logsinthenight | you're a sky full of stars

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you're a sky full of stars | closed

characters: Aziraphale and Crowley
location: At the park
date/time: 9/18 for lunch
content: A long overdue picnic, with a surprise meteor shower
warnings: Y'all it's gonna be cute. Hiss hiss fall in love.

Aziraphale had spent the last two days off and on making a spread for the picnic that he'd promised he'd take Crowley on before their little boat hijacking plot, so the fact that there were falling stars everywhere was just a nice little bonus. "Ah," he had said, as they headed out, straw basket full of goodies with a gingham blanket covering it tucked under one arm. "I wonder what that's all about."

Now, on the dark green lawn of the park, somewhere by the pagoda with the ice cream cart in plain view, Aziraphale throws the blanket open and places a rock on one corner and a bottle of wine on the other to weigh it down. He pulls out a few wrapped cheeses, some crackers, dried apricots, walnuts he'd cracked himself that morning, extremely terribly made pork pies, and eton mess that had, at one point, aspirations as a pavlova.

And, of course, some awful red table wine that would taste better once poured, as long as Aziraphale got to touch it first. "It is beautiful," he remarks, looking up at the sky. "Were you in the Americas for the Leonid storm in 1833? I was. It's a bit like that."

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Aziraphale grows quiet and pensive for a moment. "I hadn't... considered it," he says. He doesn't know what's worse, the idea that God had watched him die like this or the idea that God had just abandoned him entirely.

He feels tears stinging his eyes, because he really thought he'd been doing the right thing. He hadn't expected a reward, but neither had he expected to be so dishonorably extinguished in his entirety.

And then he supposes this is how Crowley must have felt for six thousand years, that God didn't care for him anymore, that She didn't love him. He tries to blink the tears away, but has to sit up as they blur his vision and slide down his cheeks, fat and salty.

Crowley turns his gaze away from the sky and to the angel. Crowley has often spoken all sorts of things about God during their friendship. Questioned all kinds of things. Brought up the problems with the Plan, brought up all of the stupid ideas the angels have had over the years. But he's never wanted to hurt Aziraphale. That's never been Crowley's plan. Never.

He sits up and reaches out a hand, but stops it before it reaches the angel.

"Angel, I'm---"

He doesn't say he's sorry, not often. Only once, in recent memory.

"She probably didn't know," he lies.

Aziraphale tries to pull himself together, but it doesn't work, not really. He'd stopped himself from mourning during the events of Armageddon, all the days leading up to it: the shop, his own discorporation, coming back to find Crowley had stopped everything and was crying over him. Over him, good Lord. He knew if he'd stopped to unpack everything, that it'd all fall apart, and they'd be sat at the pub watching the whole world burn down.

And then, again, when they'd both died, when he'd gotten here, when they'd settled in: things needed doing and so, Aziraphale bucked up and did.

He hadn't meant to cry, but he was just. Exhausted. "How could She not have known? How could this not be in the Plan?"

Crowley's hand hovers between them and eventually settles on Aziraphale's shoulder.

They don't touch, not often. Just their hands, occasionally. Shaking hands, passing wine glasses to each other, or holding hands when they were on that bus back to London. But since coming here, there have been more times that they've touched. More times they've allowed themselves to be close. But Crowley knows there are lines, careful lines that Must Not Be Crossed under any circumstances. He doesn't know where those lines are, but he'll avoid them if he sees them.

"We're still alive," he says. "Whatever happened there, we made it through. We survived it. If she knew that would happen, She would've known we'd have made it out. She'd have known we'd make it here, that we'd go back and stop them again."

Is that a lie? He can't even tell anymore.

Edited 2019-09-24 02:37 (UTC)

Aziraphale reaches up for Crowley's hand, to keep it on his shoulder. He doesn't want for it to be touch and go, one of those things they only have once every thousand years. "Do you think She can see us here, then? And She wants us to go back?"

He looks into Crowley's eyes, eyes wide and shining and full of hope. It was how he looked at Crowley that day they went to go see Hamlet, and then Crowley had responded by accidentally making Hamlet the most popular and produced play in history.

