#I assume that's really why the metatron wanted to separate them

[mizgnomer]

The tiny, surreptitious, fraction of a half miracle

Good Omens Season 2

#good omens #david tennant #michael sheen #I'm a bit obsessed with the idea that the two of them together are extremely powerful #more powerful than they understand yet #I assume that's really why the metatron wanted to separate them #ineffable husbands #crowley and aziraphale #stuff i posted #go2 #crowley #aziraphale #good omens 2 #goodomensedit #fingers crossed in season three we'll get to see them being deliberately powerful together #...and living happily ever after #pretty please?

[justkeeptrekkin]

Resurrection and The Second Coming

There is a recurring motif in season 2, and that is the image of resurrection and being raised from the dead. I think this all points to what will happen in season 3 and tie into the Second Coming plot that was mentioned by Metatron. I’m not sure what exactly it’s indicating, obviously, but here are the clues:

1) 25 Lazuri miracle

I enjoyed the reference to Lazarus, and I found it quite striking! It IS interesting, isn’t it Crowley, that Heaven measure miracles by how many times it could have brought someone back from the dead?

And isn’t it interesting that Aziraphale and Crowley, combined, could bring back 25 human lives with a single, half-arsed miracle?

I’m getting the impression that bringing people back to life and the power to resurrect is going to be a bigggggg deal in the future plot.

2) The opening credits

The opening credits have been said to hold a few clues for season 3. One of the things I've noticed is that there’s plenty of apocalypse and hell imagery, none of which we see in season 2. For example, above, we see A and C moving underground, like they’re navigating some route to the underworld. Then we see them leading a growing crowd of people through a very traditional portrayal of hell, with fire and giant spiders etc., through the blitz, through a SPACE (?) and a very modern perspective of the apocalypse, with scrapheaps and riots. 

There’s a LOT to unpack in that, but what I want to focus on here is the concept of the afterlife. We’re presented with an almost Dante-esque, Ancient Greek view of Hell: A and C are walking through dim tunnels to a fiery, wretched view of the underworld. Where is this??? In the show, I mean??? We’ve never seen this version of hell. as far as we know, it has always been the bureaucratic landscape that we’ve seen in S1 and S2. We can assume it’s always looked like this because Heaven has always had the office-style setting since even Job’s time. 

So what are we seeing here? A and C leading people to Hell? Then... walking out of it!? It is very reminiscent of the ancient myths of Greek heroes attempting to bring the souls of their loved ones back to Earth. 

And, notably, we do not see either of them walk through heaven in the opening credits. 

Who are they leading through this opening credits scene and why?

3) Give me Coffee or Give me Death

I don’t actually have a lot to say about this other than there was a lot of emphasis on the name of the shop. Possibly just because it’s a fuckin’ cool name for a cafe... but even Metatron makes a pointed remark about it. 

Call me a tin-hat bitch, but I actually have a feeling that Nina, who is sooooo hyperaware of all the bizarre events going on around her-- to the point that she’s lucid at Aziraphale’s party-- is an angel. I think she was removed from the Book of Life, so no one knows she ever existed as an angel. She seems to have some connection with the supernatural, with Sight, and perhaps, given the name of her shop, the afterlife. 

4) The Resurrectionist and Mr Dalrymple

The whole minisode of The Resurrectionist was bizarre-- I really enjoyed it, but it does make 100% sense that it’s referred to as a minisode. Because it feels oddly separate from the plot (until of course we find out the connection with Beelzebub and Gabriel). Even then, though, it’s a little jarring. 

WHY this particular flashback in history? 

And WHY do B and G meet there in the first place? Out of all the places for them to meet in the universe? 

This is another rather heavyhanded hint towards the concept of resurrection and being raised from the dead. Mr Dalrymple, ethics aside, is using the dead to bring life to others. He’s giving the dead a new lease on life. 

And, listen, I’m a fan of the classics, so the connections to Shelley’s Frankenstein is VERY blatant-- bringing in the question of morality and playing god and the creation of life and modern prometheus and responsibility and resurrection etc. AND Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. (The latter especially in the sense that Stevenson was a doctor from Edinburgh.) 

I just think the minisode is another example of a thread left untied in season 2. 

5) Gabriel’s prophecy

“I remember when the morning stars sang together and all the angels of god shouted for joy.” (A reference to Job, see below)

“There will come a tempest and darkness and great storms. And the dead will leave their graves and walk the earth once more. And there will be great lamentations. Everyday is getting closer.” 

I mean, what else is there to say here? This is explicitly a prophecy about what will happen later in the story-- the dead returning and walking the earth. This HAS to be a reference to the Second Coming, which I talk about more in point 9. 

What if this is hinting at a giant rehaul of heaven and hell? The living and the dead facing true judgement?

6) Zombies in the blitz

Have any of you noticed that we’ve seen plenty of Heaven and Hell, but the only time we’ve ever seen any signs of human beings in said afterlife is with the Nazis? It only occurred to me while piecing this post together, but we’ve never seen anyone in heaven aside from angels. No saints, no good people who went to the good place. In hell we’ve seen lots of shuffling people, but honestly I’ve always thought they were demons. Now, we’re seeing the check-in process in Hell, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but... it’s just occurred to me that it’s the only time we’ve explicitly seen any human afterlife in hell rather than just demons.

What does it mean? Not sure. Perhaps it’s hinting at what will occur in season 3. Perhaps it’s suggesting that there is a major fault in how heaven and hell actually organise human afterlife. Maybe the system is broken beyond the institutional abuse we’ve seen among the angels and demons...

ANYWAY.  

Zombies are undead. Life resurrected. Lazarus kinda. Right? Obvious connection. But what *is* interesting is that these Nazis specifically were resurrected as a part of the plot to survey A and C. Out of all the people to bring to life... they are a pretty depressing and unsettling choice. Even if they’re like, comedically terrible/evil. Eek. 

Lazarus, after all, was supposed to be a good guy. (I think. Jesus brought him back to life after all.)

7) Job’s children

The various versions of this story I’ve looked at have been fantastically vague about what Job heard and what happened to him at the end-- which is, I gather, the whole point. The message appears to be about having faith in God. It’s a test of faith and love for the Almighty. 

But like, even the idea of the children being returned to life is vague. In some versions it looks like he gets his original kids back plus more, in others, it’s not specified. In this version, we see Crowley’s kindness in saving them in the form of metamorphosis (at least temporarily). Job’s children aren’t brought back to life as such, then, but they are returned to Job. In a way, the whole of this series is bringing stories back to life by retelling them on the screen. (Stop it, I know it’s a stretch...)

8) Magic tricks

Ok, so the most famous magic tricks in the book are the idea of DEATH EVADING ESCAPADES! Such as sawing a body in half. Or, in Aziraphale’s case, the bullet catch. 

I dunno where I'm going with this, but it feels relevant. Especially given that there’s the whole scare of ‘oh no we can’t use miracles! I could be discorporated! Then there’s all the paperwork... for RESURRECTION...’

9) The Second Coming

So, I am not all too familiar with the Second Coming. It appears across various religions and interpretations of the scripture. 

My understanding of it is LIMITED even after research, so I would appreciate others chipping in if they can clarify for me and for others. 

- It involves Jesus returning to Earth (often during a time of war and destruction among humans, though not in every religion).

- Jesus’ second coming to Earth will trigger Judgement Day. The living and the dead will be judged on whether they go to heaven or to hell. 

- Some Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that the second coming of Jesus occurs after Armageddon and brings the ‘conclusion of the system of things’. A giant rehaul, I think.  

- For Catholics, the second coming will cause ‘the fullness of the reign of God and the consummation of the universe and mankind.’ What this essentially means is that mankind and the universe get to share in Jesus’ resurrection, so the dead will walk again. Just as God manifested himself through Jesus once, now, God will appear through the whole of mankind and the universe. Personally, I've always appreciated this interpretation of God-- that the Holy Spirit is everywhere and in everything, rather than a person in the sky.

- Catholics also believe that “at the moment of Jesus' arrival, three events will happen all at once in an instant, in the blink of an eye: the living will die, the universe will be transfigured, and the dead will be resurrected, judged, and recompensed. After this single instant or moment, the church does not know what will happen for the rest of eternity - only that the damned will continue to be in hell and the saved will continue to experience the beatific vision.” (thank you Wikipedia)

- Most religions see it is as the final true judgement of God over mankind. 

Conclusions

I don’t know what it all means, but I think it all boils down to the Second Coming, the final judgement, and perhaps a big reshuffle of heaven and hell. 

In my opinion, Heaven and Hell as we know it in the show will be completely deconstructed and reconstructed. I think perhaps Metatron has been the ‘man behind the curtain’, an imposter meddling with mankind, their prophecies, and even the Book of Life. 

Perhaps, all of these little hints are an example of Metatron’s ‘Second Coming’ plan bleeding through whatever reality we’re in. 

#good omens season 2 spoilers #good omens #ineffable husbands #meta #Just chats shit

[inconveniently-discorporated]

Crack theory inspired by book of life theory.

So I'm sitting here thinking about all of these little things--

"All of us vs all of them"

Heaven & Hell seem to be hell (and heaven) bent on fighting each other and reducing the Earth down to a puddle of goo.

The Them, Newt & Anathema, Agnes Nutter.

Further Nice & Accurate Prophecies -- namely, The Big Story

The Book of Life, and past-meddling being teased -- at least maybe some wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff might be afoot.

What if it's not the Metatron messing with things? What if it's Aziraphale? In an attempt to save the Earth from Heaven and Hell. But maybe not to the extent of the actual book of life theory.

So this whole time post-S1, I've assumed that the two sides teamed up maybe because they were mad at the humans for averting the war. But I think "all of us vs all of them" might actually be humanity trying to avert another apocalypse (on a much bigger scale), whilst both demons and angels are taking an ACTIVE part in making the second coming happen (instead of everyone assuming these two idiots on Earth have it handled).

And I'm thinking about Aziraphale. I'm feeling like he's not going to want to immediately go against everything, and out himself as (still) a traitor. I think he's going to put a lot of work into undermining it, while not being obvious about it.

LIKE, MAYBE, SAY, BEING THE ONE TO SEND AGNES NUTTER VISIONS OF THE FUTURE SO EVERYTHING CAN BE WRITTEN DOWN AND HUMANITY HAS A BLUEPRINT FOR AVERTING THE APOCALYPSE? TWICE??

I feel like maybe we're going to see that Aziraphale really DOES need to be in Heaven and wield that power so he can actually work against it, but I also think that he's going to need Crowley's help earthside to coordinate all of that.

I'm NOT sure what to think about Muriel being in charge of the bookshop so far. They were installed by the Metatron, there are Heavenly ulterior motives. But I DO think it's going to end up being a critical miscalculation on the Metatron's part -- underestimating the power of "the dim one". I really think Muriel is going to help humanity in the end.

Although it would be funny if the Metatron was actually not a bad dude after all. Pretty classic for characters to be set up to be obvious villains, only for them to have secret plans that make them heroes after all. Maybe he really DID need to separate the two so they could work together but on separate pieces, but couldn't be obvious about it so he doesn't get Angel Revolution'd by the archangels who want war. Maybe he HAD to say what he did to Aziraphale about not avoiding the war because it was a test from God to see what he would do.

Like, why Aziraphale? If it's to get him out of the way, why NOT let Michael write him out of the book of life? Why bet on a wild card who's in love with a joker? I am now suspicious of the Metatron not as a villain, but as a secret hero. HMMM!

And just as an added bonus, I found it particularly powerful when Muriel said that books were like portable little people. That honestly feels like it's going to mean something at some point.

#good omens #gos3 theories #crack theories

[nofomogirl]

Metatron's manipulation step by step

Part 9: Metatron's Goal

Part 1 - where I discuss the significance of the coffee.

Part 2 - where I take a look back at season 1

Part 3 - from Metatron's arrival on Earth to sending the Archangels away

Part 4 - inside the bookshop after sending the Archangels away

Part 5 - at the table in the street

Part 6 - Inside the bookshop after the ineffable breakup (mostly)

Part 7 - the very last scenes

Part 8 - speculations on what could have happened off-screen

There's only one big question left to address: what was Metatron trying to achieve with all of that? The truth is we don't know what his endgame is but I think for now it's safe to assume he wants the world to end. Still, why exactly did he lure Aziraphale to Heaven?

I see two possible answers. He either wanted to separate Aziraphale and Crowley by any means necessary, in which case he's going to keep Aziraphale in Heaven simply to keep them apart, or he actually does need Aziraphale for something.

Let's dig into each of them.

1. Metatron's goal was to separate Aziraphale and Crowley

By the time Metatron arrives on Earth, it's quite clear that if he's serious about bringing about any kind of apocalyptic event, Aziraphale and Crowley cannot be left to their own devices. They must be contained somehow for three reasons:

They've proven they're ready to fight for Earth and humanity against Heaven and Hell.

It turned out they can perform VERY powerful miracles together.

Crowley has infiltrated Heaven and accessed its files.

My headcanon is that:

#1 (true at the end of season 1) was deemed inconsequential in the long run.

After all, Aziraphale and Crowley's actions weren't the main factor in preventing the end of the world. Most of their efforts turned out unnecessary and a lot of things sorted themselves out without their help. I can see how one could question how significant their contribution was in the end.

#2 (true at the beginning of season 2) was concerning and called for attention.

Heaven already knew Aziraphale and Crowley were ready to fight with all they'd got, they just assumed it wasn't anything to be concerned about. However, the miracle proved that what Aziraphale and Crowley got was actually quite a lot.

In this version of events, I imagine this is when Metatron did his detailed research on Aziraphale and found instances of his cooperation with Crowley. Right after the alarm went off.

#3 (true at the end of season 2) was what required immediate action.

Let's not underestimate the fact that in season 1 Aziraphale and Crowley were able to do anything because they were in the middle of things. They knew a lot of details, including when exactly it was supposed to happen. Regardless of how motivated they were and how potentially powerful, it meant nothing if they were completely in the dark. If Gabriel had voted in favor of Agmageddon the Sequel, it's quite likely it would have happened as planned simply because they had no idea what was going on and might have not realized it until it was too late.

Did you notice that Metatron's actions are timed perfectly to prevent Crowley from sharing with Aziraphale everything he has learned in Heaven?

I know a lot of people are pointing out how Crowley was withholding information from Aziraphale, but I really don't believe he would keep that to himself. In season 1 he called Aziraphale about Armageddon the second he was able to and immediately hatched a plan for how they could stop it. Now that he knows Heaven and Hell are plotting the next one right now, he wouldn't just pretend it's not happening. I just don't see it. If they weren't separated, Crowley would possibly plan a day off and enjoy their extremely alcoholic breakfast at the Ritz, but then it would be back to business. Back to saving the Earth together.

Aziraphale doesn't learn crucial information not because Crowley intends to keep him ignorant but because Metatron prevents him from sharing it.

If the goal was to separate Aziraphale and Crowley, Metatron's logic is correct. Taking Aziraphale to Heaven was the best and most efficient way.

But it is possible there was more.

2. Metatron's goal was to get Aziraphale

Metatron offered Aziraphale the position of Supreme Archangel.

It's suspicious for a great many reasons, but one that I don't think we're addressing enough is that there was a position to be offered at all.

