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“In what universe, did you actually think I would be interested in Christmas frivolities?” Crowley stares down the overflowing box of fake pine branches, metallic tinsel, and flashes of red velour. “Half of all that stuff is literally hell’s own work!”
The box is held in Aziraphale’s arms and he’s looking far too pleased with himself as he blocks the bookshop front doorway and any obvious opportunity for Crowley’s escape.
“Yes, but, well, we haven’t technically stayed together for Christmas – ”
Crowley cuts him off, “Not since 1826 and that was – ”
“That certainly doesn’t count.”
Of course it doesn’t.
Aziraphale clicks his tongue and moves past Crowley to drop the box on the sofa next to the desk. And then he turns on his heel in a flourish of swishing caramel winter jacket and heads back towards the front door. “And we’ve seen each other on Christmases, of course, but never as a couple and I thought, now that we are a couple we could try celebrating properly.”
Crowley staunchly ignores Aziraphale’s emphatic choices. They are most certainly not a couple. They are occult beings who have admitted quite a lot of feelings culminating in admissions of love (adoration, attachment, affection, admiration… Crowley doesn’t start on the ‘Bs) and have determined to spend most, if not all, of eternity together. It’s been almost six months now. They are not a couple.
Aziraphale is bustling back through the door with another box spilling over with hideous Christmas garb and Crowley swears this will be the last time he ever lets him run errands in the Bentley unsupervised. (It will not.)
“Angel, I am not one to celebrate the birth of their lord and saviour Jesus Christ, I’m a – ”
“Yes, a demon, I know,” Aziraphale says with an audible eyeroll. “Can you shift that.” He motions with his chin.
Crowley moves a stack of books out of his way. “What do we even need all this for?”
“To be festive!”
“And why do we need to be festive?”
“Because it’s fun,” Aziraphale positively wriggles with his delight and Crowley has to chew back on his own grin of kneejerk satisfaction to see it. He needs to stop reenforcing this kind of thing.
“I don’t see what’s fun about it at all. It’s the depths of winter except that there’s more winter to come, everything’s more expensive than it should be, and you have more customers than ever.” Crowley sets his lips in a scowl very deliberately. “Bah humbug, I say!”
“Oh Crowley,” Aziraphale huffs and has the absolute audacity to beam at him as he pinches Crowley’s scowling cheek before disappearing back out onto the street to retrieve another box.
***
“If you don’t want to help me decorate, you don’t have to.” Aziraphale’s pouting and Crowley still hasn’t built up sufficient immunity against that well-deployed expression (very, very secretly, he hopes he never will).
He grumbles, “Well, I do, though. I’d feel bad if I didn’t.’
“Lovely.”
They stare at each other, Aziraphale’s eyes a challenge, Crowley’s working hard to convey general discontent.
Which is hard what he’s probably, maybe the most content he’s ever been, and just mildly annoyed about the repetitive Christmas music in the shops he frequents, and at Aziraphale’s ability to infect him with softness. He’s not meant to be soft, that’s Aziraphale’s job, and he likes Aziraphale soft. It won’t do if it’s the both of them, lazing around, being soft.
Aziraphale relents and tilts his head back with a huff. He’s sitting on the sofa, surrounded by the six over-stuffed boxes of Christmas paraphernalia he’s brought back from who knows where. He’s all splayed and flushed pink under the snug collar of his shirt and still wrapped up in too many layers of wool against the cold flurries of snow falling outside.
Crowley considers putting a stop to their Christmas debate and spending quite a bit of time on unwrapping Aziraphale.
“Can we at least do presents?”
“What?”
“For each other?”
Crowley scowls some more, but of course he has a half-dozen gifts he’s just been waiting for an excuse to bestow, soft, besotted, ethereal immortal that he is; presents sound rather lovely. Plus, he’s been looking for an excuse to buy Aziraphale some new socks, various wines and pastries, an undiscovered diary he’s got his eye on that he’s sure belonged to Joyce, a selection of maps he knows have Darwin’s scrawls on them. Also, a cushion for the Bentley, and fingerless gloves and…
“We already do gifts, don’t need capitalism to enforce a due date.”
Aziraphale’s mouth twists up, displeased with that response.
Crowley relents and hopes it’s convincing. “Fine, I’ll buy you something and wrap it up all nice and festive.”
