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vidavalor · 4 months ago

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The Kiss

There is a big something that I think might be missing in discussion of The Final 15 that could not only help to explain the finale but also help to answer the following common question:

How could Crowley & Aziraphale really be long-time lovers when the kiss is awkward and Aziraphale's response, in particular, could be taken as indicative of the opposite?

There is an answer. To see it involves asking these questions:

What, exactly, do Crowley and Aziraphale each thing is happening in The Final 15... and what are their plans to stop it that they are trying (and failing) to convey to one another?

Those plans-- Crowley's, in particular? They will show you how the show that is no stranger to the art of prestidigitation is showing basically the worst kiss imaginable between two beings who have been lovers for millennia and just how, exactly, that's possible with what their narrative magic trick led you to think you saw.

Grab a drink and c'mon in. We're going to reverse-engineer The Final 15 and, if you're anything like the people I've already shown this to, you might look at both the kiss and the ending of S2 in a whole new romantic light as a result...

The most common question and comment that I have received is always how it is that I can see Crowley and Aziraphale as very old lovers when the kiss in 2.06, to some people, tells a different story.

Very often this question comes not from people who don't want them to be old lovers but from people who do-- especially people who like my ideas about The Vavoom that Crowley spends half of S2 going on about being their first kiss or who agree with the idea that the ancient Rome scene and its highly euphemistic oysters is meant to suggest the first time Crowley and Aziraphale went to bed together. They agree with the zillions of little suggestions of Crowley and Aziraphale having been lovers in secret for millennia but they are thrown by the only kiss to date being that admittedly very painful to watch one with a reaction out of Aziraphale that is borderline devastated. If they've been a couple for ages, as a hundred different moments suggest, how can we square that with this kiss?

I've given this answer, in bits and pieces, to a few people and they all have been in agreement that it makes sense, answers those above questions, and actually also makes all of the end of S2 a bit more romantic, if still sad. Hopefully, if that's what you're looking for, it will do that for you, too. This is a very long post but if everyone's reading epic fic around the kiss, why not a meta, right? There are chocolate cookies. *passes the tray*

TWs: Satan's attacks on Crowley-- the possession-as-rape-analogy in Good Omens; PTSD; anxiety.

To understand both what's going on The Final 15 and why the kiss is... that kiss... we have to first understand just what it is that Crowley and Aziraphale think is happening in this scene.

There are a lot of distractions thrown in everywhere and, as I've looked around, I haven't seen anyone talk yet about what Crowley thinks is happening, in particular... because it's not just his worry about Aziraphale and the Supreme Archangel job. It's not really actually that at all-- and the show told us (and only us) that back near the start of 2.01.

In the beginning of the season, we are shown that Crowley is freaked out about The Book of Life. It doesn't actually matter in S2 if The Book of Life is real or not. All that matters is that Crowley becomes convinced that it is. This fear that Aziraphale could be written out of it and made to have never existed is then driving Crowley's behavior all season...

...but only we the audience know that. Why does that matter?

Because it explains a lot of the communication gaps happening between the main four characters that are actually what cause The Final 15 to unfold the way it does and what are, therefore, kind of responsible for that blasted kiss being the way it is.

So, we have to look at those miscommunications first, in order to understand how Crowley arrives at a plan he does to stop Aziraphale from being Book of Life'd and what that plan has to do with the kiss. It's not actually something in anyone's mouth-- it's something I haven't seen anyone bring up yet that actually also ties the whole season together. Right, so, the miscommunications and why Crowley hasn't told anyone by 2.06 about how he's freaked out about The Book of Life...

While Crowley is advocating that people talk to one another-- that feeding your fellow metaphorical ducks your metaphorical frozen peas, as he tells Shax in 2.01-- is the way forward, he's holding back on his own frozen peas where The Book of Life is concerned. Despite being open about his emotions with Aziraphale, he doesn't tell him about this all season. Crowley's heart is in the right place for doing so but he's made a *huge* error in judgement in withholding this information from Aziraphale. Why is Crowley making that big mistake when he normally wouldn't with Aziraphale?

It's because of how he learned of the threat of The Book of Life and how that relates to what Aziraphale is going through in S2.