Think about it.

There was no Supreme Archangel for the entire duration of season 2.

Metatron was very big on Heaven's image and avoided anything that might imply there was an institutional problem. Logically, when he removed Gabriel from office, he should name his replacement right away. But from what we know - which, okay, is very incomplete, but still - he didn't even mention it.

It didn't look good at all.

It looked even worse when Gabriel didn't go quietly but ran. I mean, nothing tells "no institutional problems" like facing a crisis without a leader, with Archangels squabbling over who was responsible for what, right?

With what we know about all characters at this point, I find it hard to imagine Metatron just failed to pick someone. I'm more inclined to believe he had a reason to leave the post open.

Yes, the most plausible reason I can think of is that he had someone specific in mind and he knew he had to approach that person very carefully and at just the right moment.

So, what may happen in season 3?

I've seen a lot of theories that Metatron won't stop at taking Aziraphale to Heaven but will also tamper with his memories to better control him.

I think it's very likely too. In fact, I think that might have been one of the reasons why Meatron was in such a rush to take Aziraphale back with him. We know that memory wipe can be done remotely but that doesn't mean it's unlimited. Perhaps an angel needs to be in Heaven for the procedure to work?

What I think will happen is pretty much what all the fandom thinks will happen - Metatron's plan will fail and it will be in part because he underestimates Aziraphale again.

Specifically - and that might be a less popular opinion - I think Metatron underestimates Aziraphale's innate capacity for rebellion and overestimates Crowley's influence on him in that regard.

In season 1 when Aziraphale finally decided to truly go against Heaven it wasn't because Crowley convinced him to. It was because Heaven disappointed him. Yes, Crowley convinced him to do many things, to take many small steps that made the big final step easier. But still, that final step was all Aziraphale. And he is capable of taking that step again, even without his memories.

In the end, what I expect from season 3 is Aziraphale and Crowley to be reunited and play the final game as a team. What I hope for in season 3 is that they will both achieve something on their own before that happens.

I've seen a lot of people speculate that they'd both keep hitting dead ends until they're back together. Honestly, I don't want that to be the case. I want the story to reflect their relationship and what I want for their relationship is to be a choice, not a necessity. I don't want them to be useless on their own and only capable of functioning together. I want them to be capable on their own but stronger and happier together.

That concludes this series of posts. Thank you all for reading!

I'll probably do a mother post for it and I'll keep posting other metas and analyses. I might write about our sister fandom once the final episode of S2 hits. Most likely I will slow down a little and return to work on that one GO fanfic I started not long after season 1...

Whether I'm active here or not, I love you, you're the best fandom to be part of!

#good omens #good omens 2 #good omens meta #good omens 2 spoilers #aziraphale #crowley

[fearandhatred]

The Alternate Coffee Theory

okay i've been thinking about this a lot. like an unhealthy amount. so: the coffee that the metatron buys for aziraphale is obviously significant. however.

i'm starting to think that its significance really doesn't have that much of a role to play in season 3's plot as we might think, or as the coffee theory might suggest. it might honestly just be important because of all that it symbolises in the last episode, aka earthly desires and by extension, the metatron's hatred of humans and crowley. hear me out

Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death, aka The Metatron Hates Humanity

when i tell y'all i genuinely even tried abbreviating Large Oat Milk Latte With A Dash Of Almond Syrup in case there was some subliminal hidden message in that order... yeah that didn't work out. but honestly i think the main thing to take away from this scene is that the metatron hates humans.

the metatron (so demeaningly): your establishment. i assume they always ask for coffee (eye roll) (deep sigh) (dripping with sarcasm)

nina: no one ever asks for death no :)

the metatron (mockingly): no i don't suppose they doooooo. sooo predictable

the metatron does not mention anything about the world or humans when he's talking to aziraphale (at least not what is shown to us, but if he didn't at all then it's very interesting that aziraphale didn't pick up on that, but that's a whole separate thing).

what this scene with the coffee mostly does is establish the metatron as The Antagonist of season 3. yeah, it's already hinted by the second coming bomb drop, but this solidifies it: he thinks of himself as superior to humans, he genuinely does not care what happens to them. and it'll be harder to change his mind (which aziraphale will undoubtedly try to) because of this.

"Where Would I Get My Coffee?" aka Aziraphale Exposing His Priorities, aka The Metatron Hates Crowley

this is where i think the coffee is REALLY important. it draws out some interesting conversations between the metatron and aziraphale that go exactly how the metatron intended. and also, while the previous scene shows how he hates humans, everything from that point on shows that he hates crowley.

"shall i?" "drink it? of course. i've ingested things in my time."

this has definitely been said before but to reiterate, the metatron is trying to appeal to aziraphale here with human things, which is funny considering we've established that he hates humans. i think from this point onwards, the metatron is trying to parse out just how attached aziraphale is to humanity.

you can kind of see his intent when aziraphale says the coffee is very nice and he replies "yes, i should jolly well hope so". when i first heard that i was all ???? why the hell did he say it like that? but i think it's him confirming that yes, aziraphale partakes in earthly pleasures. maybe there's something to be said here about gluttony being a sin? no idea. so yes, aziraphale loves the world. but then:

2. "where would i get my coffee?"

now THIS is interesting. because aziraphale says "no, i don't want to go to heaven. where would i get my coffee?" and the metatron doesn't say anything like "as archangel you can go wherever you want. you can come back to earth and drink coffee. you can manifest coffee in heaven."

NO. he says "you can have crowley with you". it's a very pointed segue. and if we take it that we are shown all the important parts of the conversation, that means that aziraphale accepts the offer pretty much right after learning that he can be with crowley.

so in the previous point, in the bookshop, the metatron confirms that aziraphale loves and knows humanity. now here, he confirms (this is what he thinks, at least) that aziraphale loves humanity, and he loves crowley more. and to him, this is A Major Problem.

The Offer, aka The Metatron's True Intentions

okay, now let's talk about the metatron's offer to 1. make aziraphale an archangel, and 2. make crowley an angel too.

yes, the second coming is the metatron's major goal. yes, he wants aziraphale to help. but not in the way he thinks: he wants aziraphale to help by getting out of the way. this means that the offer to make crowley an angel again was genuine, because no matter which way it goes, him and heaven benefit from this.

aziraphale and crowley, together, loving humanity, is literally all that stands between heaven and The Ineffable Plan, because that was the case for Armageddidn't. if the metatron gets both of them to go to heaven, fantastic! the troublemakers removed willingly from humanity and doing good (aka advancing the plan).

if crowley refuses to go with aziraphale, fantastic! he knows how much aziraphale relies on crowley. he thinks they're weaker when they're not together. by separating him from all that he loves and directing his attention elsewhere, that's when they can really start doing things.

Coffee Recap and What This Means For Season 3

ok so. tldr. the coffee was placed in the show for symbolic reasons, to set up all these scenes and conversations and show the metatron's true intentions. maybe the coffee even represents aziraphale's attachment to things that are decidedly not heaven, but are in fact heaven's rejects. heaven's fallen. the metatron has decided to make that his problem.

now maybe they really will brainwash aziraphale in heaven, or refuse to let him go back to earth or communicate with crowley in any way. but that doesn't take away from the fact that aziraphale went up there for what he genuinely believes is right, and that is what matters to me, honestly.

but this makes the metatron a lot more sinister than i originally thought. he's very smart; that offer he made wasn't an offer at all, because either way it went would have benefited him. and the fact that he's thought this through means that this is definitely not the end. crowley is probably in danger. aziraphale will be put under a lot of control that would be hard to break free of.

i don't think there's a possibility of them changing the metatron's mind, but i might be wrong. i do think that the season will end with humanity saved and heaven becoming a better place, maybe a joint partnership with hell, but whether they defeat the metatron or somehow make the whole of heaven and hell see sense is past me.

#fearandhatred #fearandmeta #watch me be completely and utterly wrong #but i do think it's slightly more plausible than the coffee theory at least #it's 3am #good omens #good omens season 2 #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #crowley #aziraphale #the metatron #the coffee theory #good omens theory #neil gaiman #good omens meta

[samael-your-guardian-angel]

Ring Ring

Asmodeus was calling, and Samael had the sinking feeling that he was about to be in trouble. So much for fresh air, he thought, and answered, trying to sound casual and not at all full of dread at the thought of going back into a very small flat with a very large amount of people in it.

"Hi, Mo-"

"Where exactly are you?!"

"On our bench," Samael said, gearing up to defend himself. "Well, it's not our bench, more like their bench, but it's in the same spot. I didn't go far."

"That's not the point!' Asmodeus scolded. "The point is, you shouldn't go anywhere unaccompanied-" there it was, Samael had known that was coming- "None of us should! What do you think you're doing?! It's dangerous-"

"No, it isn't," Samael said, trying to reassure him. Mo had a lifelong habit of catastrophising; it was why Samael had stuck a note on the window and climbed out rather than walking past Asmodeus out the front door. Now he had to try and calm down a frenzied demon.

He had just wanted to go for a walk.

Aware that he was still in public, Samael tried to be subtle. "The M to E fix worked, we solved that problem-"

"You didn't-" Asmodeus said, cutting Samael off.

"Yeah, we did," Samael said, scanning the horizon. Walls have ears. Ducks have ears. Do ducks have ears? "I did it myself. He should be just some guy now, right?"

"Oh, do you mean Enoch? Yes, Enoch is "just some guy" now," Asmodeus snarked, and Samael screwed his eyes shut. "But the Metatron isn't!"

The second wave of dread crashing over Samael was much worse than the first.

"How d'you mean?" he asked, praying to his God and this world's God and every world's God that Asmodeus did not mean what Samael thought he meant.

"What do you mean, how do I mean? There's two of them now."

Samael screamed internally.

Of course. Of course it hadn't worked, and of course Samael had completely misread what Enoch had meant this morning. Of course having a separate account meant there was a separate person running it. Of course Samael had run off obliviously, leaving poor Mo to assume the worst. Of course he was the world's biggest fucking idiot.

"No," he heard himself whisper, as if protesting would undo it all.

"Oh, yes," Asmodeus snapped, and Samael wanted nothing better than to curl up into a ball and stop existing. "And you- you who had attempted to foil the Metatron yourself- are now out there, alone, with two bloody Metatrons and a squad of bloody Archangels hunting for the culprit! So, I ask you again, what do you think you're doing?!"

The only thing worse than having all the Hosts of Heaven hunting him down to kill him, was having Asmodeus be so angry and disappointed with him.

"I'm-" Samael's eyes burned. "I just wanted a walk, Mo."

Pathetic.

"Get back to the flat," Asmodeus hissed.

Walking would take too long. Samael struggled to hang up, gather his shopping bags (risking his life for chocolate syrup and sprinkles, fucking idiot) and miracle himself back into Crowley's flat all at once.

Reappearing, he couldn't look Asmodeus in the eye. He tilted his head back, trying desperately not to embarrass himself further by crying about it. Mo was surely furious enough without having to deal with Samael's pitiful attitude.

"Are you alright? Are you hurt?" Asmodeus demanded. Samael couldn't speak.

No wonder Muriel hadn't wanted to come outside with him. They had probably figured it out right away. Everyone else had probably figured it out right away. Everyone except Samael; fucking idiot that he was.

Then, much to Samael's surprise, he found himself being pulled into Asmodeus' arms, and Asmodeus was murmuring "Oh, darling, you scared me half to death! I'm so sorry-" and he was being kissed all over his face.

Samael was going to have to do so many apology dances. But at least Momo was holding him and whispering sweetly into his ear. That was all that mattered, really.

#ooc #samael's perspective #((if i'm going to write two characters - said i - i should *write two characters*)) #((but my god this took forever))

[shitisaysometimes]

Can we PLEASE talk about how Crowley KNOWS heaven's plans during the confession scene?? Whatever. I'm gonna talk about it you dont have to listen.

🛑 SPOILERS 🛑

I'm convinced Crowley is Lucifer so much of my interpretation is based on that sub theory which I'm not going to go in depth on here because its a whole post on its own (and I'm already getting bored writing this one lol). I'm also not convinced that Metatron is really going to let Aziraphale run heaven. I think he's going to lock Az up (either as prisoner or as commander-in- chief) (but probably a prisoner) to keep the Our Side™️ team up from interfering. I’m focusing on the subtext in the confession scene conversation and implications for season 3.

Crowley knows the plans for Apocalypse 2. Which means he knows how it STARTS.

We viewers only see the last bit (the amens) but its implied that Crowley sees much more while we're viewing Aziraphale in the cutaway. The line "Tell me you said no." is repeated twice and increasingly desperate. Yes, he wants Aziraphale to stay with him, but more importantly, I think Aziraphale returning to heaven is the first step to start the End again. This is supported by Crowley saying "You can't leave this bookshop." Because if Az DOES leave the bookshop (and goes to Heaven) then the End is started.

Also why he confesses - "I didn't get a chance to say what I was going to say, I think I better say it now." Why now? Because he won't get a chance to later, because they'll be on opposite sides. Likely fighting each other. (Assuming Metatron is being truthful) (which... eh).

It explains Crowley's agitation while Aziraphale is with Metatron. He already knows what Metatron is doing (tempting Az). Earlier in episode 4 or 5 (can't remember, not looking it up), Crowley is worrying about Aziraphale and says "it's always too late." This time is also too late because by the time he returns, Aziraphale is already convinced he should go to heaven/leave the bookshop.

I think the Job story is included because that's when God and Satan made a bet over the devotion of God's most faithful. A parallel to what is now happening with Aziraphale. (Don't get me started on the almond syrup implications rn omg). (Side note, most scholarship distinguishes Lucifer and Satan as two entities/concepts and knowing Gaiman keeps within the theologic cannon, I think we'll find that's true in the Good Omens universe too)(Either they're two separate entities or Satan is a mask of Crowley's)(but thats another post omg thats like the third time I've said that I need to stfu).

In the "I forgive you/Don't bother" exchange, I dont think Crowley is deflecting because he doesn't think his past is worthy of forgiveness. I think it's because he knows what will happen in the future. Namely that season 3 will show Crowley and Az on opposite sides rather than together as they have been. Aziraphale (might be) leading heaven's armies against Crowley (Lucifer). And Crowley doesnt think that is worth forgiving.

I'm especially convinced of this because of the sudden interest in the "or give me death" name that Crowley and Metatron take in the last episode(s). "Does anyone ever choose death?/How predictable" especially makes me think that Crowley is going to be the one to choose death - his own death - to save everyone else's, especially Aziraphale's (and surprising Metatron). A parallel between "The Second Coming" and the... idk first coming (? lol) since Jesus sacrificed himself and all that.

Like the ladies said, Aziraphale and Crowley don't say what's on their minds. Crowley isn't talking about them, he's talking about the plans he knows about. And he knows that he doesn't want to be opposed to Aziraphale.

I'm sure I have more, but this is enough to chew on. (And I'm tired of typing).

I'm foaming at the fkn mouth.

