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hikarry · 4 months

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So, I was rewatching season 1 and got stuck in that scene between Shadwell and Aziraphale in the bookshop.

What if Aziraphale never stepped into the circle? What if the fire never really happened?

Imagine:

Shadwell is lost in his shenanigans, ready to banish Aziraphale to whatever place witchfinders banish witches, and Aziraphale is slowly walking backward.

"Oh, but this is utterly ridiculous." He stops on his tracks, looking Shadwell in the eye. "I'm sorry, good man, but I have no time for whatever silliness is happening right now. If you don't mind, I have an Armageddon to stop." Aziraphale snaps his fingers, and Shadwell disappears, reapearing a few streets over at the other side of Soho. There surely he wouldn't get in the way.

Careful not to step on the active circle, Aziraphale leaves the bookshop and flags down the first cab he sees. The driver stops right in front of the bookshop, and he gets in, giving him Crowley's address in Mayfair.

The last time he called, the demon was home, so that's exactly where Aziraphale hoped he remained. With a bit of luck, he hadn't left for Alpha Centauri... Now that he thought about it, he mentioned having an old friend over? As far as he knew, he himself was the only friend Crowley had, so that statmebt now sounded like a load of nonsense. But whatever. He just needed to speak with Crowley, old friend present or not. Heaven clearly wanted the war to happen, and he had been naive to think they would see reason. The only chance the Earth had of surviving now was the angel and Crowley. He could only pray it wasn't too late and Crowley wasn't gone. He knew where the Anti-Christ was, after all. They could stop this!

When the cab stopped on the street of Crowley's building, Aziraphale paid his fare and threw a quick blessing in the driver's direction for his speed and efficiency before crossing the street and entering the complex.

He had been to Crowley's flat once or twice in the last 20 years. All he had to do was go through the entrance, get on the lift to the last floor, and walk down the corridor towards the last door. And that's exactly what he did, always fiddling with his fingers in a show of the nervous energy that seemed to take over him. They were running out of time. The end of the world would occur any minute now, and Crowley needed to be home. They still had to drive all the way to Tadfield's airbase, and the clock was tickling rather ominously inside his head.

Finally in front of the door to Crowley's flat, he knocked. A few seconds passed with no response, and he decided to knock again, stronger now, but he got exactly the same result.

Aziraphale looked around the hallway, taking a deep breath and smoothing his waistcoat, considering his options.

"Crowley?" He ended up knocking again. "Crowley, we need to talk!" Silence. "I know you're cross with me after our last conversation, but you were right. I talked to the Metatron. And they want the war. As I told you on the phone, I know where the antichrist is, and it would be very nice of you if you opened the door so we could get a wiggle on and stop the Apocalypse." Once again, he was met with silence.

Was it possible? Did Crowley actually leave for Alpha Centauri? He was here minutes ago! He couldn't have left already, right?

Oh, bless it all. He wasn't going to waste any more time.

With a final deep breath, Aziraphale snapped his fingers, and the door unlocked. He opened it slightly, peering inside.

"Crowley? I'm sorry If I'm intruding but this matter is rather urgent." All he got in return was silence. Not a single noise from the demon himself or the so called old friend.

He pushed the remainder of the door open and stepped inside, silently closing it behind him. He looked at the living room, but it was empty of any living soul, apart from the plants on the far wall.

"Crowley?"

Aziraphale called again, now walking towards the office to the left. The door was slightly ajar already, so he spied inside. It looked empty, but he walked in regardless, almost stepping on a pile of goo right there in front of the floor.

"What the...?" He looked down, stepping over the weird substance.

It smelled weirdly of sulfur and...was that Holy Water?

His head snapped to the desk, where he found the thermos he had given Crowley back in the 60s, the cap unscrewed by its side.

Suddenly, he felt his heart stop, and his veins turn into ice. His body gave an involuntary step back away from the smudge, his back hitting the throne as he lifted a now trembling hand to cover his mouth.

No. This couldn't be happening. He would-! Crowley certainly wouldnt-!

A sob escaped his throat as his whole body started shaking.

Oh lord. This was a nightmare. It could only be a nightmare. This wasn't real. Couldn't possibly be real.

Oh Crowley...

Aziraphale's legs failed him, and he ended up on the floor, back leaning against the side of the ridiculous throne Crowley liked so much. Not that he would like anything ever again because he was gone. Crowley was gone. And it was Aziraphale's fault. He was the one who gave him the cursed thermos against his better judgment. And now all his fears were laid bare right in front of his eyes.

Another sob escaped him and he let the heartache take charge, spilling warm tears down his cheeks.

Crowley was gone. The Apocalypse was coming and Crowley was gone. Not to Alpha Centauri but actually gone. Utterly destroyed. And all that remained of his best friend was an unidentifiable goo. Not a trace of Crowley remained.

He hugged himself, hanging his head low, letting the tears fall on his crossed arms and allowing the wretched sobs to take over. He couldn't bear to look at it a second longer. The smell of sulfur and Holy Water was starting to get nauseating.

Well, contrary to popular belief, Crowley was actually very much alive, speeding through the streets on London in the direction of the bookshop. He parked in his usual place and snapped his finger to open the doors of the building.

"Aziraphale?" He looked around, quickly spotting the active circle. Lifting an eyebrow above his sunglasses, he carefully walked towards it, still searching for any trace of the angel. "Aziraphale, are you here?"

The circle was still active with holy energy, so no one had actually stepped through it, and Aziraphale was clearly not in the bookshop, so where could he possibly be?

With a sigh, Crowley turned around and went back to the Bentley. He drove around Soho for a bit, trying to spot some blond curls in the crowd but falling short of success.

"Aziraphale, where the bloody hell are you?" He muttered to himself, carefully scanning the streets, until he gave up, changing his course back to Mayfair.

He needed to regroup. Without knowing where Aziraphale was and without the information on the antichrist he apparently had, Crowley needed to think.

He made his way back to his flat without paying much attention. When he noticed, he was already unlocking the door with his key and stepping inside. And, as soon as he did so, he heard it. Sobs coming from the office. That was...bizarre. Could it be Hastur? Had he figured out a way to leave the answering machine, and now he was crying over Ligur? Crowley almost laughed at himself with such a thought. Hastur? Crying? Now, that would be a sight he would pay to see.

Still, in the name of caution, he slowly made his way to the office, trying to be as silent as possible, when he quickly spotted the angel he had been looking for throught the wide open door, sitting on the floor besides the throne, arms around himself and face hidden while his whole body shook and heartbreaking sobs escaped his vocal chords.

Carefully and confused, he approached, stopping short of the door.

"...Angel?"

Aziraphale's head snapped up, staring at him with wide eyes, his face marked by tears.

"...Crowley?"

"Yeah." He slowly walked his way to the angel, careful not to step on Ligur, squatting in front of him. "Are you alright? What happened?"

He was still staring at him with clear confusing in his eyes, opening and closing his mouth repeatedly until he finally appeared to have found his voice again:

"You-! The-!" Aziraphale's body trembled, looking over Crowley's shoulder and then back at the demon. "You...you're gone!"

Crowley raised an eyebrow, clearly confused.

"I just went to the bookshop searching for you, but when I arrived you weren't there already." Aziraphale shook his head, some more tears escaping his eyes along with a single sob. "Hey, hey." Crowley placed his hands on his shoulders, squeezing them. "What's-?" And then that's when it suddenly clicked inside his head. He looked up at the empty thermos on his desk and back over his shoulder to what remained of Ligur. "Oh, Aziraphale. No, no, no." His hands moved up to Aziraphale's face, forcing him to look up at him, his thumb brushing away some of the new tears running down his face. It burned considerably; angel tears were holy water after all, but right now, that wasn't his focus. "That's Ligur. I used the holy water to make a trap for him and Hastur when they came to take me." He brushes his thumb through Aziraphale's trembling lips, leaning in closer. "That's not me, angel. I'm alright."

Aziraphale sniffed, trying to regain control of himself, but failing miserably.

"I-I thought you were dead. I thought you had used the Holy Water. I thought-"

"Shhh." Crowley wrapped his arms around the angel, leaning his face against his, pulling him into an embrace. They had never hugged before, so it felt a bit strange. Awkward even. "I'm right here. That's not me." The angel grabbed handfuls of his shirt and pulled him closer, burying his face on the crook of his neck, taking deep breaths. "Yeah, that's it. Breathe." He ran his hand through his curls, trying to soothe him. "Everything is alright. I'm right here."

After a while, Aziraphale finally calmed down and moved away, just enough to be able to look at Crowley's face. For a moment or two, they just stared at each other. Aziraphale's red rimmed blue eyes looking right at Crowley's yellow ones; his sunglasses had ended up on his head at some point. The angel's eyes slipped down to the demon's lips for a second and Crowley's licked them involuntarily, before his gaze went back to his eyes.

"You were right." Crowley tilted his head in confusion. "I talked to the Metraton. They want the war to happen...The Anti-Christ..." Aziraphale mumbled those last words.

"Right." Crowley stared down at Aziraphale for a couple more seconds before getting up, offering his hand to the angel to help him do the same. "You said you knew where he was?"

#alas Aziraphale and crowley got away from me once again #this was supposed to be a short lil thing but instead i created a monster #good omens #crowley #aziraphale #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #anthony j crowley

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beauspot · 9 months

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Thoughts on my second watch of Good Omens 2

i heard the fly buzzing in my first watch but didn’t know why and now i know

Maggie my sweet darling angel baby i love you

Aziraphale turning their car yellow

crowleys “no more dying” in extreme scottish.

Disposable Demon i’ll save you from these awful people i promise 😭

Aziraphale’s little smile when he says “smitten” to Crowley

i wonder if crowley was especially hurt because aziraphale seemed to be able to forgive gabriel who tried to kill him but can’t seem to forgive him being a demon.(still seeing all of this as a metaphor for internalized homophobia, like aziraphale knows he’s not the perfect angel he wants to be and he’s projecting his feelings about that onto crowley)

I can’t believe we got an actual ball. like pride and prejudice, bridgerton ball.

the beautiful score that started playing when aziraphale brought the chandelier down

i didn’t even realize that when they walked in the outfits changed. mrs sandwich made me realize(also i love her)

Nina being the only one to question the weird magical shit Aziraphale and Crowley do sends me so bad.

