Happy Holidays, RocketArcher!

[goe_mod]

Title: Faery Godfathers
Recipient: RocketArcher
Rating: G

Summary: Crowley is a pooka who is staying in a little medieval Irish village. One night he meets a high faery who asks him for a favour – to help him exchange the Faery Queen’s child with a human child from the village.  

Characters and pairings: Aziraphale/Crowley, some OCs

Tags: Faery AU, Celtic Mythology, Action and Adventure, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, a bit of Humour, Friendship, Fluff and Mutual Pining, can be read as platonic or romantic

A/N: Happy holidays, dear RocketArcher! Thank you for the great prompt. You asked for a mythology AU with cryptids or monsters. I chose Celtic mythology because I find it endlessly fascinating, though I’m not a great expert, unfortunately. However, as soon as I learnt about pookas (or púca, phouka, pookha and so on), I just thought this was a creature Crowley could definitely be. They are mischievous shapeshifters who have dark hair (or fur or feathers) and yellow eyes in all their forms and like playing tricks on humans and chatting with them.

I hope you enjoy it.

A huge thank you to my lovely beta!

 

 

 

Chapter 1.

“She’s already had four of ’em. Bet she’s got the knack by now, eh?”

This was when the man grabbed Crowley’s attention.

“Were you there for the first four?” he asked from behind his beer mug.

“No,” the man said, and the whole tavern burst into laughter.

“Brian’s just afraid of women screaming,” barked one of the drinkers.

“Shut up, she bloody well screams at me every day,” Brian snorted.

“Not like this, though,” said Crowley quietly, and carefully made his way closer to Brian, who was finishing his third mug on the night his wife was giving birth to their child.

“No, guess not,” Brian shrugged.

“So is it true then?” asked Crowley, filling both their mugs again. “Are you scared to go home because you don’t want to see her in pain?”

“What?” Brian accepted the mug and looked in surprise at the dark-haired man whose eyes seemed to glow yellow in the warm light of the candles. The man looked harmless and curious, and Brian felt like talking. The more he spoke the less he had to think. “Hell, no. I don’t go because it’s a bloody boring business. Bloody and boring. What’s the point of me standing there while women fuss around showing off their big role in this thing and the whole order of nature and whatnot? As if the world couldn’t go on without them.” He huffed and took a gulp of his beer.

“Well, as a matter of fact, it couldn’t,” Crowley said quietly.

 “Eh?” Brian put the mug down. “What did you say, mate?”

“And what if something goes wrong?” wondered Crowley, leaning closer.

“Like what?”

“What if she dies? Or the baby?”

“Better it than her. We’ve already got four, someone’s gotta feed those. Can’t do everything myself.”

“Wouldn’t you like to be with her at the very end?”

“I’ve been with her for twelve years already. So no, thanks, I’m good. Besides, she’s strong as a horse, my Brónach; I bet she’ll outlive us all. And if she died I wouldn’t be able to afford a night out for a while, so I’d better enjoy it.”

“To Brónach, then!” said Crowley, smiling slyly as he raised his mug and his voice. “Let her live long and let Brian go out for a drink every day.”

“I’ll drink to that,” laughed Brian, and the rest of the tavern cheered.

All but the strange silent man in the corner.

Crowley hadn’t noticed him come in, so the man might have been there all along, but nobody paid him any attention, even though he wasn’t drinking or talking with the others. He was dressed differently too. Unlike these simple folk, who were mostly farmers and wore old and plain clothes – the same they wore every day to the fields or to their workshops – this stranger wore a knee-length light blue tunic made from some silky material. He was wrapped in a beautiful but rather lightweight cape and was wearing soft suede boots of pale-brown colour with not a single spot of dirt on them. It was obvious that this fella had never lifted anything heavier than a comb. Speaking of which… Crowley looked up and studied the man’s face as well. His hair was golden and curly around his plump cheeks. His nose was funny, Crowley thought. A little snub but very delicate – not arrogant or capricious, but childishly naïve and cheerful. The eyes, though… Crowley felt uneasy when he saw the eyes. They looked around anxiously, studying every person in the tavern. And there was desperation in their blue depths, as if this person knew that something awful was going to happen to these people. Or to him? Crowley wasn’t sure. But he didn’t like the look of those eyes. Such beautiful eyes shouldn’t look like that, he thought.

Suddenly, the door of the tavern flew open. Brian’s eldest son, Colm, appeared on the doorstep and shouted happily:

“It’s over! It’s a boy!”

The drunkards all cheered happily, congratulating both Brian and his son. Somebody poured Colm a pint, too. When Crowley turned his head to look at the stranger in the corner again – he was gone.

Crowley felt his stomach drop. Something was off. To begin with, he was pretty sure ‘the man’ wasn’t a man at all. He must have come from under the hills like Crowley himself. Crowley had no idea what another faery – and this one much higher in rank – might need in this tiny godforsaken village, but that wasn’t even the strangest thing. The strangest thing was that, looking at him, Crowley had felt some unfathomable longing. As if he reminded Crowley of something he used to love long before he could remember himself.

He shook himself. Probably just faery stuff. He’d heard they had this effect on people. And though Crowley wasn’t exactly ‘people’, he had lived among humans long enough to have more in common with them than with other fair folk of any kind.

Whatever this guy was after, Crowley had nothing to do with it. High faeries hardly ever even paid any attention to pookas like Crowley. Or leprechauns, or bean-tighes, or anyone else for that matter. So yeah, no point getting bothered, either.

He needed a distraction. And there was a perfect one just leaving the tavern.

Crowley stood up, put a few coins on the counter, and slid through the door after Brian, who was swaying on his feet now. How could he possibly find his house in such a state? The man will definitely need some help, Crowley thought fiendishly.

The night air was cool. Brian’s legs were heavy, and his head was light like the top of a pine tree swaying in the wind. Whichever way was his home? He should have left a bit earlier, he thought; then he could have followed Brónach’s screams. He huffed, regretting he no longer had an audience to share his joke with.

Finally, he thought he figured out the direction and started along the street. However, he hadn’t made a dozen steps when something dark flashed in front of him and blocked the way.

“Shit!” Brian staggered backwards and squinted at the huge, dark shape. Two yellow lights sparkled right above him.

The shape shifted again, and Brian managed to make out a big black horse with glowing yellow eyes. It was standing right in front of him, nodding its head and shifting on its feet from time to time. It was neither scared nor hostile, Brian realised. In fact, once he calmed down a bit, it seemed rather friendly. It even lowered its head, and Brian risked touching the silky black mane. The horse neighed cheerfully and then, to Brian’s amazement, bent its legs, offering Brian its back.

“Well, I’d be damned,” muttered Brian, some of the alcohol evaporating from his system from the mere surprise of it. He tentatively examined the horse’s head and back. It had neither a saddle nor a bridle. But it was a damn good horse. And docile, too. Must have run away. If he kept it for a while in secret and then pretended he’d bought it, maybe the owner would never find out? He looked around. The street was empty.

It was hard to climb up on the horse’s bare back, especially in his current state. But the strange beast suddenly bent its knees even further, allowing Brian to sit easily. It wanted him to have it!

All his last doubts left Brian as the horse started slowly down the road to his house.

If they went on like this, someone might see them, thought Brian through the haze in his head. So he dug the heels of his boots into the horse’s sides, urging it to go faster.

And it did. First, it started to trot, easily manoeuvring around the little houses. And then it went even faster, steadily nearing Brian’s house at the edge of the village as if it knew where to go.

However, when Brian could see the shadows behind his own candle-lit window, the horse made no sign of stopping.

“Hey, mate, we’re home. Slow down.” He pulled at the mane, trying to stop the horse, but the beast paid no notice.

“I said, stop!” Starting to worry, Brian pulled harder. The horse snorted and suddenly went into a gallop. Brian’s house flashed by, left behind in a wink. They were heading to the fields.

Brian clutched at the mane for dear life. It seemed that the horse was running faster and faster still. Everything around him was a blur. They jumped over a fence, probably damaged somebody’s field, and flew from one hill to another. By that time, Brian was completely sober. He was praying to all gods and spirits, promising to be an honest man and a good husband and not to cross the tavern’s threshold ever again.

Crowley couldn’t hear his thoughts, but he could guess and was pleased with himself.

As they were galloping down a particularly steep hill, Brian finally screamed and squeezed his eyes shut.

He only opened them when he felt the horse suddenly stop.

They were near his house again. It was dark inside.

The horse shook him off its back and neighed. Sitting on the ground on his bum, Brian thought he heard something very much like disdain in the sound. He was going mad.

The next moment, the horse was gone.

Crowley didn’t leave straight away when Brian entered the house. He shifted into a small black lizard and slithered up the wall to look inside. There, he immediately spotted the cradle. It was closer to the window than the door, probably so that the father wouldn’t knock it down in his drunken state. The moon shone on the face of the baby. Brian didn’t even look at his newborn son and headed to the bed. Probably just forgot what day it was. So Crowley looked instead. The child was small and wrinkled like all of them were when they came into the world. Who knows, maybe in thirty years’ time Crowley would play tricks on him. Or maybe, he would be different than his father. That was all there was for Crowley in the human world – to watch them all, know them, marvel at them, to laugh at them, to get angry at them, and to love them. And not to be known, marvelled or loved. Not to be seen, even.

