Just The Sheer Matter-of-factness Of This. So Beautiful. Raw And Honest. It's A Rare Gift To Write Them

oh BY the WAY

This scene proves, doesn’t it, that living in the car is Crowley’s choice. When Aziraphale comes back from Scotland, Crowley shoves the box at him before he gets to the threshold. He gives Aziraphale no option to even say, “won’t it be easier to leave the plants here” let alone to propose anything else. Was Crowley, by any chance, actively avoiding a conversation about him living in his car this whole time?

Crowley is absolutely not okay, we know, we know. He is frustrated, he is struggling; he is asking what the point of it all is. Yes, he is fiercely protective of his independence when he says “my car”, “the precious, peaceful, fragile existence I have carved out for myself”—and the same time, he is still not willing to talk. He probably does not even see a way to have important conversations safely; the fear of rejection might still be too much. His instinct remains to run away from trouble. With something as terrifying as vulnerability and openness, he needs Nina and Maggie to tip the scales.

He has the swagger. He acts like he knows what’s happening, like he has things figured out.

I think we’re just starting to see how much that has not been true.

Takin' Over The Asylum (1994) | 1.02 Fly Like an Eagle

more doctor who niches i have noticed

people who think that season one was the best / ninerose enjoyers / Don't Skip Nine !! people (honestly so real)

people who started watching in the early 2010s as a kid/teenager & got Attached to eleven

(related to above) people who make aesthetic gif edits of amy pond

people who think clara is an awful manipulative liar who sucks & is bad (she's their favourite character) (often twelveclara people also)

TWISSY ENJOYERS (me)

second doctor / jamie mccrimmon fans primarily

eighth doctor adventure enjoyers (often adults)

(related to the first one) people who got bored partway through eleven & had no prior attachment to david tennant often seem to like nine the most

people who have a deep emotional connection to at least three characters played by david tennant

people who will die on any hill defending thirteen's era (often thasmin truthers also) (though a lot of thasmin people see the Problems with the era theres a subset of people who think chibnall did Nothing Wrong)

people who will die on any hill defending steven moffats writing and every day this pains them (usually have really good analysis) (they can see the problems but can also see the really good parts & how the two are inextricable)

people who think fourteen shouldn't have happened

people who like the tenth doctor in a really intellectual way (usually not tenrose people)

TENSIMM PEOPLE.

people who really like turlough

people who got really really excited whenever susan is mentioned

American 60s female presenting you say????? Well don’t mind if I do!!!!!

fourteen and the toymaker making out sloppy style but fourteen is actually kissing tooth!master

Before, during, after

this promo photo. this. as a promo photo. that's just cruel

I'm not a "coffee theory" enthusiast but does anyone else feel like Aziraphale like, literally didn't hear and/or understand a word of Crowley's love confession? And I do mean literally - it seems Aziraphale did not get it at all. He never responds directly to a word that Crowley says about them. I mean Crowley says they've spent their existence pretending not to be a couple and Aziraphale doesn't address that?? Crowley says they can be like Beelz & Gabe and Aziraphale just looks at him like ????? Then Azi just goes "come with me!" almost as if Crowley hasn't spoken. What is this fuckery.

He grows tomatoes.

Well, he tries to. Crowley does not usually try to grow plants. He decides to grow them, and they obey. It's vendetta ad vengeance at once. But lately, nothing seems to obey his will. It's weak, that will, broken into smithereens just like his heart.

And he can't even take it out on his plants. That's because Crowley has mercy.

So he tries to grow tomatoes.

It's summer (the first summer without him) and he has lodged in an airbnb in the country, and behind an old ramshackle ram-shack he has made himself a little plot of land. Well - it's all God's stupidly green earth, isn't it. But this two by two piece of earth he claims for himself. He could have at least that, right? He looks up at the sky. Frowns.

Let me have at least that.

Aziraphale liked to do things the hard way. (He's still doing that, Crowley supposes, up there. Up there. He's not dead, but it feels like it. He's gone. Gone to Heaven. Not to a better place.) Aziraphale liked to do it properly, the human way, when it pleased him. Which was often, but not always. French. Nom de dieu de merde. Pardon his French.

Pardon his stupid everything.

Crowley inspects his tomato plants. He's trying to grow them the human way. Funny, that. He nurses them like he nurses his heart, and miracles won't do. He's tried.

I think I should not be encouraged to grow tomatoes, he thinks.

Raindrops fall on red and green: the plants and the vines and the tomatoes and his hair. It's August, it shouldn't be raining this much. It's been a shitty August. It's been a shitty year. Thirteen months and two weeks and one day, to be exact. Not like he's keeping count. Why bother?

There's a spot on one of the leaves, and Crowley's heart sinks beore it even had the chance to ever rise. It's only one tiny, dark, black spot, but he knows what it means. It means it's too late.

A horrible month. A horrible life. Not the right conditions to thrive. Disease, showing its ugly head, grinning. It's already too late. It's always too late. It would multiply and spread.

His soul is a tomato leaf.

Black as grief.

He's tended these seedlings, he's raised them, and planted them, too, and here they are before him tall and proud and still alive, and Crowley knows they are already dying. He can relate.

The sensible thing to do is to discard it all, be done with them. It's not worth the effort, technically, to keep them alive, but to Crowley it's worth it. It has to be. They are worh it. He is worth it. Stupid stubborn perseverance, stupid stubborn hopeful heart.

He isn't immune to foreshadowing. He looks up again. Angry, this time, bitter. A bit of surrender, too.

The rain drips and drops on his face.

He looks back down, snaps the sickly leaf off with expert fingers. Continues to tend to the plants, as he will until they inevitably die. He plucks a tiny tomato. It's so small, fragile, one of the first of a doomed harvest: but it tastes sweet.

Determined, Crowley continues his labor of love, patient as with all living things.

He is responsible for these vines.

Maybe, despite everything, just this once, he can nurture his heart back to health. (And maybe, just maybe, he is not human and does not do things the human way. When it pleases him. He's always been a rebel. Just a little miracle, a little bit of life-giving defiance. So small no one notices, not even us.) Crowley smiles.

He grows tomatoes.

.

This ficlet was inspired by Louise Glück's Vespers. May she rest in peace. "In your extended absence, you permit me use of earth, anticipating some return on investment. I must report failure in my assignment, principally regarding the tomato plants." read the full poem here

it's good for your mental health to have mutuals who are wildly horny about kinks which do nothing at all for you