Chapter Text
Harold startles at the sudden crash behind him, spinning his chair around to see what caused it. That it's John is no surprise. His condition, however, is unexpected.
“John!” Harold cries. “What happened?”
John staggers, bumping into the shelves lining the wall again and knocking several more books to the floor. His enormous indigo wings flap haphazardly in the narrow space as he tries to keep his balance. He catches himself on the shelves at last and gets his feet under him. Harold sees scrapes and fresh bruises on his body and an alarming amount of blood.
John's voice breaks. “Too many demons. We lost the number, Finch.” His legs give out under him, and he crumples to the floor in an exhausted, feathery heap.
Harold hurries over as quickly as he can. “How badly are you hurt? Do we need to call another angel to heal you? Let me call Carter.”
John shakes his head, making his halo shimmer, then winces as though the movement hurt. “No angels. Never angels – you know that. You patch me up. I need to be ready for the next number.”
“All right. Let's get you cleaned up so I can see what I'm doing. Will you need stitches?” Harold offers an arm out and lets John use him as a ladder to get to his feet again. He wraps an arm around John's waist below the wings and supports him as they make their way down the hall toward the bathroom.
“Don't think so. It's not all my blood,” John says darkly.
They reach the bathroom and Harold starts the water running to warm it up. “Will you be all right in here or do you need assistance?”
Unsurprisingly, John grunts a terse, “I got it.”
Harold returns to his desk and looks at the photo taped to the cracked glass board. A young man smiles back at him, unaware that his life would be cut short so soon after the picture was taken. He runs his finger along the edge of it. Heart heavy, Harold pulls the photo down and begins gathering everything into a folder. A life lost, swept away into a file cabinet.
Some time later, John's footsteps down the hall tell Harold how drained he must be, otherwise he'd never hear him coming. When John appears around the corner barefoot and in sweats, he looks marginally better than he did on arrival, though his hair and wings are rumpled from the shower. He collapses bonelessly onto the couch looking more like a surly teenager than an angel.
Without a word, Harold retrieves the well stocked first aid kit and sets to work cleaning and bandaging the worst of the cuts and scrapes. John was right – nothing needs stitches, but he's going to need to rest and recover before going out to try to stop the next demon attack. Harold cracks a chemical cold pack and hands it to John to put over his bruised ribs.
When Harold finishes tending the last scrape just above his left wing, he notices that John's feathers aren't just unruly from the shower. There are damaged ones, plus another cut just below the second wing joint, too.
“This cut here,” he says, gently touching near the area. “That was awfully close, wasn't it? They could have cut the tendon!”
John glances over his shoulder and shakes his head. “But they didn't. Just clean it out – it's fine.”
It's fine until it isn't, thinks Harold, but he keeps his thoughts to himself and does as John asks. He cleans the cut with antiseptic but otherwise leaves it be. It's too difficult to bandage wing injuries. His eyes drift over to the damaged feathers.
“You've got some broken ones. May I take care of them?” Harold asks carefully. John is sensitive about his wings and sometimes doesn't want to be touched. But exhaustion must win out today because he nods in agreement.
Harold pulls out one of the chairs from the kitchen area and gestures for him to have a seat. John heaves himself off the couch and into the chair, straddling it and resting his crossed arms over the back. His great wings rustle as they stretch briefly to their full span, then settle into a gleaming indigo wall behind him.
Harold takes a moment to watch in awe. John's wings, even in their current state of disarray are breathtaking. The glossy feathers shine even in the artificial light of the library, their deep blue showing nearly black in the shadows. John's shoulders are slightly slumped in fatigue, and his wings rest half open, leaving the long primaries brushing the floor. Like John himself, they're stunningly beautiful.
Shaking himself back to the the task at hand, Harold begins by cautiously running his palms along the edges of the wings, starting where they emerge from John's back and moving up toward the arches, avoiding the fresh cut. The silky feathers are smooth and still damp under his fingers. He does this a few times, just to get John used to the feel of his hands before moving on.
He starts straightening some of the feathers that are undamaged, but wildly out of place, running his fingers through them to get them back into alignment. Eventually, he finds himself combing through more feathers, whether they need tidying or not. As he works, he feels his own anxiety settling. John is alive. He'll be okay.
Slowly, he works his way to one of the areas with damaged feathers. He tries to straighten them, but the shafts are broken.
“John?” he ventures.
“Pull them,” John replies grimly.
Harold nearly argues, but reconsiders. Surely John knows best. He leans back to the desk for gauze from the first aid kit in case of bleeding.
