Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Fitting for the birthplace of Her Creation to smell like a hospital.

He’d hoped to never encounter this particular blend of cleaners and chem lab-fresh linens ever again. Aziraphale’s new workplace wasn’t Heaven. No matter how hard the corridors’ yawning white lengths with their odd busts or scrollwork of classical cherubs tried to convince people otherwise, the Pearl Elspeth Gates’ Society for the Care and Placement of Unattached Persons was an orphanage.

Not for physical children. No, what those outside its walls called the ‘Pearl E. Gates’ specialized in placing those adults classed as Littles. Of course those whose headspaces tested as too young to safely live and work independently needed somewhere to be cared for, but did it need to be so… on the nose about it? The place Aziraphale remembered had been filled with sunlight and the smell of grass and flowers coming through the large windows. Just as the Chairwoman’s plans intended. When had this clinical complex — this whitewashed office — swallowed it?

“...and the Staff Wing is through here,” His guide continued with an airy wave at a pair of thick wooden doors. “Not that you’ll be needing it, of course.” Gabriel D’Arque’s grey suit and mauve tie were at odds with the white and gold stretching in all directions, but the polished grin he shot over his shoulder matched perfectly. Yet another thing Aziraphale had hoped he’d seen the last of when he’d aged-, then tested- out of the care system. No such luck, apparently.

“No… I expect not.” A brittle smile turned out to still be all the input Gabriel needed. Striding ahead, the Gates’ co-director resumed gesturing as if conducting an orchestra. Interview rooms where Littles and prospective Caregivers met outside of their tested headspaces. Classrooms Aziraphale remembered being covered in drawings were now blindingly white and, Gabriel cheerfully informed him, ‘reserved for the choir’.

A wide room, its ceiling painted with a dawn sky dotted with gauzy clouds and cherubs.
“The dining room,” Gabriel intoned.

Moving to stand beside him, Aziraphale’s gaze swept the ranks of thoroughly cleaned tables and chairs. “It’s very.. Tidy,” He managed, blinking. Was that a keypad on the door leading to the kitchens? “But it must take some time? Putting away all the chairs between each meal and taking them out again?”

Gabriel peered down his nose. “Aziraphale,” He answered very slowly, “There are plenty of chairs. Look around the tables, see them?”

“Ah! No, no, of course there are! The chairs for the younger Littles, I mean. The highchairs? Or do the staff these days prefer to hold-?” Aziraphale trailed off. Gabriel was smiling again, that salesman’s grin that held a hundred sneered remarks in check.

“Oh, they’re fed upstairs now. It’s almost meal time now; you can see the procedure on the way to your new workspace.”

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The Nursery was an expansive room painted a soft yellow, its linoleum floors lined with rank after rank of cribs. Littles peeped over the bars, mouths open or hands grabbing hopefully at the air as they fussed fretfully or gnawed at their fists. Staff-- minders, they were called -- in white uniforms patrolled the rows with nearly empty trays, pushing bottles into each open mouth before moving on to the next.

“Why-?” Aziraphale trapped the question behind his teeth. It made little difference what policy had been enacted forbidding caretakers from feeding babies in their arms, with their own hands. No argument would change the scene unfolding. So, lips pressed together, he could only watch as the youngest Littles fumbled with their meals, some keening or crying for seconds.

A dark-haired baby was fussing, grabbing with his free hand at the passing caretakers in hopes of help. Frantic suckling at the bottle pinned, upright, between his legs and chest yielded only mouthful after mouthful of air, the milk sloshing inside an unreachable treasure. When reaching for the figures outside the cot failed, he pushed the bottle towards them -- sending it out of the cot and onto the floor. The most attention he received came in being lifted up for a perfunctory burping, then plopped back in his cot. Aziraphale was the only witness to the way the Little sank onto his side and curled fetal, hugging a blanket as white as his crib bars to his empty belly.

The observer’s heart clenched. With the minders already congregating by the door with their trays of collected bottles, Aziraphale had to move quickly. Weaving between the ranks of cribs, he bent to fetch the fallen bottle, rubbing the nipple as clean as he could with his tartan handkerchief. “Here, now-” He whispered with what he hoped was a gentle smile, glancing at the clipboard on the end of the crib, “-Levi, here you are. Shall we give lunch another try?”

Large, gray eyes peered at him, but the Little boy was quick to latch onto the bottle the stranger held; suckling all the more desperately when his efforts were met with mouthful after mouthful of food. It wasn’t a practiced motion, Aziraphale knew: holding the bottle over the crib bars, nipple tilted at an angle as the baby filled his aching belly. Not the right way, the way a Caregiver would do it. But surely it was better than letting a Little boy go to sleep hun-

“Aziraphale, what are y- YOU!” Gabriel spun toward the doorway. “What are you doing here? With.. them?”

“Nicked her,” A lanky man in the Middles’ uniform grey trousers and white shirt deadpanned. Perched in his arms, the Little girl giggled -- thoroughly occupied with the white towel into which her hair had been turbanned. “Went for a stroll,” The redhead grinned, gently bouncing his charge, “Saw ‘all the kingdoms of the world and their glory’, didn’t we, Tabby?”

“Crow-wee!” Tabby shrieked triumphantly, having tugged the towel off her damp blonde hair and begun waving it like a racing flag.

“For the last time, Crowley, the name on the Little’s files is ‘Tabitha’,” One of the minders sighed. “Did you get her sheets in the wash and the formula out of her hair or not? We’re ten minutes behind schedule!”

“Had to find her clean sheets we don’t have,” Crowley drawled.

“Eleven minutes,” Gabriel announced, smile turning sharklike.

