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“Cocoa delivery,” Asa announced, shuffling out to where Anthony was already peering into his telescope, his back curved into a shape that will surely cause some aching the next day.
“Oh, it’s scrumptious,” he groaned delightedly, a fond amusement creeping through him at his husband’s distracted yet indulgent hum of agreement as Anthony took the mug without tearing his gaze from his beloved stars.
Asa smiled as he settled into his own chair, peering up at the sky to see if he could find half the beauty Anthony is seeing. “How are the celestial bodies tonight? Behaving?”
Anthony finally pulled away from the device, adjusting his glasses as he leaned back to look at him. “It's the Eta Aquarid meteor shower. We mightn't need a telescope, we can see it with the naked eye.”
“Ah, well, maybe we should look at it together,” he answered, resting his head back, tilted up to watch the night sky as the evening bugs chirped and buzzed around them, a forest’s symphony.
The dark vastness above their heads was dotted with bright speckles of light, a brilliant glow to them that had always been dimmed by the pollution back in the city, much to Anthony’s chagrin. Out here, the constellations looked like diamonds, embroidered into the fabric of the very universe.
In his musings, Asa almost missed the streak of light bolting across the sky, a glimmering trail that mimicked the genuine delight sparking in his own veins. “Oh, look, it’s a shooting star!”
His husband’s soft sound of surprise was quickly ignored as Asa closed his eyes firmly, clutching his mug of cocoa between his hands as he tried to concentrate.
He could feel more than see Anthony’s warmly sarcastic expression, as his dry voice interrupted, “Technically, it’s a meteorite debris from Halley’s comet.”
Asa rolled his eyes, huffing petulantly as he side-eyed him, before closing his eyes again, “Well, I know it’s not a real shooting star, but I want to make a wish.”
“Oh, right,” came the sardonic response he’d been expecting, though Anthony did quiet down afterwards.
In the darkness, Asa pondered his wish for a moment. He was, by all means, an extraordinarily lucky man. He got to live in a cozy home, surrounded by the full beauty of the outdoors, with the love of his life. What more, then, could he possibly ask for?
Could he wish for riches, all of which were meaningless compared to the smile on Anthony’s face when they woke up entangled each morning? Should he instead wish for power, when his husband would already do anything he asked before the question ever fully left his lips? Should he hope for true love, as if true love isn’t already sitting in the chair beside him, soft and witty and gray and just as lovely as the day he had found him?
Finally, a sense of deep understanding came over him. He didn’t need to wish for anything new; Asa could simply wish for more of the very best thing.
“I wish to find him, and love him, in every possible life,” Asa prayed silently to whatever magic lies within a comet. “In every world, may we find each other. I want to know that as long as he and I exist, the universe cannot separate us.”
Satisfied, he exhaled with a nod. “There.”
He sat beside the muse of his wishes in silence, reveling in the freshness of the evening breeze and the glitter of the starlight and the silence-
“Do you hear that bird?” Anthony cut in, curiously.
Asa strained his ears, trying to filter out the call of one creature from the chorus of all night-walking critters.
Anthony looked supremely confident as he declared, “That’s definitely a nightingale.”
“How can you tell?”
Anthony frowned, excitement dimming slightly, though his confidence never wavered. “Well, it’s not an owl. And it’s night!”
Asa was powerless to stop the fond laughter tumbling out of his mouth. Oh, how he adored this man, silly as he was.
“You wouldn’t know a nightingale if it perched on the end of your nose,” he teased gently.
Anthony would not be deterred, though his eyes glimmered with mirth. “It’s definitely, definitely a nightingale.”
Asa’s not quite sure why he’s so adamant, but he decided to allow it. If it was actually a nightingale, he finds that he actually enjoys its song anyway.
They lapse into a momentary silence again, the supposed-nightingale serenading them as they watch the sky, and Asa thought again about his wish.
Eyes still fixed on the heavens, he asked quietly, “Do you ever wonder if there’s… anything more than this?”
Neither of them were religious, nor did they practice any superstition or pagan belief, but Asa was curious to know how his husband saw it all, whether he ever believed there could be other things in the unknown, even in a simple shooting star.
