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“Papa, am I a boy or a girl?”
Shaken from the old journal he’d been leafing through (his adventures from the Victorian period—always a delight to revisit), Aziraphale glanced over top of the thin wire frames of his petite reading glasses to where the small child sat on the floor a few feet away, the bun atop their head barely managing to contain the burst of ginger curls that bounced with every turn as they looked between the dolls in their hands and back to Aziraphale.
His first instinct was to prompt them—”What brought this on?”—but he knew the answer without asking, shooting a glare to the television across the room that glowed and chattered with some fanciful plot he hadn’t been paying a lick of attention to. He and Crowley had talked about this early on in Minerva’s life, had recognized that exposure to human concepts of gender were inevitable, that it wasn’t reasonable to cut their darling dove off from the world entirely to avoid all of the missteps of humanity, and that they would instead have to have their own discussions as a family about what it meant to exist on earth as a guardian angel, a snake demon, and a being that was completely new—a little slurry of them both.
Aziraphale wished Crowley were here for this conversation, as they’d originally planned, but he’d needed the time to stretch his legs, collect plants from various markets in neighboring towns, and stir some low-level mischief. It was a well-deserved day out, and Aziraphale could hardly fault him for his absence or dare to summon him back prematurely.
With a gentle exhale, Aziraphale carefully plucked the glasses from his nose as he folded his journal shut, setting them both on the round table beside his armchair. He patted his lap with one hand, the other stretched out to beckon his child closer. “Come here, Minnie. Come sit with me.”
Minnie left their toys scattered on the rug near the now-dark television and stumbled over to Aziraphale, climbing onto his legs with a lack of grace and far too many painfully knobby joints. Aziraphale managed to cover his wincing with one of his patented warm, patient smiles, and he was quick to rest a hand on their back to help them get settled as they scooted about until they felt properly comfortable.
For a moment, Aziraphale allowed their closeness to distract him, his hand trailing up their spine to the oddly empty space of their shoulder blades. They’d made progress recently in tucking their wings away, but at the brush of his fingers over the skin where their wing joints normally sprouted, the dusky brown wings returned with a flourish, fluttering in delight as Aziraphale gently massaged the small scapulars that sprouted at their base.
Eventually, Minnie’s pale yellow gaze called back his attention, and he realized that they were still waiting for him to answer their question, wringing the material of their shirt in their hands as the silence drew on.
Aziraphale muttered a soft apology under his breath, hand brushing down between their winged shoulder blades in a soothing stroke.
“It’s not quite that simple, darling,” he began, his free hand reaching up to push a rogue ginger coil from their forehead. “You can be whatever you like—whatever feels right. A boy, a girl, both, neither, or something else altogether.”
Minnie hummed and tilted their head, seeming to consider this. “I saw Sean and Cillian at the park, and they said that only boys like them can play their games,” they eventually responded, eyes narrowing as they tried to devise some larger meaning from their own words. “And they said they got a cat and they thought the cat was a boy, too, but then their cat had babies, so she’s a girl cat.”
Aziraphale tried to keep his expression perfectly neutral as Minnie scrutinized him, like they were expecting him to nod and confirm everything that they had learned. As much as he disagreed with humans’ constant insistence on gendering the world around them, he found Minnie’s assessments to be amusing in their simplicity, and he was unable to keep the corners of his mouth from twitching upward, just for a beat.
“Well,” he said slowly, leaning closer as if to share a secret, “sometimes, people know and are told what they are at a very young age. If Sean and Cillian feel that they are boys and that they only want to play with other boys, well, that’s—that is their choice.” He bit back a comment about what he’d like to say to their mother the next time they ran into each other at the park, figuring that conversation ought to truly be saved for Crowley’s ears only.
“As for other creatures, like their cat, we can’t well ask them how they would like to present, so we have to give it our best guess. With cats, these… girl cats,” Aziraphale grimaced at the rudimentary phrasing, trying to meet Minnie where they were at, “are usually the ones to have babies, yes.”
Minnie turned further toward him, displacing the hand he’d kept tucked between their wings. He watched as they reached out and pressed one tentative hand to the slope of his belly, looking like they were trying to decide something. When their wide, curious eyes peered back up at him in question, hand still a steady source of warmth through his shirt, he had to blink back a sudden urge for tears as he was reminded of how, not so long ago, they’d been small enough to hold in one arm with their tiny bottom and wrinkly feet pressing just where their hand was now.
“Girl cats have babies,” Minnie echoed, rocking a bit in place before their hand pressed against him more firmly, as if to emphasize their point. “So… Papa, that means you are…”
Picking up on their meaning, Aziraphale let out a startled, slightly watery laugh, clearing his throat and petting the unruly strands that curled along Minnie’s hairline. “Ah, no, dear. You are and will always be my baby. Of course.” He reached down to rest his hand over hers, an added, reassuring weight against his belly. “But I am neither a cat, nor a girl. Not a boy, either. I’m… simply me. Simply your papa, here to love you and Daddy, and that’s enough for me. I don’t want to be anything else.”
