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go_exchangeTitle: Viscum Album
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
b_c_draygon
For: Caitirin
Characters: Crowley/Aziraphale.
Rating: PG
Notes: I hope this qualifies as ‘cute romance’! Sorry I didn’t get all the elements of your request in there – hope you enjoy it anyway!
The last person Aziraphale had been expecting to open his door to on Christmas Eve was Crowley. The demon, muffled up in a thick winter coat and overly long scarf, hooked a fingers around the arm of his sunglasses and slid them an inch down his nose to peer at him. “It’s bloody cold.”
Taking the not-so-subtle hint, Aziraphale stepped back and allowed Crowley to cross the threshold. The demon looked around the bookshop as he unwound his scarf and passed it to Aziraphale, taking in the thick ropes of red and gold tinsel that festooned the tops of the bookshelves, the shabby plastic ‘Merry Christmas’ sign hanging in the window and finally the twelve-inch fibre optic Christmas tree that was perched on the desk beside the cash register.
Crowley rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses; sometimes, Aziraphale made the teasing far too easy. He tossed his coat to the angel and wandered across to the tree, running his fingers over the fibres as the colour faded from purple to green. “Since when did you decorate the shop?”
“Well, it doesn’t hurt to have the place look more festive,” Aziraphale told him as he walked past on his way to the kitchen. “After all, I need to actually sell some books for once – I’ve managed to copies of some of the books I lost, but I don’t have room for them, so they’re all just stacked up any old way in here – I can barely move, it’s such an awful mess …”
Crowley shook his head, rolling his eyes behind his sunglasses as the angel’s voice trailed off, drowned out by the hiss of the kettle; Aziraphale’s back room was always a mess, regardless of whether he had shelf-room for his books or not. Stepping into the back room confirmed that the state of affairs was not that much different to the norm, aside from the Christmas decorations. Thankfully, though, Aziraphale preferred to live in slightly less tacky conditions than he imagined his customers might like.
On the wall behind the sofa Aziraphale had tacked up a piece of string, over which he had hung the few Christmas cards he had received. The only indication of the yuletide season was the large Christmas tree in the corner.
Crowley was always impressed by Aziraphale’s Christmas tree. It was like a three-dimensional timeline detailing the changing style of Christmas tree ornaments. He had to admit, though, that somehow Aziraphale managed to make his tree look something close to tasteful 1. Despite the haphazard colour scheme, which had veered wildly away from the traditional red and gold a long time ago, and the excessive amounts of tinsel, lametta, shiny beads and glittering ribbons, it looked cheerful and festive without being unbearably garish.
His favourite addition to Aziraphale’s Christmas tree, however, was the multicoloured electric lights. They were of the kind that could play a plethora of electronic and extremely annoying little Christmas ditties when a particular setting was activated at the push of a button 2. Unable to resist when he realised that Aziraphale had brought the same impulse-bought set out for the umpteenth year running, Crowley pushed aside a pile of books and flopped down on Aziraphale’s sofa, then pressed the on button with his foot.
A particularly grating version of Silent Night began to issue from the speakers, and Crowley smiled to himself, settling back into the sofa to listen. Aziraphale sighed as he returned from the kitchen with two steaming cups of tea. “Do you have to, my dear?”
Crowley pulled his It Wasn’t Me Face, which he knew wouldn’t cut it, especially since there was no one else around to be guilty, but was worth a try anyway. Aziraphale pressed a cup into his hands, then bent and turned the nauseatingly chirpy song off. He took a sip of his tea, regarding Crowley patiently over the rim of the cup.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of your company, my dear?” he asked, shifting aside a tall stack of first edition Beatrix Potter books so that he could perch on the edge of the coffee table. “I haven’t seen you in – oh, it’s weeks, now … I thought you’d gone into hibernation.”
“I don’t hibernate,” Crowley grumbled, staring into his tea and ignoring the angel’s real question. Aziraphale chuckled to himself, and Crowley glared at him over the top of his sunglasses.
“If you say so, my dear boy,” Aziraphale replied cheerfully, calmly taking another sip of his tea. Crowley leant back and idly tapped one of the more tasteful tree ornaments, a small glass angel, setting it spinning around and around on its string, and imagined that it was Gabriel. He bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from smirking.
