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“Crowley,” Aziraphale said before Crowley could get a word in edgewise, “you need to come home now.” And then he hung up, leaving Crowley with his phone in one hand, an insulated shopping bag full of frozen mice and other sundries in the other, and a deep-rooted panic clawing up his throat. Was it just his imagination, or had the other end of the phone sounded…loud? He relieved his feelings by tearing through London in his Bentley, but even that took time, precious seconds slipping by and something was wrong—
There was screaming coming from inside the bookshop, but it didn’t register until Crowley had already flung open the door that it wasn’t pained screaming. Nor was it Aziraphale screaming.
“Oh, bugger,” Crowley breathed, then had to bite back a much more vile swear as a tiny body connected with his kneecaps.
The bookshop was in bedlam, thanks to the usual suspects (or, usual these days, anyway), but rather than laughing at Aziraphale chasing down five danger noodles, he was now mutely watching as a gaggle of very small curly-headed children rushed by—two redheads, one blond, all wearing plain little smocks. The third redhead had peeled off to plow headfirst into Crowley’s knees, and was now staring up at Crowley with familiar yellow eyes and a huge smile, a smattering of black scales across the prominent cheekbones.
“Father!” Junior said, with his actual throat, rather than having his words projected into Crowley’s mind after translating his hisses. “Up!”
Crowley was, unfortunately, still well-trained from his nanny days, so when Junior lifted his arms, Crowley picked him up, still dumbstruck.
“Angel!” Crowley shouted, his voice cracking, and Aziraphale appeared, another redheaded yellow-eyed child on his hip.
“Oh, good,” Aziraphale said, and offloaded the boy, who was sniffling alarmingly, into Crowley’s free arm. “Hold them, please. Rosa! Datura! Stop running this instant—” and he was gone again, leaving Crowley utterly blindsided as Clem buried his wet, sticky face in Crowley’s shoulder, a fresh wail starting up.
“None of that, it’s alright,” Crowley soothed, letting Nanny Ashtoreth take over for a spell as he sorted out what to do. He made it to the backroom couch and carefully set the boys down, prying them off a little when they refused to let go. “Sit tight, boys, while Azirafather and I get your siblings rounded up. Then we’ll—we’ll sort it out, okay?”
“Okay,” Junior said, bouncing on the couch. Clem, who was the largest of his siblings and certainly looked it now next to Junior, blinked tearful eyes at him, his bottom lip wibbling, and Crowley ground his teeth. No child on earth should’ve gotten those round cheeks, he swore as he stroked tears from them and kissed Clem’s forehead (which was also sporting patches of black scales).
“I’ll be right back, Clem, I promise,” Crowley said, and heard a loud crash and a scream from somewhere else in the shop. “I mean it, don’t move.” He glared at his suddenly-human sons, and ran to see if he could help.
It wasn’t hard to find Aziraphale, he just had to follow the wailing. He saw the tipped-over book piles before he saw anything else, and for a ridiculous and heart-stopping moment he thought it had fallen on one of the kids, but Aziraphale was just around the corner, talking sternly to a little girl with long, curly red hair while one arm held a girl with short white curls and the other held the final redhead.
“Hey,” Crowley said weakly, and Aziraphale stopped mid-word, looking up at him with the kind of panicked expression Crowley hadn’t seen since…well, probably since the Dowlings’ estate, if he was being honest. Warlock had been quite a handful, but there had only been one of him. There were now five small children in the bookshop. Five of them.
“Angelica, go to your father, please,” Aziraphale said, and Angelica turned and trudged towards Crowley with her head down. Aziraphale stood, and the children in his arms giggled. “Where are the others?”
“On the couch,” Crowley said, and hefted Angelica up without prompting, trying not to melt when she buried her face in his neck, her small hands curling in his collar. “Can we…what…what?”
Aziraphale shot him a look that could have meant anything from “please help” to “this is your fault” and it was really anyone’s guess which one it was as the two of them picked their way to the back room. Clem and Junior hadn’t left the couch, but Junior was jumping on it as Clem watched, fascinated. Crowley felt his heart leap up to have violent words with his throat.
