Sunset ^beta

Crowley did not like picnics, as a rule. Crowley was not overly fond of eating, as a rule – she didn’t need to do it, she mainly went to restaurants because she enjoyed watching Aziraphale eat – although drinking was fine. Drinking could get you drunk, which was entertaining. Food just … tasted of things. A picnic was food (though sometimes also drink, on the plus side) that was consumed in public, on the ground, on top of a blanket that was generally scratchy, with everything that was supposed to be cold at a middling lukewarm temperature and everything better eaten hot stone-cold. The main thing she liked about them was sitting on her usual bench with Aziraphale and directing wasps to go over and fly in picnickers’ faces to make them hurriedly pack up and leave.

While attempting to summon up enthusiasm for the outing, she forced herself to view it as an opportunity to watch Aziraphale eat in a new setting. Aziraphale’s whole-hearted enjoyment of food was one of her most appealing traits, and since she’d volunteered to put together everything for the picnic, all of the food was guaranteed to be her favorites. She did look good outdoors, with sunlight glinting off her hair and her pale eyes shining; even when it was cloudy, as it was most of the time in London, Crowley secretly thought that she was like (ugh) a ray of sunshine in and of herself.

The whole thing was embarrassing. Agreeing to Aziraphale’s ridiculous proposal of a picnic was embarrassing, and agreeing because she was that desperate to spend time with the angel was even more embarrassing. Sincerity was beyond embarrassing: a studied, nonchalant cynicism was so much more the thing.

But what was done was done. Crowley had never stood up Aziraphale in six thousand years (not when they had an actual, solid time and place to meet, anyway – here and there she’d missed a hint) and she certainly wasn’t going to start standing her up now that neither of them were technically even on opposite sides anymore. She would just have to bear down and suffer nobly.

And suffer she would. As the Bentley pulled up in front of the bookshop, Aziraphale was just exiting the front door with a large wicker hamper and a blanket folded on top of it, and Crowley could see that she was wearing the ghastliest outfit imaginable, the effect only mildly blunted by her sunglasses.

Aziraphale’s fashion sense was always antiquated. For centuries, Crowley had watched her habitually mix in decades-old styles with reasonably up-to-date ones in a manner that could have been cool if she’d been doing it in an eclectic, artistic way – but, being Aziraphale, it was sheer absent-mindedness. Then in the twentieth century, at some point in the second or third decades, she simply stopped updating at all: apparently she found long skirts and corsets comforting and attractive. Crowley had to admit that this worked for her, but on principle she had to be annoyed.

Today, however, she was on another level of horror altogether. Aziraphale was dressed in a gown – the only appropriate word – made of some light and floaty stuff dotted with little red flowers, a cloud of ruffles and pleats, including (Crowley shuddered as she saw it) a bustle. An actual bustle.

Aziraphale approached while she was still sitting in shock, tried to open the car door, and rattled the handle. “Crowley! Crowley, I need to put the hamper inside. I can’t hold it on my lap. Come on, now!” Running on autopilot and staring straight ahead out the windshield, Crowley flicked a finger and infernally caused the locks to pop up. “That’s much better,” she heard Aziraphale remark, and then all the shuffling sounds of setting the basket down in the back (probably scuffing the seats with stray bits of wicker) and putting the blanket over it to hold it in place. When she came back around to the front to take her own seat, there was even more shuffling. Crowley risked a glance to the side and caught sight of Aziraphale carefully collapsing the bustle beneath her and slipping into the seat, where she had to perch at an odd angle due to all of the extra fabric around and under her. Finally settling with a huffy little sigh, she caught Crowley’s eye and raised her eyebrows. “Well? Aren’t we going?”

