Disclaimer: Silly lawyers. (smites lawyers)

AN: Not a Little Shop of Horrors cross-over, it wasn't even inspired by it, though as soon as I thought of it I had to laugh. Other than that, first Good Omens fic, I do hope I haven't screwed up the poor boys too much :)

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"Do you need any sweaters?" Aziraphale asked, a touch desperately.

Crowley arched one thick, dark eyebrow above his sunglasses, and asked the obvious question. "What?"

He might have managed something a bit more creative, only until just now he'd been being lulled into a half-asleep, pleasant trance state brought on primarily by just not being outside in London in December, but also by a cup of warm tea and the agreeably squishy (albeit somewhat dust-smelling) couch in the bookstore's back room. Officially he was here because he'd just happened to be in this part of town when tea-time had rolled around and the snow was really starting to pick up speed anyway, which was as good a reason as any.

Just now, Aziraphale was out of sight behind a bookcase doing some sort of unknown rearranging, but he peered briefly through the crack between the top of one row of books and the bottom of the next. "Sweaters," he repeated awkwardly. "Do you have enough, do you think?"

Crowley considered this question, or more precisely its peculiar nature, for a moment or two before grimacing abruptly. Oh... Oh. He knew what this was all about. How could he have forgotten? ...Well, about as easily as he always did, apparently, but still. "I've got plenty," he said firmly.

"What about books, then?" the angel asked brightly. "Really, I don't know what you did to pass the time before television, you've hardly got any-"

"I can go to the library if I want something to read, you know," Crowley said resignedly, sipping his tea.

Aziraphale, who couldn't quite get his mind around the image of Crowley in a library, sniffed. "Is there anything you do want, then?" he asked, rather more bluntly than was usual for their customary seasonal repartee.

Crowley had to forgive him, though, because putting it just like that put him in mind of something rather, well, else. Forgiving him was the least he could do, really. "Dinner?" he suggested, thinking about how it'd been some time since they'd done the Ritz together.

Aziraphale reemerged from between the bookshelves in his own personal cloud of dust as he clapped his hands together primly, and beamed. "Okay - is tomorrow good? I'll make some."

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Crowley had many reasons for not liking Christmas.

For one thing, of course, there was the basic and simple fact that he was a demon. Demons celebrating Christmas was like angels celebrating Halloween - in fact, it was worse. Because whatever some possibly quite daft individuals might argue about the origins of All Hallows' Eve, the fact remained that what it was really about, these days, was deeply confusing little children by telling them that it was suddenly okay to take candy from strangers.

So, simply put, demons just didn't do Christmas. Of course, Crowley wasn't normally too bothered about that sort of thing, but the problem was that that wasn't the only problem. The real problem was, simply put, Aziraphale.

Aziraphale liked Christmas. Crowley found the enthusiasm with which the angel pursued the holiday to be distressingly endearing, even though it was really only natural what with him being an angel and all, and would've preferred to not think about it at all, but Aziraphale insisted on thrusting it in his face every season. He just didn't understand why Crowley shouldn't enjoy the holiday too, and no merely logical argument concerning his basic demonic nature stood a chance. Aziraphale was like that about a lot of things, Crowley reflected.

As luck would have it, he was reflecting on this in the middle of what appeared to be a slightly dingy, unknown little florist's shop. He could've just wished up a gift, but you could only know someone for so many millennia before it became difficult to come up with anything new, so he had gone out the day after their tea together in search of ideas. And yes, he was getting Aziraphale a gift, like it or not; the angel was cooking him dinner, for goodn- for Heav- for Pet- well, he was.

Logically, the first thing that came to mind when considering a gift for the bibliophilic angel was a book. Thankfully Crowley had never been quite that dumb. Also, clip-on book lights and weighted bookmarks just weren't his style. So he had fallen back on some more creative if not necessarily more sage advice, and had given up on getting something Aziraphale might like in favor of getting something he might like.

After that, it had been a simple process of ruling out all of the things that would've put the angel off speaking terms with him that had led him to the florist's.

The vast majority of their merchandise seemed to consist of supposedly romantic arrangements of slowly wilting roses and baby's breath, and Crowley felt oddly troubled. It wasn't like there was really anything romantic about getting someone a bunch of flower corpses anyways, at least an angel probably wouldn't think so... Nevertheless, in the end he decided to play it safe, and perused the shelves in the back, away from the main display...

Crowley liked plants. It was hard to say why - most of the time, that was. Just now, though, he grinned.