“Wonderful, “Aziraphale breathes out. “And we could go and see a pantomime?”
“I will suffer all manner of tortures besides you, but I draw the line at purposefully bad theatre.”
Aziraphale pouts some more. “What about Christmas jumpers?”
“Only if you manage to knock me unconscious first,” Crowley snarks, his lips tipping up at the thought.
Aziraphale sits forward and steeples his fingers. “There are some very funny ones, you know, and in lovely shades of red, I’m sure we could find something you like.”
Crowley dismisses the idea with a laugh. “What else?”
“Mince pies?” Aziraphale asks, sounding meek.
“Do you really even like the taste of them? All sickly sweet, gummy fruit and your most hated spices?”
Aziraphale’s face falls. “Christmas pudding?”
“Same objection.”
“Well, we can still do a nice roast turkey with all the trimmings.”
Crowley’s grin breaks free again. “Ah, yes, the driest, worst roast that exists. Angel, I don’t know why you want to bother.”
“Because it’s nice.” Aziraphale snaps, becoming stroppy in Crowley’s rejection. It scratches at the back of Crowley’s neck in an unpleasant way because, of course, he’ll do at least some of it, if it makes Aziraphale happy.
“Will we have to cook the turkey and trimmings ourselves?” Crowley grumbles.
“Yes!” Aziraphale tells him. Cooking is mostly new to both of them. They’re awful at it, but more often than not it ends up rather an enjoyable experience. And they have a reliable list of late-night take-aways for backup anyhow. “I’ll make some lists and we can do a big shop together!”
Aziraphale’s face has lit up and it has become apparent that he wasn’t really that hard done by Crowley’s initial rejection and has rather adeptly played him. “And jumpers!” he adds like it isn’t up for negotiation. “Mulled wine, I’m sure you won’t object to?”
“In general, imbibing copious amounts of alcohol is one tradition I can get behind.”
“Lovely!” Aziraphale wriggles again and Crowley works to keep from cocking his head and devouring Aziraphale’s pleasure with a heated gaze. “Merry Christmas, my darling,” Aziraphale tells him.
Crowley’s continues to grin in spite of himself; he shakes his head and feels the blood in his cheeks. “You’re ridiculous,” he says. Aziraphale is ridiculous. They are both ridiculous.
***
“Angel!” Crowley calls for him and balances urgency with easiness. Occasionally, they still make each other panic, they still panic together. Six thousand years of near-death and furtive romance (that’s what it had been, really) and all sorts of trauma will do that.
Aziraphale descends the spiral staircase, into the dimly lit bookshop, multi-coloured fairy lights strewn over surfaces and suspended interwoven into bits of plastic tree providing the main source of illumination.
Crowley holds his position in the doorway to the backroom, one leg bent, one ankle crossed over the other. He has one of his arms cast above his head, leaning his wrist against the top of the doorframe. “In here, angel.”
“Crowley?” Aziraphale seeks him out, a crease between his eyes as he squints to see Crowley backlit in the doorway. “I thought you were in bed already?”
“I thought you said you only had a couple more pages to read.” Aziraphale’s been squirreled away in the spare room for hours and Crowley, having attempted sleep, had found himself too restless for it. “Come here,” he beckons again. “Closer.”
Aziraphale moves to him without hesitating and Crowley drops back from the door a half step, keeping one arm raised as he pulls a sleek A4-sized silver box from behind his back. “Early Christmas present,” he announces, with an overly pleased grin.
“Four more days,” Aziraphale admonishes, but his eyes catch on the box and it’s glittering surface and expensive looking red bow. “Is this for me now, though?”
Crowley gives him a slight nod but when Aziraphale reaches for it he pulls the gift back. “Hold on, I’ve got another festive tradition I think I can get on board with.”
Aziraphale’s hands pause in mid-air as Crowley sways back and very pointedly looks up to where his forearm’s still resting against the doorframe.
In his fingers, a spry looking bunch of mistletoe is grasped and hanging, tied together with a festive red bow and twisting back and forth between his fingertips.
Crowley waggles his eyebrows suggestively and lets his lips open around a mischievous smile, his tongue resting against the backs of his top teeth.
Aziraphale tries to school his expression, but Crowley’s intimately familiar with his look of delight. With the look he gets right before he leans in and kisses him. “Ah, you’re trying to tempt me?” Aziraphale attempts to be coy.