“You got the tree up all right, then,” Crowley stated after a minute, gesturing vaguely at it. Aziraphale nodded, and Crowley continued, “And without my help, too – see, I told you you’d manage without me, angel.”
“Barely!” Aziraphale complained. “It was awful, trying to drag it through the shop – and getting it behind the counter and through the door was an absolute nightmare, I can tell you! And trying to get it to stand upright in that pot by myself … well! It was ridiculous. And the delivery man wasn’t the slightest bit of help – just dumped the thing in the middle of the shop, while I was dealing with a customer, so I could hardly run out after him to tell him I wanted it in the back room …”
Aziraphale’s voice tailed off as he realised Crowley was shaking with mirth. He glared. “It isn’t the least bit funny, my dear.”
“But, Aziraphale – you could’ve just miracled it in here,” Crowley replied, once he had clamed himself enough to speak. “But no – no, you had to play at being human, and do it the hard way –”
“A bit of hard work never hurt anyone,” Aziraphale said sourly. “And if you’d come and helped me, like I asked you to, we wouldn’t have needed to miracle it anywhere.”
“Ah!” Crowley grinned, leaning forwards. “So you did miracle it into place in the end?”
The angel squirmed. “Oh, all right, I might have helped it stand up straight, yes.”
Crowley laughed and shook his head at him. “You’re slipping, angel – I’d be careful, if I were you …”
Aziraphale glared, drained his cup of tea and stood up to take it back to the kitchen. Crowley followed him, still chuckling, and leant in the doorway. He drank the last of his tea, then held out the empty cup. Aziraphale snatched it and stalked back to the sink to wash it. Crowley shook his head, smiling fondly. “You know I don’t mean it.”
The angel stopped what he was doing and sighed, leaning heaving on the kitchen counter. After a moment he turned, and Crowley frowned at the anxiety written across his features. “But what if I am, Crowley? What if I am slipping? Maybe I have – maybe that’s why they’ve not contacted me, since –”
“Woah, hold on, slow up,” Crowley soothed as Aziraphale wrapped both arms around himself and hugged tightly. “I’m pretty sure you would have been informed, if that was the case – if not by Heaven, then certainly by Hell.”
“Do you think so?” Aziraphale asked, taking a couple of tentative steps closer to Crowley. The demon nodded, and saw Aziraphale relax his grip on the material of his jumper a little. “I had been wondering, you know …”
“Is that why you’ve been insisting on doing everything by hand, as it were, since the Apocalypse?” Crowley teased, despite his genuine curiosity. Colour rushed to Aziraphale’s cheeks and he chuckled to himself. “Honestly, Aziraphale … I really don’t think you have anything to worry about.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Aziraphale said miserably.
“Oh, what’s a little indulgence here and there,” Crowley said, waving a dismissive hand at the angel. “You’re too blessed nice to be any use at all Downstairs, believe me on this one. There are humans that get into heaven who’ve committed worse sins than you. Look, come and have a drink, a proper drink, all right?”
Before Aziraphale could protest, Crowley had turned and cleared all the books from the sofa with a wave of his arm. He glanced at the coffee table, and a pair of steaming glasses of mulled wine popped into existence on top of it, complete with a pair of black leather coasters. He went and slumped into the corner of the sofa nearest the tree, then grabbed a glass and took a long drink.
The angel followed a little more hesitantly, taking the glass and sipping the hot wine delicately. After the first taste, he hummed in approval and took a longer drink. Crowley smirked and snuggled back into the couch. “See? Miracles: totally worth it.”
“Not if you’re an angel, my dear,” Aziraphale chastised gently, sidling across the couch to sit a little closer to Crowley. He took another sip of mulled wine and sighed. “Although, I must admit, you’re right in this case.”
“Told you so,” Crowley said smugly, taking another swig of his wine. “Anyway, you’ve been using miracles to make things easier for you for six millennia. I hardly think they’re going to come down on you like a ton of bricks now, just because you decided you wanted your morning tea and crumpets in bed and couldn’t be bothered getting up.”
