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and watch how you play

Who: Aziraphale and the Crowleys (Anthony and Alec)
What: A picnic with chaperone. The ineffables have been having memories of each other and Alec is determined to keep them from destroying their lives over it.
When: May 11, noonish
Where: New York Botanical Gardens
Rating/Warnings: None--if Alec has his way.

It was a chilly, dreary day befitting Aziraphale's mood when he woke up. No hangover, thank goodness, but he did sleep in, which meant his morning was spent in a rush acquiring the necessary goods for the picnic.

He packed a selection of cheeses and a baguette, crackers and a fig compote, some grapes and small oranges (and wasn't this getting heavy now), and a bottle of red wine (because Anthony had shown a preference for it and it certainly fit with Aziraphale's). It was turning out a little fancy and a tiny bit romantic, unfortunately, but then again...weren't all picnics (that weren't children's peanut-butter-and-jam sandwiches and riddled with ants) a little romantic? That was the nature of a picnic.

(Oh, but was that enough food? Maybe he would pick up a few sandwiches on the way, just in case. And some cake.)

But this would be a nice, friendly picnic between two Friends and allies and they could discuss Aziraphale's memory. It hadn't even occurred to him that Alec might have mentioned any part of Aziraphale's conversation at the Gala to Anthony--mostly because he'd spent the better part of the morning trying to prepare for a picnic he probably should have just cancelled. But he was determined to keep this completely normal. They were adults. They could sit there and be civil and talk about things without being weird.

This was healing, right? Making his peace with the fact that the emotions stirred by memories were not reality?

Aziraphale, bundled in a warm coat and a nice scarf, arms just a little tired of carrying the picnic basket, paid for his own admission to the gardens since he had already been planning to come for the art event, and sent off a text.

I'm here! Do not rush on my account.
Is there any place in particular you would like to meet?
I'm afraid it did not warm up as much as I had hoped.

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His gaze flicked away from Anthony's briefly, and he eased back into the tabletop on which he'd just placed his coat. Perhaps he was a little scared of that intensity, but he feared it was more the opposite.

"And that is my fault, how?" he said, posture defensive and a little haughty, an anxious tinge to his otherwise firm tone. He licked his lips, looked ceiling-wards in a nervous tick, then back to Anthony. His fingers flexed their grip on the table edge. "I've been using it for ages--maybe you noticed the scent when you gave me a ride on your motorcycle. It wouldn't be difficult to re-imagine it in your dream. People have dreams about people they've barely met all the time. It doesn't have to mean anything!"

"It's not your fault!"

That had come out too quickly and too harshly, just like everything else he had said so far today but he carried on as he needed Aziraphale to understand. Otherwise he would just go on accidentally hurting him and Anthony couldn't stand the thought of that.

"I don't want you to think it's your fault. I don't want to lead you on or hurt you... Or Grace."

His head rolled back towards his cousin.

"Or even Alec."

It was an apology of sorts as he had allowed Alec to tag along, had even wanted his help before when he had been terrified of what might happen if they were left alone. This. He had been absolutely terrified of this happening. Of having more memories that blurred the lines of reality.

"This time it wasn't a dream. Aziraphale, I was awake, looking at a piece of art about infinite love... I don't know if I understand what that even is. I don't know anything anymore... I don't know who my spotted pumpkin is."

Don't apologize to him. He doesn't even want to be in the room right now. He doesn't want to be witness to this. It was so bloody awkward he half wanted to sink into the ground, but he kept his arms tightly folded instead and glowered for all he was worth.

Also the spotted pumpkin comment was probably the best and worst endearment Alec had ever heard and he both felt a little ill and more than a little impressed.

The spotted pumpkin reference was so ridiculous, so awkwardly endearing, breaking for a second the cool attractive exterior to reveal a slightly dorky, sentimental, charming man beneath. Anthony was cute. He was a mess, but he was sweet and adorable. And Aziraphale, despite trying valiantly to distance himself, fell a little more in love. Dangerously, and for the first time he was aware of, it wasn't colored by the rosy lenses of memory's influence.

"Anthony..." he began and didn't have a follow-up. Aziraphale took a step toward him, still cautiously searching for the right words. He was acutely aware Alec was still in the room with them and it stayed his steps before he could come toe-to-toe with Anthony.

He wanted something profound, something supportive. Instead, he gave a soft, sad little huff and offered a small, tender smile.

"Maybe that's why they're screaming."

He is not going to say a bloody word, but he is going to silently mouth: 'what the fuck?' to himself. Because, really, what the fuck was this conversation even turning into? He felt he's turned the next page of a book only to fall into a different story altogether.

