all hail Gerpes

[shipaholic]

One Last Go-Around

Fandom: Good Omens (TV)

Characters: Aziraphale/Crowley

AO3 link: One Last Go-Around - Shipaholic - Good Omens (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

---

This is my post-S3 fic. Spoilers for the entire show.

In the moment of dissolution, a starscape bloomed behind Aziraphale’s eyes. A field of familiar nebulas, swirling like paint, comets streaming past like fireflies. To his right, a presence, not-yet loved, oh-so-familiar, lifting a wing over Aziraphale’s head as a flaming ball of rock spun towards them…

And at the same time, he hefted a sword as it burst into magnesium-bright flame, and a burning pair of eyes bore through his as he threw the weapon aside and stooped to staunch the luminous blood flowing from an angel’s wound…

The sun beat upon his head upon the wall of Eden while a beautiful, sharp smile flashed at him

Rain spattered his face and turned the dirt underfoot to mud as he watched that clever, changeable face twist into shock at the cruelty of it all

Lightning bolts arced and revolved around a dumb-struck good man, while to his left someone mumbled but just to be able to ask the question…

Another good man wept and forgave while his wrists were nailed down, and Crowley was there,

Fog and dampness and some kind of porridge, and Crowley was there

Beautiful words washing over a non-existent audience, except for him, and Crowley was there

Fresh corpse-soup in a pickled herring barrel, and that wicked mouth pursing into a comical tut-tut-tut, and Crowley was there

And years streamed by like nebulas, flashing their colours and wreathing around him like showers of stars

Every moment in Aziraphale’s long history, all the ones worth keeping, Crowley was there.

To the world

Glass met glass in a ting

…And for a moment, it stopped.

Aziraphale stared at Crowley across the table. A cold bead of condensation slipped down his thumb.

Crowley’s smile faltered when Aziraphale didn’t speak. “Not saying it back, angel?”

Aziraphale swallowed heavily. “To the world,” he whispered, fiercely. He would always mean it, always say it.

Crowley was staring at him now, lowering his glass to the table. “Angel, you’re crying -”

And then it hit him too. Aziraphale saw the shadow pass over his face. The food and drink vanished from the table. Around them, the restaurant had already gone dark. Their table glowed white in a tiny pool of light.

“I think this is all we get,” Aziraphale whispered. He squeezed his eyes closed and felt the tears burn a course down his cheeks.

Crowley took a shuddering breath and slumped back. His cheeks puffed as he let the breath out again in a long hiss.

“D’you think she’s letting us have this? One last go-around of the good times?”

“Perhaps our lives are flashing before our eyes,” Aziraphale said with a tear-filled laugh.

“Ah. That’s nice. I hope everyone else got the same.”

Crowley tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling, before bringing his eyes back to Aziraphale. He twitched his dark glasses off his face and dropped them on the table, where they vanished.

“We chose right, you know. Only way this could have gone.”

“Oh I know. I know.” Aziraphale seized Crowley’s hand across the table.

“No point in sticking around after the lights are off and the chairs are up on the tables.”

“No world without humanity.” Aziraphale stroked Crowley’s hand with his thumb. His throat was thick. “I love that you chose them,” he blurted.

Crowley’s beautiful eyes were full. He scrubbed a hand over his face, which mostly just smeared the wetness around. “You too.” He gave a sudden laugh, with a creak of tears in it. “You know how much I loved you, too?”

“Oh, Crowley. Of course.” Aziraphale knew he must look an absolute mess. He made no attempt to wipe it away. “I loved you so much. Always.”

Their pool of light gave a flicker.

“Nearly time to move on,” Aziraphale said.

“Let’s get on with the highlight reel.” Crowley pushed his chair back. He was still holding Aziraphale’s hand.

“Do you think… if we had said how we felt, the first time we were here…?”

Crowley gave another puff of breath. “Maybe. Maybe we would have been happy for a couple of years. Wouldn't it only have made it harder, though? In the end?”

“I can’t imagine anything being harder,” Aziraphale choked out. "Or - or more worthwhile."

This time, Crowley let the tears spill openly over his sharp cheekbones. He stepped towards Aziraphale, into the same space. All the warm, lanky, living demon of him, for a long last look.

Aziraphale let himself be held. Then he let himself be kissed.