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Hours passed. It was fairly clear when Crowley finished his shopping (well, it'd actually been more like he'd walked out of the store with the plant and no one had thought to stop him), but by Christmas evening the snow had started up again. A new layer of fresh, crisp white glossed over the typical London slush, to be moderately undisturbed until morning. It was all terribly picturesque, really.

"That's not funny," Aziraphale said bitterly.

"Oh, I'm sure someone thought it was at some point," Crowley smirked, trying vainly to stifle the last of his snickers. Anybody else would've been ashamed; Crowley felt that Aziraphale's face had been a real work of art.

Aziraphale, for his part, was experiencing a very un-angelic urge to toss the thing in his hand at Crowley's head. He'd even gone and tied a shiny red ribbon 'round the pot, the, the, the jerk.

The fact of the matter was that the angelic race was as a rule quite proud of plants. Totally aside from providing food and fresh air and all that good stuff, they were also the most prominent variety of life on the planet that could get by without taking any part of any other life - well, most of the time, that was. Things like a Venus-blessed-flytrap were basically a perversion of just about everything good about the creatures...

Eventually Aziraphale was able to control his more unsavory impulses enough to firmly set the plant down on the table. "You can't expect me to take care of this."

"So you're going to let it die?" Crowley asked bluntly. Hmm, just how much trouble could he get into...?

"I probably would even without meaning to," Aziraphale insisted. "It probably needs a heat lamp or something, and where am I going to find -- food for it in winter, I'd like to know-"

"It's really quite easy, actually," Crowley said cheerfully. "You can get insects for it at a pet store, for one thing."

The look in Aziraphale's eyes, Crowley had to admit, was actually a bit... worrisome. He wasn't sure if angels were actually allowed to look so... worrisome, strictly speaking. And yet this one pulled it off rather well, at least for a man in tweed. "Of course I know," he said in frighteningly happy tones, "that it would be rude to refuse a gift. And of course I know that everything has to eat. Therefore I think it would be best if we still said it was mine... but you kept it at your place." Crowley kept his face carefully blank as he nodded, though he really wanted to snicker some more. Aziraphale sighed in exasperation. "I mean, what did you expect me to do with it? Why did you get me this?" he demanded.

Crowley shrugged. "Well, I couldn't think of anything you'd want..."

"...so you got me something you wanted?" Aziraphale said curiously. Crowley froze. Aziraphale beamed.

"Crowley, you like plants?" Crowley grimaced, and merely muttered something quite possibly profane under his breath in response, and considered sulking.

He didn't though, so, his typical bit of retaliative mischievousness out of the way, a silence settled over them. It was a comfortable and broken-in sort of silence, like the kind you got between a ninety-year-old married couple, which was really no surprise since they'd had a bit more than ninety years to work at it. Crowley murmured that the food was good, and it was. The snow fell.

And eventually, it was over. Crowley offered to help with the dishes, because it was Aziraphale, and anyway he'd probably just politely refuse, which he did. Then he showed him to the door.

"Well, thanks for the dinner," Crowley said, hissing the 's'. Aziraphale smiled good-naturedly, and the demon's eyes flickered. "And..." He smirked. "And, as for this-" he hefted the plant he held in one hand in explanation, "-I don't know what you're complaining about; you put up mistletoe."

Aziraphale managed to pale and then blush in quick succession, darting a horrified glance up and then looking back down at his suddenly fidgeting hands. "Oh, but, it's traditional, I mean-"

Crowley chuckled, and patted him reassuringly on the shoulder. "Oh, relax. I just mean, you know, mistletoe. It's a parasite, you know. One of my side's more imaginative ideas, really." He grinned toothily. And then, quickly, while Aziraphale's lips were still parted slightly in surprise, he darted down cobra-quick to steal a kiss.

The snow fell.

A little while later, a man with dark hair and dark clothes who insisted on wearing sunglasses even when it was snowing, at night, stepped out of a bookshop with a 'Closed' sign in the window. He was also, at the moment, sporting the beginnings of a rather livid bruise on his right cheek. Crowley had to admit that he'd been a bit surprised by the punch; to be honest he'd been expecting a slap without even thinking about it...

'Traditional,' he'd told him; 'traditional, just like you said-' Somehow, that hadn't gone over too well. The angel would be off speaking terms with him for months.

But Crowley was sure it was nothing permanent. You could tell he was, from the nonchalant, disgustingly self-satisfied way he flicked his tongue across his lips. You could tell from the way, as he climbed into his beloved Bentley and drove off, he was whistling under his breath something that might just possibly have been 'Jingle Bells'...

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AN: (beam) I am sickly-poor right now, so do have a heart and review. Reviews have been said to be better than many different things on down the ages, but I think we can all agree that they're far superior to cough syrup.