A/N: welcome to my new fic. I think this will be the last one I post here on FF, but please come find me over on A03 under the name vampiremama. There is just so much more I can do with formatting over there. If you are worried about any triggers, shoot me a message and I will be happy to let you know. I will try and put anything that comes along in the tags but I don't think there is anything major. This fic is complete and will be posting every Monday, so have no fear, it will not be abandoned.

The sun was just the right amount of warm. The beams cascaded through the lazy clouds, heating the garden to the perfect temperature. Aziraphale walked through his students' canvases, giving each of them their own compliment and a small thing to work on. He looked back out at the view, it really was perfect for painting. Perhaps he would bring his own easel out another time to capture it himself.

"Anathema, dear, you have really improved!" He smiled at the beautiful girl half his age. While not his best student, she was his favourite. Kind and intuitive.

"You think so? I feel like I can't quite get the leaves right."

"Perhaps try a darker undercoat next time. Layering is as good on our canvases as it is on our bodies," he replied, laughing at his own joke.

"How you can wear a waistcoat and a bloody bowtie when it's twenty-six degrees out, I'll never know," she teased. She was American but had lived in the UK for ten years, so her slang was local even if her accent wasn't.

"It's stylish." He tutted at her, but a fond smile followed, and he moved his way over to his next student.

He'd been an artist his whole life, but it'd never been his job. Not until he'd retired early two years previously, at age fifty. He had done his time in the corporate world. It had done its best to chew him up and spit him out, but he'd survived with a cheery outlook on life.

Moving out into the country had been the best thing for him. He loved the small town where everyone knew each other. A caring community that had taken him in with open arms. He hadn't had a lot of friends back in London. Everything moved too fast for him there. He was much happier teaching art lessons to the ladies—and occasionally one gentleperson—of Tadfield once a week.

"I think that is a good place to leave it today. We will meet back here at the same time next week, weather depending."

Aziraphale gathered his supplies, leaving the bucket of water out for the class paint brushes. Only Madame Tracy had her own set. And by the way she bent the bristles, he was quite glad for that.

He made small talk as the ladies slowly filtered out, leaving only he and Madame Tracy. She was a kind enough woman, a bit rough around the edges, but that came from a life in the circus. She had spent years as a medium in a travelling carnival. She was now well into her sixties, but she kept her hair vibrant orange and her eyeliner bold. Once you got past her crassness, she did have some of the most interesting stories.

"Oh, Mr. Aziraphale," she squealed. He'd corrected her enough times to know she was never going to drop the mister. He was quite certain it was because she didn't want anyone to drop the "Madame" she preferred.

"Hello, Madame Tracy, how are you today?" he responded with a polite smile.

"Ooo, I am all a glow today. My sister is coming to visit, and she's bringing my nephew."

"How nice. Will they be visiting long?"

"My sister will be here on Wednesday for a couple days, but my nephew will be here for the summer. He needs to get out of the city. He's been running around with the wrong sorts of people, if you catch my drift."

"Clear as day," he replied. He didn't love the gossip, but it was unavoidable with Madame Tracy. Still, he did his best to discourage it whenever he could.

"I was hoping I could bring him to class next week. I would hate to miss out on a lesson."

Aziraphale enjoyed children enough, although at Madame Tracy's age, an educated guess would put the child at least as a teenager. He'd never had any children of his own. He'd never found a bloke to settle down with. Which was fine; he liked his solitude. He was a fussy man, and he didn't care to change. A bedfellow was hardly worth that effort. A good book and a cup of tea had always warmed him far better than any man he'd met.

"Of course, my dear. The more the merrier."

"You're an absolute doll, Mr. Aziraphale."

Aziraphale gathered the easels and grabbed the bucket of brushes and trudged back over the street where the art building sat. It was more of a shack than anything. Just a place to store supplies and post notices. It was technically owned by the council but once he'd moved to the area and mentioned his love of art, the town's mayor had practically shoved the keys at him. He'd been given a budget in order to get supplies for a community class. It had enough space for him to use as a studio, but he much preferred his own garden.

Aziraphale had a daily routine: a cup of hot tea, or sometimes cocoa, followed by the removal of his shoes and socks. He would then sit in his favourite spot just at the edge of his patio, and he would paint.

Hours could be lost to the mixing of colours, applying subtle textures. He would paint what he could see, but he would also paint what his mind would create. Those he kept to himself. Whimsical paintings that could grace the cover of a romance novel. They were silly and not quite as polished as his still lifes, but they made him happy.

