Happy Holidays, Peach-Megumi!

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Title: Snowy Evenings
Author: htebazytook
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Pairing: Crowley/Aziraphale
Recipient: For peach_megumi - happy holidays!!
Prompt: The first time Crowley encountered snow, he was not particularly pleased by how cold it was. He and Aziraphale, of course, somehow manage to invent mulled wine or mead. Bonus points for it being in pre-Christian Scandinavia.
Summary: Five times Crowley couldn't stand the snow, and one time he could.




Crowley stopped by the woods on a snowy evening. He'd heard about snow, of course. Merchants from the wild northerly places of the world came through Ur occasionally, peddling pelts that seemed excessive in the low orange sun and dusty air.

This strange and faraway island was picturesque in its own way. Trees that went on forever, profoundly black trunks fading up into white frosted branches. Lonely outcroppings of gray rocks. It was very different from the sepia toned world Crowley had known for so many centuries before, and was filled with cold ferocity rather than slow cruel heat.

The snow seemed to make the land beneath it fall silent. Crowley held his breath without meaning to. It was the kind of vast and terrible beauty that demanded respect.

He shivered and pulled his cloak tighter around himself. It didn't make his ears or nose any warmer, though, and he was regretting not paying better attention to how the locals had dressed in the last inn he'd stopped at.

There was nothing for it, though. Crowley was here for a reason.

He trudged up slippery hills, broke through branches caught in icy kisses, felt the cold seeping unstoppably into his bones. When he couldn't stand it anymore he snapped his frozen fingers and felt warmth flood his bloodstream again. That kind of careless miracling would've been a bad move back in Sumer, but the angel was probably still hanging around there and not likely to descend in bright righteous fury and kick Crowley's arse. Crowley would almost have welcomed it at this point, it was so blessed boring up here. He hadn't even seen Aziraphale in a few decades . . .

He'd also learned over the years that it was generally wise to stay in good angel-smiting practice. And that Aziraphale always knew a good place to get a drink together post-smiting.

Crowley trudged into next little farming community and subcontracted his task out to them in exchange for 100 years of good harvests. There was nothing in the rules that said he couldn't do it, exactly. Besides, the plans had looked pretty straightforward when Crowley had skimmed over them.

Back in his own personal lap of luxury in the cradle of civilization, Crowley drank heated wine for days until his skin stopped crawling with cold.

*

A couple centuries later, Crowley he figured he'd better do some quality control auditing. And lo and behold, the stupid place was even colder than he remembered.

The stones looked okay, he thought. Standing enigmatically in the bleak midwinter moonlight with puffy snow pummeling softly down on them. Of course, Crowley didn't have any idea what the hell they were supposed to look like. Or do. And he wasn’t entirely sure this wasn't just another prank being pulled on him by Meg from Souls Receivable.

Crowley walked to the entrance (?) of the circle, snow creaking quietly beneath his feet.

"What are you doing here, Crowley?"

Crowley jumped. The angel stood directly in the center of the circle of stones, no footprints to explain how he'd got there. Aziraphale wore several layers of fur, face wrapped up warmly, eyes gray and unreadable and the sliver of skin that was visible around them ruddy with cold.

"Turning into a demon-sicle," Crowley said, his breath turning to vapor in the icy air. "What are you doing here?"

Aziraphale narrowed his eyes. He began walking toward Crowley menacingly before tripping on one of the smaller stones and sighing. "Oh, I don't know," he said, sounding dejected. "I've been assigned to monitor the progress on this project."

Crowley raised his frozen eyebrows. "Yeah. Looks like it's coming right along . . . Good work, angel."

"Yes," Aziraphale said, then repeated with more confidence: "Yes, I do think so. The locals began work on it for us quite awhile ago . . . "

"For you? I mean, for your side?"

Aziraphale laughed. "Oh, you know. It's not ours, really. It's simply, well, it's something I am handling the follow up on."

"And you haven't been following up at all til now?"

