Chapter Text
Aziraphale is opening his remedies shop for the day when he sees Crowley hurrying along the vaulted arcade toward him. Steering Aziraphale back into the shop, he closes the door. Crowley is wearing a cloak over his usual fashionable attire and he lets the hood fall back. When he is calm his eyes are almost human-shaped, today they are the two yellow discs of an alien sunrise.
“Whatever is the matter?” Aziraphale asks and Crowley shrugs open the cloak to reveal a swaddled baby held in the crook of his arm. “Oh, good Heavens.”
The baby blinks in the sudden light and makes discontented noises.
“I need a favour,” Crowley says. “Can you look after him? Just for the morning.”
“Whose baby is this?”
“No one’s. His parents are dead.”
“Why have you got him?”
“Please, angel, I don’t have time. I’ve got to do a temptation at the Merchants’ Guild and I’m already late.”
Crowley is wearing a long, silk, belted tunic, narrow trousers and leather boots. He snaps away the cloak, replacing it with a brocade jacket. His untidy plait unravels and a grey silk band appears, holding back long, suddenly almond scented hair.
“Humans look after humans. Can’t you leave him with a neighbour?”
Crowley waves away a baby-related stain from his shoulder, “No.”
“Well, why not?”
“I’ve got to move house. Someone saw my feet and now its Azi Dahaka this, Azi Dahaka that.”
“The snake demon. Very perceptive of them. For goodness sake, Crowley, be more careful.”
“Says the angel of a thousand unauthorised miracles a day. Look, I’ve got to go.”
The baby is in Aziraphale’s arms before he has agreed to anything.
“What am I supposed to feed him?”
“Snap something up.”
“Well, really,” he says to Crowley’s departing back. “This is the absolute limit.”
Aziraphale cradles the murmuring baby, who squints up at him and makes an ‘o’ with his mouth. He has delicate Turkic features, but with the unbaked look of a newborn.
“Good thing I didn’t agree to his arrangement, isn’t it? Wouldn’t want to be permanently at his beck and call, would I?”
The baby studies him, falling briefly silent.
“And he didn’t even tell me your name. What will I call you?”
He drifts his hand over the tiny body as he speaks. The child is fully human and not more than two days old. His heart beats steadily and his healthy lungs are preparing themselves for a good cry. Despite having recently fed, he is unsatisfied and this is making him tearful.
“He thinks he can solve everything by snapping his fingers, doesn’t he, darling?”
Aziraphale has opinions about giving miracled food to infants but has no intention of doing anything complicated with his human form to manage the process himself. One of his neighbours, the sister of the gem dealer three doors along, is a professional wet nurse and he brings the boy to her.
A small miracle ensures he feeds without hesitation. Another that she can be available today when needed. So, with future meals secured, Aziraphale brings the now sleeping baby back to the shop. He snaps a cradle into existence, places it in a safe spot out of the sun, and puts him to bed. Satisfied he has done all he can for the child, he greets his first customer and his unfortunate skin condition.
*~*
In his shop, Aziraphale sells potions, powders and ointments to anyone in need. He will cure any ailment from digestive disturbance to melancholy, from limps to mysterious growths, from warts to heart conditions. Customers pay a few coins, because people mistrust anything given free, and come away with a bottle or jar. It doesn’t matter which they choose, it will work and they will recover.
In the two decades the shop has been open, word has spread. It is widely known that in Bukhara there is a white-robed man with cloud hair, who will heal any illness or injury. Travellers come from across Sogdiana, Ferghana and Khorezm to find him. Knowledge of him is shared around campfires all along the trade routes. He is spoken of in the far reaches of China, in the lands of the Slavs, throughout Africa, Europe and South Asia. His remedies are transported back across the world in the saddle bags of Bactrian camels and in the hulls of ships to almost everywhere there are humans and, in this way, nearly the entire planet benefits.
He has never been more certain he is fulfilling his angelic purpose on Earth. To share Her love with humans, to share Her grace, to make the lives of Her most beloved creation better in ways, small and large. He glorifies God without extracting any burdensome duties or imposing any bizarre rules as the religions do. And, crucially, without drowning everyone, smiting any towns, sacrificing any children or nailing anyone’s soft bits to a plank of wood.
