A Gift Fic for Nettle_Mooneye!
Title: A Song of Christmas
Author: alys_wonder
Gift for: nettle_mooneye
Rating: G
Summary: There are too many tellings of ‘The First Christmas’ around this time. How about tellings of other First Christmases?
There were many things one could say about London. One could say it was murky, and too crowded, and an expensive place to live. One could say it was too much of a city, any greenery trapped behind fences. On the other hand, one could say it was beautiful, all glass and steel. A thousand souls traipsing along the pavement, a thousand stories in that one city.
The one thing you couldn’t say was that it ignored Christmas.
Practically every street had fairy lights strung up around lampposts and girders. Shop windows were alight with fiber optics, crowded with angels and snowmen and little plastic Santa Clauses waving at passers-by. Schools, empty for the holidays, showed little paper stars in their windows and crayon drawings of spiky trees and oddly proportioned presents.
Adam Young had lived in London since attending the city for university. He’d found that while Tadfield was a wonderful place to be a child, London was a perfect place to be an adult. It helped, of course, that his three best friends were there as well, by pure coincidence. It was a slightly Friends affair: he and Pepper in their flat with Brian and Wensleydale on the other side of the corridor. The block of flats was halfway between the apartment of a certain Anthony J. Crowley and a bookshop that had been there for so long its name had long since peeled, and not even the owner could remember what it was supposed to be.
Adam smiled at Pepper, Brian, and Wensleydale, as was his habit whenever there was a gap in the conversation. He stood aside and politely let Pepper enter first, waiting until Wensleydale, stamping his feet and muttering about the cold weather, was safely inside before joining.
The shop bell tinkled.
“I’ll be there in a moment,” Aziraphale called automatically.
He was just grabbing his gloves with the fingers cut out and carpet slippers when Adam said, “It’s us, Aziraphale.”
“Ah,” said Aziraphale, sounding much more relaxed. He appeared from the back room and smiled warmly at the assorted company. “And how are you four? Your cold cleared up, Brian, dear?”
Brian nodded. “Much better, Az,” he said brightly, although his voice was still a bit thick. “Wensley’s been looking after me.”
“I bet he has,” Pepper muttered. She received elbows in the ribs from both Brian and Adam while Wensleydale turned a shade of red that fit rather well with the season.
Aziraphale laughed good-naturedly. “Well, do come in, you four, don’t stand by the door. Crowley will be here in a moment or two. Would any of you like some tea?”
They nodded and said they would and sat themselves around the shop’s counter. Adam smiled fondly at the novels on the nearest bookshelves.
Five minutes later, a black 1926 Bentley screeched to a halt outside the shop and a dark-haired man in sunglasses entered. He would have looked the height of cool if he didn’t look as if he was trying to bury himself in his scarf.
The door opened and he stared at the Them. “Not you,” he groaned. “Aziraphale! The Munchkins are back!”
“Not you,” Brian countered with a grin.
“Aziraphale! The Men in Black are back!” Pepper said, and Adam laughed.
“Man in Black,” Wensleydale corrected.
Crowley smiled and patted Wensley’s hair in a half-affectionate, half-annoying gesture.
This had been the order of events for about sixteen years now. The Them weren’t quite sure when they had met Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley; the earliest they could remember was Adam saying he’d invited them to his twelfth birthday party, and the Them all nodding, saying things along the lines of, “Oh, yeah, they’re all right.”
The day they found out the two were supernatural beings was even more of a mystery. They just knew. And Crowley and Aziraphale just knew they knew.
The whole thing stank of Antichrist involvement, but no one had bothered to ask Adam about it, as there wasn’t really any point. It wasn’t exactly nice to have him putting things in your head, but it certainly made conversations a lot easier. Besides, it was better knowing these things instead of having to go through a huge soap-opera revelation: ‘You’re an angel, and you never told me? You’re a demon? You’re the Antichrist? Why didn’t you tell me these things?!’
No, it was a lot easier this way.
“What are you four doing here, then?” Crowley asked, passing the Them and sitting up on the shop’s counter.
Aziraphale tsked pointedly. Crowley ignored him.
“Visiting,” Wensleydale answered.