"Well certainly before now as well, my dear. You do know that I take great pride in my work, don't you."

"Uh huh. That fire your associates set in Rome made you proud, huh?"

Aziraphale cleared his throat. "You never answered me, you know. Why are you here, exactly?"

Crowley folded his snow-coated arms crunchily. "Keeping tabs on you, of course. Can't have you running around supervising this sort of . . . angelic . . . summoning thingie?"

"Oh, like I'd tell a demon."

They stared at each other.

"So . . . you don’t know what it is either."

"Not really, no." Aziraphale heaved a sigh, glanced around the towering stones for answers. "But if this isn't demonic then I don't know what is . . . "

"Well, you're in luck, because I know what demonic looks like, and this isn't it. This is just . . . weird. Human." The farmers must've got it wrong.

"Human," Aziraphale agreed. "So, I'll blame it on you . . . ?"

"And I'll blame it on you. Sounds like a plan."

Aziraphale relaxed a little, favoring Crowley with a pleasant smile. "And how have you been, then?"

Crowley shrugged. "Can't complain, can't complain. That whole last temptation of the Big Man's kid was a bust, of course, but you win some you lose some, I guess."

"Well, you got Pompeii, didn't you?" Aziraphale encouraged.

"Yeah . . . "

"And Nero?"

Crowley nodded. "Sorry about nicking the papacy from you, by the way."

"Oh think nothing of it, I quite understand. Good – well, bad job, I suppose."

A burst of wind set the snow curling wildly between them. It was so isolated, here, and Crowley couldn't deny it was nice to talk to somebody who he didn't have to play games with or lie to. Well, not the same games or the same lies, anyway.

"Bless," Crowley said. "Why does it have to be so cold in Brittania? Explain to me how this is part of His great plan, because I'll be honest with you, Aziraphale, I'm really not seeing it here."

"Well, winter is coming," Aziraphale said.

"Ugh, are you kidding me? What do you call this, then?" Crowley's teeth began to chatter. "Hey, what do you say we get a drink somewhere? I know a nice little place in Bath . . . "

*

"You are evil!"

Crowley held his hands up. "Hey, let's all just take a deep breath here, okay?"

"We saw what you did to the blacksmith's daughter! And my own son Fafnir!"

Crowley laughed nervously. "I can explain that, I mean it, now just hold on and - "

"You are a sorcerer! Look at his eyes, look at them!"

That was met with several burly murmurs of agreement.

"Oh come on guys, just because a couple of horny teenagers can't control themselves doesn't mean I'm, what, practicing sex magic?" Crowley had been backing away from the actual angry mob of Vikings, but he knew they must've been circling around too. "Can we please just talk about this?"

"Sorcery!"

And the next thing Crowley knew he was sitting in a warm cave, its jagged walls painted by a pure white fire. Outside was deep blue nothingness overlaid by wandering snowflakes. Inside was Aziraphale with unwashed hair in his familiar eyes.

"Thanks," Crowley said. "Any reason why you're rescuing demons?"

Aziraphale shrugged. "We're stuck on this planet together. It would be rather insufferably lonely without someone else to talk to."

"There isn't some kind of angelic book club meeting every couple centuries?"

"There is," Aziraphale said, with only the tiniest hint of regret. "Though I've never been. I prefer my own books, anyway."

Crowley laughed. "You and your books. That's never gonna catch on, you know. Most humans can't even read, let alone comprehend the finer thematic elements."

"You don't give them enough credit."

"Yeah, well, the ones I've been hanging out with lately kind of got on my bad side."

"They are pagans. They're living in sin."

Crowley frowned. "They don't even know about . . . that."

"They're still committing sin for not believing in Him," Aziraphale recited. "I shouldn't worry about it, Crowley. God is coming to them, soon."

"That's fine and dandy, but why does everyone who happens to be born before that have to get the short end of the stick?"

Aziraphale pursed his lips. "It's fate, Crowley."