To have his name breathed with such fondness drew him to his feet and across that small distance Fell had already begun to close, but no further. He didn't reach out to touch the oddly adorable man as it felt like he stood on the other side of an invisible wall, instead Anthony stood on the side opposite looking in, screaming silently into the bluest soulful eyes he had ever seen just like those he were one of those silly pumpkins. There was a fond term, something on the tip of his tongue that he very much wanted to say. An answering call to his siren, but the nickname drifted away into the fog of memory.

"It's a good reason to scream."

He glanced aside, catching a look at Alec's upset stomach expression. Sorry cousin, he was making a bungle of this too, wasn't he?

"I was supposed to come here to call all this off, whatever this is, but I can't. I feel like I'm two people. When you are around I want to throw all the rules out the window, just run away together. When I'm with Grace its all, future and kids, and being the best person I can be... Am I loosing my mind?"

He drew in a shaky breath, trying to calm some of these raging emotions before they overran his senses entirely.

"But its not your fault. I don't want you to think any of this is your fault. I just wanted you to know... I need you to hear it once! I think I'm in love with you too."

"OH for fucks sake!" He couldn't do this any more. This hurt too much. Pushing off the wall he stalked toward the lovers before they spontaneously combusted.

"Fell-- I am sorry. Please forgive my idiot of a cousin for being a miserable idiot." And then he cut between them and grabbed Anthony by the collar to get his attention.

"You! All your life you've never cared what anyone thought. And now it's big happy family or is it just settling? If you want this and I bloody well think you do, then go at it, but e good to Grace when you let her go. Your mum is going to throw a bloody fit but she'll understand. Everyone will. Be happy, you gigantic fuckwit and stop making everyone else bloody miserable over it."

He shoved him back, nodded to Fell and then stormed out of the place, slamming the door behind him, his heart raging painfully against his ribs.

There was only so much pining a man could fucking take after all.

This was not how this lunch should have gone, but in retrospect, there was no way to put so many combustibles together with a catalyst and not expect a violent reaction.

His heart buoyed on that crest and sank. Run away together? ...You don't mean that. You can't-- Anthony was an engaged man. A very newly engaged man, and he was getting cold feet about the major life decision he had made, that was ALL. They were both confused by these so-called-memories, regardless of those soft glances and equally soft words, he was never supposed to know that Aziraphale was so wretchedly in love with him. Crowley had told. It should have been a betrayal of trust, but instead it was just Crowley coming to their rescue again.

And again. He gasped and reached for Crowley's shoulder to pull him back when he turned on Anthony, fingers left grazing his sleeve when he abruptly pulled away and Aziraphale was left stunned and alone with Anthony.

"Crowley!" The door slammed loud as a gunshot and brought him to his senses. Aziraphale took a step away from Anthony, straightening his clothing nervously, eyes darting to the door with indecision and a plea for a resolution. Come back and rescue me from myself, Crowley. Or: Go after him and spare us both, Anthony. Loyalties and love torn, Aziraphale himself settled cowardly on the option immediately before him, tugging lightly at the feeling of a thin red thread of connection.

"We shouldn't be doing this."

"Doing what having a picnic?"

At his own cutting remark his eyes settled on the basket which they had never even gotten around to opening. It was the typical sort of meal arrangement with Alec. They never went well. He shouldn't have been so bewildered... or hurt, by the way he had been yelled at and shoved aside. Anthony tried to hide how deeply that whole exchange had surprised and wounded him behind a grim frown. That too was fairly typical only this time there hadn't been a pond or a set of stairs for him to tumble into. There was only that terrifyingly deep vast unknown chasm, a long fall where he didn't know who he would be when he finally hit the bottom, but he was going to fall regardless. Had began the fall- apparently, before he had even realized...

"Tell me it's not true. If you don't feel the same way, then tell me and I'll let it go. I'll settle..."

He spat the word Alec had used because maybe that was what it had been all along. His trying to fill other people's expectations of him was settling for less than he really wanted. Anthony's darkly shaded eyes look back to Fell's. He closed the distance between them again and reached out to touch Aziraphale's lapel, to recall how soft and wonderful it felt beneath his fingertips.

"But if there is any part of you, like me, that wants to know what it feels like..."

Anthony leaned just a touch closer tempting Aziraphale's lips to settle against his instead of continuing to deny this was happening.

Doing what. "Don't be daft," he said quietly and with little bite.

Of course none of this was true, he could say. The emotions, the memories, none of it existed. But painful ache for Anthony was undeniable--a binary celestial orbit, pulling and pushing within some gravitational trap, inescapable except by the collision of a strong enough outside force.

