#punting

The River Cams-Cambridge, UK

The nice thing about sketching punters is that absolutely none of them are looking at their phones.

final chapter (can be read as a standalone)

Aziraphale and Crowley go punting on the Thames where Crowley has tempted Aziraphale into trying to nap by offering to eat anything Aziraphale packs in the picnic hamper. The angel really can't sleep, it's not just his excellent work ethic, but after the Armage-didn't, he's willing to try it again...if the demon doesn't let him back out of it.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/65306077/chapters/179675566

The promise of seeing Crowley taste whatever Aziraphale put before him quite let Aziraphale put out of mind his end of the bargain: the terrifying prospect of trying to nap. His anticipation of a picnic with Crowley carried Aziraphale through the night and into the next morning in happy preparation. 

On searching his recreated kitchen, the angel found his pantries stocked with more candies and crisps than he ever remembered laying in and a dearth of complex flavors. Or any vegetables. 

No matter! The neighborhood was full of delightful shops for every taste. As Aziraphale wrote up his shopping list he paused in thought: should he lean more on Crowley’s reptilian nature? But considering that snakes enjoyed eating small rodents and frogs whole, he determined (with a shudder) that would only be desirable if Crowley attended the picnic in his serpentine form. Personally, the angel had given up a taste for hair in his food ever since you could insist on having your bacon shaved. No, if Crowley complained of a lack of serpent-friendly foods, Aziraphale would just have to tell him that he hadn’t packed glassware fit for snakes.

A quick jaunt around the neighborhood found all his favorite shops still there and doing brisk business, but not so brisk that he couldn’t sail through his shopping with ease. 

Aziraphale was debating which pickle would be the perfect accompaniment for the Stilton he'd acquired when Crowley burst into the kitchen.

“What’s the hold up, Angel? We’ve got to get on the water if we want to make it to the picnic spot at the most opportune nibbling time!” Crowley hurried behind him and made shooing motions towards the front where the Bentley was waiting.

“Oh!” Aziraphale looked quickly at the jars in each of his hands before he stuffed them into both of his front coat pockets. “Ready!” he announced, and took up the overstuffed hamper.

“Wait just a minute! What do you know about the most opportune nibbling time?” he asked over his shoulder while Crowley walked behind him, hustling him along.

“Exhaustive research, angel! Now get in the car!”

***

The wild drive out of London and up the Thames hadn’t given him a chance to do anything other than yell, ‘Watch out!’ and squeeze his eyes shut while waiting for the crashes that didn’t come. Crowley hadn’t stopped animatedly talking about the boat he'd hired the whole way out of town and it was his frequent descriptive hand gestures (with both hands off the wheel) that had so alarmed Aziraphale. Fairly limp with relief, he’d let himself be hurried all the way down to the riverside quay to see what sort of vessel Crowley had actually procured.

Aziraphale had to admit, the boat was about the most delightful little vessel he had ever seen, lovingly crafted by hand and well appointed. Tucking the picnic hamper safely on board, he appreciated the built-in ice chest where he looked on with approval at the selection of white and sparkling wines Crowley stowed. Aziraphale sat primly on a bench, fully expecting Crowley to lounge beside him as the fellow with the quant pole stepped on board.

“Have the afternoon off,” Crowley made one of his smaller demonic miracles, exchanging the pole for a hundred pound note he'd pulled out of thin air. The fellow just turned around and walked back up the dock patting his pocket.

Aziraphale looked incredulously at the demon who was passing the quant from hand to hand as he walked up the gunnels and toed the rope mooring the little boat loose. With the kind of wild grin usually reserved for motor vehicles, Crowley faced upstream and planted the quant into the river bottom. Their departure from the dock was jerky enough that Aziraphale had to clutch the decking over the bow for support and hurriedly miracled them out of bumping into the boats on either side.

Looking up at the skinny dark figure that was rapidly pistoning them away from the other boaters, he exclaimed, “You want to push the boat… with a stick?” 

“Got to work up a good appetite! Right, Angel? You just sit and enjoy the views.”

Once they got further away from the dock and the crowds of chartered guests, Crowley slowed down a little. Aziraphale noticed him casting the occasional nervous glance at the hamper while he rattled on about the boat, the construction of water locks, and the perfect place for the picnic further upstream. Aziraphale suppressed a little smile. It looked like he wasn't the only one harbouring second thoughts about their bargain.