“It’s more than just the miracles, Crowley,” Aziraphale told him, sighing more deeply. After a moment, he shook his head and reached across to pat Crowley’s knee. Crowley raised his eyebrows at him, but managed to hold his tongue while the angel continued. “But it’s like you were saying, if I was – in trouble – well, I’d know, someone would have been in touch by now …”
He didn’t move his hand off Crowley’s knee. The demon glanced down at it, then back up at Aziraphale’s face. He was looking at Crowley with anxious solemnity, but beneath the concern he could see something else, something almost like guilt, but laced with steely resolve. He tilted his head forwards slightly to peer at the angel over the top of his sunglasses. “Aziraphale?”
There was a long, still moment. Then Aziraphale finally lifted his hand from Crowley’s knee. However, he then plucked Crowley’s glass of mulled wine from his hand, and placed both glasses on the coffee table. Then he leant back and turned to face the demon, his expression this time calculating. Crowley raised his eyebrows even further.
“Angel?”
Aziraphale didn’t reply. Instead, he inched even closer and took hold of the arms of Crowley’s sunglasses, lifting them off the bridge of his nose and folding them carefully. At the demon’s frown, Aziraphale turned his eyes upwards. Crowley risked a glance, and saw a fresh sprig of mistletoe turning guiltily in the air above his head. He looked back down as Aziraphale slid sunglasses into the breast pocket of his jacket.
“I’m fairly sure that’s cheating,” he murmured.
“I thought you’d approve of that sort of thing,” Aziraphale replied softly. He lifted one hand to place his palm against the demon’s cheek. Crowley withdrew slightly, his breath stuttering in surprise, but Aziraphale moved with him, dropping his other hand onto the demon’s thigh as he leant in closer. He paused a breath away from Crowley’s lips, his breath ghosting across Crowley’s lips. “May I?”
The demon’s eyes fluttered closed as Aziraphale hand skated a little further up his thigh. “And here was I thinking you were worried about your position. Doing everything by hand, and all that, to stay in their good books …”
“Oh, I intend to do plenty of things by hand, my dear,” Aziraphale smirked against his lips. Crowley’s eyes flew wide open in surprise, but then slid closed again as Aziraphale pressed their lips together in a brief, chaste kiss.
Crowley made a small noise of protest in the back of his throat when the angel pulled back too soon, bringing one hand up to paw at his neck in an attempt to pull him into a second kiss. Aziraphale, however, took hold of his wrist and whispered Crowley’s name, his tone warning enough to open the demon’s eyes.
Aziraphale was looking at him wide-eyed, all hope and apprehension. Crowley licked his lips. He wasn’t entirely sure what to say, but he could tell that Aziraphale was waiting for a reaction. Obviously, kissing back wasn’t enough. He cleared his throat. “Is that what you were worrying yourself about?”
“Yes,” Aziraphale breathed, allowing Crowley to lean forwards until his forehead was rested against the angel’s. “I mean, it’s only since Adam that I really – before then, I’d never thought …”
“I had,” Crowley admitted quietly, thinking of the various times down the centuries when the idea of kissing Aziraphale had crossed his mind. “Didn’t want to freak you out.”
“Freak me out?” Aziraphale repeated, screwing his face up in confusion at Crowley’s modern vernacular.
“Scare you,” the demon paraphrased, rolling his eyes at Aziraphale’s complete lack of understanding but unable to stop himself from smiling. “That’s why I never … did anything.”
“I’m not sure I should have,” Aziraphale sighed, closing his eyes. “I mean, what if they disapprove?”
“I’ve already told you,” Crowley murmured, rubbing soothing circles onto Aziraphale’s back. “They jump on you the first chance they get, Down There. You’d’ve heard by now, if you’d done something so wrong it’d get you kicked off the angelic register. I think you’re safe, angel.”
He nuzzled into Aziraphale’s neck despite his soft objections, both to the excessive attention and to his line of argument. Crowley dragged his teeth over the skin of Aziraphale’s throat before kissing feather-light patterns against his throat.
“Besides. The lack of communication,” he said, softly but firmly between kisses, “Implies a lack of supervision, and therefore a lack of concern about what we’re doing.”
“I suppose,” Aziraphale conceded with a gasp as Crowley bit his earlobe. Crowley smirked against his throat.
“Basically, I think it means we can do whatever we want,” he murmured, lifting his head and looking straight at Aziraphale. “And ‘whatever we want’ probably encompasses this.”