#good omens #good omens 2 #spoilers #good omens spoilers #good omens 2 spoilers #verify this rant when season 3 comes out #or whatever

[autisticandroids]

Oh patron saint of mpreg, tell us, what is the absolute gold standard canon divergent mpreg scenario with Cas and Dean?

so for me the gold standard is for cas to get pregnant due to some kind of magical or metaphysical situation that dean at least does not perceive as sex. bonus points is cas is hesitant about it but refuses to explain why (because he doesn't know how dean will deal with the concept of himself being able to potentially get cas pregnant), so dean is like "we're doing it anyway" and then they do it and then cas doesn't tell anyone that he is pregnant until circumstances force the information out of him. and then dean has to deal with the fact that 1) cas can get pregnant, 2) cas is pregnant, 3) it's his, and he does so pretty poorly.

the rest is under a cut because this post is over 2.5k words long.

my favorite times for this to happen are at the end of season nine, just before dean dies and gets demonized in do you believe in miracles, and at the start of season twelve, just before sam and dean go to jail, because the pining in both those scenarios is delicious but it is so much more powerful if cas is also pregnant, and never even told dean. double points if the truth somehow comes out while they're separated so when dean comes back it's like. yeah cas is pregnant. it's yours. welcome home dean now you have to coddle cas' emotions because he thought he would have to raise your baby alone.

the season twelve scenario is particularly delicious because 1) we can have lucifer slut shaming cas in front of crowley in rock never dies, so crowley knows before dean, and 2) much more importantly, mary is there, and i am obsessed with like. okay. several things.

- the idea of mary getting all baby fever because she misses her boys and this is like. a baby she can take care of because she never got to take care of sam

- the idea of dean working through some of his parentification trauma by coparenting a child with the parent whose place he felt he had to take

- the idea of mary coming in and projecting her insane 1980s gender roles all over cas, suddenly treating him like a woman, stripping him of agency, etc. and like. dean would also do this even though he's not from the eighties, but mary would do it double strength, and they would reinforce each other, it would be a nightmare

- also mary trying to relate to cas on the Travails Of Motherhood etc. and cas being like ?????????? like i cannot stress enough that the weird gender roles she projects onto cas are also standards that she held herself to back when she was a Wife And Mother. while cas is like mary i am not a human woman and also i don't see what "having to look pretty for my man when i'm all baby bloaty" has to do with anything. that's not something i feel like i have to do

oh and 3) could you imagine lily sunder has some regrets if cas was pregnant? unfathomable episode. like ishim and mirabel's reaction but ALSO lily's. and it would fix the number one issue i have with lily sunder, which is that the resolution of the moral dilemma is "well AKSHUALLY the kid was human and not a nephilim so killing it was bad" rather than "it was bad to kill lily's baby, full stop." like ishim's cover up and using the machinery of power to manipulate the truth is very compelling, but the fact that it results in the moral essentially being "it would have been okay if the kid had been a nephilim" suuuuuucks.

basically, there's a reason i have two entire mpreg aus set in season twelve.

and then the delicious part in the season nine version is like. one, dean is away for much longer and he could be anywhere. also he's a demon and he's cheating on cas with crowley. and then even when cas gets him back he's still cursed with the mark, so we can get all weepy over that. you know. i'm the one who's going to have to watch you murder the world and i'm eight months pregnant. etc etc.

but the other thing that's juicy about this version is that cas is still semi-involved with the other angels at this point, like he's roadtripping around with hannah and they're trying to get heaven under control, so carrying a nephil is going to really affect those relationships. so he's going to be probably disliked by the other angels, and there are MANY opportunities for slut-shaming, but at the same time, the other "outcast" type angels might respect him for violating heaven's dictates.

and then of course there's his grace vampirism victorian wasting disease. in canon he's perfectly happy to let himself die, but if he were having dean's baby he would absolutely not do that, that's dean's baby he's endangering there. so of course there's the terrible guilt of having to kill other angels so he can live, plus potentially preparing to die shortly after childbirth so he doesn't have to keep killing. delicious.

and on top of all this cas can get slutshamed by metatron in, depending on when exactly he gets knocked up, meta fiction, stairway to heaven, and do you believe in miracles. plus stairway to heaven would be insane like all the angels would know that cas is pregnant. they would see it in his grace. like cas' angel army would just. know that he was pregnant with a nephil, and have to accept that because he's their leader. in love with humanity indeed.

i'm trying to think of other good times for this drama with cas getting secretly pregnant through a nonsexual interaction to take place. it would be great in season six. like: he's doing a blasphemy with his body but at the same time he's this big important rebel leader so they can't say shit about him, and also he's pregnant while fighting these big important battles (fun and sexy), AND this is like, hot on the heels of the realization that something about his feelings for dean is untoward, expands beyond the bounds of ordinary friendship and camaraderie. like he realizes that, and maybe even that he has sexual feelings for dean, and then he gets immediately knocked up. stunning.

it would ALSO be extremely fun for it to be some kind of... i don't know, magical longer gestation times, whatever, but for cas to have gotten pregnant sometime in s5 and only realized during the Year Of Lisa. LOVE to watch a man rake leaves while both metaphorically carrying the taint of taboo sexual feelings for him and literally carrying his child.

but the thing about season six is, first of all, cas isn't really... envisioning a future with dean. not the way he does in the later seasons. like does he fantasize about a future with dean? yes. like. he really did watch that motherfucker rake leaves. but it's only fantasy. he expected to never speak to dean again after swan song until dean prayed to him in the third man. he's obsessed with dean, but it's distant. remote.

like, we talk about cas babytrapping dean in the later seasons with jack, and he absolutely does, and he would do it even more if dean got him literally pregnant, but that babytrap is about... how do i put this. it's about winning dean's affection. late seasons cas knows that he's going to die by dean's side. the difference that babytrapping dean makes is that maybe it will get dean to be nice to him in the mean time, instead of discarding him like so much toilet paper.

but season six cas doesn't think of it like that. if he were gonna babytrap dean, it would be in the more traditional sense of forcing dean to stay with him in order to raise their child together. and he would never do that. he wants dean to have a happy future, which in his mind does not include him. like, compare here "he's retired and he's to stay that way" in the man who would be king, where cas assumes that dean is happy without him and expects him to live out his days peacefully without ever seeing him again, to "i'm the one who's going to have to watch you murder the world" in the prisoner, where cas assumes that he will be by dean's side for centuries.

but anyway, the other, much more important problem with season six is that cas has a war to fight. like, in the later seasons, cas really has nothing. even when he's on tenuous good terms with the angels, he doesn't really have a home with them. the winchesters are his family, and he'd give up anything for them. he has nothing in his life. he's at rock bottom, and this becomes truer the further along you go. late seasons cas has nothing he would prioritize over serving the winchesters, and he would be happy dropping anything he was involved in to have and raise dean's baby. parenting would give him a purpose that he no longer has, because everything else has been stripped from him.

but in season six cas has a life outside of them. like yes, he has a war to fight, but he also has a place in heaven, with the other angels. he belongs somewhere, he has solid connections to the outside world. even if he didn't have a war to fight, i don't know how excited he would be to have and raise a baby (even dean's baby) because he simply has other things he could be doing. he's involved in the world beyond the winchesters.

like, the reason cas wants to be a parent is that he is totally alone and totally purposeless. having a child gives him both a reason for being and someone who will always love him and who he can care for. if he doesn't have that hole in his life he might not be so eager to fill it with a baby.

for all these reasons, this plotline really doesn't work in season six, because you simply cannot justify cas not getting an abortion, unless you do something nasty like make angel abortion impossible, which i don't love.

you COULD somehow put the impregnation just at the end of season six, maybe just before the man who would be king, such that cas doesn't realize he's pregnant until he's already godstiel. you guys are unfortunately very aware of how obsessed i am with pregnant godstiel.

actually, @jeanne-de-valois has a concept of like. a single, madness fueled midnight hookup immediately pre-tmwwbk (or maybe even during, but prior to the superman mistake), where cas is simultaneously so stressed from being stretched so thin from the war and the lying and the shady dealings, and so high on being The Big Man In Heaven, that he's bold and out of his mind enough to actually come onto dean, like he just appears one night in dean's bedroom and is like, fuck me, and dean is like 👁👄👁 okay. so they have one single adrenaline and madness fueled hookup, and then everything immediately goes to shit.

and i think that's a great place for cas to get pregnant, and then he doesn't realize until he's become god, or maybe he does and he's just like "i'll deal with it later," either way godstiel is like oh? i carry dean's heir inside me? i will have dean's baby. i will have dean's baby it is my right and also my boon to him and also a symbol of my great and magnanimous love for humanity. and also maybe i will put giant paintings of myself pregnant with his child up in churches. what about that. which would be fun. don't know when he would give birth though. actually it would be insane if he gave birth as emmanuel and was just like. raising dean's nephil when dean found him again. nuts. but it just doesn't really have the same flavor as late seasons mpreg. doesn't compel me nearly as much. like the symbolism of godstiel being pregnant with dean's child is fun and sexy but them actually raising the kid afterwards doesn't compel me nearly as much, so it's better to leave literal mpreg to the later seasons and let godstiel mpreg reside in symbolism and fantasy.

or maybe the fetus gets stolen by the leviathans when cas walks into the lake and dean has to battle his leviathanated nephil daughter as the main villain of s7. like she's dick roman's secret weapon. i think that would be fun, actually. kind of an emma situation but drawn out over the whole season. and he thinks cas is dead for most of it so she's all he's got left of cas and a mess cas left for him to clean up. big sexy.

and as a bonus, i will also tell you the best time, imo, for dean to get pregnant: near the end of season eight. possibly a single, tragic farewell fuck in sacrifice when cas is planning to lock himself away in heaven and they're never gonna see each other again. and this impregnates dean with cas' nephil.

but then cas is human. and he can't do anything about it. like generally if they managed to get dean pregnant somehow, cas would immediately talk him into an abortion (which wouldn't be too hard; dean's natural white midwestern man who doesn't vote aversion to abortion would be at war with the horror of being pregnant, and the horror would win), or might not even inform dean that he's pregnant, and just quietly end the pregnancy without dean's knowledge, because cas would never put dean through that. but if cas is human, he can't do that. and furthermore, that nephil is the last evidence of his angelic nature that persists. it's the last of what he used to be, the last of his grace. and there's something absolutely delectable about that.

then of course dean would have to leave the bunker if he was pregnant with a nephil, because angels would be after him, and he wouldn't want to lead them to gadreel, so i am imagining dean discovering that he's pregnant and then showing up in a panic at the gas n sip like "actually cas i'm also out of the bunker will you go on the run with me?" and then they go on the run and have to live in motels again and cas gets to live with take care of dean who is pregnant with his child which is essentially his dream, and he doesn't have to feel guilty because he's no longer capable of giving dean an abortion so he doesn't feel obligated to get him to have one. ideally cas gets re-angeled just in time to give dean an angelic c-section. or maybe they rely on a normal human c-section in a hospital and cas stays human and they are two humans raising their nephil, which is also fun to me.

#spn #asks #anonymous #mpregpocalypse

[talltree-writes]

I Didn’t Mean to Fall // Ineffable Husbands

Gabriel and Beelzebub try to pit Aziraphale and Crowley against each other by revealing some old information. 

Genre: fluff, a little angst, f2l, 

Pairing: Aziraphale/Crowley (Ineffable Husbands) 

Warnings: none

Word Count: 2.2k

Author’s Note: This has been sitting in my docs since a few months after the show came out. I think I was going to try to write it all out in a formal style, but I like this better, honestly. There are most certainly many fics with some of these same tropes, but I just really like them. I have not read the book (yet!!), so if something is wrong in regards to the written canon, I’m very sorry. 

-Basically Gabriel has seen what’s going on  and he’s here to sow discord for C/A

-Aziraphale is in his bookshop organizing his shelf of first edition poetry books

-In comes gabriel, smug little grin on his face

-Obviously he startles Zira because baby boy is no longer under Heaven’s thumb and doesn’t expect a visit from the archangel 

-“Aziraphale! So good to see you.”

-Zira just frowns at him because he knows the opposite to be true

-Gabriel just goes on

-He’s here to stir up trouble

-“Listen, why don’t we talk in the back, we have some private things to discuss”

-He grips Zira’s shoulder a little to hard in order to tell him it’s non-negotiable

-They get to the back and the smirk becomes a hard grin

-“I hear you and the demon Crowley have been getting pretty cozy”

-Zira, stunned, can only think ‘We successfully hid our friendship for 6000 years and they only find out once we no longer work for them?’

-But he says

-“Crowley is a friend, yes” 

-There’s no point in hiding it, after all, both Gabe and Beezlebub saw them at that air base

-Gabriel’s smile falters for a split second

-He wasn’t expecting that

-But he can work with it

-“A friend, really?” 

-He levels a gaze at the other angel 

-Zira’s not about to admit it right then and there,

-So he looks at Gabe likes he’s lost it and says yes

-“There have been whispers, Aziraphale, that there is much more between you and the Fallen… that, perhaps, you’re even in love with Crowley” 

-Aziraphale’s heart drops into his stomach

-‘How could he know? He hadn’t told anyone, had never written it down, had never even expressed anything to Crowley?’

-“I am not in love with Crowley.”

-Gabe raises an eyebrow

-“If you say so.”

-He shrugs and starts for the door. 

-But then turns around to look at the barely-concealing-his-shock angel

-“You know, She always intended for you two to be together.”

-Aziraphale became confused. Very few angels had intended mates, it was one of the few things She allowed them to choose for themselves. 

-She usually only had intended mates for...archangels  

-Gabriel took advantage of the moment of confusion 

-“Oh? He hasn’t told you who he was before the fall?” 

-Aziraphale’s mind flashed through all of the times he had brought the subject of the Fall up, and Crowley had gotten a distant look and changed the subject, or said “I didn’t mean to fall” or brushed it off

-Then he thought of the few clues that Crowley had given him over the years. One in particular stook out. Alpha Centauri.

-He hadn’t made the connection when Crowley was screaming it at him (to be fair, they were in quite the stressful situation, and were both focussing on the Antichrist) 

-She wouldn’t have entrusted the creation of an entire system to just any angel 

-Only an archangel would hold that power

-There were only two archangels who fell

-Lucifer, obviously, and…

-Raphael

-Raphael, who was never mentioned again after the fall

-Raphael, who’s loss hurt almost as much as Lucifer’s 

-Raphael, who had never spoken out against Her

-‘I didn’t mean to fall’... 

-Aziraphale’s face lights up with recognition 

-Gabriel sees this

-“I could never figure out why he Fell. Perhaps it was all apart of your beloved ineffable plan”

-Shoots a final grin

-And leaves Zira to his thoughts 

-Meanwhile 

-Unbeknownst to Crowley or Zira, Gabriel had gone to Beezlebub, who was also salty about being shown up by Crowley, and colluded together to throw them off and pit them against each other

-Crowley has a recording of Much Ado about Nothing playing as he reads along

-(He’s trying to surprise Zira with some knowledge and quotes and the last time he’d seen/heard anything pertaining to it was when the bard himself was alive)

-The recording scratches to a stop

-“Crowley…”

-Crowley froze, he hadn’t heard that voice since the Apocalypse that wasn’t

-Feigns nonchalance 

-“Beelzebub! To what do I owe the displeasure?”