Crowley got better and better at guiding the little boat, if somewhat overenthusiastic. The second time Aziraphale had to grab the demon’s coat to keep Crowley from taking an unintended swim, he said, “Let me have a turn! I think you've worked up enough appetite for the moment, Crowley!” he swung Crowley into the upholstered seats by his coat tails and caught the quant pole before it fell into the water.

“But I was just getting the hang of that thing, did ya see? I stopped zig-zagging!” Crowley announced, stripping off his coat and absentmindedly fanning himself with a dark fedora that was just suddenly in his hand.

“I insist on having a turn! I have to get properly tired out for my nap!” It might even help, he thought, 

 Crowley flopped back into the bench still fanning, “Yeah, well, punting should do it. And the Chardonnay I brought,” Aziraphale pouted. Crowley snorted, but stopped reaching for the ice chest. “But I'll let you tire yourself out first.” 

Another mile or so up the river, Aziraphale didn't feel very tired. Why he could do this all day! He would let Crowley off the hook and just keep pushing them up river whenever Crowley dozed off. But every time he glanced over at Crowley, expecting him to be feigning sleep to get out of eating, he caught the glint of the demon's amber eyes taking in the quaint little towns and shady riverside.

Aziraphale kept going. Boat moving was less straight-forward than such simple tools implied. He was starting to daydream about what he had packed in the hamper. He wasn't tired, but had worked up a prodigious thirst. 

The creak of the ice chest and chiming of ice against glass alerted him to the demon's rustling in the wine selection. The hollow pop of a cork introduced a delectable odor to the little boat. An unbelievably delectable odor.

“Is that…?”

“1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay?” Crowley was swirling a golden wine in his glass casually extending another  to Aziraphale.

“But...how?” He stared in disbelief.

“Turns out your collection wasn't the only one that was restored, angel,” the demon sipped the award winning, impossible to find, vintage. 

“Oh!” The pole slipped out of his grasp with a splash. Looking from the rare vintage to the empty stretch of river, Aziraphale gestured to miraculously stow the quant and sent them coasting upriver.

“I'd say this is the perfect nibbling time, don't ya agree?” Crowley said, holding the glass up to him. Swirling it under his nose before letting the wine dance over his palate, Aziraphale sighed, “Quite perfect, dear boy!”

They gave the first glass their undivided attention before Aziraphale set it down carefully. With a wiggle of delight, Aziraphale dug into the hamper and pulled out a vintage olive-colored Tupperware, holding it up like it contained some rare and much sought after delicacy. 

Opening the plastic container with a little ‘plarp’ he announced, “There’s nothing like a cucumber and cress sandwich on a warm afternoon!” and took a bite of sandwich savoring the crunchiness of the cucumber before offering one to Crowley with a little shake of the container.

Crowley’s eyes swiveled over to the hamper (full to bursting), while he took another large swallow of his chilled wine. 

“Right. Hors d'oeuvres!” Crowley said with a forced smile, squaring himself up like he did for unpleasant assignments.

Aziraphale smirked at Crowley's attempt at sounding hearty whilst only sounding heartily appalled and handed over the little sandwich.

Crowley popped the whole thing into his mouth (granted it was just a little two-bite picnic morsel), chewed twice, and swallowed it down before taking a gulp of wine. Apparently Crowley did go for the serpentine approach to food.

“But you didn’t taste it properly!” Aziraphale chided.

Teeth clenched, Crowley growled, “I tasted it just fine, angel. That’s why I swallowed it and didn’t spit it out.”

Aziraphale put a hand to his mouth, eyes twinkling merrily. “Too mushy?”

“Nnggh, yes,” Crowley twisted his neck uncomfortably. “What’s the point of eating green water, Angel?” he said, making a face.

“It’s refreshing on a hot day!”

“Well, I think I’ll stick with the chilled wine when I want something refreshing.”

Aziraphale rummaged back into the hamper pulling out some foie gras to Crowley’s obvious consternation, “Not mushy! I said not mushy, Angel!” before turning around with an open foil bag.

“How about a vinegar and salt crisp?”