The kiss ran for a long, long time.

The memories resumed their spool, after a while. Aziraphale and Crowley swayed and kissed softly, in the shell of the Ritz, until the lights finally went out.

[godlessondheimite]

In 2026, the chicest thing a gay actor can do is never explicitly come out as gay but also make it abundantly clear that he is. Coming out is too modern. Staying closeted is too old fashioned. But this method merges contemporary freedom with Old Hollywood glamour and allure, and it weeds out the dumbest people who truly don’t get it. I call it the Pascal Method.

[nobodys-odyssey]

Taylor Swift does this

[godlessondheimite]

no she doesn’t

[nobodys-odyssey]

You clearly don't go here or to queer history and signaling, or both, enough to have this conversation and I'm not going to explain it to you. You could have asked questions, you could have done even a modicum of research. You didn't and you made yourself look ignorant. Goodbye.

[tomorrowillbeyou]

nice outfit dude LOL. legolas called. apparently they're taking the hobbits somewhere really crazy

[tetrapaec]

I don't think you understand how important this kiss is.

Doing this in front of God too.

They sacrificed their love so that we, humans, could love each other and make decisions. They spent 6000 years teaching each other that humanity is not a toy. They died for us, they love us as much, if not more than they love each other. They are our deities, our creators. They are Love. We are children of Love.

[alex51324]

Yeah, the more I think about it, the clearer it is that this--the part where the earth isn't 6,000 years old (and a Libra), where the dinosaurs aren't God's little joke that humans haven't figured out yet, where there was never a Plan, and never a Fall, just humans being humans in a universe that exists under rules we can learn to understand--is always how it had to end.

If you want to imagine Aziraphale and Crowley still out there somewhere as an angel and a demon--God only said She'd create a universe the way they asked for; She never said it was the only one She'd create. Maybe they're also still in the bookshop, writing their universe back into existence. Maybe She also put everything back how it was, like she first offered, and they're an angel and a demon doing shenanigans on an Earth that's connected to Heaven and Hell by a giant elevator.

If you want that for them, you can make that happen, in your fic or art or your own private imagination. The Good Omens universe doesn't have a God anymore, and your free will is as good as anybody else's.

And in the universe of my free will? It would be an awfully contrived coincidence if, after 18 billion years, Aziraphale and Crowley just happened to reoccur and reunite in our time, and I don't believ ein cheesy coincidences. So it happened a bunch of times.

The first time a proton and a neutron came together to make an atomic nucleus? Them.

When two atoms bumped into each other and stuck to make the first molecule, also them.

First time some hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom found each other and made water? You know that was them.

When bits of space dust started being pulled together by their own gravity, into an accretion disk that eventually compacted into a sphere and became a planet called Earth? They were in there somewhere.

When amino acids did a little dance and somehow ended up making a new thing called life, they were there.

They were probably a few molecules of algae a whole shitload of times, because Earth's algae era was pretty long, but eventually they got to be part of the same colonial organism, and then they got to be plants, and fish, and dinosaurs, and some of those enormous dragonflies they had back in the dinosaur era, and then eventually mammals, and apes, and eventually humans. And they kept finding each other. Not because God planned it that way--although she probably did shove them in there, on the principle of "waste not, want not"--but because the mechanics of the universe allowed it to happen, and so it did.

[goodomenssource]

#hiss hiss motherfucker

[thebisexualmandalorian]

#yeesssss#i just rewatched this episode last night#he’s so fucking offended that hastur took his glasses#he’s EXTREMELY offended that he is in his car without permission#that’s HIS CAR#how DARE he manifest next to him#in Az’s seat no less#because lbr#crowley doesn’t drive anyone around except his angel#and the occasional witch who hits his car#but even then#she was in the back#NOT in Az’s place#so instinct takes over and he hisses#a warning that hastur ignores (via @kristsune)

[saunteringvaguelydownwards]

#and at this point he doesn’t know how Aziraphale was discorporated #He still probably thinks either Heaven or Hell had something to do with it #which means (from Crowley’s viewpoint) there’s a non-zero chance Hastur was involved with the fire at the bookshop #involved with discorporating HIS angel #(which is a logical conclusion especially since he knows fire is how Hastur deals with things) #like jeez no wonder Crowley just plows right the fuck into the burning M25 #YES he’s trying to get to Tadfield and to Aziraphale #but I’m lowkey convinced at least a little bit was revenge on Hastur #‘you burned him. I’m going to burn you.’ (via @mad-madam-m) 

[irispurpurea]

let god remain ineffable

and let her creations write their own stories.