“It is Christmas,” Pepper said. “You’re supposed to visit people. Friends an’ family an’ stuff. So’s they don’t feel lonely and unwanted.”
Adam chuckled. “Cos sayin’ that makes people feel so much better, Pep.”
“Hey, truth hurts.”
There was an odd explosion of noise from the corner, where Brian had been fiddling with an old radio. It was the kind of one from those awkward days between the wireless and the digital radio, a clunky rectangular thing with a beaten aerial. If the Wasabi had been a radio, it would have been that.
“Sorry!” Brian said, hastily turning the volume down. “Wanted to see if we could get any Christmas songs on. A-ha, here we are.”
“No,” Crowley said flatly.
Aziraphale sniffed imperiously. “I rather like them myself.”
“You would, Band Aid were your idea.”
“What’s wrong with it? And I’ve always told you, Geldof is a free agent. He hasn’t even got a guardian angel, it’s all his own work.”
“Well, fine. But then I’ve always told you, Cliff Richard wasn’t ours either.”
Aziraphale shuddered. “Yes, well…”
“And now, on BBC Radio 1, we’ve got a request from a Julian in Kent. He says, ‘could you please play Let It Snow for my girlfriend, it’s her favourite Christmas song.’ Well then, for Julian’s girlfriend, here it is: Let It Snow by Dean Martin.”
The first notes of the song drifted out, sounding quite tinny. Brian waved his arms in mock-concert fashion.
Oh, the weather outside is frightful,
But the fire is so delightful,
And since we’ve no place to go,
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!
“Git,” Crowley muttered.
“Really, my dear,” Aziraphale said, frowning slightly. “The song isn’t that bad.”
Crowley snorted derisively, eliciting an annoyed sigh from the angel. “I don’t see what’s so bad about it.”
“Apart from the fact it’s pretty much a song about seducing some poor unsuspecting person with the excuse of it being cold outside,” Crowley said matter-of-factly, “I’ve not liked snow for millennia now.”
“Oh, why?”
Crowley stared at Aziraphale - which was slightly unnerving, as it’s never nice to have blank sunglasses just looking in your direction without expression. “Is your memory as bad as your taste in fashion, angel?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Crowley sighed. The Them moved closer slightly. They had always been able to sense a story.
*
Aziraphale thought Earth was rather nice. Certainly this part wasn’t as beautiful as the Garden --or half as safe, he thought wryly-- but there was something about it. There was something about the gray clouds in the sky, about the hard ground, about the young trees reaching upwards almost longingly. He wondered, briefly, where all the leaves had gone.
He kept reminding himself of these things as he walked, but couldn’t deny the whole experience would have been far more enjoyable if it wasn’t for this dratted human body. Gabriel had suggested Aziraphale be one of the first to ‘try out’ a body by exploring Earth and, if possible, keeping an eye on Adam and his family. Aziraphale didn’t miss the wings much - feathers were a bugger to keep in order - but there were things that got on his nerves a little. Breathing. Blinking. Hunger.
He was sure there was a way to survive without those, but he hadn’t worked it out yet. He hadn’t even managed to miracle anything yet, and wasn’t sure if he still could.
Being human was hard.
The ‘weather’ thing wasn’t helping either, and Aziraphale got the feeling it was being difficult on purpose. It was probably part of the punishment on humanity for disobedience, weather. It was the worst part, in Aziraphale’s opinion. Shivering was very annoying.
It was cold, and Aziraphale hadn’t been cold before. He didn’t want to be cold again. His ears felt odd and his eyes were hurting for some reason. He wanted to just curl up somewhere and wait for everything to get warmer - he wasn’t exactly sure why, he just did.
Ah, a tree, much closer than the others. For some reason it was quite appealing right now.
The angel limped over to it and sat down between its roots, a little pale bundle curled up and trembling. It wasn’t much better, really; but it would have to do for now.
He hugged his knees and closed his eyes. So cold.
Something nudged his cheek and a voice hissed, “Guessss who.”
Aziraphale grumbled something and turned his face away.
“Hey, what’s up? What happened to ‘leave here, foul demon, before I smite thee’?”
