Happy Holidays, Kalamburd!
Title: Lights
gift for:kalamburd
from: the_leechwife
rating: R
characters: Aziraphale/Crowley, DEATH.
T'was in the deep midwinter, Aziraphale sat in an obscenely squishy chair breakfasting on kippers and Rooibos tea, and smiling the blithe smile of a character on a charity Christmas card. As everyone knows, Rooibos is really more of an afternoon tea, but Aziraphale thought outside the box on many such issues.
He was leafing through a newspaper, and he chuckled indulgently; another common activity which had done harm to none for the past few hundred years was suddenly accused of increasing the risk of cancer in some unlikely niche of the populace. This was Crowley's latest 'thing'; finding some recent PhD graduate brimming with enthusiasm and spunk and a desire to do good, and interfere with their Petri dish when they weren’t looking.
Aziraphale was rather getting into Sudoku, and had almost made it safely to the puzzle page when he lit upon an article about a traffic accident; a car had skidded on black ice, resulting in the death of Julie Smith from Croydon and another driver from Ipswich.
"Bless the poor things." He murmured, feeling a very angelic pang of sympathy before very humanly turning the page. A voice behind him said,
"They've put my age in wrong, you know. I'm not actually forty for another two months yet."
Aziraphale sputtered tea in a manner less dignified than he would have hoped to exhibit in front of Julie Smith, deceased, from Croydon.
Crowley found the cold got to him, old habits from his reptilian days, he supposed. He basked on that early morning in the climate controlled environment of a café with bohemian pretensions, sipping black coffee and nibbling a cinnamon Danish, looking like an expensive advertisement for pretentious bohemian coffee houses. He was people watching- one of his absolute favourite ways to pass the time between wiles. He peered over his paper at a couple of students who had clearly not been home from the night before, grinning at each other and nodding sleepily. Crowley smiled.
His sulphur-yellow eyes flicked down to the page in front of him and he smiled some more. His latest tinkerings in the microbiology lab were set to fret and inconvenience a great many people. He looked forward to showing off to the angel about it later.
His smile faded as he scanned an article about a car crash- a woman and a boy of barely nineteen had been killed on the motorway- and he shook his head.
"Poor little bugger." He muttered with feeling, and was about to turn the page when the semi-transparent shade of a tracksuit-clad youth at his shoulder spoke, causing him to bring coffee out of his nose.
"I'm so sorry," it said, "It was my fault, I know it."
By the time Crowley had arrived at Aziraphale's bookshop he had already amassed four more lost souls, who drifted haplessly along behind him despite his protests.
"Now you lot just wait here," he told them.
The shop was closed and the door was locked, but this was nothing out of the ordinary. Crowley turned the handle and let himself in, because Aziraphale's door was never locked to the demon. His grisly entourage made to follow him.
"Stay." Crowley raised a hand firmly. He stepped inside the darkened shop and closed the door behind him, and after a moment’s hesitation the spirits of the dead followed him through the wood.
"Aziraphale?" called Crowley, resigned.
There was the sound of a phone being hung up and the angel bustled out looking ruffled.
"Crowley, dear, thank goodness! I was just trying to call you."
"Angel, I- Ah." It was at that moment that Crowley noticed the small gaggle of spirits who had gathered in the doorway behind Aziraphale.
"Ah." Aziraphale concurred, looking over Crowley's shoulder at the demon's little crowd. The deceased spotted each other, and clustered gratefully together in a gormless flock. A couple more arrived via the walls even as they stood.
"It would appear," said Aziraphale, taking Crowley's arm for solidarity and eyeing their collective, "that there are fell deeds afoot!"
Crowley could tell when Aziraphale had been up all night reading Sherlock Holmes.
Crowley and Aziraphale walked through the frosty park, staying very close to each other as they talked so their fingers brushed each other occasionally. The dead followed at a respectful distance, exchanging worried murmurs. Their forlorn looks were making Crowley feel the need to push closer to Aziraphale, and he might have tried to hide it but that the angel seemed to feel it too, and press back just as plaintively.
