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The warm smell of chocolate drifted into the cottage living room, joining a potpourri of wood smoke and burnt sugar. Aziraphale sniffed with interest and looked up from the holiday records he’d been combing through. Crouching beside him like a gothic grasshopper was Crowley, holding out Aziraphale’s usual white-winged mug.
Aziraphale squinted at the mug’s contents. “It isn’t pulled from the ether, is it?”
Crowley drew back, the picture of offense. “Did you not see me at the stove? Did you not hear me drop the cocoa tin? It wasn’t subtle.”
“No, I was looking for the right album to put on... though I seem to have been at it for a while.” Aziraphale’s attention wandered back to the shelf that held their shared music collection.
“No wonder you didn’t comment on the swear words. There were a lot of them,” Crowley said with clear pride. He pushed the mug under Aziraphale’s nose. “Here.”
“Thank you, dear.” Aziraphale was still looking at the records, flipping back and forth through the same two or three. “But really, I ought to be getting back to the pastries. I don’t want to risk over-baking another batch.”
“Oh, no,” Crowley said. “I’m afraid I’ve got bad news there.”
Aziraphale’s head whipped toward the stove. “They can’t have already burned, Mrs. Hummerlind said fifteen minutes, and I don’t smell—”
“Mm-mm. Not that. You’re under the mistletoe again, angel.”
“Crowley.” A roll of ethereal eyes. “I certainly am not. In the middle of the living room?”
“Oh yes,” Crowley said, pointing up at the green sprig dangling from the ceiling above the coffee table, attached with nothing but a miracle. “Must’ve sprung up there all by itself. Give the pies a rest, angel. You’ve been at it all day, and I have it on good authority Christmas Eve is for canoodling by one’s delightful fireplace admiring one’s gloriously large Christmas tree.”
“Crowley, I’m telling you, I will make a traditional festive sweet today, that does not burn—”
Crowley glanced at the ashen lumps discarded on the kitchen counter. “Giving me Hell flashbacks, these cooking attempts. C’mon, angel. Kiss your husband.” He jiggled the mug, whose contents sloshed up its sides. “He brought you hot cocoa.”
“Give me that before you spill it on the rug.” Aziraphale took the cocoa, set it down on the coffee table, and fulfilled his mistletoe obligations with festive gaiety.[1]
This went on, as it often did, for several minutes. It might have gone on even longer if they hadn’t been interrupted by the ring of an antique timer from the kitchen. The moment it sounded, Aziraphale leapt up and hurried to the stove, leaving an open-mouthed demon behind.
“Ugh.” He poked at a doughy pie shell, which squished unappetizingly under his finger. “Underdid it this time. Back in you go.”
Crowley was squinting at a Christmas record when Aziraphale rejoined him. “No wonder you couldn’t find something, I can’t even bloody see these names. Why are all the lights off?”
“The Christmas lights are on,” Aziraphale said primly. “And there’s the fireplace. It’s cozy.”
“I’m blind as a hellbat.”
“That’s because you’ve still got your sunglasses on from fetching our gloriously large Christmas tree.”
“...ngh.” Crowley tossed the glasses onto the coffee table. “What’s your excuse, then?”
Aziraphale was watching the oven as though he could see through its door from the living room.[2] “Hmm?”
“You’ve been dithering about what music to put on since we woke up. It’s almost seven and still silent as the grave.”
“Oh, I...” Aziraphale turned back around, patting Crowley’s arm absently. “I suppose there are just so many to choose from. Christmas has been around a terrifically long time, now.”
“Alright, my indecisive darling, let’s see here.” Crowley flicked through the vinyls. “How about some Bing Crosby?”
“Who?” Aziraphale peered over Crowley’s shoulder at the Santa-hatted singer smiling merrily up at them from the album’s cover.
“Satan, angel, did you have ears between 1930 and 1980? Okay, Nutcracker, that’s more your speed.”
Aziraphale hummed. “What’s that one you like, with the hallelujahs?”
“Handel? I would never. The Lord God omnipotent need not reigneth in this living room.”
“No, the one with modern words. Something about David playing the harp?”
“David—Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’? Have you listened to those words? It’s not a Christmas song, it’s an ode to sexual ecstasy written by a Buddhist Jew.”
“Ah. Well. Those were both here first.”[3]
“We were here first.”
Aziraphale reached in front of Crowley and pulled out an album. “Oh, this is nice.”