“Cold,” Aziraphale answered in a voice he would later be quite ashamed of.
“Tch,” Crawly said, somehow managing to make his reptilian face wear an expression of disapproval. “You’re really useless, you know that?”
Something slid onto Aziraphale’s shoulder and proceeded to wrap itself around him. Crawly hissed into the angel’s other ear, “That better?”
What happened to kill all angels?
“Equal rights. If I’m gonna beat the crap out of you, I’ll do it when you can actually fight back. And don’t talk in my head, ’ss annoying.”
“Sorr’,” Aziraphale mumbled.
There was silence for a bit. Crawly tried to stop thinking about what would happen if anyone found out he was helping an angel. It probably wouldn’t be pleasant. And if they found out he was helping and angel like this… really didn’t bear thinking about.
“Why ’n’t you cold?” Aziraphale asked. He was warmed now. It probably had something to do with Crawly. He was quite grateful (and slightly worried about how he would be expected to return the favor). “Thought you were cold-blooded.”
“I’m a demon,” Crawly answered, unable to resist rolling his eyes. “I can keep myself warm. You can too, but your brain’ll have to thaw first.”
“Are you slurring my intelligence?” Aziraphale said suspiciously, opening his eyes to give Crawly a glare artists usually don’t depict in their portraits of angels.
“Nope. But you’re sslurring your sspeech.”
“Better than hissing.”
“Feather-brained.”
“Serpent.”
“Sword-loser.”
“Misplacer.”
Crowley butted the angel’s cheek gently. “Whatever.”
Silence between them again, but this time Aziraphale stroked Crawly’s chin with his thumb and the demon definitely did not let him.
“What’s that white stuff called?” the angel asked, pointing upwards at the sky and the strange substance falling from it.
“Dunno,” Crawly answered. “Never seen it before.”
A flake landed on Aziraphale’s hand. The demon tasted it gingerly. “Water,” he said thoughtfully. “Really cold water.”
“Oh.” They examined the frozen water, watching it fall. When it settled on the ground and the tree, it stayed and formed a light coating of white. It landed on Aziraphale, too, and on Crawly, who looked quite undemonic with a swirl of it on his head.
“It’s nice,” Aziraphale said quietly. He was talking about the white stuff, but not just the white stuff.
“Yeah,” said Crawly, and he wasn’t talking about it at all. “What you should do,” he said slowly, “if you get cold again, is miracle yourself warm.”
“How do I do that?”
Crawly sighed. Angels sure could be stupid sometimes.
*
Oh, the fire is slowly dying,
And my dear, we’re still goodbying,
But as long as you love me so,
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!
“When was it named snow?” Wensleydale asked, back in the shop in London with fairy lights in the windows and polluted clouds outside.
“I think it was Eve,” Aziraphale said. He shrugged. “I’m not exactly sure. I don’t remember the early days much.”
“Selective memory,” Crowley not-quite-whispered.
Aziraphale sniffed. “No idea what you’re talking about, dear.”
Crowley sniggered.
“Better be off,” Adam said, tapping his watch, “Dog’ll be getting’ lonely.”
“He’s doing very well,” Aziraphale said in a voice slightly more diplomatic than usual, “for a canine his age.”
“Yup,” Adam replied cheerfully, “even if he on’y sleeps these days. G’bye, you two. See you soon.”
The other three Them got to their feet and also said their goodbyes. But the thing with Adam Young was if he said he would see you soon, he would see you soon.
The shop door closed behind the three humans and their Antichrist. Aziraphale turned off the radio, now playing something Aziraphale never wanted to hear again about ‘wishing your girlfriend was hot like me’. There was quiet between the two eternal enemies.
“It wasn’t so bad,” the angel said quietly. “Back then.”
“Mmm,” Crowley said in an extremely non-committal voice.
“I’m still not very fond of the cold,” Aziraphale continued.
“Mmm.”
“But the scarf you gave me is very useful.”
“Mmm.”
“And really, snow isn’t very bad at all.”
“Mmm.”
“Crowley, you know I’m not fond of one-sided conversations.”
“Fancy a drink?” Crowley said.
