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The cooler months had arrived with chilling winds, and frost coating everything in the mornings before the sun’s rays could finally melt it away and warm the air a few degrees. Crowley was certainly grateful for the many blankets that he’d stocked their cabin with, cocooning himself in them at night, and curling right up against Aziraphale, somehow even closer than usual, to absorb his body heat.
Always having been someone who is easily cold, Crowley had never much liked winter. Thankfully becoming a troll had in fact helped a little with that – how else would he traipse around naked all the time otherwise? His fur assisted for sure, but Crowley still seemed to feel the cold of winter more than Aziraphale did.
When they were simply hanging about their home for the day, Crowley would wrap a blanket around himself like a toga, which was a little restricting, but kept him warm.
Sometimes Aziraphale even joined him with his own blanket toga, though he claimed not to need it.
However when they went out for the day, Crowley tended to don the long sleeved, ankle length coat that he’d kept from his final days in human society. It saved him from feeling the chill so much, and it looked rather stylish with his troll features, particularly his black horns that double bent over his lengthy auburn hair.
They were away from the cabin that day, needing to travel a little further to find a better variety of food, which was a bit more sparse since many of their regular foods were out of season. There was absolutely no need for concern though, they still had access to a plethora of food, they wouldn’t go hungry. In fact the most annoying thing about it, to Crowley anyway, was Aziraphale moaning about not being able to make most of his extravagant meals. Crowley was just happy to eat whatever his love made them, even if it was soup for the third time that week.
Aziraphale was humming to himself, digging up some root vegetables, while Crowley poked around to see what else he could find in the area. While he’d become somewhat skilled at foraging now, thanks to his partner, Crowley still deferred to Aziraphale a lot, especially since he still did the majority of the cooking for them. As a human he wasn’t much chop at cooking, and becoming a troll hadn’t seemed to have improved the situation any, but Aziraphale was happy to cook for them both, and Crowley was happy to let him, so it was a non-issue really.
Walking around the base of a relatively barren tree, one of the few deciduous species in the forest, looking for mushrooms, Crowley noticed not fungi, but little white berries on the ground, spread across the grassy earth. Berries at that time of year? He had assumed that they were summer fruits.
Squatting, he picked up a few in the palm of his hand and brought them up to his face sniffing them, but oddly, they didn’t smell like anything.
“Huh…”
Pretty much everything had some kind of smell, especially with his troll senses, so it seemed weird that those little berries didn’t. Deciding to ask Aziraphale about them, he picked up a few more, and carried them the few trees back to where Aziraphale was digging.
“Did you find something, dear?” Aziraphale asked, looking up as Crowley approached.
“Uh, maybe, check these out…” he knelt down, and offered his open palms to Aziraphale.
The moment Aziraphale laid eyes on the white berries, he knocked them from Crowley’s hands, “Get rid of those,” and the next he was flooding Crowley’s hands with water from the drink bottle they’d brought along.
“Erm…not edible then?” he guessed, shaking off the excess water before it made his hands cold.
“I’m afraid they are quite poisonous, dear, thank the heavens you didn’t eat any…you didn’t eat any, did you?” blue eyes went wide with worry.
“No, no, I didn’t. You taught me better than that, don’t worry,” Crowley quickly assured him.
The relief showed on Aziraphale’s face, “Good.”
“What sort of berry is it, anyway? I’ve never seen it before.”
“I believe that it is called mistletoe, have you heard of it?” Aziraphale inquired with a quick look over Crowley, as if checking him for any harm regardless.
A soft smile spread across Crowley’s face, heart thumping happily over the perfectly wonderful life and partner that he had found in Eden Forest. It was an odd time to be taken over by such feelings, but sometimes it was the smallest thing that made him consider just how lucky he was to be chosen by the forest, and Aziraphale.
“Crowley?”
“Huh? Sorry, yeah, I have heard of it, of course I have.”
“Oh?”
Crowley nodded confidently, “Mhm, it’s a Christmas decoration thingy, with a tradition of kissing under it.”
“Oh, yes…that rings a bell,” Aziraphale said a little distantly, as if he were distracted by a thought.
“Did you just remember something?” Crowley asked patiently.
Occasionally Aziraphale would remember little bits and pieces from his life as a human, often triggered by something that Crowley would say, like now.
“Perhaps…hmmm…I think that I might recall seeing the tradition in action, though I believe that it was still a new idea at the time…and there’s a sense of longing attached to the memory,” Aziraphale frowned slightly in thought, “how interesting.”
Crowley raised his eyebrows, “Anything else?”
“No,” he said slowly, “I believe that’s all I can remember.”
“Wanna give it a go?” Crowley queried, shimmying in closer.
“Hm? Give what a go, my dear?”
Crowley bent over to pick up one of the little white berries that Aziraphale had scattered out of his hands earlier, and then standing back up straight, he held it carefully above his head, pinched between his claws.
“Kissing under mistletoe…”
Aziraphale’s cheeks gained a rosy quality as he glanced up at Crowley’s hand, then he stammered, “Oh, er, um…”
“God, you’re adorable,” Crowley sighed, warmth filling his chest, “come on, love, give us a kiss then…”
Ducking in after a beat, Aziraphale quickly gave him a light peck on the lips. Light enough that their canines didn’t even touch.
“You call that a kiss?” Crowley groused, trying to appear put out by the lack of enthusiasm.
Aziraphale rolled his eyes with a huffed chuckle, “You’re being silly, darling.”
Crowley fluttered his eyelashes, and puckered his lips, really playing into it.
“Gosh, anyone would think that I deprive you of kisses,” Aziraphale commented with a fond little smile.
“Angeeeellll…”
“Oh, alright, you drama queen, come here.”
Aziraphale slipped his hands through Crowley’s lush hair, brushing his horns, to hook behind his neck, while his tail sought out Crowley’s, intertwining them together, and butting their creamy white, and reddish brown tufts together. Tossing away the berry, Crowley wrapped his arms around Aziraphale’s soft waist, and met his love half way, bending a little so that he didn’t have to stretch. Their mouth’s met, breath hot, canines bumping, noses rubbing, lips moving, saliva mingling, as their eyes closed, and the forest fell away, narrowing the world down to just them.
“Mmmnn…” Crowley hummed elatedly when the kiss ended, basking in the moment, and taking his time to come back to the present.
“Happy now, my dear?” Aziraphale asked. Crowley could hear the smile in his voice.
“Yes,” he said smugly, finally opening his eyes, “I love you.”
“As I love you,” Aziraphale returned tenderly. “May we return to foraging now then?” he inquired, detaching himself from Crowley to pick up his container of vegetables.
Crowley simply nodded, a lopsided grin on his face, and hearts in his amber eyes. He reckoned he probably looked rather embarrassingly smitten. Luckily it was only Aziraphale there to see his feelings written plainly across his features, and reflect them right back at him, warming him better than the sun ever could.
