I Will Accept Almost Anything Neil Gives Us For Season 3. But If Crowley And Aziraphale Become Human

I've seen a number of posts taking Aziraphale to task for hesitating over the word "friends" in 1941 and here's my take.

Neither of them names their relationship before 1941. It's always The Arrangement, and they deny anything else because Heaven and Hell are always listening/watching (many many great metas on their coded language elsewhere so I won't get into it here).

But then this happens in 1941:

"It would take a real miracle for my friend and I to survive it."

Crowley just SAYS it. (Code again, always, but said out loud.) Then the books. The touch. The "oh."

It's not JUST the books. It is that Crowley has NAMED them, named this. Admitted what they had to deny in 1601.

So not a half hour later Aziraphale says this. In public!

He takes the very next possible opportunity to communicate to Crowley - "I heard you. I understood you. I feel the same."

AND JUST TO BE SURE, he says it again, in private, with softness in his look and his voice.

Look at the way he glances away just before the word friends. He wants to use another word, but can't. So he will say it again, in code, but again so Crowley understands.

"I see you. I understood. I understand. I feel the same."

Some of your books make it seems like you believe in actual literal magic, do you? ()

I can write down a few words and make people thousands of miles away, whom I have never met and will never meet, laugh tears of joy and cry tears of true sorrow for people who do not exist and have never existed and never will exist. If that isn't actual literal magic I don't know what is.

You've heard of

But have you heard of

I'm pretty sure I saw @docdust make a shua/sure pun at some point so this one goes out to you

I remember that someone somehwere suggested the 'and Co' in A. Z. Fell and Co was meant to include Crowley

And I just--

"..just like the bookshop is technically my shop, but we both get plenty of use out of it" or whatever the quote was

Obviously he wouldn't be able to slap Crowley's name on the entry of his shop. Heaven and Hell would notice.

He couldn't risk that.

But it has always been theirs, i think.

At the very least, it has always been theirs in Aziraphale's mind.

why i love aziraphale and why i find his character so heartbreaking

So I made a post on why I relate to Crowley and I adore him, obviously. I think a few you misunderstood what I meant there, though (which is understandable, I was a bit incoherent but that is inevitable on this blog). I wasn't saying Aziraphale didn't care about Crowley or was horrible to him, rather the opposite.

What I was saying was maybe Crowley felt unloved against his better judgement, because he knows he is loved by Aziraphale, but maybe everything he has been through has started to chip away at that knowledge. It's happened to me, I'm sure it's happened to a few of you. You are assured that you are loved, you can see them doing things for you, but you feel unloved. Maybe because of the other people who don't love you. Maybe because... you don't love yourself.

But I definitely wasn't putting down Aziraphale, who is a beautiful character. I adore him. I love how every single second, all his emotions are on his face. That's actually how I realised they'd switched bodies--in heaven, 'Aziraphale' had a cool, dismissive look on his face. That could only be Crowley, I knew, because Crowley is a bit better (not a lot, not around Azi of course) at masking his emotions.

That's what's so beautiful about Azi, we can just see how much he feels, how much he adores Crowley, how much hope he had, how much faith in Heaven, how much determination to do the right thing. How determined he is to keep Crowley safe, to make Crowley smile and laugh, and how much it kills him every time he has to push Crowley away for both of their sakes, or he thinks he has to. You both want to protect that optimism and faith, and also shake him and tell him the truth. But how do we know better than him, a 6000 year old angel? There's so much that we don't know, that may have happened behind the scenes, that's orchestrating his decisions.

Some of you are certain that there is more, that he doesn't still believe that what Heaven offers is genuine, because how could he? I'm also sure that there is more, but can I also offer an alternate idea? Even if there wasn't more, maybe he isn't to blame if he did continue to believe in Heaven's goodness.

We've been in toxic relationships. With friends, partners, family. I know how hard it is to accept that something you love is not worthy of that love. Something you admired is something flawed. Something you would do anything to keep is something you need to push away.

The worst of all, of course, is that time, somewhere in our childhood or teens or adulthood, when a lot of us realise our parent or parents are not heroes. That we don't agree with them. That they were wrong about a lot of things. Because they taught us everything, they were our guides, how could they be wrong? And if we can't believe in them, then what are we supposed to believe in?

Maybe Aziraphale is going through that journey, over all those millennia. Some of us are forced to realise it before we even turn ten, some of us haven't realised it yet, some of us may not ever or may not need to.