Trays of empty bottles in hand, the employees glanced longingly towards the door.

The other Littles were shifting, some having already abandoned any effort at naptime to peer through their crib bars. Getting to spill her formula, have a walk, and get a silly hat? Such blatant favoritism wouldn’t stand.

“Up, Crow-wee!” Marcus begged.

“Sing?” Hepzibah chirped hopefully. “Please please pleeeease?”

“Uh oh,” Crowley winced.

Gabriel straightened up. “No,” He announced to the room at large.

Pointing to Marcus and the pillow he was ready to throw, “You: stop it.”

At Hepzibah, whose lower lip was beginning to wobble, “You: stop it.”

At Crowley, who’d crept between the cribs and was trying to peel off a clinging Tabby: “And you: get the kid into bed and. Get. Out.”

The Middle arched an eyebrow. Tabby began to fuss.

Gabriel’s expression smoothed in a blink. “Oh. Oh, I see what this is about. Everywhere I look, you’re underfoot. Interfering, meddling. Are you trying to tell me you’ve changed your mind?”

He advanced with the soft squeak of good soles on lino. Aziraphale didn’t need to see Gabriel’s face to tell he’d plastered on his ‘checkmate’ moue: an almost pout, aiming for sympathy and landing at ‘mouthful of lemon’.

“Is all this your way of telling us something?” The CEO’s voice turned syrupy, cooing, “Can we not keep you out of the nursery because you need to be here, Little One? I’m sure Morningstar Reformatory still has an empty crib. Plenty of time and resources to handle an Adjustment as… drastic as yours.”

Crowley had gone very, very still.

“But.. But you can’t!” Someone managed.

Gabriel turned to look at him.

Aziraphale’s mouth went dry. “There’s.. That is to say, Adjustment is a permanent procedure. One must have criminal charges. O-or a judge’s order.” His hands were already darting. Smoothing his lapels. Tugging hidden creases out of his waistcoat. He may as well not have a stitch on, the way every eye in the nursery raked over him. “Surely She wouldn’t agree to it being threatened as a punishment-”

“Old friend,” Gabriel purred, “I know this must be hard for you. But you’re here to shuffle files, not criticize how we run things. Make a sticky note of that, eh?”
With a sharp clap, he nodded to the mutely observing minders: “Get things back on track in here, team.” Turning on his heel, Gabriel D’Arque strode from the room — letting the door thud shut in his wake.

Aziraphale moved before his brain could fully sign off on the maneuver, nervous energy jumping on the first outlet it saw. “Right,” he whispered, crossing to join the beleaguered redhead. “Not to worry, young Miss, you stay with your.. Your Crowley, hm? While I get your sleeping arrangements sorted.”

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There had been a cart near the dining room, hadn’t there? A cart full of linens! ...Could a Little rightfully be put to bed with a tablecloth?

At least he hadn’t gotten lost yet. Having already jogged from the Nursery to the Dining Hall, Aziraphale didn’t dare risk this windfall disappearing while he hunted for better alternatives. He paged through the rigidly starched, bleached, and folded tablecloths, hunting for anything just a whisper more comfortable. Heaven above, his old beige suit jacket was softer than these swaths of white!

He paused, guilt twinging behind his ribs. Then shook himself.

Draping the oldest, most age-softened tablecloth he could find across his shoulders, Aziraphale hurried back towards the Nursery.

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An uneasy quiet had settled by the time Aziraphale slipped back in.

“You’ve been fed. Now,” One of the staff was saying, drawing the curtains. “Sleep. Quiet mouths. Quiet hands. And NO fussing.”
A semi-silence descended, broken only by the restless rustle of bedclothes, snuffle, or cough as the youngest Littles began to settle.

All, that was, except for Tabby. She resumed fussing the instant she cottoned on. Specifically, the moment Crowley began the process of carefully prying her loose.

“Ugh,” Crowley grunted, bent at an almost perfect 90 degrees with both arms full of distressed baby. “I know, kiddo. I know. But your bed’s all clean now, see? You’re-”

Hurriedly crossing the room, Aziraphale bent toward the Middle with a hushed, “Will some table linens do? I’m terribly sorry, there wasn’t-”

But Crowley brightened immediately, “Er -- yeah, yeah, this’ll do great! Hey, Tabby -- eurgh , you’re crushing me here -- look what What’s-His-Name’s-” Here he paused, shooting his unwitting accomplice a quizzical look.

“Aziraphale,” Aziraphale whispered. And abruptly realized why he hadn’t spoken to many Littles since leaving the Gates.

Crowley must have had the same realization. Brows arching above dark lenses, “Look what Aziraphale-- yeah, nope. Um..” He looked at the man Gabriel had dragged in. Draped in pure white tablecloth as if it were a robe, cheeks red and white-blonde curls a frazzled corona.

The urge to fidget gnawing at him, Aziraphale clasped his hands behind his back.

Inspiration struck so abruptly, the Middle nearly bashed his forehead on the top bar of the crib: “Angel!”

Aziraphale winced.

Any questions he had were cut off abruptly. Crowley was already off again: “Yeah! Yeah, Tabby, look what Angel’s got for you? There’s enough there to wrap you up all snuggly two, maybe three times!”

Heart rate slowing, Aziraphale saw his cue in the meaningful tilt of the Middle’s head. “Oh, at least!” He put in, trying to scrape together a smile that was more reassuring and less.. Reflective of time in Gabriel’s proximity. “You’ll be a cozy…” He wracked his memory for some Little-enticing term. How many babies knew what a Swiss Roll was? “..blanket sushi! Yes, the very finest blanket sushi, Miss Tabby.”

