Angels We Have On Aisle Nine…

Aziraphale took personal pride in Christmas. Yes, it was Gabriel who did all the announcing and such on that very first Christmas, but Aziraphale was a very important member of the heavenly chorus, thank you. He even managed to be properly angelic and musical while dressed like a shepherd, which was a feat of great skill in and of itself. He had spent several weeks lurking around that particular group of shepherds, waiting for a heavenly announcement from the higher-ups. He hadn't expected Gabriel to be as impolite as to spring it on them in the middle of the night, in aggravatingly rhymed poetic couplets. Luckily for posterity, the Enochian poetry didn't translate properly to Aramaic or Latin. The rest of humanity got treated to what sounded like a lovely speech regarding the savior.

As such, Aziraphale alone was left with the memory of Gabriel's shoddy attempts at poetry.

"A virgin

Is birthin'

A savior

Better get his favor

Cuz this world's gonna end fast

Best to make the fun last…"

The horrible poem continued, each new mutilation of what could have been a very dignified art form further ingraining the memory into Aziraphale's brain. Perhaps that was the reason the angel got so defensive and downright fussy about Christmas. Then again, according to some sources (all of which were demons whose names started with 'Crow' and ended with 'ley') Aziraphale lived in a constant state of fussiness, so further fussing was not a symptom of anything other than the extreme ordinariness of whatever was going on at the time.

Whatever the state of his personal fussiness levels, Aziraphale adored Christmas with an almost ferocious fervor. He always decorated the bookshop by hand. By. Hand. Yes, he could have imagined everything in place in no time. Yes, he could have used some heavenly power here, a little angel mojo there. But no. Not Aziraphale. Not for Christmas. Every single bloody year ever since the introduction of the Christmas tree back in the Dark Ages Aziraphale had bought, hauled home and decorated one of those monstrosities, plus hanging up a ridiculous amount of garland and other Christmassy knick-knacks. And every single bloody year Crowley felt that it was his duty as a demon to attempt to help- ahem disrupt, yes that was more like it, his frien- , ahem enemy's efforts and generally drain the Christmas spirit out of everyone in sight. He accomplished this by following Aziraphale around and pranking everyone he could see and numerous people he hadn't seen but he was sure would be along shortly.

And so it went every year. Aziraphale would meander through a store and Crowley would try his damnedest to get them both thrown out before the angel could purchase a single item. Neither of them was expecting this year to be any different, really. Just another Christmas season. Another round of shopping for Aziraphale and another round of angel-harassing for Crowly. Neither of the supernatural beings expected a body to go hurtling over a display shelf and land square in Aziraphale's cart. But that was exactly what happened.

Aziraphale was in the middle of chastising Crowley when the third man came crashing into their afternoon. "My dear, must you really tie all of the garlands into demonic symbols?" Aziraphale was looking at Crowly with mild disapproval.

Crowley shrugged, eyes glittering behind his sunglasses, "But angel, it makes it fun for the whole family."

Aziraphale sighed, "My dear, really, I don't see how spending an entire afternoon untangling a massive knot of demonic symbols from one's Christmas garland is good for any part of a normal family."

Crowley would have come back with a smart remark when a brownish blur came flying over the top of a display shelf and landed in Aziraphale's cart with a resounding CRASH.

Aziraphale let out a slightly girlish squeak and leaped backward. Crowley could see the angel's wings flare and fan out in a fighting stance, their presence mere golden shadows left over after a long blink in this dimension. Crowley himself hadn't bothered to jump back into a fighting stance. He handled his surprise in a very different way. He grabbed the wreath he had been twisting into nefarious figures and began to beat at the figure in the cart, mercilessly bludgeoning the head of the hapless fellow. Crowley was having good fun until Aziraphale slapped the wreath out of his hands.

"Give me that, stop fustigating the poor fellow," Aziraphale sighed at him, attempting to twist the wreath back into the right shape as he did so.

"Fustigate?" Crowley raised a suspicious eyebrow. As a rule, he did not trust any words which had had not been used for more than a few decades. And 'fustigate' hadn't been popular for at least a hundred years. A very suspicious word, indeed.

Aziraphale attempted to edify him, choosing not to acknowledge his raised eyebrow, suspicious or otherwise. "Yes, fustigate. It means to beat with a club or to criticize harshly. I am sure you heard of it as some point."

Crowley would have shot back some sort of snappy comeback to that, but was interrupted by the guy in the cart, again.

A sandy brown head popped up from the depths of the cart, the rest of the man (who was a bit on the small side) remained crouched inside. The head scanned the aisle furtively, not seeming to pay attention to the two supernatural beings who was staring at him with varying levels of consternation. "Are they gone?" he stage-whispered, "Because I want to make it hard for them to find me, but I can't just let them give up, can I? That just spoils the fun of it!"

"Who is 'them', my dear?" Aziraphale asked, having once again recovered his composure, and now interested in probing their new contact for information.

"The freaking Winchesters, that's who. Idiot one and Idiot two. Really, I'm not sure who's dumber, one or two. But they're chasing me and I'm having good fun out-running them, so don't go spoiling it by doing something stupid." The strange, brown-haired man plucked a lollipop from his pocket, unwrapped it and began to hungrily devour it.

