Archive of Our Own ^beta

For you there’s rosemary and rue; these keep
Seeming and savour all the winter long.
Grace and remembrance be to you both,
And welcome to our shearing.

— William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale, Act IV, Scene IV

Aziraphale liked snow.

He did. Truly.

He liked watching the soft fall of it, the way it muffled all other sounds until standing in his open doorway felt like standing in a world that waited in hushed silence for a play to begin.

He liked the sparkle of sunlight on a fresh coating, liked the sight of the tiny prints left in it by birds and squirrels and the occasional brave housecat.

He liked to look out the window and see children enjoying themselves, dragging sleds past his window to the top of the hill or carefully rolling snowmen with their mittened hands.

Most of all, he liked an excuse to go nowhere, to sit in front of his fireplace with a blanket over his lap, a book in his left hand, and a cup of cocoa in his right.

So it wasn’t that he didn’t like snow. It was just that he liked it quite a bit less in this new house, especially when it rapidly piled up on the path to his front door and the pavement that ran along his garden.

He liked staying in, it was true. He didn’t like feeling as though he had to stay in for his own safety.

Well, there was nothing to be done for it at the moment. It was still snowing, the neighbourhood children had all gone home, and it was well past dark on a winter evening. He was certainly not going outside to make an attempt at shovelling now.

Aziraphale set his cocoa and his book on his chairside table, then lifted the blanket from his lap and folded it neatly, tucking it on the shelf beneath the drawer where he stowed his reading glasses.

Grunting, he slowly pushed himself to his feet, picked up his mug, and hobbled to the kitchen to rinse it out. Returning to the sitting room, he bent and banked the fire for the night. It wouldn’t keep the house entirely warm without the assistance of the boiler, but it would certainly cut down on his heating bill for the month, and every little bit was helpful.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow he would tackle the onerous task of shovelling his walk. For now, a warm bed and sleep beckoned.

Aziraphale woke slowly, then all at once when he remembered he had a task before him.

Beneath his heavy quilts, he pointed his toes toward the foot of the bed, then flexed his ankles to stretch his calves. He reached down and grasped his pyjama bottoms just above his knee and lifted his right leg up toward his chest.

It burned for a moment before settling into its usual dull ache. Perhaps a dose of paracetamol with his tea was in order. No doubt he’d need something stronger — and a heating pad — after he’d finished shovelling.

With a sigh, Aziraphale rolled over and pushed himself out of bed. He hobbled toward the large window, and pulled aside the light-blocking drapes. Oh, he did hope the snow hadn’t frozen solid in the night.

As his eyes adjusted to the bright white of the day outside, he gasped.

A wide, perfect path led from his small porch to the pavement. A short distance away, his drive was nearly clear as well, the last few metres of snow giving way to the rapid shovelwork of a lean, black-clad figure.

Aziraphale turned from the window and hurried over to his wardrobe, pulling on a thick tartan housecoat and a pair of boots that he could slip on without bending over.

As quickly as he could without injuring himself, he rushed towards the front door. He was nearly too late. The drive was cleared completely and the person who’d done it was sauntering across the road to a snowless path of his own.

“I say—” Aziraphale called. “Thank you. Thank you so much!”

There was no acknowledgement of his gratitude, and without turning back, the black-clad figure disappeared into the house, the door shutting with a thud.

“Well,” Aziraphale huffed at the clear dismissal.

Although perhaps… perhaps his Good Samaritan just hadn’t heard him. Perhaps he was wearing those… PodEars or whatever they were called. Aziraphale had engaged in more than one conversation with a seemingly friendly stranger only to realise the person was using those things and not talking to him at all.

He looked around him at the thick snow in his garden and then at his cleared and salted drive and walk. He turned his gaze once more toward the house over the road. “I suppose this calls for some baking.”

Aziraphale brushed his hands over his apron and stepped back from the oven.

He’d made a soft dough, kneaded it, let it rise, then rolled it out, and brushed it with melted butter. Orange zest, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and brown sugar topped the butter, followed by a heavy sprinkle of currants, sultanas, and dried cranberries.

Carefully, he’d rolled the large rectangle into a log and sliced it into equal pieces. Each piece was set cut-side up in a greased pan, squished in next to its neighbours. The scent of spice and orange and sweet dough had risen through the air, making his mouth water. It would be even better when he took the buns out of the oven.

Aziraphale went to the sink and washed his hands, set his kitchen timer, and put the kettle on for a fresh cup of tea.

He finished both tea and a chapter of his book just a moment before the timer dinged. Bustling into the kitchen, he opened the oven, fragrant steam swirling around his face and fogging his reading glasses. He removed the spectacles and tucked them into his shirt pocket.

Oh, they were perfect! Puffy spirals with golden brown edges greeted him, spiced dark brown sugar bubbling in the seams.

He grabbed a pot holder from the counter, pulled the pan from the oven, and set it carefully on the hob. They’d cool for a bit, then he would glaze them and pack them in a container.

And then he’d make his way across the road and properly thank his very kind neighbour.

He chose a tin large enough to fit the whole dozen — half measures simply wouldn’t do for a proper thank-you — and lined it with parchment. The buns went in warm, their glaze still soft enough to stick a little to the paper, which he decided made them look all the more inviting.

In case his neighbour wasn’t home, a handwritten note completed the package, and Aziraphale whistled to himself as he wrapped a bit of twine around the tin and note. The twine did give it a homey touch.

Not five minutes later, he stood on his own doorstep bundled up in a thick coat, sturdy but light boots, and a pair of hand-knitted mittens in a pale blue.

Cane in one hand and parcel in the other, he carefully stepped off the porch, bracing himself for a slip. But his neighbour had done a thorough job. The walk was clear, despite the once more gently falling snow. He glanced down towards his feet, watching the fat flakes melt as they hit the well-salted pavement.

It took a few minutes, cautious as he forced himself to be, but soon he found himself facing a solid black door with an ornate silver knocker, twin snakes twining around the ring.

Aziraphale transferred the tin from his right hand to his left, balancing it against his hip as he leant on his cane. He raised the knocker and rapped firmly once, then twice for good measure. The sound echoed in the still morning air, dull and heavy against the snow-muted hush.

Nothing.

He waited a moment, peering hopefully at the frosted panes on either side of the door. No footsteps approached. No shadow moved within.

“Hello?” he called, pitching his voice to carry. “I’ve brought something for you.” He paused. “As a thank you… for clearing the snow,” he clarified.

Still nothing.

Aziraphale sighed, his shoulders dropping. “Very well.”

He set the tin carefully down beside the door, tucking it against the frame to keep it out of the wind. The note fluttered slightly in the cold breeze, its corner catching on the twine.

“I do hope you enjoy them,” he added, a touch primly, before turning and making his slow, careful way back across the street.

The curtains in the front room were still drawn tight, and they remained so through the afternoon. Each time Aziraphale passed the window — once with a book in hand, once while warming a third pot of tea — he glanced across the road to see if the tin had been retrieved. It hadn’t.

By evening, he was checking every few minutes. He told himself it was simple curiosity — nothing more — but as night fell and a soft dusting of new snow began to gather around the little parcel, the curiosity curdled into something stubborn.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” he muttered into his cocoa. “He can’t possibly leave them out all night. They’ll be frozen solid by morning.”

And yet, when morning did come and Aziraphale opened his front door to fetch the post, he stopped dead.

There on his own doorstep sat the same tin, tucked neatly beside the mat, the twine tied, the note folded back under it. The note looked rather damp.

He bent and picked up the tin, dismayed to find it weighed exactly as much as it had when he’d delivered it. For a long moment, Aziraphale stared at the tin. Then he retrieved his post, opened his door, and reentered the warm house.

Inside, he sat at the kitchen table, setting the tin in front of him. The note, now that he looked at it, had clearly been unfolded; Aziraphale had folded it lengthwise, then into thirds, tucking one end into the other. It was now rather less neatly done.

He untied the twine, and set the note next to the tin. Removing the lid confirmed his suspicions — the buns remained untouched.

Aziraphale huffed as he unfolded the note. Beneath his own neat handwriting in blue was an untidy scrawl in black, the letters smudged so as to be nearly — but not quite — illegible.

He read the words. Read them again, holding the paper up to his face, as though seeing them more closely might change them. He set the note back on the table.

Well.

Smeared though the ink might have been, the sentiment in black and white was quite unmistakable:

Sorry… glutton — we’re not friends. Eat them yourself. Fuck you. —Crowley

That was that, then, he supposed. Aziraphale looked out the window and across the road. The home of his neighbour — Crowley, apparently — was dark, the curtains still tightly shut, no light visible.

He’d not bother the man again, and he’d clear his own snow from now on if that was the man’s response to a gesture of gratitude.

