Chapter Text
Crowley could remember climbing trees as a kid.
There were always endless branches. Above him, an endless sky. His shoes would scrape against every ridge as he felt a rush to keep his balance. Then, he could remember every single time a branch too weak to hold him snapped beneath his fingers — the fear that clung to his bones and crawled beneath his skin. It made itself at home in his very soul.
Most of all, Crowley could remember every fall.
On the third fall of them all, somebody else finally came rushing to his aid. A kid, just around his age, mouth agape and body shaking with his own worry. Crowley’s six-year-old body ached and screamed with pain but he’d managed to keep his mouth closed so far. He already knew he could help himself. After already falling twice before, he was well-versed in his five-step plan to get back home in one piece.
One, find the pain. His eyes were closed, and the boy was hovering over him. Before he had time to open them, the kid’s hands had grabbed at his arms. Distantly, Crowley could hear yelling. He hadn’t had time to find the pain, or even had the chance to adjust to the fall.
So he pushed himself to sit up, head pounding. He pushed against the kid’s poor attempts to hold him down to the grassy ground.
Crowley grimaced as his hearing came into focus. At the pain, at the yelling, and at his space being so brazenly intruded.
“—fall! Looks like it hurts,” the kid was yelling, thrusting his finger into Crowley’s face, not even looking in Crowley’s direction despite their constant pushing against one another.
His lips twisted into a frown. Doing his best to shake off what remained of his peers' hands off of him — because he was fine, really, and he would make it home fine, too — he ripped his arms away with a wince and stood up. He still did his best to not say a single thing.
After all, he knew better than to open his mouth. His mother made that clear. Often.
“Hey!” the kid yelled, reaching out for Crowley again when his grasp was fully interrupted. “Your arm!” He failed as the wounded boy ducked out of reach.
“I'm fine!” Crowley yelled back, as loud as he could — which wasn’t loud at all. His yell was more like a pained whisper than anything loud. He sounded more like a kicked puppy. “Leave me alone.”
The kid’s mouth dropped open before he began wailing, “No, no! My mom is coming, she’ll help!”
A laugh came falling out of Crowley’s mouth before his child-brain could stop it and he rolled his eyes. His legs shook under him, balance still not available.
Oh, he almost reminds himself, eyes shooting wide. Step one, find the pain.
Fear cursed him to imagine the unthinkable as he blankly swayed in place, unable to keep himself upright to his full capability. The thought of a broken leg attempting to wobble him home flashed in his mind, but as he realized there were no shooting pains gathering in his senses, it slowly melted away.
His leg, if anything, wasn’t broken. Just badly wounded.
As he began to limp away, wanting to distance himself from pestering eyes, the kid scrambled to his feet. Grass had stained his khaki paints from running to Crowley’s aid. Seeing him, Crowley crossed his arms against his body. He wasn’t going to allow some kid to make him talk (more than he had), let alone make him be nice. No, Crowley liked being alone.
He preferred it this way.
“My mom is nice!” The kid tried, his hand grabbing Crowley’s shoulder. His trimmed fingernails dug into Crowley’s skin, the strap of his tank-top partially ripped. He wondered if the tree branches got to it.
“I don’t want your mom,” Crowley hissed back, scrunching his nose up in disgust. He brought a hand up to thwack! the kid off of him. “I have my own mom.”
“But my mom is nice,” the kid repeated, still not giving up. He continued to slowly trail behind Crowley’s limping body, his voice nervously shaking. Even at Crowley’s young age, he found this behavior annoying; yet, he couldn’t help but like the sound of the word. Nice. It tasted like vanilla. “We have Scooby-Doo band-aids! Your knee is…”
Two, poke it. The mention of his knee has Crowley’s head finally snapping down towards his body, taking in the sight of the damage. On the ground, he hadn’t remembered to look and poke. Now, standing up and looking down, he was met with the terrible sight of his gray sweatpants being stained with dark liquid. Drenched.
“Oh.”
The kid watched as Crowley reached a hand out. His fingers danced along the wound, atop the clothes, and the kid looked away as Crowley poked into the fabric. With each push, his face twisted into a new pained expression.