“Junior, please sit down,” Aziraphale said in a tone of voice that brooked no argument, and to Crowley’s surprise, Junior listened, dropping back onto his bottom. Aziraphale deposited his two—Rosa and Datura, then—on the couch, and Crowley tucked Angelica into the remaining space, and then he and Aziraphale sat on the floor in front of the couch and stared at their wiggly, now many-limbed brood, all of whom were sporting curly hair and patches of scales along their joints and cheeks and other places.
“How…how did—how?” Crowley said weakly.
“We wanted to be bigger, Father,” Datura said matter-of-factly, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“And eat ice cream!” Junior grinned.
Crowley’s vision was starting to swim. It was getting enormously difficult to look at five miniature versions of himself—and Aziraphale, there was no mistaking the stockier build and rounder faces on several of the children—with anything resembling composure.
“I suppose…with their parentage being what it is…this isn’t entirely impossible,” Aziraphale mused to him, and Crowley let out a sound that was either a laugh or a sob. Three sets of yellow eyes and two blue, all with slit pupils and no sclera, were more or less trained on him and Aziraphale. Crowley hadn’t been this overwhelmed since walking in to find out just how awry his prank had gone the first time.
“I want to go to the park again,” Rosa announced, her fluffy white hair bouncing with her little wiggle, and apparently that was too much temptation for Datura, who reached over and tugged on a handful of curls, none too gently. Rosa yowled and struck out, and then Datura pushed back, hitting Rosa into Clem, who immediately started bawling—
“Enough!” Aziraphale said, his voice doing the Thing it did that usually had to be preceded by “be not afraid,” and the lights flickered in the bookshop. The children gulped as one, sinking into the couch cushions. Aziraphale looked big, almost like his wings were manifesting and eyes were starting to pop out on them, but in a blink he was normal again, looking somewhere between stubborn and stricken. Clem sniffled, and Aziraphale’s stern façade entirely broke. “I’m truly sorry, children, you’re going to have to forgive your father and I. This is quite…quite the development. We aren’t used to you all being so…”
“Loud,” Crowley supplied. “Mobile. Big.”
“Are you angry with us?” Angelica asked in a small voice (small for her current form, anyway), hiding her face in her long red curls so only her big blue eyes were peeking out, and as the other children’s faces fell, Crowley’s heart disintegrated entirely.
“We’re not angry, spawn,” he said soothingly. “We’re surprised.”
“How did you even…do this?” Aziraphale asked, and the children looked at each other.
“I dunno,” Junior said. “We just wanted to be big.”
“Like Azirafather and you,” Rosa added.
“Can…can you change back?” Crowley asked, then hurriedly added, “Not that we don’t love you no matter what, we just…want to know.”
“Maybe?” Junior frowned. Datura scrunched up their face, and with a tiny pop was a snake again. They waved their tail.
I can, Datura said with pride. With another pop, they were a child again. “It’s easy, really.”
“Huh,” Crowley said. “Um.”
“How…how do you like it?” Aziraphale asked. “Being this big, I mean?”
Datura shrugged.
“It’s bright,” Angelica said from behind her hair. “And loud.”
“I have fingers!” Junior said proudly, presenting the appendages. They were already sticky with something unnamable.
“’Tura pushed me down,” Clem sniffed, and knocked his feet together. “I don’t know how legs work.”
Crowley snorted. “They’re no picnic, kiddo.”
“My scales feel soft,” Rosa said, rubbing her hands on her arms.
“That’s called skin, Rosa dear,” Aziraphale said helpfully. “Or, well—the bits that aren’t your scales are called skin.”
“Let’s…okay, let’s make a deal,” Crowley said, leaning forward, and the kids leaned towards him, looking intrigued. “Azirafather and I need to…talk some things over. But, if you can all go back to being snakes for just a little while, sometime soon we’ll have another family picnic and you can all be big for it. How does that sound?”
Datura turned back into a snake immediately. After some consideration, Rosa and Clem followed. Angelica and Junior stared, Angelica biting her lip, Junior scowling.
“I like being big,” Junior pouted.
“Do you promise?” Angelica said, and Crowley couldn’t help the fond, dopey grin on his face. He wasn’t in public, it was fine.
“Have I ever lied to you kids before?” he said, and Angelica shook her head. “I promise. We only have the stuff to take care of you all as snakes right now, but if you want to be people instead, we need some time to…prepare. Alright?”
Junior sighed dramatically, then popped back into a snake. Angelica looked at Crowley, then at Aziraphale, who smiled warmly, and turned herself back.
