Chapter Text
“Do you remember the first time you saw snow?” Aziraphale is in his new favorite place in the world, lying on his back in his bed with Crowley’s head resting on his shoulder while the rest of him is draped over the rest of Aziraphale.
“Mmm?” Still half-asleep, Crowley burrows closer, pulling the blankets up higher. “It snowing?”
“Oh no, not at all.” Across from the bed, the window shows pale gray morning light, and a bit of sleet ticks against the glass. “Unfortunately.”
“Don’t like snow. ‘S cold.” Crowley lifts his head, wrinkling his nose. “No talking. Too early.”
Aziraphale is happy Crowley has no idea how adorably undemonic he looks when he’s half-asleep and pouting, hair sticking up every which way. “Yes, my dear.” He strokes Crowley’s hair as Crowley snuggles back in, his breathing deepening again.
—
Snow. Aziraphale remembers it clearly. It was when he first came to England, oh, maybe thirteen hundred years ago now. He’d never imagined such cold was possible. He reacted to the cold even worse than Crowley does now. That first winter he stayed in a monastery, bundled in as many layers as he could possibly manage, sitting by the fire when the brothers didn’t insist that he work, and wishing desperately that Heaven didn’t want him here. But the Vikings were a threat, and Heaven wanted this particular monastery protected, so here he was, in this icy frozen hell.
Bloody Vikings. They never even had the courtesy to show up. To this day he wonders if Crowley hadn’t stolen them off to some other unsuspecting monastery.
One day one of the brothers came in covered in white crystals, and before Aziraphale could ask about it, the crystals started dissolving away. “We’ll be up to our knees by morning,” the brother said cheerfully.
“In what?” It came out before Aziraphale could stop it. He tried his best not to seem too clueless about certain human things, but sometimes he slipped.
“Snow, what else?”
Curiosity overcame Aziraphale’s aversion to the cold, and he took his bundle of blankets and clothing layers out into the courtyard.
It was raining, only it wasn’t rain. White clusters fell from the sky, and when Aziraphale touched one, it dissolved just as the ones inside had, into water. Frozen rain, then. But different. Not like the sleet Aziraphale had already seen. For one thing, this ‘snow’ didn’t hurt when it landed on his skin. There was… something magical about it.
I wish Crowley were here to see it. It wasn’t the first time he thought of Crowley on seeing or tasting something novel, even though he knew those thoughts were dangerous ones. Still, it made him smile to think of Crowley—whom he hadn’t seen in nearly a century—somewhere nearby, stealing Aziraphale’s Vikings. Looking at the same snow for the first time.
Maybe he was. Aziraphale would ask him about it the next time they spoke.
—
He didn’t though, and now a millennia and a half later, Aziraphale still has no idea. Watching the sleet hit the window, he gives Crowley an affectionate kiss on the temple and gets a sleepy mumble in response. He’ll ask him again when he’s awake. Maybe if he’s lucky, Crowley will say, “I was with these Vikings along the coast of England…”
An angel laughs, and outside the sleet turns into snow.