Although...

He could have sworn it was even colder today than the day before. It was still overcast too, no sun to be seen.

And yet despite the additional snowfall late the previous afternoon and evening, despite the extra inch or two they’d gotten overnight, his walk remained entirely clear, not a speck of snow to be seen on his doorstep, front path, or the drive.

Drat.

“How’re you settling in?”

Aziraphale looked up from his shopping list to find the minister of the local kirk standing a few feet away, just next to the golden syrup. She was fair-haired and friendly, and though he wasn’t quite sure how he felt about religion these days, he’d been happy enough to receive a visitor the day after he’d moved in.

It had certainly helped that she’d brought a still-warm bannock and a jar of homemade marmalade as a housewarming gift. They’d had a pleasant cup of tea at his kitchen table and a meandering chat about parish fêtes and the best fish and chips in town before she’d gone on her way.

“Quite well, thank you,” Aziraphale said now, tucking the list into his pocket and smiling at her. “The house is lovely — though I confess I hadn’t accounted for quite so much snow.”

“It’s been a proper winter this year, hasn’t it?” She said. “You’ll get used to it.”

“I dare say I will.” He hesitated, then shifted his weight from one foot to the other and glanced toward the shop window. “I wonder if I might ask you about someone.”

“Of course,” she said easily, tilting her head.

“My neighbour. Over the road.” He gestured vaguely in that direction. “Tall, usually in black, not terribly friendly. Goes by the name of Crawley or Crowdey? Something like that?”

The minister’s eyebrows lifted. “Ah. Yes. Anthony Crowley.”

“Anthony,” Aziraphale repeated, rolling the unfamiliar given name on his tongue. “I’ve not had the pleasure of a proper introduction. He… well, he cleared my path of snow the other day — unasked — and then returned the batch of buns I baked to thank him with a rather, ah, pointed note.” His mouth tightened. “I’m afraid I may have offended him somehow without realising it.”

The minister gave a soft, sympathetic hum. “That sounds like Crowley, all right. Don’t take it personally. He’s not much for company.”

“No?” Aziraphale asked, curious despite himself.

She shook her head. “He wasn’t always like that. When he was younger, he used to visit his aunt here — same house he’s in now. She was a fixture of the parish. Lovely woman. He’d spend summers up here sometimes, help her in the garden or run errands for her. Everyone knew him, and liked him, even if he did have a bit of a mischievous streak.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, surprised. “So he grew up around here?”

“Not quite. London, I think. That’s where he lived most of his life. But when his aunt passed — must be five, six years ago now — he inherited the house. Moved up not long after. People were glad to see him back. At first, he came to a few gatherings, stopped by the kirk a couple of Sundays. But…” She trailed off with a small shrug. “It didn’t last. These days he keeps to himself. Shops late, if at all. Pays his bills, never causes any bother — but he doesn’t really talk to anyone.”

Aziraphale’s brows knit together. “How very lonely that must be.”

“Maybe,” the minister said gently. “But I suspect he has his reasons for building walls. He might come around at some point — he’s not a bad sort — but give it time.”

He nodded slowly, though a seed of determination was already taking root behind his ribs. “I see. Thank you. I didn’t mean to pry — only, I’d hate to think I’d made a poor impression straightaway.”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” she assured him with a warm smile. “Crowley’s bark is worse than his bite.”

Aziraphale managed a smile in return, though his thoughts had already drifted back to the house across the street. Bark and bite aside, he couldn’t quite shake the image of a man out there before dawn, silently shovelling a neighbour’s walk — and then retreating behind closed doors.

Perhaps, he thought as he thanked the minister and turned toward the till, there were better ways to say thank you than buns and notes. And perhaps, just perhaps, Crowley might accept one of them.

Four days later, it snowed again. Aziraphale woke early, determined to make a start on his shovelling.

He was too late.

His path and pavement were clear. The otherwise untouched snow shimmered beneath pale dawn sunlight.

Aziraphale stood by the window in one boot, cane leaning against the sill. He dropped the curtain and blew out a puff of air.

“Bugger.”

“Can I help you find anything?”

Aziraphale started slightly and turned to see the shopkeeper peering at him from behind a display of woven scarves and herbal soaps. She was a tidy woman in a green cardigan, spectacles perched on the end of her nose, and she wore the long-suffering expression of someone who had already offered assistance twice.

“Oh… yes, I think so,” Aziraphale said. “I’m looking for… ah… some things for the skin. Moisturisers, perhaps. Something gentle but effective for very chapped hands and lips.”

The shopkeeper’s face brightened. “Aye, we’ve plenty of that. Weather like this, we all need a wee bit of pampering.” She gestured him toward a wooden shelf stacked with small glass jars and tins. “Do you have a favourite scent? We’ve rose and lavender, heather and oat, peppermint — even a nice cedarwood and thyme, if you like something earthier.”

“Oh, I… er…” Aziraphale hesitated, glancing over the selection. “It’s not for me, actually.”

“Oh?”

“It’s for my neighbour,” he admitted. “I rather think he’s out shovelling far more than is good for him. His hands must be absolutely ruined, and the wind can’t be kind to his face either. I thought a little balm might be a suitable… well… gesture.”

The shopkeeper’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Would that neighbour happen to be Mr. Crowley?”

Aziraphale blinked. “Yes, actually. How did you know?”

She smiled faintly, studying him. “You’ve the look of the Fell family about you — you’re related to old Mr. Fell, aren’t you? Used to keep that lovely little garden up on Muir Road?”

Aziraphale’s face lit with surprised delight. “He was my uncle, yes.”

“I thought so,” she said with a nod. “I didn’t know him well, but he’d stop in from time to time. Always very particular about his tea and very proud of his roses. He spoke fondly of a nephew who visited in the summers. That must have been you.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale admitted, warmth curling through his chest at the memory. “I haven’t been back in many years, but when the chance came to move here, I thought it might be nice to return.”

“Well, welcome back then,” she said kindly. “And if you’re across from Crowley, that makes you neighbours in more ways than one — your uncle and his aunt were thick as thieves once upon a time.”

“Were they really?” Aziraphale asked, intrigued.

“Oh, aye,” she said. “Though he’s not quite so chatty as she was. Folks round here say he left London in a bit of a hurry a few years back — something didn’t go to plan, I suppose. I’d not put too much stock in the gossip, but he’s kept himself to himself ever since. Doesn’t mean he’s a bad sort, but…” She tilted her head, considering. “Just don’t expect warmth straight away. He’s a bit like a hedgehog — prickly when approached, but not truly dangerous.”

“I see,” Aziraphale said softly, turning his gaze to the shelf. “Well, perhaps something small will show I mean no harm.”

“Then this one will serve you best.” She reached up and took down a small jar. “It’s beeswax and shea butter for a good barrier, a touch of lanolin to help the skin draw in moisture, and calendula and comfrey to soothe cracks. The cedar and thyme aren’t just for scent — they’re antiseptic, so they’ll help heal any scrapes the cold might have caused. I make it myself. The recipe’s been in my family longer than I’ve been alive.”

Aziraphale turned the jar over in his gloved hands, impressed. “It sounds perfect. Practical, but thoughtful.”

“His aunt swore by it,” the shopkeeper added. “So he might remember it. She used to buy a jar every winter without fail. If anything can slip past those prickles of his, it might be something that feels familiar.”

Aziraphale felt a small, hopeful smile bloom on his face. “Then I’ll take it.”

As he stepped back out into the cold with the salve tucked safely into his basket, he felt the faintest spark of optimism. If their families had once shared a friendship, perhaps — just perhaps — it wasn’t too late for their nephews to do the same.

He was wrong.

Crowley was abominable. Forget hedgehog. Crowley was a porcupine, loosing his quills at the least hint of provocation. Worse, not even at provocation. At a genuine gesture of thanks and goodwill.

Aziraphale had carefully wrapped the jar of hand salve, a tiny tin of lip balm, and a tube of peppermint foot cream and placed them in a basket with another note that expressed his gratitude for Crowley’s kindness and suggested that he avail himself of the items therein to look after himself as he’d looked after Aziraphale.

He’d left it on Crowley’s doorstep, this time without knocking, fearing that perhaps it was his presence that Crowley wanted to avoid.

When Aziraphale returned from the grocer’s the next day, the basket sat on his doorstep, contents packed inside — unwrapped but unopened.

The note — his note — lay beneath the jar of salve. The paper was damp, no doubt the result of the small leak in one of the gutters that Aziraphale hadn’t arranged to have repaired yet. There was once again a response to his message, untidy black letters smudged across the paper.

It was, if possible, ruder than the first.

The ink had bled badly this time, great watery streaks dragging the words into near illegibility. Aziraphale squinted, turning the note this way and that in the morning light.

