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The first thing you must first understand: halos aren’t solid. They’re more like a gradient, a leaking and diffusion of divine light. It can look a bit like a ring, depending on fiddly things like the angle of viewing, the ever-changing refraction index of divinity, and what kind of eyes that you’re squinting from. They’re seldom seen, certain conditions are needed: a hastily put together corporation, an overpowering of some kind, a poorly directed miracle. A sign of poor craftsmanship such that most angels would not deign to be seen with one.
Curious then, that Gabriel, Michael, and other high-ranking angels, have regularly been recorded in human works as emitting these halos: angels with access to the most refined corporations and with extensive practice at precision miracle-work. One would think these angels would be the least likely to let their divinity get away from them… It’s almost as if a disgruntled employee has been left holding the record books, and hasn’t been able to resist a few little edits. Aziraphale’s creativity (and pettiness) has had a number of different outlets through the centuries: drawn-on improvements to faces throughout the pages of a Heaven company magazine, snagged from the celestial waiting room after a miserable talking-to from Gabriel, being another example. Almost no-one knows about them, but sharing these secrets was the first time Aziraphale had managed to make his dearest friend lose himself in laughter. It wasn’t Crowley’s first laugh, nor was it the first time he’d felt the swoop of love in response to something his angel had said.
Worth mentioning is the radiance: which is of course not at all the same thing as a halo. It’s the low-level charismatic shine of immortal creatures in a mortal world. It might encourage humans to look past a few glaring untruths in cover stories, but its effect is so gentle as to be unreliable. Aziraphale has a theory that the other angels and demons, who spend less - if any - time on earth, aren't even aware of it. Aziraphale doesn't find it extraordinary though: after millennia of seeing it in himself, he doesn't really consider it more than occasionally, though he always feels some small pleasure at its gentle intensity when he does.
Aziraphale is something of an expert on all this; he’s seen more halos than any other being, being an angel on Earth for as long as he has. The first instance, in some early time not long before all the Jesus shenanigans began, was a young messenger angel. Their halo had shone through brightly blue and brief as they delivered their message to the village’s leader, and they were polite and gentle enough when Aziraphale had gone over to greet them afterwards. Aziraphale was appalled to see them named and shamed in the next of Gabriel’s annual ‘You Can Do Better’ presentations. It had been a long time since he’d made an effort to socialize in Heaven but he’d gone to comfort the angel afterwards: to commiserate. Aziraphale was hardly unfamiliar with being in this situation himself. But… the angel had told Aziraphale coldly that associating with him would hardly help matters. “Run off back to earth, why don’t you.” He had sounded a lot like Gabriel.
The thing is, Aziraphale thinks they're beautiful though, and he was left thinking that even after that ugly interaction with the shamed angel. Another thing to set him apart from his siblings, who only find halos to be messy, and an embarrassing mess at that. But Aziraphale is getting used to being different from the others (so long as he doesn’t think about it too much) and he starts to wonder if he couldn't make one on purpose.
It’s difficult at first- almost impossible, like trying to put on mascara for the first time without getting it in your eye or on your skin: except the mascara is invisible and so is your face, and you have to control the brush with an obscure telekinetic power that you’ve never purposefully used before. But, by slow degrees, Aziraphale gets it. There's artistry and a precision to it, to making purposeful what is usually only an accidental slipping of divine light through unmapped cracks. If Heaven knew, they’d call it vanity, probably, or sloth: sitting around meditating for years at a time, and for what? A bit of light? But heaven have always been horrified at the things Aziraphale likes, and it hasn’t stopped him yet. Never will now.
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The first time Crowley sees this skill of his, it’s when his body feels like it’s containing all the components of a thunderstorm. The sharp electric charge of ahh, right there and deep rumbles of the urge for more , fingers feel they must be on the verge of cramping, holding so tight as they are to Aziraphale’s shoulders. The halo explodes out of Aziraphale, and neither have time to consider that it might hurt Crowley. It doesn’t – refraction into the physical realm must render it harmless, though no less potent – and afterwards Aziraphale haltingly thanks God for that. Crowley comes buried in Aziraphale and bathed in divine light, stunned and with tears building up in his eyes because… is that– what can he feel? Is that Aziraphale’s love? His soul?
“Do it- do the halo thing” Crowley says the next time. It’s fifteen minutes later.
“Are you–
“ Yes , I’m sure. For fu– ”
That first time, Aziraphale had felt so good, and wild, and free, he’d grasped for his halo unconsciously, just an instinct to reach for another beautiful thing– after so much practice that’s all it took. But this time it’ll be purposeful. Aziraphale sinks down on him with a grin and a noise that is mostly slick but well on its way to squelch. He flexes his celestial posture and then the room is aglow.
Crowley groans lowly, and the noise catches on his desperate little breathless gasps.
It’s a stretched out, luxuriously decadent sound, and it hazes over Aziraphale. He hums an overwhelmed little sound, a countermelody that sounds perfectly angelic, even now. He shuffles his knees, searching for- oh, yes, there , and presses his legs further into the hard angles of Crowley’s hip bones.
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Demons, having no divine light to speak of, do not technically have halos. But for every equal and opposite… The laws of physics apply to divinity (when God decides they do; Terms and Conditions apply). So demons have antihalos, though no-one’s ever bothered to name the phenomenon. And, as it turns out, demons can express them purposefully too, and Crowley is a diligent student.
Aziraphale finds Crowley’s just a little different from the halos he’s used to, and the light from it is heavier, and more… darkly bright, or brightly dark somehow, and it cascades dispersions of this beauty across Crowley’s pale freckled skin. It’s more beautiful than anything he’s ever seen, and he can… feel Crowley in the light, and as it passes through his corporation, he can feel Crowley through him too, glorious in its intensity and intimacy. The most delicate flavour of Crowley’s love-soaked soul between them. He can see why Crowley has been so enthusiastic about his halo now, if this is what it feels like.
A small part of him wonders why this is so potent: while he always found his halo – and others’ when he saw them – beautiful, he certainly never felt anything approaching what he feels with Crowley’s. Is it something to do with purposefully presenting them? If so, he’s certainly glad he never set his halo aglow out of spite when Gabriel was present! But no, there’s so much love in his and Crowley’s halos, and Aziraphale thinks that must be it. The love they feel in the moment – and in every moment for each other – mixing with that beyond-mortal halo-light and harmony to make something unprecedented and incredible. Aziraphale hums thoughtfully at that, thinking that sounds just right – unprecedented and incredible– just like the two of them, free and together at last.