***

Taking turns punting their boat up the Thames, laughing at their own clumsiness, pleasantly tired by the exercise, they found a lovely little spot with a solitary willow tree near the bank. There were no buildings in sight, just some green fields rolling up from the thickets of reed and bush and tree. The summer breeze was warm but not stultifyingly so and the rattling rustle of wind in the willow leaves was pleasant. Aziraphale spread out the picnic blanket and bustled about laying out all the main course offerings while Crowley brought the ice chest off of the moored boat.  

Never having seen Crowley actually eat so much in one sitting in all their many years together, Aziraphale greatly enjoyed their picnic. Much of the food, like the foie gras, was a treat for himself, though he enjoyed the little alarmed looks Crowley gave anything ‘mooshy’. Crowley had made truly terrible faces after many of his “nibbles” though he'd finished the jar of habanero-stuffed olives. Finally, Aziraphale took the last treat from the bottom of the basket, tart lemon gelato, which pleased them both very well.

As they packed up the picnic basket, Aziraphale started to feel uneasy with the whole sleep idea again. He didn't even notice when Crowley stopped helping him, though it really was a one person job and why Crowley would insist on putting the plates on the bottom when they obviously went in the side! After taking everything out twice, he finally had the basket packed up to his liking.

With nothing left for his hands to do, Aziraphale looked over at the willow tree with some trepidation. 

Crowley had pronounced the tree a perfect napping spot. The roots curved around to make a little nest circling a lovely carpet of grass and moss while the bole of the tree had a natural indent just right for one (or a very friendly two) to rest in. The angel suspected Crowley of miracling the tree into service except that he couldn’t detect the slightest whiff of a demonic miracle. *(Crowley hadn’t miracled the tree. Hundreds of years growing on the Thames and having so many people stop by for a snooze had gently shaped it over the decades into a perfect napping spot. Plus, it enjoyed seeing the odd things people got up to from time to time).

Looking back longingly at the butterfly net he’d stowed in the boat, Aziraphale sighed and picked up his book instead. He couldn’t very well back out now when Crowley had tried cucumber and cress sandwiches. Might as well make a go of it, he could always pretend to be asleep if things went poorly. Despite his good intentions, Aziraphale didn’t move any closer to the tree, watching Crowley tuck a picnic blanket into the nook of the roots before the demon flopped onto the cloth.  

Looking up at him, Crowley patted the blanket next to him saying, “There! Saved the best spot for you!” Leaning comfortably into the gnarly bark, Crowley looked out across the fields and riverside, “Reminds me of getting a spot ready for Warlock,” he said fondly.

“I thought you always miracled the lad into napping,” Aziraphale said, surprised. The little fellow seemed to drop off so easily with Nanny Ashtoreth.

“Great Satan, no!” Crowley exclaimed. “Miracle the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness! I didn’t want to give him any ideas on how to control people, since I figured the first person he’d try it out on was me and…” Crowley cut his eyes up at Aziraphale, cleared his throat, and said, “Anyway, it used to give me the willies some nights, just imagining finding myself at the Antichrist’s ‘mercy’.”

Aziraphale sat down heavily on the blanket by Crowley’s feet. *(‘Willies’ was putting it mildly. Crowley hadn’t been able to sleep for months and even went through a short stint of not even thinking about what the boy might do, until he got himself in hand. Because if Satan and all of Heaven and Hell hadn’t been able to figure out what he was thinking up to this point, the kid wasn’t going to. Plus, he had some really interesting lucid dreaming he wanted to get back to.)

“Oh, yes, I quite see your point,” Aziraphale said. (Willies was a very good word for the terrors that had kept him from sleeping all these years.) 

“But how did you get him to sleep so well? He was an…energetic tot,” Aziraphale remarked mildly.

“Warlock could be a stroppy little blighter,” Crowley said proudly, then smiled more gently. “Nah, no miracles, just nannying.” Crowley leaned into the tree putting his arms behind his head and crossing one black leather clad ankle over the other, looking about as far from a nanny, occult or otherwise, as one could get.

“I thought you made up all that nonsense about the ‘Guild of the Nannies for the Occult’,” Aziraphale chuckled, putting air quotes around the name.

Crowley sat up, stung. “Didn’t! Learned all the tricks of the trade! ‘M still a member, too.” He crossed his arms over his narrow chest and pouted, as though he thought it was unfair that the angel thought he lied all the time! Well founded, but still, unfair.