Crowley snorted. "Yeah, we've both been around the block enough to know there's no such thing. Now, if you'll excuse me." Crowley stood, wrapped his cloak more tightly around him.

"Do not lead these people into temptation," Aziraphale warned.

"Yeah, well, you'll just have to deliver them from me, I guess," Crowley said.

"If I see you inflicting your infernal wiles on these humans, I am duty-bound to thwart you."

"Ooh, this from the angel who misplaced his sword in the beginning? I'm really scared . . . "

Crowley walked away, out into the darkness where the blank snowy wind played like a hollowed out melody.

*

"It's not supposed to snow on All Hallows' Eve," Crowley whined.

"I'd hardly consider it a harbinger of doom, my dear." Aziraphale led them around West Smithfield Street, navigating the unending bustle of London quite admirably for someone who used to get flustered by the crowds in the (terribly sinful, and now banned) theaters.

Crowley snorted. "The dead are all set to walk the earth tonight, I think that's at least a little bit doomful." The sun was mostly set already, but its beams still soaked the unforgiving brick and stone of the city, warming the color of the snow that was beginning to pile up on fallen yellow leaves.

"Mmhmm. And how often have you witnessed such a thing?"

"Hey, all superstitions come from somewhere."

"No, they don't," Aziraphale said.

"Yeah, you're right. They mostly come from Cromwell, these days."

Aziraphale pursed his lips, trying to find the most diplomatic response to that. "He's doing the best he can. Though he is unfortunately somewhat misguided."

" 'Misguided'?" Crowley laughed. " 'Somewhat'?"

Aziraphale stopped in the middle of the road, and Crowley nearly ran into a cart full of butcher-bound livestock.

"Oh, would you look at that," Aziraphale said, practically purring as they walked by a bookshop with a rather desperate window display about the latest from some unknown Lancashire author. "I can't imagine why they'd think that would sell. Why, just look at the binding, and the display is absolutely atrocious – quite difficult to be sure of the book's contents, to begin with. What a terrible shame of marketing . . . "

"I wouldn't worry about it, angel," Crowley said. "Yours is the still the fairest bookshop of them all. Definitely the dustiest."

Aziraphale had the good grace to go slightly pink. "I'm sure I don't know what you're referring to."

"Uh huh. Say, are we anywhere near this tavern you're so keen on?"

"Oh, stop your whining – it is not nearly cold enough for it."

They arrived at a typical inn, white plaster and wide wooden beams and a cheerful glow from behind its tiny windows. Inside it was dark and hot and saturated with woodsmoke. Aziraphale chose a table by a window.

"What in God's name are you wearing, Crowley?"

Crowley threw his heavy black cloak over the back of his chair and gestured to his impeccably fashionable ensemble. "I'm a man of wealth and taste," he said. He'd always made a point of it. "The real question here is why you insist on wearing the same sad shapeless scraps of beige era after era. Variety is the spice of life, angel, come on."

A couple of drinks in and Crowley was mostly warmed up. That didn't stop him from complaining about the snow, though.

"I mean s'ridiculous, s'stupid, really," Crowley said. "Whasa point of making parts of the earth so bloody cold y'can't bloody move your bloody . . . blood. Your blood can't move, 'cause cold, is what I'm sayin' . . . "

Aziraphale blinked heavily. "Heat stroke," he declared.

"Whatever. Cold's worse. Whatever, angel. Freezing killer fluff falling from the stupid sky? What the hell is that about, seriously . . . "

"It's lovely," Aziraphale sighed. "Oh, I think it's just lovely."

"You would," Crowley said darkly.

"No listen, Crowley, listen. Crowley. Listen. I love it. It makes the earth feel enchanted, for a little while."

"Y'mean makes it feel like, y'know, like heaven."

"Nooo," Aziraphale said, much too emphatically. Crowley laughed at that. "It feels . . . like earth."

"Earthy?"

But Aziraphale didn't notice Crowley's sarcasm. He rested his forehead against the sweating window, dampening his frizzy curls and bringing him close enough that his breath spread out over the glass like he was human. "I love it here," he said dreamily. "I love it when it snows."

