Chapter Text
It had been two weeks, Warlock still hadn’t heard anything from his parents, and he was already looking for other places to stay, and school was about to start back up again, he was dreading that. Friends sounded like a good option to stay with, but Warlock had been breaking down a lot lately, and hanging out with friends meant hanging out with Avery and then that night would be brought up, and he didn’t want to talk about that.
“You’ll never be able to afford a place to stay without a job, dear.”
Warlock jumped, “Jeez, A.Z, you scared the shit outta me.” Warlock had grown much more confident since that first night, but he was still yet to open up to the angels running the shop. The confidence in the guardian angel theory grew when Warlock started finding old photographs of mostly Aziraphale, but sometimes Crowley as well, amongst young adults and teenagers, smiling. In some were weddings that weren’t allowed at the time, some had university graduations, some were just people having a good time, Aziraphale smiling like a proud father in all of them. Nobody had ever smiled at Warlock like that, not really.
“You could work here, you know,” the angel offered with a sweet smile, “You are also welcome to stay here as long as you wish.”
Warlock smiled back, if you asked him why his lip was quivering he would have told you that it wasn’t, “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely positive, my dear boy.”
***
Six weeks, still nothing. Warlock had begun working for way more than a bookshop that didn’t sell books should be able to pay, but he found he was very efficient at his job (the job being to glare angrily at customers trying to buy things). Warlock and his guardian angels had fallen into a rhythm, they all got up at vaguely the same time, though the time was never consistent, and Aziraphale and Warlock would eat while Crowley stole bites from Aziraphale and stared at his husband with his cheek in his hand. After breakfast the shop would ‘open’ and they got on with the day, Crowley would pop out to do Lord knows what and come back to get Aziraphale in the afternoon to feed oats to the ducks in St James’ Park.
They’d be gone for hours, sometimes, but Warlock spent those hours poring over the thousands of books in the shop, taking care with the pages and never opening them fully so the spines wouldn’t be damaged. Surprisingly, Nanny had taught Warlock enough Gaelic to read the diary of a Scottish highlander from the eighteenth century. Reading this diary only confirmed Warlock’s belief that his caretakers were immortal at the mention of an Azeraphael and Craowley in some spots.
Actually, a lot of the ancient books mentioned the two of them, with some variation on spelling, a few times at least. Some stories of Sir Aziraphale dueling with the Black Knight, said to have yellow eyes. A woman named Crawleigh and her husband Ezraphale and their encounter with the Virgin Mary, a moment that made Warlock realize he was going about the whole guardian angel thing lightly. He’d never thought about the connotations of meeting two angels, the young man sent up an ‘Sorry, ma’am’ to Her and went back to the misprinted (but more accurate) Bible he’d found in Aziraphale’s collection of Bibles.
A soft tinkling announced that someone had arrived in the shop, “Just a sec!” Warlock called to the hopefully-not customer. “Oh,” Warlock had seen one or two pictures of the boy standing in the front of the shop, he was a bit taller than Warlock was, which was rare, but maybe the dirty blonde ringlets on his head were adding a bit of height.
“Is Mister Fell here?” the stranger asked.
“No, nope, he’s uh- in St James with his husband,” Warlock stepped a little closer, “They’ve prob’ly been going there since it opened.”
“Do you-?”
“Do I?”
“Know about how long they’ve,” the boy searched for a word, “been together?”
“Yeah, long long time.”
“Oh!” the boy said suddenly, striding confidently to a startled Warlock in his clunking boots, “Forgot! Name’s Adam,” Adam stuck his hand out confidently, he seemed to do everything confidently, like he ruled the world.
“Warlock,” he limply shook the blonde’s hand.
***
Lord knows how long. Seven months, maybe? Adam came around more and more often, talking to Warlock about nothing much, really, but they had more in common than one would think by looking at them. For one, they shared a birthday, a very odd birthday when it came to the eleventh. Warlock had put two and two together, once again, in the realization that the magician who had been called a word Warlock would hear directed at himself later on, had been Aziraphale, because of course it had been.
After four months, they both figured out they had been raised wrong, or, by the wrong people. They had a good laugh about it and joked that if Warlock ever met the Youngs he should call them Mum and Dad.
“Maybe you could,” Adam had said.
“Maybe.” A gap between the boys closed on the couch where, unbeknownst to them, many gaps had been closed, mostly between the beings that owned it.
***
Ten months now, Aziraphale still hadn’t heard anything about Warlock’s parents, which was good, he was nearly eighteen now, about to graduate and hopefully get off to university.
“Did you know Warlock and Adam-?” Aziraphale made a gesture with his hands over his dinner, the two boys were out somewhere having dinner on their own.
Crowley nodded, “Yeah, yeah, six months now, I think.”
“ Six months? ”
“Wrong boy must've been right for the right boy,” Crowley shrugged. The demon was still very protective of their charge, even moreso, now, but he smiled more now. Aziraphale, on the other hand, was like a distressed father worried a dumb teen romance would break his son’s heart. Adam was a good kid but he had a tendency to get bored, the angel tried not to dwell on it.
Many years later, when Warlock and the rest of Them had graduated university (much earlier for Wensleydale, who was very happy with his accounting job), Warlock would go to what were essentially his parents now, who hadn’t aged a day, and talk to them about that. Talk to them about his childhood, what he knew, what he’d figured out and when, Aziraphale would blush and ask, “Are we really that obvious?” and Adam, who had been sitting with Warlock, would nod.