Crowley glanced over. “Well, at least it’s this century. Wait, hang on, we’re into the 20-somethings now, aren’t we. Not even the same millennium anymore.”
“It’s newer than Handel,” Aziraphale offered.
“Eughh. Good enough.” Crowley popped the record onto the gramophone, and the familiar four-note motif of Carol of the Bells began tinkling through the cottage. Standing up, he held his hand out for Aziraphale and pulled him into a close dance.
Aziraphale leaned in, resting his head on Crowley’s sharp but welcoming shoulder as they swayed softly to the music. “Do you remember the older version of this?”
“The Ukrainian folk song? Mm, yeah, I do. Didn’t it start out as a spring thing?”
“Yes. Back when April was the beginning of the new year. We have the Christians to thank for making it a, well, a Christmas song.”
“And the British to thank for making it into this.” Crowley gestured toward the gramophone.
“Indeed. Who knows what it’ll turn into next.” Aziraphale stopped moving and sniffed the air. “Do you smell something burning?
“Probably just some residual hellfire,” Crowley said, easing him back into a box step. “I’ll wash my hair later to—"
The smoke detector went off.
“Oh, not again,” Aziraphale moaned. “I was sure Mrs. Himmerlund said fifteen minutes—” He pulled himself out of Crowley’s arms and rushed to the oven, waving a dish towel at the shrieking ceiling alarm with one hand while using the other to pull out several extremely crispy mince pies.
Behind him, Crowley gestured at the smoke detector, which shut up at once. “Alright, angel?”
Aziraphale stood over the stove, shoulders slumped and head bowed. “I remember my very first mincemeat pie. Sixteenth century. Back when they had actual meat in them.”
Crowley slid his arms around the dejected figure. “Oh?”
“From a family I stayed with over Christmas. Seasonal blessing, you know.”
“Mm. Holidays were usually a quiet time for me.”[4] Crowley placed a pointy chin onto Aziraphale’s shoulder.
“The grandmother in that house made the most wonderful pies,” Aziraphale continued. “I’ve never tasted one quite the same since. Do you remember when we bumped into each other at the 1656 Christmas market? The mince pies there were absolutely delightful, but even they couldn’t hold a candle.”
“I’ll take your angelic word for it,” Crowley said, giving Aziraphale a peck on the cheek. “I only bought them because that Cromwell prat made Christmas foods illegal.[5] And to watch you eat them, of course.”
“They were gone in a blink,” Aziraphale said, sounding far away.
“The pies?”
“The family.” His hand closed around Crowley’s where it rested at his middle. “It feels like such an awfully long time ago, and yet... I still remember the taste of that lovely woman’s mincemeat pies.”
“Ah.” Crowley squeezed a little tighter. “Hey, angel.”
“Hm?”
With a flourish, Crowley produced a shiny red cylinder and held it out in front of Aziraphale. “Pull my cracker.”
Aziraphale sighed, but a smile twitched at his mouth. He grabbed one end of the cracker, while Crowley held on to the other, and pulled it hard.
The resulting bang filled the quiet cottage, and Aziraphale gave a startled little hop. He started laughing even before Crowley did. “Did you raise the volume of this one?”
“Wellll, what’re holidays without a little spectacle?”
“Heaven help me, I married a festive fiend.” Reaching inside the cracker, Aziraphale pulled out a paper crown in crinkled black—"of course”—and wrangled it over Crowley’s perfectly mussed hair.
“Do you know,” Aziraphale said, “I knew the chap who invented these things? Back when he was just a sweet maker. Always suspected you had a hand in Tom Smith suddenly coming up with these noisy party doodads[6]—oh!” He’d shaken out the rest of the cracker’s contents, and his palm now held half a dozen sugared almond bonbons. Nestled among them was a little slip of paper that read Merry Christmas, Angel. “Oh, Crowley.” He popped an almond in his mouth, sighing as his eyes closed in pleasure. “They taste just like Tom’s.”
Crowley kissed the top of Aziraphale’s fluffy white head. “I know.”
Aziraphale leaned back into his embrace for a moment, and then extricated himself. “Let me just pop in this last batch—here we go, third time’s the charm—and we can put a holiday film on your lap computer.”
“Laptop, that makes it sound like some sort of mechanical pet. What do you want to watch?”
“You choose,” Aziraphale said, looking back at the oven distractedly as they headed for the sofa.
“Nightmare Before Christmas.”
“That is a Halloween movie!”