He placed a hand on Anthony's chest and knew if he pushed the man away now, that would be the end of it. Anthony would go home to 'settle' with the arrangement he had made for himself. Aziraphale could go mend things with Crowley and remain friends, and life would go on. As it should be.

You go too fast for me. For perhaps the first time since the memories began, the lost baggage of their plot was a boon. Whatever had stayed him from acting on his emotions in that moment was not here. Aziraphale had little to lose. Anthony, on the other hand...

And for that alone, he should say no. He could be brave and spare them both.

But then Anthony would never have been cast as the instigator of Original Sin if he were so easy to resist.

He slid his hand under the lapel of the coat and over the soft dark green uniform shirt. Anthony's skin was warm through it, a slow burn against his palm. Aziraphale met dark eyes, traced the contour of a sharp, familiar nose with his gaze, down to lips he had imagined kissing the pout from in a dark vintage car from another lifetime.

Every part of him wanted to know what this might felt like, and he had never been very good at denying himself the real pleasures of life. Aziraphale tightened the fabric under his hand into a fist and pushed himself into that last breath of space between them, sealing his damnation with a kiss.

The hand on over his heart was a decision being made. Anthony could feel the tension in those bookish fingers and he caught himself holding his breath as if even that slight movement might have been enough to scare Aziraphale from his side and right out that door. He might have been left all alone with a picnic basket.

Then the fabric of his shirt was pulled tight sending his raw emotions soaring with hope long seconds before the kiss actually landed. Every sleepless night spent in agony tossing and turning over in his mind that smile, their conspiracy, the adorable way Fell fidgeted when upset... was well worth it. The kiss left no room for doubt or for error that this was exactly where he was meant to be.

"Aziraphale..."

Anthony smirked, a warm happy sort of half-smile that grew into a full one as he released the lapel he had been clutching and hazarded his luck to stroke a cheek.

"Do you have the strange feeling we've never actually done that before?"

His own name had never sounded so sweet to his ears, nor had Anthony's smile ever looked so magnificent. Cheeky, warm mirth bloomed across the other man's face and painted joyful lines around his eyes and mouth. Aziraphale drank in this smile, savored and indulged in the fact that it was his alone to see.

He leaned into the touch, dropping his gaze coyly. The kiss did feel momentous, but he wasn't sure if that was the culmination of nerves and confusion here now, or because of some weighty residual pining from the memories. Or if perhaps that elusive first kiss had already happened, in another time and place not yet remembered, and this was a long-awaited reunion.

"Oh? And here I thought you'd perhaps had a rather enlightening vision," he teased after giving it some consideration, taking pity on the green polo to brush out some of the wrinkles left under his grasp.

"Too many enlightening visions..."

He sulked again but only briefly as the memory of that so very recent kiss couldn't be held back. He could still feel the heat on his lips, imagine the weight of that gentle pressure. And he couldn't help but enjoy those friendly fingers smoothing out his polo. So very familiar! Anthony was being silly, some school lad with their first real crush, but he couldn't stop grinning.

"It was like this only I was pissed off. I had you held back against a wall so I could yell at you for calling me nice. Course... the nun came in before we kissed. If she hadn't, I wonder if we would have."

The thought had certainly been in the back of his mind some where beside how nice Aziraphale's after shave smelled and how warm being so close to him had been.

Aziraphale looked up in alarm, stepping back enough to properly look up into Anthony's face. One hand dropped to his waist, but Aziraphale was too preoccupied to properly enjoy it.

Whether they would have kissed after that scuffle or not was suddenly secondary to a very important detail.

"What were you doing in a church?" he demanded.

"Was it a Church?"

He asked as he wondered if Aziraphale might have had the same memory and as he tried not to be too distracted over those few fingers accidentally drifting over the belt line to touch a jean clad hip.

"Eeehh, I'm not sure it was. She wasn't wearing a habit. Do they have plain clothes Nuns anywhere? I just recognized her as having been a nun."

His head bounced as his own hand casually drifted down to rest on the one holding his waist.

"She recognized me too. Called me Master Crowley with a look of horror. Fits I suppose, if I'm meant to be a demon."

"I assumed..." He shrugged. "You said nun and I was surprised, since I would have thought a demon couldn't set foot on consecrated ground. Not if we stick to conventional lore. As for 'plain clothes nuns,' well. You're the religious one; you tell me. But I don't think they go around in street clothing with the hope of catching sinners to bring them in for repentance like a plain-clothed policeman."

But why did a nun know a demon, or a demon know a nun for that matter, and why did she call him Master? Jealousy flared in his stomach and he looked down at Anthony's long fingers resting over his own. He brought his other hand down to bracket Anthony's thin hips, fingers tucking through a belt-loop and giving a light, experimental tug. That jealous flame subsided just a little, but his nerves did not.