-He doesn’t work for Hell anymore-- he doesn’t have to refer to anyone as Lord -unless he wants to 

-“I have heard rumors of you… consorting… with the Angel” 

-Crowley knows exactly what angel they’re talking about 

-(obviously, it’s his angel)

-“Which angel would that be exactly? I’m told Heaven has a whole host of them.”

-“The angel Aziraphale, of course.”

-“Oh that angel! No, I’m afraid we see each other as little as possible. Really only meet to discuss our mutual operative”

-“Are you denying that you see each other every day?” 

-Crowley didn’t know how or why they kept an eye on them. He thought that they would keep even less surveillance on them as they were no longer agents of Heaven or Hell. Apparently he was wrong

-“Our mutual operative has been having issues lately. We’ve been discussing, at length, whether or not the operative is worth keeping on either side. The goody-two shoes, of course, thinks we should, since the guy is such an imbecile that he maintains a perfect level of good and evil. I, obviously, no longer see the point in it, as we no longer work for either side. The sooner we dismiss him, the sooner we can go our separate ways.” 

-It hurts to refer to his angel as anything other than absolutely wonderful or to even pretend that every moment he spends with Zira wasn’t the most fulfilling thing in his life since… well, since he became a demon. 

-Beelzebub, knowing the truth, doesn’t buy it. 

-“Drop the act, traitor. Both sides know of your little friendship. I just thought you should know that the angel is being informed of your… former self as we speak.” 

-Crowley’s brain, and therefore, his mouth, stopped working

-He had spent so long attempting to keep his former identity concealed for so long. 

-He had never met his intended mate, and even though he knew he loved Aziraphale, he didn’t know whether or not his meeting Zira was apart of the Ineffable Plan, or just superb luck

-Then, he realized something Beelzebub said

-“Have you been in contact with the other side?”

-Beelzebub goes silent. Crowley is afraid he had disconnected the conversation

-He forged on anyway 

-“You have, haven’t you? I’d wager you’ve been in contact with the head halo himself. Tell me, have you told Gabriel of your former identity? I’m sure he’d love to hear that his intended is not only fallen, but, in fact, the prince of hell, themself.”

-When there was no response, instead the voices from the play filtering through his speakers, he knew the other demon had heard him. And he was definitely scared.

-Nonetheless, Crowley was also terrified. If Aziraphale knew, it could change how the angel thinks of him. An archangel? Fallen? It was practically unheard of. Sure, Lucifer himself had fallen, but no other Archangel had uttered any kind of alliance to their brother.

-His own falling had been a separate, private affair. He had approached God Herself (back when God still held audiences with her children instead of sending them straight to the Metatron), and innocently brought his questions before her. When he could bring himself to think about the occasion, he thought he recalled an air of regret and sadness in Her throne room. Almost as if She didn’t want to make him fall. Though, he supposed She’d be loathe to see any  of her creations become her enemies.

-Truth be told, he’d never understood why he fell. His questions had never been drastic, and not nearly to the extent She allowed Lucifer’s to get to. But perhaps any questions were grounds to fall after Lucifer’s rebellion

-At any rate, he had to get to the bookshop to explain everything to Aziraphale. His musings on Her decisions could wait until his next drunken pity party 

-He grabbed his jacket and miracles himself into the Bentley

-He speeds his way through London to the Soho-based bookshop. The lights on the first floor were dark, and for a second, he thought that Zira was out and about. 

-He parks around the corner anyway and got out to walk to the front door. He had no idea if Gabriel was still there

-He got his answer when he spotted the front door open. He went back around the corner and peeked to see a smug looking Gabriel step out of the shop

-Figuring both sides already knew, and they therefore had nothing to lose, he approached his former brother

-“Gabe! What a coincidence to run into you! I assume you’ve just come from telling Aziraphale my former identity. I’m sure you can imagine how grateful I am for sharing an incredibly personal piece of information with someone else without my permission. But how could I return the favor? Hmm… Did you ever meet your intended?”

-Gabriel froze

-Crowley continues

-“No, I suppose you didn’t. After all, your ceremony came after the Fall. Suppose they had to cancel it, then. Must have sucked, knowing your mate fell, but not knowing who they were. Almost as much as never knowing who your mate was in the first place. I, of course, knew, because I told them. But you already know this, y’know, since you were supposed to tell mine. Now that you’ve revealed information that was truly none of your business, I shall return the favor. I assume neither Michael, nor Uriel, have been ballsy enough to tell you who your mate is.”

-He didn’t receive an answer, but continued anyway.

-“You are familiar, of course, with our mutual companion, Beelzebub.”

-Silence

-“I’m sure you’ll be pleased to finally know who your mate is. Now if you would please fuck off and stay out of our lives, we won’t meddle in the matters of heaven and hell- especially your love lives.” 

-He pushes past his former brother into the shop. 

-“Angel?”

-No response 

-He heads into the back 

-“Angel?”

-He finds Aziraphale sitting, pensively staring at the wall 

-“...Angel…?”

-“Is it true?”

-Crowley knew what he was talking about, there was no use beating around the bush 

-“Yes”

-“Why wouldn’t you tell me? Things could have been so much different. Were you ever going to tell me?”

-Aziraphale looks up with a pained look 

-Crowley takes a deep breath 

-“Eventually… when I accepted what happened.”

-“It’s been 6000 years! Didn’t you think I deserved to know I was your intended?!”

-That stopped Crowley in his tracks. 

-“You- you’re my intended?” 

-His eyes are blown wide with shock

-Now Zira is confused

-“Yes… I thought that’s what we were talking about. You didn’t know either?”

-“Angel… I thought we were talking about me. I never found out who my intended was. I mean, I had hoped it was you, but I was never sure.” 

-“How did Gabriel know?”

-“He was assigned to tell you.”

-Zira’s face scrunched up.

-“I can’t imagine Gabriel being the deliverer of such happy news.”

-“He wasn’t always such an emotionless prick. I’m afraid losing one’s intended in the Fall is rather jarring to an angel. And a demon, to be honest. Beelzebub hasn’t been the same since they fell.”

-“Were they someone’s intended?” 

-“Believe it or not, they were Gabriel’s. Obviously, their name wasn’t Beelzebub, but Anabiel and Gabriel were supposed to be very happy together, in fact every archangel was very happy with their intended until they fell. Only Lucifer, Gabriel and myself were left to have our intended ceremonies.”

-Aziraphale got a thoughtful look 

-“Don’t you think it’s odd that half of every intended couple fell?”

-Crowley shrugged

-“I’ve been thinking about it for years, and I can’t come up with anything concrete.” 

-Zira muses for a second. 

-“It’s not worth thinking about, Angel. It all depends on several hypotheticals of what was happening in Her brain this whole time. Something neither of us are privy to.”

-“No, I suppose you’re right, my dear. Besides, I think other matters are slightly more pressing.” 

-Crowley raised an eyebrow at his angel

-Who rose 

-“What matters, Angel?”

-“The matter of our relationship, my dear, and how it progresses from here.”

-“...Oh”

-Soft BoiTM becomes super anxious 

-“Of course, if you would like to remain friends, that is okay. I do vaguely remember some archangels who kept their relationships platonic, and if that is what you wish, I will gladly-”

-Crowley stands up quite quickly and hugs his angel 

-“Aziraphale, I would like nothing more than to create a life with you, together as mates. Romantic mates.” 

-When Aziraphale’s smile lit up the entire room (literally, he was allowing some of his ethereal form to slip through the veil), Crowley had to shield his eyes

-But when the light dimmed (with a sheepish look from the still very excited Aziraphale), Crowley allowed a genuine smile to alight onto his face

-Now, here’s the thing about Crowley and smiling

-Aziraphale can count on two hands the amount of times he has seen a genuine smile when Crowley was sober

-He smirked, or scowled, sometimes he would let a grin pass

-But rarely would he truly, genuinely, smile

-But this was the best one Zira had ever seen in all of his 6000+ years

#good omens #g.o. #good omens fic #ineffable husbands #ineffable husbands fic #ineffable husbands fanfic #good omens fanfic #dumb demon and dumb angel in love #i love them so much #do i headcanon crowley as having played benedict in the original production? yes #is it because of david tennant's portrayal? yes #i'll write something in full form later #but this has been in my drafts for so long #i'm tired of staring at it #so i'm giving it to the world #do with it what you will #crowley as raphael #crowley and aziraphale #crowley and zira #crowley and zira are mates #She really said they're soulmates #heavenly soulmates #idk #it's 3 am #talltree-writes #i didn't mean to fall

[aethelflaedladyofmercia]

Of Aliens and Alpha Centauri: Space in Good Omens (1/3)

. So just yesterday, in one of the many discussions of Alpha Centauri and the practicality of our two favorite disasters running off together, @theniceandaccurategoodomensblog raised the perfectly valid question: “Why are we assuming there are no aliens?” And I said I had a lot of thoughts on the subject. This meta is the result of those thoughts and questions.

Broadly, the question of whether or not there would be aliens comes down to “what is the purpose of all that space in the Good Omens universe?” Everything we see is focused on Earth and the creation and destruction thereof, which, when you consider the scale of the whole universe, is really not that Big a story at all.

But the treatment of space is a little different depending on which version you use as your source material. If you try to combine the book and the TV show, you get some contradictions.

So I’m going to tackle each separately, starting with the book below the break, pulling together all my observations and thoughts on What does Good Omens really have to say about space?

I’m not going to do this on a strict schedule, but I have three parts planned and will post them as I find the time to write them!

(Source: I’m a huge sci-fi nut and think way too hard about everything, but I’m not any kind of expert. Other insights and comments are 10000% welcome.)

Good Omens Book

The book has, perhaps, the simplest approach to space: it’s barely mentioned.

For those unfamiliar, there is no mention of Alpha Centauri, or running away, or Crowley helping create stars/nebulae/whatever it is he made. Unless I missed one, all references to space in the book are:

The Earth is a Libra (p.17)

Crowley’s amazing drunken rant about the bird and the spaceship (p.54-57)

Adam and The Them talking about aliens and how aliens are now all about peace and harmony and being some kinda space cops “They all have this bright blue light around ‘em and go around doing good. Sort of g’lactic policemen, going round tellin’ everyone to live in universal harmony and stuff” (p. 156, part of a slightly longer discussion)

Newt meeting aliens who talk about peace and harmony while being some kinda space cops (p. 197-199)

That’s it; Crowley (then Crawly) doesn’t even ask about putting the Tree on the Moon, the line is instead “why not put it on top of a high mountain or a long way off?” (p.10).

Just because it’s simple, however, doesn’t mean we can’t learn a great deal.

Humanity has watched the stars for all of our history; they can be used to navigate, to tell time; the constellations are used to record stories; astrology attempts to make sense of the chaos of everyday life through the motions of heavenly bodies. The motions of the stars and planets has been calculated and recorded for as long as we’ve had enough knowledge of math to do that (so ancient Sumeria and Egypt, and by ancient I mean 4-5 thousand years ago), while less predictable events such as eclipses and comets have been taken as  ill omens or signs of Heavenly disfavor.*

The prevailing model in the West was geocentric (Earth in the center) and contained what we call the “Heavenly Spheres”; Earth was a globe surrounded by clear layered spheres, and across each sphere one of the seven planets moved in its predictable track. (The seven planets were: The sun, the moon, Mars, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn - a planet being defined as a “wandering heavenly body that does not follow the fixed course of all the other stars”). Beyond all these was the final sphere, containing all the stars like a painted ceiling, and all moving together, rotating around a point near Polaris, the North Star.

The stars were predictable, but mysterious, unexplainable - but they existed to serve the story of mankind because why else would they exist? 

This mindset carries into Good Omens - at least the book, and probably the Radio Drama as well (I haven’t heard it in ages, but I don’t think it deviated from the major points). The universe is vast and huge and filled with “loads of buggerall” (p. 56) - Aziraphale’s comments confirm that, at the very least, angels and demons are confident that the universe is a vast vacuum (matching our modern ideas of cosmology) and also that it has a physical end somewhere (due to the way space-time curves, this might not necessarily be the case).**

And yet.

All these vast loads of burgerall are slated to be destroyed along with the Earth, aren’t they?

It certainly seems they were created at the same time. We know that there had only been “rather more than seven” days as of the start of the book, and that “rain hadn’t been invented yet” (p. 9). The language suggests not only that Earth is a new thing, but that there isn’t another planet out there that already experienced days and rain. Crowley, at least, believes that God created the whole universe (p. 373) and there seems nothing in the book to contradict this.

As for Armeggedon, it’s referenced as the “final test” and as “testing everything to destruction” and so forth (p. 48). At the final showdown on the airbase, Metatron refers to the great plan of a world lasting six thousand years (p. 352), and again this could refer to Earth only, or it could be the universe as a whole. In fact, as a general rule, the book simply conflates the earth and the universe, as if they were the same thing. And they are. Much like in the more Medieval and Classical worldview outlined above, there could be lots of stars and things out there but they only serve as a backdrop to the real important things going on here on Earth. Everything was created at the same time, and the only reason it might not be destroyed all at once is if the winning side decides they like the view and want to keep it.

The only hint that there might be more to the universe than Heaven, Hell and the little stage for their cold war (Earth) is the appearance of the aliens to Newt.

And yet, what are they described as? One is “stubby and green,” the one that talks to Newt is “a yellow toad dressed in kitchen foil...wearing the kind of mirror-finished sunglasses that Newt had always thought of as Cool Hand Luke shades” and the third is “a pepper pot.”

Two aliens as designed by a child, one clearly doing some vague Space Cop look, and a Dalek. The ship itself “looked like every cartoon of a flying saucer Newt had ever seen” (p. 197). I never ever got the impression these aliens were anything other than figments summoned from Adam’s head, spouting buzzwords he’d seen in New Aquarian (acid rain, albedo, polar ice caps) while acting like cops do in movies. And their message “We give you a message of universal peace and cosmic harmony an’ suchlike” (p. 198) - the “an’” instead of “and” is one of the distinguishing marks of how Adam and The Them talk. This is another one of his stories and games, played out on a much wider scale.***

My primary conclusion here would be that aliens cannot exist in the Book!Omens universe. The universe is the backdrop, Earth is where the real drama plays out. The universe has only existed for 6,000 years, not nearly enough time for other life to have evolved separately. God could have created life on the other worlds, but there is no indication that this ever happened, that there are other playgrounds on which this fight is being acted out - Crowley and Aziraphale never even consider the possibility that they’ll be reassigned elsewhere. It’s Earth, and then eternity in Head Office, no other options.

Book Omens: Other Possibilities?

I do think there is one alternative possible for Book!Omens: if we are willing to throw away the strictly supernatural elements of the book, it could be re-envisioned as a sci-fi story, in which God, angels, and demons are actually super-dimensional aliens who, by Clark’s Third Law, are sufficiently advanced to be indistinguishable from actual angels and demons. I refer to this as the Stargate Interpretation.****

More accurately, God would have to be the super-dimensional being, and would have created the Earth as a place to let the story play out; the angels and demons are then direct creations who buy 100% into the narrative they are given. Everything else can still exist - Lucifer rebels because of the same reasons, takes along all the unsatisfied angels, Heaven and Hell are only concerned with Earth because that’s all they’ve been told to concern themselves with. Their afterlives exist still, but only because humans were created to fit into that system.