Like, imagine.

****

It's just Aziraphale and Crowley together in the bookshop at the end of the world.

****

"But how?" Aziraphale asks, after an eternity. (The eternity between 0 and 1). He's sitting at his desk, and Crowley is leaning against a bookshelf.

Crowley shrugs. "Dunno. I'm glad for one."

****

And after another eternity (the eternity between 1 and 2), Crowley muses, "maybe because we'd both been so... bound up in this place, as it were."

"I suppose." Aziraphale sighs theatrically, again. "If only all the books weren't blank."

****

And after another, smaller eternity (2 to 2.5) he says, "Maybe this could be our alpha centauri."

And Crowley says softly, "you know that's not really what I wanted."

And Aziraphale says, "I know."

****

And at some point (let's call it 4.87), Crowley begins to mourn creation. Aziraphale watches him.

"And I never got an answer to my question," Crowley mutters to a bookshelf. "Why would god create a universe, create humanity, just to end it all in a few thousand years? Where's the sense in that?" (He glares out the window, dares the void to answer, but of course it doesn't).

"The humans deserved a real universe."

Aziraphale, looking at Crowley like a nebula in bloom, says, "Oh, my dear." And Crowley pauses at his voice.

"You were the best angel. The best of us. You were an artist. You cared."

And Crowley swallows and says, "it didn't do any good anyway. And I'm not an angel any longer."

"But if the humans deserved a real universe, then so did you," says Aziraphale firmly. "So did all of us."

****

"Ohh," says Crowley softly, after a couple more eternities. "Of course."

****

"Oh," says Aziraphale, at some point after that (around 8.73695). "Indeed."

****

They find pens in the desk. Crowley plucks a book from the shelf. ("Not the Dickens," Aziraphale protests, and Crowley scoffs, "there won't be a best of times or a worst of times if we don't start somewhere, angel.").

****

Aziraphale taps the pen against his lips. "I suppose we should begin at the beginning. Let there be light, and all that."

"Now hang on." Crowley frowns. "We can't put it all back the way it was."

"Well, we have to, don't we?"

"That's not fair to the humans," Crowley begins.

"Of course, dear, but once we've put it all back we can change it," Aziraphale insists. "We can make it better going forward."

"And go through all that again? Put the humans through all that? We could build anything we want, angel, anything at all!"

"But I wouldn't have you," Aziraphale says quietly, and Crowley blinks at him. "And we wouldn't be us."

Crowley looks away.

"And I've never had any questions," he continues. "Except... why us? Why give me you? And why punish me for taking you?"

****

"The apple tree, innit?" Crowley's shoulders slump. "We never did figure that out. Who did the good thing and who did the bad."

"We wouldn't be us if we had," Aziraphale said. "And us is all I want."

Crowley shakes his head. "Angel..."

"And I'm a selfish bastard," Aziraphale says, and this makes Crowley look at him, finally. "I always have been."

****

"So we put everything back," Crowley says slowly. "And then? Free will for the humans?"

"I assume if we write it, it will become true," Aziraphale says. "But not just the humans. Free will for us, all of us. No more heaven or hell, temptation or salvation. No more angels and demons, just... existence."

"I'd just be Crowley," Crowley mused. "And you'd just be Aziraphale."

"We would be us. And we would be free."

Crowley blinks, bites at his lip. When he looks at Aziraphale, his golden eyes are shining.

"Oh, I love you," he says, and Aziraphale's heart leaps. He rises from his desk and Crowley crosses the room and they meet in the middle.

****

Aziraphale thinks for a moment, and puts his pen to the page.

It was a nice day.

"Well," Crowley says from over his shoulder. "All the days were nice back then, weren't they? There'd only been seven of them so far."

"Rather more than seven, I think," Aziraphale said.

"And rain hadn't been invented yet," Crowley continued. "But I like rain."

"Do let me keep going, darling," Aziraphale said gently. "We have six thousand years to write."

"And we have eternity to write them," Crowley retorts. "What's the rush?"