*

"Equal temperament? That sounds made up, Aziraphale."

"Everything is made up, in the beginning."

"Fair enough." Crowley shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. It had begun to snow again, just his luck. "Honestly I don't know why you insist on traveling all the way to Germany for music. You do know all the best musicians are in France, right? They wouldn't know an ornament if it bit them in the arse, up here. And it's cold."

"We're here," Aziraphale announced. The building they stood in front of was hard to see through the gauzy veil of fat fresh snowflakes. It looked warm inside, though, so Crowley sprinted to the door.

"Augh!" Crowley sprinted right back out into the street and plunged his hand into the nearest snowbank. "Is this a church, angel? You still trying to kill me? Oh come on, I thought we were past this!"

But Aziraphale was shifting uncomfortably, illuminated in rosy overtones by that odd sheen of light that reflected off of snow. "I . . . oh I am sorry, Crowley, I honestly did forget."

"You forgot that music is performed in churches in Protestant central?"

"I forgot you – well. I just forgot."

Crowley laughed. "What, you forgot I was a demon?" He pulled his tinted glasses down his nose.

Aziraphale swallowed, looked away, and Crowley's face fell because he knew suddenly that Aziraphale had forgotten. It should've made him want to make a point of doing more evil in the world, tempt some nuns or something, but it only made Crowley feel horribly sorry for him because Crowley was rather intimately acquainted with his demonicness.

"I suppose . . . " Aziraphale looked around helplessly. "You might stand by the door?"

Crowley snorted. "You just wanted to trick me into getting stuck in the snow, didn't you?"

Aziraphale laughed a little, then looked up and seemed to have an epiphany. Three snowflakes landed on his cheekbone and nose and straw-colored eyelashes, dissolving like sugar on your tongue. "I have an idea."

They sat on the rooftop of the church and looked in through a high window. Hallowed ground always confused the hell out of Crowley – literally, sometimes. The roof hasn't been blessed, Aziraphale had said dismissively. Crowley stopped worrying about it as soon as the music started.

It was very beautiful, Crowley had to admit. Full and tuneful, the chord progressions not so much unexpected as perfectly executed. It felt more stable than other choir music, somehow.

"What did you say the Kapellmeister's name was, again?" Crowley asked quietly. The singers sang onward into a rich and somber key.

"Johann something."

"That helps . . . "

Aziraphale was looking down on the congregation avidly. "Music will change so much once his techniques spread to the rest of the world. 'St John's Passion' is only the beginning."

"Oh John was passionate, I'll give him that. You've read Revelation, right? I mean come on, talk about a drama queen . . . "

"Wrong John, Crowley," Aziraphale said. "You don't know your Bible very well, do you?"

"Is that a serious question."

Aziraphale turned his attention back to the music.

"Now I know what it's like to be one of your lot," Crowley continued. "Up on a lofty perch looking down on the masses singing their worship and praise."

Aziraphale smiled. "Perhaps we ought to make snow angels."

"No need, we are snow angels." Crowley shook some of the stuff off his shoulder. "Well, snow angel and snow demon. Just draw some horns on mine and voilà."

"That's all it takes, is it?" Aziraphale smirked. "Just a little something extra to make a demon?"

"You got it - essentially it's just sugar, spice, and everything wicked."

Warm distant choir voices filled the silence. Carefully, Aziraphale said, "I know you're evil, Crowley. I know you've done evil. But you've never been wicked."

Crowley held Aziraphale's unhurried gaze for a long time, getting lost in the sweetness of the chords that murmured on from beneath them.

*

The first snowfall after the Apocalypse That Wasn't didn't feel like the first snowfall Crowley had experienced, or like any of the ones that had come after. For once, he was ecstatic just to see it falling down to earth again like it did every year. Because it was just another year. Another year of the things Crowley hated and loved about the earth.