Anthony absorbed the question thoughtfully, but his answer was impossibly tender as it came out: “I don’t need anything more than this.”
“I have the universe out there,” he started, nodding his head at the great expanse stretching gloriously above them.
Then Anthony looked over at him, his face radiating such adoration that Asa’s breath caught in his chest. “And I have you.”
Another chuckle escaped him as Anthony laced their fingers together, just as exasperatedly flustered by his husband’s devotion as he’d been from the start.
Anthony’s voice trembled just slightly, raw with an honest sense of wonder that never seemed to fade. “I have everything I’ve ever wanted.”
Asa squeezed their joined hands, gazing out at the stars knowing that, had Anthony been the sort to believe in wishes and the universe, his husband would have probably wished for the same. It’s a magic in itself, to be loved enough that all you could ever want is more.
He continued to watch the night sky until his eyes grew heavy, lulled to sleep by the chirping of crickets and the song of the alleged nightingales. Asa’s last conscious thought, before he succumbed to the cool softness of the night and the rustle of the trees and the clammy weight of his husband’s hand in his own, was again of his wish: let me know him, in every way there is, and let me keep him, please.
He woke up abruptly, not at all like the gentle waves of sleep that had taken him the night before. His leg was on pins and needles, his neck craned at a truly awful angle against the chair, and his head pounding with a ferocity that had him squinting away from the sunlight.
He kicked off a blanket, which must have been laid over him last night as he wrenched himself out of the chair. He dropped, rather painfully, to the ground on knees that hadn’t been prepared for such athleticism in the last few decades.
He clutched at his head, at the buzz in his ears and the ache in the bridge of his nose. It felt like something was growing, or rather, settling into his mind. And all at once, it fell into place.
“Crowley!” The cry was torn out of him, desperate and guttural in a way he hadn’t ever heard his voice. At least, not in this lifetime.
It came like a montage, like an old photo album of a life that was slowly coming back to him, piece by piece. He remembers.
A meeting at the dawn of creation. A wound tended by a flame. A sword given in a garden. A briefcase of books in Nazi Germany. A flask of holy water in a Bentley. A kiss of despair at a bookshop. A hand in his own, at the end of the world. Crowley’s hand.
The barrage of memories, a flood of snapshots from six thousand years of history, slowed, until the pain was gone, and all that was left was a deep understanding.
The sound of an agonized groan forced him up from his knees, scrabbling to his feet and staggering over to the other man.
Anthony was sprawled out in the chair he’d slept in, hissing in pain as he pinched the bridge of his nose, muttering softly to himself.
Finally, Anthony’s head snapped up to look at him, his gaze wild, his face lined with a grimace that faded into confusion.
He approached the chair carefully, a tentative hope lightening his steps, though an undercurrent of fear remained: what if the man in the chair, his Crowley, didn’t remember? What if he was left alone with his beloved Anthony, carrying the weight of millenia of memories from another world that his husband could never remember?
Still, he owed it to himself, to Crowley, to try. He mustered whatever he could gather of his strength, from all his years as a warrior if only in name, and met the other man’s gaze.
“Anthony,” he started, before his voice faltered, tears already pricking at his eyes as he blinked furiously.
It came out as more of a reverent whisper as he choked out, “Crowley?”
He watched as Anthony’s eyes widened in hopeful realisation, all the sharp lines smoothed out by an earnest sense of wondrous, luminous joy.
“Aziraphale.”
And with that, one single word breathed out like prayer, all the tension in Aziraphale’s body melted.
Anthony had told him, once, about binary stars. About how they orbit one another, tethered by the invisible pull of gravity that allows them to dance for all eternity. About the burst of energy produced if they collide, how they explode violently and sometimes form a single combined star.
Collapsing into Crowley now felt like being unmade, and ultimately, reknit into one joint star as they crashed out of the chair and onto the grass. Aziraphale felt his very soul latch onto his, their atoms the very same as the ones making up the binary stars, the only difference being that Aziraphale and Crowley are no longer in the heavens.
