Happy holidays, pseudo_geek!
Title: Serpent and Fowl
For: pseudo_geek
From: lune_and_asters
Rating: G
Prompt: Aziraphale/Crowley. After an accident that discorporated Crowley and Aziraphale, Crowley is forced to use the body of a serpent (any type you want, but bonus point if you use ball python) and Aziraphale, a bird (an obese goose is preferred, but any fat piscivorous bird that can't move easily is love). They decide to enter a symbiotic relationship where Crowley catches food for Aziraphale and Aziraphale sits on Crowley to keep him warm and be his wings when they need to move from places to places.
Being discorporated was not pleasant. But as both Crowley and Aziraphrale could think of much, much worse happening, it didn’t particularly bother them when it did.
It was certainly annoying, however. What with the Apocalypse, Part I (to be prudent-Aziraphrale disliked exceptional hyperbole, and it was clear that Up There had some issues to work out) safely averted, one liked to think that their lives would settle down to their ordinary, repetitious routine. For Aziraphrale, days spent in seclusion in his bookshop, happily misdirecting mobsters when appropriate. For Crowley, driving his Bentley, terrifying his house plants and generally committing low grade acts of evil-just so he wouldn’t get out of touch. And for both of them, fine dinners and happy evenings spent getting exceptionally drunk, and canceling the side effects when they got too uncomfortable.
So the discorporation in question had put both angel and demon in rather foul* moods.
It was, oddly enough, Aziraphrale’s fault. In an incredibly roundabout sort of way.
He had suggested trying out a new Indian place, rather than going to their usual Ritz, and the two of them had, as usual, gotten happily drunk. Unusually, they hadn’t bothered to clear up the side effects before leaving the restaurant.
The problem was, Crowley and Aziraphrale had gone to the Ritz so many times that they behaved rather like rats in a very simple maze that had excellent cheese at the end: they didn’t have to think about where to go next, simply because they had done it so many times before.
The Indian restaurant?
Not so much.
So when a car full of similarly inebriated souls came hurtling down a street which Crowley and Aziraphrale, with their backs to traffic, were walking unsteadily down*, it had the effects one would expect.
***
Crowley had not sulked this much since the fourteenth century.
As a good demon, he had naturally been desperate to return to Earth, to continue his reigns of terror and the never ending fight against Heaven and its minions.
And rejoin his Bentley. The poor dear was probably just fading away, perhaps literally, with chipping paint and deflating tires. And that was just assuming that the vandals left her alone. Crowley had already thought up and designed a particularly nasty sort of hell for punks who did property damage, but he still didn’t want to think about such…devilish actions. Old-fashioned damnation had nothing on human cruelty.
His new album had almost certainly turned into Best of Queen by now. Such a waste.
He needed to water his plants. They needed guidance. Nurture. Special soil. Old-fashioned wallops. If there was as much as a spot of brown…
And have good wine. So what if it got him back here? A good wine was a good wine.
More importantly, Crowley wanted to have good wine to drink with Aziraphrale**. He missed the angel. All the other demons wanted to discuss temptation and torture, and hardly any of them understood his pop culture references.
Considering that most of the subjects of his references were current residents in Hell, it was rather distressing.
Even more distressing was how long it would take for his new body to be ready. Crowley had always been very particular about his body, and according to some imps who were clearly out of their league, if they followed his detailed instructions the way he wanted them to, it would take at least a month for it to be ready.
Crowley had wrangled, threatened, oozed, schmoozed, and made a general nuisance of himself to the Ghoulish Manifestation Agency, about having a new body, faster. Bullying was a well-respected method of accomplishing what had to be done, and though Crowley felt a bit rusty, he was still self-assured that his old talents would do the trick nicely.
So the imps had groaned, pinched the bridges of their long noses, and agreed to lend him a temporary form.
Crowley was so desperate to return to Earth that he didn’t even look at the assignment, simply vanishing in a puff of smoke, already relishing the scent of real, filthy air.
He should have remembered that the one with the eye patch nursed a grudge***.
***
Crowley woke up on the streets of London feeling, as he always did after an impromptu trip to Hell, like he had been steamrollered and then jabbed with red hot pokers by a cruel child.
This time, though, it was rather worse than usual, for when he tried to sit up, he discovered it was quite impossible, as he did not have legs.
What he did have was a sinuous , muscular, three foot long body. And heat vision.
He had been reincorporated as a snake.
A Burmese ball python, to be exact.
He had been reincorporated as a Burmese ball python, and then dumped on the streets of London, where people did not often see ball pythons sprawled out across their walkway.
And most humans did not like snakes.
“Bugger,” hissed Crowley.
***
The horrors of what poor Aziraphrale went through will not be detailed here. He hadn’t even offended anyone in heaven all that much. Sure, some of the lower grade, more zealous angels were still furious with him over the whole “Oh, give the precious flaming sword to the humans” incident, but generally no one was overtly righteous about it, and the truth of the matter was that no one was entirely certain that it had been the wrong thing to do, and with Up There keeping mum on the subject, generally it was one of those things The Angels Did Not Speak Of.
No, what had happened to Aziraphrale had been more mundane.
Paperwork.
Heaven did not have much in the way of modern technology, unfortunately, and by sheer bad luck, Aziraphrale’s replacement body had been mixed up with that of a bird’s, so that while the angel was stuck flapping his wings all over London and avoiding pellet guns like the plague, a rather confused goose was walking around wondering why it had to think about wings to have them and why its bones were so heavy.
