Work Text:
It was a quiet afternoon in the bookshop, which didn’t happen often these days.
Perhaps that was unfair. It was frequently quiet in the bookshop, with the children so young and still in need of many naps. Aziraphale was merely catching a breather between adventures, with Crowley running errands. The children had been secretive about something for the last few days, hissing to each other and instantly falling silent as soon as Aziraphale or Crowley walked into the room. Aziraphale was content to let them keep it. Likely it was something sweet and innocent, like their “birthday party” for their father. Aziraphale could still hear them in the back room, quietly talking something over even though they were supposed to be asleep. No matter. As long as they were quiet for a time—
A thump. Heavy, like something dropping, but without additional thumps and crashes like furniture being knocked over.
Before Aziraphale could think to stand up, there was a second thump. A third. A fourth. A fifth. Then silence.
Then a burst of giggles, the sound quality of which was…odd.
Aziraphale stood, putting down his book, and that was when he saw a small redheaded child flitting across the doorway to the back room. Aziraphale’s throat closed.
He took careful steps to the back room, where the children’s voices and laughter was curiously loud, resonant. For a few seconds as he made the final approach, all was silent.
Then a red-haired small child popped out of the gloom. “Boo!”
Aziraphale shrieked. He couldn’t help it. The child laughed, and it was Junior’s laugh, and oh, oh dear, what had they done?
Four other children piled in behind the child with Junior’s voice, and Aziraphale gaped, mouthing like a fish. Four redheads…one blond. All completely stark naked, with patches of scales over their soft skins, and Aziraphale’s vision was swimming. He hadn’t felt this close to fainting in a long, long time.
“Azirafather!” one of the children—Datura, that was Datura’s voice, from the body of a tall, skinny human child with shoulder-length crimson waves—cried. “Azirafather, look! Look at what we did!”
“I—I see,” Aziraphale stammered. “How—why—”
“I can run!” Junior, for it had to be Junior, who looked so like Crowley in this form it hurt, took off like a shot into the bookshop, and the rest followed, slipping around Aziraphale’s knees and whooping and laughing.
“I—children, please, you’re—good heavens, the windows are open, you’re completely—oh!” Aziraphale snapped, and the children’s modesty was preserved now, at least, thanks to the smocks Aziraphale remembered being quite popular with children, once. The shouts and laughs and thundering of little feet continued, and Aziraphale took deep, gulping breaths. Okay, what should he—Crowley. Crowley had to be informed, at once. He had to get home this instant.
Aziraphale marched for the phone, and once assured that Crowley was on his way, rolled up his sleeves and squared his shoulders. Alright. It was just five children who used to be snakes who now had human corporations, what mischief could they get into? He could do this.
.
“I can’t do this,” Aziraphale sobbed into Crowley’s shoulder.
The remains of what was supposed to be scrambled eggs lay smoking on the stovetop. In the rubbish bin was a graveyard of burnt toast, rubbery egg bits, and at least one fanciful attempt at an omelet that went surprisingly well before it curdled out of nowhere and fell apart. Aziraphale didn’t even think that was physically possible.
Crowley said nothing, but the soothing hand up and down Aziraphale’s spine while he cried out his frustration was doing wonders. Aziraphale was not a crier—at least, he didn’t think of himself as one. The past few months had more than changed his perception on when appropriate times to cry was, and after the twenty-third attempt to make breakfast just this morning went horribly awry, Aziraphale felt he was entitled to a little show of emotion.
“I have to get this right,” Aziraphale mumbled. “The children want to be people-shaped. People-shaped beings have to eat people food. They should be able to count on their provider and guardian to feed them. And I can’t even cook eggs! Not a single blasted bloody egg!”
“Angel,” Crowley said, unsticking Aziraphale’s face from his shirt and pushing him back some, holding him by the shoulders, “it’s alright. You’ve never had to cook for anyone before. Stands to reason you wouldn’t get it right the first time.”
“Thirty-sixth,” Aziraphale sniffed. “Total.”
“Moving day is a ways off, we haven’t even found the right cottage yet,” Crowley said, his voice continuing to be gentle and even. “Look, let’s enroll in a course. We can take it in turns, if you’d like. Or find one on the internet and follow along. I should probably learn how to do this too, yeah?”
“You’ve never?” Aziraphale sniffed.
“Never,” Crowley shook his head. “Well. Not seriously. Might’ve whipped up a sandwich or two in my day when I was really peckish, but most of my eating I do with you, yeah? At restaurants, where other people slave over the kitchen. I’m just as clueless as you are.”
“Bet you wouldn’t have burned eggs nearly forty different ways,” Aziraphale mumbled.
“Well,” Crowley said, snapping his fingers and clearing off the pan on the stove, “never know until you try, do you?”
Crowley produced a passable fried egg. Aziraphale told himself sternly that he would not go to pieces over his partner managing to not mangle his first dish, nor would he pick it apart to make himself feel better.
“Not bad, this,” Crowley said, when he tried his own cooking. “What do you think, angel?”
“Needs salt,” Aziraphale said, and could have kicked himself.
“About taking a course, Aziraphale, not about the stupid egg,” Crowley said.
“I…I would rather learn with you than by myself, I think,” Aziraphale sighed. “But there’s no one to watch the children.”
“Internet lessons it is,” Crowley said, and leaned in to kiss Aziraphale’s forehead. “But pastries this morning, I think.”