Season 2 took everything i liked about the first season (aziracrow, queer subtext, gay people, archangels, and beelzebub) and expanded on it

The adorable smile on Aziraphales face when he asked Crowley to dance 😭 he’s so pure(i should have known something was up, everything was going too well)

Crowley saying i won’t leave you on your own and Aziraphale saying i know 🤒

why isn’t aziraphale able to miracle nina and maggie??

crowley and mrs sandwich flirting. too cute

crowley saying he’s neither nice nor a lad.

crowleys little run in heaven when he’s following muriel

maggie giving the middle finger to the demons and laughing in their face when they tried to belittle her. queen

defensive aziraphale is so badass. just because he’s soft doesn’t mean he can’t stand up for himself or the people he loves

the random guitar solo in the final episode theme is so bizarre to me. why is it there?

ahh the raining hearts symbolizing crowleys vavoom plan!

crowley’s heavenly outfit not being white but “light grey”

the relief in aziraphale’s voice when crowley came back 😀

also him mumbling about the halo like he did with the sword 😭 but he sure loves to boast about the things he’s done right to crowley

aziraphale and crowley doing magic together has the power to set off alarm bells in heaven and they barely tried, they’re just in sync

saraqael was such a good addition to the cast.

crowley smiling at aziraphale going off on the angels and demons

“where beelzebub is, is my Heaven.” 🥹

the little knowing look after crowley mentions alpha centauri

the way they just interrupted michael’s speech by leaving 😭

i think that aziraphale was about to ask crowley to move in but that’s my opinion

the look the metatron gave crowley is so strange. i don’t like that

“JUST US. NOT YOU.”

“You’re not helping, angel.”

the softness in aziraphale’s voice when he talked about making crowley an angel again? how can you hate him! he thought he was doing the right thing!

also the miscommunication these two have is completely out of hand because crowley asked aziraphale if he said no and aziraphale hadn’t given an answer AT ALL to the metatron. the metatron told him to take his time. he went back to tell crowley the news first.

crowleys confession makes my stomach hurt. the way his voice broke when he said “we’ve spent our existence pretending that we aren’t.”. the way he had to force himself past his anxiety to tell aziraphale he wanted to spend eternity with him? fuck.

the way aziraphale tells crowley to come with him. like and through all of this they are losing each other, oh my god.

“i need you!” god aziraphale punch me in the face next time why don’t you?

i feel like in all this anger towards aziraphale a lot of people are ignoring that he put himself out there too. he was telling crowley he needed him just like crowley was

“no nightingales.” FUCK YOU GAIMAN

the way aziraphale touched his lips after. dear GOD. someone get michael sheen an emmy

seeing aziraphale struggle against his wanting to kiss crowley back and his fear and wanting him to come back to heaven further supports my internalized homophobia analogy

also even knowing the kiss was going to happen because of the spoiler it still didn’t quell my shock. nor did it ruin the scene, i think it actually surprised me more because it did not happen how i thought it would.

side note i saw some people saying they thought the kiss was going to be a cop out in some way. like a body swap or as a joke and i don’t really know why?

it just occurred to me that both aziraphale and crowley thought the other one was just doing that thing they do where they say they won’t help, or they’re on their own but they eventually come back not knowing that the other was completely set on these plans they had. this wasn’t like armageddon or saving gabriel.

the second coming…of jesus…

crowley cutting off “a nightingale sang in berkeley square”...i’m gonna jump

this being the ending for the next 3-4 years. oh.

#good omens #good omens 2 #good omens season 2 #good omens spoilers #good omens 2 spoilers #muriel good omens #nina good omens #maggie good omens #good omens beelzebub #aziraphale #a z fell #crowley #anthony j crowley #aziracrow #ineffable husbands #ineffable bureaucracy #archangel fucking gabriel #archangel gabriel

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indigovigilance · 7 months

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Jimbriel, Satan, the Book of Life, and what it means for Crowley

Acknowledging that what we know so far about the Book of Life from various characters is highly suspect, I'm going to posit to you that Beelzebub is actually the true authority on the Book of Life, and that they bookend Season 2 with very important (and hopefully accurate) information about the Book of Life. With that in mind, let's take Beezlebub's S2E1 description and see how it fits with other canon evidence:

But what does it mean to have never existed in the Good Omens universe? For that, let us look to Satan.

From in-show canon, we know that Adam was able to retroactively change Satan's status as his father to not his father:

Adam altered reality, although Crowley, Aziraphale, the other celestials, and even Adam himself remember those events from a timeline that supposedly has been erased:

But Crowley nonetheless confirms that this is reality now. Satan was never Adam's father.

Additionally, though not technically in-show canon, we know from Notorious NRG that once Satan became Lucifer, this erased Lucifer from existence in the GO universe:

And Crowley's monologue in the bar drives it home; even though Lucifer no longer exists, Crowley still remembers him, and some key events that they were involved in together.

But a more dramatic portrayal of erasure is found in our favorite Good Omens himbo, Jimbo. In the trial of Gabriel, the Metatron makes direct allusion to the fact that Gabriel will no longer be Gabriel after his demotion:

Not "your memory of your time as the supreme archangel will be erased," no, it's:

Your memory of your time as Gabriel will be erased.

Whether he means to or not, Aziraphale reinforces this characterization of memory-loss-as-new-identity:

This can be taken simply as a safety measure, but Jimbo doesn't understand it that way and we see throughout the remainder of the season that Aziraphale is very consistent about calling his unexpected guest "Jim," even correcting Crowley when they're speaking privately and it wouldn't blow his cover to call him Gabriel:

But the final word on memory and identity, especially as they pertain to Jimbriel, again comes from our Lord of the Flies, Beelzebub:

All your you is your memories.

Altogether we see that there is significant in-show canon to support a theory that memory is inextricably linked with identity, and that when memory is removed, identity is so drastically changed that the name of the entity must also change... and the person who existed before, with that former name, exists no longer; it is as if they never had.

(But, as we see in the case of Gabriel, they can be restored.)

I told you in the title that this post was about the Book of Life: it is. Everything discussed here about memory and identity must necessarily characterize how the Book of Life operates, at least with respect to erasure. When someone is erased, they don't vanish, but they are so changed it is as if a new person has taken the place of the old, the way Jim took the place of Gabriel, until he got his memories back. But we can surmise that when someone is erased from the Book of Life, their memories aren't conveniently stored in a TARDIS/Ru Paul fly for later recovery. The memories may not be gone, but I'm going to guess that they would be extremely difficult (or impossible) to retrieve.

What this means for Crowley:

I think we need to give this scene a lot more credit for telling us how this universe works. Surface level, it reads as "you don't understand my trauma, and how I've been changed by it." Which is a very valid interpretation. But we can dig deeper and see that, given everything else we know about celestial beings losing their memories, names, and identities, Crowley is alluding to something far more horrific than just the scars left by flaming swords and halo-grenades.

These are the scars of a lobotomy. Something was taken from him, and he is aware of it.

He knows that his memory has been tampered with. Various people (Furfur, Saraqael) tell him that they recognize him, and of things they've done together. He has no recollection of them, but instead of getting agitated, he brushes it off and ignores it. This lack of questions from the guy who questions everything tells us that he already has the answers; not the memories, but the knowledge of why he doesn't have them.

Furthermore, when he's trying to get Jim to remember the something bad and Jim says it hurts, Crowley says:

I know. Do it anyway.

How does Crowley know that it hurts, to try to recall memories that have been taken out of your head?

Because he's been through it.

He has tried to remember, and some memories, like working on the Horsehead Nebula with Saraqael or monkeying around with Furfur, weren't worth the pain. Or perhaps it was pain on top of pain to remember what he had lost.

It is an especial testament to the cruelty of Heaven that he remembers going into battle, but not the bonds he formed with his friends. He remembers a million lightyear freestyle dive into a boiling pool of sulfur, but not the work he did on the Horsehead Nebula, a thing that brought him joy.

And now, the person he loves most in the world, his only refuge from the terror of his empty nightmares, from his malignant and creeping sense of unease that something is missing, has gone back to that place where his identity was so horribly violated that he lost his name.

How will our hero cope?

If you liked this meta, you will almost certainly like my meta on Continuity Errors.

For my thoughts on who Crowley may have been before the fall, go here.

For my thoughts on how this pertains to Metatron, go here.

As I continue to produce metas related to this theory, you'll be able to find them all here.

#good omens #good omens 2 #book of life #good omens meta #aziraphale #crowley #gabriel #ineffable husbands #ineffable bureaucracy #beelzebub #ivoc #erasure theory

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andsomemaniacgotridofthewheel · 2 months

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Why is it always either

"Aziraphale wanted to go to heaven, he was happy and giddy about it, and he never really cared about Crowley anyway, only about Starmaker"

"Aziraphale would have never ever gone to Heaven out of his own free will, he was clearly horribly threatened and forced!"

Why does everyone always have to reach for the extremes?

No, Aziraphale obviously absolutely did n.o.t. WANT to go to Heaven. He doesn't like Heaven, he likes Earth. Even if the other angels weren't all jerks and bullies, which he absolutely knows they are! I mean, duh!

But that doesn't automatically mean he would never have made that decision on his own! I liked the post from the health care worker who wrote that if they were suddenly offered the position of Minister of Health, they would just have to take it, even though they knew that they would be surrounded by awful people and end up fighting and probably losing an uphill battle, being absolutely miserable and frustrated. But they wouldn't be able to look at themselves in the mirror anymore if they didn't at least try. Because they'd feel they failed their duty to their patients.

Was there never anything you really REALLY did NOT want to do but still HAD to???

We absolutely do not need to talk about "Aziraphale not caring about Crowley" here, if that is actually something you really think, please just leave my blog. I don't even know what show were you watching, but it wasn't Good Omens.

Was Aziraphale threatened? Maybe. It's definitely possible. But I don't think so. The Metatron knew exactly what he had to offer, and in which order, to convince Aziraphale. Why unnecessarily antagonise him, he doesn't need to use the stick if he knows how to sell him on the carrot! I don't think the Metatron is that crude.

Which brings me to my next point:

people also seem to wonder about the shared look of contempt between the Metatron and Crowley.

But you realise that the Metatron was there when shit went down in Heaven, right? He knows what exactly it was that led to Crowley falling. Aziraphale might have been a soldier in the war back then, but it is extremely unlikely that in his position he actually witnessed the key moments that started the rebellion.

But the Metatron, the Voice of God, the angel with such a high rank that he is somehow actually outside their hirarchy, did. There might even have been a direct confrontation between the angel with questions and the VOICE OF GOD, who couldn't/wouldn't/didn't want to relate any answers.

And it is safe to assume that Crowley never told Aziraphale any details. In 1862 he still maintained the "sauntered vaguely downwards" fable, in line with his carefully built cool guy image. His drunken monologue after the bookshop fire comes a little closer to the truth ("looky here, it's Lucifer and the guys, [...] food hadn't been that good lately, I'd got nothing on for the rest of that afternoon"), but even here he very much pretends that he never really cared. Now that we have seen the innocence and enthusiasm of Starmaker, we know that's not true. Something big happened to that cheerful worriless angel, something not caused by the Fall, but causing it. The questioning was only the start of it.

There is a strong possibility that Crowley might even have tried to change things himself, back before the Fall, and most likely crashed and burned failed spectacularly. Again, all witnessed directly by the Metatron.

Aziraphale doesn't know that, though. He only has a vague idea about it and a sense of injustice and unfairness. And the Metatron, master-manipulator and -mind, knows that as well.

He also knows that, on the surface obedient but covertly subversive, little soldier angel Aziraphale, probably a lot better than Aziraphale is aware he does. They probably never had any close contact, but who knows what kind of research Heaven can do?