The worst part?
He was waddling.
Crowley would never let it go.
***
Crowley couldn’t quite say how he ended up in the local pet shop. All he knew for certain was that there had been quite a few screams, a couple of flailing attempts to bash in his skull with rather wicked-looking umbrellas (he’d have to ask Down There to reevaluate them: sure, the purpose of an umbrella was generally good, but honestly, the potential for murder was too impressive), and then darkness, which came from being stuffed rather hastily into a burlap sack.
He hadn’t even realized that burlap sacks still existed in this day and age.
He hadn’t been in the sack for very long, fortunately. Unfortunately, however, he had been in a van on a distressingly bumpy ride, and was therefore quite malcontent when he was finally released, and tried to snap at the animal control officer, who said, “Better luck next time” and closed the top of the terrarium with a decisive snap before Crowley could recover and strike back.
He hissed again. It was becoming a bad habit. Once he got his other body back he’d have to train himself out of it.
Maybe he could steal some of Aziraphrale’s holy water, put it in a little cologne bottle. Like one of those spray bottles one used on cats. Crowley pondered the idea. Would it be too much like self-flagellation?
“I know you.”
Crowley froze. Against every desire not to turn around, he did so.
Damn it.
For centuries, Crowley had been avoiding snakes. He never knew what to say. Especially seeing as he was directly responsible for the whole ‘crawling on your belly in the dust’ situation, and had become a semi-mythic figure among them the way (ironically) Adam and Eve were among the humans, the figure responsible for punishment of a species.
The voice turned out to belong to, naturally enough, another ball python, who was coiled comfortably within a hollow artificial log, watching him. Even without the pheromones saturating the air, the distinct, oddly correct manner in which the snake had coiled itself practically shrieked “female”.
Crowley knew the situation would require delicacy and extreme diplomacy.
So, naturally, he decided that cutting straight to the chase would be the easiest solution.
“Yep. I’m the guy. The Cursed One, the One That Sauntered Vaguely Downwards-”
“You’re Crawly.”
Crowley deflated slightly. The name really did leave something to be desired.
Well, at least he could skip that embarrassing habit of having to embellish and stroke his own ego. It always felt indecent to him. That was the nice thing about Earth: everything was so straightforward.
“Yes, I am.”
“I’m Cleopatra, Cleo for short. Named after that Egyptian queen,” said the female snake, with pride.
Crowley was grateful that he was incapable of rolling his eyes.
“Pleasure to meet you, Cleo.”
“Nice to meet you, too, I guess. You are really not that frightening.”
Crowley felt the mild irritation build up into something rather more potent.
“Where am I?” he asked.
“A shop.”
“What shop?” Crowley remembered the other reason he didn’t like to talk to snakes. They never had anything interesting to say. It was all food and eggs, food and eggs. Every couple of months, it was shedding skin.
“Todd’s Shop.”
Crowley hissed again.
“Yes, yes, what I mean is-” he looked closer and saw that Cleo, though her eyes were not closed was, as far as reptilian body language was concerned, asleep.
She had fallen asleep. While he was talking.
Crowley blessed.
***
Despite a rather terrible first day, the pet shop was probably not the worst thing that could have happened to Crowley. He had plenty to eat, a warm rock to lie on, and Cleo, who, at the very least, had a sense of humor. When things were slow, he was able to amuse himself by rising up off his rock a few inches and hissing threateningly at any curious customer who wandered too near the terrarium. Snapping, on the other hand, got him stuck in the back room for the day.
He spent nearly two weeks (if the calendar propped up behind the counter was any indication) in this manner. By then it was becoming awfully boring.
It was on Saturday that Crowley began to seriously wonder where Aziraphrale could be. The angel was always good for a bit of perspective. Or, at the very least, in paying for a very fine dinner. Never mind that that’s what got him in this situation in the first place. Crowley missed being able to savor his food.
He really missed chewing his food.
But when he pulled his mind away from precious meats and desserts, there remained the pressing problem for Crowley that Aziraphrale was simply failing to appear out of thin air, as he was wont to do when Crowley needed to speak with him. The snake body had only limited capabilities with which he could commit low-grade evil-nothing on his usual scale, but enough that simply thinking severely malicious thoughts ought to have been enough for the angel to come find him****.
Crowley would have been worried, had Aziraphrale been something else.
But Aziraphrale was a Principality, and unless Heaven had changed its policy some time in the last few millennia or so, he was not in any danger of roasting. They might make him watch the Sound of Music one time too many, but nothing horribly severe.
Provided, thought Crowley uneasily, they didn’t get him for gluttony first.
Bless the angel: where was he?
***
By closing time, Crowley’s prayers, er, curses were answered.
The puppies had stopped yipping and had curled up for the night, while the hamster wheel was beginning its incessant squeaking. Not for the first time, Crowley entertained the thought of turning the little pests into something rather more unpleasant. Also not for the first time, he felt too sluggish and ill-tempered to move from his comfortable rock.
At least until he felt a familiar presence nearby.
“About time,” muttered Crowley, slithering off his rock and up to the glass walls, looking about expectantly as he tried to pinpoint where, exactly, the angel’s aura was coming from.
A minor scuffle diverted his attention. A customer had appeared, unfortunately, and had to be dealt with. The customer was youngish and rather unpleasant looking, with greasy hair and bad sunglasses. He carried a large, covered cage with some difficulty, as the inhabitant kept rocking and honking inside and managing to sound utterly undignified and utterly English at the same time.