Oh, those eyes. Crowley can't say no to those eyes. He's often thought about saying no to those eyes, but he's never been able to. Aziraphale's beautiful, perfect, fucking wholesome as fuck eyes. It breaks Crowley's heart. It would be so much easier if Crowley believed that God hadn't abandoned them. If he believed in a merciful, loving God.

He certainly can't tell him the truth.

It's a good thing that Crowley is an excellent liar.

"She hasn't abandoned you here, angel," he lies. "She knows you're going to go back. That we're going to go back, and we're going to fix this."

Deep down, he thinks he probably knows Crowley enough to know that he doesn't mean it, not really. But he also knows that Crowley is making his best attempt, and he brushes away his tears and tries to smile.

"You must-- must think me silly," he says, because it's true, God had abandoned him for, what, a month and he was already falling to pieces.

"But you're right. We're here. Together. That's all I could want."

"No," he says, and it isn't a lie coming out of his mouth. He's spent more than six thousand years coming apart at the seams in private over the Almighty abandoning him, and he probably deserved it. Aziraphale didn't. Aziraphale didn't do a damn thing wrong, at least not in Crowley's eyes. Heaven should have been giving him a fucking commendation for saving the world, but they wouldn't. Of course they wouldn't. They killed him instead.

"Can't tear us apart now," he says, and he turns his hand a little so he can curl his fingers around the angel's. "Besides, who else is going to make me a picnic, eh? Can barely get the people in this town to feed themselves."

"No," he agrees. "It's been six thousand years, might as well make a go at forever, I suppose." The last of his tears have fallen, even if his cheeks are still wet, but his smile is genuine.

"And you're right. No one else to properly show you how to eat, as I've been trying to do for the last few thousand years. Honestly." He gives Crowley's hand a little squeeze, and then, looking at him, catching his gaze for just a long, pregnant second, he then decides to lean back a little, and rest his head on Crowley's shoulder.

Crowley tenses, just a little, at Aziraphale's head on his shoulder. The intimacy of the gesture, the sheer closeness of it. It's something Crowley has longed for, has craved for so long, that suddenly having it is actually quite startling. Handling expeditions or planning escape or the human soldier person's nightmares, those are all things that Crowley is equipped to handle. Closeness? Nah, well out of his wheelhouse.

He relaxes, and drapes a hand across Aziraphale's shoulder, creating an almost embrace as he's resting there.

"I do know how to eat," he mumbles, looking back up to the sky. "Just never quite saw the interest you had in it until I needed to."

He almost moves away, when Crowley tenses. Could he have been wrong, then, this entire time? But no, how could he be, with Crowley's arm around him and their fingers tangled together and--

--Well, he can still feel it, of course, bright and shining as it had always been. Love.

"I must admit too, sleeping's not quite so bad after all."

"That I could've told you about ages ago," Crowley says. "Only way I made it through the fourteenth century, sleeping through half of it."

The sky is brilliant right now, all the stars falling. It might not have been as impressive if it weren't so utterly dark around them. He wonders where the meteors come from, what has broken up in the atmosphere to cause this. Where the atmosphere is, exactly.

Could it give them some idea where they are?

"Bit easier to sleep next to someone," he admits, with a feigned sort of casualness that means he is verymuch not casual about this statement.

"Oh," he responds. "That might be why it's much nicer for me now than when I'd tried it before." Though he had, with lovers: he'd stayed awake with his thoughts all night, or read, or just watched breathing patterns change.

It's different, with Crowley. But it's different, when he's exhausted.

"But I... I'm happy, truly I am, that we're able to navigate this together." He flashes his eyes upwards to Crowley, large and blue and heavenly.

Crowley, being at his heart a great big serpentine creature, always gravitated towards warmth. Sleeping next to someone meant he had a living heat lamp he could curl up next to. Aziraphale is a bit better than that, because he gives off literal divine light, which is even warmer and better to warm up with. Not that Crowley'll admit it, of course. He'd sooner shrivel up under all that light than admit that he liked Aziraphale's warmth, even if it is obvious.