But today, he wouldn't have time for his own art; he was meeting his friend, Alistair Brown, the owner of the local antique shop. They'd struck up a friendship shortly after he moved to the area; Aziraphale's second passion was old books, and occasionally, some would show up in Brown's shop. Mostly though, the antique dealer just had old rugs. It was his own area of interest and was far closer to a collection than a shop. Still, they would meet biweekly and have lunch, chatting about the books they read and whatever else new was in their lives, and anyone else's life that Mr. Brown would deign worthy to talk about. The man was a bit of a gossip. Aziraphale would act aghast, but he secretly loved a bit of harmless hearsay.

Aziraphale had worried early on that Alistair might have feelings for him, but he'd never made any inclination, which had suited him just fine. The friendship was easy, but there was no attraction on Aziraphale's side. Again, the last thing he was looking for was a relationship that required that much of himself. Friends took less of him. The right amount.

"Aziraphale, nice to see you," Alistair said from the table.

"Alistair," he nodded in greeting as he sat down. "Beautiful weather we're having."

"Quite."

"Hello, gentlemen. The usual today?" Nina, the owner and only full-time employee at the small restaurant and cafe smiled tightly. The sign out front just said "Diner", but everyone called it Nina's. She wasn't unfriendly per se, but she perhaps wasn't quite suited for the customer service industry.

The order was squared away promptly. They were known here. Aziraphale and Alistair jumped into conversation easily. They were very similar; they had the same views on the world, on the town, on manners and etiquette. It was easy. The type of friendship he never had in the city where everyone was all about the rush. It was so nice to be in a stage of his life that he was finally comfortable.

Promptly at the end of their lunch hour, as it was every time, the two bid each other a friendly goodbye. Aziraphale smiled to himself as he walked home. Another wonder of moving, while he'd never driven in the city either, he also didn't miss having to take public transportation. He could walk everywhere he liked in the small town.

Once back in his cottage that overlooked a field of wildflowers, Aziraphale pulled out his art supplies. He had been itching to get back to the piece he'd been working on. A beautiful landscape of the Scottish Highlands, and in the front, a man with shoulder length hair—still yet uncoloured—and a strong, broad back. His kilt was flying up, exposing just a glimpse of his right buttock.

Aziraphale stared at the picture for a while. The man wasn't right. They never were. He couldn't quite seem to get people. The outline was there, but the muscles, the tension a body can hold, all of that was missing. He could never quite capture the movement of a human body. It was true that he hadn't spent a lot of time looking at them, naked anyway. Art books never seemed to help, and it wasn't like he could suddenly ask someone he knew to come pose naked for him so he could practise.

"Oh, dear." He felt himself both blushing and horrified at the thought.

As he pondered how to work on the body some more, he mixed his brown paint for the hair. He added in some red, wanting some depth to the colour, but when he applied it to the canvas, it turned out much redder than he'd anticipated. He chuckled to himself and went with it. It was going to be a Scot after all. And he couldn't deny that the reddish hue was quite attractive.

He spent a long time working on the hair, giving it a light curl as it blew across with the wind, exposing the man's neck. Aziraphale frowned and wondered if he could get away with having a few more strands cover the back of the neck so he wouldn't have to paint it.

When he hit the point of looking for cheats, he knew it was time to stop for the night. The sun was setting, and the light was fading anyway.

He packed away his things, opting for more of a snack than a meal, still being full from lunch. He changed into his most comfortable pyjamas, cotton tartan bottoms and a light blue T-shirt. Crawling into bed, he picked up his book from the nightstand and settled in to read before sleep.

His life was perfect. He couldn't help but feel grateful. There was nothing that could ruin the peace he'd found in Tadfield, and nothing could possibly make it any better.

He was a very lucky man.

E/N

Thanks to Annie for answering my art questions when I had them. I didn't ask everything so if there is an obvious error, it is mine.

Thanks to luckythirt33n, Mich Feeney and Claire Bloom for helping me with some Britpicking. Any major blunders are mine.

Thanks to Ilikeblue for doing a bit of prereading.

Of course the biggest and most heartfelt thank you to my wonderful beta Alice'sWhiteRabbit, who moves my commas from the wrong spots to the right spots.

Last but not least and huge MWAH to Lyricalkris, my fic wife. We provide each other of daily injections of Ineffables to keep the fires stoked. It's her birthday tomorrow so if you haven't started reading her fic The Devil Built a Chapel, give yourself and her a gift and check it out.