Aziraphale is struggling to deal with the feeling that Heaven has abandoned him. Until Gabriel showed up at the shop, no one from Heaven has spoken to Aziraphale in the years between S1 and S2. He wants Heaven to fuck off but he's also embarrassed by how easily they seem to have been able to do so. Crowley knows what it feels like to feel like Heaven has thrown you over and he's trying to be a sensitive partner to Aziraphale. He can't stand how Heaven has made his angel feel and he's not keen on making it worse by telling Aziraphale more than is absolutely necessary regarding any interactions with Hell that Crowley is having.

In reality, Heaven hasn't actually abandoned Aziraphale-- not entirely. Gabriel and Beez are on Crowley and Aziraphale's side but they haven't told them that. Because of the events of the end of S1, Gabriel and Beez think that Crowley and Aziraphale wouldn't want to talk to them and they also think that all four of them could be in danger if they were caught interacting. They think the best way to protect Crowley and Aziraphale is to pretend as much as possible like they don't exist. This is easier for Gabriel to get away with in Heaven than it is for Beez to get away with in Hell.

The top angels don't care about the bookshop and see being assigned to Earth as beneath them. They're all jockeying for power and focused on Armageddon so none of them are bugging Gabriel about Aziraphale's ambassador job and the embassy bookshop that they presume is just going to be destroyed during Armageddon anyway. Gabriel can get away with protecting Aziraphale by just not doing anything about him or the bookshop whatsoever. Beez, though, is in a tighter position.

The higher-ranked demons all want to get the hell out of there and escape to Earth and Crowley had one of the most plum jobs in Hell. Beez is under a lot of pressure to fire and replace him. They manage to kick the can down the road as much as possible-- probably using the pandemic lockdowns and how there were fewer people out to tempt as an excuse-- until they get to a point where they have to replace Crowley or risk being seen as a traitor themselves, which would put all four of them in danger and would have been abandoning Gabriel, which Beez couldn't do.

So, Beez sends the one annoying them the most about the job-- Shax-- to take over Crowley's position, which also means kicking Crowley out of the Hell-owned flat he had in Mayfair. Beez doesn't actually want to do this. Note how when they talk to Crowley in Hell in S2, they say that they could put a price on his head anytime... but we know that they haven't and it's been four years. They don't really wish him any harm, they just felt they had to pretend like they do in Hell to stay alive. Beez and Gabriel have been doing the best they can to protect Crowley and Aziraphale and they think that, while it is obviously not great that they've had to take Crowley's flat, it's not a total disaster because Gabriel can make sure that the bookshop remains in Aziraphale's hands and doesn't Crowley basically live in the bookshop with Aziraphale anyway?

Gabriel and Beez aren't exactly wrong about Crowley basically living in the bookshop-- but they aren't exactly right about it, either. We are shown that Crowley, for all intents and purposes, does basically live in the bookshop. They both get "plenty of use" out of it, don't they? It's the reason why Aziraphale doesn't notice that Crowley has lost his flat-- Crowley is just there in the shop with him, in what is basically their home, every night until the pre-dawn hours, when he slips out of the side door because they're still trying not to be caught.

Ironically? It's not just Satan and The Metatron but Gabriel and Beez that Crowley and Aziraphale don't want to find out that they're a couple because they don't know that Gabriel and Beez actually have already known forever and are on their side. They don't know that Gabriel and Beez have been trying to protect them from Satan and The Metatron. Ahead of S2, Crowley and Aziraphale see Beez and Gabriel as threats when, in reality, the reason why they've been getting away with their relationship for so long is because Ineffable Bureaucracy already knows, ships it, and doesn't think it's any of their business.

Because no one's talking to each other here about this stuff, though, Aziraphale doesn't know he has Gabriel in his corner. He's understandably very sensitive about the fact that no one in Heaven seems to give a fuck about him. He doesn't want Heaven to be bugging them but he's also embarrassed by how easily Heaven has thrown him over-- a very hard pill to swallow after Aziraphale has spent so many years denying himself the full life he wants because of Heaven.

