hannigram is canon af

They don’t work in human years.

Crowley gets upset, he sleeps for a century. Well, not regularly, anyways—just that one time. That doesn’t mean he’s not good at being grumpy (or heartbroken) for a decade, or two. He calls it Supernatural and Occult, Aziraphale calls it Dramatic.

So when Aziraphale tells him You Go Too Fast For Me and deals him a metaphorical sucker-punch right into his (not-so-)well-hidden heart, Crowley keeps his distance.

If he’s honest, he’s waiting for Aziraphale to come to him. Not out of spite, really (though definitely out of hope), but really most of all because he does not want to go too fast for him. The angel has always been the steam locomotive to his, Crowley’s, Shinkansen Bullet Train.

Over the centuries, Crowley has learned that sometimes, he needs to let him catch up at his own pace. He’s always come around, though usually sooner rather than later. Time isn’t the same to them as it is to humans. It’s linear, alright, but that’s about as far as shared characteristics go, because for them, Time is also endless. If you have Eternity to look forward to, human time spans and perceptions don’t mean much.

So it takes him a few years to realize that Aziraphale might not be trying to catch up to him. The angel is not here, anyways.

Sure, they’ve heard of each other, by way of rumours and shared ‘underlings’ (just one, really, but they still don’t know that) and Long Distance Thwarting.

But there are no social lunches, no ‘secret’ get-togethers, and something inside Crowley feels terribly empty. All the while time splashes and runs and drips along as it is sucked towards the vortice that is Eternity.

There have been other times–years, decades, days, he doesn’t always keep up–where they have not run into each other, and neither minded it too much. (Because they knew they’d always be there, anyways.) Leave two invincible, immortal beings on a planet alone for long enough, they will cross paths time and time again. Especially if they actively seek each other out–which of course, they don’t, no, not at all. Happenstance, that is.

But this time, Crowley does mind.

The silence has stretched between them for so long, he feels, that it’s too weird, too late, for him to show up on the angel’s doorstep now as if nothing happened.

(He doesn’t know that Aziraphale feels much the same way, still catching himself hoping, every now and again when the door to his bookshop opens, that a dark, tall demon in sunglasses will saunter in and show off his newest hairdo. He waits, but no one comes. He’d always come, Before.)

So when Crowley receives a call and a basket and a mission that rests so heavy on his shoulders that poor Atlas beside him might have well appeared to be carrying a pebble, a small, tiny part of him rejoices as he stands alone in a phone box and hears, after all this time, a Very Familiar voice.

It’s like coming home, except your home is on fire and about to come crashing down around you.

Suddenly there is no more forever, no more Eternity awaiting very very very very distantly on the horizon.

Eleven years is all that’s left, and suddenly the fourty-something years you wasted feel like so much more than the blink of an eye. They feel like ash tastes.

“We need to talk,” he’d said, and as he walks into St. James’ Park a few hours later and spots a flash of Beige and Tartan, he thinks he finally understands why humans hold onto time like it’s a slippery piece of soap.

They lock eyes–finally, after half a century of Longing and Regret–and a lot of unspoken things pass silently between them.

But there’s no time for That, so it has to remain unspoken.

When Crowley sees him in the costume he groans and protests loudly. He asks Aziraphale what he could possibly be wearing it for? After all, they don’t have any kids to entertain! 

Aziraphale simply tells Crowley to sit down. He’s been practising some new tricks and he needs an audience. Crowley does so, complaining the whole time, and Aziraphale does some of his usual card tricks and makes a rabbit come out of a hat. 

Just as Crowley says ‘Angel, I’ve seen these a hundred times’, Aziraphale reaches out behind Crowley’s ear, and in his hand there isn’t a shiny penny, but a beautiful ring. The band is made from gold crafted into an elegant braid, and there are tiny stones set in it in Crowley’s signature shade of red. 