Their rationale had been that if they kept on the move, perhaps they would accumulate less of the blighters, but now that they were together they seemed to be attracting more of them. It appeared that no one else in the park could see the spirits; bundled up couples holding hands and rosy cheeked tots scuffling with one another, ducks huddled in clusters and small dogs leaving their steaming marks on trees, all went about their business without let or hindrance.
"You can't send them into the light or whatever you do?" Crowley asked.
"I've had a go at exorcising them, but they don’t seem to be taking the hint. I don’t think they're proper ghosts, you know, it seems like they're still tied to their earthly selves. As in, they need severance." Aziraphale made a choppy motion with his hand.
"As in, someone's not doing his job."
"Exactly, my dear."
"Well, tackle these things at the source, I always say. Come on."
Crowley took Aziraphale's hand for a moment and all at once they were not in the park on a crisp winter's day, but in a place with no literal seasons whatsoever, although the poet might say that it was always figuratively winter. Aziraphale raised an eyebrow admiringly- Crowley always knew where he was going. Somehow, the dead had managed to get there too.
“Why are they following us?”
“I expect we’re the closest thing to what they’re looking for.”
They stood on a dark gravel path bordered by well-maintained beds of black herbs being investigated by black bees, in front of a black door in a dark cottage in the mock Tudor style. It was as though the Addams Family had decided to downsize.
Despite the dearth of seasons, there was an incongruously bright holly wreath on the door, except with little skulls instead of berries. Aziraphale knocked politely, and after a while rang the door bell, which did not so much ring as toll. There was no reply and no sign of life within, so to speak.
Crowley was compelled to take off his sunglasses owing to the many shades of black, and when he did he noticed a scrap of paper tucked under the wreath. He pulled it out and read aloud.
"TAKEN TIME OUT, BACK LATER. APPOLOGIES FOR ANY INCONVIENIANCE."
"Time out?" Aziraphale snatched the note and read it again, "I say, this is deeply unprofessional." As a reproach from one of the least professional beings in the world, this was saying something.
"It's a bloody nuisance, angel, is what it is."
"He does seem to be getting increasingly sensitive."
"Mid-life crisis?" Aziraphale snorted at Crowley's little joke, "He's got a problem with this time of year, I suppose."
"Where do you think he could have got to?"
"Somewhere seasonal."
The diminutive man in the pointy hat was taken aback to say the least when two dubious characters accompanied by a host of insalubrious see-through people turned up at the North Pole.
"Excuse me, my good fellow," said the fruit in the cream-coloured woollen coat, "Have you seen this bony character?" He presented a small card with an old print of a skeleton holding a scythe and surrounded by severed limbs.
"He'd be about seven foot tall and was last seen wearing something in the line of a cowl." Put in the darker, snake-hipped man in the black coat helpfully.
"Can't say that I have, sorry." Said the little man, scratching his ugly nose.
"Thank you for your time." Smiled the cherubic blond, taking the picture back. Then the pair disappeared again, taking their host with them.
The green clad midget shrugged and went back to the business of tipping the reject candy canes into the offal pit.
As an expedient, the pair had opened a portal in the back of Aziraphale’s book shop. They visited cathedrals in Prague and London. They popped in at the Vatican. They called at Paris and New York, and at every theatre that was showing A Christmas Carol before they decided they’d rather just go for a drink.
They trudged through Piccadilly Circus, casting wary glances over their shoulders, trailed by a growing throng who were constantly walked through by Christmas shoppers.
Crowley's eyes were downcast, a frown of deep thought darkening his elegant features. Aziraphale watched him for a moment, then laid an alabaster hand on his arm. Crowley raised his eyes to the angel's face. The way Aziraphale was looking at him, completely gentle and utterly understanding, Crowley fancied that if he were lost, there could be only one person in creation he would go to. Perhaps that explained a lot, now that he thought about it.
"I wish they'd stop looking at us like that," he said, imploring almost, "I can't stand how… lonely they look."
"They're just not where they belong; He'll turn up sooner or later, don’t worry."
"And they're so expectant," Crowley didn’t seem to be keeping the faith, "like they don’t know we can’t- Oh for fuck's sake."