Internet lessons. Yes. That could be…acceptable. Aziraphale sat at his kitchen table with a strong cup of tea while Crowley went to fetch breakfast, and mulled over his own thoughts. Cooking couldn’t be that complicated. Well, it could, but simple dishes, things that were nutritious and filling for growing children, could not be that difficult, if exhausted parents for millennia had been doing it. Perhaps he had a cookbook lying around…or perhaps he could find one a bit more modern than Mrs. Beeton, at any rate. Swallowing the mortifying truth that being a gourmand didn’t necessarily qualify him in the kitchen was the first step. Humility before greatness, and all that.
Aziraphale could feed his children, he would feed his children, and with God as his witness—or Someone as his witness, anyway—he would get this right.
.
“This doesn’t look right,” Aziraphale fretted.
Cooking had been progressing very well, once Aziraphale had let Crowley convince him he didn’t need to do it all on his own and without any guidance or help whatsoever. Aziraphale and Crowley together had managed to produce some genuinely delicious meals, and Aziraphale was looking forward to trying new recipes in the future.
Now, they were on to building furniture. The right cottage had come along soon after they began cooking lessons from the YouTube, and was perfect in nearly every detail, though Aziraphale did worry about the two-story cottage being too much for small snakes who didn’t feel like using their legs to brave the stairs. Crowley had said to let it be, that he and Datura had it covered, and to focus on getting moved in once the basement was fully warded and protected. They could have snapped their fingers and had it all moved in, and truly, there were a goodly amount of miracles at play, though Aziraphale and Crowley both had done their best to not do any big miracles too close to the house until the wards were in place. The children were aware that there was a cottage and that they were moving there soon; Crowley and Aziraphale wanted to keep the cottage itself a surprise until it was time to move in. They had traded off moving duties versus babysitting for the better part of a month, but today, they were in the upstairs flat of the bookshop, building beds.
Or, trying to build beds.
“Not my fault, instructions are all in Swedish and I’m rusty,” Crowley grunted, attempting to force together a joint of the wooden frame when it clearly didn’t want to go. Aziraphale squinted at the booklet. His Swedish was passable, but it was also largely medieval, and the diagrams were useless.
“Does it—have you tried turning it clockwise?” Aziraphale asked, looking over Crowley’s work.
“Can’t, then it won’t fit at the headboard,” Crowley panted. “Nearly got it, hang on—”
There was a splintering sound, and Crowley swore loudly as the piece he was trying to force into place snapped, jabbing into his wrist. Aziraphale settled on his knees and took Crowley’s wrist in his hand, inspecting the gash as Crowley swore in several non-Swedish languages at the crooked bedframe.
“I think,” Aziraphale said, passing his thumb over Crowley’s wrist and healing the wound, “perhaps we can cut a few corners.”
“Seems fair, the corner cut me first,” Crowley grumbled. He and Aziraphale snapped in tandem, and back at the cottage, five perfectly-assembled bedframes leapt to attention. Aziraphale would go back and make up the bedclothes by hand later, to make up for the rather large power expenditure. “S’ what we get for buying from one of my pet projects.”
“Delightful meatballs, though,” Aziraphale sighed, leaning against the foot of their bed, still holding Crowley’s hand. Crowley joined him soon enough.
“’course they are, had to get you into one somehow, didn’t I?” Crowley smirked. Aziraphale squeezed his hand and snorted.
“Wily serpent.”
They were silent for quite some time.
“This…is actually happening, isn’t it?” Crowley asked.
“What is?”
“All of it,” Crowley shrugged. “You. Me. A house with a garden and recycling bins and a real garage. Kids.”
“I have a hard time believing it myself, sometimes,” Aziraphale sighed, leaning his head on Crowley’s shoulder. “Some days I can’t believe anyone let me become a parent, accidentally or not.”
“Never, ever thought it would happen to us, frankly,” Crowley said. “Given…well, physics, for a start.”
“Since when have we ever adhered to physics?” Aziraphale snorted.
“Fair point,” Crowley chuckled. “I meant more…angel and demon physics. Physiology. Whatever you want to call it.”
“There’s a thought,” Aziraphale said. “Can you imagine if one of us had actually carried the poor things inside of us, like humans do?”
“Not all at once,” Crowley blanched. “Satan, no, not all at once. Even laying that many eggs at once seems dicey, frankly.”
“It worked out for the best, then,” Aziraphale said. “Hiccups and all.”
“Hiccups and all,” Crowley nodded, and kissed the top of Aziraphale’s head. “Never been so happy, angel.”
“Not without its challenges,” Aziraphale nodded. “But I am also happy, my darling. Incandescently so.”
And he was. Even with late night nightmares, even with childish arguments, even with messes and accidents and the too-frequent screaming, clawing feeling of inadequacy inside of him, Aziraphale was truly happy. Impossible as it seemed, he felt like a different person altogether from the one who had first assumed the eggs were exactly what Crowley had presented them to be. Angels weren’t supposed to change, or grow, or become different. And yet here he was. Here Crowley was.
Father! Azirafather! A little voice called downstairs.
“Oop. Spawn are awake,” Crowley said, and went to stand up.
“One moment,” Aziraphale said, pulling Crowley back, and took a moment to reach out and pull Crowley into a deep, warm kiss. When Aziraphale pulled back, Crowley’s cheeks were flushed, his mouth still somewhat puckered and his eyes wide and unblinking.
“What was that for?” Crowley asked, breathless.
“Oh, just because,” Aziraphale smiled, and stood. “Come on, then, let’s see what they need.”
“Right behind you,” Crowley grinned. And so they walked downstairs, hand in hand, to see what life would bring them next.