Happy Holidays, dadesu!
Dec. 26th, 2022 09:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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go_exchangeRating: T
Pairing: Aziraphale and Crowley
Several months after the Apocalypse, Aziraphale and Crowley are much as they ever were. Too insecure, too defensive, too much on guard to let their relationship move forward. Until Crowley takes Aziraphale on a surprise stargazing trip, and they both have a chance to see the other in a new light…
A blast of cold air, sharp with frost, bit Aziraphale’s nose the instant he opened the door. He pulled his head back inside and slammed it shut, folding his arms stubbornly.
“Come on, Angel,” Crowley said, reaching for his own door on the other side of the Bentley. “It’s not that bad.”
“It’s quite literally freezing out there!” He sank down slightly in his seat. Not enough to truly slouch, but sufficient to indicate his unwillingness to budge. “What on Earth are we doing up here?”
“I told you, it’s a surprise.” Crowley flexed his fingers a few times and reached for a pair of gloves.
“Well. I expected our surprise would take us someplace interesting, not to mention warm and dry, and instead you want to go tramping around the moors watching frost grow on the—the fence posts!”
Crowley looked where Aziraphale pointed, a long line of wooden posts supporting the rolled-wire fence meant to keep sheep from wandering into the road.[1] The sun was just setting now, cloaking them in long shadows, but the angel and demon could, if they wished, pick out individual atoms with their bare eyes.
Which they needed to, in order to see any water at all, never mind frost. The rain had stopped at least an hour before, and there was not a drop to be seen.
“I—” Aziraphale started.
“Shh. I’m watching,” Crowley said, eyes pinned to the fencepost. “I think the molecule on the left is starting to slow down.”
“Oh, hush. But still, it is more than a little chilly.”
“And I warned you before we left,” Crowley reminded him, pulling out a pile of scarves and sorting through them. “We’ll just have to bundle up, right, and keep ourselves warm.”
Pouting, Aziraphale reluctantly accepted one,[2] wriggling a little to get it in place without rising from his seat. He managed to avoid cracking his hand against the window or roof, which was more than Crowley could say. The demon growled a little, rubbing at his hand.
“Oh, let me see that.” Aziraphale grabbed his wrist and turned Crowley’s hand this way and that. Pale skin, a little pink around the knuckles from the impact, dotted by a few of Crowley’s barely-visible freckles. “Yes, quite a serious injury. You’ve broken a nail, see? We’ll have to call the whole thing off.”
“I’ll live.” Crowley pulled his hand back[3] and started rummaging about for a hat. “And it won’t be bad, promise. I’ve been here before. Maybe a half hour walking, at the absolute most, and by the time we get there, we’ll be nice and toasty from the exercise.”
“I suppose so.” Aziraphale tugged a woolly hat down over his ears and glared out the window at the dull, grey countryside. “And will we be arriving anyplace warm, or is the plan to stand around slowly freezing to death?”[4]
“It’ll be fine. I brought these!” Grinning, Crowley held up a pair of matching tartan flasks. “Spiced cider, nice and hot, one for each of us. And we can carry them in our pockets for warmth!”
Aziraphale accepted one, tapping his fingers on the cool metal. “But… isn’t the whole point that they don’t get warm?”
“Hnnnn.” Crowley squinted at his flask, lips pursed in annoyance. Finally he grunted, “Vacuums,” and shoved the door open. “Come on, Angel.”
It wasn’t really any better the second time. It was, at best, a few degrees above freezing, with the air growing cooler by the minute, and the wind blowing harsher. Heavy jackets—weighed down by flasks—plus hats, gloves, and scarves all did their best, but it simply was not the best day to be out and about.
In fact, it was a perfectly miserable evening to be standing on the side of some forsaken Scottish road, just past sunset and uncomfortably close to the winter solstice. Aziraphale’s breath steamed out, twisting away into the night air to join the thin grey streamers of cloud overhead. It didn’t seem likely to rain again, but the ground was still dotted with puddles, sure to turn to ice patches soon enough.
Aziraphale studied the sheep pasture across the street, rising in a gentle slope, with all appropriate scepticism,[5] determined to let Crowley cross first.
But instead, the demon circled around behind the Bentley. “This way,” he said with a dreadful sort of cheer, pushing open a squeaking metal gate. Aziraphale watched in horror as Crowley started down a soggy little dirt path into a sort of sunken field—one certainly couldn’t call it a valley. A dark, twisting little river ran alongside the trail, and beyond that rose a much steeper hill, thickly covered with old evergreens.
“Are you out of your mind?” Aziraphale hissed, but Crowley was already slinking off into the dark, leaving behind his companion to navigate the squashy patches of mud and slick-looking stones all on his own. Not that Crowley seemed the least bothered by any of it. Perhaps his usual undulating swagger was so unstable, the slippery ground made no difference at all.
With a sharp, irritated tsk, Aziraphale set about picking his own way down, sticking to the driest parts of the path, keeping his eyes alert for fallen branches, discarded plastic bottles, and other dangers for the unwary angel. Just as he thought he could risk a glance towards the little river, which was inching closer as if preparing an ambush, his foot skidded across the loose stones and shot out from under him.
He started to cry out, but the sound had barely passed his lips before Crowley was at his side, holding tight to his arm and helping Aziraphale regain his balance.
“Sorry 'bout that,” Crowley said when they were sure the fall had been averted. “Forgot you can’t see as well as me.” He pulled off his glasses, frowning, as if he’d forgotten they were there.[6]
“I can see well enough, thank you very much,” the angel sniffed, puffing himself up indignantly. “It’s your absurdly long legs that are giving me trouble. One would think you were part spider.”
“Well,” Crowley shoved the glasses into his jacket and started walking again. “You’re not wrong. There is a little spider in me. Little of a lot of things.” He spotted another slippery patch and paused to help Aziraphale past it, supporting his elbow. “Or… I guess it would be the other way around,” he added thoughtfully as his hands slid back into their pockets.
“What do you mean, ‘the other way around’?” Aziraphale asked to mask his disappointment.[7]
“Just that… nh. We put a bit of ourselves into everything we created. Plants. Stars. Spiders. But we, th–the ones who made them—we were the originals.”
They fell silent as they walked, perhaps both equally surprised. It was the most Crowley had ever said about his time in Heaven, his life before the Fall.
It was one of the many topics they’d been circling since their rather dramatic “retirement” three or four months before. Not only their pasts—Crowley’s Fall, Aziraphale’s treatment at the hands of the Archangels, a thousand pains and injustices they’d never admitted to—but also their present, all the emotions running just below the surface that ought to be put into words, hopes, fears, desires,[8] plans for what to do with the astounding gifts of time and freedom that they’d been given… if only either of them knew where to begin.
They were too much alike it seemed—too obstinate, too secretive, too well-trained in the art of concealing their pain, too liable to snap when backed into a corner, too blunt and insensitive when asking questions. Too insecure to move forward, and too blasted stubborn to stop trying.
Slowly, cautiously, choosing his words with the utmost care, Aziraphale said, “Oh, that’s… really quite a lovely thought. I… I wish… that I’d known about it sooner.”
“Why?” There was no denying the defensiveness in his voice.
“So that I could admire your work, I suppose.” Aziraphale kept his eyes to the right, watching the line of trees that ran between him and the main road. Scrawny little things, heavily pruned, bare branches reaching up to the sky, grasping for something they could never hold. “And, well… when we’re… when we’ve been… apart… I’ve often seen you in–in people and places and… things.” Marvellously put. At least the heat of his face was driving off the chill. “It would be nice to know what was real.”
After the last mumbled words, he walked as quickly as he dared, trying not to notice how Crowley watched him, eyes glinting in the half-dark.[9] This, too, had been something of a revelation. Aziraphale rarely spoke about his feelings regarding Crowley.[10]
The air between them grew tight, like an elastic pulled until it was ready to break. Just as the angel was summoning up the breath for a quip, a bit of banter, anything to ease the tension, Crowley stepped in front of him, resting his fingers on a tree. “This.”
“Wh—I beg your pardon?”
“This is one of mine.”