Crowley and Aziraphale both paused and listened intently. Sure enough, they could hear two male voices.

"Dean, did you check aisle twelve?"

"No, Sam, I did not check "aisle twelve". How much more of a girl can you be?"

"Reading signs does not make me a girl, Dean."

"It doesn't? Okay, what about not being willing to search the kid's play area because the clown mascot above the door freaks you out? That make you a girl?"

"Shut up, jerk."

"Cut the whining, bitch."

"Oh dear, they do sound like a handful," Aziraphale sympathized.

"What're you talking about, angel?" demanded Crowley.

"Oh, this young man-" (anyone under the apparent age of fifty was a 'young person' to Aziraphale, it was one of the perks of having been alive for around 5,000 years, the angel had real perspective on age), "- is being chased by little Castiel's pet projects. What did you do?" Aziraphale demanded of his cart-hitch-hiker, wing-feathers ruffling slightly on whatever dimensional plane they were resting in.

The brown haired man shrugged, "Nothing too terrible, just a joke here, a prank there…"

Aziraphale sighed, again. It was becoming a habit. "Gabriel, my dear, must you antagonize everyone in sight?"

Crowley and Gabriel both twitched at that statement, "Excuse me, what did you call me?" Gabriel demanded, just as Crowley growled out, "Run that by me again, angel".

Aziraphale blinked, "Oh dear, were you trying to be in disguise?" he asked, tipping his head to the side and peering down at the archangel hiding in his cart. "It's just the six wings on the extra-dimensional planes are very distracting…"

Crowley just started to cackle, Aziraphale chastising him gently, "Really, my dear, must you laugh at him. He's been through something of an ordeal if anything Castiel says about running about with the Winchesters is true…" Gabriel just sat there; slack-jawed with shock that his baby brother had been able to see through his disguise so easily. Granted, Aziraphale was older than many other Principalities and had more on-the-job experience than an entire garrison combined, but still… Gabriel's disguise wasn't that easy to see through, was it?

He might need to re-think his plans for living as an archangel-on-the-lam.

The shouts of the Winchesters disrupted this awkward family-plus-a-random-demon moment. "Dean, I think I heard something over there!"

"Sam, I can't hear a damn thing you say over all this Christmas music!"

"Dean… do you remember these songs having these lyrics?"

"Huh? What's the difference?"

"Well, for one thing I don't think 'Last Christmas' was as literal as this about the whole giving-you-my-heart thing last time I heard it. Ugh… that's gross."

"Another childhood memory ruined. Just our luck."

Aziraphale shot a look at Crowley. The demon shrugged innocently, his smile wicked behind his sunglasses. "Must you tamper with the music, my dear-?" Aziraphale began, before the song changed to 'Angels We Have Heard On High' and Gabriel began to sing too. After a minute or so, Crowley joined in.

"Angels we have in Aisle Nine!

Sweetly signing about Duct Tape!

And Crowley in reply,

Echoes in this refrain!

Gore-or-or-or-or-teeeexxx!

Gortex!

It's waterproof forever!"

At this point, Gabriel stood up in the cart, struck a Christopher Columbus pose and shouted, at the top of his lungs, "MUSH, AZIRAPHALE! FORWARD MARCH!" He leaned down, dropping his pose long enough to stage-whisper conspiratorially, "Hey, Zi-Zi, I think they'll be chasing us in, oh, ah, well, NOW. So you might want to start running." Behind the shelves Aziraphale could hear the shouts and bickering of the Winchester brothers as they approached.

Aziraphale shot Crowley a pointed look; then relinquished the cart handles. Crowley looked offended. "Don't look at me like this is my fault, angel. You aren't guilt-tripping me into running with that cart. No way." He shook his head for emphasis.

Aziraphale propped his fists on his narrow hips. In general terms, Aziraphale's human body, slender, soft and slight of frame is not imposing. His quelling stare is more than enough to cow most lessor demons and intimidate even demons on Crowley's exalted level. "My dear Crowley, if you had not been twisting those wreathes into hellish shapes, then we would not have stopped here. If we hadn't stopped here then we wouldn't have my brother in the cart. Therefore our presence in this situation is entirely your fault. Drive the cart."

Crowley ground his teeth but he grabbed the handles and began to run, still signing along with Gabriel's bastardized form of 'angels we have heard on high'. They took off running down the aisle. They could hear the shouts and heavy thump-thump of the Winchesters' boots behind them as they fled.

So, even two thousand years after the fact, Gabriel continues to ruin Aziraphale's Christmases. But at least this time he's considerate enough to come over for Christmas dinner and bring presents. Even for Crowley.

Author's Note: I wrote this mostly as a birthday gift for my friend Estel Caprice (as she's known on this site). I was really tired when I wrote it, so I'm really sorry if it sucks. See, I love Good Omens and I love 'Supernatural'. I've been wanting to do a crossover for a while. So, here this is, and here I am, completely exhausted. I'm going to sleep now…

Anywho… HAPPY BIRTHDAY ESTEL CAPRICE!

PLEASE REVIEW THIS STORY, PEOPLE WHO READ IT! Thanks, see ya later.