With that, he leant forwards and caught Aziraphale’s lips with his own, lifting his hands to hold the angel’s head in place, in case he had any ideas about pulling away. Aziraphale made a small, surprised noise against his mouth, his lips parting in a gasp, and Crowley took full advantage of the opportunity to employ his tongue. Despite his lingering misgivings, Aziraphale whimpered into the kiss as Crowley’s tongue curled against his, the demon’s fingers winding into his curls.
When Crowley finally pulled back and looked at the angel, his cheeks were dusted pink, his hair sticking up at all angles from where Crowley’s fingers had combed through it. He chuckled and finally released him, leaning across to grab both glasses from the table, passing one to Aziraphale. The angel took it with a small, shy smile as Crowley muttered, “Well, then. Merry Christmas, I suppose.”
Aziraphale smiled and chinked his glass against Crowley’s. “Merry Christmas, my dear.”
1 And Crowley wasn’t entirely sure how Aziraphale managed this, because there was everything from hand-made edible decorations and bright antique baubles to tasteless plastic figurines of the Seven Dwarves and polystyrene apples sprayed with glitter hanging from the branches.
2 Singing Christmas Tree Lights were an innovation Crowley had been particularly proud of. After all, it wasn’t every day you managed to inject something like that into Christmas. He hadn’t even had to try that hard to get them to catch on, either; they had been instantly popular, and – once bought by the unwary and imprudent Christmas shopper – would bring endless irritation for years to come.
Enjoy,caitirin, from your Secret Author!
Author:
b_c_draygonFor: Caitirin
Characters: Crowley/Aziraphale.
Rating: PG
Notes: I hope this qualifies as ‘cute romance’! Sorry I didn’t get all the elements of your request in there – hope you enjoy it anyway!
The last person Aziraphale had been expecting to open his door to on Christmas Eve was Crowley. The demon, muffled up in a thick winter coat and overly long scarf, hooked a fingers around the arm of his sunglasses and slid them an inch down his nose to peer at him. “It’s bloody cold.”
Taking the not-so-subtle hint, Aziraphale stepped back and allowed Crowley to cross the threshold. The demon looked around the bookshop as he unwound his scarf and passed it to Aziraphale, taking in the thick ropes of red and gold tinsel that festooned the tops of the bookshelves, the shabby plastic ‘Merry Christmas’ sign hanging in the window and finally the twelve-inch fibre optic Christmas tree that was perched on the desk beside the cash register.
Crowley rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses; sometimes, Aziraphale made the teasing far too easy. He tossed his coat to the angel and wandered across to the tree, running his fingers over the fibres as the colour faded from purple to green. “Since when did you decorate the shop?”
“Well, it doesn’t hurt to have the place look more festive,” Aziraphale told him as he walked past on his way to the kitchen. “After all, I need to actually sell some books for once – I’ve managed to copies of some of the books I lost, but I don’t have room for them, so they’re all just stacked up any old way in here – I can barely move, it’s such an awful mess …”
Crowley shook his head, rolling his eyes behind his sunglasses as the angel’s voice trailed off, drowned out by the hiss of the kettle; Aziraphale’s back room was always a mess, regardless of whether he had shelf-room for his books or not. Stepping into the back room confirmed that the state of affairs was not that much different to the norm, aside from the Christmas decorations. Thankfully, though, Aziraphale preferred to live in slightly less tacky conditions than he imagined his customers might like.
On the wall behind the sofa Aziraphale had tacked up a piece of string, over which he had hung the few Christmas cards he had received. The only indication of the yuletide season was the large Christmas tree in the corner.
Crowley was always impressed by Aziraphale’s Christmas tree. It was like a three-dimensional timeline detailing the changing style of Christmas tree ornaments. He had to admit, though, that somehow Aziraphale managed to make his tree look something close to tasteful 1. Despite the haphazard colour scheme, which had veered wildly away from the traditional red and gold a long time ago, and the excessive amounts of tinsel, lametta, shiny beads and glittering ribbons, it looked cheerful and festive without being unbearably garish.
His favourite addition to Aziraphale’s Christmas tree, however, was the multicoloured electric lights. They were of the kind that could play a plethora of electronic and extremely annoying little Christmas ditties when a particular setting was activated at the push of a button 2. Unable to resist when he realised that Aziraphale had brought the same impulse-bought set out for the umpteenth year running, Crowley pushed aside a pile of books and flopped down on Aziraphale’s sofa, then pressed the on button with his foot.
