The skies shone blue as Briar ran across the park, laughing and jumping on different objects, for example, bins. Crowley didn't stop him - he found it rather funny if he was to be honest. The child was annoying almost everyone at the park, the grin on his face unmovable.
Crowley would be lying if he said it didn't make him happy, at least a little.
But he was a demon and it was in his nature to lie, so that he did.
"Crowley?" Came a voice the demon knew very well, a voice he had known for around 6000 years, give or take a few. When he turned around, Aziraphale was standing there with a smile on his face. Crowley only half returned it. "Is that you?"
"Who else would it be, Angel?" Aziraphale chose to ignore the remark and sat down next to Crowley, who still had his eye on Briar to make sure he didn't get into anymore trouble than he was already in. Aziraphale's gaze flickered in the vague direction Crowley was looking, but since his eyes were hidden behind shades, he wasn't entirely sure what the demon was looking at.
"Thought you were staying in the bookshop?" He asked with a glance. Aziraphale shrugged slightly.
"Well yes, I was, but I was just taking a breath of fresh air through the park and I saw you here, so I decided to say hello." The Angel fiddled with his bow (which was unnecessary because it was always on perfectly) before clasping his hands together in his lap, silently prompting Crowley to share his reason as well.
"... I was, uh, feeding the ducks?" He offered, a misshapen grin on his face. Aziraphale frowned - it was rather obvious that he was lying.
"Crowley."
"What? It's not exactly a lie." Crowley threw a frozen pea at one of the ducks. It hit its head. Aziraphale frowned at him for the second time, slapping his hand down so he didn't throw another pea.
"So you are lying." Aziraphale asked, though it sounded more like a statement than a question. Crowley muttered something under his breath, and the Angel was pretty certain it was a curse. He sighed and rested his hand on Crowley's arm.
"You don't... have to tell me. I'm just curious." Aziraphale untwines his hand from Crowley's arm and rests it back in his lap. It vaguely registers in his mind that there is a child approaching them, but when it clicks, his eyes discreetly glance down to look at them.
"Angel, Angel, look!" They're... talking to Crowley?
"Angel?" Aziraphale repeats, feeling rather confused. Crowley waves him off with a small motion of his hand before looking over to the child.
"Beautiful leaf, Briar. Absolutely fantastic, kid." The sarcasm was obvious to the Angel, but he could also sense a hint of fondness under the uncaring façade the demon was showing. The kid - Briar - didn't seem to pick up on it, grinning up at him. "And I'm not an Angel. Go back to calling me Anty or whatever. It's better than bloody Angel."
"Okay! Bye-bye Angel!"
"For fuck's sake..." Crowley muttered after Briar had left, unwilling to turn back to Aziraphale's curious stare. He knew he had to answer things now, and groaned at the impeccable timing the kid had on ruining things. Couldn't really be mad at him though - he hadn't done anything truly bad.
"Crowley." Aziraphale's tone was firm now, and he was not accepting any more excuses. He wanted to know just what was going on, and why this child wasn't afraid of him.
Children had always seemed pretty afraid of Crowley, even though he was - for lack of better words - nice to them. He just gave off a natural aura of all negative things, and even though he likes kids, they didn't like him back. This lead to him being pretty cruel to some of them sometimes, though he always felt guilty afterwards. Not that he'd ever admit it, Aziraphale could see the truth.
Crowley groaned. He didn't want to explain. He could just leave, but Aziraphale knew where his flat was and he didn't particularly want to leave his Angel anyways.
"He's just a child I kind of took in, I guess." He muttered, not looking up at his partner, who's eyes were boring into him with a rather intense expression. He could feel it.
"You adopted him?"
"Illegally." Aziraphale blinked.
"Crowley that's kidnapping."
"Don't care. He's not going back to that shit-show excuse of a family." Now, Aziraphale was usually one to be heavily against kidnapping, as most would be, but he wasn't... entirely sure how to feel about this. On one hand, Crowley was a demon. On the other, it was Crowley he was thinking about. He decided to trust his judgement - after all, he'd spent the past few millennias without trusting him entirely.
"...Do you need anything?" Crowley turned to face him, his eyebrows arched upwards in surprised.
"You wot?" Aziraphale was for this??
"I said," Aziraphale repeated, feeling rather exasperated at this point, "Do you need any help? Raising the child, what they need? Have you even thought about education?" Crowley could guiltily say he hadn't, all of which he'd told the Angel.
They'd have to discuss this in the bookshop.
=====
Briar liked the bookshop. It had books, quite obviously, and he liked the picture ones. He couldn't understand most of the words in them, but he could mainly understand the story from the pictures.
A nice man that was friends with Anty showed him the picture books! Briar decided he liked him.
Picking up another book, he began to make his way through the pile. He liked it here, it was very cosy and it seemed very homely.
He'd like this to be his home.
BINABASA MO ANG
If The World Is To Fall
Fanfiction"If the world is to fall, I'll be there." Crowley promised, looking down at the young boy. He looked back up at the demon, a bright and unknowing smile etched on his face. Crowley didn't often promise things. Very rarely, if fact, that even Aziraph...