“Is it?” Aziraphale peered closer, half expecting the tree to sprout glorious red hair and golden eyes.
“Yuh. Birch trees. One of my early designs.” He cleared his throat. “Or, well. If you can call it early without time. Trees’re simple. Did those first. Then we went back and—and did the stars.”
“Ah.” Aziraphale circled Crowley and the tree, studying it properly. Tall, thin, with willowy branches swaying in the wind. Bark shining a brilliant white in the growing gloom, curling back in places where the tree had begun to outgrow its skin.
It looked… not weak, but certainly unimpressive. As if a heavy breath might knock it over. And yet he’d seen birch trees covered in snow, crowns weighed down with it, trunks bent double, brought low by the burden they carried. Bowed, but never broken. Ready to spring up anew, again and again, and stand as tall as ever.
“I think… yes, I think it’s very like you,” Aziraphale said softly.
“Ngk. You’re just saying that.” He tugged at a nearby branch. “It’s not like—gah!” A shower of half-frozen raindrops, disturbed by the sudden movement, pattered down onto Crowley’s head and shoulders. He darted away, cussing furiously, nearly tripping over the end of his scarf.
“Steady on,” Aziraphale said, catching his arm before Crowley could slip, and trying[11] very much not to laugh. “It’s just a bit of water.”
“It’s cold,” Crowley complained, wringing out his hat and shaking his head so hard that his carefully coiffed hair began to fall into disarray. “Bloody freezing.”
“Yes, that’s been well-established. Here,” Aziraphale took the hat and unwound Crowley’s scarf. “I’ll see to these, you have some of that cider.”
“Just don’t turn anything tartan,” Crowley muttered as he fumbled with the flask, filling the cap. A great cloud of steam rose into the air, smelling of cinnamon and cloves.
It only took a minute to miracle the hat and scarf dry,[12] giving Aziraphale plenty of time to study his demonic friend. The cold and exertion had brought a bit of colour to his cheeks,[13] and the patches of freckles stood out, seeming more distinct than he’d ever seen them.
Five dots made an uneven W on one temple. A cluster of three on the highest part of his left cheekbone led to a long wavering line of pale spots interrupted by his nose. They picked up again on the other side, running below his right eye. Four in a rough trapezoid were tucked behind his ear.
Aziraphale stared a bit too long at that last one before turning away, forcing his eyes to trace the rising steam of the cider instead. He was surprised to see that the clouds had mostly cleared from the blue-black sky, and the first star was glowing brightly just above the horizon.
“Oh, Crowley, look!” he said, a bit breathlessly. It was an especially large and clear one, a bright blue-white jewel hovering above the horizon. “You’d almost think it was a lighthouse, not a star.”
“Actually, it’s neither.” Crowley put the cap back on his flask and tucked it inside his jacket. “That’s Venus. And if you look… there…” He crouched beside Aziraphale, pointing. “You might just make out Saturn below it. If you want a real challenge, Pluto’s right next to that.”[14]
Aziraphale shaded his eyes and squinted into the fading glow of the sunset, but try as he might, he could make out nothing else. “Are you sure?”
“Yup. That’s Pluto, and Charon next to it. Can’t see the other moons in this light, though.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and sauntered off again. “We’ll see more when we reach the top.”
After another moment of squinting and blinking, Aziraphale hurried along, joining up with Crowley at a little stone bridge that crossed the river. “Is that why we’re here? Stargazing?”
“Yup.” Crowley smirked, eminently pleased with himself.
“Because we have stars in England, you know,” Aziraphale pointed out. “We could just as easily have gone to the Peak District or—or the South Downs.”
The smirk vanished and Crowley scowled as he snatched back his hat, tugging it sharply over his ears. “Scotland’s nice.”
“Scotland’s cold,” Aziraphale corrected, helping to wind the scarf around his neck again. “And we have the same sky back home.”
“No, we don’t.” Crowley sighed. “It just… had to be here, ok? Trust me.” And off he slunk, across the bridge and down the path, now curving more sharply towards the hill and its thick forest.
That was always the way, wasn’t it? Whenever they got close to something resembling a real connection, Aziraphale had to panic and say something rude. This time when he caught up to Crowley, the silence was filled with a different sort of tension, not the kind that could easily be broken by a joke. He fussed with his sleeves, tugging on a second pair of gloves and, face burning with emotion,[15] muttered, “I do, you know. Trust you. Always.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. Of course.”
They both became very focused on adjusting their scarves for a few moments.
“So, ahem,” Aziraphale started again when he felt a bit less flustered. “If we’re going to be looking at the stars, can you… introduce me to a few? Just so I can, ah, know my way around?”
Crowley stopped walking and just looked at him for a moment. Hopefully smiling, but it was hard to tell with so much scarf. Then he glanced west and pointed at a bright star, above and to the right of Venus. “That’s Altair.”
“This one?” Aziraphale pointed where he thought Crowley was indicating.
The demon took his wrist and gently moved it to the left.[16] “This one. You were pointing at Vega,” he guided the hand back. “One of the brightest stars in the sky. I think the brightest at the moment, but it’s hard to tell with all these hills in the way. Add this one up here…” He coaxed the hand a little higher. “That’s Deneb, and together they make the Summer Triangle.”
“I see,” Aziraphale murmured, trying to memorise the stars. They were bright enough, but there were already a great many around, far more than he could keep track of. “But, shouldn’t we have a Winter Triangle?”
“We do. Hasn’t risen yet.” Crowley took his hand back and waved towards the hill and trees. “And it’ll be behind all this. That’s why we need high ground. For now, just remember those three.”
“I will,” Aziraphale promised, though he’d already lost track of the first. “They’re really quite lovely.”
“You should see them up close,” Crowley said, a little wistfully. “Great bubbling burning things, lashing out tendrils of radiation, even huge globs of plasma, then drawing everything back again…”
“You always did like a good explosion,” Aziraphale mused, touching his wrist where the warmth of Crowley’s hand still lingered on his glove.
“Better than any action movie,” he said with a flippant toss of his head, and for a moment that was it, as they both scrambled up a steep slope that brought them to the base of the hill and the edge of the forest. “But the thing… the real thing… was how delicate they were. It took care… planning…”
“Did it really? I mean,” Aziraphale was still puffing a bit from the climb, but the path had levelled out somewhat, circling the hill instead of charging straight up it. “I thought you just sort of smashed atoms together until they caught fire.”
“Technically yes, if you want just… any old star. Lot of angels did that with the background stars, distant planets, dark matter—everything we thought no one would ever really see. But if you wanted the big projects… that’s where you needed real skill.”
“And… and that’s what you did?” Aziraphale rubbed his hands together. Despite two pairs of gloves, they still felt cold.[17]
“Oh, yeah.” Crowley tipped his head back, but by now the sky above them was more than half-hidden behind reaching boughs of pine, cedar, and birch. “They’d tell us what they wanted, and we had to figure out how to make it happen. How big a star, how bright, how old… but it’s not just…” He glanced at Aziraphale. “Did you get to create anything?”
“Yes!” Aziraphale perked up, remembering. “My platoon was sent to do all sorts of jobs, clearing fields and filling in rivers. Likely just to keep us all busy. I got to carve a few mountains,” he added proudly.
“Really? How’d you do it?”
“Well… mostly just took my sword and…” He chopped his arm up and down. “They had experts come in for the detail work, naturally.” Aziraphale had a feeling this wasn’t quite as cool as he’d hoped.[18] “So, ah… I take it you did the… the detail work? I thought the results were very impressive.”
“It was all details, from beginning to end.” Crowley tugged his scarf a little higher, though it already nearly covered his eyes. “Nhhh. Stars’re different from… almost anything else. You have to be exact. Precise. Count the atoms, weigh them out to get the perfect balance. Plot the orbits across thousands of years. Work out how many near-misses it’s going to take to strip off exactly the right amount of hydrogen, then build all those stars, and aim them from the other side of the galaxy. One star I made needed to be balanced perfectly on the edge of the pull of a black hole for exactly 52,308 years… and I had to set it all in motion before the star that would become the black hole had even been built.”