“Ushi?” Tabby hummed, rubbing absently at her eyes. Having lost its appeal, she wasn’t bothered when the towel she’d been waving with less and less vigor dropped to the linoleum.

A whisper of a real smile tugged at Aziraphale’s lips. But, sternly reminding himself that no Little would enjoy a stranger wittering about the quirks of Japanese almost-homophones, he kept silent.

Crowley finally succeeded in peeling off his tired passenger and bundling her up.
“That’s it,” The redhead murmured. “Angel wouldn’t lie to you, eh? Comfiest blanket sushi from Croydon to Kyoto.”

“Does she need a pillow?” Said angel whispered.

“Nah,” Crowley smirked, rubbing Tabby’s back as her breathing began to even out with the first hints of sleep. “She’ll fling it at someone when she wakes up early. Little terror.” The term had never sounded less pejorative.

Nodding, he stepped back — feeling distinctly at a loss with no further distractions. Should-? Oh!

Gathering up the fallen towel, Aziraphale crept out of the dimly lit nursery and eased the door just shy of closed. If he remembered correctly, there had once been a laundry room just down the way, long before the remodeling. He set off quietly down the hall--

And nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Are you done in there?” Gabriel grinned, hand still clamped on Aziraphale’s shoulder.

“Yes. Quite. She just.. Just needed a bit of settling,” He managed. “Crowley had it all well in hand. Very informative.” Folding the damp towel was a task his hands were all too glad to have. “So.. that’s how a late morning for them looks, is it? A feed and then a rest?”

“This facility works according to a timetable -- one that that delightful boy’s just thrown off by almost thirty minutes,” Gabriel gritted out through a smile stiffer than the missing fresh sheets. Straightening up, he adjusted his tie. “We’ll make up for it. Get a move on, champ -- if you can pick up the pace, we’ll pass by your office and still catch the end of choir practice!”

Chapter Text

The files could have buried him alive. Years of intake-, medical-, and adoption- records, potential caregivers’ files, certifications and details.. Every page of it needed to be sorted, compiled, and sped on its way. Digitized through whatever technological wizardry so this could never happen again. No wonder the Gates was crammed with Littles -- the paperwork needed to finalize their matches with Caregivers was all here!
Aziraphale blew out a long breath and straightened his dust-smudged waistcoat. That he’d been called back at all meant the situation was far from ideal. But how six years of ensuring foster homes were up to snuff, or that struggling new Caregivers received support, translated to tackling this morass..!

‘Come home a while, sort some things out,’ A violently violet tie and an arm locked around his shoulders had said. ‘We'll have you back doing…’ A glance around the shop, 'whatever it is you do in no time!’ Perhaps it was the paper. Yes, that must have been it. Restoring antique books involved plenty of ‘old papers’; how big a leap could that be, in Gabriel’s mind, from his treasured pastime to draining this swamp of decaying documents? That it had been allowed to get this dire at all would have made Her weep. But then, Head Chairwoman Alma Tierre had been happy enough to conceive of-, give life to-, and then leave Her creation in the hands of assistant directors like Gabriel D’Arque. As though he, Aziraphale, had any right to criticize someone wanting to run from the wreckage of their decisions!

He winced. The crude beginnings of an ‘A’ stack suddenly demanded re-sorting, this very instant. On top: ‘Aaron, #0020414’; though the ID number seemed superfluous for the lone Little boy. Several ‘Abigail’s and a host of ‘Adam’s, on the other hand, made the ID numbers on their files and matching wristbands a necessity. He flipped past both ‘Amos’es and ‘Ananiel’, whose stamped papers proclaimed the girl had chosen a caregiver and a new name: ‘Anna’. Poor thing must have been sick to the back teeth of having to spell her name for everyone… Aziraphale mused with a spark of empathy. But where was he?

The dear little scrap had reached through his cot to snag a fistful of Aziraphale’s stark uniform, babbling determinedly at his captive audience. A quick glance around the halls and Aziraphale knelt, peeking between the white bars with a stiff smile. Any thoughts of how terribly matted the Little boy’s hair must have been, to need shaving down to mere fuzz, vanished in an instant; wide eyes the color of summer sunlight peered back at him.

A blank space where a name ought to have been explained the poor boy’s place in the hallway. Getting a new Little in the system was a lengthy process. But this stranger had nothing: no bottle, no blanket or even a fresh nappy to replace the graying one barely clinging to his lanky body! “Where are your minders, little friend?” Aziraphale frowned, lips pressed thin. “If they’ve abandoned you out here to go file paperwork, then we’re poorer hosts than I’d realized!” How pressed for time were the Gates' paid caregivers, that getting this Little into the system couldn’t wait until he was changed and fed?!

A soft keening was his answer. Bright eyes wider than ever, the Little was gnawing fretfully at his own fingers, his fussing muffled.

Something in Aziraphale’s chest twinged. “Oh, darling boy! No, no, it’s not your fault. Not at all! I’m cross with the people who left you here, not with you. Here, here -- that can’t be very comfortable at all, can it?” Wriggling his hand through the metal bars was all the enticement the Little one needed to seize it, his gnawing on his own fingers slowing. Purpose settled on Aziraphale like a hand at his back. He could help. He would. The man drew up a steady smile: “Give me two shakes, and I’ll have a word with the Nursery’s minders on duty. I’ll get you in our records while someone trained, someone qualified, helps you get freshened up and comfortable, hm?”

