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When the Starmaker first learned to paint, he was going by Anthony. He had no reason to go by an alias, but he had grown rather fond of it after providing it to a rather polite demon. His decision to dip his fingers into what was the original sorry excuse for paint, however, had nothing to do with his name, but everything to do with his title.
He had hoped after the fiasco with Adam and Eve, She would allow him back into the expanse of space to make stars once again. She told him he had more to do on Earth, much to Anthony’s chagrin. So he walked among man bitter and with hands itching to create.
They’d only been a few generations into humanity when a girl first found that mixing together egg yolk and red soil would make a substance that would trail bright and stick to the rock. She used it to make crude drawings, which Anthony watched, impressed.
It wasn’t until there was a suitable array of colors available that Anthony felt the tug of longing hard enough that he sheepishly approached a group painting across an expanse of cave walls and scooped up some of the yellow paint.
He created starbursts across stone and nebules across rock. He didn’t have all the colors he wanted to work with, but the thrill of a challenge only spurred him on. He may have also been there to nudge the Egyptians in the right direction of finding blue paint, okay? Sue him- blue was one of his favorites.
-
It wasn’t until around 300 BC that Anthony picked up a paintbrush. There had been other attempts at something similar before, but all the crude sticks and leaves could not capture the fine detail a brush of a fingertip could.
Anthony was perfectly content using his hands and fingers, just as he always had, but the man selling the brushes assured him they were intended for calligraphy. The angel picked up the thin bamboo with animal hair attached to one end, and decided that perhaps a certain demon would get a kick out of it. After all, Az loved the written word, perhaps he would like a tool to help create it.
He had originally only meant to try it out. To make sure it worked as advertised, but as he dipped it into the ink that he’d purchased alongside it, he slowly realized things were not going to go as planned.
The gentle sweep of the brush across parchment was a sensation he liked almost as much as fingerpainting. And it kept his hands blessedly clean. He created a void in the paper, a sinkhole from which there was no return. He then got up, grabbed his paints, and wove a galaxy around it. He tucked the concept into the back of his mind, deciding to ask Her to let him abandon post for just a while to play around again.
-
He was going by Raphael when he realized that he could paint more than just space. He had been out in the cosmos for a few decades, having gotten the okay to return to where he belonged. He had ended up quite liking the brush idea, which is where the staff came from.
His staff was a long piece of carefully maintained bamboo that he was able to miracle from brush to staff with minimal effort. The staff worked a bit different from an actual paintbrush, it didn’t even have a proper brush end, really, but the angel would push his power through it in arcs and waves in ways he hadn’t really been capable of before.
But he missed Earth, much as that fact irked him. He missed the browns and the greens and the greys. He missed the food and the wind and the sounds. Above all, he missed the sparkling darkness of a certain demon’s gaze, which he would certainly never admit.
So he returned to earth and decided to give a new name a whirl. Raphael. When he told Az about it, he laughed, but did start calling him by the new name. It put something at ease in his chest, that approval.
Raphael had known that people painted things other than space, of course he did, but he never thought to do it himself until he saw a man painting a landscape.
“Mind if I join you?” Raphael had asked without thinking. The man looked at him, curious, but nodded his consent and offered Raphael the paints he was using. All earth tones, nothing like the angel liked to work with.
Withholding a sigh, Raphael decided to paint the same landscape. It was more challenging than the colorful and shapeless bursts he was used to, but it was easy enough to get. Sharp bursts of brown-green, yellow spikes of grass, grey-brown bark. It was the same concept, the palette was just different, the angles a bit sharper.
“What are you doing?” Raphael jumped and whirled to face the fanged grin of his adversary. The original painter and his canvas had vanished.
“Why are you here?” The angel tried very hard not to sound pleased.
“I asked first, Starmaker,” Az said, taking his brush from him and narrowing his eyes at the carvings on it. “Are these snakes?”
“Snakes are cool,” Raphael hissed, turning back to his painting. “And I’m painting, now you.”
“Oh just spreading some chaos here, mischief there.”
“Which I will inevitably thwart,” Raphael noted. “You know, maybe-”
“No! No, we are not…” Az’s voice dropped to a harsh whisper, “we are not teaming up Ant- Raphael.”
“Antraphael?” The angel teased momentarily before his expression turned thoughtful. “That sounds like an angel I knew- a principality. Wonder what happened to him…haven’t heard from him in ages.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Az snapped, aggravated. “I know what heaven is like. They find out you’re helping the enemy and you know what they’ll do? They’ll toss you out, and that's if you’re lucky!”
Raphael’s brushstroke shot up, ruining the entire painting.
“Let’s go get drinks,” he grumbled, waving the project away. It would be years before he would finally rediscover, fix, and finish the damn piece.
