wind moves through your wings and adjust to keep balanced."

He shifts his body to prepare to move backwards. "I've got your hands, you're not going to fall."

The mantra of 'this is terrifying' is not stopping from going in circles in her head as they go higher and higher in the skies. Her wings are supporting her decently, but she's honestly like a kid that sat on the two-wheeled bicycle for the first time. It is embarrassing that she doesn't know something so basic like this, something that she inherited.

But Crowley doesn't seem to give a fuck about it so Xayah tries not to think about it. Her eyes snap from the ground and to him and she nods tentatively. It feels like she will forget what to do the moment she lets go of his hands. Because she will have to- eventually- if she wants to learn.

"R-Right-!" She's not ready at all, but at this pace, she'll never be. She spreads her wings as far as she can, the chill seeping through the feathers. "Let's do it."

He starts to flap his wings, moving himself backwards. "Keep your wings straight, let the wind guide you forward. You should just float forward, wind catching in the flight feathers."

Apart from his brief stint as a Nanny and the time he opened a for-profit driving school in Newark, New Jersey, Crowley has never really taught anyone anything, now that he thinks about it. He's greedy, as a rule, and keeps his knowledge mostly to himself because he can't figure out why he'd ever want to share with anyone.

This is sort of---not nice because nothing Crowley does is nice---well, it's not a terrible thing, he supposes. Helping out.

"Yeah, yeah, got it-!"

She didn't say it as a reprimand for his instructions, she just has heart up in her throat from excitement because- she's actually flying. True, Crowley is holding her hands, but she's doing her damnedest best to not rely on him completely. After all, she'll have to let go eventually, she'll have to fly by herself.

But for now, this feels amazing- sans the burn on her back where her wings are sprouting from. But there's just too much adrenaline in her to pay mind to it right now.

"This feels great..." she's not sure if he can hear her breath out that because of the wind, but she's getting into this. It's like a drug- once you taste it, you just can't stop.

Crowley isn't much of a smiler, but that does make him smile.

"Yeah, it does, doesn't it?" he says. One day she'll do this on her own, he thinks. She'll soar the way all humans soar about their lives. It'll be a good thing to see when he walks out on the town, her purple wings out as she takes off. Ugh, he sounds incredibly sentimental and he can't be having any of that, now.

"All right, we're going to try to turn. Lift your left wing, give it a flap, and turn your body, we're going right."

He can be as sentimental as he wants- right now she doesn't care. And probably won't in the future either because he helped her. Actually taught her how to fly again. Sure, she's rusty as all hell and her back will hurt like a bitch in the morning, but it's worth it.

All of this is so worth it.

She nods and follows the instructions to a t- she can't risk being tardy. And there's a happy, short laugh as they switch the direction.

"I'll race you one day!" Xayah grins at him.

"Learning at this rate, you might beat me." She won't. He's an excellent flier.

Maybe this is what it's like for Aziraphale. All the times he helps people, all the times he goes out of his way to do what's right. Most of the time, Crowley just thinks it's completely stupid, but in this moment, he sort of gets it. Seeing Xayah grinning madly at him at her accomplishments.

He gestures to their right. "Okay, other direction. Ready?"

"I'll challenge you one day!"

One day, when there's Sun, and skies are clear and there's nothing and no one threatening to dispatch them with a snap of their fingers, just because they feel like it. And if not, well, she'll at least have this as her last memory before disappearing.

She turns right, again, with a soft 'whoop', and she's getting the hang of this. Slowly, very slowly. It doesn't feel like her wings are going to snap anymore, or as if she's going to take a nosedive the moment something doesn't feel right.

Sadly, all amazing things have to come to an end as the pain in her shoulders actually becomes a problem now, "C-Crowley, I need to land-" before her wings give out.

Crowley isn't an angel. He can't sense things like pain and suffering in the way that an angel could. He has no idea that Xayah is about to fall from pain, all he knows is that she's having fun and he's enjoying teaching her and he has absolutely no desire to stop that.

"Hang on, we'll get to landing in a minute, do you want to try flying backwards?" he offers up. He already starts flying forward, telling her how to flap her wings to get the best backward momentum.

Her eyebrows narrow in thought- one more thing won't hurt, right? She's already this high up in the air, might as well try it. She flaps her wings and tries to mimic the movement Crowley makes as well, and she's actually half-way there, managing to remain afloat-

-for all of five seconds.

The sudden drop in her gut mimics her sudden drop from the sky- her back and wings couldn't support her anymore as she pushed herself to the limits. In fact- she crossed that limit since they started taking turns left and right.

She can't even scream out for him to catch her as all the air had left her lungs, eyes wide in panic.

"Fuck!"

Crowley dives. He's always been a great flier, and he's always been fast. Not a fighter, Crowley, always a fleer. He knows how to flee, and he knows how to do it fast. In this case, he's grateful for it, as he dives to catch Xayah, to grip her as fast as he can and flap his wings up to prevent the fall.

"I've got you!" he calls out. "Hang on!"

The panic isn't gone- it won't be gone until her feet hit the ground safely. So her nails dig into his shoulder when he catches her, the same way a panicked, drowning person would grip on the lifeguard. Her chest burns as she gets air back in her lungs, and she can only his out a "...land us..."

There's a single prayer in her head that she doesn't faint because that will be way too embarrassing. She's supposed to be tough, not 'faint at her first flying lesson' type of person.

"Yeah---I'm heading down now---"

He doesn't even hesitate to go down. He takes them on a careful downward movement, dropping them carefully back on the ground so he's balanced on his good leg with Xayah still in his arms. He moves to put her back on her feet.

"What happened?" he demands, though not truly unkindly. "Did you----I don't know, lose the wind in your wings?"

She's a bit wobbly when her feet hit the ground and she holds onto his arm so she doesn't topple over. She may have lost feeling in her legs from the fright. Her shoulders are killing her and she can't help a soft hiss as she tries to move them to relax.

"N-No. I- don't think so. My back is not used to this. Everything went numb all of a sudden and I just couldn't move them anymore." She doesn't even register whether his tone is kind or no, she's still trying to get her panic from falling from the skies under check.

"Does it hurt?"

He glances at her back, where her wings sprout. She hasn't used them in a long time, she's said. It's a muscle, of course. Working how the muscles work, making them work together over time. She might've pulled something. She might've torn something.

He could fix that, his mind tells him.

Not that Crowley has done a lot of healing. Healing is for angels, not demons. But Crowley has done it before. He thinks of it as all part and partial to being around Aziraphale. He's picked up a bit of his goodness, it's made doing blessings and healings part of his lifestyle.

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jsyk I did not ask for these feels D: ;o;

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