By then, the Little’s fingers had migrated out of his mouth. “I have it on good authority we are on ‘L’ this month, young sir,” Aziraphale continued in a whisper. “And the last thing you deserve is to be sentenced to being the fifth ‘Luke’ in the nursery. What might you think, do you suppose, if we were to… push the boat out a bit? Find a name that’s only for you?”
His co-conspirator cooed at that, more focused on nibbling, then nuzzling the hand Aziraphale had offered. If the precious Little one was so desperate for affection he’d settle for the first stranger to walk by, how fantastically he’d blossom with a loving Caregiver! What a treasure the right person would find in him.

“What do you think of.. ‘Anthony’, then? Will it do? At least until you’re in a bigger frame of mind and can change it however you’d like?”

Golden eyes watched him intently, the distraction of his hand forgotten for the moment.

“It means ‘priceless’ or ‘worthy of praise’, you know,” Aziraphale whispered, smile growing. “Not just for those lovely eyes. But, more importantly, because knowing you will be the greatest gift a lucky person will ever receive. I’m certain of it.”

His blindingly white jacket wasn't perfect, but it had to be better than nothing. Some minor protection, surely? Shucking it, he bent awkwardly over the railings to nestle his little friend in the warm garment. Meant for wider shoulders and a shorter torso, it hung off Anthony's gaunt frame like a pair of useless wings. Albeit wings the little one was all too pleased to discover he could move by wriggling his shoulders. With the Little thus distracted, Aziraphale could use his formerly captive hand to stroke what remained of the baby’s hair. Anthony melted: pressing up into the touch like a happy kitten, grabbing at Aziraphale’s fingers to hold them firmly atop his head with a triumphant "Nnngeh!" "I'd never considered it that way!" He intoned as though a puzzling philosophical point had just been patiently explained. But his smile couldn't be contained: "Let's find someone to help us get you settled-- won't be but a moment. Then, if you have time, I'd love to hear more?"

A toothy grin and a string of impassioned babble was his answer.

The bookkeeper blinked. He’d been staring, unseeing, at the space between the fifth ‘Andrew’ and first ‘Asher’. He frowned. Surely somewhere, somewhere in all this chaos, there was proof that Anthony had existed. That he’d been matched with a Caregiver within days and spirited away to the life he deserved. He’d tracked down a minder, hustled them away to see to Anthony while he entered the Little into their records himself! Where was his file? Where was he?

Surveying the crammed boxes and minor avalanches of manila folders, Aziraphale rolled up his shirtsleeves. He could help the people waiting, inside and outside of the Pearl Elspeth Gates’ Society, to find the kind of home the bright-eyed Little had needed. And by helping them -- by winnowing down the mass of forgotten paperwork -- he could discover what had become of little Anthony.

A series of chimes -- church bells, gone slightly tinny over the intercom system -- jolted Aziraphale out of his reverie. First, he had to get through suppertime.

Chapter Text

Alma had been happy to see him. Pausing in her careful misting of the last of seven apple tree seedlings, she’d listened patiently as Aziraphale laid out his proposal. That neat, white bowtie he’d worn was a slender garrote, but he’d persisted.

‘Time’. ‘Increased agency’. ‘More flexible allocation of non-time-sensitive duties to facilitate the wellbeing of our charges’. The words he had so delicately pried from the thorny tangle in his mind following that brief encounter with little Anthony sounded so… insignificant in that moment, delivered to Chairwoman Alma Tierre. The woman who had created the Pearl Elspeth Gates’ Society. The Woman on the Throne some muttered. But..

But no matter how that piercing gaze made the nape of Aziraphale’s neck itch, something had to be said. To be done. How many more Littles would be left uncared for for who knew how many hours in favor of paperwork or -- or mopping the floors, or who knew what else -- if it wasn’t?

“You’re proposing we give our employees much more rope, Aziraphale,” She’d observed at last. “What will we do if they use it to hang themselves?”

“I.. I beg your pardon, Madame Chairwoman, but I don’t see it as rope for their own necks.” Goodness, those words came out like pulled teeth! “If You can’t trust the people You’ve chosen to nurture Your creation to make the right choices -- to prioritize the needs of the vulnerable souls in our care, even if it means staying a bit later to finish paperwork or that the morning shift inventories the supply closets instead of the night shift -- then what business do any of us have to be in these positions at all?” His knees had gone rather gelatinous. She was going to fire him on the spot; he knew it. “And if they are the right people, if they can be trusted, then don’t we all.. Can we not grant them more agency, more executive capacity, with the confidence that they will use it for good?” Dear Lord, if his heart leapt out of his mouth and splattered on Her spotless white suit…!

Alma smiled. “You make a valid point. Very well: I will approve your request.” Lips thinned, her smile fading: “I just pray your faith is not misplaced.”

An insistent tapping drew him back to the crowded dining room.

Drumming an engraved pen on the clipboard he’d thrust into the shorter man’s gut, Gabriel sighed. “I know this isn’t as interesting as all your spell books, Aziraphale, but try to pay attention, alright? Your John Hancock’s gotta go here.. And initial there.. And sign and date at the bottom of pages three, four, eight, and twelve.”

Explaining the difference between mythical tomes and books of prophecy to Gabriel needed a degree of inebriation he couldn't achieve at work. Fishing his silver spectacles out of his waistcoat pocket, Aziraphale instead peered at the clipboard. “‘Privacy Policies’, ‘Conduct Agreement’, yes, fine, fine... ‘Non-Disclosure Agreement’? Gabriel, why-?”

“Just covering our assets. Can’t run a business without a rock-solid NDA!”

Aziraphale slid his spectacles farther up his nose. “What trade secrets am I not meant to be sharing? Surely the-” Situation here “-state of the records room can’t be so dire as that!” His smile was brittle as old leaves. Quickly, he bent to scrutinize the fine print.