…can’t use… excrement… hands… makes… sleaze… sorry…

“Excrement?” he repeated aloud, scandalised. “And sleaze? Oh, really!”

He read it again, slower, hoping he’d somehow misinterpreted the spidery scrawl. But no — there it was, murky but unmistakeable: can’t use, excrement, sleaze. And that insincere little sorry at the end, as if that excused anything.

Aziraphale’s jaw tightened. “Well. I never.”

It was one thing to return a thoughtful gift unopened. Quite another to scrawl insults about bodily functions and insinuate that his attempts at neighbourliness were sordid or — heaven forbid — sleazy.

Aziraphale’s cheeks flushed hot. “Well. That’s quite enough of that.”

He folded the note with deliberate precision and slid it beneath the untouched basket. “No more thank yous. No more attempts at neighbourly kindness. If Mr. Crowley wishes to be left alone, he shall have his wish.”

And yet, as he set the basket aside and reached for the kettle, his gaze wandered — inevitably — back to the window. Across the road, the curtains remained drawn, the windows dark… and his own walk, once again, perfectly, irritatingly clear.

He would not give up that easily.

Perhaps it made him a fool, but if there was one thing Aziraphale prided himself on, it was his sheer bloody-mindedness. If this Crowley insisted on clearing his snow, Aziraphale would insist on thanking him.

Properly. With some gesture, whether small or grandiose, that the man would accept.

It snowed, his walk was cleared, and he left a tin of tea.

The note, when it was returned, suggested Aziraphale do something indecent to a monkey.

It snowed again, his walk was cleared, and he left a jar of his own homemade hot cocoa mix, spiced with cinnamon.

The returned note implied that Crowley would rather be dead than drink the cocoa.

Over the following weeks, Aziraphale tried a sandalwood vanilla candle, a jar of rather nice bath salts, and a selection of very out of season tropical fruits that he’d had delivered by courier.

The last returned with no note at all, and somehow it made Aziraphale feel worse than the responses to any of his previous attempts.

It did not, however, lessen his determination.

Aziraphale spent the coldest days puttering around the house.

There were small things to fix that his uncle couldn’t manage in his later years, and the company had given him a rather good allowance to make repairs when they’d offered him this post.

The loo had a leaky faucet, a bit of paint was needed in the kitchen, and of course, there was that dripping gutter out front.

So he chose a friendly yellow, had it delivered, and painted the kitchen in fifteen-minute bursts until the standing was too much for his leg.

Then he settled in front of the fire with a cup of tea and a book. The books were always quite engaging, and in years past, he might have found himself suddenly realizing that it was gone midnight and he’d missed tea and his self-mandated bedtime, enthralled as he was by a good story.

These days though, he found his attention drifting after a little while, his eyes nearly always landing on the window and the house beyond.

If the weather wasn’t too bad, he made his way down the hill and over to the shuttered library, working his way through the collection of books, records, and artefacts. He’d have it ready to reopen by spring, just as his uncle had always done.

But inevitably, as he pored over membership rolls from the late eighteenth century, when he paused to puzzle out a name written in blotted ink, he couldn’t help but think of the notes he’d received from his neighbour.

What could make a man so unfriendly that he couldn’t even accept a gesture of goodwill? And why, if he were so unfriendly, would he continue to clear Aziraphale’s walk without fail each time it snowed?

Perhaps Crowley did not want to be held responsible were Aziraphale to slip and fall and be seriously injured. They were, after all, the only two at the top of the hill. There was an expectation in these types of villages that neighbours look after one another.

That must be it. It wasn’t kind. It was self-preservation, born of a desire to be Left Alone.

Still. Aziraphale would never be so rude as to let a favour go unrecognized.

He did worry once or twice that he might be verging on harassment, but the local police constable was the father-in-law of one of the lads he’d saved in the accident that had given Aziraphale his limp.

He rather thought that the law, in this case, might look the other way.

He had a reprieve for two solid weeks. The weather forecasters called it “unseasonably warm” and predicted the region would get its comeuppance with a late dump of snow in April.

But for now, Aziraphale relished the chance to open the windows and let the fresh air in, to walk about in the small village and step into the shops where he was slowly becoming a familiar face.

He bought a paper bag of butteries from the bakery and ate one, still warm, on a bench outside the greengrocer. The pavement shone with meltwater; gutters burbled. The hill down toward the square wore a patchwork of old snow and honest earth for the first time in months. Children ricocheted past with sticks, warring at the last slushy fort beside the postbox.

Aziraphale dabbed a crumb from his lip and told himself that he would not — absolutely would not — scan the high street for a flash of black and a long stride slipping through the thaw.

He looked anyway.

No Crowley. Of course not. The man timed his errands so as not to be seen, a spectre that left only cleared pavements and rude notes behind.

He rose, tossed the empty bag, and let himself be tugged along by the small pleasures of an almost-spring morning. He admired the fishmonger’s chalked sign (HADDOCK TODAY, and a surprisingly elegant sketch of the fish in question), picked out a postcard for his cousin Muriel from the tourist rack and paused to write it on the spot — about the lingering chill, the kindness of neighbours, and how the hills were finally starting to show their green again — before dropping it into the red postbox outside the bakery.

He stood too long at the hardware shop comparing birdseed mixes. Finally he chose the one with dried mealworms — indulgent but effective, the shopkeeper promised — and a small copper feeder. The starlings would make a mess; he didn’t care.

On his way home, he passed the kirk and tipped his hat to the minister, who was coaxing damp bunting from a storage box. She called out that the spring fête would be earlier this year if the ground kept thawing. Aziraphale said something polite about hoping so, and thought — irritatingly — of whether Crowley ever attended fêtes. He imagined the man skulking at the edge of a cake stall, glowering at Victoria sponges.

At the top of the hill, he paused to rest, cane braced, chest lifting and falling in the mild air. His cottage stood bright in the weak sun, windows open to catch a breeze that smelled of wet stone and moss. Across the road, Crowley’s curtains were still drawn. The house absorbed light rather than reflected it; even the silver knocker seemed less a decoration than a warning.

“Ridiculous,” Aziraphale told himself. “It’s a house, not a gargoyle.”

Back inside, he set the kettle on and fixed the feeder with a length of fine chain beneath the eaves of his porch. The finches found it within the hour, tiny commas hopping along the rail. Aziraphale brewed tea and sat in the doorway, not quite outside, not quite in, coat on but unbuttoned, letting the air wander through his rooms. A gentle breeze brought the first soft murmur of village spring: a bicycle bell, the laughter of a child jumping in puddles, a dog scolding the postman as he made his rounds

He had, he decided, been spending too much energy on one man’s bad manners. There were books to catalog at the shuttered library, recipes to try, a leak to fix, a life to resume. Let Mr. Crowley stew in his own vinegar.

He finished his cup and went to fetch another. When he returned to the doorway, a slip of white had appeared on the step, catching on the threshold as if it had been pushed there by a stray gust.

For a moment, his heart performed an undignified little lurch.

It was only an envelope. No name, no seal. The paper was cheap, the corner wet where it had kissed a puddle. Aziraphale glanced up and down the road. No one. Of course not.

He bent carefully, picked it up, and turned it over in his hands. One flap had been tucked but not gummed; inside, a single torn scrap of notebook page waited, folded twice.

His mouth tightened. Another broadside, then. Another complaint about buns or candles or, heaven help him, monkeys.

He unfolded it anyway.

Won’t need the shovel for a bit. Might still freeze at night. Watch the front step. It dips. — C.

Aziraphale stared. He read it twice, then a third time, as if rudeness might bloom between the letters if he gave it long enough.

It didn’t. It was… bare. Practical. The sort of note one left a lodger or an old friend, if one were the sort of man to say everything sideways.

He set the scrap on the hall table and told himself not to be deceived. Mr. Crowley wasn’t nice. He simply didn’t want an ambulance disturbing the peace. Nor would he want to sully that fine vintage automobile in his driveway with a bit of blood, were he to take Aziraphale to hospital himself after a nasty fall.

The next day, Aziraphale walked to the library, the sun a pale coin behind ragged clouds. In the vestibule, he propped the door to air out the old dust and made a start on the record shelves, sorting shellac from vinyl, opera from jazz. As always, the work steadied him. Names, labels, dates. He could feel his uncle at his shoulder, humming approval.

Near closing time — though of course there was no one to close for yet — Aziraphale heard the soft cough of an engine outside. A car door thumped. Footsteps, quick and unhesitating, cut across the gravel. He held very still, one hand resting on the spine of a ledger so cracked it felt like an eggshell.

The footsteps did not approach the library. They paused. A brief rattle — metal against metal, perhaps? — and then the footsteps returned to the car. The engine faded down the lane.