That was why Crowley shivered a little when he felt somebody watching him. He carefully turned his reptilian head to see the beautiful high faery standing a few steps away from the house. His white curls looked silvery in the moonlight. His eyes were even sadder than before.

“Is he healthy?” He broke the silence, certainly addressing Crowley. There was no point pretending anymore. Crowley shifted back into human form to be at the same eye level as the faery.

“Yeah, don’t worry, a simple fast ride won’t hurt him. Not that I care,” snorted Crowley.

“I didn’t mean the father. The son,” said the faery.

“Oh. Yes, I think so.”

The faery sighed.

“Is he beautiful?”

“Erm, I’m not a baby beauty expert, really. Why?”

“I hoped that maybe he would be ugly. Or crippled or something.”

“Why?” Crowley said again. This guy was making less and less sense with every passing second. And was becoming more and more fascinating to Crowley in the process.

“Then I wouldn’t have to do what I have to do.” Now there was almost pain in his face, Crowley thought.

“Which is..?”

“The Faery Queen wants him,” the stranger said, looking with the same miserable expression at the small window of the house but not coming closer, like he was scared of it. “Instead of her own child.”

“Oh, shit.” Crowley had known that high faeries did that. The tales were told everywhere in Ireland – both by humans and solitary faeries. But he had never met a real changeling himself. Only seen some poor children bullied because of their physical weaknesses or unusual cleverness.

“Yes. High faeries have to be beautiful – that’s one of the laws. And if an ugly child is born to a faery, it means that this faery has given too much of herself to the human world. And she is allowed to take it back by claiming a human child to replace her own.”

“Sounds kind of lookist,” Crowley noted.

“Eh?” The high faery raised an eyebrow but hurried to finish with what had probably been bothering him most. “And it’s me who has to change the babies.”

“Why?”

“Why on Earth should I know?” snapped the faery suddenly. Oh, so he was capable of other emotions besides unnerving serene sorrow, thought Crowley. For some reason, this made him relax a bit. Especially because the other faery immediately looked somewhat embarrassed about losing his temper. “The Queen just called me and said, ‘Aziraphale, you must go to the village, find a newborn baby boy there and exchange it with this nasty little creature. Choose the prettiest one.’ As if there was much choice!”

“Aziraphale is your name, I presume.”

“Oh, yes. And sorry, what was yours, again?”

“I haven’t told it,” said Crowley, and when Aziraphale began worrying if he shouldn’t have revealed his name to an unknown pooka, he added, “because you haven’t asked.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale grew a nice shade of pink in the moonlight, and Crowley thought it suited him better than the unearthly paleness. “I’m sorry. I’d be happy to know it if you don’t mind.”

“Crowley. Well, at least that’s what I call myself. I’ve no idea if I ever had a different name.”

“You don’t remember what you were called at birth?” Aziraphale asked incredulously.

“Nah. Never met anyone who had been present then.”

“I’m sorry,” said Aziraphale, and Crowley was surprised to see that he genuinely looked rather upset on Crowley’s behalf. Crowley wasn’t used to it.

“Er, don’t be. I like my life. I have lots of fun with the humans.”

“Oh, I did observe,” said Aziraphale, and the sadness in his face was gone in an instant, replaced by righteous reproach. “You nearly gave that poor bugger a heart attack after getting him drunk yourself!”

“Oi! I didn’t get him drunk! I was just nearby.”

“But you encouraged him. That’s the whole purpose of your life, isn’t it? Of all your kind. To mess the humans’ lives up.”

“Hey, look who’s talking!” Crowley was suddenly appalled. And not only by the comment itself but by the fact that Aziraphale had made it. That it was what he thought of Crowley while just a moment ago Crowley had thought… Well, he didn’t know what he’d been thinking. They’d only met five minutes ago. No reason to be so upset because of some arrogant faery’s opinion about pookas.

However, a moment later, he realised that he might have misread Aziraphale entirely. The faery’s face wasn’t full of arrogance and reproach. Instead, he was looking at Crowley expectantly and a little shyly.

“What?”

“That’s exactly why I’ve come to you,” said Aziraphale and lowered his gaze, clearly ashamed for some unknown reason.

“Why?”

“I wanted to ask you to do it instead of me.” When he saw the confusion on Crowley’s face, he explained. “The baby switch. I can’t do it myself. I just can’t. I feel that it’s wrong.”

“Why do you think I can do it, then?”

“You’re a pooka; that’s what you do, isn’t it?”

“We don’t steal children.”

“Don’t you? But you spoil the crops if the farmers don’t feed you and can talk people to death…”

“That’s such an exaggeration! And it’s not the same. Besides, what’s the difference if I do it? I’ll still be giving the child to you.”

“Then it will be your decision already. You might change your mind at the very last moment or go through with it. My burden wouldn’t be as heavy. You might even come up with some idea about what else can be done.”

 “What idea?”

“I don’t know. It’d be your idea - I can’t come up with it.”

“That’s messed up.”

“I know.”

“Why don’t you just say no if you don’t want to do it so much? Surely, they can find someone else who will be eager to carry out the Queen’s order?”

“I’m ashamed to say, but I’m scared.” Aziraphale lowered his head. “That’s disloyalty, you know? Disobeying the order of the Queen. Especially when she’s in need.”

“So what will they do to you? Leave you without nectar for a week?”

“They’ll cut off my wings and cast me out of The Faery Realm. I will forget everything apart from the yearning for it. And I’ll never even know what I yearn for.” He said all this without taking a second breath or looking at Crowley, as if afraid he’d break down if he did. Only at the very end of the phrase, his voice quivered a little, and it sent a shudder through Crowley, which he hadn’t been expecting.

No. No, he couldn’t–

“They say such faeries die slowly from this sorrow. That’s why nobody hears from the outcasts after they are expelled. I– I can’t be alone, Crowley. I’ve never been alone in my life. I’ve always belonged–”

Crowley saw his eyes glisten and quickly looked away. Crowley had been alone all his life, and it had been fine. But if he had a family… friends, home and lost all of those– he couldn’t even imagine. And–

“You’ve got wings?” he asked for some reason.

“Yeah,” Aziraphale said and sniffled. “I can hide them when I’m in the human realm, but when at home, they are quite essential as there are so many beautiful things in the world we, faeries, have to attend to. Like arranging rainbows over the mountain springs or freeing insects from the resin of tall pine trees. Or drawing the clouds away from the moon when a lover or a poet is looking at it. No way I’d be able to do all that without my wings. Though, I guess I won’t be able to do all that if I’m banished. Oh.” Aziraphale glanced at Crowley and suddenly seemed very embarrassed. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to whine. Or to manipulate you into helping me. I guess it’s just in my nature – like a bit of dramatising, me. I like poetry, you know. Sagas. Especially when they have adventures, and friendship, and love, and tragic endings. People here make really good ones.”

Crowley swallowed around the lump in his throat and chuckled a bit.

“Yep, that shows. Well, we’d rather get on with your task lest your own ‘saga’ get a tragic ending.”

“You-you're going to help me?” Aziraphale’s eyes widened.

“Sure, why not?” Crowley shrugged. He didn’t like the prospect very much, but he just couldn’t bear the thought of this beautiful creature suffering.

“I don’t want you to feel obligated just because I–”

“Obliged? Oh no, I don’t follow orders from some stupid high faeries or their stupid laws. I’m doing what I want to do. The perks of not belonging anywhere.” Crowley turned away and looked around. Aziraphale didn’t see the yellow pooka eyes glistening unusually bright.

“Now, where’s your changeling?”

Aziraphale carefully reached into the folds of his cape and took out a nutshell. Crowley stared at it. Inside the shell, in sheets that looked like flower petals, lay a tiny child. Immediately, though, the baby started to grow in Aziraphale’s arms until he reached the normal size, still rather smallish for a newborn. Aziraphale handed the child to Crowley.

Crowley’s hands, arms and even knees shook a little as he took the living bundle. There was so much in it, it was overwhelming. It was a living thing – no, a person, a life in Crowley’s arms. It was up to him to decide what this life was going to be. Besides, in a way, he vaguely felt that at this moment, something was being decided for his own life as well.

He might be making a colossal mistake getting involved with high faeries. He might be ruining two children’s lives – almost certainly was. But then he looked up from the baby at Aziraphale, who was looking at him with such hope and fear that Crowley’s heart skipped a beat. Aziraphale quickly looked away and schooled his features, ashamed to put even more pressure on Crowley.

“Alright,” Crowley said, his voice suddenly hoarse. “I’ll get on with it. Or not. You go. Otherwise, what’s the point of you giving me all the responsibility if you’re going to stick around for the whole act?”

“O-Okay.”

“Where do I bring the human child? If I do, I mean.”

“To the heather clearing. You know, where the wood gives way to the swamp. At dawn.”

“I know it. See you there then. Or not.” Crowley turned to the house.

Of course he was going to do it. If only to see Aziraphale again.

When Crowley came to the heather clearing on the edge of the wood, carrying Brian’s little son with him, Aziraphale was pacing to and fro and looked like he’d been at it ever since they’d parted. It was a miracle that the pink and purple heather under his light feet was still intact. Well, those were high faeries for you.

For a while, Crowley stood behind a tree, wanting to prolong this moment. Just to gaze at this creature that, for some unknown reason, captivated him so much. When they met, it would be over in a minute, and they’d never see each other again. The longing in Crowley grew stronger. But then Aziraphale sighed with such desperation that Crowley felt a pang of guilt for keeping him waiting.

