11 years old

Even after a year of not seeing each other, the two boys reconnected like they hadn’t been apart at all. They would eat ice cream together; Aziraphale could eat ungodly amounts of any flavour of ice cream. 

They build sandcastles; Aziraphale made greatly detailed little castles while Anthony made his as big as he could. Once he forgot that he dug a huge hole next to his castle, accidentally tripped because he stepped in it, and crashed face-first in both castles. Aziraphale decided that it would be the last time he made sandcastles with Anthony.

In the afternoons they would scour the beach for seashells and only collected the most magnificent ones (Anthony took them home each year and had quite the collection).

“Oh c’mon angel, it’ll be fun!” Anthony said while stalking around Aziraphale, who sat in the shade on one of the lounge chairs they managed to snatch up while reading a book.

Anthony had taken up calling Aziraphale ‘angel’ somewhere in the first week they had met. His real name was long and it always seemed to trigger his speech impediment, something that made him awfully self-conscious. He was named after an angel so it seemed fitting and Aziraphale hadn’t protested anyway.

“But it’s dangerous!” Aziraphale countered while sneaking a look to the left, where his parents were.

Anthony knew that Aziraphale just needed a little persuasion. In the end, he always agreed to do what Anthony wanted to do with glee. He just needed some plausible deniability so he could tell his parents that it wasn’t his fault when they got caught or when things went pear-shaped.

“S’not dangerous at all. I know exactly how to drive one of those!”

The blonde boy pursed his lips, but put his book down and followed Anthony around the resort. Earlier that day they had discovered an old soapbox car, made out of wood that was painted a bright red. They had inspected the little car but had to leave for lunch without trying it out. The wheels were still working and mostly round. Ever since that moment, Anthony had been nagging because he wanted to try it out, but not on his own.

They found a nice artificially created hill and pushed the old car to the top. It was pretty heavy and they were both out of breath. Anthony ushered Aziraphale in the back, while he squeezed himself in front of him, his hands on the metal steering wheel. They pushed themselves over the edge of the hill and the car started to roll down slowly at first but picked up speed faster than he had expected. Aziraphale wrapped his arms around Anthony’s waist and screeched loud in his ear.