“Pardon?”
Crowley turned Aziraphale around by the shoulders so he could see what the demon had just seen. Aziraphale groaned.
A square just across the road from them had been fenced off and strung with lights. There was a white tent at one end where three people in matching fleeces were renting out skates, and the area had been converted into a temporary ice rink for the holiday period. There, skimming about amidst the squealing and laughing patrons was a seven foot skeleton in a black robe. He had his hands behind his back as he skated and bore a wistful expression, as far as his fleshless features conveyed any expression. He stood head and shoulders above everyone else, wore a wildly inappropriate red and green scarf, and stuck out like a massive skeleton at an ice rink, but no one seemed to be seeing anything they did not expect to be confronted with.
Aziraphale and Crowley crossed the road and made their way round to the marquee which marked the entrance. The queue suddenly found that it was behind them. They were about to barge into the rink when a broad gent with a shaven bonce bared their way.
"Shoes." He said.
"Shoes to you too, sir," said the angel mildly.
"Can’t have you in there without the appropriate footwear," the man recited, “health and safety.”
"Look you…" Crowley was about to put the creeping terrors into the guard, but Aziraphale was already exchanging his brogues for skates and paying the requested fee. Crowley rolled his eyes and followed, and together they tottered out onto the 'ice'.
Aziraphale fell over forwards, which surprised Crowley and caused him to skid over backwards.
"Ooh, ow." Said Aziraphale. The shades watching from the barrier tittered, but stopped when Crowley shot them a look which positively spat venom.
"This was a fine plan" he grumbled as he and Aziraphale pulled themselves up and made their way across the ice, clinging to each other for dear life.
Death noticed them and waved. Aziraphale signalled the grim reaper to bear with them a moment, but in doing so let go of Crowley. Crowley slipped over immediately, but Aziraphale flailed about a bit and managed to right himself, sliding along a few inches in the process. He straightened up and looked pleased with himself, but found his feet hadn't noticed that his body expected to stop, and he landed on his bottom with the sound of dignity exiting in haste.
Death glided casually over to them. He was not wearing skates. He reached down and hauled them both upright.
"Thank you," said Crowley, "No, actually, not thank you, what are you playing at?"
"SORRY? OH." Death looked over at the clustered spirits waiting by the barrier.
"I was rather under the impression there were one or two precedents set for what happens when you're off the job." Aziraphale sounded like a primary school teacher.
"I'M NOT OFF, I'M JUST DEFERING IT. IN A WAY. SORT OF THING."
"You can’t defer death, you tell people that all the time!"
"BUT IT'S CHRISTMAS."
"You don't get union approved breaks, you know. There's no union, there's just you!" Crowley was a bit fired up. Death sighed.
"YOU KNOW, I JUST CAN'T GET THE HANG OF THIS TIME OF YEAR. IT JUST SEEMS LIKE… EVEN WHEN THEY DON’T BELIEVE IN IT THEY STILL SPEND IT TOGETHER, EVEN THE ONES WHO DON’T LIKE EACH OTHER PARTICULARLY."
Crowley exchanged a look with Aziraphale that said this had baffled him too from time to time, and got one back telling him that, though he didn’t openly question it, the angel had wondered too.
"NO, IT'S REMARKABLE," Death looked almost longing, "IT WOULDN’T BE MY FORTE TO SPECULATE ON THE NATURE OF LIFE, BUT IT SEEMS LIKE THAT'S WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT. JUST FOR ONCE, I THOUGHT I COULD STAY OUT OF THE WAY. LET THEM GET ON WITH IT, AND I'D TRY AND FIGURE OUT… WHY."
"They can’t get on with it, look at them, they don’t know whether they're coming or going." Crowley glanced over at the assembled host.
"You can't leave them alone, it is Christmas after all." Aziraphale offered.
"I SUPPOSE YOU’RE RIGHT."
"Of course we are. And we can’t have them following us everywhere, we'll get in trouble."
"YES, I DIDN’T QUITE FORESEE THAT BIT. I SUPPOSE I SHOULD HAVE GUESSED THOUGH."