“Hey,” he said, stepping into the clearing.

“Crowley! You came!” His face lit up immediately with such gratitude which had never been directed at Crowley in his entire – very long – life. He felt almost uneasy, feeling he didn’t really deserve it, but warm inside nonetheless. Then Aziraphale noticed the petal-like blanket the baby was wrapped in. “Is it..?”

“Yeah, this is the human one. Couldn’t have left the blankie there, could I? No need to give them extra reasons to hate the child.”

“Oh! You’re so clever! See, I was right to ask you for help; I’m not sure I would have thought of that. Not in the state I’d worked myself into.”

Crowley blushed. “Nah. I’ve just lived with them long enough. Know how they are.”

“Do you think they will be bad to that child, though?” Aziraphale asked, hugging the new baby to his chest as if by caring for this one, he could defend the other one as well. Which was completely opposite to reality.

“No idea. Sometimes, they surprise you with kindness and grace, but often enough, they can be cruel as shit. Especially when they are scared of something.”

“We should keep an eye on him then,” Aziraphale said firmly. “See that he’s okay.”

“That’d be very decent of you,” Crowley nodded, trying not to show how his heart fluttered in his chest at the thought. “We can be his faery godfathers or something.”

“That sounds marvellous, my dear!” beamed Aziraphale. He freed one hand from the blanket and held it out to Crowley. Crowley shook it.

And for some reason, the strange longing in his chest eased a little when he was leaving the forest that morning.

Chapter 2.

It had all started rather lovely, Aziraphale thought. He now came to the village more often. Crowley had got him a set of clothing in which he could be inconspicuous enough without using his powers all the time to avert people’s eyes. Aziraphale had come to quite enjoy people paying attention to him, actually. Well, not that kind of attention, no. Just talking to him, telling him about their lives – much like they did to Crowley.

“I understand now why you pookas like chatting to humans so much. That woman today told me about her daughter being in love with two men at a time, one of them being a king’s son she’d met in the woods and the other one asking for her hand in marriage. But she may be already bearing the king’s grandson!”

“That’s a different kind of saga than those you’ve got used to, isn’t it?” laughed Crowley.

“Sometimes I fear that I’m enjoying them too much. I’m starting to act like a pooka myself.”

Crowley’s face darkened a bit at that, and Aziraphale mentally slapped himself. But then Crowley chuckled again.

“Nah, you’re doing it all wrong. The point of us chatting with humans is to lure them into conversation and make them forget their work, duties and all. Whereas you, my friend, are lured into conversations yourself.”

The f-word slipped from his tongue as if on its own accord, and Aziraphale tried not to show his feelings at that. Were they really that now..? Already? Was it okay? Wouldn’t they get into trouble if somebody knew?

They certainly acted like friends. Crowley showed Aziraphale what he should and shouldn’t try in the local tavern. Aziraphale told Crowley sagas and sang songs he knew from faeries and humans. They shopped together at fairs and danced at weekends when the musicians played in the tavern.

And they looked after the baby. Brónach had called him Alfred, after some king. Crowley wasn’t good at kings – they tended to die so quickly that he stopped bothering to learn the names. ‘Alf’ was a good name for the faery boy, though, he supposed.

The very next day after the baby switch, Brónach had screamed and cried for several hours about her baby having been changed by faeries. But the family and Crowley, who had shifted into the old midwife, had done their best to calm her down. Brónach still wasn’t entirely convinced, but she had accepted the child at least. Given that she was not the most caring mother to the rest of her children, her coldness to the changeling wasn’t very obvious.  

Alf was small and weak but didn’t get ill or die. And he learnt things quicker than human children did. He really wasn’t the prettiest child, Aziraphale had to admit, though Crowley insisted that all babies were ugly and Alf might still grow out of it. He had a tiny body and a big head. Huge eyes and a big smiley mouth. Brónach was a bit scared every time she had to breastfeed him. However, every time he finished eating, he gave her such a happy, wide grin that she warmed up to him a little.

Aziraphale sang Alf lullabies when he couldn’t sleep, and Crowley brought the cat to his cradle and taught Alf to pull its tail so that it would shriek angrily and run away. At one such lesson, the boy laughed for the first time in his life. Crowley was delighted; Aziraphale wasn’t. He tried to teach the boy to stroke the cat instead. It amused Crowley to no end, but then one day, Alf’s small hand stroked gently Aziraphale’s curls instead of the cat’s back. Aziraphale was surprised and pleased, and as he turned to Crowley, he saw that the smile on the pooka’s face was gentle and warm, too. He quickly hid it, but not quickly enough.

It went well. If it went so well long enough, probably Aziraphale wouldn’t need to visit the village so often anymore.

For some reason, it wasn’t entirely a happy thought, as it should have been.

Then, about two years later, one day, Aziraphale was finishing up some business in the Queen’s Palace when he heard a child’s voice. It sounded so familiar that, for a moment, he thought it was Alf. Aziraphale opened the door to the room where the sound was coming from and saw a little boy.

It was Elies, the human child he’d brought to the Queen all those years ago and hadn’t seen since. He never tried to, he realised. He was so worried about the faery changeling in the human world that he never thought of the human in the faery realm. Certainly, he had to be just fine, right? But was he? Aziraphale gingerly stepped into the room. The child looked up. He was playing with toys and flowers, but his face was sad.

“Hi,” Aziraphale said, smiling. He crouched in front of the boy. “How are you, Elies?”

“Bad,” said the boy, wrinkling his nose as he saw somebody being interested in him.

“Oh. That’s unfortunate. Why so?” Aziraphale put a hand on the boy’s little shoulder and stroked him a little. He was as warm and soft as on that first day he’d carried him here.

“No Mummy,” the boy sniffled.

“Oh, but you have a Mummy! There she is, she’s working,” he nodded in the direction of the main hall. He wasn’t sure the baby understood the concept of work yet, though.

“Want Mummy! Mummy not here…” Seeing that he had a compassionate audience, Elies was beginning to cry in earnest.

“Hey! You know what? Let’s play while we wait for Mummy, right? Do you like to fly?”

***

Something was wrong. It had been two weeks since Aziraphale was in the village last. In all these months, he’d never been absent for so long. At first, Crowley thought he was just busy. Then he started to worry that something had happened to him. What if the faeries had learnt about him spending time with humans and forbidden it? Or even punished him for it?

Should Crowley do something? Try to help him?

But there wasn’t really much he could do. The whole point of the high faeries’ kingdom was that no one could find, see or enter it if they weren’t brought and invited by one of the faeries. And in all their time together, Aziraphale had never taken Crowley anywhere near it. Crowley was just a pooka, after all. It wasn’t his place to visit. Thinking back to it now, Crowley realised that their positions in this strange friendship had never been equal. Aziraphale had been coming to the village because he’d felt it to be his duty. Perhaps he’d even spent time with Crowley because he felt grateful or obligated. He had been a guest in the village, and Crowley had been a guest in Aziraphale’s life. Now, it was time to leave.

Crowley felt a pang of regret and disappointment at the thought.

And what about Alf? Had Aziraphale suddenly decided that he’d paid his debt and the child didn’t need protection anymore?

Then Crowley realised that, in fact, this hadn’t been sudden. Feeling the cold spread inside, Crowley remembered that there had been several times already when Aziraphale had mentioned casually that everything had been going quite smoothly for the boy and that maybe he would be just fine in this world.

When the second week had passed, Crowley had to admit that Aziraphale had indeed left for good.

Without saying goodbye, probably so that Crowley wouldn’t try to use his pooka talents to talk Aziraphale into staying longer.

And that meant Crowley could leave too, didn’t it? It hadn’t been Crowley’s responsibility in the first place. He only helped because he wanted to, because he found it fun. Now, if Aziraphale thought it was unnecessary to stay, then Crowley had no reason to do so.

So one day, Crowley checked on Alf one last time, saw him playing happily with his siblings, and turned into a black horse and ran away from the village.

***

Normally, Crowley didn’t stay in one place for a long time anyway. There were only so many mischiefs one could cause in a little village before people would proclaim it “a cursed place”. Besides, Crowley’s personal favourite hobby was making people chat for many hours straight, and for that, he needed to be in a human form, which he liked but which was much too memorable. So he could only pull that stunt off a couple of times before he was noticed.

Crowley was used to moving places. It was nice – the variety, the excitement of new things people built, invented, and believed in every century. It was always surprising. He had never lived anywhere for as long as he had spent in this village caring for the faery child.

Well, it was fine – to be travelling again. Pleasant even. Always moving so that people wouldn’t remember and recognise his face. And so that he wouldn’t remember and miss Aziraphale’s face too much. So that he wouldn’t remember that Aziraphale didn’t care.

Nine years had passed before Crowley finally had to admit it wasn’t working. Wherever he went, whoever he met, he couldn’t throw that stupid Irish village out of his mind. Had he stayed there for so long that it became his home? No, that was unlikely. He couldn’t remember what the houses there looked like, if the beer in the tavern was good, or what the names of the people he had met there every day were. All he could remember of that place was what he'd done together with Aziraphale and Alf.

This has to be some faery stuff, Crowley grumbled to himself, trying to banish Aziraphale’s face from his thoughts. No wonder humans told tales of being seduced by the underhill folk all the time. If it could happen even to Crowley.