When Aziraphale stepped out to investigate, nothing obvious had changed. The village lay as it had on a hundred identical afternoons: roofs shedding meltwater, the war memorial wearing its crown of lichens. He almost went back inside—

—and then saw it: the library’s old iron gate, which had sagged all winter, now lifted again into its proper latch. A bit of wire, deftly twisted, held the hinge snug where cold had shrunk the metal.

He touched the fix lightly with forefinger and thumb. The wire was workmanlike, not elegant. Useful. Quiet.

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth before he could stop it.

He locked up early and walked home with a foolish, buoyant feeling under his ribs. As he topped the hill, he saw something new: Crowley’s front curtains were open perhaps two inches, a black ribbon of shadow between them. It might have been a trick of the light. It might have been a draught.

He lifted his hand anyway. The gap vanished.

“Very well,” Aziraphale muttered, and went inside.

That evening, rain replaced the thaw. It came straight down, steady as a metronome. He set a bucket beneath the gutter leak with a bit of pipe to divert the water into his garden, brewed a pot of Assam, and forbade himself to think of notes.

Naturally, he thought of notes.

He took a sheet from his writing desk and sat a long time with the pen poised.

No gifts, he told himself. No baskets, no tins. Simply… information.

He wrote:

Thank you for the warning about the step. And the gate. Please don’t feel you must rise at dawn on my account; my schedule is entirely flexible. If there’s a time of day when it’s less inconvenient for you to clear the walk, I will avoid being underfoot. — A.F.

He stared at the lines. They were maddeningly stiff, but they were also safe. No buns. No candles. No room for monkeys.

He folded the note once, tucked it in an envelope, and left it on his own step under a saucer against the rain. If the man could push things under doors like a mischievous brownie, he could collect them the same way.

In the morning, the saucer was wet and the envelope gone. His step did, in fact, dip. He took it carefully.

All day the weather flirted with indecision, muttering rain, breathing out cold. By dusk, the mutter had become a whispering white. Snow again — the fine, persistent kind that meant business.

Aziraphale closed his curtains and lit the fire. He was halfway through his second chapter when a soft thud sounded against the front door. Not a knock. A deposit.

On the mat lay a single index card. No envelope. No signature. Five blocky words, written in pencil:

Don’t go out tomorrow. Ice.

Aziraphale held the card a moment, thumb finding the groove the pencil had pressed. He felt, absurdly, like a boy handed a secret code.

“Abominable man,” he said into the quiet house, and found himself smiling.

He hadn’t meant to open the cupboard that day. He was reaching for a teapot he seldom used when his eyes landed on the heavy wooden box pushed to the back of the shelf. The bottle inside had been a gift from the company upon his release from hospital — a quiet acknowledgment of the ordeal he’d endured and the decades of faithful work behind it.

It was a special bottle. A Highland single malt, twenty-five years old, sealed with wax and nestled in velvet.

He’d still been learning how to manage his bad leg when it had come. At the time, he thought he’d better not add alcohol to the mix.

So he’d shoved it to the back of the cupboard and promised himself he’d open it only when there was cause for celebration: a milestone reached, a new chapter begun, perhaps the reopening of the library, which would be a bit of both. Something earned.

He traced a finger over the lettering on the label. Perhaps this wasn’t that, not quite. But perhaps, too, some milestones weren’t about endings or beginnings, but about trying — and trying again — even when rebuffed. If nothing else, his neighbour had given him that.

That evening, he wrapped the bottle in plain brown paper and tied it with twine. He added a card — brief, polite, and without expectation:

For your hard work all the winter long.
With thanks — A.F.

He placed it on Crowley’s doorstep just as the first snowflakes began to fall, the label facing inward, the cap gleaming faintly under the porch light.

And then he went home and told himself firmly that this would be his last attempt.

For the first time since winter had begun, the gift did not return.

It wasn’t on his step in the morning, nor when he retrieved the afternoon post. There was no note, no insult, no scrawled obscenities hiding under the doormat. When he peeked out of his window that night, Crowley’s house was as dark and shuttered as ever, but something in the silence felt different — less like a wall, more like a held breath.

The next morning, though, there was something waiting on his doorstep.

Not the bottle. It was a rock. An ordinary river stone, gray and speckled, round and worn by the passage of water and time. Beneath the rock was a scrap of notebook paper, folded once and spotted with what looked suspiciously like whisky.

Good scotch. Shame to drink it alone.

Aziraphale read it twice. Then a third time.

His lips twitched. It was hardly effusive — no apology, no thanks — but it was the first thing Crowley had written that hadn’t been a rejection.

And for the first time all winter, Aziraphale found himself glancing toward the house across the road and wondering if, perhaps, the next snowstorm might bring more than just a cleared walk and a smudged note.

Perhaps, this time, it might bring a knock at the door.

Now that he knew the scotch was acceptable, Aziraphale wondered if wine might be as well.

“Do you know,” he asked Colin who ran the general store, “if Mr. Crowley’s ever been in to buy wine?”

”Oh, aye, now and then,” came the reply.

”Do you know what he likes?” Aziraphale asked.

”Red, mostly.”

”Dry as a bone, I imagine,” Aziraphale said with a laugh.

”Sometimes,” Colin said. “But I’ll tell you, there’s only one bottle I’ve seen him buy twice in the time he’s been here, and it was this one.”

He pointed to a bottle with light glass. The label showed a tree, an apple, and a snake.

Aziraphale picked up the bottle. It was a sweet white wine, with notes of apple, pear, and rosemary, according to the description.

”Don’t usually stock it, to be honest,” the man said. “Nobody buys it. Pretty sure I ended up with this one by accident. I was going to ring up Mr. Crowley and offer it to him, only I haven’t had the chance.”

”Never mind that,” Aziraphale said. “I’ll take it.”

“Very good.”

Colin rang up the wine with his other purchases, and Aziraphale hurried home fast as his bad leg would let him. They were due for snow tonight.

It wasn’t icy, not yet, but the flakes were beginning to fall, and he thought he’d rather be warm in front of the fire before the path got slick.

He was just pulling himself up from his crouch when the black door in front of him opened.

Startled, Aziraphale fell backward, landing with a thud on his arse.

“Shite!”

Aziraphale looked up to find a figure towering above him, black-clad and lean and… wringing its hands.

“Shite,” the figure said again. “Bugger. Are you hurt? Fucking of course. I finally get to meet my guardian angel and I scare him so badly he falls and hurts himself.”

Aziraphale stared up at him, then burst out laughing. “Your guardian angel? And no, only a bruised dignity. What do you mean your guardian angel?”

Crowley, for it was Crowley, of course, held out his hand. “Been leaving me little gifts, haven’t you? Sounds pretty angelic to me.”

Long, slim fingers closed around Aziraphale’s hand, and Crowley heaved him up with a firm grip and a surprising amount of strength.

“Surely it’s the other way around,” Aziraphale said as he dusted himself off and straightened his coat. “I daresay I’d have had quite a few more falls this winter if you hadn’t been keeping my walk so impeccably clear.”

Crowley jammed his hands into the pockets of impossibly tight jeans.

“You talk exactly like you write,” he said.

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow. “You talk… differently.”

”Do I?” Crowley asked, but he continued on before Aziraphale had a chance to answer. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

Aziraphale let himself lean all of his weight on his bad leg. It twinged a bit more than usual, though it was hardly excruciating.

”A bit of rest, and maybe an ice pack, and I’ll be right as rain,” he promised. “I should get out of your hair.”

Crowley dropped his eyes to the ground where the bottle of wine still rested in its careful wrapping. “Is this for me?”

Aziraphale felt his cheeks warm. “Oh, well, yes.”

He bent and picked up the package, wincing as he straightened. In his peripheral vision, he saw Crowley wince as well.

”C’mon then,” Crowley said. “Can’t send you back across the road hurting, not when it’s my fault. I’ll get you an ice pack.”

He stepped out of the doorway and gestured inside.

Aziraphale hesitated on the threshold. Warmth breathed from the hall — radiator heat, accompanied by the faintly metallic scent of old pipes — and somewhere a radio murmured as if it were trying not to be caught at it.

“I couldn’t possibly impose,” he began.

There was a movement behind Crowley’s sunglasses — which he wore indoors, in winter — that suggested he was rolling his eyes. He tipped his head toward the dim interior. “You’ve been ‘imposing’ tins and baskets on me for weeks, angel. Let me return the favour with frozen peas and a chair.”

Aziraphale blinked and made to declare that he really ought to be getting home, but Crowley twitched two fingers: Come on. “Footing’s rubbish. Don’t argue your way into a second fall.”