So you get what I mean, I’ll zoom in a little

crowley:

I was taking with my friend about good omens and we were wondering how the hell aziraphale-as-crowley managed to get into that bath without getting his socks wet and so I drew this ‘helpful’ guide.

A little known fact: heaven was responsible for the creation of ducks, but hell was responsible for their personalities. Typically Crowley found this good for a laugh, but right this moment he can’t help but feel the threat of karma crawling up his spine.

Crowley is on a picnic. More specifically, he is on a picnic with Aziraphale in St. James Park. Crowley has finally smoothed out the blanket (a ridiculous tartan pattern, because what else would it be) to his satisfaction after ten minutes of fussing and the angel’s insistence that, really, it needn’t be perfect.

Anything less than perfect just won’t do for Crowley though. Not for this. Not for this tentative New Thing between them that is essentially the same as their Old Thing but is still markedly more involved. Neither of them had really said… anything specific. In their typical fashion they skirted around what they both wished to say without actually managing to say it and still somehow leaving the conversation with an understanding that things would be Different now.

He supposes things change on principle when one averts the apocalypse.

“Are you certain you’re alright?” Aziraphale asks, squeezing the handle of the picnic basket between both his hands. Crowley thinks if he squeezes any harder it’ll splinter. “You know, you didn’t have to agree to a picnic just because I suggested it.”

“I didn’t,” Crowley says as he plops down on the blanket.

He did.

But he’d agree to nearly anything Aziraphale suggests if it means an excuse to be near the angel. Not that a picnic is such a terrible thing, in theory. It’s just that he hasn’t been able to shake the feeling of being followed. Watched. Hunted?

“Do the ducks usually wander this far into the park?” Crowley wonders aloud, suddenly noticing just how many seem to be waddling around them.

“Well they’re hardly confined to the pond,” Aziraphale says, retrieving the bottle of wine and two glasses he’d packed in the basket. “I suspect they’re free to go wherever they choose.”

“…nnnnnnyeah,” Crowley agrees reluctantly.

Maybe they are free to go where they like, but in his opinion that’s even less reason to trust the little buggers. He narrows his eyes as the angel hands him a glass of wine, listening to the soft quacks growing in number and volume as Aziraphale retrieves a packet of crackers. There’s a predatory glint in all those soulless, beady little eyes, he swears.

“You’re quite certain that nothing is bothering you?” Aziraphale asks, threatening to turn the pack of crackers to breadcrumbs with his anxious hands. 

“Would you stop your fretting?” Crowley replies, sipping from his glass. “If I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Aziraphale muses. He fiddles with the package, taking his time opening it. “I’m projecting, aren’t I?”

“Projecting?” Crowley echoes curiously.

“Well, I mean, assuming you’re as anxious as I am by… er… all of this,” Aziraphale admits.

A light flush rises on his cheeks and Crowley catches his meaning. All of this. This thing between them that they’ve acknowledged but managed to neither define nor speak of in any explicit terms. Feathery threat forgotten for the moment, he leans in just enough to bump shoulders with the angel.

“Aziraphale. Relax,” Crowley says. “It’s just us. Just like always, yeah?”

If anything that only serves the fluster Aziraphale further, who is now wrinkling the pack of crackers in earnest.

“Of course,” he answers, clearing his throat. “Thank you. For being patient with me. For always being patient with me.”

Crowley rolls his eyes. “Shut up.”

That earns him a soft laugh and he feels some of the nervous tension leave the air. It’s easy to play cool when the angel can’t tell that his heart is beating fit to burst out his chest. 

“It’s funny,” Aziraphale says, slowly opening the package in his hands.

“What’s funny?”

“You’d think what with me being an angel it would be easier to say—”

Crowley has no idea what it is the angel was going to say, because the package of crackers has been opened. Normally this wouldn’t be something you would blink twice at. But in this case, the sound has the same effect as chum dropped in shark infested waters. Over the sound of loud quacking and flapping wings, Crowley can still hear Aziraphale’s high pitched shriek as the ducks descend upon them.