“Not at all, this is tradition, basically a rule,” Crowley drawls.
Aziraphale considers, faux reluctance about his lips. “Can’t really go against a Christmas rule, then.”
Crowley tips his face down to meet Aziraphale’s lips in a chaste press, easy in how casual it is, the expected taste of earl grey tea in the crease, and the warm blossoming softness of Aziraphale’s mouth against, welcome and pleasant in a way that spreads all the way out to his fingertips.
All too soon Aziraphale’s stepping back, Crowley’s gift grasped triumphantly in his hands. Crowley grumbles. “This is some grade A fresh mistletoe and I hardly think – ”
Aziraphale cuts him off with another kiss, more momentum, more movement, but still so blissfully soft, little movements back and forth as they slot together and tease at each other to see if, when, they’ll escalate. Aziraphale licks at Crowley’s bottom lip and he’s undone with it, as he always is, his lips going pliant and open so Aziraphale can lick with more pressure in between. Little motions into Crowley’s mouth and up against his tongue until Crowley’s halfway through a moan and rampant, unravelling, overwhelming thoughts, of dragging the angel over to the couch or up the stairs or somewhere. Then he sways too close and is jabbed in the stomach by the corner of the box and he pulls back with an “Ow.”
Aziraphale chuckles at him and then winces as the mistletoe drops from Crowley’s hand and bounces off his head onto the floor beside them. He gives Crowley a look as he licks his lips and then turns his attention to his gift.
Crowley flushes and is suddenly unsure. This is exactly the kind of dumb shit couples do, he thinks. But so far, not so much, what he and Aziraphale do. Kissing in doorways under mistletoe, exchanging stupid gifts days too soon, without any excuse except that it’s Christmas and they want to.
“What have you gotten me?”
“’S nothing, really,” Crowley caveats.
Aziraphale clicks his tongue like he doesn’t believe it and wastes no time in tugging the bow free and pulling the lid off the box.
Beneath is tartan, deeper red than anything Aziraphale would ever usually wear but crossed through with his usual palette of browns and creams. He presses the box into Crowley’s hand so he can pull the soft cotton garment out and hold it up for appraisal.
“Pyjamas?” he figures correctly.
“’Cause you’re spending more time in bed.”
Aziraphale arches an eyebrow.
“I mean you never used to spend any time in bed, is all.” Crowley’s gaze drops to the floor. “Want you to be comfy.”
Aziraphale pulls the next layer of folded cotton out to find the matching pyjama bottoms. He stretches the waistband, testing the give, and then closes a hand over the edge of the box, deliberately bumping up against Crowley’s. “I love them,” he says and leans forward for another easy kiss even without the mistletoe overhead.
There’s still one layer of soft fabric left, verdant green with splashes of red, glimmering like satin under the Christmas lights. As Aziraphale holds the pyjamas scrunched in one hand so he can pull the rather ridiculous boxer shorts up, Crowley tries very hard to sound filthy instead of ridiculous when he says, “Also because you should be spending more time in my bed.”
Aziraphale snorts and it twists up something like devotion in Crowley’s stomach even as Aziraphale holds the mistletoe adorned silk boxers aloft.
“Really, Crowley,” Aziraphale says as he turns them over in his hands only to discover the inscription over the back of one thigh.
Kiss me under the mistletoe.
“Really, Aziraphale,” Crowley tells him, leaning into it if only because Aziraphale’s laughing and pink-cheeked and happy. “I thought you wanted me to find Christmas traditions I could get on board with.”
“Not sure this counts.”
“Those are definitely Christmas themed pants,” Crowley defends himself. “And if you’d be much obliged and go upstairs and put them on, I can once again demonstrate the requisite Christmas tradition.”
Aziraphale’s smile grows as he huffs out, “Crowley!” and is entirely unconvincing in his scandalized tone.
“Merry Christmas,” Crowley tells him and it’s enough to have Aziraphale laughing again, grasping his new pyjamas and ridiculous boxer shorts with intent, before he mumbles it back, sweetly and softly:
“Merry Christmas.” Then Aziraphale reaches for Crowley and it’s less sweet and soft, as he drags him in for one more kiss before turning and leading Crowley by the hand up the stairs to their bedroom.