"Well, I won't go anywhere, angel," he says. "At least not without you."

He moves his arm away from Aziraphale's shoulder to glance at his wristwatch. "And we've got the better part of----one week and a half left here. And then we're both free."

Edited 2019-09-24 03:23 (UTC)

"Free would be nice," he says, even though he doesn't really believe they'll be free. First, there will be fighting. And then there will be a lot of looking over their shoulders for the other shoe to drop. And then, when it doesn't, perhaps they will be.

Or they might get ambushed again, the next time they go to get ice cream.

It makes the fact that Aziraphale is looking over at an ice cream stand all the better. Actually.

"Would you like an ice cream?"

Crowley glances over to where Aziraphale is looking. What an unexpected sight, really. Of all the things that would be in this strange, dark world. An ice cream stand.

"Doubt they have a 99 Flake," he says. All the same, he moves his arm away from the angel's shoulder to stand. "Still, might be nice to have one in the park that doesn't end in us being horribly slaughtered."

"No 99 Flake? They must, it's practically a standard." But it's true, he doesn't see any machines that could dispense the ice cream. Still, it could work, right? What does he know about ice cream?

He gets up on his feet and makes his way over only to discover that, no, they do not even have Flake and they only have soft scoops. "I'll have a vanilla, then," he answers, and seems to have trouble communicating with the spirit.

He takes out his ocarina.

Somebody, please stop him.

Crowley doesn't trust any of the spirits. He's certain they're all out to get them. Especially someone as naieve and caring as Aziraphale. Which is, of course, why Aziraphale wants to communicate with them so badly.

"Oh, no, angel, don't do it," he says, rolling his eyes at the little ocarina. "It won't do any good."

"Fine," he says, putting it back. "Suppose I'll just take whatever flavor it wants to give me. We can always swap if you prefer mine." He knows he'll probably end up eating both cones.

He seems to have miscommunicated something, because the spirit wants to pile on the cones as high as humanly possible.

Higher, since none of them are humans.

Aziraphale panics around scoop 5 and tries to get them to stop piling it on, which is just as well because they seem not to understand that Aziraphale wants 2 cones.

He pays in the rest of the pork pies that they are definitely not going to consume.

Crowley looks at the monstrous cone, and then at Aziraphale. Five scoops? Crowley happens to like ice cream, and even he wouldn't indulge quite that much. Maybe this thing's way of hurting them is to give them all a rancid stomachache.

"What flavor did it pick?" he asks, looking warily at the creature, then at Aziraphale.

Aziraphale looks back, rather annoyed. "I don't know, as you told me not to ask," he snips. "I guess it's a surprise. Help me figure it out, darling."

He's glad, at least, to trade in these pork pies, because they are quite revolting. So either way, how bad could this be?

Right?

Crowley looks dubious. Still, the two of them have shared a lot over the years, what's sharing an ice cream cone---even one this ridiculous---going to do to them?

"Oh, all right."

He takes a step back towards their blanket, and extends his hand for the angel's.

He takes a lick of one of the scoops and is pretty sure he's just eaten a mustard-flavored ice cream.

The only reason he hasn't spat it up is because he's busy holding it in one hand and Crowley's hand in the other.

"Wouldn't recommend that first scoop."

"No?" Crowley says, looking at it curiously. It's a strange sort of yellow, and he immediately assumes it must be a vibrant sort of lemon. He considers the next, which is a weird white with a blue ribbon through it.

"What do you think," he says. "Raspberry, maybe? Vanilla?"

Aziraphale leans in to take a sniff at the second one and immediately pulls a face. "Oh, no. No no no." In fact, the first one he seems to like is the rosemary and olive oil, which he finds altogether not unpleasant. But then the coconut curry is too savory - again, not altogether unpleasant, at least not as much as the blue cheese, which isn't even nice and floral like a stilton.

Then at the end, it's bitter and sour and he thinks this whole ice cream stand was a mistake. "Mm." He frowns, distastefully.

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