“Goodness!” Yes, that was certainly more dramatic than hacking at rocks with a sword, flaming or not. “But… why? Couldn’t you just… build things in their final form?”
The corners of Crowley’s eyes crinkled at that. “Watch out. I got in big trouble for asking that.” Then, more seriously, “At the time, it was just… ineffable. But I think now it has something to do with humans and telescopes, making sure it would all make sense to them.”
“I see.” Aziraphale watched the ground ahead, but his mind wasn’t really on it. He’d barely even heard the answer to his question. “What… What sort of trouble?”
Too dangerous a question, perhaps. Crowley somehow went even quieter. “Nothing I couldn’t handle,” he said after a while. “But. The others didn’t like it. Not just the Archangels. My bosses my… my friends. Started screwing over my projects. Parameters changing halfway through, rearranging other systems without telling me. ‘Oh, did we say a hundred lightyears away? We meant a hundred thousand. Guess nobody’ll ever see this one.’ Wankers.” He glanced towards Aziraphale and shrank deeper into his scarf. “We were always pretty competitive out there, but… nh. I’d thought it was all in good fun.”
They walked in silence for a while, circling the hill, trees now thick on either side of the path. Now and then Aziraphale could glimpse part of the Summer Triangle through gaps in the branches, but it was becoming more and more infrequent. The stars were also drifting behind them as they walked, and one was already lost beyond a distant hill.
He paused at the last gap before the bare birch trees were completely overtaken by thick evergreens, trying to pick out the trio of stars among the multitudes that now filled the sky. He was… fairly certain that one was Vega,[19] and that one was… Deneb?[20]
“Are they your stars?” Aziraphale asked, the words out before he realised he was going to ask. Crowley’s feet scuffed to a stop on the trail ahead. “I mean… is that why you showed them to me? The Triangle?”
“Nah,” Crowley said dismissively, but there was something hesitant about his footsteps as he returned. “Just some of the stars humans use for navigation. Always a good place to start. I’d show you Polaris, but it’s still…” He pointed at a spot, above them and to the left, completely obscured by pine. “…There-ish.” Another hesitation. “Would you… like me to show you some of mine?”
“Yes, I—I’d like that very much.”
Crowley stepped beside him, close enough that their shoulders bumped, sending a wave of warmth through Aziraphale, down to his toes. “You picked a terrible spot for it,” he griped. “One of my best just set, and the rest…” He shifted back and forth a few times, looking at the gap from different angles. “Ok… if you… start at Vega and go… like that. That’s Eltanin. That’s one of mine.”
Aziraphale shuffled a little closer[21] and pointed, his wrist pressed against Crowley’s. “That one?”
A gentle tug on his hand, sending more warmth through him. “There. Eltanin. Then you’ve got Rastaban, Aldib, Grumium…” Guiding Aziraphale’s hand, outlining a rough trapezoid. “…And over here, Altais…” Their joined hands swung overhead, picking out a star nearly lost among the pines. “Then there’s Tyl… which you can’t really see…” Their hands drifted back and forth across the small patch of sky. “Nh. The rest’ll have to wait until we get to the top. Sorry.” Crowley turned away, seeming embarrassed.
Before their hands could pull apart, Aziraphale seized Crowley’s, giving it a gentle squeeze. Crowley went completely still. “Sorry, I…” Aziraphale stared at the trunk of the nearest pine tree, unblinking. “My hand. It was… a bit cold, I…”
“Can’t have that.” Crowley wiggled his fingers to interlock more comfortably with Aziraphale’s and gave a cautious squeeze. “That help?”
“Yes.” Even through three layers of gloves, he could feel Crowley’s heat, a roaring fire across his skin.[22]
“So, umm. Nh.” They started walking again, both tentatively glancing at their clasped hands as if to make sure they were still there. “So, yeah, that’s one of my constellations. Or part of one. Draco.” He still seemed a little self-conscious, even bashful, trying to hide it under his usual cocky bluster. “Takes up more than two and a half percent of the sky, you know.”
“Does it?” Aziraphale wasn’t sure if this was especially large[23] or impressive,[24] but he wouldn’t be distracted from the more important point. “My Latin might be a little rusty but… doesn’t Draco mean… dragon?”
“Dragons are cool,” Crowley protested.
“Oh, of course.”
“Better than a giraffe. Or a—a dumb horse.”
“Without a doubt. I might have guessed you’d go for a serpent or a dragon, or perhaps a sea monster of some…” He trailed off, noticing that what he could see of Crowley’s face was flushed a brilliant pink. “Good Lord! All three?”
“Couple o’lizards, too. And a hydra. Only one head, though.”
“I’m pleased you restrained yourself.” It sounded a bit harsh, so Aziraphale gently squeezed his hand to let Crowley know he was only teasing. “I can’t wait to see them. Are they all so large?”
“Nah. I mean. The Hydra’s huge, but… my girls are a nice little group and, uh… there’s the fox, the dogs…” He hesitated. “Those are the little ones, though, only two or three stars, whole bunch of those, they’re not—”
“I’m sure they’re all lovely.”
“Nyh. Gk. Um.” He swallowed. “I can show you… as many as you like. Want to. Mmh. Not just the stars. Comets. Planets. Nebulas, those were my favourite. Probably too far away, but—”
All at once Crowley stumbled, feet slipping out from under him. Aziraphale sprang into action, seizing him around the waist and all but lifting the squirming, cursing demon from the path.
“My dear fellow! Are you alright?”
“Yeah, fine, I just… wasn’t paying attention.” He shifted on his feet, trying to find his balance, one hand still lightly on Aziraphale’s shoulder. “I remember it being steep, but not this muddy. Blasted rain. Might be a bit of a scramble for the next ten minutes. Still up for it?” he asked, almost apologetically.
Aziraphale pressed his lips into a line. That did not sound like the sort of physical activity he enjoyed,[25] and his feet were more than a little numb from all the icy water leaking into his shoes. His muscles burned in a way he knew he would feel for days, the weight of the flask in his pocket was making him feel sorely unbalanced, and he wanted nothing more than to curl up somewhere warm and rest.
But for all that, he couldn’t imagine backing out now, particularly when Crowley was just starting to open up. And, in any case, the wind was finally dying down; and if the temperature had dropped any further, he could hardly tell, as his own was so elevated, what with the exercise, and the warm body pressed so close against his…
Oh, dear.
“Climb!” Aziraphale released Crowley’s waist and stumbled back, bumping into an evergreen that showered him with icy droplets he didn’t even feel. “I—I mean. Yes, we—we’ve come so far and, and, and this way, yes? Jolly good.” He turned and started up the muddy path, puffing with exertion, trying not to think about how it had felt to have Crowley pulled up against him.[26]
A moment later, Crowley was beside him again, and they helped each other ascend, finding the best ways to avoid inch-thick mud patches that sucked at their shoes. Now and then, Crowley would glance up and mutter, “gotta be close,” but still the ground rose and rose.
And then it levelled off. And started to go down.
“Did we miss a turn?” Aziraphale asked, trying to hide the way he clutched at his side. It was getting increasingly difficult to mask his discomfort.
“No.” Crowley glanced around and pointed at something Aziraphale couldn’t see. “No, look, you can still see the trail markers.”[27]
“Oh, are there trail markers? I thought we were simply wandering, lost in the woods.”
“I don’t get lost,” Crowley snapped.
“Don’t you? That’s the first I’ve heard of it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“How many times have you driven up and down the same stretch of road, over and over, because you couldn’t remember where we were supposed to turn off?”
“That’s not—”
“Five times today, at least!”
“That’s not the same as being lost. I’m not lost!”
“Oh, no, of course not!” Aziraphale scowled and rubbed at his arms. “No, we’re tramping around the Scottish moors with damp feet in the middle of the night for the fun of it!”
“Well, if you don’t like it, you can take yourself home!”
“Maybe I will!”
“Fine!”
“Good!”
“That’s what I said!” Crowley stomped off through the mud, following the curve of the trail. “Good bloody luck.”