When his fingers finally came back, covered with red, the kid couldn’t help but notice the blood caking beneath his fingernails. A stuttered breath left his lips, as if the sight made him nauseous to see. “We have Scooby-Doo band-aids,” he repeated, blinking rapidly before finally looking at Crowley’s face instead of the blood.
Crowley really wanted to be annoyed.
Three, breathe.
“Do any of them have the bad guys?” he asks instead.
“Uh— no. I use all the Scooby ones, though!” the child admits and he bounced up and down at the thought. “My mom says I’m like Scooby! Sometimes.”
Thinking of the cartoon dog, Crowley hummed. Then, quietly as if to keep the information to himself, he admitted, “I like Shaggy.”
“We have lots of Shaggy!” A pause. “I think my mom is making mac ‘n cheese for dinner.”
Four, stand up. Crowley sighed and looked around the park; nobody he arrived with had bothered to stay long enough to ensure his safety. His mom had long since left, uttering about how she had too much to do at home. His only friend, Eric, had to run home.
He shrugged his shoulders. “I like mac ‘n cheese.”
The kid held out his hand. A smile was plastered on his face, bright and pearly. “My name is Azira!”
That was how Crowley found himself limping down an unfamiliar street, pain finally shooting its way through his limbs. The kid — Azira, he had said — made sure to stay within Crowley’s distance, pacing himself ahead and away from the constant sight of blood to calm himself down. He was sure the wounded boy would appreciate the gesture.
Azira (and what a strange name, Crowley thought), was full of smiles and stories. He talked as if it was the only thing he was capable of. As annoying as it was to listen to a random story about how the child found out he disliked broccoli, it made Crowley wonder if they could be friends. If having more friends was really that bad.
He didn’t like broccoli much, either.
“Do you climb trees?” He had asked when Azira opened the front door of his home. The smell of cinnamon hit Crowley’s nose almost instantly. For the second time, his nose scrunched up.
“Oh, no!” Azira shook his head wildly, and Crowley watched the way his blonde curls bounced messily on the top of his forehead. “My mom— my mom always said that climbing results in… falling. That falling…. Well, hurts.”
Crowley didn’t know much. He was only a six-year-old, after all; but he wasn’t dumb. He knew what judgement sounded like, and he knew how people looked when they judged. “Falling is a part of the fun.”
Azira frowned and gestured toward Crowley’s wound. “I don’t like blood.”
“But you have band-aids.”
“Of course!” A pause. Azira, too, scrunched his nose. “Don’t you?”
“Ngk.”
Crowley chose to look away then, taking in his new acquaintance’s home. The walls were painted a light beige; the furniture all brown. Leather and wood — even the marble countertop had a coffee tint to it. It made him feel wrong. It was too plain for his liking. Much too boring.
While he silently looked around the new place, Azira ran down a hallway. His shoes thundered against the wooden floor, barely suppressed by the basic carpets.
Azira’s mother never did come to help them at the park. Crowley, on the way home, found out about Azira’s small lie. “She can help,” he had explained when Crowley’s eyes had narrowed. "I was trying to get the other kids' attention."
At the time, it sounded good enough.
Azira’s mother, Crowley would soon find out, stayed locked inside her office at all hours of the day. She sat hunched over endless stacks of papers and books, her forehead littered with wrinkles from stress, no sense of personality filling her space in the slightest.
“Mom,” Azira greeted quietly and Crowley tore his attention away from a bland painting of a man and his dog. Azira had his head poked inside a room, door only slightly ajar, fingers gripping the doorknob tightly. His foot tapped against the floor. “This— this kid fell and he’s bleeding. Can I…”
He trailed off before he had a chance to finish his question. Crowley heard the angry scraping of a chair against the wood, and he winced as he poked his leg again. A reminder of why he was still here and that he was still hurt.
“Great Heavens,” said Azira’s mother as she came from the backroom, her eyes immediately landing on the bloody patch on the child’s pant leg. Even from down the hallway, it looked as if he had been in a terrible accident. Azira followed quickly behind her as they made their way to Crowley, the woman stopping when she stood in front of him. Her hands rested on her hips. He looked up to meet her eyes. “You fell?”
