Prompt: Snow
The world, despite all expectations, continued on. The seas remained saltwater and not technically bloody, despite the deaths of coal reefs. The stars remained in the sky, when the smog and light pollution allowed them to be visible. In England, late summer became crisp autumn and an angel and a demon started to wear thicker coats and scarves and meet for cups of tea in museums, concerts and dinners and late night drinks, and nothing changed.
Well, not nothing, Aziraphale thought. There was no subterfuge, no elaborate excuses for meeting up. If they went to feed the ducks, they did so because they bloody well felt like feeding ducks. More and more when he turned to meet Crowley's gaze it was full of unabashed affection, and the demon didn't look away when he noticed Aziraphale looking back.
But when they walked, Crowley thrust his hands into his pockets and Aziraphale clasped his in front of him or behind him, and neither of them reached for the other's hand. Aziraphale had always secretly thought they had done that to avoid the temptation of reaching out, but perhaps the temptation was always only on his side. When they said goodnight, it was with friendly smiles, and then they turned away, untouching.
Aziraphale had spent at least four hundred years thinking that it was fear of the consequences that stopped Crowley pushing him against the nearest hard surface to ravish him. Over the last four weeks he was beginning to think what was stopping Crowley doing so was the lack of any pronounced desire to ravish him in the first place.
It was maddening.
"So, good night then," Crowley said, leaning back and swaying on the heels of his feet at the door to the bookshop. "I expect you have work to get on with."
"Always." Aziraphale hesitated. "What are your plans?"
"Going to get my head down for a bit. It's exhausting, all this not doing work."
"Well, you should know, you slothful thing," Aziraphale said indulgently, hoping Crowley could hear the silent pleas of Kiss me good night, come here, embrace me, hold me close. He could do it himself, he supposed, but every time he tried to imagine it, the kiss was awkward, clumsy, awful. He wasn't the tempter. He shouldn't have to make the first move when there was an actual demon there, for Heaven's sake.
Unless the demon didn't want to in the first place.
Crowley started to turn away, and Aziraphale felt he had to say something, anything, to break this stalemate and stop them going on exactly the same for another two hundred years.
"Let's go to Australia."
Crowley spun back, raised eyebrows visible over his glasses. "What? Why?"
"I thought a change would be nice," Aziraphale said weakly.
"Well, yeah, if you want to. Sure. But why Australia? You hate Australia. I've never been able to get you to go there before."
Aziraphale wasn't sure why. He had just said the first place that came to the top of his head. "Well, winter is coming, and you know how grumpy it makes you." It was only the beginning of autumn, really, but that hardly mattered. "I just thought the Southern Hemisphere might suit you better. And they have the oldest extant vineyards in the world, you know. We could do a vineyard tour. Cuddle a koala." Actually, that was a lovely idea. Aziraphale hugged himself, thinking of it. They looked so damn fluffy.
"Sure, yeah, if that's what you want, angel," Crowley said amenably. "I'll arrange it." He hesitated, his breath making visible puffs of condensation in the air. It was hard to tell with his dark glasses on, but he seemed to be staring at where Aziraphale's arms were wrapped around his overcoated middle "Why do you hate Australia, anyway?"
"Too many snakes. I can't abide snakes."
"Well, that's just cruel." Crowley's smile was warmer than the Australian sun must be, now, and Aziraphale could feel the unshuttered love beaming from it. Still Crowley didn't step closer.
"Too many deserts," Aziraphale said at last. "And they have a lot of floods."
"I'll take you somewhere with no deserts or floods," Crowley promised, voice thick, and surely now...
Crowley turned away. "I'll call you when I've made the arrangements."
Aziraphale stood, looking after him, and perhaps it was blasphemous to breathe a prayer to the Almighty over this. Still. She had seemed to save them both from the wrath of Heaven and Hell. Please, Father, if it is Your will, let Australia work, he asked her quietly. Crowley was a creature of Love once.
Let us feel safe to love each other.
"I have to admit this was not what I expected of Australia in the spring," Aziraphale said, looking at the expanses of pure white snow.
Crowley, standing on the balcony of the chalet, laughed gleefully, as if the entire place was his invention. "Spring snow is the best. Corn snow, they call it, and it's so thick and soft. And the sunshine, Aziraphale. Snow and sunshine. Isn't it a glorious planet, this Earth of ours?"
Crowley had actually shed his jacket, and was standing with bare, strong arms under the golden sunlight, the blue cloudless sky lighting up his hair with red fire, as he stood black as coal against all the white snow, his yellow eyes gleaming, a slender dark thing with glowing hair. He was so unselfconsciously beautiful he took Aziraphale's breath away.
"Lovely," the angel said warmly, meaning the sunshine, the snow, the survival of the world, everything. Crowley most of all. Aziraphale moved to stand closer to him, looking down from the balcony.
One of the reasons the sky was such a perfect deep blue was that the alpine village was situated on the top of the mountain, rather than below the ski runs. When Aziraphale looked down, he could see wisps of clouds down below them. He shuffled a little closer, wishing Crowley would put an arm around him. Maybe he should move first. He felt frozen, despite the warmth.
"Do you miss it?" Crowley asked quietly.
Aziraphale didn't pretend not to know what he meant. "Not really. I never fit in there. And you are right, the music from the celestial choirs is incredibly dull."