Left alone, Aziraphale crossed his arms and huffed, pulling down his scarf to do so properly.
He immediately regretted that, as the freezing air cut at his throat and nose once more.
He regretted many things, truthfully. He regretted allowing Crowley to tempt him to travel so far on the vague promise of a surprise. He regretted leaving the Bentley once he saw where they were, or following Crowley one step down this godforsaken trail.
But most of all, he regretted his harsh words, and the loss of that quiet, open companionship they’d shared. For a moment, they’d been close… so damned close to… something.
Something important.
For a moment, Aziraphale’s annoyance struggled against his stubbornness, but there was really only one way that fight could go.
And so, with another heavy, mist-filled sigh, he hurried down the trail, following Crowley’s footprints.[28] Soon, he saw a tall, narrow figure ahead, a lighter shape outlined against the darkness, like a scarecrow, or a beanpole with pointy elbows.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale started carefully. “I’m sure we both—”
“Son of a bitch!”
“I beg your pardon!”
Crowley pointed up and to the left, but of course Aziraphale couldn’t make anything out in the darkness. No trees, no signposts, not even any stars, apart from the scattering of unfamiliar lights directly overhead, pinched between the towering trees to their right and…
“Oh.” Nearly half the sky was blotted out by something tall and suspiciously hill-shaped. “I… I suppose we still have a ways to go…”
Crowley pulled off his hat and flung it at the path. “It’s at least as far as we just climbed, and three times as steep! I don’t…” His eyes turned to Aziraphale, pleading, brighter than he’d ever seen them. “Angel, I swear. It’s supposed to be one steady climb, none of this up and down and curving paths. I haven’t been here in centuries, but I remember it.”
“I believe you.” Aziraphale tugged Crowley’s scarf down and cupped his face in his gloved hands. “The humans probably changed their paths. They do that sometimes. We can follow along a bit farther.”
“Nnnnh.” Crowley shuffled his feet, eyes downcast.
“Doesn’t this next bit look nice and flat?”[29] Aziraphale smiled encouragingly. “Let’s just keep going until you get your bearings again.”
“Guesso,” Crowley mumbled sullenly. He leaned forward until his brow bumped gently against Aziraphale's. “Just… wanted us to have a nice night. But I keep screwing up.”
“Nonsense. I am having a nice night,” Aziraphale said, a little breathlessly. “And I’m learning… so much…”[30]
After a moment, Crowley patted his back. “Nkay, Angel,” he mumbled, stepping away. “Let’s umm…” As Crowley ducked his head and clomped down the path, Aziraphale paused, his whole body unaccountably warm.[31] He closed his eyes, feeling rather dizzy, his head spinning like…
“Angel?” He blinked his eyes clear to find Crowley waiting just ahead, one arm held out slightly. “Dunno if you’re… uh… feeling the altitude or whatever, but…” He wagged his elbow.
Stepping forward as if in a dream, Aziraphale slid his arm through Crowley’s, bringing his hands to rest on the crook of his demon’s elbow. Crowley patted them to make sure his grip was secure, sending a thrill through the angel like nothing he’d ever felt before.[32]
Crowley’s pale features stood out starkly against the dark background, so clearly that Aziraphale was sure he could see a line of freckles he’d never noticed before. A pair of interlocked diamonds right below his sigil, and a few more running down his jaw to his chin.
Aziraphale turned away, before Crowley could think he was staring.[33] “So, ah, you were saying… Something about nebulas?”
“Yeah. Some of my favourites. They’re simple, but they’re complicated, you know?” If possible, his eyes were glowing brighter than ever. “Trying to get them to come out exactly right. One reaction out of place and it’s all just…” He waved a hand expansively. “Matter, ions scattered in the void.” The hand went back into his pocket. “But you don’t need to hear about those.”
“What?” Aziraphale tugged lightly at his arm. “Why on Earth would you say that?”
“You won’t be able to see them. Too far away. There’s other stuff, though, you’ll like—”
“I want to hear about the nebulas.” A little nudge that he hoped sent a thrill through Crowley half as nice as the one he felt.[34] “Come on, dear fellow. Which one’s your best?”
“Well…” He was clearly struggling with a smile now. “The Carina Nebula, obviously. But that was a big project, dozens of us, and it was everyone’s best, you know? But just me… Dunno. There’s the Ring Nebula, the Ghost of Jupiter, the Cat’s Eye Nebula—”
“Cat’s Eye?” Aziraphale gave him an innocent look from the corner of his eye. “Not the Serpent’s Eye?”
“Shaddup.” Crowley ducked his head. “Eyes are fun. Got a whole bunch of them up there, and they always scare the shit out of the humans when they find one. You see, you… unh… Well, when a star gets to the end of its life, right, it runs out of fuel, so it collapses in.” He curled his fingers into a fist to demonstrate. “But the rest of it puffs out like a bubble.” His long fingers stretched out wide. “And you can get… spheres, jets, wibbly lines, all depending on how you shaped the star. But it doesn’t stop there.” He closed his fist again. “Cuz the core—it starts burning again, under pressure, until that runs out and collapses again, and you get another bubble—” fingers wide “—over and over, hotter and cooler, bubble inside bubble, until…” Clenching his fist as tight as he could. “You’re left with a lump of atoms so packed together their electrons have been stripped away, just a mass of ultra-dense matter, smouldering in its own fading heat until…”
“Until?”
“Well, that would be telling.” He smiled cheekily, teeth flashing in the dark. “Give it another million million years.”
“Will the universe last that long?”
“Hope so. I’d hate to have set up all those fireworks for nothing.” He sighed, craning his neck to look at something far beyond Aziraphale’s view. “They were my first mistake, really. Before I even started asking smartass questions, or even normal questions. Those nebulas were just supposed to be forges, see? Each collapse created new elements and shot them out, and we’d scoop them up to make… trees and rocks and everything. But I liked the bubbles. Wanted to see what else I could make them do. Shapes and patterns, interlocking rings. And when it’s a binary system—ah, that’s when it really gets wild.”
“Binary?”
“Two stars, orbiting around each other, feeding each other while they collapse, pushing apart and pulling together, jets of matter shooting off—! That’s what makes the slit pupil, in the Cat’s Eye, right? Only it’s actually twisting spirals of gas around the outer shell—oh, and there’s another one, over in Cygnus, the stars only throw off dust when they get close, every eight years, like clockwork. It’s like tree rings, ripples in a pond, perfectly symmetrical. Or the Red Rectangle Nebula, it’s–it’s–it’s—”
“Red, and possibly rectangular?”
“Well, yeah, but do you know how hard that was to pull off? And then there’s the stellar nurseries, where we grew the new stars. So much going on, and we were allowed to be a little clever with the columns and mounds and things, but I couldn’t stop there, could I? So I kept poking and tweaking and I’d get rivers, animals, faces, whole cities made out of dust. Or—or explosions timed to make patterns that never stop evolving, ripple through system after system, echoing on for millennia. I just… how could I resist?”
“Oh, my dear…” Just listening to him speak made Aziraphale’s heart flutter in a way that had nothing[35] to do with the exercise. “That sounds… quite extraordinary.”
“My bosses didn’t think so, but I didn’t let that stop me.” Crowley was almost breathless now, words tripping over themselves in their rush to be spoken. “Bigger nebulas, cooler ones, all over the place. New constellations, anywhere I could fit them. Galaxies colliding and devouring each other just out of sight, a whole bundle of quasars six times bigger than it had any right to be. Or I’d rig stars to go nova and knock all their systems out of order—”
“Crowley!” Though he was struggling not to laugh.
“What? They fired me, I wanted to go out with a bang. Just a bang that might take a couple thousand years to be noticed. S’more fun that way.”
“And that’s your legacy, then. A sky full of explosions and serpents.”
“Not only serpents. Don’t forget my girls, that’s my best constellation. And the little fox isn’t anything special, but I like him. And then there’s Corvus, you know, and Krater, and… what are you smiling about?”