We don't need to go into detail about how he manipulated Aziraphale, other people have done so already. But it is important to state that by offering explicitly the opportunity to change things in Heaven, he got Aziraphale's love for life on Earth and his desire to do good fighting for dominance within him. But he would never have been able to convince him to leave Crowley. So he solves the main conflict for Aziraphale, telling him he could take Crowley with him! Definitely knowing that Crowley absolutely would NOT want that. Awful conundrum avoided!

I am not even saying that Aziraphale didn't know he was manipulated. He didn't know that Crowley's reaction to going to Heaven would be that severe, and he probably also doesn't know that the Metatron very well did, when he made him the offer. But he might have absolutely caught on to the Metatrons manipulating language, his ingratiating and patronising. But still - the opportunity to change things! To actually make Heaven better! Maybe he really did misjudge him! (Let's not forget that Aziraphale's previous experience with the Metatron was a 2-minute-conversation, why should it be so impossible that he changed his mind for the better since then?)

And then all this culminated - aided by millennia of little miscommunications and THE worst timing e.v.e.r. (I am actually more suspicious of Nina & Maggie's role in the whole thing, because there is so much that doesn't make sense about their little pep talk) - in the Final Fifteen. Crowley reacting differently to his news than he thought. Then offering the ONE thing he wants most in the world. But to get it, he would have to say to himself "yeah I WANT this and I'll take it even if Heaven stays the way it is, that's not my problem", and all that in the space of just a few minutes. Putting him on the spot.

Can't you see how "you go too fast for me"-after-being-at-it-for-almost-6000-years-Aziraphale was completely thrown by everything? Didn't you see how close he came to changing his mind after Crowley walked out? Are we sure he wouldn't have, if the Metatron hadn't been there immediately to usher him to his new duty? How is an angel supposed to calm down, think it through, and look at the problem from every possible angle under these circumstances? Having the choice between betraying everything you are to get everything you ever wanted, or losing everything that is dear to you but having done the right thing, and you don't even get a minute?

Again, we have one Fallen Angel who has a most likely violent experience trying to change Heaven. And another Angel who hasn't had the chance to try yet. Of course they're not on the same page. But they also don't really have time to compare notes. Your exactly means something different than my exactly.

And one more thing: Aziraphale's "I forgive you" is a direct callback to their bandstand break-up. He desperately wants this blow-up to be temporary, to end well like the other time. It's the first thing he can think of. It's his way of saying "maybe later", "I can't, not yet", or even "wait for me".

And Crowley knows that, he isn't hurt or offended because he thinks Aziraphale believes he needs forgiveness, he understands perfectly well what his angel is saying. Which is why it is his "don't bother" that breaks my heart. Because that means he (thinks he) is done waiting. He can't do it anymore. He finally put himself out there and his angel still isn't ready. So he's stepping out of their little dance routine.

Yes, Aziraphale walked out the door. But Crowley closed it after him.

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dee-morris · 4 months

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I Think We Moved on Too Quickly from Coffee Theory

Yeah yeah I know. But hear me out.

When I watched the season two finale the first time, I felt blindsided by it. From a narrative perspective it made sense, bc Neil Gaiman said that he needed to set up the situation that would make season three possible and okay yeah, that probably meant putting Crowley and Aziraphale in weird and different places. I got that. But from a character perspective it felt like a huge reversal from Aziraphale's behavior throughout season two, and of course that led me to look for outside factors that could have caused it.

After talking about it with Internet friends, reading lots of metas, thinking and discussing and watching the season over again, I decided that it wasn't necessary to believe that Aziraphale had been drugged. Most of what he said and did could be explained by careful study and analysis. Once you realize that Metabitch's presence in the bookshop is a veiled threat, everything else falls into place.

Nevertheless.

I definitely DO NOT Believe that Aziraphale was brainwashed or mind controlled by the coffee. His behavior during the Final Fifteen was frenetic, desperate, little bit manic. Definitely not the behavior of a mindless zombie. But nevertheless.

I still think that there was too much emphasis on the coffee for it to be a simple prop. Is it a literal macguffin or a symbolic one, that I'm not sure. I could see it either way. It might be just a symbol of the Sophie's Choice that Aziraphale had been presented with, or... There might have actually been something in the coffee.

The show makes a point of telling us that celestials can be affected by human poison. Almonds are symbolic in the Bible, and cyanide smells like almonds. Again, Aziraphale's behavior at the breakup scene was not that of a brainwashed person, but what if the Metatron TRIED something like that and it didn't completely work?

Aziraphale didn't want to follow the Metatron until after he drank the coffee. And even then he turned and looked at Crowley, and he didn't move until Crowley told him to go ahead. (Cue the Breaking Bad Walter Screaming in the Car meme) What if whatever the Metatron tried on Aziraphale only kind of worked? Just enough to make Aziraphale a bit dizzy and suggestible, but being close to Crowley mitigated the worst of it. That's why Metatrash needed to separate them.

Aziraphale is very clever, and if he knew he'd been drugged he would also know better than to let on that it hadn't worked completely. Cue the weird off-key phrases that are ALMOST in character but still pretty damn weird. "Heaven is the side of goodness, of light" my dude has NEVER said anything like that. He's said that about God, yes, but he's always held a distinction between God and heaven. Or "you're the bad guys" that's just WEIRD, that's a weird thing for him to say, and I will die on this hill. Even during their worst fights Aziraphale has made distinctions been himself and Crowley in terms of their job descriptions, but he's never made a moral judgement like that before, nor has he ever lumped Crowley in with the rest of hell. "They're the bad guys," now that would have made sense, and if it were anyone but Neil Gaiman running this shit I would think that it was a simple scripting error. But Neil doesn't make mistakes like that.

So Aziraphale plays along and tried desperately to communicate with Crowley that something IS VERY WRONG but our favorite disaster demon picks NOW to get in his feelings and ignore the clear and present danger standing outside the bookshop and staring at them. I'm pretty sure "I forgive you" is Aziraphalese for ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??

Again, I don't need my version of Coffee Theory to be real to understand what happened in the Final Fifteen, but it's just an interesting little toy to roll around in my head. There's so much emphasis on that coffee in the show and even in the episode synopsis, I still think there's something about it that we haven't been told.

#good omens #aziraphale #crowley #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #good omens 2 #aziraphale my beloved #good omens season 2 #good omens meta #good omens s2 #coffee theory #the final fifteen

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arcanacenturia · 9 months

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GOOD OMENS 2 SPOILERS

Something's so not right in S2 though.

The only time we "see" God is whenever she talks to Job and just blabbers stuff at him because she's bored af and doesn't have anybody to speak with except maybe the Metatron.

When Aziraphale tries to talk directly to God in S1, the Metatron tells him "Speaking to me is speaking to God" and categorically refuses to listen to Aziraphale's request.

That's weird. That's so weird.

We have no proof that he's actually relaying all this information to God. She hasn't appeared to anyone in centuries. He's also aware of Aziraphale's will to stop the arma-fucking-geddon.

He's aware of Azi's relation to Crowley.

As I've seen stated somewhere on Tumblr earlier, he's aware that just by trying to perform a teeny tiny miracle together they performed a huge ass one that triggered alarms in Heaven and succeeded in separating the two, because he's aware, and could be scared, of their combined powers.

Okay but why would he need to separate them?

A second too late, he told Aziraphale about The Second Coming, which is most likely linked to a new Armageddon again.

Related to that, we never heard God herself about the destruction of earth. Anything said about it is told by other characters. Note to myself: list up who talked about it.

The Metatron seems to be hiding something. Unlike the other (arch-)angels he's not naïve, he wears a black coat, he doesn't sugarcoat his speech to humans (and my synesthesia says he speaks Spiky, and not a good spiky).

I think it's also noteworthy that Crowley & Aziraphale don't communicate, not with words, Crowley never told Aziraphale about what Gabriel told him but he also never told Aziraphale what he found out about Gabriel in S2. He never told Aziraphale that his bosses were planning to restart Armageddon until Gabriel went Nah, that it's the reason the Metatron demoted him. He demoted the current Prince of Heaven for stopping it, then promoted Aziraphale, who is a lot more tame and also has been a cause of Armagenope to fail, to lead it.

I don't think Crowley fell because he asked questions to God. I think he sauntered vaguely downwards because he asked too many questions to the Metatron, that would put his plan in danger.

This bitch is SHADY AS FUCK and I'm honestly so eager, so curious to see what he (and season 3) is going to bring us. I wonder if he's lived among the humans, too. Besides, I feel like he's going to try (and maybe manage) and use Azi as his marionnette for whatever stuff he's preparing.

And I feel whatever he's preparing is really against God.

Thank you Neil Gaiman for this ending because even if it HURTS it's so interesting. There are so many things that could be going on behind the heartbreak. I could be going on about how Crowley probably even found out part of what happened. I've seen people speculate with good arguments that Crowley lost part of his memory after falling, and if it is the case that could be another thing done to prevent Crowley from stopping the Metatron.

There is SO MUCH that could be, so much that WILL be, and so little that we can know.

No matter in what form, I'm so excited to see how this will develop in the future.

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chamyl · 9 months

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What Aziraphale says / what Crowley hears

An analysis of that scene from Good Omens 2. Because the amount of times Aziraphale says one thing when he means another is astounding, as is how perfectly he and Crowley misunderstand each other.

Obviously, SPOILERS all over the place.

Let’s pick it up from the chat with the Metatron. He’s talking about his big projects, blah blah blah, and how he needs someone to run them and Aziraphale's the perfect angel for the job, and Aziraphale's first reply is:

A: "I don't want to go back to Heaven. Where would I get my coffee?"

Meaning: I'm not ready to give up what I can have here on Earth, i.e. Crowley. Metatron, unlike Crowley, hears perfectly well what Aziraphale means, not what he says, because he replies offering him to bring Crowley along.

Flashback ends, we switch back to the bookshop.

C: "He said what?"

Crowley is immediately offended at the mere suggestion. Heaven sucks and he's learned he's lesson, he's never going back.

Aziraphale doesn't notice the anger in his voice, too caught up in his dream of ruling Heaven with Crowley by his side and doing all the good he can for humanity. After having to sit by and watch awful things happen to good people for 6000 years, this is his Ultimate Dream™. He can change things AND he gets to keep Crowley.

(Of course we know Heaven's not going to give him so much freedom, but he wants this so much it makes him oblivious to the possibility he's being fooled.)

A: "Everything like the old times! Only, even nicer."

Meaning: we can be safe, no Book of Life or other punishments hanging over our heads, and I can make Heaven, finally, what it was always supposed to be: a good place. A good place for you, Crowley, too.

C: "Right. And you told him just where he could stick it, then?"

Crowley's too angry to tackle this gently. We watch Aziraphale's face fall.

A: "Not at all."

C: "Oh we're better than that, you're better than that, Angel!"

Meaning: how could you possibly believe this bullshit? After all that we've been through?

C: "You don't need them. I certainly don't need them! Look, they asked me back to Hell I said I'm not gonna be joining their team. Neither should you."