Crowley stared.
Looked away.
Then looked back again.
Nope. No self-deception going on whatsoever.
The birdcage was resting on the counter now, the covering pulled off to reveal a rather fat white goose with a yellow bill and an utterly miserable expression.
Crowley wondered whether laughing, or slithering away in shame was the more appropriate action.
Only Aziraphrale could be turned into a bird and still manage to look gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide.
Especially, when, at that moment, Aziraphrale chose to look over in Crowley’s general direction.
Upon recognition, he honked what sounded suspiciously like ‘”Crowley!” and flapped his wings several times in excitement, nearly rocking the cage off the table.
Todd looked at the greasy-haired customer in confusion.
“What’s that all about?” he asked.
“Don’t ask me,” said the customer. “I think he might’ve belonged to a pastor in a past life. The blasted bird sounded like he was reciting the Bible through half past midnight. I didn’t even know that was possible. Anyway, mind if I leave him here for now? My parents have no room at their farm and he keeps breaking in and choking on teacakes.”
Since he had no eyebrows, Crowley tilted his head very expressively at Aziraphrale, who pretended to feel very sleepy and tucked his head under his wing.
He hissed in amusement.
***
While Aziraphrale and Crowley were meeting up together again, the goose that had accidentally possessed Aziraphrale’s body was having a surprisingly lovely time.
One it had gotten used to walking on two legs, it had taken to exploring the bookshop, using its new appendages to hold and examine the curious new artifacts. While the goose still had traditional goose instincts and tastes, it found that the body also possessed a human brain-one capable of reading, and allowing the goose to comprehend the strange carvings on the blocks of loose leaves it held.
For the last several days, the goose had been enjoying itself, not being frightened or bothered (mostly because it never even thought to change the sign from ‘closed’ to ‘open’, much to the consternation of curious neighbors), eating pastries, which it found to be delicious, and reading a strange old book titled Geese: Breeding, Feeding, Tips and Techniques.
Not bad, for a goose.
***
What happened to Aziraphrale will, again, not be detailed here, save that he learned several interesting new words and had to subsist without tea or books for three days, which nearly killed him.
The important part was that he was able to speak, and thus he and Crowley were able to relate their misfortunes to one another and express outwards sympathy while inwardly snickering at one another.
Still, they both agreed that staying in the pet shop for any longer would not be appropriate, and they ought to leave as quickly as they could.
The duo’s escape involved a large mop, the hamster wheel, and bath suds. But that’s not important.
The important part was that they got out, and had a host of other problems to deal with.
***
The flight from the pet shop should have been a triumphant victory, akin to the climaxes of children’s movies with funny talking animals.
Instead, it was rather more like the embarrassing set-back.
“My dear, really,” panted Aziraphrale, valiantly flapping his wings a little harder in an attempt to support Crowley’s weight. “You’ve heard of restraint; I know you have. You didn’t have to eat every mouse that queer man tossed you. You must have put on a couple stones at least.”
“Yes, I did. You know humans: the second they think something’s not right with you they stuff pills down your throat,” said Crowley testily. As Aziraphrale had no talons with which to carry him, he was draped awkwardly around the angel’s very long neck, and had to maintain his balance and not accidentally asphyxiate Aziraphrale. His scales were itching as well: a sign that the angel’s proclamation was probably not that far off from fact.
How embarrassing, shedding skin. One of the many things Crowley didn’t miss about being Crawly.
Despite Crowley’s weight and Aziraphrale’s minor difficulties with steering, they managed to make it all the way to St. James Park, where he landed-none too gently, it might be added-allowing Crowley to slide off his back and immediately finding himself far more relaxed. Trees were good. Trees had interesting little holes in which one could pop in and have a quick nap, and branches on which good, calm, tired birds who had just carried extraordinary burdens could rest.
Crowley, after much hissing and winding himself securely around the branch so he wouldn’t fall, also relaxed. Burmese ball pythons had no grievances with trees. Especially not this tree.
Well…
Crowley looked uneasily at an old scar indicating where a branch had snapped off the oak and amended the thought. He mostly didn’t have grievances with trees. Most trees. In London Parks, at the very least. And Tadfield.
For a couple awkward moments, serpent and fowl just rested.
“So…what now?” asked Crowley.
“I’m not sure,” Aziraphrale ruffled his feathers, shaking his head from side to side. “You have at least a couple more weeks like that. I have until Up There sorts out their managing skills.”
“Sorry,” Crowley curled up a little tighter. It was rather chilly, and as usual in London, the sun was not entirely out.
“I’m honestly more worried about you, my dear. Geese don’t have issues with body heat. Pythons, on the other hand, will.”
Crowley gave a vague shrug-like motion. “I’ll live.”
“No, dear, you won’t. Not in autumn.”
“I remember, Aziraphrale, I remember. Do you have any better suggestions? I get discorporated again; I’m stuck down there for half an eternity.” Crowley sulked a bit at this. Stupid one with an eye patch. It wasn’t his fault.*****
“I could help you,” said Aziraphrale uncomfortably.
“How?”
Famous last question.
***
“We are never going to mention this again.”
“Never again, dear.”
“I mean it, Aziraphrale.” Crowley shifted a bit, trying to get comfortable. On the one hand, he was no longer in danger of dying of cold. On the other hand, ironically enough, he was in some danger of getting his lungs crushed.