That, more than anything, decided it. Aziraphale allowed himself to be shepherded inside, where Crowley relieved him of the bottle with the care of a man defusing a bomb, then vanished kitchen-ward at a swift, efficient lope.

“Sit,” he called over his shoulder in a tone that brooked no discussion. “Second door on the left. Mind the rug. Hang your coat on the hook.”

Aziraphale shed his coat and left it on a hook by the door, next to a pitch black overcoat in thick wool and a black leather jacket with scarlet piping.

The sitting room was narrow and pleasantly odd, littered with plants whose leaves had ideas about gravity. The rug did try to skate out from under Aziraphale’s boot; he caught himself on a bookshelf with a hand that found, unexpectedly, a well-thumbed paperback of Gaudy Night. He pretended not to notice, instead perching in a wingback chair next to the electric fireplace.

Crowley reappeared with a tea towel-wrapped packet that crackled with frost and a low wooden stool. “Right.” He dropped to a knee, the long lines of him folding like a pocketknife. “Leg?”

“Oh— I can manage,” Aziraphale protested, mortified and a little breathless.

“You can,” Crowley agreed, already settling the cold bundle against Aziraphale’s knee with brisk, competent hands, “but you don’t have to.”

The ache eased by degrees. Aziraphale let out a sigh he hadn’t meant to and set his own hand over the tea towel, pressing it against his leg. “Thank you.”

“Mm.” Crowley stood, peeled the paper from the wine, and regarded the label with a crooked mouth. “Colin’s bad influence spreads.”

“He did say you’d bought it twice,” Aziraphale admitted, then hurried, “I hope I haven’t overstepped.”

Crowley’s mouth twisted further, almost — almost — a smile. “Overstepped would be bringing a bottle of Buckfast.” He tipped the bottle towards Aziraphale. “Have a glass? Don’t usually drink at breakfast, but I’ll make an exception, given that you’ve come all this way.”

“At… breakfast?” Aziraphale said. He drew his grandfather’s watch from the pocket of his waistcoat. It was just after seven o’clock in the evening.

Crowley laughed. “Breakfast. The company I work for moved to Sydney a few years ago. I didn’t. But I still have to attend meetings with the lot of them, and they don’t like to meet in the middle of their night. Some rubbish about disturbing their partners and children. I’ve got neither, so of course I get to be the one who keeps odd hours.”

Aziraphale frowned and sat forward, his ears flaming hot. “My dear fellow, do you mean to tell me I’ve been knocking on your door when you’re trying to sleep? I am terribly, terribly sorry.”

“Relax,” Crowley said, pulling off his sunglasses and hooking them into the neck of his sleek black jumper. His eyes were tawny, just a shade darker than honey. “I’ve got a white noise machine and an extremely soundproofed bedroom. You’d have to beat down the door before it disturbed me.”

Aziraphale relaxed minutely. “Still, I’m sorry.

“Don’t be.” Crowley hitched a hip on the arm of the opposite chair and spun the bottle’s foil like a coin. “Anyway, night, morning — relative concepts. That’s half the fun.”

He smoothed his thumb over the rim of the corked bottle, then hesitated. His gaze flicked to the mantel, where a familiar bottle sat like a shy guest. He cleared his throat.

“Tell you what,” he said. “Wine’s grand. But that scotch? That was a gift. And a bottle like that’s meant for sharing.”

Aziraphale’s fingers tightened, briefly, on the tea towel. “Is it?”

“It is.” Crowley reached for the bottle and lifted the neck with its broken wax seal. He held it up with something close to reverence.

“Wine is one thing,” Aziraphale said. “After all, mimosas exist for a reason. But don’t get drunk at breakfast on my account.”

Crowley turned a crooked grin toward him, amber eyes flashing in the light of the electric flames. “Don’t panic. I know how to make good things last.”

He fetched two squat tumblers — clouded with age but clean — and a small jug of water. He poured sparingly, the liquid the colour of honey, then offered a glass to Aziraphale. He took it, the tips of their fingers brushing in the exchange.

“To not falling on your arse again,” Crowley said, almost smiling.

Aziraphale huffed. “Hear, hear.”

They sipped. Heat uncurled through his winter-sore bones; the room seemed to lean closer around them. Aziraphale shut his eyes a moment, let the peat and orchard and old wood write their names along his tongue.

“Goodness,” he breathed. “That’s… rather special.”

“Mm.” Crowley swirled his own, watching the legs creep. “Better not drunk alone.”

Silence settled between them, warm and companionable.

Aziraphale turned his glass in his hands and watched the firelight catch on the cut crystal. If he didn’t say it now, he never would. And then he’d go home and picture Crowley carefully penning those atrocities and feel wretched all over again, unable to reconcile the man he’d just met with the one who had written those abominable words in messy black ink.

“Crowley,” he said gently. “About the notes.”

Crowley’s eyebrows climbed. “The notes?”

“The notes,” Aziraphale said. “That you sent back with my… ah… rejected offerings. Before I landed on alcohol as an acceptable gesture of goodwill.”

“Well, what about them?” Crowley asked. “Thought they were pretty clear.”

Aziraphale looked at the fire and hoped the warmth from it, plus the whisky, would adequately explain the flush he could feel in his cheeks.

“As did I,” he said slowly. “And yet… well, you’ve been incredibly polite this evening. At the risk of sounding ungrateful and being shoved unceremoniously out the door, your notes were rather… hmm... brusque.”

“Can only write so much on a small piece of paper,” Crowley said. “Hardly going to write a novel, was I?”

“Fair enough,” Aziraphale conceded. “Still. Short need not mean rude. Unless they were some example of, ah… youthful parlance. The lingo du jour, so to speak.”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley said, sounding out the name as though he’d read it (which, of course, he had) and perhaps had even asked someone how it was pronounced (this, too, seemed like a distinct possibility). “What on earth are you talking about?”

Aziraphale set his glass down and folded his hands, bracing himself. “I mean the buns,” he said. “Your reply read as: ‘Sorry… glutton — we’re not friends. Eat them yourself.’ And an extremely rude postscript.”

Crowley went very still. “What?”

Aziraphale watched him carefully. The man was, after all, mostly an unknown quantity. “Yes, quite.”

Suddenly, Crowley’s furrowed brows lifted, and he laughed.

“Gluten!” he exclaimed. He raised the hand that wasn’t holding his scotch, curling his fingers in the air. “‘Sorry… gluten — we’re not friends.’ Aziraphale, I can’t eat gluten. I’m coeliac. Thought you’d better enjoy them yourself. They did look delicious. Smelled damn good too, but I’d have been ill for days. And then I think I said, ‘Thank you. Crowley.’”

“Ah,” Aziraphale said, tension draining out of him like melting snow. “It read, well, rather differently.”

“Bloody handwriting.” Crowley slumped back. “Right. What else did I apparently do to you in six words or fewer?”

“The salve,” Aziraphale said, heat creeping into his cheeks. “I made out ‘can’t use… excrement… hands… makes… sleaze… sorry.’”

Crowley made a sound like a throttled kettle. “Eczema. I’ve got terrible eczema, especially on my hands. Can only use a few specific creams.” He held up one hand — winter-raw, his knuckles a map of fine cracks. “And peppermint makes me sneeze. I should’ve used block letters. Fuck, I’m so sorry.”

Aziraphale pressed his lips together to keep from laughing outright. It didn’t quite work. “You must admit, it was a… striking impression.”

“Death by stationery,” Crowley muttered, then lifted his glass in apology. “Right. What else?”

“The tea,” Aziraphale said. “I thought you were recommending I do something rather obscene with a monkey.”

“Oh, now that was a recommendation. For a tea I thought you might like.” Crowley stood abruptly and disappeared into the kitchen, reemerging a moment later with a tin of tea. Next to the Chinese writing on the label was a monkey on a branch, and the words in English below, a flowing script that read: Premium Monkey Pick.

“Not much for oolong myself,” Crowley said. “That’s why I gave yours back. Should have just sent this one over, but it seemed rude to send you an open tin.”

“Less rude,” Aziraphale said, “than what I thought you wrote about monkeys.”

Crowley looked equal parts mortified and gleeful, and Aziraphale could freely admit that the whole cock-up seemed to be just that — an unfortunate combination of bad handwriting and smeared ink.

“The cocoa?” he asked nonetheless.

“‘M deathly allergic to cinnamon,” Crowley said.

“Ah. The candle?”

“Migraines.”

“I suppose the bath salts would give you migraines and make you break out,” Aziraphale mused. “The tropical fruit?”

“Knew I was going to be out of town for a few days and didn’t want it to go moldy. Also, I’m allergic to pineapple. Though I don’t think I left a note with that one.”

“You didn’t,” Aziraphale said. “Honestly, I think I was more offended by the lack of note than any of the previous missives.”