A particularly grating version of Silent Night began to issue from the speakers, and Crowley smiled to himself, settling back into the sofa to listen. Aziraphale sighed as he returned from the kitchen with two steaming cups of tea. “Do you have to, my dear?”
Crowley pulled his It Wasn’t Me Face, which he knew wouldn’t cut it, especially since there was no one else around to be guilty, but was worth a try anyway. Aziraphale pressed a cup into his hands, then bent and turned the nauseatingly chirpy song off. He took a sip of his tea, regarding Crowley patiently over the rim of the cup.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of your company, my dear?” he asked, shifting aside a tall stack of first edition Beatrix Potter books so that he could perch on the edge of the coffee table. “I haven’t seen you in – oh, it’s weeks, now … I thought you’d gone into hibernation.”
“I don’t hibernate,” Crowley grumbled, staring into his tea and ignoring the angel’s real question. Aziraphale chuckled to himself, and Crowley glared at him over the top of his sunglasses.
“If you say so, my dear boy,” Aziraphale replied cheerfully, calmly taking another sip of his tea. Crowley leant back and idly tapped one of the more tasteful tree ornaments, a small glass angel, setting it spinning around and around on its string, and imagined that it was Gabriel. He bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from smirking.
“You got the tree up all right, then,” Crowley stated after a minute, gesturing vaguely at it. Aziraphale nodded, and Crowley continued, “And without my help, too – see, I told you you’d manage without me, angel.”
“Barely!” Aziraphale complained. “It was awful, trying to drag it through the shop – and getting it behind the counter and through the door was an absolute nightmare, I can tell you! And trying to get it to stand upright in that pot by myself … well! It was ridiculous. And the delivery man wasn’t the slightest bit of help – just dumped the thing in the middle of the shop, while I was dealing with a customer, so I could hardly run out after him to tell him I wanted it in the back room …”
Aziraphale’s voice tailed off as he realised Crowley was shaking with mirth. He glared. “It isn’t the least bit funny, my dear.”
“But, Aziraphale – you could’ve just miracled it in here,” Crowley replied, once he had clamed himself enough to speak. “But no – no, you had to play at being human, and do it the hard way –”
“A bit of hard work never hurt anyone,” Aziraphale said sourly. “And if you’d come and helped me, like I asked you to, we wouldn’t have needed to miracle it anywhere.”
“Ah!” Crowley grinned, leaning forwards. “So you did miracle it into place in the end?”
The angel squirmed. “Oh, all right, I might have helped it stand up straight, yes.”
Crowley laughed and shook his head at him. “You’re slipping, angel – I’d be careful, if I were you …”
Aziraphale glared, drained his cup of tea and stood up to take it back to the kitchen. Crowley followed him, still chuckling, and leant in the doorway. He drank the last of his tea, then held out the empty cup. Aziraphale snatched it and stalked back to the sink to wash it. Crowley shook his head, smiling fondly. “You know I don’t mean it.”
The angel stopped what he was doing and sighed, leaning heaving on the kitchen counter. After a moment he turned, and Crowley frowned at the anxiety written across his features. “But what if I am, Crowley? What if I am slipping? Maybe I have – maybe that’s why they’ve not contacted me, since –”
“Woah, hold on, slow up,” Crowley soothed as Aziraphale wrapped both arms around himself and hugged tightly. “I’m pretty sure you would have been informed, if that was the case – if not by Heaven, then certainly by Hell.”
“Do you think so?” Aziraphale asked, taking a couple of tentative steps closer to Crowley. The demon nodded, and saw Aziraphale relax his grip on the material of his jumper a little. “I had been wondering, you know …”
“Is that why you’ve been insisting on doing everything by hand, as it were, since the Apocalypse?” Crowley teased, despite his genuine curiosity. Colour rushed to Aziraphale’s cheeks and he chuckled to himself. “Honestly, Aziraphale … I really don’t think you have anything to worry about.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Aziraphale said miserably.
“Oh, what’s a little indulgence here and there,” Crowley said, waving a dismissive hand at the angel. “You’re too blessed nice to be any use at all Downstairs, believe me on this one. There are humans that get into heaven who’ve committed worse sins than you. Look, come and have a drink, a proper drink, all right?”
