Changing Shape

Fandom: Good Omens

Rating: PG

Summary: Crowley’s having trouble adapting to his human form.

At first Crawly’s eyes unnerved Aziraphale. They unnerved the humans as well, who ran shrieking in fear. It made Crawly hiss in exasperation, and that was just another of the things that made Aziraphale uncomfortable.

Despite his discomfort, Aziraphale has been staying close to Crawly, as much for entertainment value as to thwart the demon’s evil wiles. Not that there had been many wiles to thwart lately, not with humans running screaming from Crawly’s eyes and hiss before he could wrap them around his demonic finger.

Watching Crawly struggle with his human form was one of the most enjoyable things that Aziraphale had done in the past millenium. It didn’t help Crawly that Aziraphale could snap his fingers and change his appearance on command. Crawly couldn’t even change his eye color. Of course, if he survived in this form long enough, he’d be able to manipulate it, but he was still treating his form as that of a snake, and if he did so for much longer, thought Aziraphale, looking at the demon, then he wouldn’t survive for long.

Crawly had curled up on a large rock in the sun. If he were a snake, then he would have woken up lazy and refreshed. As a human, he would wake up with sunstroke or worse.

Aziraphale nudged the demon with his foot. “Crawly,” he said loudly.

Crawly groaned and flopped over onto his back, then immediately yelped and staggered to his feet. While it was not unusual to see a creature of hell smoking, little whisps of smoke rising from burned skin, it was unusual to see one jumping about in a strange parody of a dance, leaping and jerking and saying things that—

Aziraphale really should have blocked them out, but he’d never heard of such a thing phrased in quite that way…

“Look,” said Aziraphale, folding his hands over the parchment in his lap, “you’re obviously not adapting very well—“

“I’m doing fine,” sniffed Crawly. The effect was ruined by the wince he gave when one of his hands made contact with the table.

“You’re red,” pointed out Aziraphale helpfully.

“Only temporarily,” said Crawly. “Besssides, red is a ssstylish color.”

“Yes, but you do this thing with your tongue, and yesterday...” he trailed off. What Crawly had done yesterday with that rodent was too dreadful to mention.

Before Crawly could respond (and anyway, what was there to say, really?) a woman bumped into their table.

“I say, said Aziraphale, managing to sound very British despite the fact that Britain was not yet inhabited by enough people to be worth bothering about. “Are you all right?”

The woman blinked at them with large, dazed eyes, before suddenly laughing and sliding her wrists down the table leg.

“Nevermind about her,” said Crawly, “she’s obviously off the clock.”

“The what?”

“Nevermind.” Crawly looked again at the woman. “Must have been a pretty good dose.”

“What would you know about it? You’ve been a snake.”

Crawly rolled his golden eyes. “Being in the form of a sssnake doesn’t mean that I didn’t experience a wide range of human visssesss,” he said with a straight face.

Aziraphale screwed up his face, “That’s…disturbing.”

Crawly smirked, uncomfortably aware that his knowledge of many human vices, including alcoholism, was purely hypothetical, and that the woman had moved her attention from the table leg to his leg.

“Oh,” breathed Aziraphale with the air of somone coming to a realization, “look!”

Crawly was looking, but limiting himself to that was going to become impossible in a minute. Her hands—

“Angel,” he began, only to be cut off.

“She’s not running away from you.”

The angel was right, and with that realization Crawly felt a bright swell of happiness. He could finally do something, incite violence—fingernails in his legs--he winced, alright, maybe not that one, lust—got that one down—greed, envy, sloth—no reaction--he frowned. Aside from lust he didn’t seem to be able to elicit any response. Crawly was growing frustrated, moreso when the angel laughed at him.

“Poor Crawly, the first human within tempting range isn’t in any condition to be tempted.”

Crawly thought that if the angel would look under the table and observe the hands there currently at work, he might change his mind. In at least one way the woman was eminently temptable.

The angel stood up. “I don’t think that my presence here is needed.”

“You’re not going to ssstay and thwart me?” Crawly was half hoping that the angel would stay. “Aren’t you afraid that I’ll tempt her when she sssobers up?”

“When she sobers up she’s going to run screaming, so no. Have a good night, Crawly, and try to stay away from small rodents.” And the angel was gone.

Aziraphale would revise his opinion about leaving Crawly alone with a drunken woman when Crawly appeared the next day wearing an insanely happy expression, and not much else. He put his arm around Aziraphale’s shoulders.

“Asssiraphale,” he got out, managing to hiss only once, although there was an odd slur to his voice, “you’ve gotta try sssome o’ that.”

Aziraphale, who had been trying to inch away, his skin itching from contact with a demon, schooled his face in a stern expression. “You’re supposed to be tempting humans, Crawly, not yourself, and no, I’m not condoning that either.”

“Not Crawly,”said Crawly decisively.

“What?”

“It’s not Crawly anymore, see? It’s Crowley.”

“What? But, why?”

“Because,” Crawly was frowning, lost in thought, “because, aren’t you the one telling me to be less sssnakelike?”

As he said the last word, Aziraphale could see a little forked tongue. He edged away. “Well, yes, but Crowley?”

“S’better than Abduxuel,” muttered Crawly, er, Crowley, who then brightened and said, “But angel, thiss ssstuff givesss you the mossst wonderful feeling, ‘ssspecially combined with—“ here he gave a leer and moved his hand down Aziraphale’s back.

Aziraphale had never moved so fast in all of his years of angelic existence.