Aziraphale smirked at the grumpy look on Crowley’s face, the reliable relief of wittering at each other taking the anxiety out of what he was going to attempt to do. “Alright Nanny Crowley…”

“Ashtoreth, my nanny name is Ashtoreth,” Crowley groused, giving him side-eye.

“Certainly. Entirely my mistake,” he said graciously, but with enough snark to put a tiny smile into the corner of Crowley’s frowning mouth.  

“Would you, Nanny Ashtoreth, be kind enough to put me down for a nap?” Aziraphale had started out teasing, but the question faltered towards the end as his voice choked into an unexpected croak.

Crowley sat up, crossing his legs and leaning his elbows onto his knees. He regarded Aziraphale with a gentleness the angel cherished, but rarely saw. “What’s up with you and sleeping, Angel? Really.”

Aziraphale dropped his gaze from Crowley’s amber eyes, and stared off across the pleasant green pastures. “I suppose… I suppose you could say I ‘get the willies’ every time I try to fall asleep,” his hands found one another, wringing until he settled them to simply grasping and turning his signet ring.

“Every time?” Crowley asked, then he made a noise somewhere between a snort and a huff, “Hruunghph! When did you first try sleeping?”

Aziraphale took a deep breath through his nose, completely failing to speak in the light tone he was trying so desperately for, “Oh, back in the Garden.”

“And you had ‘willies’ back then that kept you from sleeping?” Crowley asked softly. “What were you so worried about that you couldn’t sleep even in the Garden of Eden?”

The question, put so simply and softly, took him right back. Aziraphale closed his eyes and remembered: the wailing of fallen angels, the looks on their faces as the grace of God was ripped away.  

He stopped breathing, shoulders shaking.

A slender hand covered his twisting fingers, startling him into looking up, and wondering if his eyes were as haunted as the shadows he saw in Crowley’s amber ones.  

“There… there was already so much to be afraid of…” he whispered hoarsely.

Emotion raced across Crowley’s face: Aziraphale registered shock, anger, sadness in the familiar features. Aziraphale couldn’t tell if it was sadness for himself or sadness for Aziraphale’s own loss of peace that made Crowley hang his own head and sigh, “There was, wasn’t there.”

They sat like that and the pleasant English summer seemed far away and the horrors of the eons seemed very close.

But this time, he wasn’t alone.

Aziraphale turned his hand over, intertwining their fingers as they had on the bus home from Tadfield and squeezed Crowley’s hand. “Lucky for me, that I have a card carrying member of the Guild of Occult Nannies…”

“Nannies for the Occult, Angel. You don’t have to be occult to join,” Crowley scolded.

“Oh pish, you know what I meant,” he tugged on Crowley’s hand. Their smiles were a little tremulous as the salve of banter covered over terrible memories.

“So, Angel. You want Nanny Ashtoreth to nanny you for a nap?”

Feeling rather abashed, since he usually found all Crowley’s forms quite pleasing, he hesitantly asked, “If you don’t mind terribly, I’m much more relaxed with you than Nanny Ashtoreth.” 

Crowley made a surprised oh with his face.

“Not that she wasn’t a lovely female!” he hastened to add. “Just…very formal… I always got the feeling she was going to catch me out in something…”

Barely suppressing the laughter bubbling in his voice, Crowley quipped, “Sure, angel, no revisiting Nanny Ashtoreth as long as you don’t dress up as Brother Francis. I’d rather put you down for a nap than that fellow. I don’t know how you managed those teeth!”

Aziraphale chuckled, “I took them out every day, dear boy. Otherwise how was I supposed to enjoy my tea?” he said primly, making Crowley bark out a surprised laugh.

“Fine by me. Today is much too hot to get back into corsetry!” Then looking over at the angel’s book, the demon pointed his chin at the thick volume, “Good start, reading a book. Whattidya bring?”

Aziraphale picked up the hefty tome, “A treatise on macroeconomics.” He made a sad little moue.

Crowley raised a sardonic eyebrow, “Nah, nah, nah! Common misconception. You don’t want a boring book! You want a book that you love! Something with great characters where stuff turns out alright in the end.”

Aziraphale huffed, “Then what did you bring? I thought you didn’t read books!”