“Nothing,” said Aziraphale, unable to tear his eyes away.[36]
But Crowley suddenly seemed immensely uncomfortable, overly conscious of the attention. “Uhn… yeah… so…” He pulled his arm back and turned away. “Yeah, they… it’s just dots in the sky, I didn’t mean to, uh…” Fumbling for his glasses.
“Stop right there, Anthony Crowley,” Aziraphale said sternly, catching Crowley’s wrist before he could pull them from his pocket. “Don’t you hide away from me!”
“I’m not hiding, I just–just—”
“Just what?”
“Gah!” He turned away. “Shuddup, I—”
“Look at me!” Despite his firm tone he touched Crowley’s jaw as gently as he could, turning him back. “What, are you worried you won’t look… look cool? In front of me?”
“No,” mumbled Crowley.[37]
“I should hope not, after all this time.” His thumb ran across the jagged line of freckles across Crowley’s cheekbone. “But I feel it, too, sometimes. I get excited, and I feel so… eager, so exposed, and I just… I can’t… Oh, what must you think of me?” He bit his lip, trying not to turn away.
“Don’t say that.” Crowley’s hand rested on his side, the lightest touch, but he could feel it burning through all his layers. “I like it when you get excited.”
“It’s hardly cool, is it?”
“Nah. But. I like it. When you’re happy.”
Aziraphale closed his eyes, another wave of warmth washing over him. “As do I.” He forced his eyes open, meeting Crowley’s gaze. “Just now, my dear. You looked… happier than I’ve seen you in so… you look radiant.” Smiling now, words spilling out. “I have never seen anything so… so captivating… oh, Crowley, you’re positively glowing. I never want you to stop talking about your stars. I want to hear everything. If I’d known they made you so happy, I’d have asked centuries ago, I—”
They were never sure which of them initiated that first kiss.[38] Everything was a little rushed and confused. But the main thing Aziraphale remembered was the warmth streaming through him, the hand lightly touching the back of his neck, and the taste of spiced cider.[39]
When Aziraphale stepped back, he found he had to shield his eyes. “Good Lord, Crowley! You are glowing!”
“I am?” Crowley looked down at his gloves.
“Yes! What happened?” The light settled down a little, now soft and shifting like a candle under frosted glass, emanating from every part of him. Fuzzing his features, though every freckle still stood out clearer than ever. His hair rippled with red and gold, a brilliant fire.
Crowley ripped off his gloves and looked at his hands, leaving trails of white behind them as they moved. On the back of his left hand, five more freckles in a lopsided square, and a similar patch on his right, with more trailing up his fingers. “It’s starting,” Crowley said.
“Starting? I—”
“Come on!” Crowley grabbed his hand and raced down the trail, Aziraphale stumbling as he tried to keep up. He could see the path now, lit by his friend’s glow, the last few pines thinning out to their right, scrubby moor plants covering the slope to their left, and just ahead…
They rounded the corner of the hill, and suddenly there was nothing between them and the night sky.
“Oh, my word…”
“Do you see them?” Crowley was almost bouncing with excitement.
“I see…” More stars were clustered above than Aziraphale remembered seeing in centuries. The trail of them running across the centre of the sky crowded so close he could hardly separate one from the next, growing thicker and more packed as they went before disappearing behind the hill to their left.
“Look! There’s the rest of Draco! See? Dziban, Aldhibah, Athebyne, Shǎngzǎi, Edasich…” His finger jabbed at the sky, too fast to follow. “Then, up there, Thuban, Shǎowèi, Giausar! Do you see Thuban, right there? That was the original North Star, six thousand years ago, before they screwed me with axial precession.”
“Did they now?”
“And you see, just above it, there—Kochab, one of my first!”
“There?” Aziraphale asked tentatively, but Crowley was already racing ahead.
“Ursa Minor and Major were designed by committee. That’s why Major is such a mess. ‘It’s a bear! It’s a lobster! It’s a spoon! It’s a plough—’ See mine, right above that hill? That’s Talitha. Double binary, that’s four stars. Bet those bastards had fun keeping that stable without me!”
“Oh dear. It isn’t going to explode, is it?”
“Not this century. Look! That’s Capella, right there, and my lizard, and my girls!” He was pointing straight up now, spinning in place. “Caph, Schedar, Navi, Ruchbah, and Segin. And—look—can you see the Andromeda Galaxy—”
“Crowley, wait!” Aziraphale caught his hand and pressed it to his lips. “Goodness, let me get my bearings again. I–I confess I wasn’t expecting to see the Milky Way, and I’m quite overwhelmed. You should have warned me.”
“But you can barely see it in the winter.”
“Oh, hush. And you also should have warned me you’d be glowing. It’s rather a lot to take in.”
Crowley looked down at his hands again while Aziraphale tried to make sense of the fountain of stars. He’d thought he’d found Vega, until Crowley had called it Capella, but fortunately there was another star just as bright, far off to the left. “Is that Vega?” Something bright shone from the thickest part of the Milky Way. “And that’s—er—one of the other two?”[40]
“Yeah, yeah.” But Crowley wasn’t watching, instead scowling down at the valley below them. “We’re supposed to be higher than this,” he muttered. “We’re supposed to be… ah shit!” He darted past.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Aziraphale turned to find Crowley pointing at a pair of lights far below, at least a kilometre away, down by the base of the hill.
“You see that cottage? That’s where the trail starts. I remember now. We’re on the wrong one!”
“Oh. Well. We can see well enough from here, can’t we?” But one look at Crowley’s face told him that, no, whatever they were here for, the hillside wouldn’t do.
Which meant that they needed to spend at least half an hour getting down the hill in order to start again on the correct path. Or go back to the Bentley and drive to the little cottage, with no guarantee that would be any quicker. If there was a road, Aziraphale couldn’t see it.
Or…
He squinted up the dark hillside, picking out the shapes of gorse and other moor plants, thin and ragged looking in the winter. It would certainly be rough and mucky, but his socks were already as damp as they were going to get.
And he wasn’t going to let any silly old hill beat him now.
“Come on then.” Aziraphale set his jaw and started climbing.[41]
“Angel!”
Aziraphale grabbed at the brush to help pull himself up, stomping his feet firmly into the mud with each step. It was mostly solid and firm, at least, and a few miracles kept the ground secure beneath him.
“Angel, get back here! That’s—it’s dangerous up there!”
“No worse than riding in that infernal car of yours.”
Though the Bentley wasn’t unsafe, was it? It certainly felt that way, always tearing around corners at the last possible second, tires squealing, or gunning the engine to reach speeds that melted the countryside into a blur. Every near-collision gave his corporation a partial heart attack, until by the end of the drive, he felt sure he was already dead and merely haunting the wretched vehicle.[42]
But that was from Aziraphale’s perspective. How different must it look to Crowley, who could calculate orbits through five dimensions, weigh protons with a glance, and slide his body through the gap between atoms? How simple must the traffic of London appear to a being who could coordinate the movements of asteroids lightyears apart?
He thought, too, about how meticulously clean Crowley kept his flat, every speck of dust in its place. He’d always assumed that was a reaction against the filth of Hell, but perhaps there was something more to it, something of the care that went into crafting his nebulas, atom by atom.
Or perhaps not. But how wonderful, after six thousand years, to see his demon in a new light once more.
“What are you, insane?” Crowley grumbled, hauling himself up alongside Aziraphale, illuminating the path ahead.
“This was your idea, I’m just seeing it through.” He paused to puff a few breaths, tugging the cider flask out of his pocket. The weight of it was starting to throw him off. “I do wish I had a walking stick, though.”[43]
“Nh. If you break your skull, don’t blame me.”
“I most certainly will,” Aziraphale assured him cheerfully. As they started moving again, he craned his neck to watch the endless sea of stars overhead. “Go on, then, show me your stars again.”
Crowley gave him a doubtful look, then pointed at the crest of the hill. “Ok. So. To start, that one right there. That’s Caph. And right above her is Schedar.”
“Your girls, yes?” Aziraphale remembered. “What a lovely pair of twins.”
“They aren’t.” Crowley grinned. “Twins, I mean. Schedar’s eighteen times as bright, she’s just way further away. Had to work out how to get them to match perfectly. Not too bad, huh?” He traced out five stars in an uneven W. “Probably my best work. And once they were in place, nothing my bosses could do to screw with them, except maybe try to ignore them.”