It was a question, a simple one. Just asking him how and why.
So he nodded, sucking in air quickly. “Tree.”
She was glaring at him, something akin to disappointment floating around on her face. Behind her, Azira stood and shook his hands through the air, as if to wring out his own nerves.
She’s nice, Azira had said.
Crowley wondered if she would lecture him like his own mother would. Tell him to be a better child and to not make stupid choices. He heard that more than enough. He wanted to do what he thought was fun, and to him, climbing trees and sometimes falling was fun. Although a bit painful.
She dropped down to his level then, her hands reaching out to his injury. “You should be careful climbing those things, boy. We are not meant to do unsafe things,” she chided, her voice low. It was still kind, sickly sweet, and it made his throat tighten in a terrible way. “Azi, please go fetch the first-aid kit, please.”
As Azira bounded away from Crowley for the second time, he gathered his best confidence to turn his attention to the boy’s mother. She kept her focus on the bloody leg, having pulled up the fabric to look at it better, and he hummed.
“What kind of name is Azira?”
The woman didn’t spare him a single glance as she clicked her tongue, as if to reprimand him. Shut up, is what she said silently, and Crowley didn’t want to argue with the lady. Especially if she was about to bandage his leg.
Not wanting to bother her further and still waiting for the blonde boy’s return, Crowley turned his attention to his fingernails and began to pick at the dried blood. He wished he could wash them. Or, he wished he had at least asked Azira if he could’ve washed them before he grabbed his mother. The blood wasn’t something he particularly liked about the situation. Maybe was more like Azira than he thought.
On one hand, it was a battle scar he got to carry home with him after a long day of exploring endless heights that the trees had to offer him.
On the other hand, it really, really hurt.
The red, however, he liked. The dried brown color, though, made his nose scrunch in disgust upon every view.
“I got the Shaggy band-aids!” Azira happily announced as he returned, and Crowley’s head snapped up from his hands. Azira’s mother reached for the kid, almost snatching it from her son’s hands, tutting at him in the process. The smile on his face faltered. “Sorry, I couldn’t find the al- alm… almco—”
“—Alcohol,” Azira’s mother sighed out, correcting her son’s incorrect pronunciation. She pursed her lips, frustrated, and Crowley only knew it so well from seeing it so often. “Those bandages don’t matter. He won’t need a band-aid, Azira. He needs gauze.” She gestured to Crowley’s leg, ignoring the way the wounded child frowned at her words. “Do you see the way the gash goes across his knee? It’s much too serious for a band-aid and for my care.”
Azira nodded, curls bouncing, doing his best to pay attention. “I’m sorry,” he said again.
“Run along.”
With only a moment of hesitation, Azira nodded once more and turned to retreat up the staircase. A complaint rested on the tip of Crowley’s tongue as he watched the boy disappear, leaving him alone. It never had a chance to conjure itself when Azira’s mother started speaking again.
“I really wish you children would pay attention to the things you do. The things you put on display.” He watched with narrowed eyes, untrusting, as she unraveled the gauze. She didn’t even bother to apply the bottle that Azira spent so long fetching. She spoke judgementally, yet kept her voice calm with the same sickly sweet undertones she greeted him with. “There are other children who don’t need those kinds of examples. You are far too young to understand, but I hope you know that I must speak to your mother.” The bandage had started pressing on his wound.
When Crowley didn't respond, she clicked her tongue again. She pulled at the gauze, making the wrapping tighter.
“This is not the first time Azira has mentioned a boy falling out of a tree. Now that boy is in my entryway, dripping blood all over the floor I spent all morning cleaning.” He wanted to rip his leg away, but the bandage was doing him some good.
So he said nothing.
Crowley didn’t truthfully know why he was being so quiet in this situation. While Azira’s mother would disagree with the current action — because how dare he be silent?! — his own mother would be very pleased.
The serious woman taped the final edge of the gauze down, giving him a single, firm, pat on the leg, away from the wound to not hurt him further. A warning. “Good as new. I ask, again, that you let me speak to your mother.”
”She’s never home.”
The lie tastes as metallic as a rusty penny or the blood soaking into the white gauze newly wrapped around his leg. They both knew what he says is untrue but Azira’s mother’s face doesn’t change any.
