*tastes Potion Like A Chef Testing The Soup* Hm. Needs More Eye Of Newt.

I feel like you’ll appreciate this photo I took several years ago when I was in school of a raven getting spooked by something in the bushes

Folks let me talk about Crowley and sunglasses, because I have a lot of emotions about when he wears them and when he doesn’t, and Hiding versus Being Seen.

We’re introduced to the concept of Crowley wearing glasses even before we’re introduced to Crowley, by Hastur: “If you ask me he’s been up here too long. Gone native. Enjoying himself too much. Wearing sunglasses even when he doesn’t need them.”

Honestly Crowley’s whole introduction is a fantastic; we learn so much about his character in a tiny amount of time. The fact that he’s late, the Queen playing as the Bentley approaches, the “Hi, guys” in response to Hastur and Ligur’s “Hail Satan”. I like this intro much better than the one originally scripted with the rats at the phone company, but I digress.

Crowley wears sunglasses when he doesn’t need them. Specifically, he still wears them around the demons, and when he’s in hell.

You know where Crowley doesn’t wear glasses? At home.

We never once see him wearing glasses in his flat, except for when he knows Hastur and Ligur are coming. That’s an emotional kick to the gut for me. Here’s one of the only places Crowley’s comfortable enough to be sans glasses, and when he knows it’s going to be invaded he prepares not just physically with the holy water, but by putting up that emotional barrier in a place where he wasn’t supposed to need it.

An argument could be made that Crowley actually never needs glasses. We’re shown that it’s well within the angels’ and demons’ powers to pass unnoticed by humans. Crowley and Aziraphale waltz out of the manor in the middle of a police raid, and going unnoticed by the police takes so little effort that they can keep up a conversation while they stroll through. Even an unimaginative demon like Hastur apparently doesn’t have trouble with the humans losing it over his demonic eyes. The humans in the scene at Megiddo are acting like “this guy is a little weird” and not “holy shit his entire eyeballs are black jelly”

That means that Crowley’s glasses are a choice, just like Aziraphale’s softness. Sure, he could arrange matters so that nobody ever noticed his eyes, but he doesn’t want to. Crowley wants acceptance, and he wants to belong, and he’s never, ever had that. He didn’t fit in before the Fall in Heaven, he doesn’t fit in with the demons in Hell. With the glasses, and with the Bentley and his plants and with the barely-bad-enough-to-be-evil nuisance temptations, he’s choosing Earth. This is where he wants to fit in, perhaps not with the humans, but amongst them.

Even after Crowley is at his absolute lowest, when he thinks Aziraphale’s dead and he’s on his way to drink until the world ends, he takes the time to put a new pair on when the old ones are damaged. He needs that emotional crutch right now, even with everything about to turn into a pile of puddling goo he’s not ready for the world to see his eyes.

Which is why I swore out loud when Hastur forcibly takes them off.

It’s about the worst thing that Hastur could have done. Rather than leading with a physical threat, his first act is to strip away Crowley’s emotional defences. It’s a great writing choice because god it made me hate Hastur, even more than all the physical violence we see him do.

It’s also the moment that Crowley really truly gets his shit together, and focuses all of his considerable imagination on getting to Tadfield and Aziraphale to help save the world. He’s wielding the terrifyingly unimaginable power of someone who’s hit rock bottom and realised it literally could not get any worse than this. He doesn’t put another pair of glasses on after discorporating Hastur, and he spends the majority of the airbase sequence without them.

He puts them back on again, I think, at the moment that he really lets himself hope. When he thinks ‘shit, there may be a real chance that we get through this to a future that I don’t want to lose’.

The vulnerability is back, and he needs Adam to trust him. In Crowley’s mind being accepted by a human means he needs to have his eyes hidden. Someone give the demon a hug, please.

Interestingly, there’s only one time in the whole series that we see Crowley willingly choose to take his glasses off around another person. Only one person he’ll take down that barrier for, and even then he’s drunk before he does it.

Dear God/Satan/Someone that makes my heart ache. Crowley’s chosen Earth, but he’s also chosen Aziraphale. He’s been looking for somewhere to belong his entire existence, and it’s with the angel that he finally feels it.

When the dust settles and the world is saved and they finally have space to be themselves unguarded, I like to imagine Crowley takes off the glasses when it’s just the two of them; the idea of being known doesn’t scare him quite so much anymore.  

Crowley, teaching Aziraphale to drive: Okay, so you’re driving and Gabriel and Michael walk onto the road. Quick, what do you hit?

Aziraphale: Oh definitely Gabriel

Crowley, sighing: The brakes, angel. You hit the brakes.

how do you know if you're in love???

