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ineffably-good · 5 years

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London Calling (2/4)

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Summary: Crowley and Frederick ride the underground, Frederick tries to learn about girls, and Crowley makes a misstep.

Part 8 of the Serpent and the Seagull series, which you can find here.

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For the first outing, Crowley decided to keep it simple; he took Frederick out in his carrier to ride the Tube and people watch. Crowley wasn’t the biggest fan of the London Underground, but it seemed like a good way to begin getting Frederick used to being around large quantities of people.

Frederick, to his credit, seemed quite excited about the outing, and agreed to be on his best behavior. He kept quiet and well-behaved as Crowley walked with him down to the nearest station, where they purchased a fare and caught the train towards the center of town.

“Ok, Freddy,” Crowley said quietly as they settled into a seat with the carrier on his lap. “Have a good look around. This is probably more people than you’ve ever seen in your life.”

WHERE ARE THEY ALL GOING, SNAKEBIRD?

“It’s Crowley,” Crowley reminded him. “And they’re all going different places. Work. Home. Off to do fun things. Off to do boring things.”

“Is that a snake?” asked a girl who was two seats over from them. Crowley looked up and noted her exaggerated eyeliner, long dark hair, and heavy bangs. “Oh my gosh, can I see? I just love snakes!”

Crowley smiled and made an inviting gesture. She scooted towards them and leaned down to peek in at his companion.

WHY HELLO THERE, GORGEOUS, Frederick shouted. ARE YOU PART SNAKE TOO?

Crowley stifled a laugh.

“He’s so handsome!” the girl said. “Can I hold him?”

YOU CAN DO MORE THAN THAT, SWEET LIPS! Frederick said, scenting out with his tongue and filing away the variety of interesting things this human smelled like. Mostly herbs.

“Best not,” Crowley said, apologetically. “It’s his first time out in public.”

The girl continued to talk to and coo over Frederick, asking the occasional question of Crowley about his breed and how to care for him. Crowley, feeling a bit like a proud father, happily talked snake care with her until the next stop, where she reluctantly left them.

WHY DIDN’T YOU LET THE PRETTY GIRL HOLD ME, YOU BIG POINTY JERK? Frederick shrieked as soon as she was gone.

Crowley rolled his eyes. “Trust me. You don’t want to be handled by random strangers. It just gets weird, fast.”

Frederick sulked but settled down. Perhaps next time. He’d never personally met a girl before, although he saw them now and then in the shop. He had… questions. Like what was actually different about them, and did they come in the pointy and soft varieties like his friends did, and above all, were they as annoying as the male folks he lived with? He suspected not, for some reason. He thought he’d like to find out.

A few stops later, an enormous bald man with a goatee got on and sat down across from them. He was wearing a long trench coat, had a variety of interesting piercings on his face and ears, and on his shoulder was perched a large, live parrot.

Frederick began excitedly tapping on the front door of his case with his forehead.

THAT ONE HAS A BIRD! LET ME OUT! I WANT TO SEE THE BIRD! WHY IS IT GREEN? I DIDN’T KNOW BIRDS COULD BE GREEN!

“Yes, I know,” Crowley said quietly. “Calm down. You can’t eat him, he’s too big.”

The large man across the way looked at him strangely. “Did you say something to me?”

Oh, good grief, Crowley thought, I’m going to get beat up on the Tube because of a talking snake who no one else can hear. Aziraphale is going to kill me.

“Sorry,” Crowley said, smiling tightly and gesturing at the box in his lap. “My snake is all worked up because he’s never seen a parrot before.”

The man eyed him warily and then pointedly got up to move to another car.

“Enough from you,” Crowley hissed. “Settle down before you get us in trouble.”

They rode for a while longer, switching lines occasionally and visiting various stations. Frederick seemed to enjoy some of the musicians playing at various stops, and had quite a lot to say about various people they encountered.

Crowley, in turn, found that carrying a pet snake around on the Tube was an excellent way to meet new potential dating partners, something he had literally zero interest in but which he filed away to tell Adam about when he got to be a little older. He had, in a single afternoon, received three numbers scrawled on slips of paper, one number written on the back of his hand in ink, and an oddly explicit photograph that someone had somehow dropped onto his phone with a caption that would make even a demon blush. He quickly deleted it before Aziraphale had a chance to see it.

It was enough to make a demon glad he was off the market, so to speak.

“How did it go?” Aziraphale asked with a smile when they arrived back at the shop later in the day. He carefully closed the book he had been staring at for the last two hours. He wasn’t sure he’d succeeded in reading a single page due to his low-level worry and building anxiety about what his two loves were up to out in the wider world.

“Not bad!” Crowley said, putting an exhausted Frederick into his basket. “He met a parrot, heard some music, met a girl – you know, your average day out.”

“Met a girl?” The angel peered over the tops of his glasses. “What on earth?”

Crowley grinned. “Yes, our Freddy is proving quite popular with the ladies.”

He slipped over behind Aziraphale’s desk chair and gave him a hug from behind, placing his chin on his shoulder and wrapping his arms around him tightly.

“Mmmmm,” Aziraphale murmured, enjoying the touch. “I’m so glad you had a nice –”

He suddenly lost his train of thought, looking intently at the demon’s hand over his. “Why is there a phone number with a heart around it written on your hand?”