Aziraphale smiled. “More than one, my dear.”
*
Author: alys_wonder
Gift for: nettle_mooneye
Rating: G
Summary: There are too many tellings of ‘The First Christmas’ around this time. How about tellings of other First Christmases?
There were many things one could say about London. One could say it was murky, and too crowded, and an expensive place to live. One could say it was too much of a city, any greenery trapped behind fences. On the other hand, one could say it was beautiful, all glass and steel. A thousand souls traipsing along the pavement, a thousand stories in that one city.
The one thing you couldn’t say was that it ignored Christmas.
Practically every street had fairy lights strung up around lampposts and girders. Shop windows were alight with fiber optics, crowded with angels and snowmen and little plastic Santa Clauses waving at passers-by. Schools, empty for the holidays, showed little paper stars in their windows and crayon drawings of spiky trees and oddly proportioned presents.
Adam Young had lived in London since attending the city for university. He’d found that while Tadfield was a wonderful place to be a child, London was a perfect place to be an adult. It helped, of course, that his three best friends were there as well, by pure coincidence. It was a slightly Friends affair: he and Pepper in their flat with Brian and Wensleydale on the other side of the corridor. The block of flats was halfway between the apartment of a certain Anthony J. Crowley and a bookshop that had been there for so long its name had long since peeled, and not even the owner could remember what it was supposed to be.
Adam smiled at Pepper, Brian, and Wensleydale, as was his habit whenever there was a gap in the conversation. He stood aside and politely let Pepper enter first, waiting until Wensleydale, stamping his feet and muttering about the cold weather, was safely inside before joining.
The shop bell tinkled.
“I’ll be there in a moment,” Aziraphale called automatically.
He was just grabbing his gloves with the fingers cut out and carpet slippers when Adam said, “It’s us, Aziraphale.”
“Ah,” said Aziraphale, sounding much more relaxed. He appeared from the back room and smiled warmly at the assorted company. “And how are you four? Your cold cleared up, Brian, dear?”
Brian nodded. “Much better, Az,” he said brightly, although his voice was still a bit thick. “Wensley’s been looking after me.”
“I bet he has,” Pepper muttered. She received elbows in the ribs from both Brian and Adam while Wensleydale turned a shade of red that fit rather well with the season.
Aziraphale laughed good-naturedly. “Well, do come in, you four, don’t stand by the door. Crowley will be here in a moment or two. Would any of you like some tea?”
They nodded and said they would and sat themselves around the shop’s counter. Adam smiled fondly at the novels on the nearest bookshelves.
Five minutes later, a black 1926 Bentley screeched to a halt outside the shop and a dark-haired man in sunglasses entered. He would have looked the height of cool if he didn’t look as if he was trying to bury himself in his scarf.
The door opened and he stared at the Them. “Not you,” he groaned. “Aziraphale! The Munchkins are back!”
“Not you,” Brian countered with a grin.
“Aziraphale! The Men in Black are back!” Pepper said, and Adam laughed.
“Man in Black,” Wensleydale corrected.
Crowley smiled and patted Wensley’s hair in a half-affectionate, half-annoying gesture.
This had been the order of events for about sixteen years now. The Them weren’t quite sure when they had met Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley; the earliest they could remember was Adam saying he’d invited them to his twelfth birthday party, and the Them all nodding, saying things along the lines of, “Oh, yeah, they’re all right.”
The day they found out the two were supernatural beings was even more of a mystery. They just knew. And Crowley and Aziraphale just knew they knew.
The whole thing stank of Antichrist involvement, but no one had bothered to ask Adam about it, as there wasn’t really any point. It wasn’t exactly nice to have him putting things in your head, but it certainly made conversations a lot easier. Besides, it was better knowing these things instead of having to go through a huge soap-opera revelation: ‘You’re an angel, and you never told me? You’re a demon? You’re the Antichrist? Why didn’t you tell me these things?!’
No, it was a lot easier this way.
“What are you four doing here, then?” Crowley asked, passing the Them and sitting up on the shop’s counter.
Aziraphale tsked pointedly. Crowley ignored him.
“Visiting,” Wensleydale answered.