“What was it Shaw said about indifference?” Crowley said. “That it’s the worst sin?”

Aziraphale chuckled. “Just so.”

“So what with casting aspersions on your character, offering a litany of insults, and saying god knows what about monkeys,” Crowley said, “it seems I’ve made a hell of an impression in the past few months.”

“Only on paper,” Aziraphale said. “In action — and in person — you’ve been nothing but lovely.”

Crowley ducked his head, the tips of his ears nearly as crimson as his hair.

Silence descended, broken only by the crackling of the fire.

“Well,” Aziraphale said at last. “I ought to let you get on with your… day, I suppose.”

Crowley rose when Aziraphale did, taking the empty glasses to the sink and returning his coat from the hook by the door.

“Let me walk you back,” he said.

“Oh, there’s no need,” Aziraphale began automatically, already tugging on his gloves. “It’s only across the road.”

Crowley tilted his head, half amused, half exasperated. “Yeah, and it’s snowing sideways again, and you’ve got one bad leg and a knack for underestimating physics. I’ll sleep better knowing you made it to your door upright.”

Aziraphale wanted to protest, but the tone — brisk, unarguable, and oddly kind — stopped him. “If you insist.”

“I do.”

They stepped out into the still-falling snow. It hissed softly on the road, the kind of snow that turned streetlights into halos and muffled everything but the crunch of their boots. Crowley matched his stride to Aziraphale’s shorter steps without being asked. His hand hovered near, never quite touching, but close enough that Aziraphale could feel the warmth of it through the cold.

It was only a few dozen paces from one door to the other, but the walk felt curiously suspended — as though the village, the snow, the whole dark world had paused to see what might happen between them next.

At his doorstep, Aziraphale stopped and turned. “Well. Here we are. Thank you for the escort.”

“Hardly an ordeal,” Crowley said, his breath clouding the air between them. “Next time I’ll bring a torch and a red carpet.”

Aziraphale smiled despite himself. “Next time, perhaps I’ll manage not to fall over entirely.”

“Ambitious goals. I like it.” Crowley’s grin was crooked, quick, and entirely devastating.

Aziraphale hesitated, searching for something sensible to say, and found instead the warm press of gratitude swelling in his chest. “You’ve been — well, not quite what I expected.”

“Rude bastard with a shovel?”

“That was one possibility,” Aziraphale admitted, laughing. “But you’ve been rather… splendid, actually.”

Crowley ducked his head as if the compliment had caught him off guard. “Don’t spread it around. I’ve got a reputation for being difficult.”

“I’ll keep your secret,” Aziraphale said softly.

“Right,” Crowley said. “You should have my number, in case there’s… I don’t know, another fall or something. Or if you need your walk cleared and I’m asleep. Easier than leaving notes in the snow.”

Aziraphale’s mouth quirked. “Ah. I don’t have a mobile.”

Crowley blinked. “You— what?”

“Don’t own one,” Aziraphale said serenely. “Too loud. Too needy. They want things from you all the time.”

Crowley stared at him, somewhere between disbelief and admiration. “You realise that makes you practically a mythical creature.”

“I prefer to think of myself as peaceably disconnected,” Aziraphale replied. “I do have a perfectly serviceable landline.”

“Christ.” Crowley laughed under his breath and pulled a stub of pencil and a scrap of paper from his pocket. “Course you do. Tell you what. I’m writing down my number anyway. You can ignore it if you like. But if anything happens — if you fall, or the boiler gives up, or you fancy a glass of that scotch again — ring me.”

“I shall consider it,” Aziraphale said as he accepted the offered paper, and meant it more than he expected.

“Good.” Crowley’s gaze lingered, a long glance that felt almost like a question neither of them knew how to ask. Then he pulled his coat tighter and stepped back toward the road. “Get inside before you freeze.”

“I will.” Aziraphale opened his door, half-turned to look at him again. “Good night, Crowley.”

“Good night, angel.”

Crowley crossed the road, his boots crunching over the snow. At his own doorstep he paused, looked back once — just once — and lifted a hand in a brief, uncertain salute before vanishing inside.

Aziraphale stood a moment longer, the cold brushing his cheeks and the faintest smile ghosting his lips. Something had shifted tonight, some small thaw in the long, frozen quiet between their two houses.

He stepped inside, hung his coat, and went to draw the curtains. Across the road, a light came on in Crowley’s front room. It glowed a bright gold through the falling snow.

Aziraphale hesitated, then lifted his own hand toward the window in a small, invisible return of that earlier gesture — foolish, sentimental, impossible to resist.

And for the first time since moving north, the night didn’t feel quite so cold.

Morning found Aziraphale treating the scrap of paper as if it might skitter away if he breathed too hard. The pencil had bitten into the fibres of the paper; the numbers were a little slanted, the seven crossed, the tail of the two hooked like a fishing lure. He could feel each digit with his thumb if he closed his eyes and traced them lightly. The paper smelled faintly, he thought, of peat smoke and engine oil.

He set his spectacles on the bridge of his nose and carefully copied the number into his small, battered address book, checking twice that he’d written it correctly. He made tea, told himself he would not ring at once (one did not go galloping across a freshly offered bridge), and instead wrote a short note with his landline:

Crowley— Thank you for your number. Mine below. May I call after sunset? A.F. 01659 21103

Outside, the world had decided on a pale, parsimonious sun. Snowmelt dripped from the eaves; the hill wore a frost-lace hem. Aziraphale set the envelope on his step and weighed it with the same round river stone Crowley had used the other morning. By eight o’clock, the stone sat alone.

He found himself glancing at the clock more than he liked. He tried cataloguing the stack of pamphlets from 1889 that he’d brought home. He managed half of the stack before he found himself staring out the window at the house across the road. He burned the cheese toastie he planned to eat for lunch. He put a small pan of potatoes on around three to simmer for his tea that evening and forgot them just long enough to prove he was distracted. He told the kettle, out loud, not to read anything into this.

At half past four an index card skated under the front door and came to rest against his boot. Aziraphale bent, heart doing a very silly thing, and picked it up.

Got your note. Will ring after sunset. —C
P.S. You need a new sweep for your door.

He spent the rest of the afternoon paging through a cookbook — at least until he realised he wasn’t entirely certain what exactly Crowley could eat.

Dusk gathered in the windows; the feeder went still as the village tucked itself in. Aziraphale lit two lamps and left the sitting-room door ajar so he could hear the telephone in the kitchen. He sat, stood, sat again, rearranged a cushion, and told himself he was a man in his own house who was not waiting.

He had just gotten up for another cup of tea when the phone rang once and startled him so badly he nearly dropped his cup. It rang again, more politely.

Aziraphale snatched the receiver. “Yes — hello?”

A beat, and then Crowley’s voice, softened by distance and coiled round the line like smoke. “Aziraphale?”

The word went through him like a roaring fire after a day in the cold. “Crowley,” he said, heard how pleased he sounded and could do nothing whatsoever about it.

“Didn’t wake you, did I?” Crowley asked.

“Not at all.” Aziraphale leant his shoulder to the wall and let the sound of Crowley’s voice pool in the small hall as he talked about the weather and the blizzard he thought they were due for at the end of the week.

“Crowley,” he cut in when the other man trailed off. “May I ask you a practical question?”

Silence. And then, “That sounds dangerous.”

“It could be, should you prefer not to answer.” Aziraphale cleared his throat. “If I am to avoid… further misunderstandings, could you tell me, plainly, what you’re allergic to? And what you can’t eat because of your coeliac disease. I would rather not poison you by accident.”

There was a rustle at the other end; he pictured sunglasses being pushed up into hair that didn’t need taming. “Right. The short version: coeliac, so no gluten — wheat, rye, barley. Oats only if they’re certified and even then… best not. Cinnamon is a proper allergy — throat goes tight, very exciting, do not test. Peppermint’s not an allergy, but it does make me sneeze like a bloody possessed accordion. Pineapple and mango give me mouth blisters. Strong scented stuff gives me migraines — candles, bath things, any of that sort. And my eczema’s fussy: only a couple of boring creams from the chemist. That cover it?”

Aziraphale had found a pencil without quite remembering getting it. He’d written, in a neat column, GLUTEN (no wheat/rye/barley, avoid oats), CINNAMON (NO), PEPPERMINT (avoid), PINEAPPLE AND MANGO (no), STRONG SCENTS (no), ECZEMA (specific creams only). He underlined cinnamon twice. “That covers it admirably. Thank you.”

“You’re… making a list.”

“Of course.”

There was a quiet laugh, startled and pleased. “You’re something else.”

“So I’m told.” He smiled into the receiver, then, unable to help himself: “And… if I wished to make you something you could actually eat, what do you like?”

