Chapter Text
Some winters were barely worthy of their name. Typical London winters mooched from autumns leftovers, barely bothering to further crimple up the already brown leaves. Snow had become a forgotten dream for the last twenty years, a payday at the end of the month that never came. There were those winters, and then there were Winters like this one.
This Winter hastily tossed the leaves aside in a few sweeping whirlwinds and slammed down two decades worth of snow, as if wanting to out-do it's clumsy predecessors. It blew in cold air from the arctic, froze the rivers, and blocked the roads. A fluffy white carpet laid thick on the roof of a bookshop in Soho.
Aziraphale turned another page in his book and distantly wondered if Adam might have accidentally messed things about after all. There hadn't been any real Winters for several decades. He couldn't complain too much. First, as schools and the railway system had shut down, so could, surely, his bookshop. Second, it had made Aziraphale's afternoon quite entertaining.
From where he was perched under the window embroidered with flowers of ice, he had a clear view of the entire street. An entire street covered with slippery ice and hurrying Londoners who hadn't seen a whiff of ice and cold for two decades. Aziraphale greatly appreciated the result of combining those two. He mentally rated the triple axels of doom on a ten point system. Occasionally he added or detracted points for the component score as well. How big was the arc of their feet as they fell on their ass and cursed? He had never been more entertained.
He peered at the next victim rounding the corner, who was wearing something that looked like a postmodernist deconstruction of a tent, or just a plain normal camping tent perched on their head. Aziraphale coiled in anticipation. Their saunter on the ice was already unstable, challenging a spot on the podium.
"SSSSSSSSSSHIT!"
Feet went flying. Aziraphale spurted cocoa out of his nose. He cackled, wiping tears from his eyes. A picture was worth a thousand words, and he was a bookshop owner. The pirouette he'd just witnessed was too glorious to put into words.
Aziraphale froze. That damned saunter.
Oh no.
Aziraphale's books were interrupted from their slumber by a cold draft. Before they could mumble and turn the other side, a second wind seized the room and forced their attention on the door. Their owner fell through the doorway along with 5 buckets of snow and an ice statue. They sighed and settled back on the shelves. They'd seen weirder come through that door. They were old books.
Aziraphale ran his fingers over the cold hands of the ice statue as if to warm him. Frozen yellow eyes stared, unblinking, at his face. The only things Crowley could move were his pupils.
"...really my dear, out in this cold, and why?"
Crowley stared back at him.
Aziraphale sighed and took Crowley's face in his hands. He pressed a kiss on his nose before pulling off another layer of hat from his head. His red hair finally showed, perking straight up in a victory cry. Aziraphale ran his fingers through it, and Crowley could start to feel the slightest twinge of pink appearing on his face.
"It's warmest by the fireplace, but you won't fit in the armchair like this…" Aziraphale mumbled to himself, sizing Crowley up, pulling another thin black sweater over his head. His eyes grew contemplative. "I'd hold you in my lap until you thawed out," he murmured, and Crowley gulped mentally. "Except your joints don't really bend right now. Honestly, dear, outside in this weather—"
No joints, no problem. Before he knew it he was shrinking, skin turning to scales until he was eye level with Aziraphale's foot.
"Oh! Right," Aziraphale said, and picked him up. Crowley dangled frozen between his fingers, unable to perch on his arm.
"Little demonic pretzel," Aziraphale said affectionately, running fingers down his back. Crowley barely managed a weak counter-hiss.
Aziraphale settled back down into his armchair, setting Crowley onto his chest and then covering them both with a blanket. He picked up his book and continued from where he left off, absentmindedly working circles onto Crowley's back. Slowly but surely, Crowley melted under his touch. If snakes could purr, he'd be oscillating wildly. Aziraphale raised his hand to turn a page and was met with an armful of snake.
"Better now?" he asked, setting his book down and running his fingers over the sides of his face, meeting the two yellow buttons that stared back. Crowley's characteristic wobble answered him. He had told Aziraphale once that the wobble when he walked and crawled appeared in some species of snake, and that the damage was neurological.
He hadn't told him that some wobbles came from extreme heat shock. Where that came from, was obvious.
Aziraphale sensed the melancholy shift in Crowley's mood. He placed a kiss on his head, and ran his whole hand down Crowley's back. Crowley shuddered, rubbing his head against Aziraphale's finger. He would never get used to this.
"You're adorable, my dear," Aziraphale said, peering closer at Crowley. Crowley extended and pressed his nose against Aziraphale, tongue flitting out against his lips.
"Little demonic pretzel?" he hissed back with no actual malice. Aziraphale laughed.
"I was slightly hungry," he defended himself. "Biscuits, tea?"
"Tea's alright, if you don't mind,"
Crowley sprawled out on the headrest of the armchair and stared outside.
Horrible weather. He started rating the falls of the passerby.