-
The name didn’t last, of course it didn’t. Anthony knew Az was really quite uncomfortable with the name Raphael, despite his insistence of it being fine. The closest the angel got to an answer was ‘reminds me too much of someone else. Not you.’
So he was Anthony again when he realized how truly and utterly fucked he was. It was the 19th century, and realism- true realism- was coming into style. The more detailed and real looking a painting looked, the better. And for the first time since paint had been invented, Anthony couldn’t master a style of art.
Of course, he would eventually, but at present everything he painted looked cheap and fake. The concept of shading was new to him, nothing cast shadows in space and his landscapes were more stylized than anything. Along with that, still life was a bit drab to him- lots of looking and staring at inanimate objects doing nothing and feeling nothing for hours.
In contrast, portraits had the opposite issue. The subject was too squirmy, and the constant annoyance and boredom that flared up would affect his brushwork.
Plants were a good compromise, just alive enough to entertain him, but not squirmy enough to distract him. He spent hours trailing greenery across his canvases, adding bursts of color where flowers decided to plant themselves.
He ended up surrounding himself with plants, expressing his annoyance if they began to wilt, which would quickly make them perk up once more. He accidentally scared the plants, he thought, what with all his frustrated yelling and the torn canvases strewed across the floor, but it did lead to them looking exquisite. He’d be lying if said he hadn’t been hamming up the dramatics that came with destroying his less than perfect works.
Az had come over once, sitting properly in a plain, stiff wooden chair he summoned while Anthony sprawled out across his own sofa. Az was looking at a half-finished painting of a plant.
“Do you ever paint anything other than plants?” Az asked suddenly. Anthony sat up and followed his gaze.
“Space.”
“Other than space and plants.”
“Like what?”
“People?”
Anthony snorted and fell back against the cushions, “Nah, people move too much.”
“Oh,” Az said. The two fell quiet for a few minutes before Az spoke again. “Well if you like, I could…you know, model for you. If it would help.”
“I- you- what?” Anthony sputtered. The demon scowled at him.
“Mind out of the gutter, Anthony. It’s simply that…look I can hold much more still than any human could, I would be an easy model to start with to get the human-esque form down.”
Anthony was quiet in his consideration. Much as he loathed to admit it, it did make sense. And as much as he loved painting plants and stars, he did want to branch out, if only to prove he could. He was a stubborn bastard that way.
“Fine,” he grumbled. “Just…stay there, then,” he launched himself off the couch and collected his paints.
“Now?” Az asked, and when Anthony turned to face him, his dark eyes were curious and wide and just…beautiful.
“I- er- that okay?” Anthony asked, taking his brush and twirling it in his fingers. Az nodded; Anthony nodded back in reply. The angel turned his easel towards the demon and, with a slow breath, began to paint.
He had always found Az remarkable- with his intelligent eyes, his soft, slightly singed curls, the curve of his delicate pink lips…
He was practically in a trance, looking more at Az then his canvas. It felt like no time at all before he had finished enough for Az to move if he wished. The demon cracked his neck at an inhuman angle, then stood to look over Anthony’s shoulder.
“Oh…Anthony,” his breath ghosted across his ear and he had to suppress a shiver, “this is perfect, how have you been having trouble?”
Slowly, Anthony tipped his head back. He let his curls brush against Az’s shoulder as he did so, and when he looked to the left he could see how close the demon really was. With his eyes that reminded him so much of his night sky that it hurt.
Oh.
Oh fuck.
“S'not done, still time to mess up,” he said over his mounting panic. Az laughed that soft laugh of his and grinned, revealing those delicate little fangs perfect for-
Anthony’s entire brain ripped like a canvas in a desperate attempt to get that image out of his head. In the meantime, Az had pulled away and offered him an apologetic farewell. Anthony was still sewing his brain back together when the door closed firmly behind him. He was still stitching his sanity back into place as he found himself setting up a new canvas. He was still lost in a daze as he found himself wondering how many years it would take to draw Az perfectly from memory.
-
The first time he wrote out the name “Anthony J. Crowley” had been on the deed to his studio. A studio he had not planned on getting at all, but when a giddy bat demon bounced up to him only about 60 or so years after the whole gay crisis thing Anthony had no choice but to follow. He wasn’t sure if the blindfold made him more or less eager if he was being honest.
“Watch your step!”
“I can’t see, idiot, there’s a blindfold over my face.”
“Stop sassing me or I’ll gag you, Starmaker.”
“Kinky.”
“No!”
Anthony laughed, feeling a warm flutter in his chest as Az very firm stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. Then, he removed the blindfold.
“Tada!”
“A…building?” Anthony raised an incredulous eyebrow at the demon.
“It’s for your studio!” Az enthused.
“My-?”