Another rustle, then a soft voice. “Almonds. Citrus. Dark chocolate. Anything that doesn’t come with a lecture from my immune system.”

“Understood,” Aziraphale said. He let the warmth in his chest show a little. “Crowley… thank you for walking me home.”

“Hardly a hardship,” Crowley said, voice going a shade lower. “Your step looked less murderous today. I salted it at stupid o’clock.”

“Of course you did.” He hesitated, then added, very carefully, “If you’re passing by later, there may be… an experiment cooling on a rack.”

“Passing by is practically my hobby,” Crowley said. “Ring me if the boiler gives out or you slip, all right?”

“I shall.”

“Good. Oh. Bright lights disagree with me. Sensitive eyes. Since you’re making a list.”

Aziraphale chuckled. “I shall endeavour not to shine a torch in your face.”

“That’d be appreciated. Anyway, that’s why the sunglasses. Not trying to be… cool or anything.”

Aziraphale hummed doubtfully and smirked when he heard Crowley spluttering indignantly down the line.

“I’ll have you know,” Crowley growled, though Aziraphale could hear the laughter beneath it, “I’m effortlessly cool, with or without my sunglasses.”

““I’m sure you are, my dear,” Aziraphale murmured.

“What?”

“Nothing at all. Good night, Crowley.”

“Good night, angel.”

The line clicked. Aziraphale stood a moment, the pencil still in his hand, then set the kettle on and pulled down the tin of ground almonds.

By the time the first small, persistent flakes began to ghost past the window, a tray of almond–orange macaroons — crisp at the edge, tender within — cooled on his rack. He melted a thread of dark chocolate and flicked it over them in shy stripes. Six went into a tin. He left the tin by the door beneath the river stone with a card:

For passing travellers. Gluten-free; cinnamon-free; peppermint-free; pineapple- and mango-free. —A.

He had just settled in the sitting room, lights low, curtains open to the soft white world, when the floorboard by the door gave a barely-there creak. A draught, he told himself, even as his heart climbed into his throat.

He waited five minutes like a child pretending not to listen for Father Christmas, then rose, entirely without hurry, and opened the door.

The stone had been set carefully back in place; the tin was gone. In its stead sat a single index card, the words in clear pencil:

Did not poison me. In fact — dangerously good. You’re trouble. — C.

Aziraphale pressed the card flat with his palm to stop his hand from shaking. Across the road, a rectangle of warm amber appeared. The curtains were open, in at least one window

He took the card to the kitchen and set it beside his list. Under STRONG SCENTS he wrote, in very small letters: likes almond, citrus, dark chocolate. Then, after a moment’s thought, he added: likes me, a little.

It was absurd. It was premature. It warmed him more efficiently than any fire.

The blizzard arrived on schedule.

Aziraphale was grateful for Crowley’s warning. The papers had made no mention of it, predicting a thaw. But Aziraphale saw no reason not to take the safe route, stocking his pantry, ordering an extra load of firewood, and topping up the heating oil.

By noon on Friday, the world outside his window was solid white, the visibility nil.

Well, there was nothing for it. He’d simply have to wait it out. Perhaps this was the moment to start the novel he’d been saving. He was halfway through the third chapter when there was a heavy thud against the door.

Hastily dropping his book on the table, he rose from his chair, lap blanket falling to the floor. Surely Crowley hadn’t come out in this mess. He hurried to the door and tugged it open.

A heap of snow tumbled over the threshold, followed by a heap of man.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale cried. “Oh heavens!”

The heap of man lurched, sputtered, and resolved itself into Crowley, snow sheeted across his shoulders and hood like icing. He had no business looking elegant in a blizzard, but there he was, long limbs and stubborn jaw and sunglasses rimmed with frost.

“Bloody—” He shoved the door shut with his heel before another drift could shoulder its way in. “Your step’s turned traitor again.”

Aziraphale caught him by the forearm, steadying. Crowley’s coat was shockingly cold, the kind of cold that bit through wool to bone. “You’re frozen,” Aziraphale said, appalled. “Come in, come in — boots off there — good heavens, your hair is wet through.”

“Heat’s gone,” Crowley said, breath sawing as he bent to kick out of his boots. “Electric too. Woke up in Siberia. Tried to call — mobile wouldn’t connect, no bars. Figured if mine’s out, yours might be, and you—” His glance snagged on Aziraphale’s cane leaning against the wall; he didn’t finish the sentence.

Aziraphale blinked at him, then gestured broadly at the lit lamps, the steady orange of the fire, the comfortable hum of radiators. “Power’s quite all right here,” he said, gently. “And the landline works. Come to the sitting room. We’ll thaw you out.”

He shepherded Crowley down the hall. In the hearth, the banked coals flared obligingly with the draught from the open door. Flames licked up the small pyramid of wood he’d laid earlier, and the room brightened. Aziraphale turned off his reading lamp, and the room dimmed again. Crowley pushed his hood back with stiff fingers, then stripped off his sunglasses and blinked in the low light.

“Sit,” Aziraphale said, fetching a towel from the airing cupboard and pressing it into Crowley’s hands. “You’re dripping on my rug.”

“Sorry,” Crowley muttered, but obeyed, peeling out of his coat with awkward, ice-numb motions. Aziraphale leant in to help, tugging one sleeve free, then the other. The knit of Crowley’s jumper clung darkly where snow had soaked it.

“Right,” Aziraphale decided. “Hot drink. Tea, coffee, or a toddy without the cinnamon — lemon, honey, thoroughly medicinal.”

“The last one,” Crowley said, eyes on the fire as if he could bully it into producing more heat. “And — since your phone’s alive — maybe ring the lot who fix things?”

“Of course.” Aziraphale’s smile tilted. “Drink first, engineers second.”

He moved briskly through the familiar ritual: pot of whisky warming on the hub, mugs set on the counter, lemon sliced into moons. When he returned, Crowley had edged so near the hearth that one socked foot steamed faintly. He held his palms out, the winter cracks on his knuckles catching the firelight like tiny threads of glass.

Aziraphale poured and stirred, then pressed a mug into Crowley’s hands and wrapped his own around the twin. The fragrance of lemon and honey rose in a small, bright cloud. Crowley’s shoulders dropped on the first sip.

“Hell,” he said, soft with relief. “That’s indecently good.”

Aziraphale smiled.

They drank in companionable silence for a minute — the snow-hush of the outside world broken by the quiet tick of the wall clock, the crackle and hiss of the fire.

“Thank you for coming,” Aziraphale said at last. It felt important to put the words into the room, to let them hang there and warm it further.

“Couldn’t not,” Crowley said, almost apologetic. “House went black, mobile dead, thought of you. Didn’t like the picture in my head.”

Aziraphale’s chest did that inconvenient, wonderful thing where it tried to be two sizes larger than designed. “You might have frozen,” he fussed, because fussing was safer than everything else humming under his skin.

“I had a torch. And a flare,” Crowley said, flashing a quick grin. “And approximately eight thousand regrets about my life choices, halfway through the last drift.”

“You’ll stay,” Aziraphale said, before he could talk himself out of it. “Until they sort you out. I’ve blankets, and the sofa does a convincing impression of a bed. We’ll make a picnic of it.”

Crowley’s eyes flicked up — quick, bright, startled. “You sure?”

“Perfectly.” Aziraphale nodded toward the kitchen. “Telephone’s on the wall.”

They rang the emergency line; a harried voice assured them engineers were on their way and that mobiles were patchy along the ridge. Aziraphale set out the approved macaroons — “gluten-free, cinnamon-free,” he said primly — and cracked a jar of olives, sliced a block of aged cheddar, and pulled a packet of rice crackers from the pantry, because a storm picnic wanted something salty. Crowley ate with fierce concentration, then remembered to look guilty.

“I can run back for—”

“You’re not leaving this house until you can see your front door,” Aziraphale said, more tartly than he’d intended. “There’s plenty here. If I get bored, I’ll experiment with soup.”

“My favourite non-threatening word,” Crowley said. “Experiment.”

“Mm.” Aziraphale glanced toward the hall. “There’s a hot-water bottle, should you want one later. And a spare blanket in the airing cupboard.”

“Now you’re speaking my language.” Crowley’s eyes softened. “You warm enough?”

“Quite,” Aziraphale said, and found it wonderfully true.

Snow flung itself at the windows. In the house, the fire settled into a steady burn, the lamps cast circles of honey on the rug, and two men sat side by side in the glow.

“When this clears,” Crowley said after a moment, casual as a tightrope, “you could — if you like — show me that library of yours.”

Aziraphale could not help the smile that climbed up from somewhere unguarded. “I would like that very much.”

