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Something funny was afoot. Crowley was asleep, but nonetheless he was sure of it. He was never certain if that particular knack was one of his demonic powers to help him evade divine thwarting or he just personally had an instinct for Aziraphale’s little schemes, as he was developing both his instincts for Aziraphale and his demonic powers concurrently when he arrived on Earth. But he definitely knew something was funny, and he woke feeling very suspicious. When he cracked open his eyes, his bedroom was full of dazzling sunlight, which was unusual and only added to his suspicions.
“Errrgh,” Crowley covered his face with his arm and groped for his shades.
“Whoops!” said a familiar soft voice. “Don’t go upsetting your breakfast now, my dear. Let me help.” There was the gentle swish of his bedroom curtains miraculously sweeping shut, and his bedroom was nice and dark again.
Crowley uncovered his face to find Aziraphale sitting at the end of his bed with a loaded tea tray on his lap, “Angel!”
“Good morning, Crowley! Gosh, you’ve been asleep for ages. I’ve been sitting here two days! Lucky thing I brought a book with me,” Aziraphale tapped the paperback he’d apparently stashed in his breast pocket.
“Yeah?” Crowley clicked himself a breath mint and tried to discreetly arrange his hair.
“I do like it this length,” said Aziraphale, reaching out to pat Crowley’s fringe.
Crowley leaned back against his pillows, out of patting range and cleared his throat, “Right, so what brings you here uninvited into my bedroom early in the morning with snacks, apparently?”
Aziraphale smiled proudly, “This is breakfast in bed.”
“Is it?” Crowley looked at the tray, but all the dishes were covered under shiny dome lids, “Gosh.”
“Yes!” said Aziraphale. “It’s a human tradition for special occasions, since it’s about that time again.”
Crowley groaned, “Oh hell, Angel, not m-”
“Your birthday!” crowed Aziraphale, pushing the tray forward. “Eat up now, my dear. I’ve got a special outing planned!”
“I haven’t got a birthday,” said Crowley, obediently pulling the tray onto his lap. “I wasn’t born. And anyway, aren’t you a bit early?”
“Am I?” Aziraphale pulled out his watch and consulted it. “As I say, I’ve been sitting here two days, so I don-”
“Early in the year!” Crowley clarified, lifting one of the shiny lids to find egg in hole, still steaming hot. He smiled, “My favourite.”
Aziraphale smiled and reached over to pour Crowley a cup of coffee from the pot on the tray, “Yes, I know.”
“Thanks, Angel,” Crowley tucked in happily. “Mmm,” he said round his mouthful. “Give them another six thousand years and the humans’ll never improve on eggs and toast.”
Aziraphale smiled indulgently and sipped Crowley’s coffee, “You are refreshingly easy to please, my dear.”
Crowley clicked another cup into being and held it out to Aziraphale for filling, “Thanks. Anyway, aren’t we a bit early for my pretend birthday this year? I’m sure it was later on last year, because we went ice skating, and you got really cross with me for convincing that guy to lick the-”
“Yes, well! No harm in that, is there? You can have as many birthdays as you like. We can pepper them throughout the year, if you would enjoy it.”
Crowley snorted into his coffee cup, “Yeah, clearly I’m the mastermind behind this little endeavour.”
“Mind you don’t make it go up your nose,” said Aziraphale, patting Crowley on the back for some reason. “And I just thought it’d be nice to do something sort of normal and cheery after.” He lowered his voice, “All that bother the other day.”
“The apocalypse bother. Normal and cheery. All right,” Crowley wiped his mouth on his napkin, “What’s on the docket, then?”
Aziraphale mimed locking his mouth and throwing away the key, “You’ll see.”
Crowley sighed, “I hate that I love it when you do that. You’re very cute, and it’s so annoying.”
Aziraphale beamed and rose from the bed, “I’ll just let you get some clothes on, shall I, dear?”
…
“What are you up to, Angel? I thought we were going for a picnic in the park or something.”
“After you, my dear,” Aziraphale nodded to the door he was holding open for Crowley. “And why would I bring you breakfast and then take you to lunch?”
“Oh I dnno, you’re always pushing food on me.”
“Mmm, maybe after,” said Aziraphale, reaching for Crowley’s arm. “Just be a little bit patient, and it’ll all be clear enough very soon.”
“All right then, lead the way.” Crowley followed Aziraphale into a sort of little amphitheatre and chose seats for them in the middle. “Oh, are we seeing a film?” Crowley asked shifting in his seat to lean back and look up at the screen. “Screen’s quite awkwardly placed.”
“Have you never been to a planetarium before, my dear?” Aziraphale tapped the earpiece of Crowley’s shades.
Crowley whisked off his shades and tucked them into his breast pocket, “Seems sort of pointless when you’ve seen them all up close, you know?”