Meanwhile, literally anything could be going on in the rest of the universe. There could be alien races thousands of years older than the earth. There could be galactic empires. Who knows? Not people on Earth. Our world was isolated from all that by superdimensional shenanigans.

But, and this is important, in order to maintain the illusion, angels and demons must be kept as much in ignorance of all this as humans. Might lead you to question the power of the being with the Ineffable Plans if those plans only extend to the edge of the solar system and don’t even go particularly far back in time.

Now, do I think this is the best headcanon for the book? Nope. This is a supernatural story, the threat of Heaven and Hell is so looming and menacing because there’s no other force out there, nowhere to appeal except the “higher authority” that isn’t, apparently, listening, and there’s no option to escape just by relocating to a new world. I think trying to force the Stargate Interpretation on it would diminish the story, and I really don’t think it’s what the authors intended at all.

However, I also think this would make for a very interesting fanfic in the hands of the right writer. Book Aziraphale or Crowley suddenly discovering that the scope of Head Office’s powers is much more limited than they’d thought? Who knows about this - have the Archangels and Lords of Hell been covering this up to keep the lower-level angels and demons from rebelling? Would their “miraculous” powers still operate the same on these alien worlds? Are there other beings out there more powerful? Or going the other direction - are there other worlds also playing out their own little pantomime of Eden and Armageddon? Are they created by the same God, or other members of the same race, and what are the implications either way? Does each world have an Aziraphale and a Crowley, or is the main GO world the first to screw up the Apocalypse so badly they survive it - and what is the implication of that?

There’s a whole lot of scope for interesting AUs out of this, and I’d be rather surprised if no one has written any, seeing as the book came out thirty years ago. (If any are available on AO3, send us links - this sounds a bit niche, but I’d love for fans to be able to find these!) I would consider them AUs though; the default assumption of the book is no aliens and including them is a deviation, just as adding in Hogwarts or Charles Xavier’s school while keeping everything else the same is a deviation.

However, in the TV series, space is certainly more present in the narrative, and the Stargate Interpretation doesn’t work as well. Can we reach any clear conclusions? I’ll attempt to find out in my next meta!

(Too important to footnote: We know that Atlantis vanished (p.372) so most likely Adam’s aliens did as well. There is, still, the possibility that they continued to exist after the end of the world. I think their somewhat shoddy appearance and very cliched dialogue suggest the aliens would, at best, continue to cycle through similar interactions to what we saw with Newt until Adam either “deactivated” or “updated” them. What would they do then? Did he create entire races and homeworlds for them or - as I rather suspect - did he just make the one ship full and then move on to the next?)

-- Footnotes --

*Note: the math for predicting eclipses has also existed for thousands of years, but was more difficult for ancient cultures to confirm because only a fraction of eclipses are visible from a certain spot. Several ancient cultures were eventually able to work out the pattern, notably ones that either ruled over a lot of land or else had good information exchange with their neighbors. Comets took a LOT longer, and indeed as late as the 16th century many believed each comet was unique and traveled linearly through the solar system, never to return. Edmond Halley (working partly from observations by Isaac Newton) was able to demonstrate that comets did in fact orbit the sun, and predicted the return of the comet now named for him in 1758. He also was the first to observe and describe the proper motion of stars, that is, the fact that they don’t actually travel in one large fixed group. 

**Also, I find it delightful that, along with thinking dolphins are fish, Aziraphale says the bird crossing the universe would need a generation starship - which as a sci-fi trope has been somewhat out of fashion since the 1970s, in favor of faster-than-light starships. This alone says volumes about his taste in literature and science.

***The fact that the alien refers to its own message as “one of them pheonomena” (p.198) - a term Shadwell uses - does suggest that Newt’s own imagination is filling in the gaps left by Adam.

****Just gonna go ahead and out myself as a lifelong Stargate fan don’t mind me. That said, Terry Pratchett also explores a world made in this style in his pre-Discworld novel, Strata, which contains a flat world in a sci-fi setting, where everything operates according to a medieval worldview. It is a fascinating read, not least for the inclusion of several elements that would later find a permanent home in the Discworld series. If you can find it, read it.

tagging the commenters who said yesterday they would be interested:

@sarahthecoat​ @ineffableove​ @akawestruck​

#good omens #book good omens #book omens #good omens meta #good omens book #space #alpha centauri #aliens #stargate #of aliens and alpha centauri #sci-fi #i knew this was going to be a weird meta

[rufeepeach]

Fic: i had a night (i had a day)

Title: i had a night (i had a day) Rating: T Fandom: Good Omens Pairing: Aziraphale/Crowley Summary: After the world is saved, and Heaven and Hell sent back to their respective corners, Aziraphale and Crowley attempt to settle into a new kind of coexistence - a much more shared existence, without those barriers (spiritual, emotional, and professional) keeping them apart. Unfortunately, this requires a conversation neither of them really knows how to have.

Or: in which it takes all of two (2) bottles of wine to make Aziraphale both theological and emotional.

On AO3

“You know, at the end of it all, I came to a rather startling conclusion.” 

Crowley’s head rolls to one side, and one eyebrow arches over his sunglasses. Aziraphale wishes he would take those off while indoors; it always seems like one more barrier to understanding between them, an unnecessary wall in place.

After another rather lovely dinner at a relatively new and very charming French restaurant near Covent Garden, it had felt natural to return to Aziraphale’s flat above the restored bookshop for a nightcap. Such has been the way of things for a few weeks now, ever since Armageddon was averted and their relative head offices apparently retreated. Aziraphale had been fortunate to see Crowley once or twice a month, before: now, it is a daily occurrence. It feels natural; no one has felt the need to comment.

Crowley sprawls on the sofa and Aziraphale takes his comfy chair by the fire, and the coffee table between them fills with bottles of wine, mugs of hot cocoa, snifters of brandy, whatever takes their fancy tonight.

And yet, despite their being practically joined at the hip these days, unwilling or perhaps unable to let go after their brush with the unspeakable loss of one another, those damned sunglasses remain even in this warm, dark, private place. Aziraphale has no idea why: he’s very familiar with Crowley’s snake eyes, has been since the literal dawn of creation, and he’s always found them rather lovely, all things considered.

Crowley lowers the wine bottle from his lips, and swallows an ungodly gulp.

“Oh?” Crowley says. “And what have you concluded?”

“I still have faith,” Aziraphale can feel the smile that bursts across his face, the stupid happiness that accompanies the declaration: hopeful, wonderful.

Crowley frowns, not getting it. Aziraphale can sense the doubt as it slithers into Crowley, that endless worry that he hopes someday – perhaps in another thousand years or so – he can eradicate entirely. “In… in what? Heaven? They tried to burn you alive, angel, I’m not sure they’ll take your call.”

“Oh, no, no no, of course not!” Aziraphale waves a hand, brushing the ridiculous notion aside and with it the entire concept of Heaven: Gabriel, Michael, Head Office, the whole shebang. “Heaven can hang!” 

“Quite right too!” Crowley salutes with his wine bottle, and goes back to swigging directly from it, uncouth fiend that he is. He does it just to wind Aziraphale up, and Aziraphale refuses to rise to the bait.

“But… but in something above Heaven,” Aziraphale continues, cautiously, gauging Crowley’s reaction. He imagines his eyes narrowing, although all he has to go by are lowered eyebrows and a furrowed brow. “In… In Her.”

“Right,” Crowley hums, noncommittal. “You’re gonna have to explain that one to me, angel. I’m not seeing the difference.”

“You something, back in Tadfield, while we were waiting for the bus,” Aziraphale says. “It’s been rattling about in my mind ever since.”

“If you’re talking about the invite back to my place, that was a shameless ploy to get you to clean up the holy water and what was left of Ligur,” Crowley says.

It’s a lie – Crowley had been as surprised as anyone to rediscover the remains of his former colleague on the floor of his flat, the night the world didn’t end. What it had been, Aziraphale was sure, was an unsubtle way to say ‘please don’t leave me alone’, a sentiment Aziraphale more than shared. He never intended to leave Crowley alone ever again, if he could help it. He’d had more than enough of that for one eternal lifetime.

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m talking about something else. You suggested that everything, our prevention of Armageddon included, was perhaps part of the Ineffable Plan.”

“I was just chatting bollocks, angel,” Crowley sighs, and oh Aziraphale does not enjoy the bitter edge to his tone, however familiar it is. There’s such sweetness and warmth in Crowley, and the bitterness is so firmly turned inward, that it breaks Aziraphale’s heart.

“No, I don’t think you were,” Aziraphale shakes his head. “In fact, I said something very similar at the air base, and I think we were both right.”

“What’s that then?”

“That the Grand Plan and the Ineffable Plan are in fact two separate plans!” 

“Right.”

“Oh don’t give me that look!” Aziraphale scolds, a little wounded by Crowley’s ignorance, or his scepticism, or whatever it is that is making him look at Aziraphale like that. “Think about it, about everything that had to happen for us to still be here! Not only did you have to be chosen to deliver the Antichrist, but you had to show up right when the Youngs were already at the convent, and you had to be reluctant enough to want to get out of there as fast as possible, and you had to just happen to run into the most incompetent nun in the whole building!”

“I was chosen because I’d spent thousands of years taking credit for everything evil under the sun,” Crowley corrects, slurring a little. “It was my reward for… for everything.”

Aziraphale takes another sip from his wine glass. If anyone deserves a proverbial olive branch from faith itself, it’s Crowley. Crowley who had had doubts from the very beginning; Crowley who had been asking questions before mankind was a twinkle in the Almighty’s divine eye; Crowley who had reluctantly Fallen and still fought harder than anyone to save the world and everyone and everything in it.

“Alright, but suppose you had arrived at the convent and any other nun had greeted you,” Aziraphale insists. “The baby would have been successfully placed with the Ambassador, and named Warlock, and we would have been-“

“Ham-fistedly shoving contradictory moral lessons down the right boy’s throat for eleven years?” Crowley finishes for him. 

“Well, yes,” Aziraphale fiddles a little in his lap at that accurate but certainly unflattering portrait of their valiant efforts. “Quite.”

“So you still have faith in the Almighty because of what? Lucky incompetence?”

“Very lucky incompetence,” Aziraphale corrects. “Remarkably lucky, in fact: lucky that the Youngs are good and kind people from a good and kind place; lucky that Adam grew up with strong-willed and happy playmates; lucky that the last witch burned in England wrote down her prophecies, and that her descendants maintained the only book in existence, and that her ultimate great-granddaughter was in exactly the right place at exactly the right time to collide with your Bentley, and that she left that one book in the backseat, and that I happened to find it.”

“That… is a lot of luck, yeah,” Crowley concedes.

He rolls his head back, his long limbs splayed, wine bottle all but dripping from his slender fingers. Aziraphale allows just a moment of pause – allows, because he could not prevent it, because he cannot help it, he can never help it – to admire him in all his louche, careworn beauty. He allows himself to marvel that somehow, against all the odds, Crowley is here with him after the end of the world. In this rare unguarded moment, sprawled on his sofa as if nothing had happened, Aziraphale thinks Crowley might be more beautiful even than Mozart, or sushi, or a perfect 1922 Châteauneuf-du-Pape: certainly worth preserving the world for. The thought of eternity without Crowley doesn’t bear contemplation.

He swallows that thought down with another sip of his wine. Of course Crowley is beautiful – he is the original temptation, it would hardly work if he weren’t easy on the eye. Aziraphale isn’t sure that was really the point of that stray thought, however. He’s never been sure that beauty begins and ends with physicality.

“It’s not luck,” Aziraphale presses, instead of voicing a word of what passed through his half-drunk mind. Not luck, because to think that their being here now, safe and happy and together, is the product of a string of random fortune is too terrifying to dwell on. “It’s the Plan.”

“Oh don’t start,” Crowley moans. “This the Great Plan or the Ineffable Plan?”

“The Ineffable Plan,” Aziraphale clarifies.

“But you spoke to the Metatron, didn’t you?” Crowley frowns, looking at Aziraphale, confused. “I thought he said that She wanted the war to go ahead.”

“Yes, I’ve given that some thought,” Aziraphale replies. “And I’ve come to the conclusion that in order for the Ineffable Plan to succeed, I had to be convinced we were on our own.”

“Right, assuming the Ineffable Plan wasn’t just to end the world, like everyone including Satan himself and the Archangel-fucking-Gabriel assumed,” Crowley nods, sarcasm rolling off him. Aziraphale rolls his eyes. Crowley is always at his most dismissive and biting when he feels threatened.

“Right, assumed,” Aziraphale presses. “An assumption is not necessarily correct.”

“So you think the Metatron lied to you?”

The question is sharper, and carries with it the weight of a heavier question, a broader question, the question of why when Crowley was at his most lonely, vulnerable, and frightened, Aziraphale was seeking guidance from his higher-ups rather than fighting beside his best friend. Why, when given the chance to choose a side, Aziraphale had not immediately chosen him. 

“I think the Metatron… gave an inaccurate impression of the Almighty’s true purpose,” Aziraphale says, carefully. “I believe so, anyway.”

“Believe,” Crowley nods. “This where the faith comes in, yeah?”

Aziraphale swallows hard, his throat suddenly dry, the wine not necessarily helping but welcome nonetheless. This new body is identical to his old form, and yet… and yet. Not. Not quite. More human, perhaps, maybe just because it’s younger, it has a tendency to race its heart and dry its throat, to adrenaline spikes, to panic, to physical response. It’s hard work. He’s still working out the kinks. 

There’s a long silence. Crowley sinks deeper into Aziraphale’s couch. Aziraphale clenches his hands in his lap, both wishing he had chosen the seat beside Crowley – the distance between them suddenly looms, a cavern as broad as the gap between Heaven and Hell – and thankful for the relative safety of his armchair. The look on Crowley’s face is unreadable, and yet Aziraphale can read him, and he knows it isn’t good.

The silence stretches. Aziraphale’s oh-so-young heart starts to beat. He wishes he were one to pace. He wishes someone, anyone, would say anything.

“Why’d you do it?” Crowley asks, at last, the question Aziraphale is certain he’s been burning to ask for weeks now, the proverbial elephant in the room.

“Do what?” Aziraphale’s cowardice, as always, gets the better of him. He won’t answer the question until it is asked, in case he’s gotten it wrong, in case he ends up saying more than he has to. 

“You know what,” Crowley sighs. “C’mon, angel.”

“No I do not know what!” Aziraphale lies, panicked, maybe he’s lying, he hopes he’s not lying. He doesn’t know, technically, but he can make an educated guess.

“Why’d you walk away?” Crowley demands. His posture hasn’t changed, lithe body still spread out across the couch, easy as you like, but his tone is serious and a touch angry and a touch more hurt, although Aziraphale is sure that last part Crowley hopes he’s hiding. It hurts him, nonetheless, pokes at that shameful bruise under his ribs, the knowledge that in six thousand years he’s never made a worse mistake. “In the park, at the bandstand, you knew I was right and you ended up agreeing with me anyway so why’d you suddenly run away?”

Aziraphale sighs. He’d been right. He had known what Crowley meant. 

The unspoken fact of their togetherness, the fact they’re barely apart for more than a day at a time, the lunches and dinners and walks together, has all come at the price of Aziraphale’s shame that he didn’t get here sooner.