Gabriel’s smile, on the other hand, belonged in a toothpaste advert. “It’s all jargon, Aziraphale. Just sign and you can get back to--”

“‘Confidential Information’ shall include all information that has or could have commercial or industrial value or pertain to the wellbeing of…'” The bookkeeper murmured, head bowed over the clipboard. “‘In the event of Confidential Information being disclosed to the Receiving Party by an independent third party…’”

Gabriel’s monogrammed pen nearly hit his left lens.

“Just. Sign.” Each word was ground between pearly teeth, the pen waggling.

“...Of course.” Accepting the engraved weapon, Aziraphale began to sign. Then paused. “Oh dear. I don’t suppose you’d have another pen? This one seems to be running dry.”

"What?" Frowning at the clipboard, the other man blinked. "What... Is that even English? Argh.. You just wait. Wait here, don't run off." That was all the prompting the CEO needed to stride out of the dining room.

Exhaling through his nose was as close to a sigh of relief as Aziraphale dared breathe in a room whose ceiling was dotted with small, carefully hidden cameras. “For Alma up above, is looking down in love,” he’d once heard a minder sing-song when a Little had questioned why they needed so many ‘eyes in the walls’, “So be careful, Little One, what you do.” The warning had made his nape prickle.

Freed of Gabriel’s watch, he chanced a look around the spacious room. Just as he’d been told, the youngest Littles weren’t in attendance. The long tables were packed shoulder to shoulder all the same, though, with older Littles and Middles half curled around their plates to shield them from others. Any reflexive shock as person after person scooped up their gammon steak with their hands was soon nipped in the bud. Their meat, covered in a mucusy substance probably intended as gravy, wasn’t cut. Nor did they have knives; just blunt, colorful sporks.

Brittle smile pressed thin, Aziraphale risked a glance towards the knot of minders holding up one wall, heads bowed over one woman’s mobile phone. That was what Gabriel meant him to do while ‘refereeing suppertime’? Tracy would have bristled! The middle-aged woman’s cooking had been as much of a fixture as her no-nonsense approach to ensuring the Littles consumed it. No one could make a disapproving look framed by vividly vibrant--

A yowl rang out: “Barnabas took Crowley’s mash!”

One of the minders holding up the far wall peeled themselves free of the woodwork to sort out the kerfuffle. “Barnabas, what’s the rule about theft here? Do you need another trip to Mr. D’Arque’s office?”

Aziraphale took a few steps closer.

The Little’s eyes were saucers. “But, but I-! He said it was okay, Mx.! Said he didn’t want it!”

“‘S true,” The redhead put in. “Can’t stomach the stuff anyway; that vitamin powder’s like biting into bubbles of dust. So we swapped: his apple for my mashed potatoes. No waste, no harm done.”

The minder’s eyes narrowed. “Gluttony is a sin, Barnabas, and it’s our job to train it out of you. Report to the infirmary after you’re dismissed from the table.” They strode away to the cluster of other minders without a second glance.

Aziraphale winced, empathy roiling in his stomach. Barnabas pushed the half-empty bowl away with shaking hands. The bookkeeper looked away.

So some policies were very much shared between facilities for unadopted biological children and unmatched Littles.

“Why d’you gotta eat like that?” Someone sneered. “They give us forks.”

“Like what?” Crowley drawled, stretching his arms -- draped in black sleeves -- over his head.

“Like you’re gonna swallow it whole or something.”

“Bet if you took that ratty old coat off, we’d see that apple sliding down t’ your belly. Like a snake eating an egg!” Someone else put in.

“Get the minders to turn up the heating in here so I don’t need the coat, and you can see for yourselves,” Came the easy rejoinder.

“Please pardon the intrusion,” Aziraphale murmured, clipboard a flimsy shield against offense, “but-”

“What’s-?” Crowley turned to look over his shoulder, then brightened. “Decided to join us for feeding time at the zoo, angel? C’mon, come sit! We can budge up a bit, can’t we, Barney? Sheba?” One pointed elbow was already embedded in Bathsheba’s (Aziraphale could only infer that was the Little girl’s name) ribs as Crowley jostled to make space.

The Little on Barney’s other side -- a man with an aquiline nose -- was already peering down it and towards the clot of minders. “Are we sure he’s allowed--”

“Wasn’t planning to ask, Obadiah, but ta for bringing it up,” The redhead grinned. “Chivvy him along, Barney; if he takes a swing at you, I’ll sort him out.” Whatever muscle the arm he flexed might have had, the baggy jacket’s sleeve devoured it completely, hanging like clothes on a scarecrow.

“Thank you all. Terribly sorry,” Aziraphale added, gingerly lowering himself onto the space on the long bench. Glancing towards the minders, he watched for a moment to make sure none of them looked likely to make a circuit of the room. Then softly, quickly, “I do beg your pardon, Barnabas, but are you alright?”

Barnabas stared at him for a moment. “Oh, ‘s right, you’re new here, aren’t you? Nah, sir, I’m fine. It..” Looking down at his hands, the young man chuckled a little shakily. “‘S not the first time. Go to the infirmary, take a pill…” He trailed off.

“...Worship at the porcelain throne until you’re deemed ‘properly repentant’?”

The Little’s eyes widened. “...Yeah. Yeah, that’s right.”

“I’m sorry they haven’t devised a better method after all these years,” Aziraphale frowned. “I’d thought it was only the facility where I grew up, but to use it on Littles as well!” A match to the petrol already waiting behind his ribs. This, this was what he’d abandoned who knew how many vulnerable people to! He reined himself in, quieting quickly. “That is to say, would it be helpful if I left a thermos of ginger tea outside the old library for you? Behind the pedestal with the bust of David?”

