Aziraphale repeats three times (1601 / 1862 / 1967) why he’s afraid to let Crowley get involved with him, or take help from him, or get too close to anything holy because of him: they’ll hurt Crowley for it. He thinks he’s compromising Crowley’s only protection. He thinks being kept away from love will save Crowley from the damage of it. Loving the world and compromising his angelic detachment has already put him at risk from heaven—he assumes what hell would do to Crowley for getting involved would be worse.
It takes Crowley showing love to him over and over, anyway, and getting mixed up in rebellion and empathy with or without him, for him to get that being kept from help, friendship, love, hurts Crowley worse than Hell could. Crowley is going to be Crowley with or without him; he’s never going to fit back into hell. But he’ll do better if he doesn’t have to do it alone.
And that’s the gayest thing I’ve ever heard. The fear that giving in to your love will hurt your beloved, that if you admit your queerness it will implicate them, that they aren’t ready to lose what it will cost them to be what they are with you; and then finally finding out that they can’t go back to what they were before you, and neither can you, and not loving them will hurt them worse than anything the world can do, if they’re ready to be loved.
just remembered david tennant’s oldest kid is like. 16. he probably has an active internet life like most people. that means he’s probably seeing all the posts calling david tennant a slut. could you imagine getting home from a long day at school and signing onto your social media to relax but instead you see millions of people discussing your dad’s inherently slutty nature and mildly graphic fanfiction of him bottoming for michael sheen? wild.
An almost universally accepted headcanon in the Good Omens fandom that I don’t quite personally believe in is the idea that Crowley purposefully made his feelings known to Aziraphale for 6000 years, and that he wished Aziraphale would finally notice his flirting with him after all that time.
I just think he couldn’t contain how absolutely smitten and fascinated he was with Aziraphale, and that he didn’t quite understand his own feelings for the angel himself. He never really wanted to to put a label on whatever they were, because that means he would have to think about those feelings. Sure, they had ‘The Arrangement’, but I think that was his unconscious way of finding a reason to see Aziraphale. ‘The Arrangement’ was about their Heaven & Hell duties, not them personally. It was an excuse to see him more often. His sudden flash of anger at the label ‘fraternizing’ used by Aziraphale in 1862 stood out to me. Maybe that was when he realized a label could be used for them, and he wanted a better one. It scared him, pissed him off, and led to that big fight and 80 year long sleep. That won’t be the first time you see him get openly furious when he’s scared, which I’ll bring up again later. It was in 1967, however, when everything changed. When Aziraphale gave him the holy water.
I think this was the moment Crowley realized just how much he loved Aziraphale and wanted to be with him, only because that’s when he realized there was a decent chance Aziraphale felt the same way back. The music is noticeably romantic here too, which only happened in the previous scene where Aziraphale had his big realization of some sorts with Crowley saving his books. I think a barrier was broken between them in this exchange, Crowley speaks so softly and openly here it makes my heart ache. Even Aziraphale sees Crowley’s heartbreak when he doesn’t take up his offer on a ride.The rest of this dialogue had so much more obvious raw meaning behind it, and I think they both knew that. “I’ll take you anywhere you want to go” I mean come on…
After Aziraphale says he goes to fast for him, Crowley slows down and doesn’t address it again. He goes back to how things were before, that is until the Gazebo scene where tensions are high and he explodes from his pent up feelings. Remember when I said he gets angry when he’s scared? He is so enraged when that scene starts, but then his voice suddenly gets soft when he says they can go off together. He isn’t scared when he thinks about that, he’s more confident about that than anything. It’s the moment Aziraphale says they’re on opposite sides that makes him enraged again, angrily saying “We’re on our side!” because the world is ending and all they have left is each other.
All Crowley ever had was Aziraphale and humanity, and humanity was doomed. Both of the infamous break-up scenes (the sidewalk one too) felt to me like he was screaming “You know how I feel about you, don’t you? Do I really need to say it? You feel the same way, don’t you? You said we’d go on a picnic one day, well now’s that day! Please don’t deny it, come with me!”
I believe it was the time they spent together after getting on the bus but before swapping bodies where their true feelings were finally addressed in a conversation. Just before they get on the bus, Crowley is speaking in that exact same soft tone that he had when they were in his Bentley in 1967 and when he said they could go off together to the stars.
That’s my personal headcanon! I love how there are so many places in the show where you can choose where you think they realized their own feelings for the other and when they knew the other felt the same way back, but this is my own personal take on it. I don’t think it was ever as simple as coyly and purposefully one way flirting for Crowley. He’s way too intense, open, and attention hungry for that. The purposeful coyness is more up Aziraphale’s alley, but that’s a whole different essay.
i love how crowley-as-aziraphale stood in the street staring at the bookshop, went inside and touched the cover of a book, & even noticed the new additions, while aziraphale-as-crowley took one look at the bentley, smiled, and hailed a fucking taxi
coworker told me he “hates all mollusks” today. and to each their own obviously but like… theres 100k species of mollusk… you really hate all of them bro? nautiluses and oysters and snails and nudibranches and chitons and thousands of animals youve never even heard of???? what did ammonites even fucking do to you
the-moon-loves-the-sea
couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name
critgemhero
mansku11
assiraphales
flashbastardwithsunglasses
golden-tommo
girlwiththetechnicolorheart
airborneranger63
dollsulli
fishyfishyfishtimes