No angels have shown up in the bookshop in four years to formally fire Aziraphale and try to claim the bookshop, which is, technically, an angelic space. To Aziraphale, this means that he's so inconsequential that Heaven couldn't even be bothered to acknowledge his existence. In reality, no angels have because Gabriel is a fan of both Aziraphale and the bookshop and has been making sure that no one hurts either... but he hasn't told Aziraphale that and, because of what happens to Gabriel in S2, he actually is incapable of doing so because his memories are missing. So, all of this is exacerbating Aziraphale's already high anxiety and depression in S2.

Crowley sees and understands Aziraphale's feelings over Heaven and he doesn't want to make it worse. He can't stand seeing Aziraphale in pain so, while he's open about other emotions and goings on, he keeps from Aziraphale any interactions that he has with Hell.

He's doing so because he thinks it will embarrass Aziraphale even more if he finds out that even Hell cared about Crowley and his demonic job performance enough that they thought enough of him to actually fire and replace him. This is why Crowley keeps from Aziraphale the information that Shax has taken his job and flat-- and the far more important information that Beez reached out to him, asked for his help, and convinced him of the threat of The Book of Life.

All Aziraphale does know about Crowley's interactions with Hell during S2 is that he knows that Crowley is meeting Shax for information (Crowley's "you'll never guess who Shax asked me about" to Aziraphale in 2.01.). Crowley has told Aziraphale this because he has no other choice. The two of them need a source in Heaven or Hell to give them information on whether or not Heaven or Hell is planning on coming after them and when Armageddon: Round Two might be getting going. Telling Aziraphale this was bad enough, as far is Crowley is concerned, because it alone is causing Aziraphale embarrassment.

Aziraphale is mortified that Crowley needs to be the one of the two of them to provide the source. He sees it as a failure to protect Crowley because he thinks it would be safer for Crowley if they had a source in Heaven and he's embarrassed by the fact that no one in Heaven will talk to him. This theme of Aziraphale feeling like he's failing Crowley and isn't able to fully protect him carries into The Final 15 and is why Aziraphale is (quite literally) tempted by the (really non-existent) job offer.

What this means, though, is that Crowley's decision to not tell Aziraphale about his concerns about The Book of Life because it would mean telling him about his interaction with Beez means that Crowley's usual sounding board of Aziraphale is, in Crowley's mind, not an option for all of S2. The person who usually helps calm his anxiety is someone that Crowley has decided he can't talk to without triggering their anxiety when, in reality, it actually would have made Aziraphale feel a thousand times better if Crowley had gone to him with this.

Because Crowley trusts few people, if he doesn't have Aziraphale to talk to about his fears, he doesn't have a lot of other options. Humans and Shax are obviously out, as is Beez, whom Crowley thinks still believes it to be true. When Crowley brings it up to Gabriel, he doesn't actually say "The Book of Life" at any point. He growls that Aziraphale is "risking his existence" for Gabriel, which is really, from Gabriel's perspective, just another way of saying "risking his life."

While Jim didn't have his memories and so couldn't really offer Crowley any counsel about it, Gabriel probably knows whether or not The Book of Life is real or not... he just has no idea, based on how Crowley phrased it, that Crowley is concerned about it. He probably could have told Crowley that it isn't real in 2.06 if Crowley had actually talked to him about it but Crowley didn't let him in enough and that fucks The Final 15, too. When Gabriel gets his memories back in 2.06, he doesn't say anything to Crowley about The Book of Life because he doesn't even know it's an issue... only we do. We are shown it so that we know where Crowley's mind is at and can use that to help interpret what's happening in 2.06.

So, what do all these miscommunications have to do with Crowley's plan and The Kiss?

Honestly? Everything...

Believing in The Book of Life is Crowley's main concern throughout the whole season and, because Crowley got the information that led to his fear of The Book of Life from Beez, he has decided it's not something about which he can tell Aziraphale. This results in Aziraphale having absolutely no idea what Crowley believes the threat is during The Final 15. It is a big part of why they fail to understand what one another is saying... and it's a *very* big part of how that kiss ended up so awkward, despite Crowley and Aziraphale actually being long-time lovers, as you'll see as we talk below about just what Crowley was planning on doing about this threat of The Book of Life.