He takes hold of one of the broken feathers right near the base. He draws in a steadying breath, then yanks sharply to remove it. A minute shudder ripples through John's wings, but he doesn't otherwise move or make a sound.
One by one, Harold plucks all the broken feathers. John's head lowers until his chin is nearly on his chest, and when Harold leans over to put the last feather into the trash along with the bloody gauze, he sees that there are tears on John's cheeks.
Harold freezes. “Did I hurt you?” he asks worriedly.
John shakes his head and turns away so Harold can't see his face. “Keep going,” he says, his voice even raspier than usual.
“That was the last one.”
“There have to be more. Pull the bent ones,” John all but growls.
“We can fix those. I'm not going to hurt you for no reason.”
“It's not for no reason.” John's wings hunch inward. “I failed today. Tony Ruiz is dead because I couldn't save him.”
Harold's heart drops. “Oh, John, no.” He steps around and lowers himself carefully to one knee in front of John. Reaching out, he puts a hand over one of John's in a way he hopes is comforting. “There were too many demons, you said it yourself. You know we can't save every number. It hurts, but it isn't your fault. And you certainly don't deserve to be punished for it.”
John pushes back on the chair, pulling away from Harold and quickly wiping his face. The alula feathers on the arches of his wings rise upward defensively and his wings flare just a bit. “You're just plucking feathers. It's not punishment.”
“Then why do you want me to pull more?” Harold challenges. “Losing the number hurts enough. You don't need to add to it. Please, John. Let me finish your wings. You've been through enough already, and you still need grooming.”
Still scowling, John seems ready to refuse.
Harold climbs back to his feet and reaches out to touch John's cheek, the shimmering halo around John's head tickling his fingertips. “Please let me take care of you, John. You deserve that.”
A long pause later, John shrugs one shoulder.
Taking that as assent, Harold moves back behind him, drawing a hand along the one wing to smooth the alula feathers. He then goes back to work. With the broken ones removed, Harold carefully straightens all the bent shafts until they lie flat and the surrounding feathers settle easily into place.
Harold has done this for John a couple of times before, usually after a rough number. But the times before were quick, efficient, and impersonal – just another part of the inevitable first aid after a demon encounter.
This time, though, he wants so much to comfort John that he allows himself to slow down and try to make it something more than just first aid. Something healing, not just to the body, but to the soul. He works section by section, trying not to think too much about how soft and silky the feathers feel – primaries, secondaries, tertiaries, coverts, scapulars. He works until the great wings start to droop.
No, not droop. Contract. He can feel tiny tremors flowing through John's wings. He trails his fingers back over the arches of John's wings, down to the long primaries brushing the floor. Then he burrows his fingers into the thick scapular feathers at the base of the wings. He wiggles them in deep, tugging lightly and letting the feathers slip between them. John's breath catches slightly at the tug, so Harold does it again, gently pulling and releasing the feathers there.
A new kind of tension seems to be thrumming through John's body now, as though he's waiting for something.
Afraid that John might be getting uncomfortable having his feathers touched, Harold shifts his attention to the strong muscles in John's back that support the wings, massaging away tension and knots. John releases a tiny, bitten back sound that might have been a groan. The sound sparks a little fire in Harold's belly, but he tries to quash it. He presses his thumbs into the area right at the base between the wings. John shivers and his skin bursts into gooseflesh.
“Finch—” John's voice is ragged.
“I know, John,” Harold says, lightly squeezing the back of John's neck and scratching at his hairline. “I know.”
The pain of losing a number, the guilt, the sorrow, all soothed by the touch of another feeling the same pain. Suddenly, John stands, pulling Harold into a fierce embrace. The gleaming wings reach around to enclose them in indigo shadows. All Harold can do is wrap his own arms around John and hold on. He closes his eyes and sighs deeply. This is the comfort they both need.
“No, Finch, I don't think you actually do know.”
John pulls back just enough to look down into Harold's eyes, and all at once, Harold's stomach flips as he stumbles into realization. He's misunderstood John's reactions entirely, hasn't he?
“Oh!”
A half-smile turns one corner of John's mouth. He cradles Harold's face and leans down to place a chaste kiss on his lips.
“Yeah, 'oh!'” he says, teasing. But then he turns serious again. “Thank you, Finch. For looking out for me. That's supposed to be my job, you know.”
A sudden thickness in his throat makes it hard for Harold to reply, “You do protect me and so many others, John. It's the least I can do to make sure you're taken care of in return. You put yourself in danger every day. I only wish I could do more for you.”
A wicked gleam appears in John's eye. “Well. I can think of one thing.”
“Oh, my!”
Well. Perhaps today won't just be about mourning lost chances after all.