Hung the Moon

We Are Who We Know Ourselves to be

"We are not what other people say we are. We are who we know ourselves to be, and we are what we love."

-- Laverne Cox

"Warlock?" Crowley blurted. He could hardly believe that the universe had brought him and his former charge together in this manner . Moments like these made him, perversely , believe in some ineffable plan. A plan that existed to amuse God, no matter the consequences for the little chess pieces she moved about however she wished.

Fuck you, he thought, bitter as the first cup of coffee after waking from fitful sleep. He hoped that went right to God's direct line.

"Wendy," the child spat at him.

He realized what he'd done and frowned.

"I'm sorry," he said. He didn't know a lot about human sexualities and genders (other than finding them endlessly fascinating), but he did know that if someone changed their name you were meant to use what they'd given themselves. Hells, he'd changed his name and it rankled every time someone said Crawly instead of Crowley. "I'm just surprised."

Massive understatement. Not to mention they were holding this conversation whilst standing over a fresh corpse.

"I ran away...wait. How do you know my dead name?" She asked, peering up at him with suspicion in her dark gaze. She crossed her arms over her chest. Her long black sleeves made her look like a nun about to slap his hand with a ruler. "Wait."

Wendy said again before Crowley could come up with an answer. He stood there, dumb, as Wendy stepped closer. After a moment's study she said,

"Nanny Astoreth?"

"Yeah kid," Crowley confessed, "it's me."

Aziraphale stood in the middle of one of the garden plots near his and Crowley's new home. He relished the moonlight washing over him as he gazed upwards at the midnight sky. Stars glinted and glimmered there, so breathtaking out in the country. Stars his beloved Crowley had breathed into being. He could well imagine Crowley covered in astral dust, his massive wings forming the universe with each beat of their powerful span.

Perhaps Crowley worried that now he would only see Raphael, and wish for the Archangel instead of the demon. But the two were inextricable, intertwined in Aziraphale's thoughts and in his heart besides; all aspects of the being he adored above all others. The god of his idolatry, perhaps even above the Lord Herself.

The thought was a blasphemous one. Before the Apocanot, the Apocawasn't, the Armageddin't, he would have cowered in fear at such foolishness. He would have waited, miserable, for his feathers to go from pure white to coal black as punishment for his rebellion. Now? He felt he would stand straight even in front of God Herself, should she choose to descend and scold him.

What could be so wrong with loving? He'd waited long enough.

It was no effort at all, with such thoughts in his mind, to draw flowers and plants from the earth at his feet. The camelias came first, heart's-red, angel-feather white. The irises, pushing up from the earth. They unfolded their Tyrian-purple dresses like a cluster of Phoenician noblewomen heading to a hotly anticipated party. He remembered such gatherings, the gay laughter of the young warriors, the way the women would drink too much wine and quote Sappho to one another in dark corners.

He favored things of that nature, humans laughing and loving one another.

He was coaxing lily-of-the-valley into being when he heard voices.

"You thought I was the antichrist?"

"Well yes," Crowley snapped. Aziraphale could hardly mistake his voice. "We did our best."