"We were wondering about that actually, why are they following us?"
"IT'S SORT OF INSTINCT FOR THEM TO HEAD FOR THE LIGHT, ISN’T IT. FAILING PROPER DIRECTION, THEY'LL JUST GRAVITATE TO THE STRONGEST SOURCE OF LOVE."
Crowley looked at his feet and Aziraphale blushed pink as anything. They found themselves totally unable to look at each other at that moment, but equally unable not to smile.
"ANYHOO, I SUPPOSE I'LL GO AND TAKE CARE OF IT. SORRY IF THEY BOTHERED YOU." And, looking more than a little crestfallen, Death skimmed off over the ice to his clients, raising one hand as he did so and catching a tall scythe which materialised in a crackle of blue beside him.
Crowley and Aziraphale stood side by side at the edge of the skating rink, neither one having said a word since Death left. Crowley glanced over at Aziraphale a couple of times and dared himself to take the angel's smooth and rounded hand in both his own. Aziraphale turned to face Crowley, taken aback to see the demon looking a little worried. He smiled a broad, unguarded smile of absolute pleasure to have manifest what was now so obvious between them, and tenderly touched Crowley's face with his free hand. Crowley gazed at Aziraphale with eyes like firelight on silver and Aziraphale gazed back with the high blue of sunlight through stained glass. Crowley tried to frame words then, to explain what he was feeling and the slight fear he felt to think of all the time past when they should have been together, but all at once the angel had yanked him close and was kissing him and nothing much needed to be said at all. They let go their clasped hands and put their arms around each other properly, deepening their kiss, taking their time with their own light.
When finally they pulled back, flushed and warm and grinning into each other's mouths, they kept their faces close, bumping noses slightly.
"Wow." Crowley breathed.
"Oh, darling." Aziraphale kissed Crowley's nose.
They almost made it back to Crowley's flat. They made an admirable effort, certainly. Where they actually ended up was one of the smaller and more deserted of London's parks, and a little celestial jiggery pokery made sure the few passers by paid them no heed.
Despite the urgencies of the flesh and the warmth of light that welled up within the pair, and despite the fact it would have been easy enough to dismiss their clothes with a thought, they undressed each other. They did this with care and reverence, and it made every touch more their own, more sacred between them.
Then, half on a vague heap of discarded clothes and half on the cold grass, Aziraphale took hold of Crowley's wrists and pressed him back against the ground. They held one another's gaze and breathed in ragged shudders as they fought to keep awareness, and Aziraphale leaned down over Crowley, his golden curls mussed and falling over his eyes, and Crowley clamped his legs round the angel's waist, and the angel met very little resistance as he pushed against just that spot, and past.
It was breaching for both of them, but there could be nothing better in all the world than surrendering to one another, and they were hot and noisy, and came with merciless intensity before they collapsed and lay tumbled together, steaming slightly in the cold night.
In a dark oversized cottage in the mock Tudor style, which was considerably more oversized and dark on the inside despite its owner’s tendencies towards the quaint school of interior design, Death was in his study. He had set things back in motion, and his scythe stood in the umbrella stand by the door. He heaved a melancholy sigh and turned a page of his illustrated Twelve Days of Christmas.
There was a tolling on the doorbell, which echoed through the house like the passing of a funeral, and Death got up to answer it. At the door stood a tall man in black, who didn’t like Christmas because of all the over-eating that went on, and a smaller man in dirty white, who loved Christmas because of all the waste and plastic packaging. Death was surprised by his visitors, but he invited them in and sat them down by the hearth and made them comfortable. There was another ring at the bell, and Death opened the door to a beautiful flame-haired filly in a distracting red ‘Santa’ dress that just about covered her bottom. Death invited her in too and served everybody drinks, and pies for them as ate them, and the shady quartet sat before the fire and drank until they were squiffy. For some reason, there was also mistletoe, and Death earned himself a perfect red lipstick print on the gleaming white of his skull.
Back in the world, the angel and the demon had made it into bed, and lay fast asleep in each other's arms, dreaming of things that could be done with brandy and cream and which had nothing to do with puddings.