“It’s a classic,” Crowley protested. But he grinned and pulled Aziraphale down onto the sofa, resting his paper-crowned head in the angel’s generous lap. “Let me guess, you’re more a fan of It’s a Wonderful Life.”
“Ugh, too American. And guardian angels? Earning wings like some kind of... sport trophy? Ridiculous.” Aziraphale rolled his shoulders where his own wings were tucked away politely on a different plane.
“You literally are a guardian angel, O Principality of the Eastern Gate.”
“Yes, but for all of humanity, not one single businessman who only prays after he’s drowned himself in liquor and self-pity.” He stroked Crowley’s hair absently. “What would you like to watch? That is actually a Christmas film.”
Crowley pursed his lips. “White Christmas. Or erm... Miracle on 34th Street.”
Aziraphale chuckled. “You’re just naming the oldest holiday films you can think of, aren’t you.”[7] He bent down to kiss Crowley’s forehead, and Crowley nuzzled up into the touch. “But I’m sure they don’t make them like they used to. These days it’s all square jaws and struggling coffee shops and coincidences so unlikely they’d really require a miracle. Have you had a hand in any of the really bad ones? Perhaps those small-town romances that hate women’s financial success?”
“Not a bit of it!” Crowley shifted on Aziraphale’s lap. “Did invent the Christmas adverts that make housewives cry, though.[8] Got an award for that big John Lewis one, even before the ad agency got theirs.”
“Those adverts make me cry, too, I’ll have you know,” Aziraphale said accusingly. “It’s downright... emotional predation. All the families trying to buy a moment of peace amidst the bustle, and strangers coming together on frozen ponds to remind each other that joy comes from community—”
“—but also from brand new ice skates.”
“...indeed.” Aziraphale sniffed. “Or that German one, the heart-wrencher where the elderly man’s family is too busy to visit him each year, so he pretends he’s died to finally get them all together for Christmas dinner? Good lord, the story practically takes one’s limbic system hostage! The tragedy of it—underlying it, I mean—this poor old soul who only wants the people he loves near, and it’s clear they care for him dearly too, but everything else gets in the way of them being able to show him that: jobs and responsibilities and the small devastations of daily life, and everything moves far too fast, all the time, but also so achingly slow—” A sob hiccupped out from somewhere deep in his chest. “Oh dear. I seem to have—terribly sorry—"
Crowley sat up as tears began to trickle down Aziraphale’s full cheeks. “Angel, hey, what’s going on? This can’t all be about lonely elders. I saw you drive pensioners out of your shop if they took too long saying hello.”
“Oh, and I really oughtn’t have—what if that was their last ever visit to a bookshop, and I—I was—” Aziraphale scrubbed at his eyes, which only leaked more.
“Angel. Aziraphale,” Crowley said, gently pulling Aziraphale’s hands away from his reddened face and covering them with his own. “Everyone has to visit their last bookshop eventually.”
“But that’s just it,” Aziraphale said miserably. “They all leave, after a precious tiny radar blip of a lifetime here on Earth. And all these traditions humans create, winter solstice and Yule and Christmas, piling one on top of another like so many layers of sediment... they’re shifting faster and faster every century, every decade now. It—it gets out from under one’s feet. Just when you come across something lovely, you blink and it’s gone—and then you blink again and everyone’s forgotten it ever was.” He gestured to the world outside their small living room window. “Everything here changes. And you and I... this still feels so new. So—unprecedented. It’s our first Christmas together, and I’ve lived in London for the last four hundred Christmases, and it's all been wonderful change, of course, but I... I wanted it to be perfect for you. For us. I want this...” He squeezed Crowley’s hand. “I need it to last.”
Crowley reached both arms around Aziraphale and tucked him in close. “Well, obviously I’m not going out of fashion anytime soon.” Aziraphale gave a little huff against Crowley’s shoulder, which was gradually dampening with tears. Crowley held him like that for a while, rocking a little and humming along to the violins playing from the gramophone. Then he swallowed. “I think that’s part of why I’ve hung around you all this time. You know.”
Aziraphale’s brow furrowed. “Because I’m fashionable?”
Crowley snorted in a way that sounded like he’d at least tried to suppress it. “Yes, you’ve mastered the timeless staple of any closet, a Victorian waistcoat.”
Aziraphale elbowed the bony ribs next to him in what could ostensibly have been an accident. “Well, I’m really the only one who’s been here as long as you have.”