Before Aziraphale could protest, Crowley had turned and cleared all the books from the sofa with a wave of his arm. He glanced at the coffee table, and a pair of steaming glasses of mulled wine popped into existence on top of it, complete with a pair of black leather coasters. He went and slumped into the corner of the sofa nearest the tree, then grabbed a glass and took a long drink.
The angel followed a little more hesitantly, taking the glass and sipping the hot wine delicately. After the first taste, he hummed in approval and took a longer drink. Crowley smirked and snuggled back into the couch. “See? Miracles: totally worth it.”
“Not if you’re an angel, my dear,” Aziraphale chastised gently, sidling across the couch to sit a little closer to Crowley. He took another sip of mulled wine and sighed. “Although, I must admit, you’re right in this case.”
“Told you so,” Crowley said smugly, taking another swig of his wine. “Anyway, you’ve been using miracles to make things easier for you for six millennia. I hardly think they’re going to come down on you like a ton of bricks now, just because you decided you wanted your morning tea and crumpets in bed and couldn’t be bothered getting up.”
“It’s more than just the miracles, Crowley,” Aziraphale told him, sighing more deeply. After a moment, he shook his head and reached across to pat Crowley’s knee. Crowley raised his eyebrows at him, but managed to hold his tongue while the angel continued. “But it’s like you were saying, if I was – in trouble – well, I’d know, someone would have been in touch by now …”
He didn’t move his hand off Crowley’s knee. The demon glanced down at it, then back up at Aziraphale’s face. He was looking at Crowley with anxious solemnity, but beneath the concern he could see something else, something almost like guilt, but laced with steely resolve. He tilted his head forwards slightly to peer at the angel over the top of his sunglasses. “Aziraphale?”
There was a long, still moment. Then Aziraphale finally lifted his hand from Crowley’s knee. However, he then plucked Crowley’s glass of mulled wine from his hand, and placed both glasses on the coffee table. Then he leant back and turned to face the demon, his expression this time calculating. Crowley raised his eyebrows even further.
“Angel?”
Aziraphale didn’t reply. Instead, he inched even closer and took hold of the arms of Crowley’s sunglasses, lifting them off the bridge of his nose and folding them carefully. At the demon’s frown, Aziraphale turned his eyes upwards. Crowley risked a glance, and saw a fresh sprig of mistletoe turning guiltily in the air above his head. He looked back down as Aziraphale slid sunglasses into the breast pocket of his jacket.
“I’m fairly sure that’s cheating,” he murmured.
“I thought you’d approve of that sort of thing,” Aziraphale replied softly. He lifted one hand to place his palm against the demon’s cheek. Crowley withdrew slightly, his breath stuttering in surprise, but Aziraphale moved with him, dropping his other hand onto the demon’s thigh as he leant in closer. He paused a breath away from Crowley’s lips, his breath ghosting across Crowley’s lips. “May I?”
The demon’s eyes fluttered closed as Aziraphale hand skated a little further up his thigh. “And here was I thinking you were worried about your position. Doing everything by hand, and all that, to stay in their good books …”
“Oh, I intend to do plenty of things by hand, my dear,” Aziraphale smirked against his lips. Crowley’s eyes flew wide open in surprise, but then slid closed again as Aziraphale pressed their lips together in a brief, chaste kiss.
Crowley made a small noise of protest in the back of his throat when the angel pulled back too soon, bringing one hand up to paw at his neck in an attempt to pull him into a second kiss. Aziraphale, however, took hold of his wrist and whispered Crowley’s name, his tone warning enough to open the demon’s eyes.
Aziraphale was looking at him wide-eyed, all hope and apprehension. Crowley licked his lips. He wasn’t entirely sure what to say, but he could tell that Aziraphale was waiting for a reaction. Obviously, kissing back wasn’t enough. He cleared his throat. “Is that what you were worrying yourself about?”
“Yes,” Aziraphale breathed, allowing Crowley to lean forwards until his forehead was rested against the angel’s. “I mean, it’s only since Adam that I really – before then, I’d never thought …”
“I had,” Crowley admitted quietly, thinking of the various times down the centuries when the idea of kissing Aziraphale had crossed his mind. “Didn’t want to freak you out.”
“Freak me out?” Aziraphale repeated, screwing his face up in confusion at Crowley’s modern vernacular.