I’m tired, Junior complained, giving a wide yawn.
“It’s about naptime, anyway,” Crowley said, gathering up his snake children. “Come on, all of you, back in the tank, and rest. It’s good for you, after so much excitement.”
Crowley could feel Aziraphale watching him as he put the snakelets to bed, and it felt warm, but the absolute terror and panic that Crowley had forced to the edges was starting to eat away at his consciousness again. When Datura at last settled down with their siblings, Crowley fussed with the tank to make sure everything was just so, then turned around. Aziraphale was watching him with a very tender expression, but he guessed something on his own face made Aziraphale’s morph into a panicked concern very much like his own. Crowley pointed up, indicating the flat above the bookshop, and Aziraphale nodded. Once they were cloistered away from the children, Crowley dropped, his hands fisting in his hair, making the quietest keening noise he could manage.
“What are we gonna do?” he babbled. “They can turn into kids, they can turn into kids whenever they want, we have impossible snake babies who can become literal children and what are we supposed to do about this, what even—”
Aziraphale dropped next to him and pulled Crowley into his arms, making soothing shushing sounds as Crowley’s initial wave of panic blew itself out. Aziraphale pressed his lips to Crowley’s temple as he finally ran out of steam, shifting Crowley on his lap.
“I…may have a thought,” Aziraphale said softly, and Crowley grunted questioningly. “Well, it’s been a silly thought, but I’ve been thinking…before the children get too much bigger and more difficult to move…well, obviously, they’re more difficult to move now that they can shapeshift, but I mean as—as snakes…”
“Yes?” Crowley prompted, his voice raw.
“The South Downs would be a lovely place to raise them,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley frowned. “I was thinking it would be a nice place for us to live anyway, just you and me, one day, but, well, things being how they are now, and with—with the children—”
“It’s—that’s brilliant,” Crowley said, sitting back just far enough to plant a proper kiss on Aziraphale’s mouth. “We find a plot of land far from anyone else, build a cottage, or maybe there’s already a cottage, who knows, but—lots of fresh air, space for the kids to run or slither or whatever they’re going to do—”
“You like it?” Aziraphale asked, and Crowley huffed a laugh and nodded, kissing Aziraphale’s cheek.
“You’re a genius,” Crowley said, grinning. Then a thought occurred. “But…the shop—”
“I can still have the shop,” Aziraphale said, waving his hand airily. “The hours will just be…even less predictable than usual.”
“You might as well make this place a museum, angel,” Crowley rolled his eyes, and Aziraphale pinched him. “A cottage in the country. With kids and everything.”
“I only hope we can get them to agree not to shapeshift until we make the move,” Aziraphale fretted. “Oh, there’s so much to do, we have to—we have to pack, of course, but then they’ll need proper children’s things, beds and clothes and such—”
Crowley took a deep breath and let it whistle out of his mouth. “We’re going to need to see how extensive their…powers, I suppose? How far their abilities go. Will probably only change as they grow.”
There was the barest edge of a conversation Crowley and Aziraphale had skirted many times and were not prepared to have, especially not now that their accidental miracle children had learned how to grow more limbs on a whim, but Crowley felt they probably needed to have it soon. Angels and demons were immortal. There was no book on the lifespan of half-angel half-demon shapeshifting snake children. Likely God herself had been surprised with that particular curveball.
Aziraphale suddenly laughed, and Crowley furrowed his brow at him. “They’re going to need sunglasses,” he said, and Crowley felt a smile starting to grow on his face. “Teensy little glasses, how precious will they be!”
“You’re making me feel things, it’s unsightly,” Crowley growled, and hugged Aziraphale tightly. Aziraphale gripped him back just as hard.
Before the children had even woken up, Crowley and Aziraphale had cottage and land listings spread out on the table in the back room and were deep in discussion about it. Crowley heard their clamoring for attention first and stood up, sighing.
“Your spawn are awake,” he said, walking towards their enclosure.
“Our spawn,” Aziraphale shot back, but he was smiling.
“Our spawn,” Crowley agreed, and turned to the tank. “Yes, yes, hello to you too, you beastly little things.”
Can we have ice cream? Junior asked above the babble of his siblings.
“Not until you have the proper stomach for it,” Crowley said. “Listen up, you lot, there’s something Azirafather and I need to talk to you about…”