Crowley is convinced that the dude who shows up with coffee in 2.06 is The Metatron. Because he thinks it's The Metatron, Crowley now thinks that The Metatron is trying to lure Aziraphale to Heaven to write his name out of The Book of Life and make it so that the love of Crowley's life has never existed and Crowley. is. terrified. of this happening...

Is he just going to stand by and watch it happen, though?

Of course not. Crowley always has a plan. So, what's Crowley's plan?

If you were Crowley and you believed in the threat of non-existence via The Book of Life, based on what he (and we) have seen in the story so far, what would you think you could do to save Aziraphale?

Crowley knows that he can't actually prevent The Metatron from trying to erase Aziraphale. He knows they're basically trapped and that he might not be able to stop Aziraphale from going with The Metatron, willingly or unwillingly, because The Metatron seems to have boxed them into a corner a bit here. So, presuming that Aziraphale's name will get erased, how does Crowley put into motion prior to that happening a plan to save Aziraphale from no longer existing if The Metatron erases his name?

And how does he do all of that right under The Metatron's nose, with almost no time to spare?

If your first answer is that they need to get all of Aziraphale's Aziraphaleness out of the body named 'Aziraphale' before The Metatron erases that name from The Book of Life, that is a start... that is the first phase of a plan... but it's not all of it because that would just solve one part of the problem. It's why The Fly isn't really the full answer here and there's another thing happening.

Crowley is thinking that he needs to protect Aziraphale in a way similar to how Beez protected Gabriel, in that he needs to help Aziraphale see the risk and to separate his mind from his body, the way that Gabriel was able to do to elude The Metatron and escape from Heaven just a few days before... but there is one, big issue with this threat of The Book of Life that is different from Gabriel's situation:

Gabriel still had his body.

By using Beez's fly, Gabriel was able to separate his mind and his body enough to be able to use his body to take his mind to the bookshop and, ultimately, save both parts of himself. It's because he was able to pull that off that Crowley and Beez were able to help him reunite his mind with his body by opening The Fly, right?

This doesn't fully work if the threat is The Book of Life, as Crowley believes it is to Aziraphale. Why not? Because Aziraphale's body will have been made to have never existed.

They can get Aziraphale's mind out of his body before he's erased and save his essence but, unlike with Gabriel's situation, there won't be a body to put that essence back into once the threat has passed, right?

So, Crowley knows that his plan needs to account for that. There has to be a way to not just save Aziraphale's mind from The Book of Life but to ensure that his angel's body can be kept from non-existence, too.

So, how is Crowley not just going to save Aziraphale's mind but his body so that Crowley can... *sigh* wait for it...

...restore his friend, Aziraphale, to full angelic status...

...when the threat of The Book of Life has passed?

What is one thing that exists in Good Omens that we have seen-- and so has Crowley-- that could solve the problem of both Aziraphale's mind and body in the face of a threat of The Book of Life?

It's in figuring out how to save Aziraphale's body that Crowley sees how to save all of him. How to save Aziraphale's body?

Crowley knows a guy. So do we. His name is Adam.

Crowley's thinking that, if they can get Aziraphale's mind out of Aziraphale's body the way that Beez and Gabriel did for Gabriel, that, so long as they have a fly of sorts in which to store all of Aziraphale's Aziraphaleness for a bit until after The Metatron erases Aziraphale's name from The Book of Life, they can then, once the threat has passed, drive to Tadfield and get Adam to regenerate Aziraphale's body. From there, they just pop Aziraphale's mind back into said body and ta-da! Aziraphale has eluded The Book of Life.

So, there are just a few hiccups to Crowley's plan here... namely, the fact that Beez is gone so they don't have the option of one of their flies and, even if they did, there's no way that The Metatron is going to leave them alone long enough for Aziraphale to actually extract his memories safely into one.

They are going to have do something like The Fly but that isn't exactly The Fly... and they're going to have to do it right under The Metatron's nose. Right in front of him, without him knowing, and within the few moments after Aziraphale returns to the bookshop...

...or else, Crowley believes, Aziraphale is going to die.

There is only one option left and it is the stuff of Crowley's nightmares:

He will need to be Aziraphale's fly.