When talking to interesting people, Crowley tried to memorise their stories. He didn’t admit even to himself that he was doing it in case one day he might be able to tell those stories to Aziraphale. Aziraphale loved tales of people’s lives. So Crowley often lay at night staring at the sky and reviewing the best ones, careful not to forget anything.

On one such night, he suddenly realised that it was hard to review all of them in one night, and he soon would have no more vacant space in his memory to hold all the untold stories.

The next day, at the market in Venice, he found some sugared almonds. He’d never tasted anything like that before, and he knew who else hadn’t. Crowley just had to change that.

That was it, he thought like a condemned man. He had no other choice.

So he turned into a black eagle and flew to Ireland.

***

Everything had stayed absolutely the same in the village. Crowley had thought he’d forgotten it, but now it seemed as if he had never left. Except for…

The children had grown up. He realised it when he saw a group of red-haired young girls helping their mother wash the linen in the river. Those could only be Caitlin O’Neil’s daughters. It’s just when he’d seen them last, they had been red-haired toddlers.

What if he wouldn’t even recognise Alf? He must be what, eleven years old now? A real person. Well, a real person-shaped faery, at least.

It turned out Crowley hadn’t had to worry about that, at least. He recognised Alf immediately.

“Hey! Keep your dirty witchy hands away from my sister!” shouted a tall, dark-haired boy, and a scrawny, very pale kid with huge eyes and mouth fell right at Crowley’s feet.

He also recognised the familiar feeling of protectiveness that came over him; he had felt it near this kid ever since Aziraphale had handed him the petal-like bundle.

“Alf?” he breathed out.

“You know me?” asked Alf, surprised and utterly forgetting his attacker. The tall boy stepped closer, grabbed him by the foot and yanked.

“Sorry, sir,” the tall boy said. “I’ll get the rubbish out of your way.”

The other children, who were standing a bit farther from the scene and watching, laughed. All but for one small dark-haired girl with frightened brown eyes. Crowley wondered if she was scared of Alf or for him.

“Get yourself out of it then,” said Crowley. “I don’t see anything dirtier here.”

With those words, he blinked his yellow eyes, and a bucket of water, which a servant on the first floor of the tavern was using for cleaning the floors, suddenly jumped to the window and tipped over, spilling dirty water onto the bully.

Crowley barely managed to lift Alf off the ground and jump out of the way.

“The fuck!” screamed the tall bully spitting out the dirty water. All the other children laughed, including his little brown-eyed sister.

Children were so fickle, thought Crowley. And cruel, too. Or was it humans?

“Alf! Oh, Alf! What have you got yourself into again!” the voice came from behind him, and Crowley felt his insides freeze.

Aziraphale.

He hadn’t forgotten his voice either. And the longing which became almost unbearable when he heard it. However, at the moment, he couldn’t afford to be soft. He was cross with Aziraphale, and rightfully so.

He turned to the high faery, a scowl on his face. The children all scurried away, wary of two grown-ups possibly standing up for Alf.

“Yeah, that’s what happens when you leave a faery child in the human realm unattended! They get hurt!” he all but snarled.

“Crowley!” gasped Aziraphale, freezing where he was.

“Er, who?” said Alf.

“How could you think he’d be okay here?” Crowley continued, advancing on Aziraphale as if ready to hit him. Aziraphale still didn’t move. “Why did you decide to just leave? What was so important that you couldn’t stay a year or so more? You know, just to see that we… he was going to be alright?”

“But I… Crowley, I didn’t leave,” Aziraphale finally stammered.

“Oh yeah, right! As if I wasn’t there– Here– Then!”

“I am here now,” Aziraphale pointed out. Crowley shot him a look of someone who was only just now realising that, and didn't fully understand what it meant.

“He is,” said Alf helpfully, like Crowley needed extra proof from a third party.

“And I’ve been here for ten years,” Aziraphale added.

“He has,” nodded Alf.

“It’s you who left,” Aziraphale said quietly, looking up at Crowley. There was some strange bitterness in his eyes.

“It is…” started Alf, then realised he had no idea what they were talking about and turned to Aziraphale. “He what?”

 “Wait, Alf,” Aziraphale said. Only now did Crowley notice that the high faery wasn’t treating the kid as someone who had been absent for almost ten years might. Was it… Did he..?

“But… you left. You weren’t here… for weeks,” Crowley said. He was suddenly running out of breath. And steam.

“And then I returned. But you weren’t here anymore.”

“I thought– I waited– You didn’t say anything!” he latched onto this final argument. He wasn’t going to say that he’d felt utterly abandoned in those two weeks, and it had scared the shit out of him to feel so miserable without Aziraphale’s presence. He had needed some semblance of control. “How should I have known that you’d return?”

“Yes, that’s fair. I am sorry for that. I should have let you know somehow. But I just didn’t have time. And you left so quickly.” This time, there was some guilt in Aziraphale’s voice, but still not enough for Crowley’s liking. Though if he’d really planned to return and then found Crowley gone, he’d probably felt himself abandoned, too. After all, he didn’t know about Crowley’s need for him. God forbid he’d ever know – Crowley shuddered at the thought.

“What happened then?” asked Crowley, calmer now, resigned.

“What’s happening now?” asked Alf, looking between his two unlikely faery godfathers.

“Let’s sit down somewhere, shall we?”

***

They went to the bench on the hill at the edge of the village that overlooked the forest and the road that led round it. Crowley used to like this place because he could always find some man or woman to lure for a chat – either a villager who wanted to escape the routine of work and family or a traveller walking along the road. He’d also liked this place because sitting here he could always see the very moment Aziraphale emerged from the forest.

Now they were sitting here together, there wasn’t anyone to wait for, and yet nobody dared to speak first. Finally, it was young Alf, whose patience had run out first.

“Okay, so, who wants to tell me what this is all about? Who are you?” He turned to Crowley. “And what does this have to do with me?”

“He doesn’t know?” asked Crowley.

“No, I never told him.”

“Told me what?” In his anticipation, Alf climbed on the bench with his feet and jumped in his seat, turning from Crowley to Aziraphale like an overgrown long-legged frog.

“Alright. Well, I guess it’s time.” Aziraphale sighed. “You know, Alf, how everyone’s always calling you a faery changeling? Well, that’s not entirely wrong.”

“In fact, that’s entirely true,” said Crowley.

“I knew it!” exclaimed Alf and jumped up to stand on the bench and throw his arms up. Then he jumped down onto the ground and did a little dance. “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it, I was right.”

To Crowley’s amazement, the faery boy wasn’t at all upset about the news.

“You knew?”

“Well, I kind of guessed,” shrugged Alf, looking down at his own body.

“And you aren’t angry? Or sad that your people got rid of you?”

“Well, I’m not happy about that. But it’s nice to be right. And to know there’s actually a good reason for all that.” He jerked his head in the direction of the village where he’d just been beaten up.

“There’s no good reason for that,” grumbled Aziraphale.

“So, who’re you? Are you faeries, too? What kind of faery am I? Will you teach me to make magic? Can I even make magic?”

“I am one of the high faeries. I was ordered to exchange you for a child of Brónach and Brian. And Crowley’s a pooka who helped me. We wanted to stay with you to help you adjust to this world. But then…”

“Then everything went to shit because someone went and left me… us for almost a month,” muttered Crowley.

“It was two weeks! I was gone for two weeks,” cried Aziraphale in despair.

“But… why?” asked Alf.

“Because it had turned out that you weren’t the only one who needed help adjusting,” said Aziraphale, hanging his head. “The other child, Elies, the one who went to the faery world, was unhappy there too. The Queen had wanted her child to be pretty, but she hadn’t really wanted a child at all. He was neglected just like her other children were. The rest of the faeries didn’t accept him as their equal, so he had no one there. Ever since his birth, he was alone. He had all he needed to live and grow, but he didn’t have any love. In a way, you got a better deal, Alf,” Aziraphale smiled at the boy sadly.

“Shit,” Alf concluded.

“Language,” said Aziraphale and Crowley. Alf laughed. He really had got a better deal, he supposed. These two definitely cared for him in their own strange manner. He had his brothers and sisters, too, who weren’t always nice, but at least someone was there to play and fight with.

Besides, he had the whole world to explore – starting with himself – and wasn’t stuck in some fancy palace under the metaphorical hill for life.

“So you stayed to spend time with him?” asked Crowley. All the pieces were slowly falling into place. And with that, he started to realise what a huge arsehole he’d been.

“Yes. And I couldn’t leave him too soon because I needed to show him he could trust me. I couldn’t make him feel abandoned by the first person in his life who’d shown him kindness and wanted to be his friend.”

Crowley felt a lump in his throat. Yeah, he knew the feeling. Wouldn’t wish it on a little child.

“And then I returned, and you weren’t there.”

“Yeah, I…” Crowley thought everything he could say would be totally inadequate. He had no right to be angry with Aziraphale, now, had he? Didn’t even have the right to be hurt.

Tell it to the bloody longing in his chest that had transformed into almost chronic pain over the years.

Yet, he was here now. And they were talking. And he had to do everything to at least right his own wrongs so that it could stay this way.

“I’m sorry,” Crowley finally said. “I shouldn’t have left. Just didn’t know what to think. I thought you’d decided Alf would be okay and you could stay in your world. You had said that he had been doing fine, at the time,” the urge to defend himself was too strong, and Crowley had to get himself back on the right track. “But it was selfish of me to put all the responsibility on you. I should have stayed longer myself. I just– I guess–”

“He felt abandoned too,” said Alf, blinking at Crowley with his unbelievably enormous eyes, which were welling up with tears. Then he turned to Aziraphale. “Don’t you see?”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said in a very small voice. “I– I didn’t realise…”

“Not your fault,” said Crowley. “My problem, is all.”