"I ask because in my most recent memory, you wanted Holy Water for something," he said, voice lowered and secretive, as he had done with Crowley in the Gala. If the Different were undergoing changes--biological changes, or obtaining 'powers' as Anakin and Elliott had--then there was no telling what negatives would come with that. The Stone Mill was empty, but he was still scared of this information escaping his and Anthony's control. "Even though, as a demon, it would destroy you completely."

Anthony shrugged, "They wouldn't be like any Nuns I had ever met before but maybe there is some kind of strange plain clothed sect. You have to admit that would be the best way to surprise sinners. You could infiltrate them. Actually to a Catholic school kid... that's a terrifying thought."

Thankfully stealth nuns weren't a thing as far as he knew because if they were he had a feeling they would be absolutely scandalized if they happened to peer into any of the windows right now. He was more intrigued. He always was when something felt forbidden and absolutely wonderful.

Aziraphale's breathing seemed just a tick quicker, his hands exploring, searching... And he hadn't realized just how tight his jeans were until they were given that tug which excited every bit of him the fabric happened to tug across. Lord almighty, that tugging was like a wanton question...

"I can't imagine what a demon would want with Holy Water. If I were a demon, an actual demon and not just having the memories of one... I'd want to stay the Hell away from the stuff. Churches too, graveyards, I don't know why I would be any where near those places."

Wanton questions deserved wanton answers. Anthony slithered closer until he could run his palm up and over the hand he had been holding, to Azriaphale's chest and beyond all the way to the small of Aziraphale's back. His other hand soon joined the first in a very chaste hug that was made just a touch more racy when a kiss landed near the man's ear.

"Why would you bring me Holy Water? It's not like most people keep fonts of it in their homes."

He raised a suggestive brow but didn't ask what Anthony might have done to make it so terrifying. Then again, all it took possibly was a little Catholic guilt to make even a non-sinner feel like he was one.

Aziraphale on the other had couldn't even begin to keep track of the sins he'd committed that would make a nun blush.

He nodded. Hopefully this memory version of Anthony was equally wise enough to stay far away from those kinds of places. But that still didn't explain the need for Holy Water, or the sinking concern that Anthony might have to use it.

"I don't know what you wanted with it, but I wanted to keep you safe," he said, shivering at the kiss and melting into the embrace. "You asked me for the water one-hundred years prior, and would have stolen some from a church if I hadn't given it to you. I loved you, Anthony. I loved you so much in that moment, and I think, in addition to saving you from the danger of your robbery, I hoped you wouldn't use it lightly ...if it was from me."

He was a little demon as a kid and nuns have mighty fast rulers and even sharper tongues. One did not want to tick off a whole school of them. He gave the eyebrow a happy smirk but left the story for another day. They already had a few of those started and he was deeply interested in this business with the Holy Water.

There was an odd contrariness to that whole statement. I wanted to keep you safe by giving you the object of your destruction. A hundred years ago Aziraphale had said no until he was preparing to do something stupid to get what he wanted and then it was made a present to protect him. It was ridiculously romantic but...

"You keep saying loved in the past tense. What about the present?"

He smiled, just a small, cute little upturn of his lips, eyeing Anthony with a considering gleam before looking away as he pretended to consider the question.

"Oh, no, that's the problem. It's wickedly present-tense as well. Probably has no right to be, all things considered. But yet here we are, an unreasonably in-love fool." And that was a problem he didn't care to look too closely at: he and Anthony didn't know each other all that well, but the intensity of unresolved emotions bleeding off the memories added to in-person attraction (at least on Aziraphale's part) were a heady combination.

"I love you, Anthony," he said, sincere and firm in his resolve, looking up into his eyes. "I do." The statement deserved weight and attention, so he gave it a due moment of silence.

Then, recalling something Anthony mentioned before, he smiled a sly smile that wrinkled his nose and twinkled in his eyes, and leaned up until he was nearly nose to nose to add: "After all, how could I not? You may be the nicest demon I've ever met."

Oh, there was something about that ever so coy teasing, that little kewpie doll-like smile that sent actual shivers racing up his spine. It had always been said in those old movies that when love hit it was like a freight train, eighty miles and hour straight into a wall. It had never been like that with Grace. They had met at the piano bar Anthony had been working and had ended up talking all night. She was a wonderfully nice person but there had never been that 'zing'. Maybe that was why he had dragged his feet so long, refusing to escalate their romance until he had been pushed to. They hadn't even moved in together but he had the strangest feeling that if Fell asked he would drop everything to follow. Especially if those three little words, 'I love you' were breathed into his ear.