“Scare you,” the demon paraphrased, rolling his eyes at Aziraphale’s complete lack of understanding but unable to stop himself from smiling. “That’s why I never … did anything.”
“I’m not sure I should have,” Aziraphale sighed, closing his eyes. “I mean, what if they disapprove?”
“I’ve already told you,” Crowley murmured, rubbing soothing circles onto Aziraphale’s back. “They jump on you the first chance they get, Down There. You’d’ve heard by now, if you’d done something so wrong it’d get you kicked off the angelic register. I think you’re safe, angel.”
He nuzzled into Aziraphale’s neck despite his soft objections, both to the excessive attention and to his line of argument. Crowley dragged his teeth over the skin of Aziraphale’s throat before kissing feather-light patterns against his throat.
“Besides. The lack of communication,” he said, softly but firmly between kisses, “Implies a lack of supervision, and therefore a lack of concern about what we’re doing.”
“I suppose,” Aziraphale conceded with a gasp as Crowley bit his earlobe. Crowley smirked against his throat.
“Basically, I think it means we can do whatever we want,” he murmured, lifting his head and looking straight at Aziraphale. “And ‘whatever we want’ probably encompasses this.”
With that, he leant forwards and caught Aziraphale’s lips with his own, lifting his hands to hold the angel’s head in place, in case he had any ideas about pulling away. Aziraphale made a small, surprised noise against his mouth, his lips parting in a gasp, and Crowley took full advantage of the opportunity to employ his tongue. Despite his lingering misgivings, Aziraphale whimpered into the kiss as Crowley’s tongue curled against his, the demon’s fingers winding into his curls.
When Crowley finally pulled back and looked at the angel, his cheeks were dusted pink, his hair sticking up at all angles from where Crowley’s fingers had combed through it. He chuckled and finally released him, leaning across to grab both glasses from the table, passing one to Aziraphale. The angel took it with a small, shy smile as Crowley muttered, “Well, then. Merry Christmas, I suppose.”
Aziraphale smiled and chinked his glass against Crowley’s. “Merry Christmas, my dear.”
1 And Crowley wasn’t entirely sure how Aziraphale managed this, because there was everything from hand-made edible decorations and bright antique baubles to tasteless plastic figurines of the Seven Dwarves and polystyrene apples sprayed with glitter hanging from the branches.
2 Singing Christmas Tree Lights were an innovation Crowley had been particularly proud of. After all, it wasn’t every day you managed to inject something like that into Christmas. He hadn’t even had to try that hard to get them to catch on, either; they had been instantly popular, and – once bought by the unwary and imprudent Christmas shopper – would bring endless irritation for years to come.
Enjoy,
caitirin, from your Secret Author!
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Date: 2007-12-18 05:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-19 09:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-18 05:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-19 09:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-18 06:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-19 09:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-18 09:51 am (UTC)Lovely, lovely picture! The way you wrote Crowley here is great
This whole story was just too sweet, really
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Date: 2007-12-19 09:07 pm (UTC)Heh. Too sweet? Hope that's not a bad thing ... :)
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Date: 2007-12-18 12:32 pm (UTC)Such a calculated and provacative maneuver, angel! I approve.
polystyrene apples sprayed with glitter hanging from the branches.
And whenever I see these on Xmas trees, I can only think Garden of Eden, even though it's an evergreen.
Well done :) Yummy kissing is under-rated against flat-out pr0n.
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Date: 2007-12-19 09:09 pm (UTC)"And whenever I see these on Xmas trees, I can only think Garden of Eden, even though it's an evergreen." -- Me too! Which was, of course, why I put them in ... >.>
Thanks! I think so too. :)
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Date: 2007-12-18 01:43 pm (UTC)It's wonderful, you did a great job with the Crowley/Aziraphale dialog and the Singing Christmas lights are SO perfectly Crowley.
Thank you! I love it!
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Date: 2007-12-19 09:04 pm (UTC)Thank you! :D I couldn't resist - there just has to be demonic intervention behind singing Christmas lights!
You're very, very welcome.
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Date: 2007-12-18 06:28 pm (UTC)I am a sticky puddle of goo for Snark!Aziraphale.
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Date: 2007-12-19 09:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-19 12:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-19 09:10 pm (UTC)