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Crowley should have known something was up when Aziraphale came back home carrying a shopping bag. The angel never went shopping, let alone by himself. Usually, if he wanted something he could just miracle it up or bat his eyes and ensure Crowley would do it for him.
To see Aziraphale entering their shared cottage with a plastic bag dangling from his wrist was very suspicious.
“Alright, spill,” Crowley said, stepping directly in front of him and blocking his path into the rest of the house. Aziraphale yelped in surprise at his sudden appearance. “What’s in the bag?”
Aziraphale straightened his bowtie and then clutched the bag protectively against his chest.
“W-well, if you must know right this instant, since it’s almost Christmas I felt that we could do something special.” He cast his eyes down demurely, a pink flush rising to his cheeks that had nothing to do with the snow outside. “And, well, this is our first holiday together in… in a romantic sense…”
Crowley uncrossed his arms as warmth rose in his chest. They had only officially been a couple within the past few months or so after a shy, stuttering love confession from Aziraphale on the night after Armageddon’t. Some days Crowley still couldn’t believe that the angel he had harbored feelings for for the better part of 6,000 years actually felt the same way he did. A part of him was convinced that he would wake up one day to find himself still slumped over in that forgotten pub on the day Aziraphale had been discorporated; his mind’s last desperate attempt at maintaining its sanity before the end.
The fact that Aziraphale had gone out of his way to purchase something for the both of them as a celebration of their love helped a lot in banishing the doubt and worry. Crowley then realized he had been standing there in silence for a few moments and Aziraphale was looking at him expectantly. He cleared his throat.
“Er, yes, I see. Sounds good.”
Aziraphale’s face lit up and all the lightbulbs in the room seemed to glow a little brighter as well (side effects of having a happy angel in close proximity, Crowley supposed). Crowley stepped to the side and allowed Aziraphale to bustle past him into the lounge whereupon he sat the bag down atop the coffee table.
“I know you normally prefer picking out your own clothing…”
Crowley’s heart, which had been pattering happily in his chest, now sank so low it could be a tripping hazard.
Oh no.
Just what had Aziraphale bought?!
What sort of tartan-bedecked abomination was about to be conjured from that bag?!
With a flourish, Aziraphale straightened up and held out something for Crowley to look at.
Well… it wasn’t tartan, but taken into context with the rest of the ensemble, that really wasn’t saying much.
The sweaters Aziraphale held aloft were each in an opposing shade of garish red and nauseating green. The one dangling from his left fist proclaimed, “I’ve been naughty!” in chunky white letters with a picture of a Christmas stocking loaded with coal. Little silver puffballs were scattered across the surface to look like… snowflakes? Maybe?
The other sweater was much the same, but instead of a declaration of the wearer’s own naughtiness, this one said, “I’ve been nice!” This one had a stocking as well, but this time bulging with little goodies like cookies and candies. The gingerbread man poking out of the top of the stocking smiled mockingly at Crowley.
“Oh, Aziraphale, please tell me those aren’t what I think they are,” the demon groaned.
“Matching Christmas sweaters!” Aziraphale said with a giddy trill, completely ignoring him. “The nice one is for me, obviously, and the naughty one is for you! I was thinking we could wear them together on Christmas morning!”
Crowley softened marginally. At least his angel wasn’t expecting him to do something too out-of-character, like willingly wear a sweater proclaiming his own “niceness”. The thought alone had sulfurous bile rising at the back of his throat.
He flinched when Aziraphale pressed the bright-green “nice” sweater against his front. Aziraphale hummed thoughtfully. “Although… perhaps it would be a bit of ironic fun, don’t you think? If I wore the naughty sweater and you wore the nice one?”
“For Somebody’s sake, no!” Crowley hissed, jumping back. “I’ll wear the naughty sweater with minimal complaint, but it’ll be a cold day in the Wrath Circle before I wear… that!”
Aziraphale pressed out his bottom lip a little; not enough to look like a child pouting for sweets, but just enough that Crowley couldn’t miss it.
“Oh you rude little serpent. It’s just a harmless bit of fun! You won’t even wear it once? Just so I can see how it looks on you?”
Crowley turned slightly so he wouldn’t have to look at Aziraphale and he crossed his arms over his chest. However, they both knew it was a futile gesture. After a few tense moments, Crowley let his arms flop to his sides with a chest-rattling groan.