“It is Christmas,” Pepper said. “You’re supposed to visit people. Friends an’ family an’ stuff. So’s they don’t feel lonely and unwanted.”
Adam chuckled. “Cos sayin’ that makes people feel so much better, Pep.”
“Hey, truth hurts.”
There was an odd explosion of noise from the corner, where Brian had been fiddling with an old radio. It was the kind of one from those awkward days between the wireless and the digital radio, a clunky rectangular thing with a beaten aerial. If the Wasabi had been a radio, it would have been that.
“Sorry!” Brian said, hastily turning the volume down. “Wanted to see if we could get any Christmas songs on. A-ha, here we are.”
“No,” Crowley said flatly.
Aziraphale sniffed imperiously. “I rather like them myself.”
“You would, Band Aid were your idea.”
“What’s wrong with it? And I’ve always told you, Geldof is a free agent. He hasn’t even got a guardian angel, it’s all his own work.”
“Well, fine. But then I’ve always told you, Cliff Richard wasn’t ours either.”
Aziraphale shuddered. “Yes, well…”
“And now, on BBC Radio 1, we’ve got a request from a Julian in Kent. He says, ‘could you please play Let It Snow for my girlfriend, it’s her favourite Christmas song.’ Well then, for Julian’s girlfriend, here it is: Let It Snow by Dean Martin.”
The first notes of the song drifted out, sounding quite tinny. Brian waved his arms in mock-concert fashion.
Oh, the weather outside is frightful,
But the fire is so delightful,
And since we’ve no place to go,
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!
“Git,” Crowley muttered.
“Really, my dear,” Aziraphale said, frowning slightly. “The song isn’t that bad.”
Crowley snorted derisively, eliciting an annoyed sigh from the angel. “I don’t see what’s so bad about it.”
“Apart from the fact it’s pretty much a song about seducing some poor unsuspecting person with the excuse of it being cold outside,” Crowley said matter-of-factly, “I’ve not liked snow for millennia now.”
“Oh, why?”
Crowley stared at Aziraphale - which was slightly unnerving, as it’s never nice to have blank sunglasses just looking in your direction without expression. “Is your memory as bad as your taste in fashion, angel?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Crowley sighed. The Them moved closer slightly. They had always been able to sense a story.
*
Aziraphale thought Earth was rather nice. Certainly this part wasn’t as beautiful as the Garden --or half as safe, he thought wryly-- but there was something about it. There was something about the gray clouds in the sky, about the hard ground, about the young trees reaching upwards almost longingly. He wondered, briefly, where all the leaves had gone.
He kept reminding himself of these things as he walked, but couldn’t deny the whole experience would have been far more enjoyable if it wasn’t for this dratted human body. Gabriel had suggested Aziraphale be one of the first to ‘try out’ a body by exploring Earth and, if possible, keeping an eye on Adam and his family. Aziraphale didn’t miss the wings much - feathers were a bugger to keep in order - but there were things that got on his nerves a little. Breathing. Blinking. Hunger.
He was sure there was a way to survive without those, but he hadn’t worked it out yet. He hadn’t even managed to miracle anything yet, and wasn’t sure if he still could.
Being human was hard.
The ‘weather’ thing wasn’t helping either, and Aziraphale got the feeling it was being difficult on purpose. It was probably part of the punishment on humanity for disobedience, weather. It was the worst part, in Aziraphale’s opinion. Shivering was very annoying.
It was cold, and Aziraphale hadn’t been cold before. He didn’t want to be cold again. His ears felt odd and his eyes were hurting for some reason. He wanted to just curl up somewhere and wait for everything to get warmer - he wasn’t exactly sure why, he just did.
Ah, a tree, much closer than the others. For some reason it was quite appealing right now.
The angel limped over to it and sat down between its roots, a little pale bundle curled up and trembling. It wasn’t much better, really; but it would have to do for now.
He hugged his knees and closed his eyes. So cold.
Something nudged his cheek and a voice hissed, “Guessss who.”
Aziraphale grumbled something and turned his face away.
“Hey, what’s up? What happened to ‘leave here, foul demon, before I smite thee’?”
