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It's after the beginning, and before their beginning.
"The stars are beautiful tonight." You are beautiful tonight, he doesn't say.
"Yeah?" Crawley asks quietly.
"Stunning." The principality answers, just as soft.
"Describe them to me, angel."
Aziraphale takes in the request, and his eyes sadden. "Ah." All that joy and love put into his creations, (Aziraphale sometimes found himself overwhelmed just looking at the stars, the love poured into and radiating from them suffocatingly beautiful) and Crawley couldn't even see them anymore. It seemed... particularly cruel of a punishment.
"They're... like a kaleidoscope." He says, even though kaleidoscopes have yet to be invented for a few thousand years. "A cacophony of colors and light, constantly changing and chasing one another."
“Following.”
“Hm?”
The serpent let his eyes trail towards the principality, nothing to see in the sky anyways. “I always liked to see it as following, as opposed to chasing. Sure, they’re stuck in a cycle, in a push and pull, but it’s not a chase. It’s more of an accompaniment.”
He’s not talking about the stars. Neither of them were, really. The angel doesn’t respond.
"Are you with me?" It sounds broken, like his halo, and every other part of him.
Because the angel isn't.
Crawley is alone.
Crowley is alone.
It's after the ending, and after their ending.
He sets down the bottle of liquor next to him where he is laying flat on the bookshop's rooftop in some imitation of stargazing.
He still sees nothing.