Minnie seemed pleased with that, though he wasn’t sure they fully understood. It would be an ongoing conversation as they grew, taking things one step at a time, but it was a good place to start. And anyway, Crowley would be much better at explaining it all himself when Aziraphale couldn’t find the right words. He’d always had such a way of talking to and connecting with children that Aziraphale envied and adored.
Content for the time being, Minnie squirmed until they were fully tucked against Aziraphale, their small form rising and falling with every deep breath that he took. Careful of their settled wings, he curled a hand around their shoulder to draw them closer, pressing a firm kiss to the top of their head before letting his face rest there, allowing himself to be comforted by their familiar scent, even as their hair tickled at his nose.
His mind drifted for a time, and he imagined Minnie falling asleep like this, in his arms, as they had done since they’d first grown in the safe shelter of his body. Crowley would laugh coming home to find them like this—after taking an obscene amount of photographs with his phone, as he insisted was necessary. If they had been resting on the loveseat, he would join the pair of them, warm Aziraphale’s vacant, chilly side and have a kip himself. The three of them would exist in their cozy little cottage without a care in the world.
“Papa?”
Aziraphale huffed, surprised at the heaviness of his eyelids—when had he closed them?—as well as the fact that Minnie sounded perfectly awake beneath his cheek.
“Mm?” He let out a gruff hum leaning back as Minnie began to wiggle restlessly until they could see his eyes. He felt a pinch in his chest at the frown on their face, somewhere between a pout and genuine upset. “What’s on your mind, Min?”
Minnie’s eyebrows rose and furrowed, and Aziraphale’s hand shifted from where it’d fallen limply against their side to stroke their drooping wings. They were working up to something, and Aziraphale wanted to give them the space to do that, but he couldn’t fully stifle his own fretting.
“Can I be a boy?”
Aziraphale’s hand froze tangled in feathers as he found the words rather unexpected. When Minnie shrank at his sudden tension, though, he immediately picked back up the soothing ministrations, straightening out a rogue primary in the process.
“Is this…” he said carefully, wording his inquiry as thoughtfully as he could without more time to process, knowing that Minnie wouldn’t be able to wait for a response without taking his silence as a rejection. “Now, this wouldn’t have anything to do with Sean and Cillian’s silly rules about their games, would it? No one else can decide who or what you are, my dear.”
After a moment, Minnie ducked down, pressing their face into Aziraphale’s shirt, their clutching hands causing his buttons to strain. Aziraphale’s twitching fingers sent out a subtle miracle, encouraging his clothes to be forgiving, for not a stitch to slide out of place, as he rubbed Minnie’s back and held their head securely against him. Then, he felt them shake their head, which was followed by a soft, “Nuh-uh.”
He gave them time, and soon enough, they began to uncurl, reassured enough to speak without their quiet voice muffled by fabric. Aziraphale was relieved to see that their bright eyes, though avoidant, remained dry, even if their cheeks had gotten a rosy tint to them.
“I just wanna be,” they mumbled, finally daring to glance back up at him in a skittish way that broke his heart. “Can I? Is that okay?”
His answer was easy, then.
“Alright. Absolutely, yes,” Aziraphale said, smile widening until his cheeks dimpled. Minnie returned the expression with a dimpled grin of his own, and Aziraphale silently wished for Crowley to be hovering over his shoulder with that blasted phone of his taking approximately 50 identical photographs of their child’s—their son’s—beautiful, glowing face.
“Shall we talk to Daddy about it when he returns home?” he asked, knowing Crowley would surely have a million curious questions for the two of them regarding this new development and everything that he’d missed. With that said, should Minnie want to keep this a secret between them, Aziraphale would allow him to take his time with it without a second thought.
Surprisingly, Minnie nodded, slowly at first, and then with enthusiasm, encouraged by the positive response he’d received so far.
“How about we clean up here, pop down the road for a quick bite, then, and after, we’ll prepare some tea and be ready when Daddy arrives?”
“Okay.”
Once he tired of his vigorous nodding, Minnie pushed away from Aziraphale, sliding off of his lap and onto his own somewhat wobbly legs. He made his way back to where he’d left his toys, pausing to blink away his wings before beginning to tidy up.
Aziraphale straightened up as well, tucking his journal back into its proper place on the shelf and willing the wrinkles that’d formed in his shirt and trousers to flatten.
Two acquired pairs of shoes and coats later, and they were out the door, Minnie practically bouncing in place until Aziraphale finished checking the locks and wards and finally took Minnie’s hand to lead them to their destination. Though the air was crisp and breezy, Aziraphale was warmed by Minnie’s grasp and the knowledge that Minnie still trusted more than anything else in the world.
He squeezed the little fingers tucked between his. “You know how much I love you, don’t you, baby?”
Minnie swung their connected arms back and forth dramatically, humming a nameless tune to himself.
“Love you, too, Papa.”