“No,” Aziraphale said with the urgency in his voice. “It’s not your fault either. Crowley, dear… I’m– I’m sorry too,” he reached to take Crowley’s hand. Crowley felt some weight lifted off his heart even as all the muscles in his body tensed. He’d better not spoil this moment with some silly remark or something. “It all happened so quickly. And I missed you all the time – even when I was in the palace for those first two weeks.”

“You…did?”

“Yes, very much so.”

“You’re both really stupid, you know?” said Alf, who was starting to get bored with these two people working their shit out but was a bit amused nonetheless. He just wanted them to finish with that so that they all could get into action at last.

“We are, aren’t we?” chuckled Aziraphale shyly.

“Pfft! I’ll make sure to stick around until you finally have someone important in your life and are all bothered about it. I’ll have my revenge then,” Crowley poked his index finger at Alf. Alf laughed.

“So, what you’re saying is that Aziraphale is someone important to you?” Alf mimicked Crowley as Aziraphale blushed.

“Okay, okay! Back off, will you,” Crowley waved his hand at the little faery as if shooing him off.

“Crowley, you never said, though… Why did you decide to come back?” Aziraphale said in a very lame attempt to change the subject.

“Haven’t I just made it clear?” Alf raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, right!” said Crowley, trying his best to ignore Alf and the redness of his own cheeks. “I just found these in the market in Venice and thought you’d like them.”

He took out a bag of sugared almonds.

“Not sure, though, if children are allowed to eat dessert before dinner,” he added and stuck out his tongue at Alf.

“Oi!”

***

“How is he now?” asked Crowley while they were happily chewing at the nuts, trying not to break their teeth in the process. “Brian’s boy?”

“Elies?” Aziraphale said and nodded. “He never managed to blend in, you know. I’m still the only person he is friends with. Not that he hasn’t tried! He’s a charming boy. A bit more straightforward, less witty than Alf, but very kind and definitely more open-hearted.”

“Hey! I’m right here,” scoffed Alf.

“Would you like to be called open-hearted?” Aziraphale asked.

“No.”

“I’ve missed so much,” said Crowley bitterly.

“You’ve brought the nuts, though,” Alf said, his mouth full.

***

“I’ll have to leave soon,” Aziraphale said when the sun was sinking into the swamp somewhere behind the forest. “Elies will miss me.”

“Shame. I thought we’d have a party in the tavern, like in the old days,” said Crowley.

“I want a party in the tavern, too,” declared Alf.

“With no kids attached,” Crowley looked at him pointedly.

“Maybe another time, my dear.” Aziraphale smiled.

“Alright,” Crowley shrugged. He felt strangely calm, and some of the aching longing in his chest had eased since he’d reunited with Aziraphale and Alf. It wasn’t gone, but it was bearable. Like a wound that had been treated and bandaged with great care. He felt that everything was right. Well, almost everything.

“You can’t be the only one to care for him, you know?” Crowley said pensively. “You shouldn’t be.”

“What do you mean?” Aziraphale turned to him.

“Elies. If his whole world revolves around you, he’ll be absolutely miserable when you’re gone. Even if only for a little while. Imagine what he’d feel like if something happened to you?”

Again, Crowley knew what he was talking about.

“Well, as I said, he doesn’t get along very well with other faeries. Or rather, they don’t get along with him.”

“I think Crowley means we should break him out,” Alf’s eyes were shining.

“What?”

 

“The kid’s right,” Crowley shrugged. “I can’t see the point of him staying there if they don’t need him. He’d be much happier with his own kind. Or even…”

“…With us,” said Alf. Crowley nodded. Aziraphale looked incredulously between the two of them.

“Look at you. You’ve only known each other for a few hours, and he’s already finishing your sentences. You have a bad influence on the child, Crowley.”

“Maybe the child has a bad influence on me?”

“Well, I wouldn’t put that past him either, I must admit.”

Alf giggled.

 

Chapter 3.

The reason Aziraphale had let himself be persuaded so easily was that he hadn’t really needed persuasion. He had thought the same thing for a long time already. But he had never been sure either of his abilities or his right to try and make somebody’s life better.

But Crowley and Alf – they had confidence. And they had confidence in him, which was exhilarating in and of itself. Aziraphale had to live up to this trust.

So now, as he led his two friends into the most secret place in all of Ireland, he didn’t have any second thoughts. Only a bit of worry for their safety. He had given them faery-made cloaks to disguise their appearance, but if anyone stopped to talk to them, it would be a disaster.

After they passed the curtain of magic hiding the entrance to the faery realm, Crowley was unusually quiet. He was looking around at the blue-green trees lining their path to the City, at the fireflies covering the trunks and branches with fascinating eerie lights, at the white flowers among the ferns unfurling their petals as the travellers approached them. Aziraphale couldn’t say if Crowley was admiring all that. The pooka’s brow was wrinkled, and his lips drawn into a thin line as if he was deep in thought. Yet he was looking around.

“It’s beautiful! And this! Just look at this bug, Crowley!” gasped Alf every two seconds, his head turning back and forth with almost unnatural speed.

“It is,” Crowley nodded. “Please, be quiet.”

When they came to the City, even Alf had no words to describe it.

It was a hill – it actually was a hill, Crowley thought. He couldn’t figure out if the City was growing from a hill or if it was creating the hill while growing, but it looked like a living, natural thing – even with all the houses and towers that were rising up in levels amidst the soft moss and grass of the winding paths. Some buildings were covered by giant fern leaves, some were snuggled inside huge flowers. And on the top of the hill stood the Queen’s Castle. It wasn’t much bigger or fancier than the rest of the houses on the hill. It matched. A house of the first among equals. There was a stream flowing from the castle down to the bottom and another flowing from the bottom to the top of the hill.

“Physics is not their thing, is it?” mumbled Crowley. Aziraphale chuckled.

“What do you think?” Aziraphale asked, and it seemed to Crowley that he sounded nervous. Was he regretting having brought them here?

“I er– I think, I’m not sure if I have the right to ask anyone to leave this place, you know.” Crowley swallowed around the lump in his throat. The longing in his chest had been almost impossible to bear since he’d stepped through the veil. What even was this? He was almost having a hard time holding back tears. It felt like he was saying farewell to the dearest thing in his life, and he had no idea why. He’d never envied the high faeries, never wanted their detachedness from the rest of the world. He had enough magic not to be jealous of theirs. And  surely he had no one in the faery realm he could miss. Well, except for Aziraphale. But Aziraphale was now with him, so why was this feeling bothering him?

Maybe it was because of the thought he’d just confessed. Because, after seeing the beauty of the Underhill World, he knew it was just a matter of time before Aziraphale would leave him to return home and stay forever. No one in their right mind would part with it, would they? Probably, they should change their plans and try to sneak Alf in somehow instead of sneaking Elies out. He was just about to voice this thought when Aziraphale answered:

“Beauty is overrated, you know? Always the same pretty things, no variety, no surprise of finding something wonderful under a plain exterior.” He glanced at Alf, who grinned. Aziraphale covered the boy’s ears with his palms and added: “Besides, faeries can be narrow-minded arrogant pricks sometimes.”

Alf, who had heard everything anyway, giggled, and Crowley shook his head, looking at Aziraphale in amazement.

“Well, yeah, I’m kind of angry they’d robbed Alf of a chance to live here. Bloody mixed feelings, if ever I had any.”

“I wouldn’t want to live here,” Alf shrugged. “I agree with Aziraphale. You know, it looks like a great place to visit as a traveller, but not to live in. Just look at all those doll houses? I’d break all that the first time I decided to go for a walk.”

“Well, that’s certainly true,” Aziraphale smirked. “You can’t imagine, Crowley. He manages to be clumsy and mischievous, so that’s a double hazard every time.”

“Alright, alright,” Crowley grumbled, smiling. “Let’s get going then, shall we?”

It was the time of night when most day faeries slept in their homes, and the night faeries walked the human world. So the whole City seemed almost deserted.

They couldn’t take a boat up the gravity-defying stream because the lookouts at the Palace would spot the lonely vessel in no time and set off the alarm. So they walked up the City Hill instead, along the winding mossy paths, marvelling at the beautiful houses covered in ivy and climbing roses. Crowley thought that in all his journeys around the world, he had never seen – or rather smelt – such a clean and fragrant city. He wished humans would learn a thing or two from the faeries in this regard.

Probably because of all the excitement and the beauty they saw, or maybe because the City was very well built, they felt surprisingly little fatigue when they finally reached the Palace. The City looked just as beautiful from the top, surrounded by the magical forest.

The longing in Crowley’s chest hurt like a bleeding wound. It was becoming hard to hold back tears. To make things worse, every now and again, he felt something like a vision flash in his mind’s eye. Baby faeries slide from a large leaf of burdock into a shining pool of water. Faces around the fire, a melody of a song he can’t quite grasp. Then he saw himself standing at the lookout’s post on the Palace tower. Crowley shuddered. Clearly, his pooka nature was clashing with the high-faery magic. He shouldn’t be here, and the whole City was telling him that. He didn’t want to tell Aziraphale and Alf – didn’t want to become a liability. After all, it was he who had insisted on this plan. Aziraphale seemed to have noticed something, though. He kept glancing at Crowley worriedly when he thought Crowley wasn’t looking. Or maybe he was just regretting having brought them here.