He knew the little bastards were up to something. But his vindication is short lived as he finds himself swinging their picnic basket in an attempt to disperse the ducks. There’s an offended gasp from someone nearby as he punts one of the feathery bêtes noires back to the watery pit it came from, but Crowley’s never been one to care about the opinions of the great unwashed and he’s not about to start now.

At last, admitting to himself that he’s fighting a losing battle, the demon grabs his companion by the arm and hauls him off, the ridiculous tartan patterned blanket trailing behind them like a flag of surrender. They don’t stop until they’ve reached the Bentley, hurriedly locking themselves inside. The two huff and puff inside the car, from either the run or a newfound case of anatidaephobia. Or both.

(It’s possible that Crowley jumps, just a little, when one of the little blighters lands on the hood of the Bentley. Aziraphale may or may not scream when it seemingly combusts of its own accord in an explosion of feathers. Neither party will admit to these.)

“What was it that was supposed to be easy for you to say?” Crowley asks, once he’s got enough of his breath back to speak.

“I…”

Aziraphale stares back at him, hazel eyes wide as he catches his breath. There’s wine soaked into his clothes, he’s covered in cracker crumbs and there are duck feathers stuck on his jacket and in his curly hair. 

He looks ridiculous.

But he looks beautiful, too.

“I love you,” he blurts breathlessly.

Crowley presenting as female to be Warlock’s Nanny? The way this was filmed, acted, and written wasn’t made to be funny whatsoever. She was stunning, I loved the hat!

Pollution using they/them pronouns while the postman used the gender neutral honorific of sir for them? What’s there to make fun of? They’re royalty.

Archangel Michael, who has a traditionally male name, played by a female actress? Never questioned.

Lord Beelzebub’s androgyny? Only respect for the Lord of Hell.

Aziraphale sharing Madame Tracy’s body? Crowley recognized his angel and accepted it no problem. He was right about the dress too, it did suit him!

Crowley’s pure, unfiltered non-binary/gender-fluid energy in general? Fucking fabulous. Who could seriously make fun of this demon’s style? As someone once pointed out to me, you could swap him with Tilda Swinton and I’d see no difference. What an icon.

based on this post: no offense but the soft uncertain kiss followed by a pause where the people look each other in the eyes and then fucking pull eachother back into a more passionate kiss will always be the most soul destroying trope , catch me lying on the fucking ground sobbing

The first time, Crowley bolts. 

By God, Satan and the Universe, he did not mean to. Surely, when the angel you started falling in love with six thousand years ago (and whom you have never stopped falling in love with) finally, finally, closes the eternal space between you with unbearable slowness and a look of longing on his face that might bring Kings and Queens and Whole Nations to their knees, the last thing you ought to do is move away.

His knees feel weak as he staggers, flees, towards his Bentley, leaving behind a flabbergasted, confused, and suddenly very lonely angel. Why? Why why why, Crowley, you bastard, he thinks to himself, all the while putting his foot down on the gas as if he was looking to break the Guinness World Record of Fastest Coward Alive. 

He drives for a long time, leaving behind the city boundaries and the Dark Sigil Odegra, where he circumvents a traffic jam long enough to earn him another commendation. He drives South, to the sea. For a moment, he considers driving onwards, sending the Bentley along the ocean floor until he’d resurface either in the Netherlands or in Hell. But he brakes and gets out of the car and feels like screaming. 

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

The second time Aziraphale looks at him like That, like he is worth more than a life supply of 1811 Chateau d'Yquem and the original Gutenberg Bible and a million sushi platters at Sukijabashi Jiro combined, less than a fortnight has passed. 

Crowley thought he was prepared. He is not. 

He doesn’t think he ever will be. Because he suddenly feels a panic so big he flinches and knocks over a pile of books, mumbling words that never even make it to his own ears, words that evaporate in the space between them, as his feet carry him out of the door.

This time, he is sure he saw Uncertainty flash across the angel’s face. No, no, anything but that, Angel. Please.