“Don’t flatter yourself, my dear. I do not, precisely, consider this a crowning achievement of my career either. And stop squirming so much.”
Aziraphrale seemed a lot less ruffled than Crowley thought he would be. Well, he was doing this to help him. Being sat on like he was a cushion was hardly pleasant, but there was always much worse that could be happening to him.
“Hey, Aziraphrale.” Crowley’s voice came out as slightly muffled.
“Hm?”
“I owe you.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll buy dinner.”
“Sounds good.”
“Not Indian.”
“Understandably.”
***
There was a fox in London.
He had been an accident: the poor thing still wasn’t certain how he had managed to wind up in a city when all he wanted was a comfortable wood in which to hunt, sleep, and find a pretty girl fox to have little foxes with.
Plus, he was hungry, and not just in the constant, slight pangs all animals uncertain of where their next meal will come from feel. This was true, honest hunger.
And there was a very promising meal sitting not ten feet away, asleep.
The fox had lived near farms before, and knew that these types made exceptionally filling meals, if one was able to catch them off guard. If one did not, one ran the danger of getting rather badly hurt.
The fox began to advance, nearly drooling at the thought of a good meal…
“Hey.” Something hissed at the fox.
The fox froze. Turning its head a mere fraction, it caught sight of a rather large reptile. It had seen snakes before, but never such coloring before-was it poisonous?
“I don’t think you want to eat him,” the snake continued. “He eats too much. He’d give you heartburn in a second. He’s used to having a human body, so he’s not acting too aware at the moment. But I can promise you, he won’t be happy to be made a meal of.”
The fox stared at the snake, silently processing what it said. On the one hand, he didn’t talk to many snakes. On the other hand, he was hungry.
Hunger won. He turned his attention back to the goose.
The snake made a noise that sounded like a sigh. “Have it your way. If you weren’t a red fox I wouldn’t be so lenient. But hey, you are. And Aziraphrale likes them: he thinks they are part of traditional English flavor. You still can’t eat him, but I know where you should go. I’ll let Him decide. He probably wouldn’t mind another fox: the Them likes ‘em.”
After this little speech, the snake gave one long protracted hiss.
Before he could blink, the fox found himself among trees, the scent of humans gone from overpowering to barely there.
A pretty girl fox sat nearby, feeding off a couple of slain chickens. She looked up at him.
He looked at her.
She nudged one of the chickens over in invitation.
***
“I’m getting soft,” hissed Crowley. “A stole on a movie star would have been more like it.”
But he cheered up a bit as he slithered away, knowing that at the very least, he could make up to Aziraphrale even when wearing such a ridiculous body.
***
Things continued this way semi-peacefully, with Aziraphrale keeping Crowley warm, and Crowley keeping an eye out for things that wanted to eat Aziraphrale, all the way up to the morning he returned to his regular body.
He had been sleeping under Aziraphrale, and the angel let out a loud hiss at the shock of finding an unfamiliar, large pale thing underneath him and getting off it, but quickly cheered up upon realizing it was Crowley, albeit without clothes.
“I have never missed these so much,” said Crowley, picking up a pair of immaculate black sunglasses off the dirt that had not been there a second before and putting them over eyes that were still slit pupils.
“Of course,” Aziraphrale looked pointedly to the side. “Now put on the rest of your clothes.”
Crowley obliged, and then picked up the goose, tucking him under one arm and ignoring his protests.
“Come on, angel. Let’s make sure your body hasn’t come to any harm.”
***
Aziraphrale’s shop, fortunately, was not damaged by having a goose in a human’s body tending to it. A couple of books had fallen out of their shelves, perhaps, and his stash of pastries was rather distressingly low, but overall nothing worth fretting over, at least on Aziraphrale’s side.
The goose, on the other hand, was quite the tragic figure. While having a goose’s brain meant that it had not the capabilities to read, it could recall doing something quite enjoyable and eating nice things it had never tasted before, but could not remember what.
Fortunately, there was a very nice, slightly plump man more than willing to feed it good corn and seeds, and so the goose was temporarily distracted from its misfortunes.
“I think I’ll keep him,” mused Aziraphrale, watching as the goose happily swallowed the corn. He uncorked a bottle of his finest wine and poured glasses for both himself and Crowley. “Who knows what the poor dear has gone through?”
Crowley took a long swig before answering, savoring the taste and making a mental note to sober up before leaving: he had relocated his Bentley (still in mint condition, thank Below)****** and intended to drive back to his flat. “Whatever he went through was probably not half as bad as what we went through. Personally, I vote dumping him at a French restaurant.”
Aziraphrale smiled in that annoying knowingly way. “You don’t mean that. You have a very strange soft spot for animals. I wouldn’t have thought it, but you do.”
“I most certainly do not,” Crowley replied, in a haughty manner that suggested faint embarrassment.
Aziraphrale just kept smiling.
Blessed angel.
*And singing. Singing very awfully. Anyone who had ever claimed to hear angels singing had never hear Aziraphrale.
**Not that Aziraphrale understood his pop culture references either. But he was a lot less pathetic about it.
***Yes, the eye patch is the reason for the grudge.
****In the meantime, it made dogs howl, cats hiss, and outside the shop humans had fender benders
*****Actually, it kind of was.
******You don’t want to know what would have happened if it had been otherwise.
*******Aziraphrale’s way of smiling like that is both terribly superior and sincere at the same time. It’s awful.
Happy holidays, pseudo_geek!