“Now, the hardest part,” Aziraphale whispered as they came to the moat surrounding the Palace. “The gates are always open during the day, and the bridge is lowered across the moat. Then, after the night faeries leave and the day faeries return – the bridge is drawn, and the gates are closed.”

“High faeries have a curfew,” Crowley scoffed. “Lame.”

“So we can either wait till morning and sneak in with the night faeries, or swim under the wall through the tube that brings water to the Palace. It starts at the top of the stream. In that case, we’d only have to get up there unnoticed by the lookout. If we try to get lost in the crowd in the morning, there’s a high chance somebody will notice you two.”

“I’d rather take a swim,” said Crowley with a shrug. “I can turn into something that wouldn’t be easily spotted from afar.”

“Oh my god! You can shapeshift!” exclaimed Aziraphale almost too loudly.    

“Sure thing, I can. I’m a pooka. We literally met for the first time when I was a lizard.” Crowley raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, right. I– I forgot. It was a long time ago,” Aziraphale said. “And… why don’t you go around in animal form all the time then? I bet it would be much less nerve-wracking for you.”

“I like human form. It’s easier to talk to you this way. And I like talking.” To you, Crowley’s mind finished for him. He bit his tongue.

“Oh,” Aziraphale smiled. “Okay then. What about you, Alf?” he turned to the boy.

“I’m not a very good swimmer,” Alf admitted, looking a bit uncertain for the first time that day. Aziraphale wanted to say they should wait till morning then, but Crowley interrupted him: “Don’t worry. I’ll help you. And we’ll both be there all the time.”

“Alright then,” Alf nodded.

Crowley turned into a lizard. Aziraphale felt a sweet pang of nostalgia. He cast a little spell over the three of them to hide them from anyone’s eyes as much as possible—the same spell faeries wear when they walk around the human realm. It wouldn’t make them invisible to the faeries, of course, but it would render them unnoticeable. At least to random glances.

They crept to the mouth of the stream, where it flowed into the moat. Aziraphale stepped into the water and gestured for Alf and Crowley to do the same. Crowley stumbled off the edge of the stream, turned into a fish in midair and fell into the water with a soft splash. However, the lookout on the tower immediately turned his head in their direction. Aziraphale had to dive quickly and pulled Alf under with him.

“Oh, bother, Crowley!” Aziraphale said angrily, but because of the water, it came out as bubbles and mumbling. Aziraphale could have sworn that Crowley the fish gave him a toothy grin. Alf laughed too, but immediately started to sink and flailed his arms in panic. Crowley swam up to him and let him hold onto his body.

When Aziraphale was sure the boy wouldn’t drown just yet, he swam to the opening of the tunnel nearby that led to the Palace.

Luckily, none of them technically needed to breathe, so they could swim underwater for as long as they needed. Aziraphale knew the layout of the place well, so very soon, they were in the luxurious baths of the Palace. They climbed inside through a pipe that was currently empty but, when used, brought water into a giant tub. It was easy for Crowley, who simply shifted into a lizard again to climb up, and then pulled in Alf, who was nimble and scrawny like a wild cat. Aziraphale, on the other hand, almost got stuck in the pipe and, in a state of panic, didn’t remember at once that he could actually use magic to widen the pipe a bit.

“Well, that was quite an exercise,” muttered Aziraphale when they were inside. “Now, let’s go find our princess in the tower.”

“Our what?” asked Crowley.

“Really, Crowley, you should listen to a saga or two sometime.”

***

Elies awakened to the sound of the opening door. No one ever came to him, especially at night, so he was a little scared to turn over in his bed. When he saw three people standing by his bed, he got more than a little scared and couldn’t help but yelp. One of the people – dark-haired and yellow-eyed like a demon he’d only seen in pictures before – stepped closer and pressed a palm to Elies’s mouth. Only then did he realise one of the other figures was Aziraphale. It eased his fear a little, though the demon’s hand on his lips didn’t help with that. The third person – a short and thin boy – brought a finger to his lips and said:

“Fear not, Elies. We’ve come to save you.”

Elies didn’t know he needed saving or what he needed saving from, but when he heard those words, he suddenly longed for them to be true. He nodded.

At that moment, he heard footsteps behind his door. He must have woken Fenella, who slept in the next room and was his personal guard and nanny. She took shifts with Aziraphale, but unlike him, she hated her job; Elies could just see it in the way her nostrils twitched in disdain when she had to deal with him.

The door opened, and Fenella entered the room, her pointed nose appearing first in the dark opening.

“Your Highness?” she asked, looking at him with sleepy, annoyed eyes. Elies thought that her hatred must have woken up before her. “What’s the matter? I heard you scream.” Her eyes left him and scanned the room in search of a threat. Elies looked around, too, and almost gave another cry when he saw an absolutely new black chest right next to his bed. Fenella’s eyes stopped at it as well and narrowed a bit. No way would she think such an ugly piece of furniture could exist in the Faery Queen’s Palace. Trembling all over under his blanket, Elies forced himself to tear his gaze from the chest.

“I–I’m sorry, Fenella. I just had a bad dream, that’s all.”

“Right, thought so.” The faery rolled her eyes and left the room, muttering: “Normal faeries don’t have bad dreams.”

Elies thought he waited forever for the sound of her footsteps to die away. Then he touched the chest.

“Hey, she’s gone.” When nothing happened, he tried to lift the lid, but it seemed to be made of the same piece of wood as the chest itself. “Aziraphale?”

Noises came from inside the chest, as if creatures within were trying to open it, too. But the lid wouldn’t budge. Elies grew worried again. Fenella could return at any moment, and what if Aziraphale died in there? And the other two? Where were they, anyway? And who were they? Oh, he’d be in such trouble!...

Then, with a soft puff, the chest morphed into a dark-haired man, and Aziraphale and the boy were left lying on the floor, hugging each other in what looked like a very uncomfortable position.

“Really, Crowley? A chest?” hissed Aziraphale irritably. He untangled himself from the boy and stood up.

“Come on, I had to think on my feet,” said the dark-haired man – Crowley, apparently. “You should be grateful. I hate turning into inanimate objects – it’s almost impossible to remember you’re actually a person and can turn back.”

“Well, I’m very grateful for your wonderful memory,” continued grumbling Aziraphale.

Meanwhile, the boy bounced to his feet like nothing happened and sat down on Elies’s bed.

“Hi,” he said. “Sorry about them. I’m Alf. I’m the one you were switched with. At birth.”

“Oh,” Elies gasped. He looked at Alf. He really looked like a faery. Not a beautiful one, but there was something in him that made him distinctly remarkable. Something Elies definitely didn’t have in himself, he thought. Since he’d learned to look around and analyse things, Elies had understood that he was the most ordinary creature in the whole Palace. If not the whole City. He didn’t know how he managed to be both different and ordinary.

Now it all fell into place. He’d heard rumours, of course. And Aziraphale sometimes told him stories about the changelings but managed to avoid his questions about his own origin.

“Do you… Do you want to take your place back?” he asked Alf. “It’s fine if you do,” he said quickly. “I don’t mind.”

Alf laughed, covering his large mouth with a palm. He had an infectious laugh. Even Elies smiled a little.

“Oh, hell, no!” he said. “To live with the guys who kicked me out like a black sheep? No, thank you. We, my friend, are taking you with us. You know Aziraphale. And this is Crowley. He’s a pooka, and he can shapeshift and knows a lot of fun stuff. Come on!” He jumped off the bed. And Elies immediately stood up after him.

“Er, just like this?” Crowley looked at Elies incredulously. “No questions about where we’re going? Or, I don’t know, putting some clothes on?”

Elies realised he was heading to the door in his pyjamas. Aziraphale chuckled.

“They’re kids, Crowley. Didn’t you ever run away from home when you were little?”

“No. I mean, I don’t know. Don’t remember ever having a home.” The painful feeling inside spread from his chest into his head and gut, making him even more short-tempered than he usually was.

“Oh. Sorry,” Aziraphale immediately grew sad.

“Come on. No time to spare. That nosy faery may come back any minute.”

The nosy faery in question chose that very minute to come back. With backup.

The door opened again, and in stepped Fenella, several guards and… Her Majesty the Faery Queen herself.

***

“Well, well, well, look who we’ve got here!” the Queen said, looking between the four of them indignantly. “You think you can just bring some filthy scum into the Palace, Aziraphale?”

“This filthy scum is your child, Your Majesty,” Aziraphale said, locking his steely eyes with the woman. Crowley saw that he was barely containing his rage. “With all due respect.”

“What?!” She looked at Alf, who seemed to have shrunk from fear but tried not to show it. “This… thing should never have learnt anything about faeries! And you brought it here? And told–” she looked at Elies, and Crowley realised she’d forgotten his name, “…the boy about it? How dare you? What is this? A mutiny?”

“No,” Aziraphale said levelly. “Just a couple of people wanting to have a better life. Without you.”

“Oh? Is that so?” She smiled wickedly. “Well, in that case, I can grant you your wish. Take them away,” the Queen waved to the guards. “All of them. We’ll have the ceremony in the morning. I need my sleep.”

“The ceremony?” Crowley asked with a bad premonition.

“They… will take my wings,” Aziraphale said and swallowed. Crowley felt an icy hand grip his intestines. For a moment, his fear and pain for Aziraphale overshadowed his own agony.

