#basically I don't wanna READ another post about aziraphale not deserving crowley's love

[somegoodomens]

Rambling about Good Omens with @alwaysademonneveragod (as one does) and for the sake of making each other miserable with more angst than is needed, she said: Imagine how Crowley felt seeing how easily Gabriel gave up Heaven in order to be with Beelzebub. And, yes, hello pain, old friend.

But also, there's something about this that just needs to be said, and that's that, in Aziraphale's defense, the stakes for Gabriel are so much lower than they are for Aziraphale, and this is something I think Crowley might accept and recognize once some of the pain left from Aziraphale leaving cools down a little and gives him some room to see the whole picture.

At the end of the day, Gabriel is still a character that doesn't care about much beyond himself, just as we saw in S1. We do see him more empathetic and selfless in his Jim version, but at the very core Gabriel is still rather selfish, caring mostly about himself and now, of course, about Beelzebub as well because he is in love with them. I'm not saying choosing to leave Heaven and his position as Archangel just to be with his demon partner was any less noble and romantic and high risk, but at the same time it was still easy since Gabriel doesn't personally care about much else. For them to leave to Alpha Century and never come back makes sense.

Aziraphale, however, is in a much more complex situation with much higher stakes. Making the same decision as Gabriel would make no sense with his character.

Aziraphale cares about Crowley, LOVES Crowley, but he also loves the world and, right now, he's put in a position where he has to pick one and risk the other (something he didn't want to do, and for that he asked Crowley to go with him). Aziraphale loves having his little restaurants, loves his first edition books, his records of classical music, his store of magic tricks. He loves how imperfect and messy humanity is, because all of it is part of the precious, peaceful and fragile existence he's carved for himself AND for Crowley. Aziraphale loves the world as something that's his but also as something that's theirs. That's where their love story happened, the common ground they could share together, making company for each other each time the lines of good and evil became too confusing to follow. They can't share Heaven (white) and they can't share Hell (black) but they can share the world and its immense amounts of grays.

It makes me think how Aziraphale's love for Crowley and his love for the world has fuzzy edges that bleed into each other until it's a messy whole that can't be torn apart. A whole he wants so fiercely to protect, for himself but also for both of them, him and Crowley. And, right now (manipulations being considered), he knows he has a chance of doing just that from Heaven while keeping Crowley by his side according to the Metatron's offer.

The issue is that, of course, they don't TALK and when they do they say half of the things they need to say, and it's always disguised in this carefully put together veil of pretence, never daring to cross the line of pretending there's nothing more between them than there should be. Either way, they don't TALK and if they do, they don't say enough, so now Crowley is left thinking that Aziraphale, after everything, still chose Heaven over him, but NO.

Aziraphale is choosing the world ("To the world.") He's choosing to protect this beautiful thing he found from the greedy hands of those who don't understand a thing about it and only seek it to see it destroyed in order to fulfil their own needs and wishes.

He's choosing to protect the world from yet another apocalypse, and when he chooses the world he is choosing Crowley too, because for Aziraphale one can't go without the other. Does he do it from his still present blind faith in Heaven and its goodness? Yes, and that's because his arc as a character is not done yet. But the purpose is not, in my opinion, to be back in Heave's good books. The purpose is to fight for what he loves, and that's the world and Crowley.