****

(And yes, somewhere in the past-future, a person vaguely named Jim opens a book, long since stripped of its power and tucked away, and reads the first sentence to himself. It was a nice day.).

[rimonoroni2]

first cryptid you ever run into as a little kid is called Best Friends Older Brother

[sparklecurlyart]

[sapierror]

also, I really don't know how to phrase this but to me the finale misses the joke, you know?

it forgets that the christian cosmology was the setting, told through corporate satire, not the villain. even God wasn’t an active tyrant; she was an absent CEO, leaving individual contributors like Aziraphale and Crowley to realize their job descriptions were irrelevant to the company's bottom line anyway, so they coasted by on minimum effort

that corporate satire was what allowed this to be a comedy, a space to tell a beautiful story about choices, humanity, and love. the finale for some reason treats that background seriously, it turns that setting into an omnipotent, dystopian threat, which completely suffocates both the romance and the humor by replacing a petty system you can outwit, outsmart, outmanouver with a bleak, unearned nightmare where "the company controls your every breath, and you can never clock out"

[shipaholic]

I hope it’s ok to jump off this - the thing is, I would argue it’s not the finale that makes this switch, it’s the series in general. Even in S1, Heaven and Hell were far more involved and controlling of Aziraphale and Crowley than in the book. Especially book!Aziraphale, who only was able to speak to another angel (Metatron) after some effort on his part, and was then effectively fobbed off. The show added a whole half-episode after the book’s conclusion where A/C have to outwit their bosses’ attempts to execute them as traitors - this didn’t need to happen in the book, b/c heaven/hell simply didn’t care that much about Aziraphale and Crowley, but it does in the show because Gabriel et al were established as controlling nightmare managers who let nothing slide.

Part of the reason for this, imo, is that the book was a satire about the Cold War, where Aziraphale and Crowley were operatives stationed in a foreign land, who ended up going native because they had far more in common with each other than their remote allies. The show updated the story to the modern day, lost the Cold War allegory and replaced it with a modern threat: corporations who control your every breath and from which you can never clock out. And then seasons 2 & 3 escalated the threat to its logical conclusion.

In the end, this change is ultimately why show!Aziraphale and Crowley’s romance is epic, star-crossed and tragic (and then simple, human and joyous in the new universe). In the book, I tend to take at face value Crowley’s line that ordinarily, he and Aziraphale wouldn’t have chosen each other’s company. They weren’t soulmates, they were two guys doing their own thing who didn’t have much in common, but their circumstances pushed them together and forged a bond between them where they ended up being the only entities on Earth who could truly understand the other. Whereas show!Aziraphale and Crowley are soulmates who are cruelly kept apart first by their head offices, then by their own traumas and miscommunications, and then by the entire nature of their world and God herself. The only way they could be together is by creating a whole other universe where none of those things exist any more, and they had to be willing to sacrifice themselves with no knowledge they would receive this reward in order to get it. It’s… a big tonal shift!

I like both versions because I enjoy the Terry Pratchett pragmatism that I suspect shaped a lot of the book dynamic, but I am also a sappy romantic who loves to cry. Peak fanfiction might be finding a stable marriage between these two approaches… to be explored…?

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

oh wait just realized i can edit my own posts.

like you can't edit reblogs anymore but you can still edit your own post even after it has a thousand notes or whatever.

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

i have the opportunity to do the funniest thing.

[sycamorality]

writing a canon divergent fix-it fic while also shaking my head to show that i actually really like the canon's tragic narrative and am not trying to say i think it would be better if canon was like this

[saintdri]

L I Q U I D S 

★Insp★

[shipaholic]

There are two flies in my room (curse this heat), and they are making so much noise I had to get up and check there wasn’t a corpse under the bed I’d somehow missed.

[precision-instrument]

[wearedevo]

Can't believe they accused him of Pagliarism :/

[whimsicalali]

study

[casgirl]

the worst part of the fandom life cycle is when people are like “everyone keeps saying [thing that happens in canon or is strongly supported by canon traits and actions of the characters in the text], but ACTUALLY [thing that is the complete opposite and has no textual basis] is the real canon.” But you MUST persevere. Real character understanders will receive their reward in the divine for their steadfastness.

[rjcthmnt]

Original Sin