“You go too fast for me, Crowley.”

Crowley has been waiting for decades, centuries, longer, for them to be on the same side, their own side. And yet, it took until the literal eleventh hour for Aziraphale to finally join him there.

“I… I was lost,” he says, at last. Crowley hums softly, but doesn’t comment. Aziraphale looks down, at his hands, fiddles, shuffles, cannot meet the gaze that pierces from behind Crowley’s sunglasses. “My faith was… shaken. Not in Heaven, I… I mean I knew what they were, who they were, I think I’d always known. They wanted their war and they would have it. But I had hoped… I mean, I believed they were misguided. I thought if I could make the Almighty understand that it was more complicated, that there were… shades of grey. That maybe then…” He trails off, stops, thinks, recalibrates. He knows what he needs to say. It’s the reason he started this conversation, if he’s honest with himself.

He cannot form the words. They die in his throat, too heavy for such a delicate balance.

“Maybe then what? They’d all become pacifists overnight?” Crowley’s trying for biting, but he doesn’t succeed, it just comes out with that soft, sad sympathy Aziraphale has always adored in him. The tone of one who could see the lie all along, and yet is saddened by another’s disillusionment. For a demon, Crowley has a notable, admirable lack of schadenfreude.

Aziraphale doesn’t doubt that there was a time, before the Fall, when Crowley had been as Aziraphale is now. Crowley had just learned to question sooner, lost his innocence sooner, thought for himself quicker. He’d gotten there faster, like he always did, and it had taken over six millennia for Aziraphale to begin to catch up.

“That maybe then it would all be alright,” Aziraphale murmured, ashamed of his own naiveté, embarrassed at such a childish thought. “I thought She might… understand. And then there would be no need for sides, or for the war, and the world could spin on.”

“That would have been lovely,” Crowley agrees. “Shame She’s as bloodthirsty as the rest of them.”

“But that’s exactly my point!” Aziraphale exclaims. “Had I… had I agreed with you, we would have left together, yes? Leaving the world to rot. Or perhaps we would have stayed to fight, but that fight would have involved killing Adam, which we may or may not have been able to do, and had we done it would not have allowed the world to be restored after Armageddon was averted, and had we failed he would never have trusted us.”

“We almost did that anyway,” Crowley notes, his voice bitter as ash. They are in agreement there: the memory of the split second staring down the barrel of that oversized gun, of Adam’s curly head in his sights, of pulling the trigger… well, it doesn’t bear remembering, really. 

“But we didn’t! We failed again!” Aziraphale’s smile is back; he slaps his thigh for emphasis. “Because the portal stayed open, so Sergeant Shadwell turned up uninvited, so I was discorporated, so I had to take that witch’s body, and so she stopped me. If I had been in my own body… well…”

He trails off again. His too-young stomach flips at the thought of what he might have, what he almost, what he intended to do. To a child. An innocent. A human boy who had already chosen to save the world rather than end and rule it.

“Well,” Crowley agrees, his voice heavy. “For the record, I wasn’t happy about it either.”

“You made a good argument,” Aziraphale weakly tries to comfort them both. “You know, the world versus one child.”

“Yeah but that was when it was Warlock, and he was such an arsehole,” Crowley waves a hand, as if it matters at all who the child was. “And it was never about the world, anyway,” Crowley continues. “I mean not entirely. Not really.”

“Oh?” It is Aziraphale’s turn to frown, perplexed.

Crowley’s head is rolled back, eyes back on the ceiling, casual and relaxed and oh-so-cool when in fact the universe rests on his words. “Decision came down to your life or his,” he shrugs. “Didn’t even have to think about it.”

Aziraphale swallows. His heart, treacherous newborn organ that it is, starts to pound. “Oh.”

It warrants an answer. He knows that. He’s always known that. How many times have they been here, Crowley reaching out, opening up, seeking reciprocity, Aziraphale reaching back only to falter and retreat and withdraw, cowardice masked as righteousness, hiding behind sides, behind us-and-them, behind orders? How many times has he failed, and yet Crowley continues to try, nonetheless, hopeful to the last.

He can’t find the words, and the silence stretches, and Crowley gets restless, he knows this dance as well as Aziraphale and is too weary to expect the answer he deserves.

“More wine, angel?” he asks, casual and cool, as he stands to fetch a bottle he could have easily summoned from the sofa, and paces across the room to find a corkscrew he certainly doesn’t need. 

“I put my faith in all the wrong places,” Aziraphale blurts, forcing himself through this, gritting his teeth through the panic crawling up his spine, although every instinct screams to be quiet, to pull back, to run, to shut this down now before it can go any further.

It’s easier now that Crowley is facing away, and he wonders if that was Crowley’s intention, or whether this displacement activity is entirely for the demon’s own benefit. He continues: “Although I believe my doubt was part of Her Ineffable Plan… that doesn’t mean I was right. It means my wrongness was essential, but that’s altogether different. Many things were, are, will continue to be essential to the Plan, but that doesn’t make all of them right.” 

Crowley is silent, fiddling with the wine, his shoulders tense, eyes down. Aziraphale wishes now that they were sat side-by-side, that this distance could be closed, but he is rooted to his seat and he cannot muster the strength to move. Everything he has is going into pushing these essential words out of his resistant mouth. His small living room has never felt so vast.

“What I mean to say is that… well, all along I shouldn’t have cared for Heaven, or Gabriel, or even the Almighty, Ineffable Plan or no. From the start, well, I should have put my faith in… you.”

Crowley stills. He does not respond.

“C-Crowley?”

Silence. Aching, awful, silence.

“Oh Crowley do say something!” Aziraphale cannot handle this quiet, not now, not from Crowley. They’ve always, always been able to talk to one another, and just as he needs Crowley’s effortless ability to fill any silence, with his probing questions and his sharp remarks and his intellect, he goes silent! “You were right, alright? We ought to have been our own side, and whether or not I was capable of accepting when you offered you were owed… well, better, anyway, than what I gave you. I betrayed you and I’m so very, deeply, terribly sorry.” 

“You said you didn’t like me,” Crowley reminds him, finally turning to face him, and the shame hits like a punch to the stomach. 

Aziraphale rises to his feet, on instinct, unnecessary, and meets Crowley at the end of the coffee table. He takes his wine, letting Crowley put the bottle on the coffee table, fiddling, fussing, not wanting to sit, not wanting the distance back, not wanting to commit to sitting together as if that isn’t what this whole conversation, at its heart, is about.

“I… I was scared,” Aziraphale admits, in for a penny in for a pound, true honesty not being something one can provide in moderation then retreat. Heaven has shown its cards. There is no more risk to openness, no more excuse to pull away.

“Understandable,” Crowley nods, and Aziraphale wishes he weren’t wearing those bloody sunglasses, because if he’s going to spill his heart out then for God’s sake he will at least see Crowley’s eyes while he does it! “The punishment was hellfire, after all. I was there.”

“I wasn’t… I wasn’t scared of that,” Aziraphale admits. Then, helplessly, scolds: “Oh do take off your glasses, Crowley!”

He’s certain Crowley rolled his snake eyes, if that were possible, but he cannot see them until a moment later, when the glasses are in Crowley’s pocket and his full face is revealed. “Better, angel?”

“Much,” Aziraphale sighs, happy, delighted, smiling, God, it’s ridiculous how Crowley’s proximity can bring a smile to his face even in such a difficult, tense moment. He’s grateful for the slight crack in the tension, too, for a moment to breathe.

“You’re braver than I am, then,” Crowley murmurs, returning to their previous topic. “I’ve been terrified of what Hell might do if they caught on for centuries.”

“I mean, I was scared of the hellfire,” Aziraphale corrects himself. “But… not only that.”

“Gabriel’s withering stare?” Crowley suggests, lightly. “A promotion back to head office, away from your books and your sushi? Being forced onto harp duty for a few centuries?”

Aziraphale fights the smile threatening to spread across his face. “Oh do be serious,” he mutters instead. “I was scared that… that you were right. And of what it would mean that you were right.”

“I was right,” Crowley reminds him. “And the world did not, in fact, end, which proves I was right.”

He hasn’t returned to his seat. They’re standing a little awkwardly, just a little too close, wine glasses held between them.

“Yes, but you had been right for some time,” Aziraphale replies. “Since at least the fifteen-hundreds, possibly since the Garden. We had been our own side since well before the Antichrist’s birth, I was just… well, I had always been too scared to admit it.”

Crowley thinks about that. Aziraphale watches the emotion play over his expressive face, his lips pursing then relaxing, thoughtfulness, confusion, a little sadness, a little anger, his head bowed, his snake-eyes unreadable.

Aziraphale nearly jumps out of his skin when something touches his free hand: Crowley’s fingers, tangling with his. They’ve never held hands like this before: never in private, never in the warm semi-dark of his lamp-lit sitting room, never without a good reason.

“Angel, I-“ 

“And that has always been terrifying, because…” he rushes on, his eyes on their hands and his lips loosened by the rush of warmth through his whole body at the contact, so much more potent than mere alcohol. “Well, because if that were true, that you were integral to me, then I’d have to admit to being scared of losing you. Much safer to stay loyal to Heaven, and pretend you gave a damn about Hell, and forget the whole idea.”

A breath, a pause, he could stop here, he could leave it here, this is enough, this is all Crowley needs to hear, but now the fight is to keep his mouth shut and stem the tide and he fails and: “Much easier to pretend I didn’t… love you.”

The silence now is deep, tense, but comfortable, like a heavy blanket, like the glow of a hearth, like love, but not celestial love, no, material love, personal love, love that grows in the warmth and the dark where nobody’s looking, that belongs only to those who feel it, that is possessive and generous and earthly, neither blessed nor damned. Aziraphale doesn’t need to breathe, and yet he finds his lungs constrict anyway, as he waits for Crowley to say anything, anything at all.

“Oh, angel,” Crowley murmurs. That’s all he says, just that, and yet it’s everything. It’s like the first time, like on the garden wall, a release from doubt, a benediction from an unlikely corner, relief pouring through him. Then, like a snake in the Garden of Eden, doubt, sadness, loss: “That’s what angels do, isn’t it? Love everything. Trust you to take it too far.” 

“What?” Aziraphale blinks, confused, trying to work out where in the name of the Almighty Crowley has gotten the message confused. “No, no, I don’t mean in an angelic way. I mean like…” he can’t get his thoughts straight, all jumbled, and Crowley is so close and their hands are still all tangled up and blast it, Crowley has been literally inside his body, and he’s so clever, so why is he choosing this moment out of six thousand years of moments to be so stupid? “Oh bugger this." 

Aziraphale surges, half-falls, forward, and kisses him, full on the mouth. It takes his too-new brain a moment to catch up with what he is doing, and why, and how, and that he is kissing Crowley, that Crowley has leaned instinctively toward him and is kissing him back. Then there are some rather ostentatious fireworks exploding behind his eyes, and a rich, syrupy warmth floods through Aziraphale at the sensation of Crowley’s soft, cool lips moving gently, lovingly against his, and that young heart of his pounds in his chest.

It’s a brief kiss, startled, inexperienced, chaste, over in a moment after what Aziraphale was coming to realise had been six thousand years of build-up. It is utterly remarkable.

He pulls back, and has the pleasure of watching Crowley’s eyes flicker open, dazed, confused.

“Like that!” Aziraphale says, decisively, triumphantly, his point proven. “There, I don’t kiss everything like-mmph!”

He is cut off by Crowley slamming his mouth back against his, his eyes slamming closed a second too late, another kiss, deeper this time, overwhelming, Crowley’s lips caressing his, passionate. Two hands at his neck, one creeping into his hair, holding him closer, holding him still, and it is all Aziraphale can do to angle his head slightly and follow Crowley’s lead and let himself be kissed. If the first one had been fireworks, then this one is a forest fire, and he is happily, willingly consumed by it.

He lifts one hand to Crowley’s cheek, and just holds it there, gentle, his thumb stroking the sharp cheekbone. Crowley makes the most beautiful, intoxicating little noise in the back of his throat, and opens his mouth, and suddenly his soft tongue is stroking Aziraphale’s and he can’t help but gasp, the sensation at once wonderful and unbearable.

He pulls back a moment later, his head reeling. “You were saying, Aziraphale?”

Crowley says his name so rarely, only when his mask slips in times of great seriousness, and it’s a shame because it sounds inexplicably delicious in that low rumble of his. Aziraphale gathers his bearings as quickly as he can. “I was saying that I’ve never been all that good at that impersonal all-encompassing divine love, and what I feel for you… well, it’s always been really rather personal with us, hasn’t it?”

“Just a little, yeah,” Crowley murmurs. He's smiling; Aziraphale's heart stammers. “C’mere, angel.” His lips cover Aziraphale’s once more, and all thought is smothered in static, and belonging, and love, so powerful he’s amazed he hasn’t sensed it before.

He can’t get the thought out of his mind: the love rolling from Crowley in crashing, deafening waves, why had he never sensed it before? How could he possibly have been so blind to this? Now it’s smothering his senses, drowning out everything except for Crowley and I love you and finally!

They kiss for long moments, Crowley’s lips caressing and plucking at his, Crowley’s tongue licking and teasing at his, with far more skill than Aziraphale’s enthusiastic, unpractised fumbling can manage. He’s thankful Crowley seems to know what he’s doing, because Aziraphale’s hands have started to tremble, and it’s taking all his divine willpower to prevent his knees from buckling under him.

Crowley finally pulls away – well, he disengages his beautiful mouth from its even-more-beautiful activities to speak, but nothing else about his action could be described as ‘pulling away’, given that his hands remain firmly on Aziraphale’s neck, and not a sliver of daylight could have found its way between their bodies. But Crowley’s lips do pull back, and it gives Aziraphale just a moment of vague lucidity to process the colossal shift in the world around him.

“Is it going to sound disgustingly cliché if I say I’ve been waiting six thousand years to do that?” Crowley murmurs, a gorgeous smile tugging at his lips. There’s something so intoxicating about that attitude of his, breathtaking sincerity cloaked in a thick layer of swagger and charisma. The latter lends itself willingly to irony, which easily masks and distorts the former, and Aziraphale has been thoroughly remiss: he has used it as an escape far too many times.

“Oh, darling,” he sighs. Crowley’s eyes flick up to his, a sudden moment of aching vulnerability that clutches at Aziraphale’s heart. Oh yes, nothing divine and all encompassing about this: this is personal, this is earthly, this is, for lack of a better term, human. “I know you have.”

“Bollocks you knew,” Crowley snorts, rolling his eyes, fighting that genuine, beautiful, face-splitting grin Aziraphale adores, and failing miserably. “I’ve been subtle, I’ve been hiding it, remarkably well, I would add. You just can’t admit that I fooled you this long.”

Aziraphale’s jaw drops. He sputters, half-laughter, half-astonishment, a sprinkling of genuine offence, which is entirely the response Crowley was looking for, he supposes. He kisses Crowley again, surprising him, then pulls back to cry: “I beg your pardon! You have not been subtle: you have been painfully obvious! I’ve just been… well, a coward I suppose.”