To save Aziraphale from The Book of Life, Crowley thinks that Aziraphale will have to possess him.

If Aziraphale possesses him, Aziraphale will become Crowley.

He will be safe in Crowley and they can send the Jimbriel-like shell of Aziraphale left in Aziraphale's body with The Metatron to be erased. They can then get in The Bentley and drive to Tadfield, get Adam to regenerate Aziraphale's body, and they can put Aziraphale back into Aziraphale's own body.

They have no time and no other option for a fly and this is the only way. It also happens to be the thing that terrifies Crowley the most because, while he knows that Aziraphale will never hurt him, Crowley has been attacked in this way by Satan before and this is not something he and Aziraphale do. Aziraphale has Crowley-- body, heart and soul-- but his mind is a red line that neither of them have any desire to cross. They don't see it as healthy because it's unnecessarily triggering for Crowley and Aziraphale has zero interest in doing anything that worsens Crowley's PTSD.

Even if Aziraphale had understood this plan when Crowley presented it-- and we'll look at how he does that in a moment-- it's unlikely that Aziraphale would have done it, even with the express consent that Crowley was giving him. The risk to his own life wouldn't have mattered to Aziraphale more than the possibility of causing Crowley harm. How do we know that?

Because, back in S1, when Aziraphale was discorporated in Heaven, the world was also about to end. He needed to get to Tadfield to help Crowley stop it. The only way to do that in that moment was to possess somebody. With eight billion people and every living thing on Earth at risk, Aziraphale's solution to this problem did not even really include asking for the option of possessing Crowley. He makes a joke about not having a body limiting his ability to "inhabit" Crowley's that is sexual innuendo, not a request to hitch a ride to Tadfield in his mind.

He then sets about telling Crowley that he is searching for "a receptive body," as Aziraphale put it-- meaning, for someone who would consent to being possessed, because non-consensual possession is the supernatural equivalent to rape, as the show has been using as an allegory since its first episode. Aziraphale was not willing to possess anybody who wasn't consenting to it because he's obviously not a rapist. What the scene also shows, though, is that Aziraphale considered the idea of possessing Crowley such a non-starter of a plan that he was looking for literally anybody else on Earth who was willing to be his ride to Tadfield rather than go anywhere near the idea of an action that they both knew would be unhealthy for Crowley.

If Aziraphale hadn't found Madame Tracy, he would have just kept looking, even if it ran out the clock. He was willing to let the world burn rather than possess Crowley-- even if Crowley consented-- back in S1. There is some foreshadowing of possession being part of the 2.06 plot earlier in S2 when Aziraphale discovers that he has basically accidentally quasi-possessed Crowley to an extent when he was driving The Bentley by not realizing that Crowley has essentially psychically linked himself to the car.

Aziraphale was joking around in making the car a sexual metaphor for Crowley and bemusing himself by having the car be increasingly more like how Crowley is privately than how he presents himself to the outside world. He changes the car to the color of Crowley's eyes-- having it take off its black and silver glasses. The car brings him little treats, plays the music he feels like listening to, responds positively to some tongue-in-cheek, playful, soft domming, etc... Aziraphale thought this was purely a metaphor until Crowley told him that he could feel everything that Aziraphale was doing to the car.

Crowley hadn't told Aziraphale prior to Aziraphale leaving that he was linked to his car in that way and, when Aziraphale realizes that his humorous, little mischief is actually the result of being tied a little to Crowley's mind, Aziraphale immediately backs off of what he was doing. We later see him ask The Bentley for music on the way back from Edinburgh and he doesn't make any changes to the car for the rest of the trip. He's aware that he freaked Crowley out by sort-of being in his mind a little, as it was never his intention to do so.

It's likely that, even if Aziraphale had been able to understand what Crowley was trying to say with his plan for Aziraphale to possess him in 2.06, that he simply would not have done it. That doesn't change the fact, though, that Crowley has arrived at possession as the only way to stop The Book of Life and that it's the core of his plan.

So, the other hiccups to Crowley's plan... how does Crowley convince The Metatron that he just is watching romance and nothing else? How does he tell Aziraphale this plan... and how do they pull it off with The Metatron watching them?