“I doubt anyone could manage that for long.” The stars were very prominent, now he knew what to look for.
“Maybe. Just to be sure I set a bunch of supernovas up in the background to get people’s attention.” Another grin and a wink, before he pointed slightly left. “Now… this one’s not as bright, but… that’s the lizard over there, see?” Carefully tracing out the shape, two interlocked diamonds and a short tail running…
“Wait. I know that shape.” Aziraphale paused to stretch his back and frown at the stars.
“Hnnnn. They’ve been there for… you know, a while, but that’s not one of the big ones.”
“No, I’m sure of it. I saw it recently, I saw it…” He trailed off, staring at Crowley’s face.
More specifically at the stretch of freckles along his jaw, now deep black spots against a shifting golden light. Two interlocked diamonds and a short tail reaching towards his chin. “No, that’s not…”
“What?”
Aziraphale stumbled closer, grabbing Crowley’s chin and turning his head this way and that. A pair of dots on one cheek. The line of freckles across his cheekbones. And—there—five spots in an uneven W.
“Good Lord.” Aziraphale traced his fingers over them, as if it might be a trick, but all he could feel was Crowley’s warmth, flowing through him.[44]
“Told ya, didn’t I?” Crowley shrugged. “I put a bit of myself into everything I made.”
“I thought…” He stroked the marks of the stars again. Not freckles. Tiny burns. “Wasn’t… Wouldn’t that be… painful?”
“A bit, yeah. But. Some things are worth a little pain.” His arms slid around Aziraphale’s waist. “Some things are worth anything.”
“Oh. Oh! Are–Are you calling me a little pain?” he asked suspiciously.
“Nope.” Their foreheads bumped together again. “Calling you the biggest bloody pain I’ve ever met.”
Aziraphale laughed and brushed his lips against the line of marks across Crowley’s cheekbone. Immediately, the demon grunted, his arms tightening. “Oh, sorry. Does that… did it hurt?”
“No,” Crowley said breathlessly. “Not at all.”
He tried again, this time kissing the marks on Crowley’s temple, eliciting a strangled, “Angelll!”
“Do you want me to stop?”
“Never.”[45] Crowley wrinkled his nose. “But we need to get to the top. Now.”
“Oh. Right.” Aziraphale looked up at the last few hundred metres, the steepest yet. It would take simply forever to finish, and he could see glimmers of light coming from somewhere ahead. It couldn’t be nearly dawn already?
No more time to waste.
Aziraphale handed his flask to Crowley. “Hold this, please. I need to concentrate.”
“Concentrate on—”
“Hush.” Aziraphale pressed his hands together and focused on seizing as much Heavenly power as he could still reach, pulling it down, and throwing it ahead of himself as—
He opened his eyes and smiled at the staircase, rough but well maintained, leading to the peak of the hill. “There. That looks much better now, doesn’t it?”
“Aziraphale! You can’t just go… leaving stairways in the middle of the wilderness!”
“Whyever not? Humans do it all the time.[46] And if we’ll clean it up before we leave.[47] I’m sure no one will ever notice.[48] Now, are you coming or not?” He held out his hand and wiggled his fingers temptingly.
Together they raced up the steps, fingers intertwined, Crowley calling out the names of all the stars as they appeared over the crest of the hill, Aziraphale shouting out the few he knew.
“Look! Altair!” Aziraphale pointed gleefully, trying to keep the flask pinned under his elbow.
“And there, below it,” Crowley gestured at a patch of small, dim stars. “Vulpecula, the little fox. It’s just two stars,” he added, touching the pair on his cheek.
“They’re lovely![49] And—oh, there’s the rest of the Triangle!”
“There’s Draco again!” The demon reached for it as if to pull it from the sky. “The whole thing!”
“How wonderful!” The creature seemed to be trying to ensnare the centre of the sky in its coils. “But where are you hiding all those freckles?” It seemed as many stars as the other constellations combined.
“Nnnh. It starts here.” Crowley pressed a hand to the small trapezoid behind one ear. “Dunno if I should tell you the rest.”
“Oh, I’ll find out, you fiend, believe me!”[50]
When they finally stumbled off the stairs, Aziraphale looked around eagerly, expecting to see… anything. But at the top of the hill, there was simply… more hill. A large, slightly sloping expanse covered in thick scrubby plants, a cairn of stones, and the open sky above.
“And look, there, right under Ursa Major,” Crowley said, as if he hadn’t even noticed they’d arrived. “Asterion and Chara, the hunting dogs. Whole unapproved constellation. Bet that fucked up their record keeping, ha!”
“Crowley?” The glow Aziraphale had noticed before was still there, on the horizon, but it didn’t look at all like the light of dawn.
“And… I know you can’t see it, but there’s the Cat’s Eye Nebula, oh, it looks brilliant.”
“That’s… nice…” It was… flickering. And rather greenish. “Crowley, is that…”
“Oh, look! Orion’s Belt, due east. Not one of mine, and they didn’t like my ‘Amazon’s Girdle’ constellation idea, even though it was way better. Look, there’s my supernova…”
If that was east, then the light was certainly not from the sun. “Crowley.”
“…sending three stars off like that. Boom! They never even knew what hit them.”
“Crowley! I think something’s on fire!”
“Ooh!” The demon was at his side in a second. “Look at it! We got here just in time.” He patted Aziraphale’s back. “Pull up a seat and get comfortable.”
“I didn’t realise I was supposed to bring a seat.” But the ground near the cairn was mostly dry and had been picked clean of any uncomfortable-looking rocks. Likely many hikers rested there. Aziraphale dusted off a spot and settled down, pouring some cider into the cap of his flask. “Do you want some, too, or—what are you doing?”
Crowley had flung off his scarf and was rapidly unbuttoning his jacket. “It’s fine,” he said, eyes riveted to the flickering horizon.
“It most certainly is not!”[51] The demon’s glow was now a brilliant gold, wavering and growing brighter like an echo of the emerald light from the north. “What are you doing?”
“Not doing anything.” He rolled up his sleeves, revealing more marks running up one arm and down the other.[52] “But. Well. Might have done a thing.”
“Crowley!” Aziraphale’s cider sloshed out of the cup as he leapt to his feet.
“No, no, stay there!” Crowley held up his hands calmingly, though he looked anything but calm. “It’s fine. Really. Just. After the whole Apocalypse thing. There was some tension building up in the sun. Magnets, you know? Could have been a nasty solar flare, so I just gave it a nudge before it could get any worse. Broke a bit of the sun off, as you do. But, hey, figured I might as well aim it somewhere fun.”
“Broke off—What does that even—”
“Shhhh. Here it comes.” Crowley turned to the north, arms spread wide, head thrown back.
One thousand kilometres above them, an enormous mass of starstuff hit the magnetosphere.[53]
The sky exploded.
Great green flames poured over the horizon, snaking through the air overhead, roaring past in silent rivers of impossible size. One tendril broke free of the rest, looping down to strike Crowley directly in the chest.
“Crowley!” Aziraphale called, but the demon just laughed, leaning into it, letting the light wash over him entirely. Gold mixed with green, Crowley’s own glow twisting away like banners of mist, rising up to join the rest in the endless race across the sky.
The lights shifted, growing taller, lashed through now with bands of red and a distant violet. They seemed to be caught in a mighty wind, a storm that made Crowley’s clothing flap like a sail, that pulled his hair back into long streamers. And yet, everything else remained still; Aziraphale couldn’t feel even a hint of a breeze, even when he thrust his hand directly into the slipstream.
“S’alright, Angel,” Crowley called, head tipped back, watching through rippling, waving curls that grew even as Aziraphale watched.
“Is this… the Aurora?” He’d never seen it act like this before.
“Isn’t it great?” Crowley laughed. “Oh, here comes the rest!”
The light pulsed and flared, doubling in intensity. For a moment, Crowley was lost in light and shadow, a shifting prism of colours, only loosely shaped as a demon. His wings melted into reality and snapped wide. Light filled them, fluffing up his feathers, and Crowley began to rise.