“I originally bought it thinking about making a bookshop out of it, but then I realized that would require me to, um, you know, sell my books? And so I thought instead I’d give it to you. I’ve already found a quaint little cottage for my books and me to stay, so I have no need for it, obviously-”
“Azzy…”
“No need to thank me, you’re just taking it off my hands,” the demon pushed on, shoving a deed into Anthony’s hands and then bolting like the devil himself was after him. Anthony looked at the deed, then at the building.
It could use some paint…
-
1967, he’d been going by Crowley for 25 years as far as close friends were concerned. Well, close friend. After tonight, though…
He leaned heavily against the door to his studio, against the painted grasses and flowers that stretched across its surface, growing towards the glow in the dark stars. Against his chest, Crowley clutched a jar containing a single, wild spark of hellfire. Uncontrollable, untamable, and all Az’s.
'What, not going to offer me a lift?“ Crowley had quietly asked, sitting behind Az on his motorbike.
Crowley moved as if he were walking through the thickest of oil paints. He entered his room, set the jar on his desk, then returned to the studio itself. Half-finished projects were littered everywhere. Crowley looked at them and felt empty.
A soft, pained laugh. 'I know I go too slow for you, Crowley…’ Then, the most heartbroken admission, 'I am... quite unsure if I will ever be capable of catching up with you.’
Crowley’s whole body began to shake. Hands balled into fists, and then he screamed. He grabbed a wooden stool that Az could often be caught sitting on and threw it right into one of his paintings. It splintered and ripped and Crowley felt good.
He tore paintings from the wall, shattered frames against the floor. He ripped apart each brushstroke, each secret hope. He only stopped when he tore his paintbrush off the chain around his throat and tried to snap it. Lucky for him, past Crowley had enchanted it to be basically invincible, so his efforts simply drained him. He let it expand into his staff so he could lean heavily on it as sobs wracked him. He was angry, he was heartbroken, and he had never felt less holy.
-
In the years leading up to the apocalypse, Crowley hadn’t been painting much. Any attempts to bring his brush to the canvas were hindered by the fact that the world was ending, and that in less than eleven years all these things he was making would be destroyed. Again.
He thought maybe after everything, after escaping heaven and hell, he would be able to paint again. Yet, as he sat with a sketchbook in his lap in Az’s livingroom he felt no spark, no drive.
Well, that wasn’t true. He felt something, but it wasn’t the need to create. He took a swig of wine and looked up to where Az was quietly contemplating his own glass.
"I-”
“It’s Aziraphale.”
“…what?” Anthony sat up straight for the first time possibly ever. Az flinched.
“My- my name…my angel name. I never,” he bit his lip, “all the other demons were changing their names, but I never meant to fall. I liked the name the Almighty gave me, even if She…so, so perhaps you can call me Aziraphale from now on? Since I guess I’m technically not a demob anymore…”
The name was familiar. It brought Crowley the memory of a flash of white wings and blue eyes watching him work. However, that image very comfortably faded to fit the face of the demon he so loved.
Aziraphale.
“Aziraphale,” he spoke it in a way that made one think of blasphemy. He caught the demon’s shiver. Slowly, Crowley set aside his sketchbook and his wine and he prowled forward.
“Crowley?”
“Yes, Aziraphale?” He breathed, close enough to count the lashes framing Aziraphale’s dark eyes. They fluttered closed.
Lips pressed against lips, soft and full of longing and hope. It took Crowley a moment to realize he hadn’t been the one to close the gap. He framed Aziraphale’s face in his hands, like the work of art it was, and kissed back.
A gasp and then hands fluttered against his back, gripping at his jacket as the angel pushed him back in his chair, thoughts scattered so only one thing remained.
Aziraphale, Aziraphale, Aziraphale.
-
They laid in a bed conjured earlier that evening. Aziraphale didn’t own one since he was used to hanging upsidedown from the rafters when he slept at all. He made an exception tonight, though, and was now curled up fast asleep in Crowley’s arms. He traced the blue-purple-red bruises scattered across his lover’s skin and smiled fondly as Azirphale wrinkled his nose and turned in his arms. Slowly, Crowley untangled himself and moved towards the easel he’d put in the room back when Aziraphale was sleeping for a century. He had wanted to be around the demon, even if he was fast asleep with no plans to become conscious again until he thought his books were in danger.
He brushed the dust off a blank canvas and set it on the easel. It was facing out the small window, revealing the expanses of space for Crowley to record again and again. He hesitated a moment before changing the angle of the easel, pointing it towards the bed where Azirphale was still curled up.
He looked over at where his brush had been reverently placed on the nightstand in contrast with everything else he’d been wearing previously. He looked at it and then shook his head. He opened a pot of red paint and dipped his fingers into it. The excess dripped from the tips before Crowley set then to the canvas, and he began to paint.