He found Aziraphale at the same out of the way bench in St James's Park, Buckingham Palace glowing above while Aziraphale sat still in the tawny lavender-lit landscape with snow building by his booted feet. The palace sunk farther beneath the stone wall behind the bench as Crowley approached, then disappeared along with the echo of traffic from above as he sat down too.

Aziraphale looked straight ahead at the slushy pond, collection of different ducks and pelicans gently gone missing with the hushed snowy weather. The park was dark and empty beneath the bright modern city that surrounded it, pressing on and never skipping a beat at the mere novelty of falling snow. There had been a time when the presence or absence of snow meant entire ways of life for humans.

"It's not too cold out, though," Crowley said.

Aziraphale nodded, watching the overreaching trees dip naked branches into black water. "For destruction, ice is also great."

"Nah. We're in the clear." Crowley believed it more than he'd believed anything, really, if only because of how good the thought of it was. He put his leather-gloved hand over Aziraphale's woolen-mittened one, turned Aziraphale's face to look at him but ended up kissing him before anyone could say anything about the uncertainty of who they were, now.

It was the best way of keeping warm in the snow that Crowley had tried yet.

*



Happy Holidays, peach_megumi, from your Secret Writer!

Comments

[peach-megumi.livejournal.com]

Thank you so very much! This was lovely. The range of settings were quite nice -- and I particularly liked the first London scene. :-) Thank you.

[htebazytook.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the awesome prompt! It was really fun to write :)

[katarzi.livejournal.com]

Oh, lovely! Just a wonderful tone to the whole thing (and yes, I am laughing at that secret Stark joke and what I suspect is a reference to that one Robert Frost poem that was on so many ASOAIF gif sets a while back...).

[htebazytook.livejournal.com]

Haha yes - I went a little crazy with the Robert Frost allusions!

Glad you liked!

[elvendork-lee.livejournal.com]

This was lovely - flashbacks are always interesting and I enjoyed the progression of their relationship, they were very in character and the descriptions were really clear. (And did I spot an ASOIAF reference, or was that just coincidence?).

[htebazytook.livejournal.com]

Thanks for reading! ASOIAF references for the win :)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_silverfox/]

Awww! What a lovely fic!

[htebazytook.livejournal.com]

Thanks! :)

[marginaliana]

Oh, this is so lovely! I really like the slow progression and the bits of humor. And "I'm a man of wealth and taste" - ha!

[htebazytook.livejournal.com]

Couldn't resist :)

Thanks for reading!

[thekeyholder.livejournal.com]

What a lovely story! I especially liked the fifth part with Aziraphale and Crowley on the rooftop of the church. It was magical. Plus the sweet ending. :)

[htebazytook.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I love me some Bach :)

[hsavinien.livejournal.com]

Damn Cromwell. *coughs* Required patriotism aside...

Very nice and very chilly all the way through - good imagery. I liked "For destruction, ice is also great." Yay, poetical references!

[htebazytook.livejournal.com]

With GO you can really get away with any references because they've lived so long - it's definitely fun!

[greedslave.livejournal.com]

This was incredibly well written, I loved every section of it and was really enchanted by your writing style!

[htebazytook.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much!! :)

[pionie.livejournal.com]

Lovely, sweet, soft story!

[htebazytook.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked :)

[edna-blackadder.livejournal.com]

Oh, that was lovely. I love Aziraphale and Crowley blaming Stonehenge on each other, and Crowley questioning why pre-Christian people are considered sinful, and their drunkenness, and how Crowley finally appreciates the snow at the end because it's part of Earth. Also, hee at Cromwell and "winter is coming"!

[htebazytook.livejournal.com]

XD Thank you!!

[miscellanny.livejournal.com]

Wow. I think this is one of the best GO fanfics I've read, thank you so much. I love the little historic details woven through it, and the voices and descriptions are just perfect. Thank you so much, that was a really enjoyable read!

[htebazytook.livejournal.com]

Thank YOU for the gorgeous comment! :)