“You can literally sense love and you can’t lie to save the world and yet you’re telling me you knew this entire time and just… what? Pretended not to? Give me a break, angel.“

“Yes that’s exactly what I’m saying, if you’d give me a moment to think.” Aziraphale steps back, takes his wine glass, drinks, misses the heat and skittering spark of Crowley’s hands on him the moment they’re gone. The answer is obvious, now that his mind has been given a second to catch up.

He takes a seat on the sofa, bracing his trembling hands on his knees, gesturing for Crowley to follow. Crowley sprawls next to him – well, half on top of him really, one inch to the left and he’d be in Aziraphale’s lap, his long legs swung over Aziraphale’s knees, like an overgrown cat staking a claim. Aziraphale’s heart stutters again. “I’m not saying… I’m not trying to say that I’ve been walking around for six millennia fully aware that… that this was a possibility.”

“Okay,” Crowley’s eyes narrow, confused again. He gives a lazy grin, his eyes gleaming, and oh, Aziraphale can barely think straight. “This, being…” Crowley leans forward, and presses a kiss to a sensitive place just below Aziraphale’s ear. Aziraphale’s eyes flutter just for just a moment, his skin tingling unbearably, wonderfully, under Crowley’s lips. “This sort of thing?”

“Yes… yes that sort of thing,” Aziraphale swallows. “This whole… our being in love, business.”

“Yes,” Crowley all but purrs, another kiss, and then another, one arm slung over Aziraphale’s shoulder, Crowley’s tongue gently stroking the shell of his ear, and dear heaven above the sensations that’s causing through Aziraphale’s body are delicious, and addictive. His treacherous mind can come up with a thousand ways these sensations could be applied elsewhere, a thousand distinct and wonderful and entirely earthly ways to lose himself in Crowley, and none of them are an aid to concentration.

“You’re being terribly distracting here, darling. I’m trying to apologise for six thousand years of distance and-“ 

“And here I am,” Crowley’s grin is delicious against Aziraphale’s skin. “More interested in closing that distance.”

“It’s interference!” Aziraphale squeaks, shudders, as Crowley nips at his earlobe, supernaturally sharp teeth soothed with a flick of his warm tongue. A hand has crept back into Aziraphale’s hair.

“That’s one word for it,” Crowley agrees, easily. “Doesn’t it feel good to be interfered with?”

“No!” Aziraphale yelps, and Crowley pulls back as if he’s been burned, a hundred emotions flickering across his face. “No I mean, yes, yes it does, it feels quite remarkably good.”

“Oh,” Crowley’s smirk returns as quickly as it had left. He reclines back, just his long fingers still combing through Aziraphale’s hair. Aziraphale resists – then, purposely, ceases to resist the urge to lean his head into Crowley’s hand, the sensation of his fingers lightly stroking and scratching his scalp simply too good to resist at all. “You were saying, angel?” Crowley prompts, generously, “Interference?” 

“The… the feeling of love,” Aziraphale explains, struggling to keep his thoughts in line, to keep his traitorous new body from arching against Crowley’s and losing itself in sensation. He always did have an issue with self-control, a terrible trait in an angel, although he thinks his hedonism probably something that draws him and Crowley together so he can’t regret it too much. “I… I’ve always been able to sense my own as well as anyone else’s. The bookshop has always felt terribly loved, and that’s because it’s my home.”

He turns his head, until he’s looking Crowley directly in the eye, and dear heaven above how did he miss it all this time? The sheer force of the open, naked emotion in those yellow eyes, how devoted, how loving, how longing… well, it’s quite breathtaking.

“I knew I loved you,” he says, softly. Crowley’s throat bobs, his hand clenching just a little, perfectly, against Aziraphale’s scalp. “I- it was easier, when I sensed it coming from you, to assume instead that it was all from me. Plausible deniability, you know? I knew but…”

“But you didn’t want to know,” Crowley says, heavily. “I understand, angel. The risks for you were always higher… you can only Fall once after all.”

“It’s not an excuse,” Aziraphale insists. “It’s intended as an explanation, to elaborate on an apology. You were always right. We ought always to have been our own side.”

Crowley nods. For once – for perhaps the first time in six thousand years – he seems truly at a loss for words.

“I love you,” Aziraphale says again. “In a way that has nothing to do with heaven, except perhaps as a metaphor for how I feel when I’m around you.” Crowley gives a delicious lopsided smile at that, and Aziraphale is sure – although perhaps he’s just projecting – that he can see the tinge of a blush on Crowley’s sharp cheekbones. “I am in love with you, darling,” he murmurs, shifting closer, pulling so Crowley is almost entirely in his lap and he can press their foreheads together. “And I have been for a very long time.”

 “Took you long enough,” Crowley grumbles, and then ruins it by beaming. 

Aziraphale smiles, and returns his hand to where it belongs – holding Crowley’s cheek – and his mouth to where it belongs – kissing Crowley with reckless abandon, making up for lost time.

#good omens #aziraphale x crowley #ineffable husbands #aziraphale #crowley #good omens fic #writing #fanfiction #fanfic

[elizabethrobertajones]

m so glad they keep mentioning the paradise so they arent going to gloss ovdr that cause I still cant reconcile s12 with s13 Jack. S12jack as a fetus with the using powers on the doctor, Cas and Kelly making them hellbend on keeping his powers the paradise vision honestly to me fetusjack seemed to use his power with at least intention and awarness and this Jack doesnt look like this at all

I think we read Jack a bit differently back in season 12, because I was always ready to assume he wasn’t strictly in control of his powers, and they started this season by announcing that he and his powers were practically separate entities, which reconciled everything I felt about what he’d “done” in season 12.

The early meta about what Jack might represent in the same way people were guessing what the Darkness would be thematically and nailing it after season 10, made sense and ended up being what they have gone with, about him representing a chance for them all to confront some feelings about stuff through him, and for him to have a chance to have free will. Since he was going to be at least conflicted and they’d spin him being sympathetic at one point or another, it made sense that he wouldn’t really have known what he was doing. I thought it might be that he did it knowingly but had no understanding whatsoever of what he had *actually* done, and that it had all been a sort of basic level of self-awareness self-defence. But him feeling like his powers are another part of him entirely from his consciousness that only react when there’s practically a mutual self-interest decided by his emotions… Yeah, that works for me :P 

It means you can “blame” everything on him but that the actual part we care about (the soft nougat-y centre) isn’t what people think he is. He’ll have a choice if he brings the planet to its knees or raises it to its feet, or doesn’t do EITHER because it’s been 2 weeks and no one’s sat him down and explained to him that destiny is a made up concept by people who want to control you, in this universe.

I mean he could kind of guess from Asmodeus but he hasn’t had anyone be like, nope, that’s how it usually is around here. Haha, remember the time archangels spent millennia engineering the universe for armageddon and we were like screw you? good times, good times.

Anyway, the grey area is enormous on this show and they want Jack to live in it, and that means being very human - more human than any other supernatural anything we’ve ever had on the show. Fresh start, no clue who he is, and only a very blurry sense of anything that happened while he was not yet born. I think the fact he DOES have a sense of some of the things that happened - but he can only really remember Dagon dying and the rift from an abstract perspective means he doesn’t even remember everything he did in the womb. 

Also I think that in 12x20 I was on team “Dean’s right but he’s overreacting” and now like the whole argument in 13x03 was “Dean’s right but he’s overreacting completely” because it’s fairly obvious Sam has more than altruistic motivations to help Jack master his powers, but Dean’s missed the entire emotional nuance, and how Sam relates to Jack and how that would make him want to help him regardless but it just so happens Jack is ALSO useful to him… So I think that’s probably a safe reading :P That Dean has some sense of what happened but that he then takes it in the worst possible direction and gets incredibly upset about it, because he’s messed up and bad things keep happening to the people he loves. And he hasn’t managed to connect all the dots on what happened in season 12 either. It doesn’t mean Jack (or his powers anyway) didn’t DO all those things, just that the more detailed readings on why seem to be holding up under the exploration of Jack’s powers this year. Especially since 13x03 where Sam just asked him outright how it felt to use them and he could barely explain it or use them.

If we accept that Jack and his powers are different - that his powers are cosmic and unreliable and translating his emotions into effects which Jack had no say on - and that that self-defence extended as far as the power preserving itself with NO input from Jack as a cherry on the top to protecting him… I think you can basically characterise the powers as a separate entity, but one so intrinsic to Jack it’s not like it’d manifest as another thing - or if we did get a self vs self thing for Jack the powers would just look like Jack again. 

In 12x10 they helpfully explained in reaaally clear exposition that a nephilim is angel grace and human soul, and if those two parts aren’t mixed into one cohesive whole of a soul absolutely powered up and comfortably combined with angel power, but seeing it as a secondary thing to where the personality and self comes from, it creates a sort of instability, because I don’t think these two parts are MEANT to mix.

(It’s also killing me that this COULD be exposition on Cas, but as much as the writers constantly show their awareness of canon and throw back to everything, they’ve been completely silent on Metatron saying Cas had a soul, and Death saying souls couldn’t be destroyed, and now this - I am dying to know if Cas’s soul is doing okay in there and what will happen to Jack and if it will relate to Cas… I mean it’s killing me because the playbook on writing Cas post-human changed, and although they never ever say it, you could literally classify him as season 4-8 “soulless” and 9 onwards as “not soulless” and the read wouldn’t be wildly wrong about his personality, even if there’s seemingly nothing to say what happened to his soul from 9x09 onwards…) 

(*grinds teeth*)

I mean don’t get me wrong I love Jack, I’ve just been yelling at the screen for ages about this and it’s been like 4 years now, which is way too long for my patience, especially creating a character which basically serves to ridicule my concern about this with his stupid soul and his stupid angel grace :D

… kinda off point by now but yeah. This is how I’ve been reading it anyways and it seems to all fit together to me.

#Asks #gah I didn't even mention paradise #yeah absolutely that needs to be explored #but i think it will be from a personal direction #and not to cast blame on jack #but perhaps to explore what happened to cas #i helpfully wrote a fic described as 'thanks i hate it' about this exact thing and posted it last night #I think a reblog is like the 3rd thing down on my blog right now #check it out for some speculation all on this theory #thanks for letting me plug my fic :P #12x19 #13x03 #13x01 #nougat winchester #season 13 spoilers #tra la la angel fall spell

[webcricket]

A Room to Call Home

Characters: CastielXAngel!Reader ft. Sam and Dean Winchester

Word Count: 4013

A/N: One-shot request by anonymous – “I was wondering if you could do Cas meeting one of his oldest friends (an angel) and introducing them to the boys. Fluffy maybe??” An old friend seeks out Castiel on an errand to summon him home. Gender neutral reader. Humor and fluff with a suggestion of plot and a side of bacon (because everything is better with bacon).

Castiel roughly engaged the hand brake of the rickety borrowed brown truck as it lurched to a grinding halt. The metallic ting of the radiator reminded the angel he wanted to ask Dean to investigate that noise, along with the irksome vibration and strange burning smell recently emanating from the clutch. He distractedly traced the calloused pads of his fingertips along the worn curve of the steering wheel – although a slow and inefficient method of travel, he had come to enjoy the uninterrupted stretches of meditative solitude and passing minutia of detail driving afforded.

He might otherwise have winged right past the roadside attraction that purported to be the World’s Largest Ball of Twine without having paused for a few contemplative hours to unravel its significance. Likewise, the alleged birthplace of the Which came first, the chicken or the egg? controversy, along with the quaint one-room museum dedicated to the conundrum that boastingly housed the actual chair where the originator perched while hatching this riddle for the ages, would have gone entirely unnoticed by him. The answer, he determined, and sincerely attempted to explain to the wide-eyed gum-chewing teenaged museum curator, was that neither the chicken or the egg came first. After all, he reasoned, in the beginning, the very first of firsts, there was only light. Then eventually there was the slimy scaly flopping fish-like things that crawled from the oceans and after hundreds of thousands of years of evolution developed feathers. Chickens and eggs, as humanity knows them, and in no particular order, were no more than an afterthought. Mostly he wondered if the original owner of the ramshackle truck still missed it and wanted it back, albeit a little worse for the wear.

“Why have we stopped?” you interrupted his quiet reflection from your position in the passenger seat, squinting through the windshield at the ugly and dilapidated industrial building looming beyond the hazy glass.

Glancing sidelong at you, he inclined his unshaven chin out the cracked window toward the unremarkable iron door, pitted cement stairs, and decrepit railing marking the entrance to the Men of Letters bunker, answering simply, “We’ve arrived.”

When Castiel embarked on the short jaunt to the Gas-N-Sip earlier in the evening to pick up a few supplies for the bunker, you were the last entity in creation he expected to run into, or rather, nearly run over, in the parking lot. Fortunately, the brakes on the truck were the only part of the clunker not actively disintegrating – not that hitting an angel with a sluggishly lumbering vehicle will do much more than cause, at worst, temporary inconvenience to said angel.

Although it was your first time occupying a human vessel, having spent the dreadful fall instigated by Metatron circling in search of and never finding a suitable one, you were well aware it was considered ill-advised to loiter in the middle of a poorly lit parking lot after dusk. Unfortunately, this was also the precise location your vessel, chosen especially for proximity to the angel you sought, said yes.

In days long past, you and the seraph were fledglings who stretched your wings and tested the limits of your divine grace together in Joshua’s garden. Upon your creation, both of you were bursting with an innate inquisitiveness atypical of angels – a trait that set you squarely apart from your kin and brought you that much closer in mutual fondness. You disobediently ventured time and again into the endless corridors of Heaven, spending unmarked intervals exploring and marveling at the myriad of eternities tailored to the fortunate human souls dwelling behind closed doors. Each door contained a room of their very own for the soul to call home – a place to hold the assorted odds and ends of a life with every object, moment, and memory that was meaningful to them preserved. And sometimes souls kept one another in perpetuity. It was these doors behind which two souls stowed the sum of their existence together in everlasting contentment that captivated you most of all. If angels were capable of envy, you would have suffered the sin.

When your assignments separated you – Castiel dispatched to Anna’s garrison to join rank, his boldness tethered to the duties of a soldier, and you relegated to Heaven’s bureaucracy, curiosity neatly contained in a stuffy four-by-four-foot cubicle – you drew from his angelic lips a parting oath, bound by an unheard of mingling of grace, that one day you would be together again. Angels didn’t love one another, not like humans, but the bond of fidelity you and he forged in Heaven was comparable.

Watching you shield your eyes from the flickering headlights of the truck in the convenience store parking lot and wave in recognition, Castiel presumed you could have appeared in his life now for only one reason – that one day, foretold by your pact to each other, had fatefully arrived. Motioning for you to climb into the truck, fearing for your safety in thinking you had rebelled and others would come searching for you, he spun the rubber of the already bald tires and drove straight back to the bunker.

He had no idea where to begin a conversation with the unfathomable distance of time separating your lives, and so he didn’t. Like a human defaulting to commenting about the weather to fill the silence, he elected, instead, to relay a nervous narrative of the passing scenery. The brief journey, inconsequentially protracted owing to hitting two red lights, was replete with a prattling non-stop, occasionally nonsensical, accounting of every lost dog, wandering child, kissing couple, feeble retiree, and blowing leaf he’d ever seen or helped cross the deserted streets in that part of town, and it bought him just over 17 minutes of delaying the inevitable discussion about what brought you to Kansas.