I honestly asked my friend this same question just hours ago as I was clueless myself but thinking about it now I think it’s when for the first time after what seemed like a dreadful year (or life), you look forward to waking every morning knowing he (let’s use he as it’s me talking) will be there for you. I think it’s just plain seeing him and being happy that’s he’s around. It’s being happy just by hearing his voice. No matter how bad your day is, one message from him would make your entire day. It’s when he makes you want to write long letters and huge poems. It’s not all about “lust”- it’s more of the intimate relationship you have together. It’s when the simplest of things count. It’s when you start to mature and start to plan something with him for the future. It’s when he makes you want to start fixing your life. It’s when he’s always in your head 3 pm or 3 am. It’s when you can’t stop talking or thinking about him. It’s when you just really always miss him even if he’s right beside you. It’s the “I used to like green eyes but now blue eyes are my favorite”. It’s when all love and cheesy stuff just apply for him. It’s when you begin to see nothing but him and you value him like you value yourself. It’s not the “heart pounding, hands sweating” feeling but more of the “I feel home” feeling. It’s more of like talking to yourself- being yourself with someone without worries. It’s when you begin to really trust him with everything and that includes your happiness. It’s when he’s your happiness. It’s when subconsciously you change for the better. It’s when you once again start opening up after a long time. It’s when you are denying it at most cause you are afraid of how strong you feel and last I think while you’re reading this- there’s someone in your head right now and you’re just contemplating whether you’re in love with him or not but hey the fact that he or she is the person (out of billions of people) in your mind while you read this must say a lot.

❤❤❤

like a prayer for which no words exist

[Read here on AO3]

There are places [1] Crowley likes to go when it all gets to be a little much, like a snake seeking a hole for refuge from a storm. That Aziraphale is the storm is surprising, or maybe not surprising at all. These places are holy - lowercase h - in that they are undisturbed, protected, and treasured. A reprieve. An indrawn breath before drowning. They are places Crowley goes that Aziraphale does not visit. That’s not to say that the angel doesn’t know where they are, simply that he does not go where Crowley does not ask for him.

[1] A rooftop garden in New York City. A cozy nook inside St. Paul’s. A patch of red dirt outside Tuscon, Arizona. An old iron bench just outside Kensington Gardens. The bosom of Eden.The edge of the World. Others, dozens maybe, that Crowley knows by feel and not name.

He’s in New York two days after the Apocolypse-That-Wasn’t, high up in a humid class cage full of shivering plants that know both fear and reverence. The Orchids have become fussy in his absence refusing to stand straight out of pure defiance. The English Ivy, the oldest, grows thick and lovely in creeping vines along the ceiling and walls. It almost seems to sigh at Crowley as he brandishes a pair of shears menacingly at the disobedient Orchids.

“Not you as well,” Crowley sneers, shaking the shears at the wall, “I won’t hear it.”

In the corner a Snake Plant shakes almost fondly. Crowley hisses, terrible yellow eyes drawn into slits, and it stops moving, its tall leaves stretching skyward as if in surrender. Crowley clicks his tongue and goes back to fussing with the Orchids.

“Don’t know why I even bother. I should just bin the lot of you.”

He does not. Crowley has known these plants for a long time. He takes a seat on the floor amongst empty pots and potting soil, dirt on his hands and smudged along a sharp cheekbone because he allows it to be. There’s something satisfying about the mess. He wonders, vaguely and quite without meaning to, if that is how She feels about Her Creation. Crowley snarls and kicks out at the leg of a table. It wobbles, the pots atop it shuddering with the force, before going still.

An impossible Honeysuckle bush in the opposite corner blooms for him, sickly sweet in her smell. The orchids finally stand upright, maybe sensing the shift in their Master’s mood or maybe just tired of being contrary. Crowley is no longer looking at them, however. His eyes have drifted up, through the English Ivy curling sweetly along the ceiling, where gray skies hang fat and heavy in the sky. The rain starts first as a light pat and, as Crowley watches, works its way to a torrent. Between this and the overwhelming smell of sweet Earth, Crowley can almost fall asleep.

It’s tempting, and Crowley does love temptations. A hundred year nap after The-End-That-Almost-Was feels well deserved, but Aziraphale gets dreadfully worried if Crowley is gone for too long. He’s startled by a creeping vine tangling around his ankle. He shakes his leg. “Off with you, you annoying little bugger.”

The vine squeezes once before letting go and all at once Crowley misses Aziraphale so dearly it makes his stomach ache. In a wild fit of temper he reaches for an empty pot to throw and smashes it against the wall.

smash

Then another-

smash

And another-

smash smash smash

Until he is left empty and the wall of Ivy is bruised.

Crowley moves then, shaking, standing to shove the table aside with less care than it deserves, cutting his feet open upon broken terra cotta. He rests a hand, gently now, on the Ivy and pulls away green fingers like he’d made it bleed. He puts his hand to the wall again, burying his hand amongst the leaves and pushes . “Dreadfully sorry old chap.” Crowley says and feels the Ivy pulsate around his fingers. [2]

[2] Long ago Aziraphale had given Crowley a little cutting of Ivy from the side of his bookshoppe. “Perhaps you can take up gardening,” the angel said wryly. The Ivy had pulsed in Crowley’s hand then as well, like it was trying to hold him.

Crowley untangles his fingers from the Ivy and it shivers once before stilling. He moves the table back into place and waves a hand dismissively at the floor, clearing the pots. The storm outside rages on and he paces, leaving bloody footprints along the concrete. The garden suddenly feels stifling and Crowley leaves without a word, letting the door clap closed behind him.

Keep reading