“D'you ever wonder why we find stars so romantic?” Crowley asks then. Aziraphale glances up at him, shaking his head like a shrug. Crowley extends one leg in front of him and pulls the other knee up to his chest, resting his elbow on it, letting the blanket fall to the side. “There’s a reason why it’s in every book you’ve ever read,” he continues. “Everything that’s ever been written.”
“And what reason is that?” Aziraphale asks, surprised by the slight pitch in his voice as he speaks.
“Wwelll. Legend has it,” Crowley begins enigmatically, with a gaze to the stars to follow his story, “before there was life, before time itself had ever begun — a demon fell in love with an angel. Now, a love such as that was, of course, forbidden — forbidden by God, forbidden by Satan. And he knew that if Heaven or Hell ever found out about it, they would destroy them both. So the demon had to hide his love away. Problem was, his love for the angel was so big, and so bright, that the only way he could hide it was to break it into millions and millions of pieces and scatter them throughout the universe, creating the entire cosmos as we know it.”
Crowley looks back down to Aziraphale. “What d’you think of that, Angel?” he asks.
“That’s quite a legend,” Aziraphale says softly, quietly spellbound by Crowley.
“Now, according to some,” Crowley continues, “this demon, they say that he set each and every star in the sky as a blueprint, with every constellation a unique landmark, known to no one but himself. So that in every universe, every iteration of time and space, he could use those stars like a map to find his way home to his angel. So every time you see a shooting star, you’re looking at a blazing piece of that love, searching the universe for the angel. Stitching the demon’s love back together one star at a time, piece by piece, over hundreds and thousands of millennia. Slowly enough that no one would notice, not even God Herself. And one day, when the last star falls from the sky, pitching the universe into blackness, the angel will have all the pieces of the demon’s love back, and nothing and no one can keep them apart again.”
Aziraphale’s throat stings, like he’s about to burst into tears, but he doesn’t know why. Perhaps it’s the emotion in Crowley’s voice; perhaps it’s the story itself. They say that every story has been written and rewritten, told and told again. Aziraphale knows them all. If ever there were a new story to be told, he's used to discovering them for himself. Having one told to him like this is a kind of intimacy he didn’t know existed until now. It’s visceral, it’s ancient, exposing him to the vulnerable, secret parts of Crowley.
“Every star is imbued with a love stronger than all the forces of Heaven and Hell,” he continues suddenly. “It’s why sailors love the sea, using the stars to navigate the waters. It’s why we fall in love under a night sky. It’s why we wish on stars, because love is the only thing that brings our hopes and dreams alive. We are incapable of loving without the stars, and humanity only loves because they loved loved first. A love so strong, it birthed the universe.”
~Foolish Behavior (Seems Right), Chapter 8
gummygunk
dailybridgerton
vaporwave
titsay
annaxmalina
kaledo-art
stormborns