~end~
Enjoy!
gift for:kalamburd
from: the_leechwife
rating: R
characters: Aziraphale/Crowley, DEATH.
T'was in the deep midwinter, Aziraphale sat in an obscenely squishy chair breakfasting on kippers and Rooibos tea, and smiling the blithe smile of a character on a charity Christmas card. As everyone knows, Rooibos is really more of an afternoon tea, but Aziraphale thought outside the box on many such issues.
He was leafing through a newspaper, and he chuckled indulgently; another common activity which had done harm to none for the past few hundred years was suddenly accused of increasing the risk of cancer in some unlikely niche of the populace. This was Crowley's latest 'thing'; finding some recent PhD graduate brimming with enthusiasm and spunk and a desire to do good, and interfere with their Petri dish when they weren’t looking.
Aziraphale was rather getting into Sudoku, and had almost made it safely to the puzzle page when he lit upon an article about a traffic accident; a car had skidded on black ice, resulting in the death of Julie Smith from Croydon and another driver from Ipswich.
"Bless the poor things." He murmured, feeling a very angelic pang of sympathy before very humanly turning the page. A voice behind him said,
"They've put my age in wrong, you know. I'm not actually forty for another two months yet."
Aziraphale sputtered tea in a manner less dignified than he would have hoped to exhibit in front of Julie Smith, deceased, from Croydon.
Crowley found the cold got to him, old habits from his reptilian days, he supposed. He basked on that early morning in the climate controlled environment of a café with bohemian pretensions, sipping black coffee and nibbling a cinnamon Danish, looking like an expensive advertisement for pretentious bohemian coffee houses. He was people watching- one of his absolute favourite ways to pass the time between wiles. He peered over his paper at a couple of students who had clearly not been home from the night before, grinning at each other and nodding sleepily. Crowley smiled.
His sulphur-yellow eyes flicked down to the page in front of him and he smiled some more. His latest tinkerings in the microbiology lab were set to fret and inconvenience a great many people. He looked forward to showing off to the angel about it later.
His smile faded as he scanned an article about a car crash- a woman and a boy of barely nineteen had been killed on the motorway- and he shook his head.
"Poor little bugger." He muttered with feeling, and was about to turn the page when the semi-transparent shade of a tracksuit-clad youth at his shoulder spoke, causing him to bring coffee out of his nose.
"I'm so sorry," it said, "It was my fault, I know it."
By the time Crowley had arrived at Aziraphale's bookshop he had already amassed four more lost souls, who drifted haplessly along behind him despite his protests.
"Now you lot just wait here," he told them.
The shop was closed and the door was locked, but this was nothing out of the ordinary. Crowley turned the handle and let himself in, because Aziraphale's door was never locked to the demon. His grisly entourage made to follow him.
"Stay." Crowley raised a hand firmly. He stepped inside the darkened shop and closed the door behind him, and after a moment’s hesitation the spirits of the dead followed him through the wood.
"Aziraphale?" called Crowley, resigned.
There was the sound of a phone being hung up and the angel bustled out looking ruffled.
"Crowley, dear, thank goodness! I was just trying to call you."
"Angel, I- Ah." It was at that moment that Crowley noticed the small gaggle of spirits who had gathered in the doorway behind Aziraphale.
"Ah." Aziraphale concurred, looking over Crowley's shoulder at the demon's little crowd. The deceased spotted each other, and clustered gratefully together in a gormless flock. A couple more arrived via the walls even as they stood.
"It would appear," said Aziraphale, taking Crowley's arm for solidarity and eyeing their collective, "that there are fell deeds afoot!"
Crowley could tell when Aziraphale had been up all night reading Sherlock Holmes.
Crowley and Aziraphale walked through the frosty park, staying very close to each other as they talked so their fingers brushed each other occasionally. The dead followed at a respectful distance, exchanging worried murmurs. Their forlorn looks were making Crowley feel the need to push closer to Aziraphale, and he might have tried to hide it but that the angel seemed to feel it too, and press back just as plaintively.