“And I could fix that gutter for real,” Crowley added, as if he were trying to make it sound like a trade rather than an offer. “Not just a bucket and a prayer.”

“I’ll even provide biscuits,” Aziraphale said. “The non-lethal kind.”

Crowley’s grin went crooked and devastating. He stretched one long arm along the back of the sofa, closing the space between them until it felt like a choice rather than an accident.

They sat shoulder to shoulder — close enough that the warmth between them made its own small refuge — listening to the storm whisper against the glass. Outside was all wind and drift and the muffled hush of a world remade in white. Inside was firelight, lemon, honey, and the unremarkable miracle of not being alone.

“Angel.”

A hand shook Aziraphale’s shoulder.

“Hmm?” Aziraphale muttered, burrowing his face deeper into the cushion he had at some point promoted to pillow. The fire had dozed to an ember glow; the lamps were off. Outside, the storm surged on, fat flakes collecting in a thick drift around the window sills.

“You’ll wreck your back, love,” Crowley said softly. “Go to bed.”

“You just want the sofa for yourself,” Aziraphale grumbled, struggling to keep his eyes open. He snuffled against the brocade.

Crowley chuckled. “You’ve caught me out. Got to put my long legs somewhere.”

“Can think of a few places you could put your legs,” Aziraphale mumbled.

“Oh, can you?” Crowley said.

At the rise in his voice, Aziraphale’s eyes opened fully. Crowley was smirking, and the full weight of his own words hit him like a thrown anvil, heat climbing his cheeks.

“I— that is— I meant—” he stammered, attempting a retreat that only bogged him deeper.

Crowley’s smirk softened into something ridiculously fond. “Steady on. I’ll file the remark for later and behave myself now.”

“Please do,” Aziraphale said, his ears hot, and not from the fire.

“Come on.” Crowley slid a hand under Aziraphale’s elbow. “Bed. Before that cushion finishes the job on your spine.”

Aziraphale let himself be levered upright, the world tilting pleasantly as he came face to face with Crowley’s throat. His breath smelled of whisky and lemon, and his Adam’s apple bobbed.

Clearing his throat, Aziraphale took a step to the side — the wrong side, his leg reminded him — and stumbled.

Long fingers curled around his bicep. “Careful there.”

“Sorry,” Azirphale grunted. “Leg’s a bit wobbly.”

The fingers left his arm and sneaked around his waist instead. “Hurt?”

Aziraphale shook his head. “Not really, just… weak.”

They made the short trek to the bedroom, Crowley’s arm never leaving its post around Aziraphale’s back.

“Need me to get you anything?” Crowley asked when he’d settled Aziraphale into a seat on the edge of the mattress. “Pyjamas? That hot water bottle you mentioned?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking that question?” Aziraphale said. “After all, you’re my guest.”

“Uninvited,” Crowley scoffed.

“Perhaps,” Aziraphale said. “But uninvited doesn’t mean unwanted.”

Aziraphale looked up at Crowley. In the light from the hall, his hair was a dark copper halo, his sunglasses forgotten on the sitting-room table, his eyes doing that molten-amber trick that made thinking difficult.

“You’re very kind, you know,” Aziraphale said softly.

“Debatable.” Crowley cleared his throat. “Hopefully our luck will turn by morning and the snow will slow down. I’ll keep an eye out. Mind if I borrow one of your books?”

“Of course not,” Aziraphale said. “Feel free to read whatever you like.”

“Thanks. I should probably stay up for a bit yet. Try not to throw off my sleep schedule too terribly.”

“Crowley?” Aziraphale asked, before sense could catch up.

“Mm?”

“I did mean it. About your legs.” His voice tried for teasing and landed somewhere far too honest. “You have… rather good ones.”

Crowley’s laugh was low and startled and helpless. “Christ, angel.”

“I’m going to be mortified in the morning,” Aziraphale said, settling back against the pillows.

“I’ll remind you gently,” Crowley promised. He reached out — hesitated — then brushed two fingers, light as a benediction, over Aziraphale’s forearm. “Sleep.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes. “Good night, Crowley.”

“Good night,” Crowley said, voice gone warm at the edges. At the door he paused. “For the record… I can think of a few places to put my legs too.”

“Incorrigible,” Aziraphale muttered as Crowley shut the door. He closed his eyes. Then opened them again. Angel might be a tease, a nod to their rather unconventional beginning. But love.

Well.

There was a man on his sofa. That was a novelty.

Crowley’s face was slack in sleep, his features soft and boyish. Aziraphale stood watching him for a long moment. The blanket had slid to Crowley’s hips; one knee stuck out at an angle. One hand was wedged between his side and the back of the sofa, the other rested knuckles down on the floor.

Aziraphale crossed the rug and, as gently as he’d tuck the corner of a page back into place, lifted the blanket and settled it over those entirely too-long legs.

The fire had died back. Aziraphale bent carefully and set a fresh log on the stack, blowing on the embers to bring the flames back to life.

He spared another glance for Crowley, then made his way to the kitchen.

Eggs, he decided, were safe. A few tomatoes blistered under the grill, a handful of spinach wilted in the pan, a crumble of feta — the omelettes would be simple, warm, and ought not to upset any of his guest’s sensitivities. He set a rack in the oven and warmed two plates because he was a man with standards even in a blizzard.

By the time he’d made tea — no monkeys involved — and arranged the eggs in tidy folds, the sky beyond the curtains had gone the colour of cold milk. The radiators clinked with self-satisfaction. Somewhere in the village a snowplough harrumphed like a waking dragon.

There was a thump from the next room, then a curse. Aziraphale hurriedly set the warm plates on the table.

“Crowley?” he called as he rushed through the doorway.

Crowley looked up at him from the floor, rubbing his eyes.

“Are you quite all right?” Aziraphale asked.

“Rolled off,” Crowley said.

“I see that.”

Crowley yawned expansively, and Aziraphale pressed his lips together against a smile. “Breakfast is on, if you’re hungry. I made omelettes.” He paused. “Or should you sleep more, to keep your schedule?”

Rolling his shoulders, Crowley slung his arms around his knees. “Nah, don’t want to get too far off, but ‘m on annual leave. Thought it might be wise when I saw how bad the storm was going to be.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth, but Crowley hurried on. “But I’ll get out of your hair, don’t worry.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Aziraphale rebuked him. “Come and eat, then we’ll find out when they expect to have the power back on. You’ll stay until they do.”

“Will I?” Crowley arched an eyebrow.

“If you think I’m letting you go back to that icebox of a house, you’re badly mistaken,” Aziraphale said. “Don’t make me beat you about the head with my cane.”

Crowley laughed. “Let’s go back to the part where you bribe me with eggs rather than threatening me with grievous bodily harm.”

Aziraphale held out his hand and asked, quietly, “Will you stay?”

“If you’ll have me,” Crowley said, just as quietly. He clasped Aziraphale’s hand and let himself be hauled to his feet.

Aziraphale looked him up and down. When his eyes reached Crowley’s face, he found pink cheeks and glittering amber eyes. “Oh, I daresay I will.”

Aziraphale pulled off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. A slip of paper floated onto his desk.

He laughed and leaned back, tipping his head until he could see Crowley looming behind him. “Yes, darling?”

Crowley nodded down at the note, and Aziraphale picked it up. Crowley had traded his pencil for the black ink of old.

Like those first notes last winter, this one was smudged and nearly illegible.

Aziraphale read it. Then read it again.

He reached up to clasp Crowley’s hand. “Does this say what I think it does?”

“What do you think it says?” Crowley asked. Aziraphale could hear the laughter in his voice.

He tucked his bottom lip beneath his teeth and read the note again.

“It looks like, ‘If you behave, you might get to enjoy several inches tonight,’” Aziraphale said. “But I can’t imagine that’s right. The forecast said nothing about snow this week. Hmm, let’s see.”

He held the note closer to his eyes, peering down through his spectacles as he turned the paper this way and that.

“If you believe, you might get to enjoy scones and jam tonight?” he offered at last. “Oh Crowley, did you finally find your aunt’s gluten-free recipe? Is that it?”

“Is that your guess?” Crowley asked.

Aziraphale nodded.

Crowley laughed and bent low, cool fingers sliding along Aziraphale’s cheek as he pulled him into a series of kisses. The first was light and teasing, lips brushing lips, barely a peck. Then another, this one a firm, closed-mouth press. And then with parted lips, shared breath, the touch of tongue to tongue. The last left Aziraphale panting, his face flushed, his chest heaving.

Crowley’s hair was mussed, his eyes glinting like sunlight through whisky. He ran his tongue left to right over kiss-swollen lips.

“You were right the first time, angel,” he said, winking. “But who said anything about snow?”

“Oh,” Aziraphale breathed. “Oh my.”