Crowley produced a slim volume from his jacket pocket like a conjurer, “A Midsummer Night's Dream.” 

Aziraphale’s mouth dropped open in surprise as Crowley settled back against the tree and patted the spot next to him. “I never said I didn’t like a good play.”

Shaking his head, Aziraphale sat down next to Crowley, leaning in while the demon read him the play (complete with stage direction, and commentary on how the Bard would have been shocked at some of the stagings they had enjoyed over the years).

Aziraphale let the familiar story wash over him, and didn’t fight his heavy eyelids as the physical effort of boat punting and pleasant fullness from their picnic added together in the warm afternoon. His head drooped onto the demon’s shoulder, where the musty smell of snake merged with Crowley’s spicy cologne and added up to “somewhere safe” on some level far below the conscious.

As he dozed off, thoughts tried to rise up, the familiar maelstrom ready to pull him in:

If we were meant to be following the Ineffable Plan, was the whole Great Plan wrong all along? So then, why have so many people had to suffer so? Oh! If I'd realized sooner I should have done more for them! All those poor people!

His breathing must have changed, his corporation started to tremble.

A surprisingly sweet tenor voice broke into his whirling thoughts, heard both through the air and the tickle against his cheek where Crowley’s chest resonated with a song in a familiar tune. Steady fingers wrapped around his trembling ones.

"Go to sleep and dream of stars,

Super nova and quasars.

Nebulae float through the night

Glimmering with soft starlight."

Crowley's lullaby in his ears, holding tight to his hand, the maelstrom of his hidden thoughts shifted:

Home Office tried to execute us, but She let us live…We did it for the world, both of us. Isn’t this a lovely world?

Mirroring his own thoughts, Crowley murmured, while the demon's thumb traced little circles on the back of his knuckles.

“Isn’t this a lovely world? Right now, the sun making everything smell so green and the breeze and the birds and the river. Right now, angel. And it gets to keep spinning and splashing and growing. Because of you. Because of me. Because of Adam. Because of a lot of people. That’s good enough, angel. Let it be good enough,” 

Aziraphale let out the breath he was holding in a tremulous sigh and took a deep shaky inhale as he nodded jerkily into Crowley’s shoulder. His own warm breath brought back the smell of Crowley’s spicy aftershave, the sharp tang of sweat mixed with his own linen shirt’s lavender. Another breath brought the scent of the book, he’d long since recognized his favorite edition of “Midsummer Night’s Dream” that Crowley must have burgled out of the shop this morning. The smell of his shop mixing with the smell of Crowley soothed him. His head settled to rest in the crook of Crowley’s neck, as the demon wrapped an arm around his shoulders. 

How had Warlock fallen asleep on Nanny Ashtoreth! There wasn’t a spare inch of softness on the demon! He remembered watching the small boy squeezing under the crook of Nanny’s arm, squirming into her side before falling asleep with the trusting abandon of the very young. Remembering the small boy twisting and turning to get comfortable, he gave it a try.

Crowley grunted as a particularly energetic twist brought his shoulder in contact with the demon’s solar plexus, but Crowley didn’t complain, just adjusted while Aziraphale tried to settle himself again. Somewhere in the readjustments he found, improbably, there was a comfortable spot, as his own curves relaxed and melted against Crowley’s side. A pleased hum rumbled against Aziraphale’s cheek, as Crowley leaned into the contact, arm draped protectively around him.

Aziraphale thought, So this is what Warlock felt snuggled up tight to Nanny Ashtoreth’s side! It is nice…

The breeze in the willow trees stirred the leaves and brushed his cheek like he had seen Nanny brush the boy’s cheek. Ruffled his hair like a little soughing wind would ruffle the feathers of doves roosting together.

It feels like I’m under his wing, not just under his arm, he thought nestling closer, relaxing so profoundly he felt like he was floating, suspended.

The great white wing arched over Aziraphale, sheltering him from glorious fiery lights, as meteors rushed by and the stars caught fire all around them. He was washed in the brightness of the universe coming to life and the joy in that creation coming from the being beside him.

Aziraphale dreamed of stars, floating through the stars with Crowley.  

And found that an angel could sleep with this demon to guard his slumber.

fin

Thank you so much for reading! Your kudos and comments really make my day!

Dorothy Dandridge in Oxford for May Morning