“Fiiiine I’ll wear the damned thing. But just once, ya hear?!”
“Oh thank you, darling!”
Crowley whipped his shirt off, sending his hair sticking up in all directions like bird feathers. Aziraphale gave the strands an affectionate tussle before passing him the nice sweater. Crowley held it up in front of his face and took a moment to take in the sight. He sighed and, with the grim resolution of a man facing his own firing squad, he pulled it over his head.
Of course, he almost instantly regretted doing so. The fabric was coarse and itchy and somewhat musty-smelling. Just where in the nine circles had Aziraphale bought this wretched thing?! Actually, come to think of it, Hell could have indeed been a likely place to acquire such a thing.
“There. I did it. Happy?” Crowley grumbled.
“Oh you look so precious!” Aziraphale cooed.
Crowley hissed. Literally.
“I am not preciousss!” He went to yank the sweater off in protest but quickly realized, for some unfathomable reason, that the wretched thing refused to budge! “What the—”
He gripped the hem of it and tried to yank upwards, but it wouldn’t so much as move a centimeter past his superfluous belly button. He gave a violent thrash and opted instead to simply tuck his arms into the sleeves and go from there, but even that didn’t work!
He was about to rend the thing to pieces, Aziraphale’s Christmas plans be damned, when he froze.
A memory came trickling back to him. He recalled hearing a rumor – or perhaps a legend – once about the power of knitting, sewing, and stitching. He could not remember when or where, but he had the foggiest recollection of hearing a tale about perfectly knit sweaters.
Specifically, anything wearable, if stitched without flaw, could be used to trap a demon.
Crowley had thought it was just hearsay; a silly story to tell young girls to encourage them to practice their needlework. There, standing in the middle of his home with a hideous Christmas sweater on, Crowley came to two realizations:
One, that the legends apparently had a bit more truth to them than he’d thought.
And two, he was trapped!
His face burned crimson as the humiliation sank its claws in. He thought he’d been embarrassed when he was trapped in a salt ring by a pair of errant teenagers back in the 19 th century. He thought he’d been embarrassed when he got stuck halfway through a molt in 1532 and Aziraphale had to come help him. He thought he’d been embarrassed when Yeshua had forced him to possess a pack of wild boars before plunging to his and the pigs’ messy (albeit temporary, for him at least) deaths off the edge of a cliff.
None of those, not a single one, held a candle to the sheer mortification he felt now. He half expected to spontaneously combust into Hellfire until there was nothing left of him but a sooty circle on the ground.
Aziraphale, meanwhile, was looking at him in visible confusion.
“Crowley, dearest, are you alright?” he asked.
Crowley’s spine went ramrod straight as though he were standing to attention.
“Fine! Fine!” he squeaked. “Perfectly tickety-boo! All good here!”
“Since when do you say tickety-boo? In a non-mocking tone, that is?”
“I, er… since forever, actually,” Crowley retorted. He scratched absentmindedly at his arm through the sleeve’s fabric. “Uh, just out of curiosity, where did you get this sweater?”
Aziraphale’s eyes lit up at the chance to explain his latest find.
“Oh, I got them from a woman and her granddaughter who knit them by hand! They were selling them in the park this afternoon – the little girl’s mother is quite ill, you see – so I felt that buying a pair would be a good way to support local businesses. I also sent a subtle blessing their way that the mother would recover before Christmas and—”
“Were they skillful?” Crowley interrupted.
Aziraphale blinked once in surprise.
“Er… skillful?”
“Yes! Skillful! Knitting! Are the ladies who made this sweater good at what they do?!”
“W-well, if it’s the quality you’re worried about, I can assure you that their family has been stitching, weaving, knitting, and sewing for many generations and—”
Crowley interrupted him again with a roar as he stumbled backwards, still trying to pull the sweater over his head, and upended the coffee table.
“Perfect sweater! Sodding brilliant!!” he snarled.
“Crowley! What on Earth has gotten into you?!” Aziraphale sputtered.
“It’s the damned sweater, Aziraphale! It’s perfect!” Crowley snapped.
“You’re not making any sense!”