For Crowley, Heaven and Hell are the same thing, just a different colour. He can't understand why Aziraphale wouldn't say no immediately.

A: "But... well, obviously you said no to Hell, you're the bad guys."

Meaning: Hell was never supposed to be a good place. It was always supposed to be a group of demons making the humans' lives harder. How would you make the world better by working with hell? Of course you said no.

A: "But Heaven... well it's the side of truth, of light, of good."

C: "When Heaven ends life here on Earth, it'll be just as dead as if Hell ended it. Tell me you said no."

Here they move away from the actual problem, which is Aziraphale's delusional thoughts in regards to the potential for change in Heaven, to talk about the two of them instead.

He already knows Aziraphale didn't say no. He's asking him to change his mind and stay on Earth, which he will continue to do throughout the rest of this exchange.

C: "Tell me you said no."

Again, tell me you'll change your mind. Tell me you'll stay here, with me.

A: "If I'm in charge, I can make a difference."

This is where it sinks in for Crowley that he's really about to lose Aziraphale. He panics and throws out his confession.

C: "Oh, God[1]. Right, okay. Right. I didn't get a chance to say what I was going to say I think I better say it now. Right, okay, yes, so... We've known each other a long time."

Aziraphale is totally confused and has no idea where this conversation is going.

C: "We've been on this planet for a long time. I mean, you and me. I could always rely on you. You could always rely on me. We're a team. A group. A group of the two of us."

Now Aziraphale realises what's happening. At the worst possible time, Crowley is bringing up all the things they haven't talked about openly in 6000 years.

C: "And we've spent our existence pretending that we aren't. I mean, the last few years, not really. And I would like to spend--"

[gif source]

Crowley swallows it back because he can't bring himself to say 'I would like to spend the rest of our existence together'. It's too much, it’s too big.

C: "I mean, if Gabriel and Beelzebub can do it, go off together, then we can."

And there it is, clear as day, the confession. Gabriel and Beelzebub weren't friends, they very clearly had a romantic relationship, and Aziraphale looks absolutely SHOCKED by how explicit Crowley is being.

C: "Just the two of us. We don't need Heaven, we don't need Hell. They're toxic."

Aziraphale shakes his head. He can't accept that Crowley would put Heaven and Hell on the same level.

C: "We need to get away from them, just be an us. You and me, what do you say?"

Just like before Aziraphale wasn’t registering Crowley's anger, now Crowley doesn't pick up on Aziraphale's headshake, his shocked expression. He asks him what he thinks.

A: "Come with me... to Heaven. I'll run it, you can be my second in command. We can make a difference."

This is so painful because they both want the same thing. To be together. But Aziraphale can't ignore the fact that he's just been given the chance to do so much good for everyone, and keeps pressing his point.

C: "You can't leave this bookshop."

[gif source]

Crowley's not talking about the bookshop. He's brought up leaving for Alpha Centaury just a little while ago, a dream he still clings to. What he means is, you can't leave a place where you're safe and independent.

This is not what Aziraphale hears. He thinks Crowley is talking, literally, about the bookshop. That's why he says...

A: "Oh, Crowley. Nothing lasts forever."

[gif source]

Meaning: I'm willing to sacrifice the bookshop to work towards the Greater Good. Even though it pains me.

What Crowley hears: it’s our relationship that was never meant to last forever. All things end, we're breaking up. And in fact his reaction is to put his sunglasses back on, defences back up, and say:

C: "No. I don't suppose it does."

Aziraphale misses the walls coming back up and smiles for a split second, thinking Crowley is agreeing with him. So he's shocked when Crowley says...

C: "Good luck."

And starts to leave.

A: "Good luck?! Cro--Crowley! Crowley come back! To Heaven! Work with me! We can be together! Angels... doing good!"

Aziraphale breaks down completely now. His dream is crumbling, not only Crowley won't join him, but Crowley is abandoning him altogether.

A: "I... I need you!"

He cries out, desperately. Then he gets angry.

A: "I don't think you understand what I'm offering you."

Safety. A chance to be together, out in the open. A chance to do good, save the world from a second Apocalypse. Full status as angel restored. He can't understand why in the world Crowley wouldn't want these things? They can fix Heaven together!

C: "I understand. I think I understand a whole lot better than you do."

Crowley knows Heaven is only going to exploit and manipulate Aziraphale. But he doesn't insist, it's not what he does. In all their fights, Crowley's always been the one to run away in the face of conflict, and he's by the door, ready to go.

A: "Well... then there's nothing more to say."

Meaning: Are you really going to leave me?

C: "Listen. Do you hear that?"

A: "I don't hear anything."

C: "That's the point. No nightingales."

Possibly because this is their own coded language, this is the one time what Crowley means and what Aziraphale hears line up. That the relationship between them is coming to an end. There are no nightingales like the ones in Berkeley square, singing for them after their post-Apocalypse date.

But then it's Crowley's turn to break down. He wasn't fast enough running out of the bookshop, his emotions caught up with him. He’s thinking about that lunch at the Ritz and the nightingales. And after what Maggie and Nina told him, what he himself has learned about love, he makes a last desperate attempt at fixing things.

C: "You idiot. We could have been... us."

He grabs Aziraphale, forcefully kissing him. Aziraphale is shocked, doesn't know what to do with his hands, first he flails then he puts a hand on Crowley's back, as if about to relax, but then starts flailing again as he remembers he can't do this: he has to go to Heaven. Work for the Greater Good. He can't return the kiss.

[gif source]

He's basically sobbing when Crowley lets him go. Full-blown panic now, while Crowley watches him expectantly, hoping his last-resort strategy had some effect on his angel.

But Aziraphale stutters and reaches for something to steady himself, some barrier to put up again between the two of them. Crowley is a demon, he's an angel. Crowley grabbed him and kissed him without asking first, Aziraphale is going to forgive him. There. Big red line between them.

A: “I… I forgive you.”

[gif source]

He seems to regret it the moment the words have left his mouth. But it's too late. Crowley knows that the kiss didn't work, that there's nothing left to do now.

C: "Don't bother."

[gif source]

And he leaves. Almost runs.

Aziraphale is shaking all over. He presses his fingers to his mouth pretty hard, trying to replicate the feeling to process what just happened.

[gif source]

The Metatron was of course right outside, looking in, probably saw the whole thing going down. He takes advantage of the moment where Aziraphale is at his most vulnerable to press him to go, downplays their fight ("Always wanted to go his own way") makes disparaging comments about Crowley ("Damn fool questions too"), knocks down Aziraphale's excuses by entrusting the bookshop to Muriel.

Aziraphale is torn, but after all, what else can he do? In his mind, Crowley abandoned him when he'd finally found somewhere safe for them to be together. And Aziraphale spit out that horrible 'I forgive you'. Even if he stayed now, he'd be all alone. And in Heaven, he gets a chance to do Good with a capital G.

The Metatron tells him about very important plans to 'wrap things up'. Aziraphale looks back at Crowley, who’s standing by the Bentley, watching him.

But the Second Coming bomb the Metatron just dropped solidifies Aziraphale’s choice. Now more than ever he has to go up and do all he can. He steps into the elevator.

Crowley, completely alone now, looks at Nina and Maggie, each in their own shop, not together.

And then both Aziraphale and Crowley do what they always do to deal with difficulties: Crowley drives away, probably to nowhere, just letting the car go, and Aziraphale swallows everything down and tries to put back on his polite, calm, jovial mask. He'll be damned if he'll not try his hardest to be the perfect angel for this job. He’s sacrificed too much.

[gif source]

[1] I don’t know that it’s a good idea to call on her right now, C.

#gos2 spoilers #good omens spoilers #good omens season 2 #I guess dissecting Mr Sheen's shrimp emotions is how I deal with heartbreak #look at him #fifteen face journeys packed in three seconds

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ankles-be-bitten · 3 months

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i may have fallen victim to the curse of the Bad Aziraphale Take with this post, so i'd like to right my wrongs:

i still agree with this, however i would like to add some insight: the metatron is definitely orchestrating their falling out. he knows exactly what he's doing & he knows that he can't control aziraphale as long as he has crowley on their side--that's emotional abuse 101. the victim is isolated from their real support systems, and the only place they have left to turn is their abuser. i believe that aziraphale knows what he's doing, and that he's just going along with heaven as far as he can in order to protect his demon, but from the metatron's perspective things have to look like they're going according to plan.

i think... maybe this is only half true? not sure what i was thinking when i wrote this; it was late. whatever.

crowley is an optimist, but he clearly had his doubts about how aziraphale would respond, which is indeed based in reality. aziraphale doesn't have a great track record as far as assuming the best of him in the moment (which, i must add, isn't his fault. it is one of his flaws, however). i think the important thing is that he trusts aziraphale to do the right thing in the end.

i still agree with this. however, i want to acknowledge that i felt this was unfair at the time, but in retrospect i was ignoring aziraphale's dependency on external validation that crowley does not have. crowley is far more independent than aziraphale, and i acknowledged this, but i framed it originally as "crowley has an unfulfilled need," rather than what i now think it really is, which is that AZI has an unfulfilled need.

yeah, there it is. different people, different needs.

as far as it being strange that aziraphale didn't pick up on what crowley needed in that moment right away, i do still feel that way--sort of. i honestly at this point just want to pin it down to him being excited.

whatever you have to say can wait--we have all of eternity to say whatever we want, in complete security. we won't have to hide. we can be together. and he wants so badly to be together. that's literally all he wants. he wasn't even a little interested in returning to heaven until the metatron told him that crowley could tag along. this is manipulation 101, people! the metatron knows, or at least can intuit, that crowley wouldn't want to become an angel again. he knows exactly what he's doing to them. this is not a good faith offer.

most of the rest of that post is me rambling about my interpretation of aziraphale's actions and the reasoning behind them. feel free to read the full take if you'd like, but i don't believe it's necessary to break down the whole thing. it mostly boils down to aziraphale needs to see people as people before he can respond properly to their needs. i may or may not still agree with that, i'm on the fence, but if that is the case, it's 100% because heaven has conditioned him to be that way. you need to earn salvation, you need to earn love, you need to earn humanity.

i originally used job as a counter example, but he may actually be a paragon of this interpretation. if anyone deserves salvation, it was job--righteous job, level-headed job, job who lost everything but never, ever lost faith in the Almighty. if anyone has earned aziraphale's sympathy, it's him.

this is just a wonky take. he does care, or else he wouldn't be making the offer. interrupting crowley might have been selfish in the short-term, but to aziraphale, the long-term result is eternity together unhindered. they will have all the time in the world to be an us if they can only get out from under the watchful, dangerous, probing eye of heaven.

i think i was getting close to the point here, but i was still framing it from the perspective that aziraphale had woefully wronged crowley, and that he's not also a victim of the system here. i was in far less certain terms falling into the "aziraphale is naive" trap, when in reality he just wanted to be safe. as archangel, he can do as he pleases without fear of retribution. he has never, ever felt safe before--not safe to ask questions, not safe to be seen with crowley, not safe to run off to alpha centauri with him. blaming him for prioritizing crowley's safety is more than a little silly.