Their rationale had been that if they kept on the move, perhaps they would accumulate less of the blighters, but now that they were together they seemed to be attracting more of them. It appeared that no one else in the park could see the spirits; bundled up couples holding hands and rosy cheeked tots scuffling with one another, ducks huddled in clusters and small dogs leaving their steaming marks on trees, all went about their business without let or hindrance.
"You can't send them into the light or whatever you do?" Crowley asked.
"I've had a go at exorcising them, but they don’t seem to be taking the hint. I don’t think they're proper ghosts, you know, it seems like they're still tied to their earthly selves. As in, they need severance." Aziraphale made a choppy motion with his hand.
"As in, someone's not doing his job."
"Exactly, my dear."
"Well, tackle these things at the source, I always say. Come on."
Crowley took Aziraphale's hand for a moment and all at once they were not in the park on a crisp winter's day, but in a place with no literal seasons whatsoever, although the poet might say that it was always figuratively winter. Aziraphale raised an eyebrow admiringly- Crowley always knew where he was going. Somehow, the dead had managed to get there too.
“Why are they following us?”
“I expect we’re the closest thing to what they’re looking for.”
They stood on a dark gravel path bordered by well-maintained beds of black herbs being investigated by black bees, in front of a black door in a dark cottage in the mock Tudor style. It was as though the Addams Family had decided to downsize.
Despite the dearth of seasons, there was an incongruously bright holly wreath on the door, except with little skulls instead of berries. Aziraphale knocked politely, and after a while rang the door bell, which did not so much ring as toll. There was no reply and no sign of life within, so to speak.
Crowley was compelled to take off his sunglasses owing to the many shades of black, and when he did he noticed a scrap of paper tucked under the wreath. He pulled it out and read aloud.
"TAKEN TIME OUT, BACK LATER. APPOLOGIES FOR ANY INCONVIENIANCE."
"Time out?" Aziraphale snatched the note and read it again, "I say, this is deeply unprofessional." As a reproach from one of the least professional beings in the world, this was saying something.
"It's a bloody nuisance, angel, is what it is."
"He does seem to be getting increasingly sensitive."
"Mid-life crisis?" Aziraphale snorted at Crowley's little joke, "He's got a problem with this time of year, I suppose."
"Where do you think he could have got to?"
"Somewhere seasonal."
The diminutive man in the pointy hat was taken aback to say the least when two dubious characters accompanied by a host of insalubrious see-through people turned up at the North Pole.
"Excuse me, my good fellow," said the fruit in the cream-coloured woollen coat, "Have you seen this bony character?" He presented a small card with an old print of a skeleton holding a scythe and surrounded by severed limbs.
"He'd be about seven foot tall and was last seen wearing something in the line of a cowl." Put in the darker, snake-hipped man in the black coat helpfully.
"Can't say that I have, sorry." Said the little man, scratching his ugly nose.
"Thank you for your time." Smiled the cherubic blond, taking the picture back. Then the pair disappeared again, taking their host with them.
The green clad midget shrugged and went back to the business of tipping the reject candy canes into the offal pit.
As an expedient, the pair had opened a portal in the back of Aziraphale’s book shop. They visited cathedrals in Prague and London. They popped in at the Vatican. They called at Paris and New York, and at every theatre that was showing A Christmas Carol before they decided they’d rather just go for a drink.
They trudged through Piccadilly Circus, casting wary glances over their shoulders, trailed by a growing throng who were constantly walked through by Christmas shoppers.
Crowley's eyes were downcast, a frown of deep thought darkening his elegant features. Aziraphale watched him for a moment, then laid an alabaster hand on his arm. Crowley raised his eyes to the angel's face. The way Aziraphale was looking at him, completely gentle and utterly understanding, Crowley fancied that if he were lost, there could be only one person in creation he would go to. Perhaps that explained a lot, now that he thought about it.
"I wish they'd stop looking at us like that," he said, imploring almost, "I can't stand how… lonely they look."
"They're just not where they belong; He'll turn up sooner or later, don’t worry."
"And they're so expectant," Crowley didn’t seem to be keeping the faith, "like they don’t know we can’t- Oh for fuck's sake."