“Don’t go!” But the Aurora swept him up, ten metres, twenty, fifty, a hundred, until Crowley was nothing but a distant shadow lost among the ever-shifting luminescence.
The storm began to abate, violet and red fading away, the frantic undulations slowing down.
Aziraphale searched the sky for any sign of Crowley. There! Something dark, fluttering and spinning, drifting down. He reached out—
And caught an enormous black feather, rippling with iridescence, as if it held a rainbow—or the Aurora itself—between its barbs.
A moment later, Crowley dropped from the sky, wings raised, landing more lightly on his feet than he had any right to. One last shiver of wind ran across his feathers, pulling some free to twist away, vanishing into the distance.[54]
Crowley stretched his arms and rubbed at his hair, as if he’d just stepped out of the shower. “Ah, Someone, that feels good!” He smiled at Aziraphale, eyes glowing like the stars themselves. “What did you think, Angel? Pretty good show, huh?”
Aziraphale blinked, looking up at the green mist that still hovered above, shifting and dancing in the winter sky, then back down at Crowley.
“What… what…”
“Haven’t done that in centuries.” He sauntered closer, looking down at Aziraphale’s hand. “Oh, cider! Just what I need.” He took the flask and poured himself a cup.
Most of the glow had faded now, leaving Crowley as pale as ever, though the marks of the stars still looked distinct. If Aziraphale leaned close, he could see the faint golden mist rising from them.
“What… did you do?”
“Told you.” Crowley downed the drink and screwed the cap back on. “Gave the sun a nudge to fix the magnetism. Humans have some fancy term for it. But that left me charged up, like static electricity. Coming up here was the easiest way to release it. Well, not the easiest. Coulda done something with magnets and copper wire back home. But not as much fun.” He glanced nervously at Aziraphale. “Are you… having fun?”
“Oh, Crowley…” Aziraphale stumbled back a step, leaning against the cairn. The black feather slipped from his fingers.
“Oh.” The demon looked at the flask, then handed it back. “Yeah, it… I guess it can be a bit much.” He crouched down, picking at his jacket. “Mmh. We can head down, now. Or in… nnn… ten minutes? I need a little rest after that.”
“If… if you like…” With a great effort, Aziraphale shuffled forward a step.
“Yeah. S’fine. Um. Sorry I–I dragged you… Uh.” Crowley had gotten his own flask out, but didn’t seem to know what to do with it. “Tell you what, next time we can… just go to the Ritz. You can get that cake you like, and…”
The angel plucked at a long red curl that hung down to the demon’s shoulder. It, too, rippled with an iridescent glow.
“Ah. Yeah. Side effects.” Crowley stood up, nervously pulling his hair back. “I can cut it when we get home if… if you don’t like it.”
“I do.” Aziraphale’s voice was breathless. Awed. “I—I like it. All of it. I like… you… I…”[55] He took a deep breath and smiled. “It’s been a wonderful evening, my dear. Thank you.”
“Has it? Are… are you sure?”
“Quite sure. I never imagined…” He closed his eyes. “We still have a lot to learn about each other, don’t we?”
“Guess so.”
“I’m glad.” Aziraphale laughed, stumbling back to the cairn, lowering himself to sit on the ground beside it. “I’m really, really glad. And… and I think…” He attempted to pour some cider, though his hands shook quite badly. “Yes, I think I could use some time myself. Before we head down.”
“Time. Nh. Um. How… How much time?” Crowley walked towards him, looking almost shy. “Only, uh, Hydra rises in about… three hours? Four?” He ducked his head. “Starts to rise. Takes, um, six or seven hours for the whole thing… it’s a big one.”
“It… sounds like it must be.”
“Yeah. Um. But it’s got Corvus and Krater on its back, so… it’s like three for one.”
“I see.” Holding the cap in both hands, Aziraphale finally managed a mouthful of cider. It was warm and bright, a little tart, just the right amount of cinnamon and cloves. “Well. I can’t imagine leaving without meeting them, too.”
“Really?” Crowley perked up. “Um. And right before dawn, Serpens appears. It’s… uh, one of my bosses said I had too many snakes and broke it in half with another constellation.” He made a face, rubbing at the marks under his eye. “But you know what? Only made it look cooler. It’s… it’s my favourite.”
“I’ll have to wait for that one, too.” Aziraphale settled back against the stones, watching the dancing lights. The northern horizon was still rather an exciting riot of colours, but overhead was just a thin, rippling green veil, the stars bright on the other side. “Is this going to go on all night, too?”
“Nnnnnprobably. They kind of have a mind of their own, once they get started.” He sat down beside Aziraphale. “Let’s see if I can remember where I left off—ah, shit, sorry.” He awkwardly folded back his wing. “Always forget about these. Um.”
“Look at this!” Aziraphale’s hands hovered above coverts and scapulars.[56] “What an absolute mess.”
“What are you—I’ve seen your wings, you’re one to talk.”
“Utter nonsense. I’m an angel.”
“Yeah, exactly. Your lot think it’s a sin to have pride in your appearance. Not that that ever stopped Gabriel, or—”
“I think,” Aziraphale blustered before he could lose his courage, “you should take care of these disasters before you do anything else. Unless. Unless you… want someone to… take care… for you?”
Crowley blinked, and a grin started to spread across his lips once again. “Nyah. Sure. But. Only if you let me do yours afterwards.”
“That seems a fair trade.” Aziraphale carefully wriggled[57] into position. “And I believe you were shouting something about Orion.”
“Right. Right! Yeah. Where’d that bastard get to?” Crowley squinted around the horizon and pointed. “There. So. My star in Orion is Meissa, right there, see? There’s actually a lot going on. There’s a Type O star paired with a Type B, and a Type F, and a brown dwarf all clustered inside the remnants of a supernova. Got all that?”
“Goodness.” Aziraphale let his fingers drift through soft black[58] feathers and he had to close his eyes a moment before he was overwhelmed. “Ah, I think so. Is that what your supervisors requested?”
“Technically? No. But. They didn’t say I wasn’t allowed to include a nova.” Crowley shifted, leaning just slightly against Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Not too heavy?”
“No.”[59] He carefully pressed another feather straight. “Please, go on.”
“Y-yeah.” Another grin, Crowley looking happier than Aziraphale had seen him since Eden, rushing about the Garden, trying to see everything before his Hellish superiors ordered him to return. Running back to the angel to share every fruit or flower or shiny rock he found. “So that one above Meissa and sort of to the right is Bellatrix, and that smug bastard down there is Betelgeuse…”
Back then, Aziraphale had been slightly worried that he’d never be able to get rid of the demon. That in offering a bit of kindness and entertaining his chatter, he’d somehow opened himself to the creature, bound himself to it irreparably.
“Then, there, in Orion’s sword, I tucked away what the humans call the Running Man Nebula…”
Six thousand years later, he was glad to see he’d been right.
FIN
A/N: Thanks to Saispicious for beta reading and giving me some thoughts on the ending!
Final notes: All astronomy info is as accurate as a week and a half of frantic Googling would allow. All star names are from the IAU’s Working Group on Star Names catalogue, as opposed to official IAU designations (Beta Draconis, etc.), because they felt more natural. Most of the names are derived from Arabic (via several centuries of translation and copy errors), and I’ve used these where possible for consistency; there’s also a VERY comprehensive list of Chinese star names dating from the Han Dynasty that I only used when strictly necessary, but it’s really cool and deserves a mention. All constellations go by their official IAU names except Krater (officially Crater but that C makes it a whole different word).
I was inspired by Neil Gaiman’s recent pictures of the sky outside his home in Scotland. I did use a particular Scottish hill and a particular date, just to make sure the geography and star movements were accurate and consistent, but you can imagine it wherever and whenever you like as long as it’s north and cold! In case anyone lost track of Crowley’s freckles, they were: Cassiopeia (his temple), Serpens (cheekbones), Vulpecula (cheek), Lacerta (jaw), Draco (neck and back), Hydra (arms), Corvus (left hand), and Krater (right hand). Any others will be for Aziraphale to locate at a later date.