this is just... the ick. it feels like a whole other person wrote this. i am trying so hard to give myself grace for this absolutely rot-gut take.

yikes. yikes yikes yikes. i'm not sure anymore if crowley has ever expressed a pointed distaste for being an angel again; that may just be misguided on my part. somehow i'm victim-blaming both of them here, while also completely misrepresenting aziraphale's intentions. i'm falling into the "he doesn't love crowley enough/the way he deserves" trap, painting him once again as naive, blind, and selfish. oopsie daisy.

i still believe the kiss was an offer akin to the ox rib, extremely alcoholic breakfasts, what have you. it's possible crowley doesn't feel seen--i might even go so far as to say that that's likely--but not in the way i stated originally. he's heartbroken. he's devastated. he might even feel betrayed. but just because he feels that way doesn't make it the truth, and i think a mistake i've made throughout this particular text is mistaking how aziraphale's actions look from the outside for his actual intentions.

i think this was mostly right up until the part about azi being selfish. he's far from selfish, he's not even close to naive. assuming he made a mistake in the f15 at all, he absolutely knows it now. he will do anything it takes to be with crowley.

at the time of this addendum i think he's made a Plan™ and is trying to convince himself he's made the right choice. all will make sense in the end. or maybe it won't. we'll figure it out--some things take time, and we don't have all the information.

i do believe that about covers it. in summary, they are both victims and treating either of them like they're naive or stupid for making the choices they did is unfair because they're both doing the best they can with the information they have available to them. it's heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, and really, really unfortunate. but it's neither of their fault. it's literally all the metatron. if heaven and hell were out of the picture, crowley would've been free to confess and aziraphale free to reciprocate--but that's just not their reality. everything aziraphale does is in order to keep crowley safe, in the interest of us long-term. crowley knows he has a hard time expressing himself, and so he wants to get it out fast, and that's valid; aziraphale having reservations due to safety concerns is just as valid.

it's neither of their fault.

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ao3cassandraic · 8 months

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Angels, demons, language, and culture: part 3

(Part 1 and Part 2 for those interested.)

"I play an ineffable game of my own devising. For everyone else, it’s like playing poker in a pitch dark room with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a dealer who won’t tell you the rules and who smiles all the time." --God, Good Omens

This is just. Creepy and awful and so, so wrong for a quasi-omnipotent being. Ugh. Good Omens!God is an abject horror.

But if you're one of the poker players at that table, what do you do? You try to figure out the rules and mark the cards, naturally. Especially if leaving the table only happens via swan dives into burning sulphur, or getting kicked out of the only home you've known into a hostile desert with lions in it. While pregnant, yet.

So, I did a Bat Mitzvah back in the day, as it happens, and my Torah portion was from Deuteronomy. Which is, as I am hardly the first to notice, chockablock full of rules. Good Omens definitely leveraged (rather than inventing) the idea of trying to figure out Her rules and codify them in writing! Note, however, that the Bible per Word of Gaiman is a human thing. Codifying divine rules? Therefore also a human thing, minus I suppose the Ten Commandments -- though I can certainly envision a Good Omens in which Moses was, um, not exactly telling the truth about the source of the tablets; we only really have his word for it.

Angels and demons, who have a low opinion of literacy and just generally don't seem to be very good at it, never did this. We see that Aziraphale, Before the Beginning, has intuitively figured a few rules out: don't question Her, don't comment on (much less critique) Her decisions or designs, don't ever ever piss Her off. The Starmaker hasn't gotten this far, tragically, and our Crowley remains confused throughout the show as to what rule he can possibly have broken that earned him the identity-changing torture She inflicted on him.

Fundamentally, Crowley doesn't want to -- perhaps can't -- believe that She is capricious and cruel. He thinks there are rules, "don't test to destruction" being a major one. We know he's wrong, however. She straight-up told us so, in the quote at the top of this post! Aziraphale, too, knows, though he buries this knowledge as deep under the words "ineffable" and "Great Plan" (there is no Great Plan, She told us so, it's all a game to Her) as he possibly can -- I think as a coping mechanism -- and does his best to avoid drawing Her attention again after the Sword Incident.

But we see angelic and demonic confusion about the rules of Her game again and again. It's at the root of Aziraphale's successful Great Plan/Ineffable Plan hairsplitting at the airbase. It's why Aziraphale has to (with Muriel's help) dig through the contract for Job, and why Gabriel and Michael can't even be arsed to, even revising Job's reward on the fly. They're guessing! They're guessing about the rules based on what they've seen of Her caprices! She likes sevens!

It's how Crowley rules-lawyers the demons into letting the Whickber Street tradespeople go. If there are actual rules of Heaven-Hell engagement -- and there may not be! Crowley's pulled plausible-sounding lies out of his arse before! -- I'll bet you anything you like practically nobody in Heaven or Hell has actually read them. (My top picks for rules-of-engagement authors, if those rules actually do exist, would be Satan and the Metatron.)

And it's why Uriel has to ask the Metatron, as unsure and afraid as Uriel has ever looked in the entire series, whether the remaining archangels have done something wrong. The Metatron's response refuses to clarify what's at issue -- he, like Her, won't tell anybody the rules. If I'm feeling extremely cynical, I think She and he refuse to explain the rules because they're more powerful if there's no rulebook that rank-and-file angels can use to contest them with.

It makes me so sad. The legions of Heaven would assuredly have followed Her rules, if they only knew what those rules were! Fanart of the just-fallen Starmaker routinely breaks my susceptible heart, not least because the commonest expressions on his face are agony, sorrow -- and confusion. It's just all so damn unfair.

Same with Job, and Peter Davison sells it beautifully. Poor Job assumes he must have broken Her rules somehow, and blames himself for not even knowing how. That's totally on Her, though! If Her rules aren't clear enough for righteous Job to be able to trust his own righteousness under a horrible test, that's Her fault, not his!

The closest that Heaven and Hell -- and humanity, for that matter -- have to Her rules is prophecy. I probably don't need to spill many pixels on how vague and confusing prophecy is, how often it's counterfeited, and how pointless it is to try to live your life by (or trying to avoid) true prophecies; prophecies will invariably gotcha you. Good Omens is hardly the first work of literature to point this out. (Try the story of Oedipus. That's a good one. Yeesh. Or, if we want to be all Biblical about it, Moses again.) Agnes Nutter may well be the only genuinely well-meaning prophet in the entire history of prophets! Even so, her book is incredibly bewildering! Generations of her descendants try to figure it out, and mostly they fail -- look at the annotations we see on Anathema's index cards.

So when @thundercrackfic asks me what Aziraphale gets out of books, my first (though not only) answer is "rules for living." Not just rules for living as safely as possible around Her, though -- rules for living among humans, too. I headcanon (and posited in "Endgame") that Aziraphale has been collecting human etiquette manuals as long as humans have been writing etiquette manuals. Codified rules, like the ones in Deuteronomy, likely help him feel more secure.

I think this is also why Muriel characterizes books as portable people. Muriel is trying their sweet adorable best to figure out the Earth rules on the fly, since nobody Upstairs told them (or indeed knows, the Metatron aside) what those rules are. They do have Aziraphale to help them along -- Aziraphale is so much better than Upstairs! he doesn't condescend or insult, he just gently instructs -- but Aziraphale can't teach full-time, he has other things on his plate. So Muriel the scrivener, one of the few angels who would have a clue about literacy due to the nature of their job, gravitates to books and discovers that they too can be gentle and compassionate teachers.

The final question outstanding is how well Aziraphale understands and assimilates human books, especially fiction, especially especially non-literal figures of speech. It's an excellent and complicated question, and I don't think I have The Answer to it, but I'll see what I can do.

#good omens #good omens meta #rules rules rules #good omens god is a horror #aziraphale #crowley #the starmaker #angel muriel

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sparkplug02 · 3 months

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Good Omens Season 3: I forgive you

I've seen the theory that, in the final fifteen minutes of Season 2, Episode 6, Aziraphale was trying to signal to Crowley that something was wrong and was lying for the first part of that conversation (someone, don't remember who, made a point about how Aziraphale makes more hand motions when he's hiding something). Crowley missed the signs and that led to further miscommunication, etc.

I don't really think this is the case. I think the character development potential for Aziraphale and Crowley to learn from this makes more sense.

However,

IF Aziraphale were trying to signal Crowley, I can only imagine what Crowley's reaction would be upon realizing this and realizing that he missed those signals and that the conversation ended the way it did instead of getting the message. If Aziraphale was trying to say "help, the Metatron is listening and I have to bullshit my way through this, please improvise with me on this to save both of us from immediate danger" and Crowley took it as "I'm throwing away everything we've worked for since Notmaggedon and abandoning you," the Crowley's response of "how could you do this, I'm not going to help you" is maybe not ideal.

I can just imagine Crowley realizing what Aziraphale really mean, realizing that he said 'no,' to that, and that he left Aziraphale when he was asking for help. Crowley might feel guilty about that, and I can imagine a bit of shouting at the sky (possibly in the rain), and let's just say, for dramatic effect, of course, that this realization comes at a high-stakes moment. Something about "always too late."

Until he remembers the last thing Aziraphale said to him before he walked out: "I forgive you."

Not for the kiss (definitely not for the kiss, nothing to forgive there). Not for being a demon or refusing to go to Heaven. No, no, none of that.

Crowley has saved Aziraphale hundreds of times, and this one time, arguably when it might have mattered the most, Crowley missed the signs (again, I don't think this is actually the case, but go with me on this). If this high-stakes moment presented some kind of danger to Aziraphale or a large step closer to the end of the world, then Crowley would probably blame himself for whatever happened or might have happened to Aziraphale. He might think that Aziraphale would hate him for refusing to help when he asked for it and needed it.

But Aziraphale might have known this would happen too. He would have known that Crowley would blame himself since he's been told ever since his Fall that he is in the wrong. Aziraphale, knowing and hoping that the conversation in the bookshop wouldn't be their last but would have to suffice until they met and spoke again, spoke to a future Crowley. Crowley who realized the hidden meaning of his act after talking with the Metatron. Crowley who was bearing the approaching end of the world alone because they were truly separated for the first time in six thousand years. Crowley who blamed himself for anything that might have happened. Not bookshop Crowley, who hadn't gotten there yet.

Bookshop Crowley said "Don't bother."

Future Crowley, threatening to break under the weight of his new discovery, would remember that preemptive forgiveness when he needed it most. He might need it to believe that they still have a chance, that despite being separated they are still on THEIR side, not Heaven's or Hell's. This isn't over. This was the plan, to a certain extent. Maybe Crowley didn't recognize it at first, but he's caught up now and they have work to do.

And maybe Aziraphale's reaction to Crowley's confession was just a cover. As soon as this is all over, maybe they can try again.