Maybe Aziraphale is just a child of God, realising that Heaven, his technical family, is not the Good that not only they but the entire world believes them to be. Everyone says Heaven is good, including a lot of Hell, including a lot of humankind, it's just given. What is Heavenly is good. And Aziraphale wants to be good.

But he's going through that painful journey of realising that good may not be what he was taught, that good comes in many shades and tints and hues. And we can see him do it, we can see him defy Heaven and God, for Crowley or for humans or for himself. He's doing it, and we need to see how it isn't easy for him. Having your entire system of belief deconstructed is painful and awful. And if you were wrong once, how do you know you won't be the next time?

It's hard enough for Crowley, torn between whether he was unworthy or whether Heaven was wrong. Imagine the tumult that Aziraphale goes through, because if Heaven accepts him and Heaven isn't always good, does that mean Aziraphale has been doing it all wrong all his life?

He's going through something that we all go through, and is every bit as relatable as Crowley is. I love them both so much. I'm so glad that there's a third season, to see how that arc closes, to see if maybe they find the answers we're all looking for.

@adverbian and @howmanyholesinswisscheese, I hope this helps? Again, I haven't watched season 2 yet and have a horrible memory since I've been watching season 1 heavily medicated, so this is just from what I know and can tell and headcanon, perhaps.

his Winnie the Pooh lookin ass

1941

I should be paid £100 every time I post something about Michael and David and someone inserts “such FRIENDS” or another classic “their FAMILIES”

I could then finally afford funko pop of Crowley and Aziraphale

i saw some pictures of flower crowns earlier and couldn’t get touch-starved! crowley making some to keep his hands busy out of my head

aziraphale and crowley are having their picnic in the park, resting on a shared blanket, the air between them sizzling with the unfamiliar feeling of sweet freedom after the no-apocalypse

crowley’s hands are twitchy, he doesn’t know what to do with them, doesn’t know if he’s allowed to reach out now, doesn’t know if the angel longs for his touch as much as crowley is pining for his

it’s been 6000 years and yet, the yearning still floods his throbbing chest, still swamps his jittery body

he’s always been gone on him

but there are no sides anymore, not for them at least, no heaven or hell to fear - times have changed

so of course (and how could it not), a silent, aching what if starts nagging on the back of his mind; he’s anxiously waiting for a signal, some sort of sign that the angel craves this too

crowley needs to keep busy, needs to occupy himself with something, anything that will distract him from the overwhelming desire to brush over aziraphale’s skin, to stroke over his rosy cheeks, to caress the wrinkles on his forehead

while aziraphale is savouring another one of the treats they’d bought on the way to the park, cheerfully chattering about the last few days, crowley begins plucking daisies from the meadow

it’s something, but it’s not enough

he sneaks a look at the angel, the soft white curls on his head drifting gently in the summer breeze, igniting a rather absurd idea within him

really, it’s a foolish thought

captivated by the image of aziraphale with the flowers in his hair, his hands abruptly stop obeying him and seize the daisies

he snaps his fingers, adding a bunch of other wildflowers to his growing collection

crowley makes one, then - reluctantly - another flower crown, twisting the fragile flowers until he’s somewhat satisfied, somewhat pleased with the result

only afterwards, aziraphale holds his tongue; he quietly takes note of the demon’s slender hands, possibly on the verge of trembling again now that he’d finished the crowns

“for us?”

nodding bashfully, crowley curses the lack of confidence he feels in this fleeting moment

aziraphale picks one of them, cautiously placing it on crowley’s buzzing head, his soft fingers pressing lightly against his long hair, lingering to adjust it again and again until he’s finally content

crowley’s barely breathing anymore when aziraphale grabs his hands, directing them towards the second crown, encouraging him to do the same for him

touching aziraphale - even just briefly - feeling the smooth texture of his hair, getting a taste of angel that he’d once believed he’d never experience - it is blissful, a marvellous sensation he fervently wishes to lose himself in

“thank you, my dear”

hazel eyes meet crowley’s amber ones as their heartbeats are adapting to a speedy, but steady rhythm, bodies almost embracing, almost intertwined like the invisible string tugging on their chests, pulling them closer to each other

tenderly, aziraphale draws crowley’s hand to his mouth, plush lips planting a hint of a kiss on his warm palm

and just like that, his fingers stay still for the rest of the afternoon, crowley’s earlier unease abandoned, long forgotten, eradicated by the angel’s soothing peck

they have the rest of their lives ahead of them, a study of touches just around the corner