Those memories Anthony had been having definitely had been highly influential in this fall from Grace. Not only in manifesting all these hidden feelings but in other ways. Anthony had been afraid to tell her about the memories knowing what it would mean, that he would have been labeled crazy and encouraged to seek out counseling or medicate himself to the point of stupor. She wouldn't have been able to smile up into his eyes and tease him, making his poor lost heart leap with both love and a certain amount of remembered fury.

"Cheek!"

But he was smiling too, drinking in all those new yet painfully familiar expressions before dipping in to give those sly lips their second kiss.

"I was an angel once too. Apparently, I helped create the stars. So I'm nice and incredibly gifted..."

If praise was going to be leveled he might as well run with it, though he would be willing if it were still in his power, to gift a few stars to Aziraphale.

"But I'm left wondering, since technically this would be our third date," the first having ended badly with a rude accusation of a hitman's lifestyle and the second being a perfect date of motorcycles and crepes, "What do you usually do on a third date?"

They were lucky to have each other, to be able to make light of their shared predicament without judging each other crazy. If one was crazy, they both were; two sides of the same coin. Weathering this together felt appropriate. This was a perk of their friendship, confiding and enjoying these secrets that their non-Different relationships would never understand. And when one had a nice demon, one had to give him grief about it.

"The stars. Right." Tempted Eve AND hung the stars, did he? Quite the busy one, Anthony was.

Gifted. Aziraphale glanced down into the space between their bodies suggestively, even if that wasn't intended as innuendo. And so, since he was already accused of cheekiness, he figured he might as well double-down on it.

"What do I do? I don't know what you mean, my dear. Other than have a picnic?"

"Yeah, named a few nebula. I think that's you all caught up."

Anthony conveniently left out the part about being so overcome by feelings that he actually fainted dead away. He decided on a third date and while trying to impress your new fella one was allowed to gloss over a few little tidbits that might make one appear less than cool. Nevermind that he had ruined any chance of that early on by being so blastedly candid about his feelings.

"It is a fine day for a picnic."

Anthony glanced outside as his eyes had been drawn to the sound of drops pattering against the glass. So it had started to sprinkle slightly, a cold nasty rain on a freezing day. It wasn't typical picnic weather but they could make themselves nice and cozy inside.

He happened to look back just in time to catch that appraising look. Hopefully one so attuned to the visual arts liked what he saw.

"Well... I just was wondering. We could call it demonic curiosity, just what sort of picnic Aziraphale packs. Are you a blanket on the lawn sort, or do you prefer a picnic table? Or..."

He added the third option like a tempting tease.

"Maybe you like to lie back in bed Roman style?"

It was a romantic notion, creating and naming the stars, and if it had been real, Aziraphale would think him properly cool and be suitably enchanted. But then Aziraphale was also charmed by the whole awkward pumpkin thing, so clearly his idea of cool may be a little off kilter.

"Oh, certainly," he said as the rain picked just up enough to make leaving the little stone mill now an unreasonable choice.

If he believed in omens, the dreary drizzle may have seemed an ill one.

But he didn't, and Anthony was warm and close, and very distracting, and the stone walls kept out the spring storm, and with it, the Garden. It was just the two of them.

"However I like it--" He gently pushed Anthony away, stepping over to the basket to open the lid and satisfy that demonic curiosity. Aziraphale suspected Anthony would get a lot of mileage out of being the demon when he was feeling like owning the moniker. Actually, he suspected they both would and as right as it felt, he wondered if there was something perverse to leaning into it as hard as they were, embracing the connection as thoroughly in their private lives. "I prefer to not rush picnicking, so I suspect we may need to get to it, or you won't time to find out," he said pointedly, "given that you'll be due back to work before long."

"Shit!"

Work! Oh with all the drama, heartfelt confessions and all he had entirely forgotten he had work today. Anthony cast a quick frantic look at his watch but calmed when he saw what the time was. Thankfully even though it had felt like they had been hours together, those seconds stretching out into long comfortable forevers, it hadn't been nearly as long as that.

"Nah, it's fine. I'll just... stretch my break. Do an hour and a half, catch up the missing time on the back end."

Anything to spend more time with the gentleman and his picnic basket. Anthony floated closer to the basket and peered inside. If one of those classic picnic blankets appeared then he would suggest setting up shop on the floor near the grand fireplace, maybe even starting a fire because why not? It was a chill enough day for one. But if a set of fine dishes or glasses with fluted bases should be pulled out of the basket then there were plenty of tables like that one by the window they could make use of.

"They say you can tell a lot about a man from the way he packs his picnic basket."

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