Kneeling clumsily in the grass, Crowley took his face into his hands, his gaze studying him like a treasure he cannot believe is in his grasp. His very human eyes, familiar in this life, glistened with unshed tears. Aziraphale remembered the yellow glow of the old ones so well. Having grown fond of both, he found that his preference just seemed to be Crowley, no matter what form.
“Angel.” Crowley could barely utter the word before his voice broke, his lips stretched into a smile that seemed to be entirely out of his conscious control.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale answered just as thickly, a call and response that were as old as time itself.
Crowley let out a rough laugh, shaking his head in wonder. “How in the world is this happening?”
Aziraphale let out his own borderline hysterical giggle, brushing his thumb down the side of his lover’s face. “I haven’t the faintest! Oh, Crowley.”
They laughed for a time, a little scared, very lost, but so undeniably happy.
Crowley’s face soured, though it was incomparable to the joy bursting out of him. “Do you think it was, you know? The big G got one over on us, maybe.”
Aziraphale frowned, his lips pursed in distress. “No, I don’t believe it. She seemed genuine. She promised she would make a world entirely separate from Heaven and Hell and all, so I don’t believe she would lie.”
Crowley gave a pointed huff of disbelief at that, before his expression turned more pensive. “Well, if She did make a new universe, there’s no reason why She would let us remember? What does She get out of giving us memories back if we’d already found each other? It’s bloody pointless, innit? So, if it’s not the Almighty, then how?”
Aziraphale shot up to his feet with such urgency that Crowley almost tipped over, gripping his legs for support. Aziraphale grimaced and stretched his back lightly, the aches and creaks of his body all the more noticeable with the divine memories.
“You alright, angel?” Crowley asked, face tilted up in concern from where he was still on his knees like a worshipper.
“I’m alright, I must have just pulled a little something. But I think I have an idea, I think I know how this happened!” Aziraphale gasped, his own voice incredulous as he gazed down at him.
Crowley’s lips twitched at the familiar dramatics, nodding for him to continue indulgingly. “So, what’s your theory? How on Earth did this happen?”
Aziraphale took a moment to look down at him. All the warmth of 20 years of love, and then some thousands of years of history, filled him in a sudden wave. Even before, he loved Anthony so much that his heart felt tight with it. Now, combined with millenia of adoring the man gazing up at him, Aziraphale feared he may truly burst with it.
Crowley tapped him softly on the knee, his tone encouraging. “Out with it, angel. How are we us?”
“Because I wished for it,” Aziraphale confessed meekly.
An eyebrow went up. “You what?”
The familiar squawk of Crowley’s disbelief only served to settle his nerves further. “I wished for this, I think.”
“You wished for this? How? When? With what?”
Aziraphale only shrugged. “Last night. I told you it was a real shooting star.”
“Oh, come off it, you didn’t know it was gonna work– did you?” The tail end of the question was raised to a comically high pitch, as if his husband truly believed he was hiding some sort of precognition.
He rolled his eyes. “No, I didn’t know it was gonna work, I was just hopeful.”
Crowley just shook his head in shock. “And what, exactly, were you hopeful for? You couldn’t have remembered our old world, or us, until the wish came true. What could you have possibly wished for?”
There’s no place for shame beyond the buzzing joy and lingering awe in his chest, so Aziraphale didn’t hesitate. “You wonderful fool, I wished for you.”
He watched in utter delight as a pink flush crawled across Crowley’s face, as if it had truly never occurred to him. “You… wished for me?”
“I wished to find you, and know you, and love you in every possible world. I guess I just didn’t know that we were apparently already doing that, we only had to remember.”
For the first time in any universe, Crowley seemed to be genuinely speechless, his mouth agape and eyes shining. “You, oh, you. Angel. You can’t, you didn’t even remember us! You had no idea. How could you wish– I was just Anthony last night!”
Aziraphale felt oddly indignant on his husband’s behalf. “Just Anthony is my husband! I am as much Asa Fell as I am Aziraphale. You are you, always. Even when I didn’t know it, I found you, because we are still us. Now, we just have more context, that’s all.”
“Context,” Crowley echoed softly.
Aziraphale watched a single tear slide down his face, his thumb instinctively wiping it away immediately.