For: pseudo_geek
From: lune_and_asters
Rating: G
Prompt: Aziraphale/Crowley. After an accident that discorporated Crowley and Aziraphale, Crowley is forced to use the body of a serpent (any type you want, but bonus point if you use ball python) and Aziraphale, a bird (an obese goose is preferred, but any fat piscivorous bird that can't move easily is love). They decide to enter a symbiotic relationship where Crowley catches food for Aziraphale and Aziraphale sits on Crowley to keep him warm and be his wings when they need to move from places to places.
Being discorporated was not pleasant. But as both Crowley and Aziraphrale could think of much, much worse happening, it didn’t particularly bother them when it did.
It was certainly annoying, however. What with the Apocalypse, Part I (to be prudent-Aziraphrale disliked exceptional hyperbole, and it was clear that Up There had some issues to work out) safely averted, one liked to think that their lives would settle down to their ordinary, repetitious routine. For Aziraphrale, days spent in seclusion in his bookshop, happily misdirecting mobsters when appropriate. For Crowley, driving his Bentley, terrifying his house plants and generally committing low grade acts of evil-just so he wouldn’t get out of touch. And for both of them, fine dinners and happy evenings spent getting exceptionally drunk, and canceling the side effects when they got too uncomfortable.
So the discorporation in question had put both angel and demon in rather foul* moods.
It was, oddly enough, Aziraphrale’s fault. In an incredibly roundabout sort of way.
He had suggested trying out a new Indian place, rather than going to their usual Ritz, and the two of them had, as usual, gotten happily drunk. Unusually, they hadn’t bothered to clear up the side effects before leaving the restaurant.
The problem was, Crowley and Aziraphrale had gone to the Ritz so many times that they behaved rather like rats in a very simple maze that had excellent cheese at the end: they didn’t have to think about where to go next, simply because they had done it so many times before.
The Indian restaurant?
Not so much.
So when a car full of similarly inebriated souls came hurtling down a street which Crowley and Aziraphrale, with their backs to traffic, were walking unsteadily down*, it had the effects one would expect.
***
Crowley had not sulked this much since the fourteenth century.
As a good demon, he had naturally been desperate to return to Earth, to continue his reigns of terror and the never ending fight against Heaven and its minions.
And rejoin his Bentley. The poor dear was probably just fading away, perhaps literally, with chipping paint and deflating tires. And that was just assuming that the vandals left her alone. Crowley had already thought up and designed a particularly nasty sort of hell for punks who did property damage, but he still didn’t want to think about such…devilish actions. Old-fashioned damnation had nothing on human cruelty.
His new album had almost certainly turned into Best of Queen by now. Such a waste.
He needed to water his plants. They needed guidance. Nurture. Special soil. Old-fashioned wallops. If there was as much as a spot of brown…
And have good wine. So what if it got him back here? A good wine was a good wine.
More importantly, Crowley wanted to have good wine to drink with Aziraphrale**. He missed the angel. All the other demons wanted to discuss temptation and torture, and hardly any of them understood his pop culture references.
Considering that most of the subjects of his references were current residents in Hell, it was rather distressing.
Even more distressing was how long it would take for his new body to be ready. Crowley had always been very particular about his body, and according to some imps who were clearly out of their league, if they followed his detailed instructions the way he wanted them to, it would take at least a month for it to be ready.
Crowley had wrangled, threatened, oozed, schmoozed, and made a general nuisance of himself to the Ghoulish Manifestation Agency, about having a new body, faster. Bullying was a well-respected method of accomplishing what had to be done, and though Crowley felt a bit rusty, he was still self-assured that his old talents would do the trick nicely.
So the imps had groaned, pinched the bridges of their long noses, and agreed to lend him a temporary form.
Crowley was so desperate to return to Earth that he didn’t even look at the assignment, simply vanishing in a puff of smoke, already relishing the scent of real, filthy air.
He should have remembered that the one with the eye patch nursed a grudge***.
***
Crowley woke up on the streets of London feeling, as he always did after an impromptu trip to Hell, like he had been steamrollered and then jabbed with red hot pokers by a cruel child.
This time, though, it was rather worse than usual, for when he tried to sit up, he discovered it was quite impossible, as he did not have legs.
What he did have was a sinuous , muscular, three foot long body. And heat vision.
He had been reincorporated as a snake.
A Burmese ball python, to be exact.
He had been reincorporated as a Burmese ball python, and then dumped on the streets of London, where people did not often see ball pythons sprawled out across their walkway.
And most humans did not like snakes.
“Bugger,” hissed Crowley.
***
The horrors of what poor Aziraphrale went through will not be detailed here. He hadn’t even offended anyone in heaven all that much. Sure, some of the lower grade, more zealous angels were still furious with him over the whole “Oh, give the precious flaming sword to the humans” incident, but generally no one was overtly righteous about it, and the truth of the matter was that no one was entirely certain that it had been the wrong thing to do, and with Up There keeping mum on the subject, generally it was one of those things The Angels Did Not Speak Of.
No, what had happened to Aziraphrale had been more mundane.
Paperwork.
Heaven did not have much in the way of modern technology, unfortunately, and by sheer bad luck, Aziraphrale’s replacement body had been mixed up with that of a bird’s, so that while the angel was stuck flapping his wings all over London and avoiding pellet guns like the plague, a rather confused goose was walking around wondering why it had to think about wings to have them and why its bones were so heavy.