“Then your name. I will be looking you up in the school system and give her a call. Perhaps send her an email.”
Ah, thought Crowley, no wonder why she’s so mean.
Deciding to be the bigger child of the two of them, he shrugged and said, “Crowley.”
“That doesn’t sound much like a name.”
“Azira?” he asked again, a smile now plastered on his face. He was good at this game. His mother quite despised it.
The game, however, didn’t go to plan. Not when her face remained the same, unchanging, causing him to deflate too quickly. Many people, outside of most of his main family members, usually started getting really upset with him by this point.
Instead, the woman stood up, and for a moment, his eyes widened. Maybe it worked, he wondered, and his brain flashed to all the times his mother reached forward to grab at his shirt and yank him in furious frustration. Maybe Azira’s mother would send him flying home with a new story to tell about how he outsmarted the smart school lady who just wasn’t nice.
She reached around him and opened the front door. Crowley stared as she gestured for him to leave. When he stood on the front porch, confusion written all over his face, she offered him a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. He felt sick to his stomach.
Five, walk home.
“I hope you feel better, Crawly,” she hissed, and with that, the door slammed shut in his face.
Crowley could only stare at the closed door, finally processing that it was painted a light blue. It was familiar in a way he couldn’t place.
He had just walked down the first step when the door reopened, this time with Azira stepping back into the world. The boy had changed his clothes; no longer was he wearing khakis and a button-down white shirt that was easy to stain with blood, but now he was in plain, beige pajamas. The buttons gleamed in the sun and the fabric looked glossy. Crowley had only seen fabric like that a few times, and never was it on somebody’s clothes. Only on pillowcases.
“You forgot your band-aid,” Azira said sheepishly, his voice quiet as his hand reached out to give Crowley the bandage. The unpeeled band-aid dropped into his palm, and the annoyance once bubbling in his stomach dissipated instantly. “Mom said it was too much but— you like Shaggy, right?”
Crowley nodded. “Right.”
“Good! You like to climb, so…” The kid trailed off, biting his lip. Then, as if he remembered, “Stay right here. I have something else.”
Not moving an inch, Crowley watched as Azira walked back inside, tiptoeing, before returning moments later. This time, he held blue plastic-wrapped packages, a smile making its way on his face as he handed one to Crowley.
“Scooby snacks,” Azira tried to explain, but Crowley didn’t allow him any time.
Within seconds of receiving the food, Crowley ripped the plastic open, letting the gummies fly out of the bag. Azira’s mouth fell open in shock and before he could complain on Crowley’s behalf, Crowley scooped up an orange gummy and popped it into his mouth. He grinned.
He sat down on Azira’s porch, gesturing for the boy to sit next to him. “Velma was great.”
“You’re… a little scary,” Azira admitted, but he sat down anyway. His silk pajamas slid against Crowley’s sweatpants, personal space disregarded. “But… You’re cool.”
Not one for receiving compliments, Crowley shrugged. “You’re okay.”
That made Azira beam. “Thank you! You know, I really like gummies. My mom usually only lets me have one pack a day, but I figured since you were hurt, I could have another. You know, to like, like share them.”
Crowley shoved a green Mystery Machine in his mouth. “That makes sense.”
“Thank you.”
Azira smiled shyly, not fully eating his gummies despite talking highly about them. Crowley watched as he nibbled the sides of Daphne’s face.
Finally, after eating the last gummy hidden in the blades of grass, Crowley stood up. “Next time I fall out of a tree, I’ll look for you,” he decided to say.
“I’ll… I don’t know if I’ll be there,” Azira replied, furrowing his eyebrows.
“Then I’ll try to look for you at school?”
Nervously, Azira nodded. “Okay.”
Five, says the voice in Crowley’s head, walk home.
“I’m going home now.”
“Don’t hurt your leg again.”
“Okay,” replied Crowley, nodding his own head. It felt like the easiest promise he could make for now. “Enjoy your gummies.”
Azira pointed to Crowley’s leg. “Don’t forget about Shaggy.”
“Okay,” Crowley repeated, but he couldn’t help but smile.