“You mean…to c-cut?” He couldn’t even say it. It was too horrible. Aziraphale nodded. The Queen let out a scoff.

“Wait! No! He didn’t mean himself,” Crowley stepped forward. “He just meant the boys! They don’t belong here. Let me take them and leave. Aziraphale can stay.”

“Crowley–” Aziraphale began.

“Hmm,” the Queen squinted at Crowley and even leaned forward a bit to see him properly. Then she laughed. It was a loud, evil laugh. By now, all faeries in the Palace had to be awake, but none of them left their rooms. “And why do you care, pooka? Haven’t you been in his place yourself? Wouldn’t you want to bring your fate on any faery? Especially,” she pointed at Aziraphale, “on this one?”

“W–What? Why?” Crowley hated all these riddles. He hated being told what to feel. And oh, how he hated horrid, haughty, heartless high faeries!

Without warning, the Queen put a finger on Crowley’s forehead. It felt like a small but precise lightning bolt, and then memories flooded Crowley’s mind.

Him, as a child, sliding down a dock bur leaf into the water. Flying with the other faeries up to the tall pine tree and freeing a white, almost translucent moth from a resin tear. Hugging his friends, standing around a campfire and singing.

Him being presented to the court, a long green tunic matching his wings – almost as transparent as the moth’s. A crowd of cheering faeries, the beautiful Queen, younger than she was now, her features gentler.

Him walking along the corridors of the Palace to the Queen’s chambers. The midwife holding a chubby golden-haired infant. Giving it to him. “Not perfect enough.”

Him taking the baby away from the Palace but not going to the human realm. Leaving the boy at one of the faeries’ houses on the lower level of the hill. The child’s crystal blue eyes, the colour of the dew on the dock bur leaves in November.

Then him, returning to the Palace without a human child. The ceremony. Oh, the ceremony and the pain of his wings being severed…

His whole nature changed in that moment, all his soul going dark. And only the eyes stayed bright so that he could see the beauty of the world but never belong to it.

He was left outside the Faery Realm, and he forgot it. And he forgot the Queen and her baby. He forgot Aziraphale.

The icy digit left his brow, and Crowley collapsed to the floor, overwhelmed with pain and regained memories. Aziraphale shouted something, but he couldn’t make out the words. He was scooped from the ground by soft, warm hands. Aziraphale was hugging him. And the pain inside started to dissolve.

But it only lasted a moment. Then somebody tore Aziraphale away from him. The much rougher hands of the guards grabbed him and dragged him out of the room.

***

At least they were all in one cell, Aziraphale thought with the almost cheerful resolve that always awoke in him when he felt it was his duty to keep everyone else’s spirits up. Besides, it didn’t look like they were going to be executed. The Queen only mentioned the ceremony, so maybe she’d just banish them all afterwards. Aziraphale would tolerate it if he had to. At least nothing worse would happen to his friends.

However, something worse was already happening.

Crowley was lying on Aziraphale’s lap, slipping in and out of consciousness. The first time he’d come round, he’d told them what he had remembered of his past. Aziraphale was still in shock from the revelation. Crowley used to be a high faery! And he had sacrificed his essence, his wings, and his home for one single baby. And not just some baby – Aziraphale. Aziraphale was what he was now, thanks to Crowley. His wings, hidden now in the other plane, felt borrowed. Aziraphale gently stroked Crowley’s forehead. It felt hot, and his breathing was laboured.

“What’s wrong with him?” Alf asked worriedly. “Did she do something else to hurt him?”

“I think what she did was enough,” Aziraphale sighed. “It’s his essence. A banished faery isn’t supposed to remember their native land, shouldn’t hear its call, or they’ll die slowly from longing for it. I’m afraid Crowley has been dying ever since he came here. If only I’d known that pookas are banished high faeries…” He rubbed his forehead. He shouldn’t have taken any of them here. Neither Crowley nor Alf. He should have just taken Elies out of the palace himself. His self-doubt about being able to handle it had led to this disaster.

Yeah, so much for resolve and lifting everyone’s spirits.

“So, if they cast us away and don’t wipe our memories, we all gonna die?” asked Alf.

“Well, Elies won’t. He’s not a faery. So I’m not sure what they’re going to do to him. As for you– How are you feeling?”

Alf had been his usual bouncy, cheerful self since the beginning of the adventure, so it had never even occurred to Aziraphale that he might be experiencing the curse of an outcast faery.

“I’m fine,” Alf shrugged, flexing his arms and wiggling his fingers. “No longing or whatever.”

“Hmm. I wonder why.”

That was strange, though good. Aziraphale didn’t need more guilt on his shoulders. But it really was interesting and could prove useful.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale called, gently shaking the pooka’s shoulder. “Are you there, dear?”

“Yeah.”

Crowley had been awake for a while, but with too little strength to participate in the conversation. Besides, Aziraphale’s lap was so comfortable to lie on. He could die happy there.

“Did you hear Alf?” Aziraphale asked him again.

“Mm-hmm.”

“Any idea why he’s fine while you aren’t?”

“Nah. Dunno. He’s ’appy with ’is life?”

“But you’ve always said you were happy with your life, too. Has to be something else.”

“I was. Before ya,” Crowley mumbled.

“Oh.” Aziraphale’s fingers froze in Crowley’s hair. He took his hand away.

It hurt. Of course, Crowley had every right to hate him, Aziraphale thought. He’d appeared in Crowley’s life with his problem and his cowardice and completely ruined it. Quite literally. Crowley was dying because of him. But still. Crowley had seemed genuinely happy in those days they’d spent together when Alf was little, and earlier today, when he’d returned and they’d made peace. Should Aziraphale feel guilty for thinking he could make Crowley’s life happier?

“I’m sorry, Crowley,” he said, feeling conflicted about it but knowing he should say it anyway. “If I’d never found you, none of this would have happened.”

“Rubbish,” said Crowley, words slurring. “Not what I meant. This not happenin’ – wha’s good in that?”

“Er… What did you mean then?”

“Now that I know you are there– I mean, here… I mean, ugh,” Crowley squeezed his eyes shut and grunted in frustration like a drunk man trying to sober up to remember what he was saying. He managed to collect himself a little because he even sat up, leaving Aziraphale’s knees and propping himself up on his elbows. “I mean, it’s like before I knew you, I hadn’t known something was missing in me, and now it seems I can’t be whole without you.” He stopped and blushed, having realised what he’d just said. “Er, kind of. Shit.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said again, his eyes starting to well up with tears. “Are you saying–”

“Aaaaw!” moaned Alf unceremoniously. Elies was just smiling awkwardly, still not very confident in the new company but enjoying it already.

“I– I– err–” Crowley stammered. “I mean, it’s like with this place. I hadn’t remembered it, and I was fine. And now it’s tearing me apart because I don’t want to be here, and I don’t belong here. I’m not a faery anymore, and I don’t want to be one. But this place denies me my pooka nature; it’s casting the new me out, burning me out. I don’t know. Maybe Alf doesn’t have this problem because he’s still a faery; he managed to live as a faery in the human world and be fine with it. Whereas I was changed by the ceremony. If I had my own world back, my pooka-human life – it would stop. The same is with this other thing. If I hadn’t known you, I’d be okay. Not happy but fine. But now, I can only be fine if… if I have you.”

Crowley took a sharp breath and fell on the floor next to Aziraphale, utterly exhausted by his speech. But now that he’d said it, he couldn’t stop, feeling nervous that he hadn’t said it right, or hadn’t said enough.

“Fuck. I’m sorry. Didn’t want to throw it on you. But I couldn’t die and leave you thinking you’ve made my life worse. You just showed me how good it could be.”

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale said and lifted him gently to put Crowley’s head on his lap again. Crowley felt his heart flutter. This floor wasn’t comfortable at all. “So, does that mean that if we get out of here and get to be together – all four of us – it will heal you?”

“There are quite a few obstacles to that,” Crowley grumbled, relishing the warmth of Aziraphale’s body and his wonderful optimism. He even felt some of the pain and fatigue leave him.

“I’ve been locked up for bad behaviour more than once,” Alf raised a hand. “I could try to pick the lock.” He didn’t wait for permission and busied himself with the door straight away.

“Be careful; someone might be watching the door,” Aziraphale warned.

“Even if you did unlock it, the tower is protected by magic,” Crowley said, watching the boy curiously. It was quite fascinating – to look at his clever little fingers poking at the lock with some metal pin and wonder with bated breath if he would succeed. No one came to the door from the other side. Probably, they had been left alone for the night after all. All the more proof of the magic wards.

“That’s true,” Aziraphale said pensively. “But any spell can be lifted. And I’ve been wondering… Now that you’ve told your story – our story – it means, I am the Faery Queen’s son.”

Aziraphale was going to say something else, but Alf suddenly stopped his work and turned to them. His huge eyes grew bigger, if that was even possible. For a moment, Crowley thought he’d managed to unlock the door and sat up. But Alf said:

“Doesn’t that make us… brothers?”

There was a pause. Crowley looked at Aziraphale. Wow, this was just like the most compelling stories and legends he’d heard on his journeys. And it was happening before his very eyes. Crowley had always wished there was some way to see all those stories he’d heard. Wouldn’t it be much more interesting than listening or reading?

Aziraphale’s face lit up with a smile.

“Yes, I suppose it does! Come here, little brother!”