At the visible confusion and stress in Aziraphale’s eyes, Crowley dropped heavily onto the sofa with one final whine of despair. He buried his face in his hands. The pair of them fell silent. Crowley could practically hear the swish-swish of Aziraphale wringing his hands together. Finally, Crowley uncovered his face and patted the sofa beside him.
“Ah… sssorry. For losing my cool there. It’s jussst…”
“It’s ‘jussst’ what, Crowley?”
Aziraphale cautiously lowered himself down onto the sofa beside his love. Crowley let his head roll back on his shoulders.
“Ugh. The sweater. It’s perfect. Too perfect.” He heaved a great sigh. “There’s… all sorts of legends and stories out there about why it’s a bad idea to knit something too perfect. Namely that it…” His words trailed off into a mortified mumble.
“It what?” Aziraphale asked with a bewildered shake of his head. “Could you repeat that?”
“It traps things!” Crowley practically wailed. “Spirits! Demons! Things like that. Think ‘cause perfection is supposed to be close to Godliness or somethin’. I dunno…”
The silence that fell was heavy and cloistering.
Then, it was broken by a soft, fluttering sound like steam being released from a kettle in sporadic bursts.
Crowley turned and stared at Aziraphale.
The angel had doubled over and was clutching at his own sides like he was in terrible agony. From between his clenched teeth whistled the sound.
He was laughing.
The bastard was actually laughing!
“Aziraphale!” Crowley gasped in genuine offense.
Finally a true and proper cackle burst out of his mouth.
“I- I’m s-s-sorry, dear boy,” Aziraphale wheezed. “It’s just that y- you’re trapped! Like- like a—”
“Yeah, yeah, rub in some more,” Crowley said with a roll of his eyes.
It took another moment or two for Aziraphale’s giggling to cease and for him to regain control of himself. Finally, he straightened up and wiped away a tear.
“Alright. I’ve gotten it all out of my system, dear. Here. Let me help you.”
Saying so, he reached over and pinched the hem of one sleeve, pulling a single thread loose. While nothing had changed outwardly, Crowley suddenly felt a weight he hadn’t even realized was there lifted off his shoulders. He gave an experimental tug of the sweater and saw, to his relief, that he was able to pull it up and over his head. “Is that better, Crowley?”
“Much,” the demon answered, and cast the sweater to the floor as though its touch physically repulsed him.
Which it did if he were being honest with himself. He’d always considered himself a bit of a roamer and free spirit, so to have something as innocuous as a sweater would be enough to keep him bound…
He shuddered.
Aziraphale’s hand came down on his shoulder blade and began rubbing some of the tension away.
“Dreadfully sorry, my dear,” he said. “I’ll make sure that, from now on, any clothing I give you has at least one – unnoticeable – flaw.”
“ ‘preciated.” Then, after a moment, a slow, mischievous smile crept over Crowley’s face. A distinctly Grinchy smile. “Say, angel…”
“Hm?”
“If flawless knitting can trap me, does that mean flawed clothing can trap you?”
“Oh, don’t be absurd!” Aziraphale huffed. “I’ve worn plenty of ‘flawed’ clothing and been perfectly fine. Why, just look at my waistcoat! I’ve fiddled with the hem so much that it practically has thumb prints.”
“So, if I were to, say, force you to wear the most poorly-made Christmas sweater ever spawned, it wouldn’t trap you like a worm on a hook?”
“Of course not!”
Crowley suddenly snapped his fingers, conjuring a sweater from the aether. It was a ghastly thing in a deep black color made from what, at first glance, appeared to be human hair. Little candy canes, Christmas trees, and bells were inked onto the surface with patchy glitter glue in shades of red, green, and gold. One sleeve was quite a bit longer than the other, and the neck hole must have been sized using a watermelon for how wide it was.
“You sure about that, angel?”
Aziraphale blanched three shades paler than his own curls and leapt to his feet.
“Crowley… don’t you dare!” Crowley followed him, a predator on the hunt. “Don’t!”
Aziraphale barely managed to dodge in time when Crowley pounced, landing atop the coffee table like a cat chasing its prey.
“Come on, angel! Don’t be a spoilsport! I wore your sweater! Where’s your Christmas cheer?”
Aziraphale shrieked and bolted into the other room and Crowley, as ever, wasn’t far behind.
THE END