First is that Crowley needs The Metatron to think that he has nothing but romance on the brain. He doesn't trust that Muriel-- who is super-excited to be singled out for a possible role by The Metatron-- won't tell The Metatron everything he's said the moment that they leave the shop. Crowley says aloud in front of them something that is both true and a lie at once-- that he thinks that, when Aziraphale "comes back", that they need to go for "an extremely alcoholic breakfast at The Ritz." Crowley does really want to do this and it's arguable that when he says "comes back", knowing his plan as we are seeing it here, he really means "comes back" from all of this Book of Life stuff, but he phrases it in such a way that Muriel, if they repeat it to The Metatron, will make it sound like Crowley is literally thinking of nothing but a boozy brunch date.

Next, Crowley knows that he'll need to speak uninterrupted for a couple of moments about something that The Metatron can hear on the surface but that is really using their hidden language to convey this possession plan to Aziraphale under the surface.

Later in the scene, when Crowley says "no nightingales" to Aziraphale as everything else is falling apart, he's trying to say: you didn't hear the coded things I was saying... but, in the most romantic of *sob of frustration* things ever, that same word also happens to just mean their love for one another, which is what their whole secret language really is about in the first place... So, Aziraphale actually winds up hearing: you don't love me instead.

Back when Crowley was formulating this plan, though? He was sure that he could get Aziraphale to understand him by using their nightingales-y Ineffable Husbands Speak because not like that hasn't been working for them for the last few thousand years or anything! Rare is the day that they don't know what each other means in it so Crowley thinks it will work.

Crowley also knows how to solve the last challenge of this plan, which is that the effects of possession or any influence miracle can be visible to outsiders. We've seen that it can cause observable changes on someone's face. This means that Crowley and Aziraphale will need a way of keeping that contained from The Metatron's view.

Crowley has a plan... as foreshadowed (unfortunately lol) by this bit earlier in the season:

Crowley's plan is that they can cover Aziraphale possessing him if Aziraphale kisses him when he does it.

Before I go on... stop and think about that for a second.

If Crowley's plan to save Aziraphale's life is dependent upon Aziraphale kissing him, there is absolutely zero chance that this would be the first time that they've ever kissed. Crowley would never come up with a plan that was reliant upon Aziraphale kissing him if kissing him wasn't something Aziraphale didn't already regularly do and with which he had no issue.

Ok, so, what this means then is that Crowley needs to be saying something in Ineffable Husbands Speak that sounds, on the surface, like something that he could be reasonably saying so that The Metatron won't be suspicious, even if The Metatron finds it abhorrent. It needs to be something that Crowley thinks can lead directly towards Aziraphale kissing him, once Aziraphale hears the coded speech and understands the plan and that Crowley is consenting to it.

For the first time, they aren't using the hidden language as a smokescreen for their relationship but for a plan. The cant that is designed to hide their romantic relationship being the idea that they're enemies when they're speaking in public is now going to be used sort of backwards from its original purpose. They're speaking openly about their romance in front of The Metatron and using that romance that they usually try to keep hidden as a distraction from the plans to elude Heaven and Hell that they're really using the language to convey to one another. (We'll talk about Aziraphale's plan in just a moment.)

So, how do we know this? Let's start looking at a bit of the plan-conveying dialogue...

Crowley's plan is possession, right? If I asked you to name the single most overt bit of innuendo in Good Omens-- stuff that isn't really even coded-- you are probably going to tell me that it's Crowley and Aziraphale turning talk of possession into overt sexual innuendo with the "receptive body... harder than you think" and "I'm not going to go there" comments in S1, right?

The reasons why this is *so* direct in S1 are two-fold. The first reason is just to help emphasize the possession-as-sex allegory that is happening but the second reason is because the series needs us to see that possession-as-sex allegory exists not just thematically but between Crowley and Aziraphale. We need to see them speak about possession in this way so that, when we eventually get to S2's Final 15, we already know that Crowley and Aziraphale talk about possession in a highly-sexualized way and can then understand what they're saying more subtly in coded language as a result.

For example...

We've known each other a long time. We've been on THIS PLANET for a long time. I mean, you and me.