#good omen #good omens season 2 #good omens season 3 #ineffable husbands #aziraphale #crowley #metatron #the metatron #final fifteen #good omens 2x06

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lenaellsi · 8 months

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Aziraphale choosing to return to Heaven isn't a mistake because it's naive to want to make a difference in the world, or because it's wrong to choose kindness and hope and see the best in things. Under different circumstances and with different motivations, going to Heaven to try to change things (improve working conditions for the lower angels, lie to the Powers That Be to subvert the Great Plan, kill the fucking Metatron) is a choice I could understand, even if I don't think he'll have nearly the level of control he's imagining. (This is a trap. This is a trap. This is a trap, and Aziraphale does not understand the extent to which it is.)

But anyway. The main problem isn't "I can make a difference." The problem is "you're the bad guys." It's that Aziraphale still sees Heaven as THE source of Good (and light, and truth, etc.) in the world. He thinks the cruelty he's seen Heaven enact over the years comes from a few mean archangels and not from the fact that Heaven itself exists to perpetuate one side of a conflict that is destined to end in the destruction of the Earth and a war that, as they have explicitly stated, will wipe out demons for eternity. The purpose of Heaven is not to help people. “Good” as it exists has nothing to do with alleviating suffering. It’s just the Plan. It’s just God.

Consider a scenario where Aziraphale got the same offer but from the other side. Hell comes up and says, hey, Crowley! Congrats, you're the new Grand Duke of Hell! You can even bring your angel along. He'll have to become a demon, of course, but that's fine, right? And Crowley's like, wow, Aziraphale, do I have some GREAT news for you! (I know, Crowley would never. Just stay with me.)

Obviously Aziraphale would have said no. And rightly so! Hell has done nothing but hurt Crowley and threaten both of them for millennia. And Crowley asking him to fall would be a horrible thing to hear from someone he loves--he'd be changing himself, losing a part of his identity, committing himself to an institutional force he doesn't believe in. Of course he would refuse. (Sound familiar?)

But imagine the good they could do if they were in charge of Hell! They could make sure no demon, Crowley included, was ever tortured again, and could improve things for the lower demons and for the damned alike. They could help people just as much in Hell as in Heaven, theoretically. But clearly the actual impact is not the deciding factor, because when Crowley says he refused Hell's offer to come back, Aziraphale brushes it off, because "of course you said no to Hell, you're the bad guys!"

When I say that Aziraphale has to learn better, that's what I mean. It's not a mistake for Aziraphale to still believe in goodness, and truth, and light. That's one of his most admirable traits. But it IS a mistake for him to think that those things come from Heaven. So no, Aziraphale isn't going to come out of this jaded, no longer believing in his ideals. He's going to come out of this confident in himself to help people without being told how by the powers that abused him his entire life. And he’s going to finally understand Crowley, and that he is kind not in spite of being a demon but because of the sum of his experiences, very much including the fall. No more good guys, no more bad guys. And then they’ll be able to move forward together.

#good omens #good omens meta #aziraphale #long post #flashing neon sign that says 'this is not an aziraphale hate post'#'this is a post explaining that aziraphale is in the second act of his character arc'#'and reducing his choice to a hashtag girlboss moment ignores the way he is falling back on his black and white view of morality'#'something he does over and over again because he is trapped in an abusive system and bases his self worth on how Good he is'#(it's a big sign. expensive. very bright.)

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cascodedtech · 1 month

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"Ah well, always did want to go his own way. Always asking damn fool questions, too."

Okay, I'm trying to get my thoughts together here, but let me see if I can verbalize why this line bothers me so much.

I generally take the final fifteen at face value (although I absolutely love reading any and all meta/theories about it). I think Aziraphale believes that he can make a difference, and I think he honestly thought making Crowley an angel again was a good thing, not because he doesn't think Crowley is good (he tells Crowley such on multiple occasions), but because I think there is a part of him that believes that Crowley doesn't like to cause misery for humanity and this would give him an out. I don't think he really considered how it would sound, and I think he was honestly surprised by Crowley's reaction. And I think that sometimes Aziraphale uses Crowley as a moral compass to some extent, not in the sense of Crowley knowing what is good, but Crowley knowing the shades of grey and what doesn't feel right, which, in part is why he was reconsidering going to heaven when The Metatron came back into the bookshop.

HOWEVER, this line from The Metatron always bothered me. We've already established that Crowley and The Metatron know each other, and are familiar enough that Crowley recognizes him right away (I don't think this is just because of the trial video he watched in heaven, because Saraqeal saw it too and didn't recognize him, and Michael and Uriel also interacted with him during the trial and neither recognized him).

I think that whatever rank Crowley was in heaven (I have my own theories), it involved close work or interaction with The Metatron on a fairly regular basis, and I sometimes wonder if The Metatron didn't have something to do with his fall (I acknowledge that Neil has told us Crowley is an unreliable narrator, so I don't think he fell by "accident"). From what I can remember about biblical lore, Lucifer (and his angels) fell, not because he questioned God, but because he refused to put humanity above his love for God. Crowley, from what I can tell, is the only angel who *questioned* God. He actually does love humanity more than God, so he actually really didn't go against God's will in heaven, per se.

So, when The Metatron tells Aziraphale that Crowley always did want to go his own way and how he was always asking questions, it implies some kind of familiarity, and I don't think it was necessarily just by reputation.

Consider that in 1x01, Gabriel didn't even really seem to know who Crowley was (which always struck me as a little weird), despite the fact that we know Crowley fought in the war in heaven, and logic would posit that "The Supreme Archangel" would have also fought in the war. And sure, there were probably hundreds or thousands of participants in the war, but Crowley is well-known enough that he is recognizable to both demons and angels that he hasn't interacted with for thousands of years.

...

I've lost the thread now. Uh, to sum up, I think Crowley was important and powerful in heaven. I don't think God is who made Crowley fall. I think The Metatron did it or played some role in it, and I think that he knew Crowley would never go back to heaven, but needed to sever the connection between Crowley and Aziraphale because he knew that Crowley would know something was going on in heaven, when Aziraphale might not (I think Aziraphale knows heaven is toxic, but I think he is willing to go back because he truly believes he can make a difference *for humanity* by being in charge, I just don't think he's actually going to be in charge, and Crowley knows that but Aziraphale doesn't).

Anyway, I have no idea if this stream of consciousness makes any sense to anyone else, but, I'm very interested to see if we will get more heaven flashbacks/minisodes in Season 3, particularly of The Battle and Crowley's fall.

#good omens #good omens meta #good omens theories #anthony j crowley #aziraphale #the metatron #the final fifteen

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ineffable-suffering · 7 months

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The Art of Miscommunication: Ineffable Edition

The more I watch S2 (over and over again like a complete maniac), it really becomes so obvious that ever since Armagedidn't happened, Crowley and Aziraphale just ... haven't been talking to each other. At least not properly. They may have been talking at each other or past each other but clearly, both of them have things they feel and want that they just keep failing to communicate properly.

Take this scene, for example. It's one of the very first scenes we see of them together in S2. And it shows us one thing very clearly: They're not listening to each other. Not even in the slightest.

I can't help but feel like before this scene, there have been many other unspoken disagreements between them, along similar lines. Disagreements about how exactly they should carve their existences out for themselves. There seem to be so many things they're just not communicating to each other, it's no wonder they both seem so on edge and charged with unspoken subtext during their little argument.

We know that Crowley hasn't even told Aziraphale that he's been living in the fucking Bentley for four years now. Or why that even is the case. He also hasn't told him just how awful it was how Gabriel treated him when Heaven cast Aziraphale into hellfire. At the same time, Aziraphale seems to be struggling a lot with not having anyone to report back to about the good things he's doing. And instead of talking about that to Crowley, he just "uses" him as a substitute for Heaven. Not that Crowley would mind that much, obviously, but still: Both of them just keep tiptoeing around what is actually bothering them and instead say and do things that simply end up throwing the other one off because they can't understand the intentions and reasons behind the other's choices.

"Exactly." – "Exactly."

"My car." – "Our car."

"We're in danger." – "We're safe."

"You don't understand what I'm offering you." – "I understand a lot better than you do"

"Run away together." – "Stay and fix it together."

I waffled on about how each of them have settled into their "new", post-(not)-End-of--the-World lives in this reblog, but I really think it was very clearly set up for the entire season, that all of their non-existent communication was gonna end up sabotaging their happily ever after in the end. Of course, it probably would have gone differently if a certain, Metatron-y variable hadn't intercepted at the very end.

But still: I think the main thing Crowley and Aziraphale will have to learn (in S3) is that, just like Maggie told us, "talking" doesn't equal "talking to eachother". And that in order to carve out a mutual existence together, you have to be honest and open about what you want and feel.

#good omens #good omens season 2 #go2 #gos2 #ineffable husbands #crowley #aziraphale #my own meta

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pipsqeak2020 · 29 days

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After season 2 finale…

The feeling of weight on his shoulders made Aziraphale feel like the entire elevator would stop in its place and go back down. He was fiddling with his fingers just to stop himself from crying. It wasn’t working. He smiled and held his head up in a repressed sadness sort of way as a tear ran down his face. As soon as he felt the warmth on his under eye he reached up and wiped it away discreetly so that the metatron couldn’t see. Aziraphale could not get the image of Crowley out of his mind. No matter how many times he tried to block it, that face kept on reoccurring. Crowleys eyes pulled down at the corners as he fought back tears just like Aziraphale was doing now, Crowleys bottom lip quivering even though he knew that he was resisting it, and worst of all, the sweet, burning imprint that Crowleys lips had left on his. It was an aggressive kiss, not loving but angry, sad and hollow and that had made its sting so sharp. Aziraphale wiped away more tears that he hadn’t noticed were running down his face.He couldn’t help but think that they both could have been happy together if he hadn’t made this stupid choice but he knew it wasn’t that simple, of course they would have been happy at first, so happy, but not for long, heaven was going to make sure of that if Aziraphale didn’t do something about it. He put his game face on and straightened himself out as he heard the sharp high ding of the elevator doors and a familiar bright, white light shone into his eyes. It was almost to bright to see but not quite. He felt his pupils dilate as he walked out of the elevator. The sound of footsteps behind him reminded Aziraphale that the metatron was right there. Once again, enveloped by reality, Aziraphale had an overwhelming feeling of responsibility. Not good responsibility, the kind where you feel like you might cripple and fall to the ground from the sheer weight of it. He thought of that one human story Crowley had told him about a man named “atlas”, he felt like atlas right now. Ohhhhh Crowley he thought about his beautifully bitter lover, the pain and blood curdling thoughts came flooding back but he pushed them down and cleared his mind. Right he thought to himself, heaven.