“This is where you live?” you asked, dismayed as you scanned the derelict entrance. “So many beautiful places exist in our father’s creation, and you choose to reside in ruination?” The Castiel you remembered favored verdant grasses and wide-open expanses of blue sky. It seemed to you, seeing first-hand how far he’d fallen, that your mission to bring him home to Heaven was, perhaps, as necessary as your superiors intimated it to be.

“It’s a fully equipped bunker, and you’ll find it’s quite homey inside,” he uttered confidently.

“Home?!” you scoffed. They said he’d become vehemently attached to this place, but to refer to it as home was too much.

His proud countenance fell at perceiving your disapproval.

An unfamiliar rush of emotion, bleed through courtesy of the human soul you presently shared your vessel with, seized hold of your frame upon seeing the wounding impact of your tone on his demeanor. You were not here to make him feel badly about his choices, merely to ask that he strongly reconsider them. Unfolding the foreign feeling hands resting upon your lap, this same unknown impulse compelled you to reach out to lightly stroke his knee. The edge in your voice dulled, “Castiel, our home is in Heaven.”

“I’m not wanted there, nor do I belong anymore,” he stated pointedly, beginning to doubt your actual motive for visiting. Eyes lowering, he noticed your hesitant hand and fondly clasped the broad warmth of his palm around your fingers. He dismissed the suspicious inkling, hoping he was wrong. “Regardless of that, I’m very glad to see you.”

Angelic grace funneled into the bounds of a diminutive human vessel – a situation akin to the power of a blizzard contained within a solitary snowflake – this tender contact proved intensely overwhelming for you. You recoiled with an astonished gasp to gape at your explosively heated fingers.

Your reaction prompted a fleeting amused half-smile to tug at his mouth at the recollection of when all this was new to him too – the slightest touch of skin that was then a dizzying assault upon the senses now an agreeable way to communicate those affectionate sentiments which cannot fully be articulated with words. Castiel greatly looked forward to sharing with you all that he had learned about and from humanity. He believed you alone amongst all angels would appreciate and love humanity as much as he did; as you alone had understood him long ago in Heaven.

“I’m glad to see you too,” a genuine smile ghosted your lips, and faltered as you reiterated the canned lines you’d been directed to say to him in order to sway his mind on the matter, “as many in Heaven will be who will welcome your return with open arms. Others will follow by example. You are not so shunned by your family as you lead yourself to believe.” The statement was truthful. With Joshua gone, and Heaven spiraling once more into chaos, the angels desperately needed a leader – a loyal figurehead with history, however rebellious, to guide them. You had come willingly, eager to see your old confidant, though also under orders – your betters taking advantage of your unusually intimate friendship with Castiel which they did not possess the capacity to comprehend – to seek him out and solicit his aid.

Your words, which Castiel easily discerned were not really yours, confirmed his suspicions as to the aim of your unexpected visit. “That’s kind of you to say,” he frowned, a grim furrow dividing his brow. He resented the fact that they sent you – you, whose bond meant so much to him and whom he could not deny. Weary of assuming the burden of Heaven’s problems, he added tersely, “But my home is here now.” He shouldered open the groaning truck door.

“With humanity? They can’t even begin to comprehend your true purpose,” you argued after him across the seat.

“It is living among them where I have discovered my true purpose,” he countered irritably, slamming the door shut. He was not angry with you. He wondered what punishment they had threatened you with to coerce your cooperation.

You huffed, heaving open the sticky passenger side door and jumping out to scramble in the wake of his billowing trench coat, retorting, “And what about your family? Here, you are isolated, cut off from Heaven.”

He halted in front of the bunker door, pivoting to confront you. “I am not alone here. The Winchesters are good men. I consider them my brothers,” his blue eyes shone with deep conviction.

You inhaled sharply, stealing your resolve to make the one appeal you knew he could not refuse, to recall to him that age-old promise he swore to you upon his angelic essence – that tiny fragment of his grace that now stirred tempestuously in your celestial heart. You believed you were doing the right thing, for Heaven, for him, “Castiel…”

“Y/N, I know why you’re here. What you’re trying to do. What they’re trying to do,” he averted his indignant gaze upward. Stormy features relaxing in a sullen droop, his regard drifted back to you. “And if you ask me to return to Heaven with you this very moment, I will not hesitate. You alone can induce me to do so,” he had not forgotten his pledge. “But before you say the words, I want you to understand what it is you’re asking me to leave.”

You would not selfishly deny his modest request. “Show me,” you nodded accord. Heaven could wait; you’d waited this long.

He swung the bunker door wide and politely signaled for you to enter ahead of him.

“Hey buddy, did they have to brew and bottle the beer before they could sell it to you, or what?” Dean raised his gruff voice in the general direction of the stairs without looking up upon hearing Cas’ resounding footsteps on the landing. He thought up what he considered to be a humorous remark that morning while noshing on perfectly crisped bacon, and even though Cas hadn’t been gone any longer than usual, Dean had been waiting all day to say those exact words. The delivery fell bitterly flat for his taste. He wished he had more of that delicious bacon.

Stretching long arms overhead and yawning, Sam peeked up from the book he had balanced between his thighs and the edge of the map table to acknowledge Cas’ entrance and saw that the angel had not returned alone. Harshly clearing his throat, he snapped the book closed and slid the hefty tome hard across the table at Dean.

“What the hell?” Dean whined, shooting his brother an annoyed scowl when the corner of the text struck him directly in the ribs. He rubbed a small circle over the area, begging sympathy for the anticipated bruise.

Sam unsympathetically and emphatically vaulted an eyebrow and rose to his feet.

Dean finally took notice of you clambering down the stairs and begrudgingly stood. He muttered out the side of his mouth at his brother, “Sammy, I told you something like this would happen if we sent him without a shopping list again.”

“You said he’d bring home a stray kitten, not a…” Sam murmured through clenched teeth.

“You do realize I can hear you?” Cas narrowed his eyes and glowered at the brothers as he approached the table.

Dean shrugged unapologetically.

“And if you recall, I found an upstanding young family to adopt that orphan puppy I brought home last week,” Cas added matter-of-factly.

“Not before it peed in my shoe,” Dean griped. “Twice.”

Sam jabbed Dean with an elbow to shut him up.

Cas gave Sam a small appreciative smile for the considerately restraining measure, “Sam, Dean, I’d like you to meet Y/N, a very old friend of mine.”

You tarried a few steps behind, preoccupied by the intriguing maze of corridors breaking off from the cement walls of the expansive room. Though dark and dingy, they brought to mind Heaven’s gleaming white halls and all the marvelous doors therein.

Cas glanced back at you, beckoning you forward, “Y/N, this is…”

“The righteous man, and the abomination,” you interposed, curtly bobbing your head at each of the men in greeting, “who else?”

“I thought we were past the whole abomination business?” Sam frowned at Cas.

“I didn’t refer to him as that,” Cas shot you a reproaching glare, expression tempering earnestly when he focused on Sam, “I didn’t refer to you as that.”

“You thought it,” you announced objectively.

Dean smirked to himself, figuring you must be an angel. Your tactless honesty was a dead giveaway.

“I consider it more of a term of endearment nowadays,” Cas offered repentantly.

“Seriously?!” Sam feigned outrage even though he was not truly offended. “And how does he get to be the righteous man after the whole demonic stint?” he leered at Dean.

“Easy, cause my answer to Y/N is an enthusiastic yes,” Dean’s grin smugly widened to crease the corners of his glittering green eyes. Teasing guileless angels was one of his favorite pastimes, and it was getting more challenging to provoke Cas the longer the angel lived with them. He was all in favor of fresh angelic fodder. And bacon.

“I didn’t ask you anything,” you pointed out, head tilting in bafflement.

“You didn’t have to,” Dean winked suggestively. “Answer’s still yes.”

Cas rolled his brilliant blue eyes toward the high ceiling – this introduction was not going at all as he had intended. You were acting with brazen impudence and Dean was, well, being Dean. “They grow on you,” he attempted to mollify the situation.

“Under certain conditions, so does fungus,” you advised calmly.

Sam stifled a snicker with his sleeve.

Dean didn’t miss a beat, sauntering forward with his arms spread wide, he lewdly noted, “They don’t make a cream for this, sweetheart, but I’d be happy to help you scratch that itch.” Speaking of itches, his stomach growled hungrily. He decided just then a bacon cheeseburger from that diner on the corner of Monroe Ave and Main would be precisely the thing to pacify it.

Eyes clouding in confusion, you commented aloud on the relentless borderline obsessive theme pervading Dean’s mind since you’d entered the bunker, “What do fried slices of pig fat have to do with anything?”

Sam bent at the waist, breaking under a rolling wave of laughter.

Cas groaned exasperatedly and closed his eyes.

“Hey,” Dean wagged a warning finger at you, “head space is strictly off limits. And bacon? Since you asked so nicely, everything.”

“I don’t understand,” you looked to the visibly frustrated Castiel for an answer.

“My friends frown upon having their thoughts perceived,” he sighed.

“But…” you still didn’t understand about the bacon.

“Alright, enough!” Sam entreated, composing himself, ever the peacemaker. “Dean, you keep it in your pants. And Y/N, please stay out of our heads. Trust me, he only gets worse the deeper you probe.”

“He’s right, and yeah, strict no probing policy,” Dean agreed, needlessly clarifying. “By angels or aliens.”

You mutely wondered what Dean kept in his pants, and if it was, perchance, a preserved pork product.

“Any friend of Cas is a friend of ours. Right Dean?” Sam stared sternly at his brother, the firm set of his jaw suggesting there was only one correct answer and that Dean had better choose it.

“Right. He’s right again,” Dean mumbled contritely.

“Good,” Sam plastered a friendly smile on his face. “Now since we started off on the wrong foot...”

You looked skeptically down at your vessel’s left foot, shifting weight to the opposite one.

Castiel couldn’t help but crack a small smile at your misperception.

“…it’s a pleasure to meet you, Y/N,” Sam extended an open hand.

You reached out to awkwardly take it.

“Well, I’m sure you two have a lot of catching up to do,” Dean grabbed his folded jacket off the chair, tummy rumbling loudly, and jostled Sam by the collar. “We’ll leave you to it. Come on Sam.”

“Uh, yeah.” Sam let go of your hand, looked around urgently for his coat, patted his chest, realized he was currently wearing it, and smiled self-consciously, “Okay then. See you guys later.”

You said nothing.

Cas took this to mean you had not altered your intent to recall him to Heaven. He watched the brothers mount the stairs, gravelly voice resounding wistfully after them, “Dean. Sam. Goodbye.”

Grabbing the door latch, Dean responded lightheartedly as he yanked it open, “Sheesh Cas, we’re only going out to grab a bite to eat.” It wasn’t like he and Sam would never see the angel again. The door clanged shut behind them.

Cas’ shoulders slumped.

“You’ve changed Castiel,” you casually observed. Despite the coarse interaction, you sensed his profound love for and attachment to these men, and their equal love for him. A part of you seethed with a jealousy you were not supposed to feel. Yet you also experienced gladness for him. The rapid conflicting pulls of these emotions dazed you. You wondered how Castiel tolerated it day after day without suffering restlessness. He appeared comfortable and at ease in this strange place.

“You disapprove,” he refused to look at you, plunging aside into one of the corridors.

“No,” you ambled after him, “I meant it as a compliment. It suits you, this change. You seem…somehow more assured of yourself.” You glanced at each of the lettered or numbered doors as you strode by, rounding a corner, “Where are you going?”

“My room,” Cas halted in front of a closed door. “If I’m to leave, there’s something here I want to bring with me.” He twisted the knob and marched across the threshold into the humble space.

Frozen in the doorway, you ran your fingertips deferentially across the level wooden plane of the doorframe. His room. His. A room of his own to call home like those lucky souls in Heaven. Your eyes wandered over the tidy contents of the room – the crisp sheets and blanket neatly darted beneath the corners of the totally unnecessary bed. The smart assortment of ties draped fastidiously over a hanger on the closet door, gifts from his vessel’s daughter which he never wore but cherished nonetheless because of how important they were to her. A dried bunch of faded yellow wildflowers tacked above the desk, picked that Spring for him by a homeless woman named Elise he had gotten into the habit of treating to lunch when he and the Winchesters were not out of town on case. She knew the names and histories of every bird and flower in creation and the angel never tired of hearing her relate their stories. Hung beside the flowers, a brightly colored crayon portrait of a blue-eyed angel with unbroken black wings, the grateful artwork of a child whose ailing mother he cured of cancer without cosmic repercussions on a point of technicality to the great vexation of a waiting reaper. On the desk itself lay the bulky hand-me-down laptop given to him by Sam, which the angel used to watch Netflix in the wee hours of the morning so as not to disturb the sleeping brothers. And over the bed, Dean’s capricious contribution to the barren walls, a poster of an adorable fluffy orange tiger kitten dangling precipitously from a tree branch with the affirmation to Hang in There written in fanciful script along the top and punctuated by an exclamation point for added emphasis. It perturbed Dean to no end that Cas left the poster up, the angel asserting, although he knew it was obviously meant as a cheesy joke on Dean’s part, that it was one of the most heartwarming gifts he’d ever received and would display it reverentially for all time.

Castiel plucked a picture frame from the otherwise unused dresser, flipping it over in his hands to carefully remove the photo inside – a copy of the snapshot Bobby Singer had insisted they pose for, with Jo and Ellen, before that fateful confrontation with Lucifer so many years ago. Standing stiffly on the perimeter of that group of extraordinarily brave souls, he recalled it was the first time in his existence he had truly felt like he had clarity of purpose. He tucked the sentimental photo securely in his trench coat pocket lest, wits and purpose muddled by Heavenly muck, he forget. When he turned around, you were gone.

He found you sitting, having taken a wrong turn trying to find the exit, on the dimly lit staircase of the garage.

He eased onto the step beside you, crossing his arms over his knees and staring at the uninteresting vacant cement block wall opposite which held your rapt attention. After a long silence, he spoke his concern, “Y/N, what’s wrong?”

You sighed glumly, “It’s nothing. Don’t worry Castiel, I understand…this place is your home. Sam and Dean, they are your family. I won’t ask you to leave with me. There is nothing in Heaven for you. Seeing you here, I’m not sure there ever was.”

“There is one thing,” he resisted the yearning to grasp your hand, to convey his full meaning with the simple gesture. He feared startling you with the raw emotion behind it. “There only ever was one thing.”

“What’s that?” you peered keenly into his vessel’s blue eyes, the luminous sapphire hue was almost as stunning as the radiant glow of his true form.

He cocked his head, a questioning smile curling his lip, “You really don’t know?”

You shook your head.

He conceded to the desire to touch you, reaching out to gently caress your inquisitively illumined face. Sweeping his thumb tenderly across your cheek, he whispered huskily, “It’s you.”

You did not shy from his outpouring of affection. Eyelids fluttering shut, you leaned into the warmth of his palm and clasped your hand over his. You never imagined your one day with Castiel would dawn beyond the horizons of Heaven. You certainly never dared to dream two angels would have a room of their own to call home amongst humanity – a place together to share, and learn, and grow, and love, forever. You never knew angels weren’t made to love one another, not like humans, but you and Castiel had never been like the other angels.

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