The Little shuffled, shooting a glance at Crowley. A grin tugging at his lips, the redhead nodded.

“..Sure. Yeah,” Barnabas mumbled, a sliver of a cautious smile forming. “Yeah, that’d be good.”

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Ducking out of the library to retrieve the -- he gave it a tentative shake; yes, empty -- thermos, Aziraphale frowned. The old room was somewhat insulated from outside noise by stacks upon stacks of boxes. How long had they, whomever and wherever they were, been crying?

These weren’t the fussy sounds of a few babies unable to sleep; these were howls, rising and falling out of rhythm with their neighbors’. Layers building to form one dull roar of discontent.

Straightening his waistcoat, the bookkeeper rucked the thermos just inside the library doors and shut them. If he got a few filthy looks from the minders for poking his nose into a situation they already had well in hand, well… He could say he’d gotten lost on his way to the staff W.C.

The corridors were far less intimidating with only a few banks of lights on, he mused. And the more closed doors Aziraphale passed, the louder the crying grew. Definitely not the Middles’ dormitories, then. Nor the washroom. Supply closet. Dayrooms.

That left only one option. There, at the very end of the corridor: the youngest Littles’ nursery.

He had scarcely passed the second bank of meeting rooms -- small, office-like spaces where Littles and potential Caregivers met outside of headspace to discuss limits or look over paperwork -- when he stopped cold. The crying had stopped. No, not completely, he realized, listening harder, but the force, the sheer need of it, had ebbed to only the odd yowl amid watery hiccoughs.

Quickening his pace, the bookkeeper reached the thick, double doors.

What little moonlight evaded the blinds was little help as he edged into the Nursery. Gone were the cries he’d heard in the hall, the sobs building to wails. Gone as if someone had flipped a switch.

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could pick out the reason for the sudden peace. A tall, lanky figure hovering between the rows of cots, fumbling in his jacket as though its folds had eaten something precious.

Then, like a magician, the Middle fished an apple from the depths of his jacket.

“Ah, bugger.. Hold on, tiny terrors,” Crowley whispered, “Gotta divvy this up -- nobody wants their snack to have someone else’s spit on it, right?” A frantic glance around the dark room failed to produce a knife, nor anything that might serve in place of one.

The plaintive sounds grew more insistent, coming from more and more cribs now.

“I can’t well chew it up for you , can I?!” He hissed, looking as though he was considering just that as one baby began to fuss around her fist. “What if demon spit’s contagious, hmm? Then no one’ll want either of us!”

Was he hearing things, Aziraphale wondered, thunderstricken, or did the devil-may-care Middle sound almost distraught?

An audible, wavering breath, in and out. When Crowley spoke again, the panicked edge in his voice had been blunted. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll take care of you, promise. Just gimme a mo’ to get this sorted out. Yeah, Darius, I hear you -- ‘Plan better, Crowley! This is that whole porridge smuggling mess all over again!’ And you’ve got a point, but-”

“If I may…” Aziraphale ventured softly. Crowley didn’t startle so much as leap, nearly flinging the apple in his rush to get it down his sleeve and out of sight. “A trunk in my rooms may have just the thing.”

“For Go- Sata- Someone’s sake, angel!” The redhead panted, eyes wide as a cat’s in the gloom. “First you just about give me a heart attack, and NOW you’re-!” He blinked. Peered at him. “You.. keep food in your room?”

Aziraphale’s face heated. “Yes, well… Eating with others isn’t always worth the scrutiny, as poor Barnabas will tell you.”
-------------------------------------

Crowley had expected a locked drawer. A deposit box crammed with Cadburys, maybe.

The steamer trunk Aziraphale knelt in front of needed a passcode and a tarnished brass key.

If the Hallelujah chorus played when he lifted the lid, only Crowley could hear it. Rank after rank of neatly sorted non-perishables may as well have gleamed in the light of the antique desk lamp: tins of smoked oysters, packets of tea, biscuits, even jars of everything from fine olives to fruit preserves.

“..’Might have something’, says the man with half a Waitrose in his office!” The Middle sneered, his grin fringing on painful.

“I’ll not hear a word about my palette when you turned up your nose at half your meal, fiend,” The bookkeeper sniffed, eyes dancing. He turned back to sorting through his cache. “Nothing fresh, I’m afraid,” Came the confession over the soft clinking of jars.. “Tried keeping a lovely slice of Victoria Sponge in my drawer as a lad once. You wouldn’t believe— Ah, here’s the chap!” Radiant with success, he produced a large jar of apple purée.

Crowley goggled.

“I’d tucked it away meaning to try a charming recipe for apple hedgehog,” The bookkeeper offered the jar with one hand, rubbing some particularly stubborn (invisible) creases from his jacket with the other. “Just need a few spoons...”

“Apple.. hedgehog?” Crowley blinked, accepting the sturdy glass jar without conscious thought.

“Oh yes — stewed apples mortared together with that purée, covered all in meringue and baked,” Came the slightly more cheerful response. Aziraphale sifted through a drawer of the nearby writing desk, pulling out cutlery of all sizes and sorts like colored hankies from a magician’s hat. “Toast some almonds for its quills, currant eyes, a cherry nose if the cook’s feeling cheeky. The Victorians did some mad, wonderful things with food!”

“...Maddest thing Mr. Andolph does is call ‘food’ what he gives us,” Crowley muttered. Then snapped his mouth shut.

But the bookkeeper wasn’t coming to give him a swift smack.

He wasn’t even glaring.