“You know that’s not the only reason why. And never lose the waistcoat.” Crowley buried his face in Aziraphale’s halo of hair, breathing it in and sighing it out. “What I meant is, since the beginning, you’ve always been here, but you’ve also always been you. And I’ve been a sort of... barnacle on that. Your constancy. I mean, sure, you do change too, but about as quick as molasses if we went outside right now and dripped it down the cliffs by Mrs. Himmerlund’s. It’s—reassuring.” He pulled Aziraphale in a little tighter. “This is our home, for however long the bricks stay up. But you... well, you’ve always felt like home.”
Aziraphale smiled weakly. “Even though I’ve never heard of Bingham Cosby?”
“Bing Crosby. And yes, even though.” He stroked Aziraphale’s back thoughtfully. “Everything changes. It’s the one constant in the universe, right? You and I, we’re going to keep changing too, and we’ll lose things along the way. And lose even more of these silly and terrible and brilliant humans. One day dear old Mrs. Himmerlund will kick it, and we’ll miss her bringing hot village gossip and inedible scones every Sunday just as much as we miss Tchaikovsky and Guillaume Geefs[9] and master burglar-spy-novelist Jane Austen.” He knit their hands together where they hugged Aziraphale’s side. “But some things won’t change. I have always loved you, Aziraphale, and I will always love you, body and damned soul, like the moon loves the sun.”
Aziraphale sniffed. “This sun will go out one day.”
Crowley pressed thin lips to Aziraphale’s forehead. “And when it does, we’ll find a new sun. Or drift together in the void, just you and me and the starless sky.”
“Oh, you.” Aziraphale’s cheeks had gone charmingly pink. “You old romantic.”
“Always.”
Aziraphale sighed, a long and thorough sigh. “Love. You’ve been so awfully sweet to me all day, and I’ve just been a ninny burning pastries.” His eye drifted back to the kitchen, quiet and currently smoke-free. “Ah, I suppose I should check on the—”
“They’re fine,” Crowley said. “I, er, paused the clock when you started weeping about Christmas adverts.”
“You...” Aziraphale tipped back his head and laughed. “How terribly frivolous of you.”
“For you? Never. And anyway, the holidays are for indulging, aren’t they? Here. Let’s see if we can help those pies out just a titch.” He flicked his fingers in the direction of the kitchen. Instantly, the scent of sweet pastry filled the air, and the tray of mince pies that had been inside the oven found themselves resting on the stovetop, golden-brown and steaming.
“Now, I was going by smell alone,” Crowley said, “but these should be at least something like the ones from that Christmas market. They won’t be your darling Tudor grandmother’s, but—”
“Oh, Crowley.” Aziraphale flung his arms around his husband, holding tight. “They’re perfect. This is all perfect.”
“Merry Christmas, angel.” Crowley hugged him back. Then, after a quick kiss, he shooed Aziraphale up off toward the kitchen. “Now go eat some weird fruity meat pies.”
[1] The human-perceived gaiety was unintentional, but just as enthusiastic.
[2] If he’d really wanted to, he could have—or simply miracled them done. But he was determined to do this the old-fashioned way.
[3] Referring of course to Buddhism and Judaism, not Christmas songs and odes to sexual ecstasy (though this would only be half incorrect).
[4] Occult creatures tend to lie low when the streets are stuffed to overflowing with holiday cheer. The exception is Krampus, who balances out said cheer via threats to small children.
[5] In an attempt to remind English subjects of the holy solemnity of the season, Christmas was officially illegal there from 1644 until 1660. Celebratory feasts were banned, and London soldiers were ordered to patrol the streets and seize any Christmas foods they discovered being prepared. Aziraphale had been quite put out, not to mention quite hungry.
[6] In fact, Tom had been inspired by the warm crackle of a fireplace log, as well as the slightly less romantic supply and demand realities of 19th century capitalist London. Earlier, Mr. Smith had tried inserting love messages into the wrappers of his sweets, similar to fortune cookies; this was both ineffective and very sticky.
[7] He was.
[8] He can also be blamed for SPCA commercials and any guilt trip in video form set to "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)".
[9] 19th-century Belgian sculptor Guillaume Geefs was commissioned by St. Paul’s Cathedral to create a statue of Lucifer after his brother Joseph Geefs’ attempt was deemed too distractingly attractive. In response, Guillaume delivered a Prince of Darkness that was several times more alluring. The church gave up, and Le génie du mal has been distracting historical churchgoers, modern tourists, and innocent online researchers ever since.