Crowley breathed deeply, leaning his face into the touch. “You, angel, are a miracle, you know that?”
“Oh, please, you know very well that we don’t have those anymore,” Aziraphale teased, if only to revel in the barking laughter that it sparked.
“So, you’re telling me that we are here, together, in another universe because you wished on a chunk of meteorite debris last night?” Crowley clarified, voice still tinged with disbelief.
Azriaphale chuckled. “I told you, you should have taken it seriously. Maybe you could have made your own.”
Crowley’s response was entirely sober, not a hint of amusement to be found. “And I told you last night, I have everything I need right here. If anything, I would have only wished for you, just the same.”
Azriaphale felt a pleased glow burning in his chest, and understood distantly that this is the kind of adoration Crowley must have felt hearing his wish that had changed the universe.
“We deserve this,” Crowley said suddenly.
Aziraphale hummed. “How do you mean?”
“We chose humanity. We chose free will, even if it meant we would never get to see it for ourselves. But, you and I, we practically invented it."
Aziraphale nodded. "We always did have our own side."
"Right, all the way until the end of it. We gave up our chance at life together for the sake of the world, so maybe this is the universe repaying the favor, in its own way.”
In the distance, a nightingale sang softly in the morning light. After a brief pause, another joined its song, the two creatures chirping back and forth cheerfully. Aziraphale could relate, his own heart singing a tune he’s always known but could never name.
His throat burned with emotion. “That’s a lovely way to look at it. We got to live a human life, untouched by all of the fuss from other world, and now we have the rest of our short existence to bring the best of both lives together.”
“We’re human. You’re human,” Crowley repeated, as if he was only just now realizing the state of their bodies.
“We certainly are. I hope you don’t mind it, I know it’s different from how you remember before,” Aziraphale fretted, wringing his hands together anxiously.
He, of course, had nothing to fear. “Angel, I have grown old with you for the last two decades, and I’ve spent all my time since creation chasing after you. There’s no version of life with you that I wouldn’t adore. I wouldn’t care if you were a flower, for Hell’s sake, I would keep your pot by my bedside and make sure you got all the right sunshine and care. It’s you.”
Carefully, his knees crackling, Crowley stood and cupped the side of Aziraphale’s face with a hand. “We’re gonna spend whatever time we have left on this Earth together, and it’s gonna be more than I could have ever imagined. All this extra time, not hiding from management or pretending we haven’t always been connected. A whole life of loving you, it’s just–”
He let out a wet laugh, cutting himself off as his face went tenderly solemn. “Angel, I already died holding your hand once, and I’ll be the luckiest former-demon in the world if you gave me the honor of doing it again someday.”
Aziraphale felt his face crumple into besotted sobs, his love pouring out in tears. “Oh, Crowley. That’s all I want, all I’ve ever wanted.”
With the hand that wasn’t cradling his cheek, Crowley brought two fingers to his own lips, before reaching out. The trembling digits pressed against Aziraphale’s mouth, and he swore he could feel it in his veins. It felt like he’d been holding his breath, maybe 20 years, maybe 6000, and his body finally gave a shuddering exhale. It felt like completion, like a story that’s been in the works since the dawn of time was finally reaching a hard-earned epilogue.
There’s still so much left to say, so much left to wonder and ponder and discuss. There were still confessions to be made, realisations to be had, and questions left to answer. And yet, all that Aziraphale could manage to blurt out is–
“Do you want to come in for some tea?”
Crowley’s face looked unbearably fond, the corners of his eyes creasing from years of making the exact same face at the exact same person.
Aziraphale could see the wicked glint in his eye, the desire to poke fun at his awkwardness and entirely unnecessary invitation into their shared home, but it’s clearly overshadowed by the persisting marvel that lit Crowley up like a lantern.
“I would love to,” he answered, entirely honest.
Aziraphale beamed, his joy so radiant he’s certain the stars are burning with envy. The sun itself couldn’t match his light.
An angel and demon, two aging men, two souls tied so fiercely that the universe bends and twists to accommodate them, walked into a South Downs cottage. They were holding hands.