He was laughing — shoulders quivering, eyes alight, and a clean, soft hand pressed firmly over his mouth. “I’m sorry,” He managed, gulping for air. “It’s terribly unkind to criticize-”

“But I’m right. You know it.” The jar had stopped pressing into his ribs hard enough to hurt. Slowly, Crowley smiled back. “‘Sides, it’s not very angelic to lie.”

The angel hummed noncommittally. “No worse than keeping a room full of hungry babies waiting, I’d wager.” But there was no heat to the remark. Closing and locking the trunk, he got to his feet and headed for the door with a breezy, “Come along, my dear. Bring your loaves and two fish -- you've a miracle to perform!”

“OI! Years of hard graft it’s taken t’ be the baddest thing behind these pearly gates!” The Middle huffed, falling into step with him. “Downright nasty, me! You keep your..” He waved a free hand, “nice ideas to yourself or my reputation’ll by in tatters by morning.”

His companion looked like a cat in a sunbeam. “Oh, I do beg your pardon.”

He was doomed.

Chapter Text

Neither of them had planned for the fact that one jar of applesauce and an entire room of hungry Littles would require some patience.

“You won’t die in the five minutes it’ll take me to feed Matty, kiddo, I promise!” Crowley pleaded in a whisper.

Matty made a soft, happy noise, mouth open in readiness for the next spoonful of pureed apples.

Luke's fussing threatened to get tearful.

“His cot’s before yours. And the kid’s name is ‘Methuselah’, anyway. Doesn’t he deserve a break?” Crowley wheedled.

The only break Matty seemed concerned about getting, Aziraphale mused from the sidelines, was in Crowley’s negotiations. The longer the Middle took, the closer to yowling Luke got and the closer to whimpers Matty’s happy little chirps became.

“C’mon, angel,” Crowley hissed. “Keep this lot busy while I make the rounds, or we’ll have a riot. And you do not want to see Tabby in a pillow fight. She got Levi from over two rows of cots once!”

The other man winced, tugging at his waistcoat.. “How am I meant to do that?” This crowd wouldn’t be steered into ranting about themselves like Gabriel!

“Just distract them,” Came the order. “Talk to ‘em. Tell them.. Tell them a story! You’ve got loads of those memorized, I bet.”

“...Right. Of course.” Aziraphale drew in a steadying breath, looking into the mournful faces fixed on where Crowley stood.

He could do this. How many Biblical stories had he heard often enough to recite them in his sleep?

Enough, it turned out. As had the waiting babies, still fussing quietly or trying to fling pillows, blankets, or dummies at their neighbors. Disarming Tabby before her pillow could connect with Simeon’s head, Aziraphale leapt on the first story to come, half-remembered, to mind: “Once!”

The sound cut through the low din of discontent. Many pairs of eyes turned towards him.

His palms began to sweat. “Once,” The bookkeeper continued more softly, “there was a very poor miller who had a great treasure: his daughter was the cleverest, loveliest girl in the land (or so he thought), and he bragged about her to anyone who would listen. Now the king heard of this and decided to test the girl. 'Someone so talented will have no trouble with a simple challenge! Spin this straw into gold by morning, dear girl, and I will give you anything your heart desires!”

The stiff parenthesis of Crowley’s spine began to relax. He moved on to Tabby, then Thaddeus without incident, the bookkeeper’s voice rising and falling as Aziraphale wove between the ranks of cribs.

By the time Crowley had fed Tobias and moved on to Uriah, he could catch glimpses of the man gesturing, pointing out heaps of straw the captive miller’s daughter was ordered to spin.

Aziraphale’s voice deepened when the King spoke, rose into something soft as the miller’s daughter pleaded -- and contorted into the oddest nasal rasp for the imp who appeared to spin the straw into gold.

If Crowley’s eyes rolled skyward while the Littles giggled, no one else had to know.

“‘Now,’ said the imp, ‘I will tell you my price for spinning all this straw,’” Aziraphale continued.

The babies peeked over their crib bars as he passed, pausing to fetch a fallen blanket and wrap its owner in it. “There you are, dear. Where was I? Ah, yes! ‘But you spun it into gold before telling me what you wanted!’ The miller’s poor daughter cried. ‘And I have nothing else to give you!’”

His voice dipped again, twisting into the imp’s cackle: "‘Ah, but you will, my dearie! My price is this: when you become queen, I will come to collect your greatest treasure. When you have a child, you must give it to me instead!’”

“...Bit dodgy,” Crowley mumbled, scraping the bottom of the jar for another spoonful for Zechariah. “Some stringy bloke pops up in your jail cell and demands your firstborn kid, and you don’t even ask for a background check?”

Aziraphale shot him a look, but never faltered. "The miller’s daughter married the prince and, years later, the imp returned. Not for her baby, but for the Little the king and queen had adopted. But the queen loved her sweet baby too much not to fight for her. As the Little sobbed and clung to her, the clever girl bargained: offering the imp riches, beautiful things, even the finest caregivers in all the kingdom to look after him.

“‘No one looks after me!’ The imp screeched, as if he were being torn in two,” Aziraphale went on. “‘No one even knows my name!’”

The spoon fell into the glass jar with a clatter. Crowley’s head snapped up.

Aziraphale’s eyes were on him in an instant, lips parted for a question.

He bit back a curse, flapping a hand, “Agh, sorry. Slipped. Go on, angel; I’m almost finished.”