Crowley was driving slowly, he had realized recently that he never actually knew how to drive he kind of just ignored everyone else and decided that he was more important so they could move, but now it was different, with the biggest part of him gone for good he was raw. He felt exposed. It was like he was drowning in a pit or tar while everyone was reaching hands out but right before he could grab them they would pull away from him, and Aziraphale was standing over him laughing. The pain was unlike anything, unlike hell, unlike heaven, unlike falling even. This was the worst. As he drove now he couldn’t feel the same as before, he couldn’t feel more important than everyone because everyone felt so much more intimating without his angel, his protector. He was going slow, for the first time he was going a pace that Aziraphale would have accepted and it was too late. Another sharp pang drove into his abdomen. It was a physical manifestation of his heartache. Though self inflicted, still uncontrollable. He crippled over on to the steering wheel, the Bentley had no comforting songs for him now. Crowley heard the loud SREECHH of the Bentleys wheels on the asphalt, he looked up and felt like he had opened his eyes in a swimming pool. The tears had clouded his eyes to a point that he could barely see the road spin in front of him, Crowleys heart raced and he felt himself jerk forward at the same time as the massive crash sound. Shards of glass flew at his face, a mass of black metal crinkled infront of him and the radio broke into a billion pieces. His stomach lurched into the steering wheel but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the pain that made him crash in the first place. Not as bad as Aziraphale. Nothing was as bad as losing his love, his life, his happiness, it was all gone. A mixture of tears and blood was ruining his suit but he didn’t give a fuck. He didn’t have anyone to look nice for anymore there was no point, he didn’t care about the thousand tiny cuts on his face or the deep stabbing pain in his right leg or the fact that he was pretty sure he broke a few fingers. No none of that compares to the pain of loosing Aziraphale. The other pain was all human pain, worldly pain but this, the pain of loss was not the same. It was not earthly, it was not supposed to feel like this, nothing was supposed to feel like this. He eyes stung. He felt kind of out of place not wearing the glasses but also nothing felt in place right now. He had no use for the glasses anymore. No reason to hide his ugly demonic eyes because he had nobody to save from them. He didn’t care what anyone else saw, only Aziraphale. He was the only one that mattered. His face was hot, burning like someone had rubbed an iron on it for hours. He viciously wiped his face off with the back of his sleeve and lifted his arm to open the car door. It was jammed. His fingers hurt badly when he grabbed the handle but he didn’t care. Crowley grabbed the handle again and this time once he had pulled it back he slammed his body against the door and it made a little crack sound before it gave out. He spilled out onto the cold asphalt and immediately regretted it. He could feel every injury on his body at once. Crowley took a deep breath, it wasn’t necessary but sometimes these stupid human things helped Crowley. He took a count of what was what and how injured he really was definitely some broken fingers he thought to himself, Crowley tried to make a fist but failed, his hands hurt to much, he grunted and set his head down on the black ground. He tried to more his left leg but immediately regretted it. A burning shooting pain like lightning shot up his leg and through all of that effort, he was still pretty sure it didn’t even move. For the first time in his life he didn’t know what to do and he couldn’t just go to Aziraphale.

All the memories of heaven came flooding back to him. He remembered the boring paperwork. A white desk. A stack of papers. Heaven is kind of overrated Aziraphale thought before immediately correcting himself. Bad angel! Bad, bad, ba- the sound of shoes clacking on the solid white floors interrupted Aziraphales train of thought. He looked up to see Crowley walking towards him with that lovely sway of confidence in every stride. Aziraphale was entranced in the beautiful sharp curves of his hips his stunning yellow eyes his mouth slightly open, Aziraphale wanted to kiss it so bad, he needed to taste Crowley. He was like a drug and Aziraphale was in withdrawal. He was thirsty. Aziraphale blinked and he was gone. “Oh!” Aziraphale yelled before covering his mouth with one hand and using the other to wipe away sudden tears. All of a sudden Aziraphale felt a shift, his overwhelming sadness suddenly switched to anger. Anger at the situation. Anger at the metatron. Anger at heaven. But most of all anger at himself. He silently screamed and fell on the floor. His mouth agape with no sound. His jaw hurting and the tears leaving lines of pain like rivers of lava flowing down his face. He couldn’t breath, his lungs were caving in, he felt like someone was standing on his chest and he wanted to get up, he needed to get up but he couldn’t. He could see Crowley crying and he wanted to help, he wanted to console him and tell him everything would be alright. Aziraphale wanted to wrap his arms around Crowley and just hold him while he cried. But he couldn’t, he couldn’t get up, and it was HIS FAULT! This time he couldn’t repress the scream, “ARRAGRHHGGHHGH!!!!!” He fell over again and cried.

Crowley looked over at the other side of the park bench and smiled, Aziraphale smiled back “you know I love you right?” Said Crowley

Aziraphale responded “to Alpha Centauri and back” he smiled. It was corny but Crowley loved it when Aziraphale said sweet things like that, Crowley looked into his eyes in amazement, he leaned in to kiss him- *beep* Crowleys eyes flickered open *beep* he lifted his head *beep* white walls surrounded him *beep* it reminded him of heaven, but it couldn’t be, right? *beep* he tried to sit up but as soon as his head lost contact will the pillow the entire room felt like a Mary go round. It was a dream, fuck! Crowley slaped himself in the face out of anger how did I let myself think that was real, that wouldn’t be real, that couldn’t be real. Another *beep* snapped Crowley back into reality, there was a *click* and some footsteps as a woman dressed in all blue walked into the room. She was holding a clipboard, “how are you feeling Mr ….. uhhhh …. Crowley???” It gave Crowley a headache to try and comprehend what she was saying so he just spoke, “I-i can’t sit up…it hurts…..my head hurts”. The lady walked over to him, she pressed a button on the side of his bed and Crowley watched the world apear in front of him, as it raised Crowley winced slightly as a small “ngk” slipped out of his lips, on this new angle he could see the room he was in, a hospital room, “sir…we ran some tests on you and your heart is well… well it’s very unusual, impossible actually, we may need to keep you for further testing”. Crowley looked at her, he snapped his fingers small miracle he thought to himself never hurt anyone, the nurse forgot what she was saying, “well then, guess you’ll have to get a move on then sir” she said, sounding a little confused and a tiny bit baffled probably wondering why she had just forgotten the last minute, Crowley stood up, and walked out of the room, covered in blood, hair a mess, head pounding, and heartbroken.

“Okay” Aziraphale said as he paced back and forth nervously talking to nobody “you’ve got this, all you have to do is talk to GOD!” “It’s just god, no biggie” Aziraphale laughed in nervous panic to himself. Crowley wouldn’t be afraid right now! Said the evil voice in Aziraphales head. He still couldn’t believe that god had wanted to speak to him, what would she say? What would she ask? Aziraphales entire body was buzzing with adrenaline. He felt a tap on his shoulder, he turned around to see god, she was standing there, she had touched him, she was beautiful, Aziraphale noticed a faint glow shining off of her, he was in complete and utter amazement. And then she spoke, “Hello Aziraphale, it is nice to have you back,” Aziraphale chuckled nervously and responded “Yes well it is nice to be back,” Aziraphale was putting on his fakest smile while he held back all of the emotions that had been sinking deeper into his soul for the entire time he had been in heaven, “If I may, why did you want to speak to me today?” Gods voice was like a song, enchanting and intimidating in the most magnificent way “We believe that you can help us finally beat hell”, Aziraphale couldn’t believe that he was saying this “respectfully, I think that Armageddon is, well, pointless”

God just looked at him. She was impossible to read, her face showing no indication of emotion and starting to make Aziraphale almost think she had none at all. After a moment that felt like an eternity she finally spoke, “I agree with you completely, I have realized that earth did nothing wrong, I no longer want to destroy them, now I just want to rule them again, I want to save them from hell. I want to destroy hell” Aziraphale was shocked. Nothing could have prepared him to hear that, he didn’t know what to say about it “w-why-why tell me?” Aziraphale questioned with a tremor in his voice, god gave him a soft reassuring smile, the first emotion that aziraphale had seen on her face but it didn’t feel real. He saw an evil behind her eyes, well not necessarily evil, more so ill intentioned. She spoke again “Because you, aziraphale, can help me, do you remember when you and that demon performed a miracle together?”. Aziraphale responded with a light, sort of shy nod and god continued, “well that turned out to be very powerful, even powerful enough to wipe out thousands of demons if you really tried, the only issue is that hell refuses to help us and your little” god waved a judgemental finger at aziraphale “demon” she said with disgust “is the only one that hell doesn’t have control over. If you get him to help us then maybe he wouldn’t have to die with all the other demons”

Crowley, sad, tired, and injured, had not exactly performed the best of miracles, the memory wipe of the nurse was okay but he hadn’t quite fixed himself up all the way, his leg throbbed like a beating drum with every step and his head felt like it was in a vice and someone was just squeezing it tighter and tighter, Crowley tried remembering what had happened, it was coming back slowly, he remembered watching aziraphale walk away, he remembered the pain he felt after, he remembered crying, he remembered seeing a pole speeding towards the windshield of the Bentley, he remembered not caring that he was going to crash, he tried to remember past that but couldn’t come up with anything other than a blur of blood and tears and glass, the throbbing in his head took over then, he stopped thinking and sank into the pain, immediately regretting it. As soon as Crowley cleared his mind, one thought came back, one that he had been subconsciously avoiding confronting until now, the Bentley. That car had been there for him for hundreds of years and they had been through everything together, and so this is how, Anthony J. Crowley ended up curled in a ball on the floor of a hospital in who knows where, with a pounding migraine, and a horrible throbbing leg, crying, grieving through the pain of having his life ripped from him and then having his heart stomped on and ripped out of his chest.

Aziraphale had been given one night to make his decision. He had spent the last half of it at his desk trying to do tear soaked paperwork but failing. He found no distractions, no consolation, no well, anything in heaven to ease the suffering. Heaven felt cold, not only in a literal sense but it felt uncomfortable, not human, of course he knew they weren’t human but still, there was no warmth here, no hugs, no food, he couldn’t even pour himself a drink to soften the blow of grief, Aziraphale was having a difficult time convincing himself that they could actually be the good guys if not one angel here had an ounce of love in their heart, I mean if the only one that ever did feel love ran away, what does that say about heaven? Aziraphale couldn’t help but think of Crowleys words “i mean if Gabriel and Beelzebub can do it,” and now Aziraphale was back to crying, his throat raspy, and his eyes welling up with tears, he knew what would happen. Aziraphale even knew what path the tears would take on their way down his face. Alright he thought I must make a choice, what is my plan? I can’t let Crowley die I just can’t! Aziraphale thought about the man that he had been in love with for the last 6000 years, he thought about Crowleys beauty, his humour, his kindness (though he never would admit it), his passion, his intelligence, his grace, his charm, his good. He thought about the time that Crowley had saved him from that church in 1942-or was it 1941?? He thought about what he should have said the billions of time that Crowley had asked to run away together. He should have said yes! This man, this love, this life was what he turned down and now he couldn’t help but feel that it was the wrong choice, it was a deep gut feeling nagging at him making it impossible to ignore. Now he couldn’t let this man die, he couldn’t let Crowley die. He would keep the beautiful yellow light of those eyes alive no matter at what cost.