Aziraphale hummed noncommittally, “Oh, I see your point, but I hear it's quite spectacular. Perhaps you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”
Presently a young person with blueish hair and enormous lavender-framed spectacles entered the room down at the sunken front bit and invited them to turn off any devices they might have that make a light or a sound, and Crowley obediently pulled out his phone and switched it off. Aziraphale smugly continued not to have a mobile or smart watch or anything that had even heard of electricity on his person. Around them there were the little stirs and murmurs of all the rest of the audience doing the same. It was rather cosy. Crowley slumped toward his angel in his seat and alternated between looking up at the still dark screen and down at the young person watching them all settle in with an air of pleased anticipation.
Presently their host spoke, “This is rather a special programme this evening, everyone. We’ve got a new show in, just finished, and this will be the first time ever it’s exhibited in public. There’s been a new star system discovered--well, I say new!--anyway it’s called the Crowley system, and we’re terribly excited to share some of the things we’ve learned about it with you. The images you’re about to see are real actual photos of real actual stars and planets; nothing computer-generated…”
Crowley whipped his head round toward Aziraphale, “Angel, what did you do?!”
Aziraphale put a finger to his smiling lips and pressed Crowley’s hand with his other hand, “I think it’s about to begin, my dear.”
The lights went down, and it did begin. Some plinky classical piano over soothing narration from some formerly famous actor with no connection whatever to the astronomical community, but Crowley wasn’t paying the music or the narration any mind.
Over their heads, whirling above them were his stars. The stars he had held in his palms, cradled, dandled, and kissed off on their way to dance in the un-nothingness of space were projected onto the ceiling overhead. Almost near enough to touch. Crowley gazed at them in wonder. Drank them in as if he were dying of thirst. And something at his core trembled and cracked, and he burst promptly into tears.
Aziraphale squeezed his hand and surreptitiously miracled him a hankie. Crowley took the hankie, but he scarcely dared use it. He was so absorbed in staring up at his darlings, and he was reluctant to miss a single second. There they were. Just there. Almost exactly as he remembered them.
The show seemed to go by very quickly, and when it was over, and the lights had gone back up, and the other audience members had filtered out, Crowley was still sat in his seat, feeling very wobbly inside and clutching a damp hankie in one hand and Aziraphale’s soft, plump hand in the other.
“Are you all right, Crowley dearest?” asked Aziraphale presently.
“Mnnffgk,” said Crowley. Aziraphale miracled him another hankie, and Crowley wiped his face and tried again, “Angel. How did you. Do that?”
Aziraphale patted his hand, “Well I read about the discovery of the system in the paper nearly a year ago, and I knew you’d put up systems in that area because I. Well I. Had a look at your file ages ago. Anyway, before now, it’d been too distant to see from Earth, but I thought you might like to have a look again, so I kept an eye out for any news of nice quality images and. Voila,” Aziraphale made a little wiggly hand gesture that Crowley had previously associated with his magic act.
“But?” Crowley’s voice came out a soft little bleat. “My name?”
“Oh yes,” Aziraphale smiled rather sheepishly. “They were calling it this boring old string of numbers, and I’m not sure if you’ve heard of this, but the humans are doing this rather lovely thing where you pay a little money and have a star named for someone.”
“That’s not a real thing, though. It’s just a really expensive bit of paper and a shit little frame.”
“Yes, well! That’s what the IAU said when I wrote to them-”
“The...?”
“The IAU, my dear, the International Astronomical Union. They’ve put themselves in charge of naming heavenly bodies, apparently,” Aziraphale tossed his head disdainfully.
Crowley grinned, “The nerve.”
“Quite so. Anyway, they were terribly rude, so.” Aziraphale rubbed his free hand against his trouser knee. “I just did a little. You know. Had a bit of a fiddle with their paperwork, and. Changed it.”
Crowley laughed, “Did you meddle with an important scientific discovery for little old me?”
“No! Well. I didn’t interfere with the discovery itself. Only the. The name bit. The discovery they--the humans of course--did all on their own. Splendid of them, don’t you think! Their interest in. The world outside their world. They take more of an interest even than our lot do. But I thought. Well. It’s. It’s appropriate for the people who. It is your star, isn’t it? And now the people who look at it and study it and explore it and know it. Will know it’s yours. Your name will be attached to it always. And I think. That’s as it should be,” Aziraphale made a little nod with a stubborn sort of tightness about his mouth as if he expected to be argued with.
Crowley’s eyes filled again, gawping at his angel, “I don’t know what to say.”
“Oh don’t mention it, dear heart. It was my pleasure,” and he suddenly brought Crowley’s hand to his lips and kissed it and then pressed it to his own breast. “My absolute pleasure.”
Crowley’s face flamed hot as a sun, and he bit his lip. Then blurted suddenly, “Aziraphale. Do you love me?”
Aziraphale cupped Crowley’s sticky cheek in one cool, soft hand and smiled, “Of course I do.”
Crowley shook his head slowly, “No, I mean. Do you love me like. Like I love you?”
There was a shimmer of some unknowable hugeness in the room that Crowley had to blink hard against, and when he could look at Aziraphale again, his angel’s eyes were bright. “My heart,” said Aziraphale, leaning in to kiss him. “Of course I do.”