Quotes that reveal Crowley's backstory 🪽🔥 🕶
"How did your feathers turn raven black," [Aziraphale] asks, captivated beyond his restraint, his inflection infused with the miraculousness he sees in them. "The moment I saw them in the sun, I thought nothing more beautiful."
"They didn't turn," Crowley whispers, engrossed but suddenly more tender, some of his press and hold releasing, "These aren't. . .you know."
"They aren't?" Aziraphale echoes, innocent to the point of confusion.
"Angel, it was hell fire I was cast into. As good as left an iota of charred flesh and bone. Maybe not even that. I was delirious in pain at the time."
"They regrew, as um, these, after. . ." Crowley tries to explain, softly, debating what's too much to say, but quite uncertain, "Right. So first. A demon needs an aspect, it heals what isn't left after the burning. So, serpent's what I thought, why not, always liked them. I could figure out, you know, molting scaled skin, maybe appetite spikes or plummets, weirder sense of smell. Could be normal almost," The flush down Crowley's face and neck begins to pale, realizing that he'd probably gone over a line. "The wings, they were uh. . ." he slows to a pause, thinking about how he'd seen barbs prickling through new skin in the night under the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and he'd fucking sobbed for the sake of them. The first tears of his existence. ". . .a surprise, after getting to earth."
"Your eyes were even?" Aziraphale whispers, thumbs stroking Crowley's cheeks, just under the feature. The gruesomeness sends him into a shiver.
Crowley inclines, subtly, his mussy bangs touching to Aziraphale's forehead. "Yeah. Oh especially those. Extra crisp. Source of my ability and pride. Window of the soul or whatever." A strange dreaminess softens Crowley's expression. "Sometimes I fancy, you ah. . .miss. . .the ones I had."
–The Night Is Come, But Not Too Soon
Demons don't regrow their wings. They can't. It's written wherever the laws of the universe are. Not true demons of the fall, cast down on the final day of the war, who pledged their allegiance to the rebellion, which is classified as a celestial sin, in some dusty tome of Heaven's policy.
Crowley's without that celestial sin on his record, whatever that means. An unforeseen loose end he thinks. Pull his file and he pledged himself to Heaven. Pull the vows of allegiance, Aziraphale's name is directly above his own, last two angels to sign. Nobody knows what to make of what Crowley is. He's the only damnation after the war. Gabriel wrote up his paperwork in Heaven, no doubt did a shit job. Then he probably conveniently misplaced it from the archives. Beelzebub wrote up his paperwork in Hell. Full title and one she's got in her pocket, off the record. She's great at paperwork. He's functionally a demon. Through a back door, he's also functionally an angel. Beelzebub isn't supposed to be considering he's a double agent. He's not even the fucking slightest. But the more he dwells on it, the more he allows that she's not crazy for wondering.
Crowley really just became a demon because of his questions. They had been his way to cope. He'd agreed with the rebellion. He'd told Aziraphale they belonged on that side. He'd thought the creation of Hell was an insane retaliation. Bonkers. If she'd had to create Hell, why hadn't she made it like a mirror Heaven, just for other management. What's better than two Heavens? Not a realm of all manner of suffering, fire and boiling sulfur. Again, he'd agreed with them! It's not like seeing that go down wouldn't give him insecurity of purpose. He tried to avoid that insecurity focusing on creation instead. Generating all kinds of questions on it. That couldn't go pear shaped, he thought at the time. He was excelling at the #1 focus of angelic obedience. Creation. Creating stuff. With her guidance! Stars! Garden of Eden! Well it did go pear shaped. Everything does, it goes to shit.
–Below In A Jade Bird Cage
"They never change the passwords" 💁♂️
". . .once the Supreme Archangel, Attendant." [Crowley]
"What does it mean, that title?" [Aziraphale]
"Think of it as. . ." Crowley scrapes his teeth slowly over his lip. ". . .president and vice president. Equal in power, technically subservient though."
"It's as I thought. That name's not on any of the scrolls in heaven."
"It is on one," Crowley assures, under his breath. "Gabriel probably hid all that, scrolls about my denomination, my rank and title, my creations, my slipshod damnation. Records can't be destroyed." He moves his body under Aziraphale's, as though something in his mind's made him squirm. "You never read the vows of allegiance though, am I right?"
"Well no, I'd never thought you signed that," Aziraphale admits.
"Calling you 'Ziry is why you want to know all this, isn't it?"
Aziraphale tucks his face downward, his lips meeting to Crowley's sloping shoulder, his eyes turned up the way a puppy begs for something. "It sounds too familiar. It means something. I thought. . .well it seemed like the right question to lead up to it."
Crowley only sighs. "You're not going to like the answer."
"Then I won't like it. Tell me," Aziraphale insists, softly.
"We were close, Aziraphale."
"I started to call you 'Ziry after you nicknamed me." Crowley turns his head into the white crest of Aziraphale's bangs, inhaling his scent. "It was bold of you. That sort of thing, taken the wrong way by the other angels, it could be seen as a transgression. To use names for each other god never gave us? Think it was my influence on you though that. . . inspired you to do it . . . our conversations. . .you changed a lot. We um. . .changed together. But you were the one good at hiding it." Crowley pauses, swallowing. "I can't believe they took that from you. They must have, somehow. Those bastards."
"Yofiel–?Jophiel's? –the appointed 'angel of beauty and wisdom' now?" The detachment evident in Crowley's tone evolves to consideration, his thumb pressing his lower lip as he speaks. "Name got lost really. Until it popped up in some ancient languages, word for beautiful or sometimes flower. Humans think the two are similar. Anthos is the greek word for flower. I chose Anthony for that reason. Eventually. More for humans. I think you like calling me Crowley best. Anyway. Suits me, Angel. Demon I am, Demon I'll be."
–The Night Is Come, But Not Too Soon
"Would it be prudent if we discussed," [Crowley] clears his throat, wincing as he calculates that habit to be not very gentlemanly either, "how our relationship may be in time, or–?"
Aziraphale occupies the silence after the question kindly, thoughtfully, savoring some of her own food, in small bites. "The difficulty is I want felicity for us, not simply our union."
Crowley's brows lift comically exaggerated. Aziraphale's tried and true definitions, when it's about their relationship, are "enemies" and "on opposite sides"–felicity seems like it might as well be impossibility.
"And what must I do for you and I to be um. . .felicitous?"
"Maybe as a start. . . I. . .I wish we'd talk about our memories more. May we?"
Crowley's taken aback, but moved by the request as well. "I've been waiting forever to, dearest 'Ziry."
Crowley tempers his eating, the same moderate bites as his lady, conversing generously between them. Their tea is finished, and french wine is poured.
They elaborate on important memories first, and only ones that really bring joy to them. . .when they met, when they began to have mutual admiration, when Crowley chose to stay at Aziraphale's side in the Great War, when Crowley fulfilled his denomination as an archangel, consulting those assigned the six days of creation and manifesting their final works, each night slipping away to the nebulae, for speaking alone with Aziraphale, all the many ideas he had from everything happening. That had been their moment of falling in love, that led to the very proposal.
"That brings us once more to our present, then, I suppose. . ." Crowley says, with a sigh of yearning, ". . .to my proposal."
–Below In A Jade Bird Cage