With an eyeroll that Crowley suspected would not be her last of the day, she pulled back out into traffic and took them on the bles– thankfully short ride to St. James’s Park. Of course, when they got there, Aziraphale was equally careful about getting out of the Bentley again, very pointedly spending long moments un-collapsing the bustle and shaking out wrinkles in her many, many layers, and Crowley took the hint to get the basket and blanket herself, slamming the door behind them. (The seats at least didn’t appear to be scratched.) She was rewarded with a radiant smile that made her stupid heart – she didn’t even have a heart, not really – do a little jump.

“Time to go sit on the grass,” she said, with a tone that implied that grass-sitting was a form of execution. And then, because she couldn’t resist anymore, “What are you wearing, Aziraphale?”

“Oh!” Aziraphale looked down at herself, smoothing out her floaty skirts unnecessarily again. “Isn’t it lovely? Been sitting in my wardrobe for a few decades now. Well. More than a century, really. But I asked myself, what does one wear for a picnic? And I thought about those times we lunched with Manet and Monet and that lot and this little ensemble felt just right. The organdy breathes so well in this warm weather we’ve been having, too, doesn’t it?”

“You do know that humans haven’t worn anything like that since, oh, 1890 or so?” Crowley also couldn’t resist pointing out, but Aziraphale only wrinkled her nose and set off for a spot in the shade on the grassy bank of the pond. Another picnic was happening there already, but the lunchers mysteriously felt an urge to pack up and call it a day as she approached.

Tugging the folded blanket from under Crowley’s arm, Aziraphale took hold of two corners and flung it out into the air to float down into a perfect square on the lawn, and looked down at it in satisfaction. Then she eased herself down onto it – easing was necessary due to the corset and other underpinnings, Crowley supposed. Ridiculous things: she’d worn men’s clothes and a generally masculine form through most of the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries partly for that reason. And yet Aziraphale still regularly wore a corset that looked like it could have sailed on the Titanic (although the one she was wearing in this getup was different, older – certainly more, ah, shaping involved). Well, took all sorts and whatnot.

“I’ve got some strawberry tarts,” said Aziraphale, narrating while she laid them out as though Crowley couldn’t see what she had, “and cucumber sandwiches, and a little charcuterie for something a bit plainer, and then scones with some lovely clotted cream. Plain bread and butter – I wasn’t sure if it was interesting enough, but the bread is fresh from the bakery down the street, and it’s the fancier French butter from Waitrose. Croissants from the other bakery – you know that the people who do the good bread don’t do so well with the laminated doughs – and a few danish with guava, I think it’s the best fruit option. And I also was a bit naughty –” she dimpled, not looking remotely naughty at all “– and bought a handful of profiteroles as well.”

“You know it’s just us, right?” Crowley looked meaningfully at the array of sugary treats in front of them, enough for a platoon, at least, and not pointing out that she herself basically didn’t eat.

“I wanted us to have a selection. And, of course, can’t forget the beverages!” More rummaging in the basket. There were definitely miracles at work to fit everything in it, even though it was on the large side. “One bottle of champagne, one bottle of claret, one bottle of prosecco, and one bottle of elderflower cordial.”

“Again, angel. Two of us.”

“Obviously, different drinks to pair with different food. And besides, I know you’d prefer to drink your lunch, so I had to make sure that you had a spread for yourself, as it were.”

Well. That was sweet. As a gesture of thanks, Crowley even nibbled on some of the bread and butter, which was good, as far as food went. Then she sat back – well, reclined – with a glass of champagne and watched Aziraphale demolish several tarts and profiteroles with gusto.

Something was gnawing at Crowley, and she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to inspect it. Instead, she looked out over the green and focused on the nearest other pair of picnickers, two middle-aged human men. They were certainly having a good time, the one with the beard actually feeding the gangly one a piece of cake, forkful by forkful; Crowley certainly did not want Aziraphale to do that. A little food went a long way. Oh, and then the gangly one actually held up a thermos for beardy to drink from, which was too much. Definitely too much. And the way they looked into each other’s eyes … !