The worst part?
He was waddling.
Crowley would never let it go.
***
Crowley couldn’t quite say how he ended up in the local pet shop. All he knew for certain was that there had been quite a few screams, a couple of flailing attempts to bash in his skull with rather wicked-looking umbrellas (he’d have to ask Down There to reevaluate them: sure, the purpose of an umbrella was generally good, but honestly, the potential for murder was too impressive), and then darkness, which came from being stuffed rather hastily into a burlap sack.
He hadn’t even realized that burlap sacks still existed in this day and age.
He hadn’t been in the sack for very long, fortunately. Unfortunately, however, he had been in a van on a distressingly bumpy ride, and was therefore quite malcontent when he was finally released, and tried to snap at the animal control officer, who said, “Better luck next time” and closed the top of the terrarium with a decisive snap before Crowley could recover and strike back.
He hissed again. It was becoming a bad habit. Once he got his other body back he’d have to train himself out of it.
Maybe he could steal some of Aziraphrale’s holy water, put it in a little cologne bottle. Like one of those spray bottles one used on cats. Crowley pondered the idea. Would it be too much like self-flagellation?
“I know you.”
Crowley froze. Against every desire not to turn around, he did so.
Damn it.
For centuries, Crowley had been avoiding snakes. He never knew what to say. Especially seeing as he was directly responsible for the whole ‘crawling on your belly in the dust’ situation, and had become a semi-mythic figure among them the way (ironically) Adam and Eve were among the humans, the figure responsible for punishment of a species.
The voice turned out to belong to, naturally enough, another ball python, who was coiled comfortably within a hollow artificial log, watching him. Even without the pheromones saturating the air, the distinct, oddly correct manner in which the snake had coiled itself practically shrieked “female”.
Crowley knew the situation would require delicacy and extreme diplomacy.
So, naturally, he decided that cutting straight to the chase would be the easiest solution.
“Yep. I’m the guy. The Cursed One, the One That Sauntered Vaguely Downwards-”
“You’re Crawly.”
Crowley deflated slightly. The name really did leave something to be desired.
Well, at least he could skip that embarrassing habit of having to embellish and stroke his own ego. It always felt indecent to him. That was the nice thing about Earth: everything was so straightforward.
“Yes, I am.”
“I’m Cleopatra, Cleo for short. Named after that Egyptian queen,” said the female snake, with pride.
Crowley was grateful that he was incapable of rolling his eyes.
“Pleasure to meet you, Cleo.”
“Nice to meet you, too, I guess. You are really not that frightening.”
Crowley felt the mild irritation build up into something rather more potent.
“Where am I?” he asked.
“A shop.”
“What shop?” Crowley remembered the other reason he didn’t like to talk to snakes. They never had anything interesting to say. It was all food and eggs, food and eggs. Every couple of months, it was shedding skin.
“Todd’s Shop.”
Crowley hissed again.
“Yes, yes, what I mean is-” he looked closer and saw that Cleo, though her eyes were not closed was, as far as reptilian body language was concerned, asleep.
She had fallen asleep. While he was talking.
Crowley blessed.
***
Despite a rather terrible first day, the pet shop was probably not the worst thing that could have happened to Crowley. He had plenty to eat, a warm rock to lie on, and Cleo, who, at the very least, had a sense of humor. When things were slow, he was able to amuse himself by rising up off his rock a few inches and hissing threateningly at any curious customer who wandered too near the terrarium. Snapping, on the other hand, got him stuck in the back room for the day.
He spent nearly two weeks (if the calendar propped up behind the counter was any indication) in this manner. By then it was becoming awfully boring.
It was on Saturday that Crowley began to seriously wonder where Aziraphrale could be. The angel was always good for a bit of perspective. Or, at the very least, in paying for a very fine dinner. Never mind that that’s what got him in this situation in the first place. Crowley missed being able to savor his food.
He really missed chewing his food.
But when he pulled his mind away from precious meats and desserts, there remained the pressing problem for Crowley that Aziraphrale was simply failing to appear out of thin air, as he was wont to do when Crowley needed to speak with him. The snake body had only limited capabilities with which he could commit low-grade evil-nothing on his usual scale, but enough that simply thinking severely malicious thoughts ought to have been enough for the angel to come find him****.
Crowley would have been worried, had Aziraphrale been something else.
But Aziraphrale was a Principality, and unless Heaven had changed its policy some time in the last few millennia or so, he was not in any danger of roasting. They might make him watch the Sound of Music one time too many, but nothing horribly severe.
Provided, thought Crowley uneasily, they didn’t get him for gluttony first.
Bless the angel: where was he?
***
By closing time, Crowley’s prayers, er, curses were answered.
The puppies had stopped yipping and had curled up for the night, while the hamster wheel was beginning its incessant squeaking. Not for the first time, Crowley entertained the thought of turning the little pests into something rather more unpleasant. Also not for the first time, he felt too sluggish and ill-tempered to move from his comfortable rock.
At least until he felt a familiar presence nearby.
“About time,” muttered Crowley, slithering off his rock and up to the glass walls, looking about expectantly as he tried to pinpoint where, exactly, the angel’s aura was coming from.
A minor scuffle diverted his attention. A customer had appeared, unfortunately, and had to be dealt with. The customer was youngish and rather unpleasant looking, with greasy hair and bad sunglasses. He carried a large, covered cage with some difficulty, as the inhabitant kept rocking and honking inside and managing to sound utterly undignified and utterly English at the same time.