This has all come about without Heaven’s guidance. His instructions from Gabriel are frustratingly vague. ‘Stay down there’ is the gist of them. Also, ‘don’t come back’, ‘stop being annoying’ and ‘are you still here?’. He likes Earth and is happy to be stationed here, he simply needs a clear purpose.
Crowley occasionally reminds him his purpose on earth was to guard an apple tree and look how that turned out.
It is certainly true, after the whole dreadful business with the forbidden fruit (which surely must be the worst possible combination of words) he has wanted to make amends. He still doesn’t know how it was possible for him to guard the tree while simultaneously maintaining his presence at the distant Eastern Gate but recognises there must have been a way. He doesn’t believe the serpent when he tells him he was meant to fail.
He also doesn’t believe him when he tells him Heaven is not going to be pleased when it finds out he is dispensing miracles indiscriminately. Indiscriminately!
Crowley. Why is Crowley’s voice the one in his head? Why does it always come back to his opinion? He has such a way of turning up with his teasing comments and provoking ideas. And now, it seems, inconvenient babies.
Although he also has a way of turning up with raisin wine and pistachio cake and other hard to obtain delicacies.
This might be part of a complicated extended temptation but Aziraphale stopped believing this long ago. All he seems to want to do when they are together is drink and argue and compare grievances about their respective masters.
The meetings fill Aziraphale with apprehension, they are beyond dangerous, but he appreciates, even longs for, the company. After all, as time flows like a gently miracled cask of raisin wine, as kingdoms rise and fall, as humans come and go, leaving behind unrecognisable world after unrecognisable world who else is there to talk to? Who else would understand?
*~*
So much for ‘just the morning’, the sun is setting and the shop is closed by the time Crowley returns. Aziraphale has taken baby and cradle to the living quarters at the back of the shop. He keeps the oil lamp dimmed so he is not disturbed and has built a fire in case the evening turns chilly for the little one.
Apart from a writing desk and chair for when he is studying, life in the room is mostly conducted at ground level on rugs and scattered cushions. When Crowley comes in, he goes straight to the cradle on the floor beside Aziraphale.
“Has he been all right?”
“Oh yes, a delight.”
The baby has been good company, waking every so often bothered by some trouble or other but settling quickly once he is held or fed or had his linens changed.
“He wasn’t this peaceful last night,” Crowley says. “How did you do it?”
“My neighbour is a wet nurse. He’s fed very well today.”
“I should get one of those, shouldn’t I?”
“Miracled food is all very well, but he is human and needs human sustenance.”
Crowley seems surprised to be offered a cup of wine and a seat beside the fire.
“Are you going to tell me what this is about?” Aziraphale asks.
“Don’t know what you mean. I found him abandoned, that’s all.”
“So you took him home? Why this one? Why not give him to a family? And if he was abandoned, how do you know his parents are dead?”
Crowley sighs, “All right, I know they’re dead because I found him next to their bodies.”
“Did you have something to do with their deaths?”
“No,” he says firmly.
“Crowley, who is this child?”
“As far as I know, just a human baby.”
Aziraphale sees this is the truth, but not the whole truth.
When the baby wakes, Aziraphale brings the wet nurse, Fuzhitai to feed him and discuss a permanent arrangement with Crowley. Once all is settled and she has returned home, Crowley switches his jacket for another cloak, carefully takes the baby from where he is sleeping in Aziraphale arms, and gets ready to leave.
“Oh, by the way,” Aziraphale asks. “What’s his name?”
“I don’t know. How do you find out? Do you ask a priest?”
Aziraphale rolls his eyes, “If you intend to keep him, you’ll need to name him.”
“I’ll - yeah.”
“Although, I’m assuming you’re not intending to keep him.”
Crowley nestles the baby beneath his cloak and pushes up the hood to conceal his eyes.
“I think I have to,” he says in almost a whisper. “No choice in the matter, angel. I’ll see you soon.”
Aziraphale unlocks the shop door for him. He sees Crowley pause and briefly close his eyes. He is checking for non-human presence, checking for threats. Aziraphale instinctively does the same.
It is all reassuringly human; the bustle and stink of the nearby market winding down, the smoky scent of grilling meat, a street musician pounding a drum for dirham.
“Nothing’s out there,” he says mildly.
Crowley gives him a swift, worried look and disappears into the Bukharan evening.