Crowley chuckled, and moved even closer. His bare arm almost brushed Aziraphale's jacket arm. "Hell is, well, hell, but I like this world. The worst thing about Heaven was missing you while we were in different choirs."
Maybe the air was colder than Aziraphale had thought, because it was hurting his lungs. "I wasn't even created before the Holy War."
"I missed you anyway," Crowley said. It was a stupid thing to say really, it didn't actually make any sense. Warmth was shooting through Aziraphale anyway, scalding his skin red. Maybe it worked, he thought, light-headed. Maybe getting away from familiar places and familiar patterns let them change them, let Crowley say things he would never say back in London.
Maybe, if Crowley could be brave, so could Aziraphale. He bit his lip, wondering what would happen if he turned and kissed those long, thin lips. Long and thin and beautiful, like everything about the demon.
"Come inside and look around properly," Crowley said, and dragged him off by the arm.
This was new, too. No actual skin contact, but it was still touching, and Crowley didn't release his arm as he showed him the living areas, the kitchen--"Not that we'll need it, angel, there are plenty of restaurants"--the five bedrooms (a little disappointing, Aziraphale thought, having images of one small room and shared sleeping space and what was he even thinking, he didn't sleep), the eight-person jet spa, the double sided fireplace, all with as much pride as if the demon had created them personally.
He's trying so hard, Aziraphale realised. He's wrapped this chalet up like a box of chocolates. He is so desperate for me to like it all.
"I love it," he said sincerely, even though it was all too bright and white and uncluttered for his tastes. At least the fireplace was enticing. Aziraphale imagined snuggling up under a rug with Crowley, and shivered. There was a day bed perfect for Crowley to sprawl over, and two dining rooms in case they chose to use in-house dining rather than the restaurants.
"There's plenty up here in the village, and another alpine village just fifteen minutes down the mountain by snow-taxi," Crowley said. "The restaurants perhaps aren't up to your standard, but a change is as good as a holiday, right? And the glühwein, the glühwein is great." There was an anxious pucker between his black brows, and Aziraphale wanted to reach out and smooth it with his fingertips.
"It's all wonderful. Thank you, Crowley." Perhaps more had changed than he thought. He could thank Crowley now, and get a brilliant grin instead of defensiveness.
"Let's go to lunch," Crowley said, blushing under the grin.
Aziraphale made him put his jacket back on first. It wasn't remotely cold, despite all the gleaming snow, but it wasn't as warm as all that, and he didn't want his snake sluggish and sleepy. Yet.
Crowley chattered cheerfully about where to go for lunch as they headed out. "And then you can ski."
"I am not skiing. I intend to sit with a good book and watch you make a fool of yourself." Aziraphale resisted the urge to take great handfuls of the snow and push it into his mouth. While he was unlikely to be ill, snow never tasted as sugary fresh as it looked.
"I will be fabulous at skiing. I was back in the old days in the Altai Mountains, hunting ibex. There's a pretty good likeness of me on a cave painting."
"I doubt that. My dear, I've seen you walk."
"Exactly! I'm naturally swishy," Crowley said, moving ahead and demonstrating, his hips indeed swishing gracefully from side to side in the most fascinating manner. "Skiing comes naturally to someone as graceful--"
Crowley's ridiculous snakeskin feet slid out from under him, his arms grasped in vain at the air, and he tumbled backwards into a snowdrift.
"Crowley." Aziraphale was laughing too hard to be properly concerned, but he did bend over him. "Oh, you adorable idiot."
"I'm--what?" Crowley's had lost his glasses in the tumble. His eyes were wide and startled, the yellow expanded to hide the whites.
Oh, no. If anything would hurt Crowley's pride more than being called nice, it had to be being called adorable. "I'm sorry." He started to draw back. "You should get up, your trousers are hardly waterproof."
Crowley reached up, and clasped the side of his head in bare hands, preventing the retreat. "You have snow on your eyelashes, angel. I must have splattered you."
"Really?" Aziraphale whispered, held by the gentle hands on his face as if they were the hands of Atlas himself.
"It suits you. It's... adorable. Just like you. My angel."
Aziraphale lowered his face instinctively, and Crowley tilted his back, and their mouths met and caught together. The kiss was chaste, just a long gentle pressure of mouths, but Aziraphale knew, deep in his soul, that the world was now divided into before and after the kiss. He sighed against it, and felt a surprisingly delicate tongue in response, dancing across his just for a moment.
"You have no idea how long I've wanted to tell you that and kiss you," Crowley said, when their mouths had parted.
"I think I do," Aziraphale said softly, and Crowley pulled him in tight, wrapped his arms around him as if he would never let him go. And it was bliss.
"You're going to get soaked by the snow," Aziraphale said at last.
"Don't care," Crowley muttered.
"I care. Let's get you home, out of those clothes and warmed in front of the fire."
Crowley shivered, but it seemed to be from happiness. "Kiss me again, first? Kiss me and kiss me and kiss me."
"Back at the chalet," Aziraphale said firmly. "And then--I'll kiss you forever, if you like."
"Oh, I like," Crowley said fervently. "Oh, don't you just love--snow?"
"I do," whispered Aziraphale, kissing his cheek. "I truly, truly do."
Notes:
Crowley took Aziraphale to Mount Hotham in Victoria, one of the biggest skiing resorts in Australia, with its "upside down" alpine village above the ski runs.