Known: contains own, which means possession; know, which is an old, Biblical, sexual euphemism for sex that Crowley uses in multiple scenes, and the word now.

THIS PLANET (practically shouted, for emphasis): this is the plan.

For a long time: redistributed, this is all onto me. For is also por in Spanish. Homophone: pour. Pour it all onto me.

I mean, you and me: The word mean comes from the same root as the word mind. "I mean" = "my mind." This is why Crowley says "I mean" several times during this scene when he normally doesn't say it much at all. "You and me" is said so quickly that it comes out sounding like "you in me", especially when his quick hand gesture is reinforcing it and looks like a drink, reinforcing the alcohol/coffee-as-sex vibe. "I mean, you and me" is also "I'm me, and you in me," referring to what he's trying to have happen.

The first lines of the proposal, when Crowley tries it, amount to: This is the plan: You need to weave us together, angel. Possess me.

Take my mind. Do it now.

This is really why he looks like he's going to pass out or throw up. He's not confessing love for Aziraphale. He's not even, truly, asking Aziraphale to marry him, even if that's what it sounds like. He's terrified that Aziraphale is going to die and he thinks the only way out of this is for Aziraphale to take over his mind, which, even though Crowley trusts Aziraphale, is the most frightening thing he can imagine, shy of losing Aziraphale. Crowley being wide-eyed and shallowly breathing here? That's not cute confession or proposal butterflies. That's terror and anxiety. He's trying to stave off an anxiety attack because, in his mind, if he doesn't, it could mean Aziraphale's life.

Every single line of Crowley's proposal is reinforcing this idea. It is just attempting to rephrase it in different ways... over and over. Every single line is basically a different way of saying this same thing. Look at the next ones...

I could always rely on you. You could always rely on me. We're a team, a group. Group of the two of us...

Rely, from the verb ligare, meaning to tie or knot together; also: to lay down or to lay. He's proposing that they, well, tie the knot as a cover for knotting the two of them together via the possession to save Aziraphale. A team, a group... These are singular words that describe multiple people. It's again saying: knot us together, possess me, make us one person. A group of the two of us. They'd be a group-- a singular thing-- made up of the two of them. Additionally? Team contains tea, group contains rou, homophone: roux, and a grouper is a kind of fish. Tea, sauce, and fish = three different sexually euphemistic things in Ineffable Husbands Speak, underscoring the fact that Crowley is basically just saying: SEX, ANGEL. DO THE THING THAT IS LIKE SEX RIGHT NOW OR YOU ARE GOING TO DIE.

It's the fanfic season. An unique take on 'fuck or die' was inevitable, no? 🤭

There are two moments in what Crowley says where he tries to reference The Book of Life to help Aziraphale understand what he's saying when it has become evident that Aziraphale does not. (We'll look at why and also at what Aziraphale is trying to tell Crowley that Crowley is not getting in a second.) I'm going to point them out because they help to reinforce this possession plan theory. The first is when Crowley says "our existence" and the second is what he says in intentionally mispronouncing Beez's name.

As mentioned, because of Crowley's own actions throughout the season, Aziraphale has no fucking idea that Crowley is so worked up about The Book of Life and, maybe more telling? Aziraphale himself is not really concerned about it, despite Michael threatening him with it a moment earlier. We'll see what Aziraphale thinks is going on below but he's not worried about The Book of Life, which helps to suggest that Crowley was correct back in 2.01 and this thing, the way that he and Beez think it exists? Doesn't really exist.

It suggests that, had Crowley actually talked to Aziraphale about The Book of Life at one point during the past week-- had he told him about what Beez said to him and how he wasn't sure if his memories were correct-- that Aziraphale's response would have been all oh, honey, don't worry-- you were right. That's not real.

Yeah, I'm saying that Crowley has built an entire plan around a threat that he once made up in his mind as a by-product of his own fears about Heaven because...

That's what anxiety is.

Even if it turns out to not be the case? The point would still stand that Crowley anxiety'd himself into this plan because he didn't talk to Aziraphale about what he was feeling and how that led to disaster.

But, back to the dialogue...

