[Good Omens]: Crowley's Baby, Part III
He wouldn’t take dog food, raw meat, cooked meat, or even calamari, which Crowley had tried on a gamble and been whacked over the head with for his trouble. “What were you thinking?” Aziraphale wanted to know as he pulled bits of tentacle out of his hair. “Those are his kin.”
“I thought maybe if they were familiar-“
“You thought wrong, obviously! I’m going to smell like fish for days…”
Tensions were higher in the flat than they had ever been, with arguments breaking out every couple days. “He’s just a baby,” Crowley would yell, clutching his new copy of Cephalopods and You to his chest, and Aziraphale would gape at him fishlike as they both stared at the now Rottweiler sized tentacle monster on their floor. Adolf blorped cheerfully and oozed onto their couch, which sagged perilously.
Turning baleful red eyes on the pair of them, he flapped tiny wings once and made another hungry blorping noise.
The last straw really came when Crowley took a trip to the pet store to ask for help, and Aziraphale found himself stuck for an hour when Adolf decided that his feet looked like a comfortable place to sit, wrapped his tentacles around the angel’s ankles, and began leaking copious amounts of brackish water on his shoes.
When the demon stepped inside, carrying a grocery bag, Aziraphale gave him the most malevolent glare he could muster.
“What happened to you?”
“Would you get your aqueous beast off my feet, please?”
There was no real need to ask, though. On seeing Crowley, Adolf emitted a curious noise and schlopped across the floor to sit on Crowley’s feet instead, who seemed not at all disturbed. “So,” he announced, “The pet store wasn’t very helpful. But the grocery gave me some clams, so maybe he’ll eat some of those…”
“We already tried seafood,” Aziraphale commented sourly. Crowley gave him a look that Aziraphale judiciously ignored. “Just get a few extra damned souls, I’m sure your people can spare a few, we don’t want any more cats disappearing…”
Adolf made an odd purring noise, retched, and then made a sound like coughing. And spat out something distinctly recognizable.
“Crowley, you didn’t let him progress to dogs,” Aziraphale groaned, and Adolf fidgeted on Crowley’s feet, who was looking shocked.
“No! No, bad Adolf, you don’t…”
They both quieted, suddenly, as Adolf’s skin began to glisten and then to glow, swirling with menacing, otherworldly colors, glaring at the demon with malevolent red eyes for a moment before the large cephalopod flapped his ineffective wings and oozed off the table with an ominous creaking. Without further ado, he flopped across the floor and plopped into his bathtub with a violent splash, sinking out of sight. And clearly sulking.
“Now what,” Aziraphale started to say, but was interrupted by an ominous burbling noise. The pair ran to the bathroom, but to their horror, the bathtub was full of noxious smelling water, and empty of tentacle monsters.
**
They bickered loudly over who had made him leave, Crowley insister Aziraphale had done it, Aziraphale insisting he had no idea where Crowley’s adolescent eldritch horror had gone and that no, they were not going to try any summoning spells when the flat lurched, settled, and creaked.
Then a quiet dripping emanated from the bathroom.
Crowley reacted first, leaping to the doorway. “Adolf?”
A tentacle as big around as Aziraphale’s leg whipped out and flung an ancient used book at the angel’s head, before withdrawing into the suddenly dark bathroom. A moment later, red eyes the size of salad plates peered through the crack, glowing menacingly, sullenly.
“I think he grew,” Crowley suggested, tentatively, after a few moments of silence.
“You’re not joking.”
“Adolf?” The demon inquired tentatively. There was an ominous burble from behind the door, but no sound otherwise. “I’m…sorry for yelling at you - we both are, we didn’t mean to…”
The sound was not recognizable at first, but then Aziraphale started at the low purr emanating like a car engine from their bathroom. And shaking the entire room. More tentacles slipped out through the door and began the laborious task of hauling himself through the small doorway, wedging himself back into the kitchen.
‘Grown’ was an understatement. His bulbous head alone was the size of a small pony. The whole of him, including tentacles, shouldn’t have fit in the flat, but the walls seemed to bend away from him in disconcerting ways. And his eyes had fulfilled their promise and were no glowing with unholy, eldritch, daemon light.
“I think he found something to eat,” Aziraphale said in a hushed voice. Adolf burped, as if in agreement, and the angel tried not to think too much about what that ‘something’ might be.
And with a small mewling sound, he flopped gracelessly over onto Aziraphale’s feet. He settled securely on the angel’s dry bunny slippers, bumped his cephalopodian head against Aziraphale’s torso, and started to purr.
Crowley looked at Aziraphale, whose feet were quickly losing all feeling. Aziraphale looked at Crowley, who was damp from head to toe.
Neither spoke a single word of protest.