No, said Aziraphale, it's ineffable.

Anonymous asked:

i can't even see The South Downs Cottage as something the TV pair would want, tbh. they both need to be drawn out of themselves in a way the book versions don't. like, Crowley would be climbing walls and clawing furniture in a week, and Aziraphale, who isn't super connected to people, just checks out entirely w/o the shop to deal with

patricianandclerk answered:

Honestly, like…

The thing about book Aziraphale and Crowley is that they want to be human, and they are quite human. These aren’t just two supernatural entities who wander around eating food or driving fast cars - they like people, they genuinely love people, and while they’re still not human, and certainly not perfect about the way they are with people, like…

Crowley and Aziraphale can walk into a crowd and blend into it. They can move to a small, sleepy village in the South Downs and come across like any other May-December couple in the vicinity, and socialise with people, let the local kids come over to feed the ducks and have a cup of tea, keep chickens, chill. Do they miss the city at times? Sure! So they just drive back up.

They appreciate the peace and quiet, the intimacy of one another’s company, and the social lives they’re finally being able to build in the organic way that humans do, because for however many years they’ve kept their distance so much more to keep from hurting themselves or hurting others too badly, but now they’re retired! They can do as they please!

But TV Aziraphale and Crowley? Like. It isn’t just the actual location or concept of retirement that they don’t want, like… They don’t want to be humans. Oh, they like humans, sure, Crowley especially has that special connection with humans who were cast out because they asked questions, who were rejected without explained reason, etc, but like…

He loves them as a powerful demon can love them. He does all this magic with a snap of his fingers and doesn’t even think about it, and inhabits a gigantic empty apartment, and he socialises seemingly exclusively with Aziraphale. TV Aziraphale is a bit better than TV Crowley in that he actually like, allows people to come into his shop and sells popular books and whatever, and of course there was the 100 Guineas Club, but his social life isn’t like, hugely in-depth, from what we can see?

Crowley still defines most of his meaningful interactions.

And like, if they were alone in a cottage together, they’d rip one another apart, because these are two people who very much like to be alone in crowds, or alone elsewhere. They like to go off and eat at expensive restaurants all on their own, or sleep for days on end on every surface in his bedroom, or spent long hours sprawled in a chair brooding, or read books without moving a muscle until the book is finished. They’d bother one another.

Like, book Crowley and Aziraphale, if they want to be alone, they’ll say. “Hey, angel, I’m gonna go into the greenhouse under the sun lamp for a few days, I’ll see you when I’m up,” or “Darling, I’m starting this stack of books, so please don’t bother me until Tuesday at least.”

They can actually fucking communicate with one another, express their wants and needs, you know?

TV A/C can’t do that. TV A/C would barely be able to ask the other to pass the salt without making a huge thing of it.

So, yeah, I don’t know. South Downs would not work for them.