“Pardon?”
Crowley turned Aziraphale around by the shoulders so he could see what the demon had just seen. Aziraphale groaned.
A square just across the road from them had been fenced off and strung with lights. There was a white tent at one end where three people in matching fleeces were renting out skates, and the area had been converted into a temporary ice rink for the holiday period. There, skimming about amidst the squealing and laughing patrons was a seven foot skeleton in a black robe. He had his hands behind his back as he skated and bore a wistful expression, as far as his fleshless features conveyed any expression. He stood head and shoulders above everyone else, wore a wildly inappropriate red and green scarf, and stuck out like a massive skeleton at an ice rink, but no one seemed to be seeing anything they did not expect to be confronted with.
Aziraphale and Crowley crossed the road and made their way round to the marquee which marked the entrance. The queue suddenly found that it was behind them. They were about to barge into the rink when a broad gent with a shaven bonce bared their way.
"Shoes." He said.
"Shoes to you too, sir," said the angel mildly.
"Can’t have you in there without the appropriate footwear," the man recited, “health and safety.”
"Look you…" Crowley was about to put the creeping terrors into the guard, but Aziraphale was already exchanging his brogues for skates and paying the requested fee. Crowley rolled his eyes and followed, and together they tottered out onto the 'ice'.
Aziraphale fell over forwards, which surprised Crowley and caused him to skid over backwards.
"Ooh, ow." Said Aziraphale. The shades watching from the barrier tittered, but stopped when Crowley shot them a look which positively spat venom.
"This was a fine plan" he grumbled as he and Aziraphale pulled themselves up and made their way across the ice, clinging to each other for dear life.
Death noticed them and waved. Aziraphale signalled the grim reaper to bear with them a moment, but in doing so let go of Crowley. Crowley slipped over immediately, but Aziraphale flailed about a bit and managed to right himself, sliding along a few inches in the process. He straightened up and looked pleased with himself, but found his feet hadn't noticed that his body expected to stop, and he landed on his bottom with the sound of dignity exiting in haste.
Death glided casually over to them. He was not wearing skates. He reached down and hauled them both upright.
"Thank you," said Crowley, "No, actually, not thank you, what are you playing at?"
"SORRY? OH." Death looked over at the clustered spirits waiting by the barrier.
"I was rather under the impression there were one or two precedents set for what happens when you're off the job." Aziraphale sounded like a primary school teacher.
"I'M NOT OFF, I'M JUST DEFERING IT. IN A WAY. SORT OF THING."
"You can’t defer death, you tell people that all the time!"
"BUT IT'S CHRISTMAS."
"You don't get union approved breaks, you know. There's no union, there's just you!" Crowley was a bit fired up. Death sighed.
"YOU KNOW, I JUST CAN'T GET THE HANG OF THIS TIME OF YEAR. IT JUST SEEMS LIKE… EVEN WHEN THEY DON’T BELIEVE IN IT THEY STILL SPEND IT TOGETHER, EVEN THE ONES WHO DON’T LIKE EACH OTHER PARTICULARLY."
Crowley exchanged a look with Aziraphale that said this had baffled him too from time to time, and got one back telling him that, though he didn’t openly question it, the angel had wondered too.
"NO, IT'S REMARKABLE," Death looked almost longing, "IT WOULDN’T BE MY FORTE TO SPECULATE ON THE NATURE OF LIFE, BUT IT SEEMS LIKE THAT'S WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT. JUST FOR ONCE, I THOUGHT I COULD STAY OUT OF THE WAY. LET THEM GET ON WITH IT, AND I'D TRY AND FIGURE OUT… WHY."
"They can’t get on with it, look at them, they don’t know whether they're coming or going." Crowley glanced over at the assembled host.
"You can't leave them alone, it is Christmas after all." Aziraphale offered.
"I SUPPOSE YOU’RE RIGHT."
"Of course we are. And we can’t have them following us everywhere, we'll get in trouble."
"YES, I DIDN’T QUITE FORESEE THAT BIT. I SUPPOSE I SHOULD HAVE GUESSED THOUGH."