Footnotes
1. Not that there were any sheep out tonight, they’d all quite wisely decided to stay indoors.↩
2. It wasn’t precisely his favourite tartan, but close enough to be quite pleasing.↩
3. For a moment, Aziraphale felt oddly disappointed, but was quickly distracted by his own pair of lovely soft gloves.↩
4. Discorporation.↩
5. He was a big believer in the sort of walks that involved short journeys down level, well-maintained paths, with plenty of benches and perhaps some ducks.↩
6. It would need to be very dark indeed before the glasses interfered with Crowley’s vision. It was one of his more annoying traits, Aziraphale had always thought.↩
7. Only because Crowley’s hands were quite warm, and for absolutely no other reason.↩
8. Though not desire for anyone or anything in particular, naturally. Sort of general desires.↩
9. It wouldn’t be full dark for a long while yet. This far north, this late in the year, the sunset tended to take its time.↩
10. Or his feelings in general. It wouldn’t be very English of him, would it?↩
11. Not very successfully.↩
12. And make them a bit thicker, a bit warmer. Just to stop any future complaints, of course.↩
13. Aziraphale thought this looked very dear, and longed to reach out and discover if Crowley’s face was as warm as it appeared.↩
14. At a magnitude of 15.2, that would be a challenge indeed.↩
15. Which emotion is not important, but there were several to choose from.↩
16. If Crowley noticed how fluttery Aziraphale’s pulse was, he didn’t say anything.↩
17. Or, rather, one felt cold, his left hand, though cold might not be the best word. Empty. Tingling. Drawn towards the warmth beside him like a moth to the flame.↩
18. Crowley would not confess to finding it adorable until much, much later, and after quite a lot of alcohol.↩
19. It was.↩
20. It was not.↩
21. This was entirely necessary.↩
22. In fact, Crowley had poor circulation and chronically icy hands and feet, something Aziraphale would frequently mention in the coming years. So perhaps something else was sparking that heat between them.↩
23. It was.↩
24. Crowley certainly thought so.↩
25. Which was generally more along the lines of “lifting a particularly heavy book” or “balancing several pastries on a plate.”↩
26. But he would not forget it, not for a very, very long time.↩
27. Aziraphale certainly could not.↩
28. Or at least, what he hoped were Crowley’s footprints, and not some sort of wild animal tracks that would lead him off a cliff.↩
29. He had to ask, as he had no idea.↩
30. Just now he was learning how it felt to have Crowley’s warm breath brush across his lips from barely an inch away. And he wanted very much to learn what would happen if he leaned in just a little more…↩
31. Utterly unaccountable. A complete mystery.↩
32. Though he would feel it again, many times, in the quite near future.↩
33. He was absolutely staring.↩
34. It absolutely did.↩
35. Almost nothing.↩
36. He knew perfectly well that Corvus meant Crow, and that a Krater was a jar from which wine was served. He was beginning to see how much of himself Crowley had put into these constellations.↩
37. Yes.↩
38. Or the second, or the third—it took several tries to work out what their numb lips were actually supposed to be doing.↩
39. Later, back at Crowley’s flat, there would be time for slow and careful study. All the time in the world.↩
40. Deneb, though it was actually Sadr. He was only off by a bit.↩
41. Trudging might be a better word for it, or perhaps a rather vertical slog.↩
42. The fact that angels don’t die or become ghosts did not enter into this.↩
43. Approximately two and a half hours later, it would occur to him that he could just miracle one up.↩
44. Quite a lot of warmth, between the exercise, the way he was flushing, and the effect of his increasing glow.↩
45. Aziraphale filed this away as something to investigate later, and they did. Quite thoroughly.↩
46. Though the stairs built to assist hikers were rarely carpeted.↩
47. They did not.↩
48. They absolutely did.↩
49. Aziraphale was not looking at the correct stars, but he thought them all lovely.↩
50. When he next got an opportunity, however, they were both quite distracted by other investigations. But later, as Crowley drifted off to sleep beside him, Aziraphale found himself tracing the long, sinuous curve of Draco down his demon’s spine.↩
51. No matter how warmed they were by the hike, Aziraphale was under no illusions about the now sub-freezing temperatures, or how quickly it could turn unpleasant.↩
52. This, Aziraphale would learn, was Hydra, the largest constellation in the sky.↩
53. Technically it had already hit, but laws of drama and all that.↩
54. They would be found by confused hikers for weeks to come, though a few made it all the way to space, where they would be even more unexplainable.↩
55. Another ‘l’ word was on the tip of his tongue. He’d almost manage it a few days later, curled up in his demon’s arms in the privacy of their bed. “Crowley. I—I—I—”
“Yeah, Angel. I—I—I, too.”↩
56. He didn’t have permission to touch, but he very much wanted to.↩
57. There was about to be a great deal of wriggling from both of them, for all the best reasons.↩
58. These, too, still carried that gorgeous iridescence, and would for a good long while. Aziraphale would check, frequently.↩
59. It was, in fact, altogether the most wonderful thing he’d ever felt, at least until Crowley worked up the courage to slide an arm around his shoulder five minutes later.↩
Wonderful
Date: 2022-12-26 05:34 pm (UTC)From Comicgeekery
Date: 2022-12-27 01:33 am (UTC)Also your footnotes are very funny! It was a nice extra element to have. Thank you so much for all the effort you put into this fic!
(no subject)
Date: 2022-12-27 08:54 am (UTC)the freckles which are actually constellations: brilliant.
the footnotes are masterful and hilarious.
and tweaking the sun so much you have to go levitate into an aurora: squeeeeeeeeee.
this is genius. you are amazing. wow. thank you.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-12-28 07:13 am (UTC)I LOVE all the details on the stars, felt like I can see Crowley's glowing (figuratively and literally) smile when he share (happily info dump) about his work. I enjoy looking at stars but really couldn't tell them apart, maybe except a few famous constellations. Honestly I thought you already knew about all the stars before I reached your final notes. And the way you made sure the star movements are consistent and accurate for an actual location...*chef's kiss*
Crowley's freckles being stars echoes really well with the idea of him putting a little bit of himself in his work, and I can't stop imagining how Aziraphale would see the stars on his body and be constantly reminded how brilliant and creative this demon is.
The tension between them is also well written - they are in love and they clearly know it, just don't know how to admit it and kept denying it like the footnotes suggest until that one quiet, tender moment. It's really about spending time together and knowing each other better, I'm glad to see the both of them gradually opening up about their past and their feelings. Oh and the footnotes are witty and funny like the book! I was like "omg there are FOOTNOTES" and every tap on the footnote number was like opening a wrapped gift, finding out the happy surprise.
The one thing that stands out for me is the idea that creating stars and nebulas and such was not a work of magic but carefully calculated angelic science. The meticulous work behind makes the process of star making more impressive and admirable, that gives context to how proud Crowley feels about his own work. Comparing these calculations with driving 90 mph in central London also put things into a new perspective. Although he did hit Anathema...
Alright I have rambled on for too long, just want to let you know I absolutely love this fic (and you) <3
dadesu
(no subject)
Date: 2023-01-09 05:01 am (UTC)Oooh, the idea that demons look a bit like various creatures because THEY were the ones who made them is really cool!
“Too insecure to move forward, and too blasted stubborn to stop trying.” Yessss
I was surprised Aziraphale kept being warmed by Crowley’s hands, and then footnote 22….yes :)
““Will the universe last that long?” “Hope so. I’d hate to have set up all those fireworks for nothing.” “ I love this
“And that’s your legacy, then. A sky full of explosions and serpents.”” <3
I love the new light he sees, how CROWLEY sees, and why it makes him the way he is :)
His freckles!!
CARPETED stairs XD
WOW that starburst moment. Iridescent feathers, drifting through space—incredible.
Footnote 55 XD
This is lovely! And, wow, you must have done a TON of research! It was really cool to read about, and I especially like how you made Crowley talk so enthusiastically—and the way Aziraphale absolutely adored it :) They were BOTH glowing in this story!