The thing with humans was, they had to be so over the top and obvious. They didn’t have the time for anything else – they couldn’t spend thousands of years rubbing elbows with someone, glancing at them when they weren’t looking, helping them out when they needed it, just sort of being there and hoping that at some point the other person would turn and say, it’s always been you, I’ve gotten myself into scrapes just so you could have the pleasure of getting me out of them, I really love the things you do with your hair. Crowley could, and Crowley would. Once or twice she’d been slightly more overt and had gotten the message – no, not yet, slow it down – and she was willing to slow down. It was better to be in Aziraphale’s company and in that confusing middle-ground between “enemy agents who got on better with each other than with their own respective sides” and something Crowley wasn’t quite ready to name even inside her own head, than to not be in Aziraphale’s company at all. But did beardy and gangly have to rub it in her face quite so effectively?

She scowled and turned back to see Aziraphale watching her while nibbling at a scone, eyes sharper than usual. “Yes?”

“All right, dear girl?” Aziraphale’s use of endearments was normally endearing, but at the moment it clipped against the side of the irritation running through Crowley’s mind like an unlucky pedestrian in London traffic.

“No, actually,” she found herself snapping. “Not really.”

Aziraphale pouted, her lips briefly pursing up before she took another bite of scone. “I’m terribly sorry to hear that,” she said around it, and swallowed. “Anything I can do to help?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Probably isn’t your cup of tea.” The reference to ingesting matter was supposed to sting, but she didn’t think it was really effective as Aziraphale just smiled and cocked her head, looking like some sort of oil painting from 1872.

“Come on, out with it, old thing. Is Below still giving you guff?”

Below had actually done an excellent job of ignoring Crowley for some time now, apart from the inept demon set on her tail to keep an eye on her. “It’s you, actually. Us. All this.” She swept the arm not propping herself up to encompass the entire park, or possibly all of London.

“Me?”

“I just want a date with you, angel! One proper date. Is it really so much to ask for?” The words were just rolling out of her, and she knew she ought to pull them back, but reveled for a moment in letting out those emotions like they were a lash. “We helped stop Armageddon, we’re not even technically on any sides anymore, doesn’t that mean we can just … move forward?”

Aziraphale was silent now, not even eating anymore, and her eyebrows were drawn together above her nose. She was, Crowley thought with despair, probably getting ready to stand up and bustle off in her bustle, ridiculous as it was.

“But this is a date,” she finally said, and Crowley’s heart performed a complicated and painful little maneuver.

“What?”

“Isn’t it? Oh dear, I thought it was obvious.” She eyed the half-eaten scone in her hand with some misgiving. “I’ve read the literature, you know. Humans go places and eat and drink for dates. We already do that sort of thing not as dates, so I thought if it were a picnic, that would make it rather more special.”

Beardy and gangly were laughing at something. Crowley suspected that it was at her, somehow, and sent a wasp over to bother them.

“This is a date.”

“Well, it was supposed to be one, but if you don’t like it …”

“No,” Crowley said immediately, and sat bolt upright. “No, it’s good.”

“Are you sure?”

Aziraphale still looked uncertain and stricken, and most importantly, like she wasn’t even going to finish her scone. There was a blob of cream about to fall off of it. Struck by sudden inspiration, Crawley leaned forward and caught it with one finger, then popped the finger in her mouth. The cream was cool, thick, a little tangy – not the worst food she’d tasted.

“Lovely.” Aziraphale still looked unconvinced, or possibly more puzzled, prompting Crowley to start thinking desperately about flinging herself across the blanket and kissing her just to prove that she really meant it. Instead she drained her glass of champagne as well, then smacked her lips. “Excellent stuff. A picnic! Brilliant idea, this.”

“Are you all right?”

“Never better!” And in fact Crowley was grinning in a way that she hadn’t done in who knew how long, because … when she thought about it, she really had never been better, maybe. It wasn’t just the champagne bubbling in her stomach: her blood was fizzing, her mind was roaring ahead but also going blank. Aziraphale! Arranged a date! For the two of them! “Angel, could you pour me some of that claret?”