Crowley stared.
Looked away.
Then looked back again.
Nope. No self-deception going on whatsoever.
The birdcage was resting on the counter now, the covering pulled off to reveal a rather fat white goose with a yellow bill and an utterly miserable expression.
Crowley wondered whether laughing, or slithering away in shame was the more appropriate action.
Only Aziraphrale could be turned into a bird and still manage to look gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide.
Especially, when, at that moment, Aziraphrale chose to look over in Crowley’s general direction.
Upon recognition, he honked what sounded suspiciously like ‘”Crowley!” and flapped his wings several times in excitement, nearly rocking the cage off the table.
Todd looked at the greasy-haired customer in confusion.
“What’s that all about?” he asked.
“Don’t ask me,” said the customer. “I think he might’ve belonged to a pastor in a past life. The blasted bird sounded like he was reciting the Bible through half past midnight. I didn’t even know that was possible. Anyway, mind if I leave him here for now? My parents have no room at their farm and he keeps breaking in and choking on teacakes.”
Since he had no eyebrows, Crowley tilted his head very expressively at Aziraphrale, who pretended to feel very sleepy and tucked his head under his wing.
He hissed in amusement.
***
While Aziraphrale and Crowley were meeting up together again, the goose that had accidentally possessed Aziraphrale’s body was having a surprisingly lovely time.
One it had gotten used to walking on two legs, it had taken to exploring the bookshop, using its new appendages to hold and examine the curious new artifacts. While the goose still had traditional goose instincts and tastes, it found that the body also possessed a human brain-one capable of reading, and allowing the goose to comprehend the strange carvings on the blocks of loose leaves it held.
For the last several days, the goose had been enjoying itself, not being frightened or bothered (mostly because it never even thought to change the sign from ‘closed’ to ‘open’, much to the consternation of curious neighbors), eating pastries, which it found to be delicious, and reading a strange old book titled Geese: Breeding, Feeding, Tips and Techniques.
Not bad, for a goose.
***
What happened to Aziraphrale will, again, not be detailed here, save that he learned several interesting new words and had to subsist without tea or books for three days, which nearly killed him.
The important part was that he was able to speak, and thus he and Crowley were able to relate their misfortunes to one another and express outwards sympathy while inwardly snickering at one another.
Still, they both agreed that staying in the pet shop for any longer would not be appropriate, and they ought to leave as quickly as they could.
The duo’s escape involved a large mop, the hamster wheel, and bath suds. But that’s not important.
The important part was that they got out, and had a host of other problems to deal with.
***
The flight from the pet shop should have been a triumphant victory, akin to the climaxes of children’s movies with funny talking animals.
Instead, it was rather more like the embarrassing set-back.
“My dear, really,” panted Aziraphrale, valiantly flapping his wings a little harder in an attempt to support Crowley’s weight. “You’ve heard of restraint; I know you have. You didn’t have to eat every mouse that queer man tossed you. You must have put on a couple stones at least.”
“Yes, I did. You know humans: the second they think something’s not right with you they stuff pills down your throat,” said Crowley testily. As Aziraphrale had no talons with which to carry him, he was draped awkwardly around the angel’s very long neck, and had to maintain his balance and not accidentally asphyxiate Aziraphrale. His scales were itching as well: a sign that the angel’s proclamation was probably not that far off from fact.
How embarrassing, shedding skin. One of the many things Crowley didn’t miss about being Crawly.
Despite Crowley’s weight and Aziraphrale’s minor difficulties with steering, they managed to make it all the way to St. James Park, where he landed-none too gently, it might be added-allowing Crowley to slide off his back and immediately finding himself far more relaxed. Trees were good. Trees had interesting little holes in which one could pop in and have a quick nap, and branches on which good, calm, tired birds who had just carried extraordinary burdens could rest.
Crowley, after much hissing and winding himself securely around the branch so he wouldn’t fall, also relaxed. Burmese ball pythons had no grievances with trees. Especially not this tree.
Well…
Crowley looked uneasily at an old scar indicating where a branch had snapped off the oak and amended the thought. He mostly didn’t have grievances with trees. Most trees. In London Parks, at the very least. And Tadfield.
For a couple awkward moments, serpent and fowl just rested.
“So…what now?” asked Crowley.
“I’m not sure,” Aziraphrale ruffled his feathers, shaking his head from side to side. “You have at least a couple more weeks like that. I have until Up There sorts out their managing skills.”
“Sorry,” Crowley curled up a little tighter. It was rather chilly, and as usual in London, the sun was not entirely out.
“I’m honestly more worried about you, my dear. Geese don’t have issues with body heat. Pythons, on the other hand, will.”
Crowley gave a vague shrug-like motion. “I’ll live.”
“No, dear, you won’t. Not in autumn.”
“I remember, Aziraphrale, I remember. Do you have any better suggestions? I get discorporated again; I’m stuck down there for half an eternity.” Crowley sulked a bit at this. Stupid one with an eye patch. It wasn’t his fault.*****
“I could help you,” said Aziraphrale uncomfortably.
“How?”
Famous last question.
***
“We are never going to mention this again.”
“Never again, dear.”
“I mean it, Aziraphrale.” Crowley shifted a bit, trying to get comfortable. On the one hand, he was no longer in danger of dying of cold. On the other hand, ironically enough, he was in some danger of getting his lungs crushed.
