Chapter Text
It was roughly a quarter to ten and Aziraphale Fell was on the verge of tears. This was becoming a fairly common occurrence. It was stupid, really. He shouldn’t feel so upset. After all, he had finally gone and gotten himself a job.
True, the head chef Gabriel had laughed at him when he showed up in his tartan suit last week, asking if Eden was looking for an extra pair of hands in the kitchen, but to be fair, he wasn’t exactly qualified for the position. Aziraphale knew it was a long shot: the truth was while he spent countless hours watching videos of baked goods on Instagram, the blond was far from a decent chef himself.
Aziraphale had handed Gabriel an envelope his mother had given him with his information in it. She had moved out of the city shortly after Aziraphale finished college, but had always been there to help him. When she heard that he was looking for a job in a Parisian restaurant, she had mailed him the envelope and pointed him in the direction of Eden– one of the best restaurants in all of France. Even with the envelope, Gabriel had initially refused to hire him as a chef, caving only when Michael halfheartedly mentioned that the kitchen could use a garbage boy.
The rest of his first week on the job had been awful, filled with one mishap after another, and incessant teasing from the more established chefs. Teasing he would pretend to laugh along with until he was able to find a moment alone. That’s when the tears would inevitably start falling.
Some of the taunting may have been warranted. After all, Aziraphale had messed up the trash collection not once, not twice, but three times in the seven days he’d been hired and now…
What he had just done was not merely inconvenient– it was downright unforgivable.
Aziraphale, clumsy thing that he was, had knocked an entire pitcher of sugar into a pot of soup simmering on the stove.
It had been an accident.
A silly, tragic, accident that was bound to be his undoing.
He had tried to fix it, tossing cinnamon and salt into the pot with abandon before his pounding heart overcame him, forcing him to retreat to the corner of the kitchen where he stood now, seconds away from bawling his eyes out.
They would fire him for this.
They would have to.
Messing around in the kitchen… Ruining the soup…
Aziraphale pressed his hand to his mouth, cutting off a strangled sob.
Would it be better to turn himself in? To apologize? Oh, but they would yell at him–
Aziraphale’s frantic train of thought derailed as something flickered in his periphery. He followed the movement instinctively and that’s when he saw it.
Something impossible.
Something cartoonish.
Something miraculous enough to make his jaw drop.
It was a snake– a brilliant black creature, roughly two feet long– and it was cooking . The serpent stood on its tail, balancing itself with remarkable agility that defied Aziraphale’s understanding of physics. It had a wooden ladle in its mouth and was using it to stir– To sauté–
“Oh my god ,” Aziraphale whispered, bringing his fingers to his lips.
With those words the creature stopped its ministrations, turning to look at him. Aziraphale found himself shivering as serpentine eyes met his. The sight wasn’t creepy , per se, it’s just that there was something eerily human about the snake’s sharp amber gaze. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to reflect on the ridiculousness of his current situation because the next moment another chef, Uriel, was whisking the soup away, bringing it out of the kitchen to be served.
“No, no, no. Oh god. Oh god!” Aziraphale turned, bumping straight into Gabriel.
“Hey, watch it sunshine. What are you babbling about? We pay you to clean, Aziraphale, not to pace the kitchen muttering under your breath like a lunatic.”
Aziraphale shifted his weight from foot to foot. He held the head chef’s gaze for only a second before breaking down.
“I messed up the soup!” he cried.
Gabriel’s fake smile faltered at that.
“You what?”
“I– I– I didn’t mean to! It was an accident,” Aziraphale tried to explain. “I was just walking by and I knocked something off the shelf and I tried to fix it but–”
Gabriel stopped him, holding up a hand.
“Now, Aziraphale, let me tell you something. We don’t do ‘accidents’ here.”
“I know– I know–” Azirphale babbled.
“No, I don’t think you do. There’s no room for mistakes at Eden; that means there’s no room for you.”
Yes, this was it. He was about to be fired.
That was when the kitchen doors flew open, revealing a breathless Uriel.
“She loves it,” the chef exclaimed, shaking their head. “Shax has always been strict about reviews but she– She wants to know who made it.”
Gabriel looked between Uriel and Aziraphale, raising an eyebrow.
Then he cleared his throat and Aziraphale braced himself, praying that he would survive this emotional rollercoaster of a Wednesday night.
That’s when the head chef shrieked .
“Snake! Snake! There’s a snake in the kitchen!”
Aziraphale followed Gabriel’s trembling finger to the pans that hung over the stove only to find that, sure enough, the same black snake from earlier was tucked away in a pot, flitting its tongue in and out of its mouth lazily.
“Well?” Uriel snapped, glaring at Aziraphale and thrusting a picnic basket into his hands. “Are you just going to stand here like an idiot? Do something.”
“I– I–” Aziraphale swallowed. “Alright.”
He stepped closer to the snake, reaching out a tentative hand to gently bring the creature down into the basket. The serpent didn’t put up a fight. Instead, it seemed more than happy to curl up, relaxing against the soft fabric.
“What am I supposed to do with it?” Aziraphale asked, looking to the head chef.
Gabriel rolled his eyes.
“Take care of it.”
“Care for it? I have no experience handling snakes… ” Aziraphale’s eyes widened as he brought a hand to his mouth in horror. “Oh, do you mean–”
“Kill the stupid thing. Or dump it outside, I don’t care. I just want it out of my kitchen.”
Aziraphale nodded frantically, grabbing his toque before dashing out of the restaurant. The fresh air was a relief after the hours of standing and cleaning and scurrying around the kitchen. The solitude was also comforting. Out here, outside Eden, there were no chefs to yell at him or tease him or lecture him on all the ways he was inherently incompetent.
Aziraphale walked on in silence for a few minutes along the river that ran through the city before crouching down and opening the basket. He shuddered, shaking his head as he remembered Gabriel’s cruelly flippant words.
How could anyone ever think to harm such a beautiful creature?
Really, Aziraphale had never seen such a gorgeous snake. And inexplicably, the serpent also appeared to be an excellent chef.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Aziraphale promised, fully aware of how ridiculous it was that he was talking to a snake .
Still, there was a boldness in the wily serpent’s eyes– An intelligence so fierce that Aziraphale felt it must understand what he was saying.
“Really, I promise. You’re safe now. Thank you so much for saving me tonight. You have no idea how…” Aziraphale trailed off. Venting to a snake was a new low he was not prepared to sink to this evening. “Anyway, I know you don’t care about all that, but I had to make my appreciation known. Go on, my dear, slither away.”
The snake did, slowly sliding out of the picnic basket and onto the ground. As it sauntered away, slinking into the shadows, Eden’s garbage boy assumed the whole serpent chef thing was behind him.
He was, of course, mistaken.
A minute later, the snake returned, reentering the basket and coiling its lithe form into a spiral.
Aziraphale stared at it and in response the serpent lowered its head, closing its eyes. The next moment it opened its mouth and…
For the first time all week, Aziraphale laughed.
“Did you just yawn?”
The snake opened one eye for a moment before closing it again with a wiggle that looked suspiciously like an armless shrug.
Aziraphale had never been good at making responsible decisions, especially when he was, for all intents and purposes, emotionally hungover. That’s why instead of abandoning the picnic basket by the river, he picked it up, smiling down at the little chef inside it.
“Oh, you’re a sleepy snake, aren’t you? Well, I suppose– I suppose I’ll just take you home.”