If Crowley had been in touch with his more sensitive side, he would have known instinctively that this was not a good time to laugh and make light of things. Unfortunately, though, Crowley’s sensitive side was something he had spent most of the last six thousand years doing his best to stay far, far away from, as it caused him no end of embarrassment on most occasions. He had not yet fully adjusted to needing it as often as one did in a relationship.

Therefore, he plowed ahead.

“Oh, angel,” Crowley laughed. “it’s nothing to worry about! Apparently, traveling around with a snake is like catnip to certain types of humans!” He dug into his pockets and dumped several balled-up slips of paper into Aziraphale’s lap with a grin. “Look, I got three phone numbers and a naughty picture! Which I deleted.”

Aziraphale stiffened and peeled himself away from Crowley, who wandered over to the couch and sat down. The angel stared down at the papers in his lap and then blinked a few times at the unconcerned demon before finally finding his voice.

“I beg your pardon?” Aziraphale asked, one eyebrow sliding up and his voice moving into that impeccable politeness which always signaled trouble.

“I’m just saying a few people tried to pick me up, today,” the demon said, uncomfortably aware that his partner didn’t seem to be finding this amusing. “You know. As they sometimes do.”

“And were you encouraging it?” Aziraphale asked, moving from stiff to positively glowering.

“No!” Crowley said. “Honestly, I wasn’t. It’s just – carrying around a snake apparently makes you very attractive to a certain crowd! People kept noticing that I had a snake and coming over to see him, then trying to get friendly with me. Honestly, I didn’t encourage any of them!”

“Anthony J. Crowley,” Aziraphale said sternly. “I know you and I know you are an incorrigible flirt. And for heaven’s sake, I realize you’re quite attractive and that everywhere we go people notice you. But if you think coming home with people’s phone numbers written all over you –”

“It’s just one! One phone number! That’s hardly –”

“—and then dumping a pile of love notes in my lap is any way to behave, then you, my dear, have clearly lost your mind.”

Crowley fidgeted under Aziraphale’s withering glare. Aziraphale looked, he thought, like he was about to start manifesting some extra eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said forlornly. “I honestly thought you’d think it was funny.”

“Funny?”

“Well, because it’s ridiculous,” Crowley said. “Like I could ever be interested in anyone else but you.”

Aziraphale softened a little, but hrmphed noncommittally.

Crowley patted the couch next to him. “Come over here, please?”

“Not until you remove that phone number from your hand!” Aziraphale insisted.

Crowley licked his thumb and scrubbed the number off, quickly. “Look, it’s gone, okay?” he said, waving his now clean hand. “Promise.”

Aziraphale snapped and the balled up pieces of paper exploded into dust. The dust made him sneeze, which made him look even more cross, but he did relent enough to thump down into the seat next to his love, arms crossed over his chest.

Crowley leaned in and ran a hand through Aziraphale’s curly gold hair. “You’re handsome when you’re jealous, angel,” he said softly. “Kind of does things to me, seeing you like this.”

“Oh you,” Aziraphale muttered. “You’re impossible.”

Crowley leaned in and planted a soft kiss on the angel’s temple, then his earlobe. “I am,” he agreed, continuing to plant little kisses and run a finger down the angel’s neck. “And I’m all yours. Promise.”

The tension tipped out of Aziraphale’s shoulders, and he pulled Crowley in to kiss him quite forcefully.

“Quite right, serpent,” he said. “Try to keep that in mind, would you?”

Nothing further was said for quite some time.

“No more picking up girls, Frederick,” Crowley told him the next day. “You got me in big trouble with Aziraphale yesterday.”

Frederick flicked a tongue at him. He hardly saw how this could be considered his fault. He was just too attractive. It was a terrible burden. He was secretly sure that all those people passing Crowley their phone numbers were just using the pointy one to get to him.

HOW ABOUT WE GO MEET SOME ANIMALS, THEN? Frederick thought. I MEAN, IF YOU CAN AVOID TRYING TO MATE WITH ANY OF THEM.

Crowley wagged a finger at him. “Rude little snakes don’t get taken anywhere,” he scolded. “I think we will just stay home today while you work on your manners.”

“Frederick,” Aziraphale said later that afternoon. Crowley was out doing heaven knows what, and he and Frederick were taking a little break to curl up together by the window. “You need to keep Crowley out of trouble when you’re out.”

Frederick craned a neck up to look at the fluffy one from his position coiled on the front of his waist coat. He couldn’t be serious, could he?

“He’s very susceptible to trouble, you know,” the angel continued, stroking a hand down the snake’s scales. “Comes with the territory. You need to keep an eye on him.”

This was, Frederick thought, truly the most ridiculous suggestion anyone had ever made to a snake in possibly the whole history of the world. He, all twenty-four inches of him, was supposed to keep Crowley out of trouble? But then again, it was Aziraphale asking it of him, so he tried to wrap his brain around it. He nuzzled lovingly against the angel’s stomach and tried to look up to the task.

“Also, we need to talk about politeness,” the angel said mildly. “Let’s start with how you address people when you want something.”

Frederick let out a reptilian sigh and set about trying to appear like he was listening while really going to sleep. Sometimes the lack of eyelids was a huge blessing in disguise.

#good omens #good omens fic #ineffable husbands #jealous aziraphale #Aziraphale x crowley #idiots in love #established relationship #snake fiction #snek fiction

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