Meanwhile, Crowley was stationed in a dimly lit bar, drowning his sorrows in alcohol. He was on his 5th drink, he was not even close to done yet, “ y’know I didn’t even assssk for thissss” Crowley was stumbling over his words, he found himself hissing a lot for no reason, maybe just because he was mad or because he was drunk or it was a mixture of both. “Ng-and then he jus-he jussst left me like I’m not hissss only friend!?!” The bartender gave him a concerned look. Crowley understood why, it was pretty obvious, he hadn’t take care of himself since that day, his hat was down, he hated it down but there was no use in putting it up, he was wearing a plain grey T-shirt and his pants were stained with blood and tears. He wasn’t wearing glasses so the man in front of Crowley could easily see his bright yellow eyes and the snake like slits in them, and on top of all of that he had been whining to this stranger about Aziraphale for an hour now nonstop! Crowley felt a soft tap on his shoulder that dragged him out of his self pity and quite clumsily flung his head around to see Muriel smiling at him excitedly. Crowley felt a pang of disappointment at it not being Aziraphale, he was getting used to that feeling now, disappointment, “Ng-Muriel what are you doing here??” He questioned. Muriel replied in a tone that made Crowley really see the contrast between them, she spoke happily and excited at all times, she was an optimist “experiencing the culture, or is this one only for men??”. Crowley chuckled lightly at that obscure comment but after a full swivel of his head decided that it was valid because there wasn’t one woman in this bar. Crowley decided it was time to sober up. Small restrained grunts and hisses left his mouth as he did so. Once sober again, that familiar dry disgusting feeling returned to his mouth. It felt like he had eaten flour, a lot of flour. Crowley stood up off of his stool and groaned as he walked out of the bar with only a small flick of his wrist to indicate that Muriel should follow. Crowley walked onto the street and started following the familiar route home with Muriel following closely behind him.

Aziraphale had made his decision he would go down and find Crowley, he would find a way to tell Crowley what was happening and Crowley would help him out of this, Crowley always knew what to do, it was just one of the things that Aziraphale loved so much about him. But then, a horrible thought entered his mind. An excruciating, burning prospect invaded his mind what if he doesn’t want me anymore? Aziraphale knew that he hurt Crowley but it was just now that he actually thought about it, the idea was gnawing away at his brain like a parasite, it was torture, what if he had gone too far? What if Crowley didn’t love him anymore? Then what would he do? Aziraphale grabbed at his cranium with white knuckles, the tears streaming down his face were angry, only at himself, this was his fault, he hurt Crowley, the love of his life, the most beautiful demon ever. He hurt Crowley! Aziraphale grabbed the papers on the desk squeezed a tight fist on either side, then hey crinkled. He tried to rip them but as soon as he did so the papers returned to the desk I a neat stack and his hands were empty once more. This only made him more angry. Then the realization came to him, he would rather die with Crowley than hurt him this bad. He felt the horrible weight of regret crushing him. Like a punch to the gut. Aziraphale doubled over. His tears hitting heavens clean white floors and immediately vanishing now all he could do was return to Crowley and apologize, he knew nothing would make up for his mistake ever, nothing would make up for the torture he put Crowley through was unimaginable, incomprehendable and ineffable. Ineffable.

Crowley knew what he was doing when he started walking towards the bookshop but nothing could’ve prepared him for the pain of actually seeing it, as soon as Crowley rounded the corner and saw the familiar reddish hue of Aziraphales bookshop he felt his face subconsciously scrunch into a frown. The corners of his lips pulled down by and unstoppable and unseeable force, his eyes squinted to repress tears. A small whimper escaped Crowleys mouth despite all of his efforts. They were on a relatively busy street in midday so there was sufficient background noise but Crowleys small “nmk” seemed to echo as if he were in a long hallway, the sound lingering on Muriel’s ear. He wiped his eyes and quickly looked back to see if Muriel had noticed but based on the concerned, almost pitiful look on her face, she had. Crowley looked down at the concrete through clouded eyes. Just get inside he thought to himself then you can embarrass yourself alone. He picked up his pace, eager to get inside. When he got to the door he stopped, when his hand touched the cool metal of the door knob he felt a shock run through him, like cold blue lightning, a shiver down his spine. Crowley visibly shook at contact. He opened the door to find it exactly the same, he instinctively walked around to Aziraphales desk and sat on the couch. It felt comfortable, it felt warm, for a moment, Crowley could pretend that he was just waiting for Aziraphale to get back so he could tell him something, or maybe he just wanted to see him, Crowley had done that before, come over to Aziraphales bookshop or gone somewhere that he knew Aziraphale was going to they could “bump into each other” but he would always make something up instead of telling Aziraphale the truth. Crowley regretted that now, maybe if he had confessed earlier then this all could have been avoided, then he would have had time, he could have done it like he had planned, a romantic dinner at the ritz, a nice outfit, he was going to take Aziraphale to his car, their song would play, and he would tell Aziraphale how he really felt. He didn’t get that, it got taken from him, that wasn’t fair! But now he knew, Aziraphale didn’t feel that way, that was that. Muriel walked towards Crowley now, to be honest he had kind of forgotten that she was with him, she had walked in silently and immediately gone to making tea for Crowley. Tea was one of the only human drinks Muriel had tried so far and she was hooked, she loved the way the warmth soothed her throat. Crowley didn’t drink tea but he thought he would try it, he took the hot mug into his hands. Crowleys lips touched the mug lightly, cautiously almost, ready to jerk his head back at any indication of too much heat but it was just right. Crowley fell asleep sipping tea on the couch, not at peace necessarily but more calmed now, probably mostly from the tiredness but also the safety, the safety of the bookshop. Aziraphales bookshop.

Nina and Maggie were spending a lot of time together recently and although nothing had happened yet and wouldn’t for a while, they were getting very close, both so happy to have found each other. Maggie had noticed it first, but Nina caught on quickly, Aziraphale had left. Here was the information that they knew; Crowley and Aziraphale were closer than ever, THEY had told Crowley to admit how he really felt, both of them had left in tears, Crowley was returning now looking worse than ever, Aziraphale was nowhere to be seen and there was some random lady running the bookstore. “Ohhhh this is all our fault” Maggie whined, “no it’s not!” Nina responded “if Crowley hadn’t thought it was the right time he wouldn’t have listened to us anyways.” She smiled at Maggie, “don’t worry, it’ll all be alright”, Maggie gave a soft smile in return but Nina could tell it was forced. She knew what Maggie’s real smile looked like, it was beautiful, gleaming straight white teeth that Nina was a little jealous of though she would never admit it. Not wanting Maggie to worry more, Nina decided she would go over later, when Maggie was at the market and talk to Crowley. Nina wasn’t one for gossip but this was to important to Maggie, and she kind of wanted to know what was going on for herself.

Crowley was bored out of his mind. He had cried his eyes dry and explored every crevice of the bookshop, well that is every crevice that he could see from the couch. Now there was nothing left to do. Crowley was starting to regret having sent Muriel away with a list of human amusements that would last her the whole day so she could “explore the culture”. Then Crowley had a thought, books, I mean I’m in the store surrounded by them, they can’t be all bad can they? Crowleys internal voice questioned. He got up from the couch and it felt like ripping a fly off of fly paper. It was way too hot in Aziraphales bookshop for leather. Crowley walked over to the bookshelf closest to where he had been sitting, he pulled the first book off he looked at the cover which portrayed a big yellow bee sitting on a purple flower. That’s stupid, he doesn’t even have bees! Crowley thought as he put the book down. He flipped through about ten more but none of them peaked his interest, they all looked boring and bland, Crowley thought of one human expression “don’t judge a book by its cover” but then decided that it was probably actually about something totally different. Humans did that a lot. Then he glanced over at something, something on the table, it was the table they had sat at drinking and laughing when Crowley had realized that Adam had named his dog, he remembered Aziraphale thinking that Crowley was talking about his scent and chuckled to himself. On the table was a pile of papers. They had not been there the last time Crowley was at that table, Crowley walked over and looked at the top page, it was then that Crowley realized that just like he couldn’t drive, he also could not read. He felt like a child that needed to be taken care of. He gave an exasperated and a little bit exaggerated sigh as he sat into the chair at Aziraphales desk. He had his legs crossed, one over the other and his arms on the sides of the chair. Crowley heard a click as the door opened, a million thoughts race through his mind about who it could be but one thought silenced them all, one thought rule over his mind and wouldn’t let him go, Aziraphale? But it wasn’t. He was disappointed but he couldn’t say he was surprised. Nina stared at him. He stared at Nina. “What do you want?” He said nonchalantly while hiding his inner excitement at having someone to talk to. Then Nina spoke the first words that she had spoken to him since she told him to confess his love, “What happened?”

But she wasn’t really asking, of course it was a question and she wanted an answer but her tone wasn’t asking, her tone was saying. Declaring even. That wasn’t what was on Nina’s mind though in fact she was only thinking about one thing, probably not the thing she should have been thinking about but she couldn’t help but wonder why Crowley wasn’t wearing his trademark black glasses. His eyes looked like snakes eyes, Nina thought they were beautiful.

Crowley was furious. Rage bubbled up inside him like a pot left on the stove for to long, she wad the one who had made him do that, it was her fault. Crowley hissed at her and pointed sharply at the door. As she left he felt nothing. He felt no sadness, no pity, no regret. He felt cold, ruthless, mean, and most of all, Crowley felt invincible. Like nobody, nothing, could ever hurt him again.

Aziraphale had been given one day, he was to go down to earth at 10 o’clock in the morning, an angel would check on his progress at 10 o’clock the next morning, Aziraphale had been practicing his speech all day in preparation but it still wouldn’t be enough. He knew that Crowley wouldn’t understand why he had to make the choice to leave but there was no way he could’ve explained it. He was going to do it that night, he was going to tell Crowley everything. Now he had made his decision. For all the authority knew, Aziraphale was going down to convince Crowley to help them destroy hell, Aziraphale had no plans whatsoever along those lines. “It’s time” said a sharp female voice in Aziraphales head. God was telling him to go. He took a deep breath and began to walk to the elevator. This felt weird. He felt like he was winding back the tape only he was walking forwards and he was not alone. When he stepped into the elevator, Aziraphale had a strange thought. What if he had kissed Crowley back? What would have happened? Maybe he would have stayed. Maybe Crowley would’ve gone to heaven. Maybe-no point in dwelling on the past he thought, stopping the line of questioning he had began at himself. The elevator ride felt shorter this time than it had on the way up. The *ding* was the same. So sharp it could cut through any thought process, which is exactly what it did. His mind cleared as Aziraphale walked out of that elevator. He smelled the street, the food, the coffee shop, everything. He missed it so much. All he could think about was Crowley. Crowley was everything. He was terrified and overwhelmed and excited and worried all at the same time. Aziraphale walked out into the street. His stomach churned like a cement mixer. He felt sick. The same force that was making his abdomen clench, was the one forming the massive, uncomfortable lump in his throat, the one forcing tears to his eyes. It was fear. Aziraphale walked, his steps confident but his mind shaky and scared. And then, across the street, through the window of his bookshop, he locked eyes, as tight as his clenched fist, with Crowley.

Part two here \/\/\/

#good omens #crowley #aziraphale #aziracrow #good omens fic

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