“Don’t flatter yourself, my dear. I do not, precisely, consider this a crowning achievement of my career either. And stop squirming so much.”
Aziraphrale seemed a lot less ruffled than Crowley thought he would be. Well, he was doing this to help him. Being sat on like he was a cushion was hardly pleasant, but there was always much worse that could be happening to him.
“Hey, Aziraphrale.” Crowley’s voice came out as slightly muffled.
“Hm?”
“I owe you.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll buy dinner.”
“Sounds good.”
“Not Indian.”
“Understandably.”
***
There was a fox in London.
He had been an accident: the poor thing still wasn’t certain how he had managed to wind up in a city when all he wanted was a comfortable wood in which to hunt, sleep, and find a pretty girl fox to have little foxes with.
Plus, he was hungry, and not just in the constant, slight pangs all animals uncertain of where their next meal will come from feel. This was true, honest hunger.
And there was a very promising meal sitting not ten feet away, asleep.
The fox had lived near farms before, and knew that these types made exceptionally filling meals, if one was able to catch them off guard. If one did not, one ran the danger of getting rather badly hurt.
The fox began to advance, nearly drooling at the thought of a good meal…
“Hey.” Something hissed at the fox.
The fox froze. Turning its head a mere fraction, it caught sight of a rather large reptile. It had seen snakes before, but never such coloring before-was it poisonous?
“I don’t think you want to eat him,” the snake continued. “He eats too much. He’d give you heartburn in a second. He’s used to having a human body, so he’s not acting too aware at the moment. But I can promise you, he won’t be happy to be made a meal of.”
The fox stared at the snake, silently processing what it said. On the one hand, he didn’t talk to many snakes. On the other hand, he was hungry.
Hunger won. He turned his attention back to the goose.
The snake made a noise that sounded like a sigh. “Have it your way. If you weren’t a red fox I wouldn’t be so lenient. But hey, you are. And Aziraphrale likes them: he thinks they are part of traditional English flavor. You still can’t eat him, but I know where you should go. I’ll let Him decide. He probably wouldn’t mind another fox: the Them likes ‘em.”
After this little speech, the snake gave one long protracted hiss.
Before he could blink, the fox found himself among trees, the scent of humans gone from overpowering to barely there.
A pretty girl fox sat nearby, feeding off a couple of slain chickens. She looked up at him.
He looked at her.
She nudged one of the chickens over in invitation.
***
“I’m getting soft,” hissed Crowley. “A stole on a movie star would have been more like it.”
But he cheered up a bit as he slithered away, knowing that at the very least, he could make up to Aziraphrale even when wearing such a ridiculous body.
***
Things continued this way semi-peacefully, with Aziraphrale keeping Crowley warm, and Crowley keeping an eye out for things that wanted to eat Aziraphrale, all the way up to the morning he returned to his regular body.
He had been sleeping under Aziraphrale, and the angel let out a loud hiss at the shock of finding an unfamiliar, large pale thing underneath him and getting off it, but quickly cheered up upon realizing it was Crowley, albeit without clothes.
“I have never missed these so much,” said Crowley, picking up a pair of immaculate black sunglasses off the dirt that had not been there a second before and putting them over eyes that were still slit pupils.
“Of course,” Aziraphrale looked pointedly to the side. “Now put on the rest of your clothes.”
Crowley obliged, and then picked up the goose, tucking him under one arm and ignoring his protests.
“Come on, angel. Let’s make sure your body hasn’t come to any harm.”
***
Aziraphrale’s shop, fortunately, was not damaged by having a goose in a human’s body tending to it. A couple of books had fallen out of their shelves, perhaps, and his stash of pastries was rather distressingly low, but overall nothing worth fretting over, at least on Aziraphrale’s side.
The goose, on the other hand, was quite the tragic figure. While having a goose’s brain meant that it had not the capabilities to read, it could recall doing something quite enjoyable and eating nice things it had never tasted before, but could not remember what.
Fortunately, there was a very nice, slightly plump man more than willing to feed it good corn and seeds, and so the goose was temporarily distracted from its misfortunes.
“I think I’ll keep him,” mused Aziraphrale, watching as the goose happily swallowed the corn. He uncorked a bottle of his finest wine and poured glasses for both himself and Crowley. “Who knows what the poor dear has gone through?”
Crowley took a long swig before answering, savoring the taste and making a mental note to sober up before leaving: he had relocated his Bentley (still in mint condition, thank Below)****** and intended to drive back to his flat. “Whatever he went through was probably not half as bad as what we went through. Personally, I vote dumping him at a French restaurant.”
Aziraphrale smiled in that annoying knowingly way. “You don’t mean that. You have a very strange soft spot for animals. I wouldn’t have thought it, but you do.”
“I most certainly do not,” Crowley replied, in a haughty manner that suggested faint embarrassment.
Aziraphrale just kept smiling.
Blessed angel.
*And singing. Singing very awfully. Anyone who had ever claimed to hear angels singing had never hear Aziraphrale.
**Not that Aziraphrale understood his pop culture references either. But he was a lot less pathetic about it.
***Yes, the eye patch is the reason for the grudge.
****In the meantime, it made dogs howl, cats hiss, and outside the shop humans had fender benders
*****Actually, it kind of was.
******You don’t want to know what would have happened if it had been otherwise.
*******Aziraphrale’s way of smiling like that is both terribly superior and sincere at the same time. It’s awful.
Happy holidays, pseudo_geek!