"We were wondering about that actually, why are they following us?"
"IT'S SORT OF INSTINCT FOR THEM TO HEAD FOR THE LIGHT, ISN’T IT. FAILING PROPER DIRECTION, THEY'LL JUST GRAVITATE TO THE STRONGEST SOURCE OF LOVE."
Crowley looked at his feet and Aziraphale blushed pink as anything. They found themselves totally unable to look at each other at that moment, but equally unable not to smile.
"ANYHOO, I SUPPOSE I'LL GO AND TAKE CARE OF IT. SORRY IF THEY BOTHERED YOU." And, looking more than a little crestfallen, Death skimmed off over the ice to his clients, raising one hand as he did so and catching a tall scythe which materialised in a crackle of blue beside him.
Crowley and Aziraphale stood side by side at the edge of the skating rink, neither one having said a word since Death left. Crowley glanced over at Aziraphale a couple of times and dared himself to take the angel's smooth and rounded hand in both his own. Aziraphale turned to face Crowley, taken aback to see the demon looking a little worried. He smiled a broad, unguarded smile of absolute pleasure to have manifest what was now so obvious between them, and tenderly touched Crowley's face with his free hand. Crowley gazed at Aziraphale with eyes like firelight on silver and Aziraphale gazed back with the high blue of sunlight through stained glass. Crowley tried to frame words then, to explain what he was feeling and the slight fear he felt to think of all the time past when they should have been together, but all at once the angel had yanked him close and was kissing him and nothing much needed to be said at all. They let go their clasped hands and put their arms around each other properly, deepening their kiss, taking their time with their own light.
When finally they pulled back, flushed and warm and grinning into each other's mouths, they kept their faces close, bumping noses slightly.
"Wow." Crowley breathed.
"Oh, darling." Aziraphale kissed Crowley's nose.
They almost made it back to Crowley's flat. They made an admirable effort, certainly. Where they actually ended up was one of the smaller and more deserted of London's parks, and a little celestial jiggery pokery made sure the few passers by paid them no heed.
Despite the urgencies of the flesh and the warmth of light that welled up within the pair, and despite the fact it would have been easy enough to dismiss their clothes with a thought, they undressed each other. They did this with care and reverence, and it made every touch more their own, more sacred between them.
Then, half on a vague heap of discarded clothes and half on the cold grass, Aziraphale took hold of Crowley's wrists and pressed him back against the ground. They held one another's gaze and breathed in ragged shudders as they fought to keep awareness, and Aziraphale leaned down over Crowley, his golden curls mussed and falling over his eyes, and Crowley clamped his legs round the angel's waist, and the angel met very little resistance as he pushed against just that spot, and past.
It was breaching for both of them, but there could be nothing better in all the world than surrendering to one another, and they were hot and noisy, and came with merciless intensity before they collapsed and lay tumbled together, steaming slightly in the cold night.
In a dark oversized cottage in the mock Tudor style, which was considerably more oversized and dark on the inside despite its owner’s tendencies towards the quaint school of interior design, Death was in his study. He had set things back in motion, and his scythe stood in the umbrella stand by the door. He heaved a melancholy sigh and turned a page of his illustrated Twelve Days of Christmas.
There was a tolling on the doorbell, which echoed through the house like the passing of a funeral, and Death got up to answer it. At the door stood a tall man in black, who didn’t like Christmas because of all the over-eating that went on, and a smaller man in dirty white, who loved Christmas because of all the waste and plastic packaging. Death was surprised by his visitors, but he invited them in and sat them down by the hearth and made them comfortable. There was another ring at the bell, and Death opened the door to a beautiful flame-haired filly in a distracting red ‘Santa’ dress that just about covered her bottom. Death invited her in too and served everybody drinks, and pies for them as ate them, and the shady quartet sat before the fire and drank until they were squiffy. For some reason, there was also mistletoe, and Death earned himself a perfect red lipstick print on the gleaming white of his skull.
Back in the world, the angel and the demon had made it into bed, and lay fast asleep in each other's arms, dreaming of things that could be done with brandy and cream and which had nothing to do with puddings.
~end~
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