He spread his arms, and Crowley was glad he’d left Aziraphale’s lap a little earlier because, otherwise, he’d be swept away by the whirlwind of limbs that rushed towards Aziraphale and wrapped him in the tightest hug. Crowley and even quiet Elies laughed.

“What a day!” said Aziraphale. There were tears in his eyes, but he was still beaming. “Imagine we’d never gone on this adventure? We wouldn’t have known.”

“We’d still be a family,” Crowley said and slapped himself mentally for being so soppy. All these emotional roller coasters had him thrown far beyond his comfort zone.

“Yes, but I wouldn’t be in it,” Elies said shyly. “And I… I very much want to have a family like this,” he gestured at the still-hugging Alf and Aziraphale. “Thank you for coming for me. I’m very sorry for how it all ended,” he finished sadly.

“Come on! It hasn’t ended yet! It’s only just started,” Alf said, leaving Aziraphale and jumping to his feet to go back to the door. “Just wait till I open this door.”

“Yes. And I was just saying that since I am kind of faery royalty, I might have more magical power than I always thought,” said Aziraphale.

“Really?” Crowley’s eyes widened. He felt something like hope rise in his chest. At the same time, he realised in astonishment that he hadn’t been feeling as bad as before for a while already. In fact… the pain in his heart was almost gone. When did it happen? He was not sure. But when he looked at Aziraphale, who was looking at him with such care and such joy, and at the boys, who were quite shamelessly enjoying their adventure of a lifetime, he felt almost like himself again.

“It’s still uncharted territory for me,” Aziraphale said. “But I’m going to try to lift the spells.”

“You might want to get down to it, brother,” said Alf gravely so that everyone looked at him in anticipation. Then he flashed them a mischievous smile, “Because I’ve just cracked this lock!”

“Oh my goodness!”

“You’re a genius,” Crowley grinned.

“Well then, I think it would be easier if we found a window or another way out where I could see the outside world. The spell will be visible for me then,” Aziraphale said and stood up. He gave Crowley his hand to help him to his feet. Crowley felt he was strong enough to rise on his own, but he still took the opportunity to hold Aziraphale’s hand.

They opened the door carefully and immediately saw two faery guards sleeping next to it in chairs. Alf almost screamed, but Crowley was quick enough to cover his mouth. It’s so typical of high faeries to rely on their magic and not on people, he thought.

Aziraphale muttered some spell, and a magical veil like a web of tiny sparkles fell upon the sleeping guards. Their snoring became louder.

The fugitives crept to the winding staircase and down to the lower floor of the prison tower. There, in one of the stairwells, was a window. Outside, the sun was already rising.

“We should hurry,” Crowley whispered.

Aziraphale nodded. He opened the window and said another spell. As Aziraphale had thought, he saw a magic barrier surrounding the tower. He reached inside for his power, grabbed some of it, and made a breaking spell – this time in a loud voice.

A bolt of blue shiny magic hit the barrier and sent cracks across it, but they mended themselves almost immediately. At the same moment, loud ringing erupted around them.

“Shit. The alarm. They’ll be here in a second!” Crowley said. “You keep working. We’ll keep watch.”

Aziraphale tried again. But his magic wasn’t enough. However, he realised he was still doing what he would normally do. He hadn’t explored that hidden potential inside himself that he’d discovered back in the cell and only dared to touch it tentatively. It slept deep in his core; it had been there all the time without him even knowing what it was.

The power of a faery prince.

Behind him, he heard footsteps and voices on the stairs.

A few guards entered the stairwell. Crowley was ready to meet them. Pooka magic wasn’t tailored for a battlefield, but he had a couple of tricks up his sleeve. When the guards brandished their swords, Crowley snapped his fingers, and the swords turned into bunches of flowers.

“Well, that’s more like it,” Crowley said. “Aren’t you high faeries supposed to be all about nature and beauty and life and other green stuff? What’s with the weapons?”

The guards hesitated only for a moment, then threw the flowers away and jumped at Crowley and the boys, barehanded or pulling out short daggers. Crowley knew they wouldn’t stand a chance in a fight, so he quickly enclosed the three of them in a protective bubble, which in turn was standing in the way of Aziraphale, shielding him too.

“It won’t hold for long,” Crowley said. “I’m still very weak here. You’ve helped a lot, guys, but my magic is running low. When Aziraphale breaks the barrier, run to him as quickly as you can and leave.”

“Dream on!” cried Alf.

“Yeah. And I can’t leave anyway – I have no wings,” said Elies.

“Me neither,” said Alf.

“What? You’re a faery, Alf. You must have them, somewhere. Try looking or something!”

“Er, where?”

“I don’t know. Inside you?”

Alf looked uncertain – which was a rare thing for him – but he tried to concentrate.

That was when the Queen appeared behind the guards. She was already dressed for the ceremony and was very cross about her plans being disturbed.

“Can’t you do anything you’re ordered?” she shouted to the guards. “I don’t need these scoundrels ruining the peace and order of my City! If they escape, all the faeries down there will see it. There will be talk!”

“Isn’t that the most horrible thing ever, your Majesty? People talking!” Crowley chuckled through the strain in his muscles and mind. “Maybe we could have an arrangement of some sort? We leave you in peace, and you let us all go?”

“I don’t make deals with filthy, lowly creatures like you!” the Queen spat. Her hand raised to make a spell of her own.

“Mother, please!” suddenly said Elies. The word made the Queen stop. For a second, she looked like she’d heard a cat talk in a human voice. She looked at Elies in surprise. He quickly went on, “I know you’ve never loved me. You don’t need me, and I’ve learnt not to need you. But I– I need somebody to love me truly. And Aziraphale does. And Crowley and Alf.” He looked around. “We don’t hate you. We just want to be loved. You can’t do it. So just let us! Please?”

“You ungrateful traitor!” the Queen hissed. “How could you decline the greatest gift a mortal can ever receive in their life? If you can’t be happy in a faery realm, you’ll never be happy anywhere.”

“I very much doubt that,” Crowley said. “You know humans have invented beer, right? And sugared almonds. The competition is much more difficult nowadays than it used to be, darling.”

***

Aziraphale reached deeper inside himself this time and, with a strong effort of will, drew the power up. It felt like an underground river was rushing up into him through a tiny well. He barely managed to form a spell to direct the magic at the barrier. With a loud bang and dazzling blue light, it hit the shield surrounding the tower and broke it as easily as a foot cracking the ice on an autumn puddle.

Aziraphale was blinded for a moment, and all he could focus on was controlling his power and sealing it back inside him. He felt somebody grab his hand, and slowly a face appeared out of the light. Elies.

“Are you okay?” he asked worriedly.

“Yes, quite.”

He could finally see what was happening around him.

Crowley’s protective bubble had burst at the same moment Aziraphale’s spell worked. For a moment, no one could see what was happening, and when they did, Alf found that a set of fiery red wings had burst out of his back.

“Look! I think I just needed a little shock!” he said happily.

The Queen raised her hands again and started to make a spell. Crowley pushed Elies behind his back. Alf rushed forward and with his newly gained magic tried to copy Crowley’s bubble, but instead created a huge glass ball that rolled towards the guards and the Queen, knocking them down.

“Good job,” praised Crowley.

“Come, quickly!” Aziraphale cried, already stepping on the windowsill. Two blue wings were manifested behind his back. Alf ran up to him. Crowley grabbed Elies’s hand and pulled him to the window. There, he turned into a large black eagle.

“Hold on tight,” he said to Elies, turning his back to him so he could climb aboard.

One by one, they flew out of the tower and into the faery city. The faeries down below, who were already filling the streets, looked up and pointed at them. However much Crowley wanted to stop and chat, he thought better of it. He had a child to save. He was quite good at it, he knew now.

As they flew over the forest, Aziraphale and Alf took Elies from Crowley and carried him in a conjured hammock so that Crowley could rest.

They looked back from time to time, but no one was following them. Maybe Elies’s speech had touched the Queen, Crowley thought. Or maybe all her thoughts were now of the human beer. She could surely use one.

In any case, they crossed the border between the Faery Realm and the human world safely.

“How are you feeling?” Aziraphale asked as soon as Crowley had taken human form again.

“Great,” Crowley said without thinking, then saw Aziraphale’s concerned and gentle look and realised – he really cared. He needed the true answer.

Crowley mentally checked his state. The ache in his chest, which he had come to recognise as his longing for Aziraphale’s love, was gone, replaced by the warm and soft feeling of excitement which grew stronger every time Aziraphale looked at him. As for the painful loss of his faery home – it still stung a little, and he knew it would for a while. But it was more physical than spiritual now. This world really had so much to offer that it would soon heal the wound.

“I’ll be fine,” he smiled. Then, his grin became a bit sly. “Just need to lie on your lap some more…”

“Awww,” said all three of them.

“…and get a beer,” finished Crowley.

“Crowley!” said Aziraphale with a mock frown.

“What? The lads need to eat, too. Come on! I bet Elies hasn’t tasted human food yet. I’m looking forward to seeing his face. Yours was just precious when you first tasted ribs.”

“Actually,” Aziraphale said, blushing as they walked towards the village. The sun was warm here, in the fields, and it seemed like this world was warmer than the one they’d just left.  “I used to bring him little treats from the tavern now and then, so he’s not a novice in this respect.”

 

“Ooh, that’s not fair!” Crowley pouted, then grinned again. “In that case, I’m introducing them both to wine!”