“Cold,” Aziraphale answered in a voice he would later be quite ashamed of.
“Tch,” Crawly said, somehow managing to make his reptilian face wear an expression of disapproval. “You’re really useless, you know that?”
Something slid onto Aziraphale’s shoulder and proceeded to wrap itself around him. Crawly hissed into the angel’s other ear, “That better?”
What happened to kill all angels?
“Equal rights. If I’m gonna beat the crap out of you, I’ll do it when you can actually fight back. And don’t talk in my head, ’ss annoying.”
“Sorr’,” Aziraphale mumbled.
There was silence for a bit. Crawly tried to stop thinking about what would happen if anyone found out he was helping an angel. It probably wouldn’t be pleasant. And if they found out he was helping and angel like this… really didn’t bear thinking about.
“Why ’n’t you cold?” Aziraphale asked. He was warmed now. It probably had something to do with Crawly. He was quite grateful (and slightly worried about how he would be expected to return the favor). “Thought you were cold-blooded.”
“I’m a demon,” Crawly answered, unable to resist rolling his eyes. “I can keep myself warm. You can too, but your brain’ll have to thaw first.”
“Are you slurring my intelligence?” Aziraphale said suspiciously, opening his eyes to give Crawly a glare artists usually don’t depict in their portraits of angels.
“Nope. But you’re sslurring your sspeech.”
“Better than hissing.”
“Feather-brained.”
“Serpent.”
“Sword-loser.”
“Misplacer.”
Crowley butted the angel’s cheek gently. “Whatever.”
Silence between them again, but this time Aziraphale stroked Crawly’s chin with his thumb and the demon definitely did not let him.
“What’s that white stuff called?” the angel asked, pointing upwards at the sky and the strange substance falling from it.
“Dunno,” Crawly answered. “Never seen it before.”
A flake landed on Aziraphale’s hand. The demon tasted it gingerly. “Water,” he said thoughtfully. “Really cold water.”
“Oh.” They examined the frozen water, watching it fall. When it settled on the ground and the tree, it stayed and formed a light coating of white. It landed on Aziraphale, too, and on Crawly, who looked quite undemonic with a swirl of it on his head.
“It’s nice,” Aziraphale said quietly. He was talking about the white stuff, but not just the white stuff.
“Yeah,” said Crawly, and he wasn’t talking about it at all. “What you should do,” he said slowly, “if you get cold again, is miracle yourself warm.”
“How do I do that?”
Crawly sighed. Angels sure could be stupid sometimes.
*
Oh, the fire is slowly dying,
And my dear, we’re still goodbying,
But as long as you love me so,
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!
“When was it named snow?” Wensleydale asked, back in the shop in London with fairy lights in the windows and polluted clouds outside.
“I think it was Eve,” Aziraphale said. He shrugged. “I’m not exactly sure. I don’t remember the early days much.”
“Selective memory,” Crowley not-quite-whispered.
Aziraphale sniffed. “No idea what you’re talking about, dear.”
Crowley sniggered.
“Better be off,” Adam said, tapping his watch, “Dog’ll be getting’ lonely.”
“He’s doing very well,” Aziraphale said in a voice slightly more diplomatic than usual, “for a canine his age.”
“Yup,” Adam replied cheerfully, “even if he on’y sleeps these days. G’bye, you two. See you soon.”
The other three Them got to their feet and also said their goodbyes. But the thing with Adam Young was if he said he would see you soon, he would see you soon.
The shop door closed behind the three humans and their Antichrist. Aziraphale turned off the radio, now playing something Aziraphale never wanted to hear again about ‘wishing your girlfriend was hot like me’. There was quiet between the two eternal enemies.
“It wasn’t so bad,” the angel said quietly. “Back then.”
“Mmm,” Crowley said in an extremely non-committal voice.
“I’m still not very fond of the cold,” Aziraphale continued.
“Mmm.”
“But the scarf you gave me is very useful.”
“Mmm.”
“And really, snow isn’t very bad at all.”
“Mmm.”
“Crowley, you know I’m not fond of one-sided conversations.”
“Fancy a drink?” Crowley said.
Aziraphale smiled. “More than one, my dear.”
*