It scares him, the possibility of being loved back; it scares him so much.

After six thousand years, you get used to it. You resign yourself to the Infinite Limbo, the Almost, the More Than Nothing, because it’s not bad. It’s good, really. Just being together feels good and right and like Home. But then you look at the humans and their stupid Love and you want it, just like you want their fashion and their inventions and, especially, their cars. 

And any unspoken desire takes root so deep in the heart that it grows back no matter how many times you try to trim it down, to decimate it with the plant shredder of your soul. 

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

The third time, Aziraphale finds him at his flat. He says nothing as Crowley opens the door, but oh, his eyes speak for him. They say so much at once that Crowley can barely keep up. 

But most of all, both of them, the angel and the demon, look desperate. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale breaks the silence, and with it thousands of years of a different kind of silence, “I must… you have to kn– we have to…”

Exasperated, the angel pulls a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket, and as he nervously straightens it out Crowley realizes it must be a letter, and despite himself he almost laughs, a mad kind of laughter that bubbles up his throat. But he holds on to his last sliver of sanity as he watches Aziraphale opening his mouth, closing it, looking away and back again and finally, with an audible, desperate sigh, stuffing the letter back into his pocket.

“I came to tell you just one thing, really.” Aziraphale fidgets, finally straightening his back and taking a deep breath.

From somewhere deep inside him, Crowley produces a “Hgk?” which he manages, through performing a minor miracle, to make sound like (a soft, very soft) “Go on then, angel.”

“I’m ready now,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley feels like crying.

His hand grips the doorframe tighter, but this time, he does not run. (There is nowhere to run. He always ends up back with him, in the end.) When, against his own expectations, he does not slam the door into Aziraphale’s face but remains standing there, trying to look Cool As A Cucumber, the angel brightens, slightly. Hope is a strong and inherently good feeling in any human, but an angel’s hope is enough to end wars.

(Literally. Somewhere in ——, an entire people suddenly lay down their weapons and wonder why they ever picked them up in the first place.)

“I’m sorry I go so slow,” Aziraphale mumbles, carefully taking a step forward to touch his fingertips to Crowley’s cheek, eliciting a low hiss. “But I’m ready now… to match your pace.”

Crowley says nothing, because he doesn’t think he can. All his willpower, all his focus, is centered around just Being, and he feels like he’s drowning, but in a good way. (Is this how whales feel? He wishes he were a whale, with a brain so big it might be strong enough to comprehend the Love of an Angel.) 

He forces himself to lift his gaze and when he does it’s like turning on a flashlight in utter darkness. It’s like the true Blue produced only by the Interference of Light. 

Crowley realizes something: Aziraphale looks scared, too. But the angel is braver than he is. Despite the uncertainty in his eyes, Aziraphale lets his gaze drop, and Crowley licks his lips. He moves forward less than the fraction of an inch: an invitation that Aziraphale–finally, finally–readily accepts.

Softly, the angel touches his lips to the demon’s. For a perfect moment, he lingers. Then, just as softly, he pulls back. 

They look at each other, noses touching, each other’s breath on their lips. 

Oh. 

Crowley breaks. He pulls Aziraphale back in like he is the world’s oceans and Crowley is the moon. He still feels desperate, but it’s the best kind of desperate, the I Can’t Get Enough Of You kind of desperation that he thought he had known before but realized he had only grasped at. 

They cling to each other, kissing and kissing again until they slowly come to a rest, breathing hard. Aziraphale rests his forehead against Crowley’s.

“Oh,” he breathes, and sounds as shaky as Crowley feels. They look at each other and–they can’t help it, they start laughing.

Crowley isn’t afraid to be loved back at all, he realizes. He was afraid of Not being loved back, a fear that feels so small in the light of This Moment that it’s as ridiculous as Ducks With Ears. 

“You do go fast, dear,” Aziraphale says breathlessly, and smiles. Crowley grins.