“If you’re sure, my dear…” The bookkeeper’s lips pressed into an uncertain line. “Ahem, ‘The next day, the queen went for a walk in the forest, desperate to find the only thing that would save her little one: the imp's name. Wandering deep, deep into the woods…'”

By the time the queen had found out Rumplestiltskin’s (For someone’s sake! Crowley thought, No wonder the imp was such a little shit. Playground teasing must have been brutal!) name and saved her Little girl, everyone had at least something in their stomachs. He and Aziraphale made the rounds again, this time wiping off faces, tugging blankets up to chins, and gently rubbing or patting backs until their restless audience settled. A brief tutorial was all the angel really needed.

Whatever his tuck-in skills lacked in proficiency, he made up for in distraction. In a flow of words like waves on a shoreline, he described the verdant gardens the Little princess played in and the soft covers she was nestled under each night. And, voice softer still, how the king and queen would sit and hold her each night, rocking or singing or petting her hair that was as soft and bright as spun gold.

“Why do you do it?” Aziraphale whispered once peace had fallen around them.

“Do what?” The redhead blinked, dropping Abel’s wet nappy into the bin. “Pass me that, will you?”

Obligingly fetching the fresh diaper from the far end of the counter, Aziraphale passed it to him before averting his gaze again. The Little deserved some shred of modesty, after all. “Why do you.. Well, moonlight as a caregiver? What brought it about?”

A squeak of the tap and quiet splashing as Crowley washed his hands were the only answer.

“...That was too forward, wasn’t it? I’m terribly sorry. Prying and passing judgment are far above my pay grade, but even that can’t keep my foot out of my mouth for long.”

Very little was said as Crowley tucked Abel in again and the pair crept for the door. Aziraphale opened it a crack, checking up and down the stark hall beyond before holding the door so his co-conspirator might pass.

“...Someone needs to.”

The soft click as Aziraphale eased the door shut almost swallowed the words.
He looked back at him. Looked like he’d stand there in silence for a good ten minutes while Crowley scrabbled in the dark for words if need be.

“While they’re waiting,” Crowley finished at last. “Someone needs to show them there are people who will look after them like a decent Caregiver’s supposed to.” He could get a proper handle on the words now. Solid and sure under his searching grasp. “Not leave ‘em to cry because their nappy’s wet or.. or they sick up in the middle of the night. That’s why.”

Something almost sad flickered in the bookkeeper’s soft expression, then disappeared. Left something warm and steady in its wake. Something Crowley didn’t dare even pretend was admiration. Just his infection-yellow eyes adjusting to the banks of searing white lights after the nursery’s darkness, that’s all.

“You take good care of them. Your nestlings.”

Auburn eyebrows made a tired climb.

“How they react to you: happy, mouths open, wriggling or cooing. It’s obvious they know your presence means they’ll be taken care of,” Aziraphale explained, words tumbling over one another. He was fidgeting again. Twisting what Crowley could now see was a gold band around and around his smallest right finger. “They looked like baby birds whose parent just swooped in with supper.”

Crowley’s lips quirked upward. “Be a whole lot easier if I could just breeze in with worms from the flowerbeds instead of smuggling from meals.”

The bookkeeper was smiling now, too.

He stood a little taller, “‘Ah, sure, there’s some dirt on your dinner! Gotta make sure you’re getting enough minerals in your diet, don’t I?’”

Aziraphale chuckled.

Emboldened, the words flung themselves out of Crowley’s mouth: “Same time tomorrow?”

“Oh! Oh, that’s very kind. But it may not be wise to-”

“‘S not ‘kind’!” He grimaced. “You’ve spoiled them now; they’ll be upset if you don’t turn up again. And if you leave me to put a room full of disappointed babies to bed on my own and think you’re getting off scot free, angel, you’ve got another thing coming!”

There was that look again. Startled. Tickled. Like the landbound angel just found a tenner in an old coat pocket. How many positive expressions did he have?

“Then I’d best arrive tomorrow night prepared to entertain, hadn’t I? There are more story books in storage, I’m sure. Ah! I could dust off my old guide to sleight of hand, get back into practice—”

“Yes books, no magic,” The redhead replied flatly. “Not unless you can pull warm bottles for twelve out of your hat.”

“Philistine,” Aziraphale huffed without heat, eyes twinkling. “Let me see what minor miracles I can manage. Until then: good night, dear boy.”

------------------------------------------------------------

It wasn’t until he’d contorted himself into bed in the Middles’ male dorm that the flyaway thought struck him.

Warmth. A bed his feet, head, or both didn’t hang off of. The fading notes of a book or a song or whatever shivering in the moonlit dimness. A jaw-dislocating yawn.

A soft chuckle responded. “There now, I thought my baby bird was ready for bed.” A Daddy —or a Papa, or some other ethereal entity he couldn’t imagine — stroking his hair. “You’re tucked up in our nest, warm and safe and loved to the ends of all time. No more hungry, wet, cold nights for my Crowley. Not ever again.”

Embarrassment had its work cut out trying to pierce the encroaching fog of tiredness, but it certainly tried. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but his imagination had sod all to work with on this front to begin with.

Soft, steady noise: singing, shushing, listing every car model alphabetically? He couldn’t tell. He knew only that the figment of a figure would be there as long as need be, talking softly or rubbing his back in slow circles. “Can you close those lovely eyes for me?”

Crowley did, burying his face in his pillow for good measure. This.. swelling, aching thing his heart was doing was why his pre-dreams usually involved elaborate heists or Gabriel getting sacked.

A hand petted his hair, making no move to dislodge his face from a welcoming shoulder. “Oh, well done,” Soothed the apparition. “You don’t have to hide, treasure. You belong right here— in my arms, in our home. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.” The arms cradling him were strong, but held him as though he was something small and fragile and precious. “Good night, dear boy.”