The real reason why Aziraphale isn't hearing "existence" when Crowley says it and thinking "The Book of Life" is because Crowley says "existence" for life all the damn time because our demon thinks he can't really have a life, just an existence, since he's damned. Here's Crowley using "existence" to describe his precious, peaceful, if fragile, life with Aziraphale back in 2.01:

So, Aziraphale's mind is not exactly going to jump to The Book of Life when he hears Crowley use "existence" in 2.06. The sentence that hurts Aziraphale-- "and we've spent our existence pretending that we aren't"-- actually is a little different in Ineffable Husbands Speak. Tending means to take care of, which is also how Crowley was also using it in 1941's "you tend to see sea things." We aren't = we are knot. To the outside world, they've pretended that they're not a couple but they haven't been pretending that with one another for their whole existence.

(If you go full Mr. Harmony and look at little closer at what Crowley is mouthing after his conversation with Nina in the street about his and Aziraphale's relationship, he actually appears to be mouthing that other word Nina just said-- "life"/"lives"-- and not "love"... speaking of scenes that are designed to mislead the audience... 😉 It's not an oh moment-- it's Crowley thinking of the topic of life that is plaguing him all week-- their own existence and The Book of Life. How could it be an oh moment? This demon had a contact phone image for Aziraphale back in S1 that was hearts being consumed by flames. I think he's caught onto the fact that he's in love with him by now...)

Anyway, as Crowley grows more desperate to convey the plan in 2.06, he employs Gabriel and Beez's names as part of the coded language. Gabriel's name means "messenger" so, to say it while wording, is to say "message." The most important part, though, is Crowley's intentional mispronunciation of Beez's name. He's genuinely crying, which is what both allows for the cover of him saying it incorrectly, but is then also what makes it so Aziraphale isn't sure what he's hearing because Crowley will slur his sibilant sounds when distressed, if not usually in this particular way.

Crowley says Beez's name like this: "Be ale je bub." Je in French is I while bub is short for bubbly, or champagne. (Dark mirror of S1 anyone? They should be toasting each other at The Ritz right now, dammit...) Bees = angels, per Crowley in the prior episode, and he uses be as bee in the cant to mean angel in different scenes. This is saying Aziraphale is ale/beer to Crowley's champagne and they're combined together into one word: Beezlebub. Yes, it's a cocktail, which is probably how Aziraphale heard it, if he caught it (which is a bit of a debatable point) but that's actually not the word Crowley is trying to say. The word Crowley is trying to say is the one that who he believes is The Metatron used to refer to The Book of Life a few minutes earlier: balderdash.

While, today, balderdash refers to words and means utter nonsense, the original definition of it was a drink that combined two different types of alcohol. Crowley is actually trying use Beez's name to reference balderdash to Aziraphale and we can see how his mind would do that, right? Beez is who told him of The Book of Life threat... we get that but Aziraphale doesn't know so he won't get it... and balderdash is what the being Crowley thinks is The Metatron just said about The Book of Life. Crowley doesn't trust The Metatron so he's trying to say that he doesn't believe The Book of Life is balderdash and that's what's upsetting him, that's why he's in tears, because Aziraphale could be erased into non-existence.

By taking what they're each saying just on the surface, the two of them get so turned around that they wind up thinking they're trying to break up with one another. This becomes a huge problem for both of them because if they call it quits, they have to stop talking and if they have stop talking, they are out of ways to convey a plan.

Crowley eventually gets to a point of desperation because they've shifted towards a break up and to prolong it indefinitely while repeating different versions of the same thing is going to look suspicious and The Metatron might figure out what he's trying to do. Crowley needs a way to refer back to what he's already said during the proposal and try to get Aziraphale to see it as coded language.

So, Crowley winds up taking a risk. He says the word for their secret language aloud in conversation, hoping that The Metatron will just take it as a private reference and not coded speech, and that Aziraphale will hear that there is hidden language that he is missing:

The problem here is that nightingales also means their love for each other and Aziraphale doesn't see the reference to coded language that Crowley is trying to convey. Crowley is asking if Aziraphale can hear and pointing overhead, in a nod to the first formations of what would eventually become their coded speech with those other birds-- the crows of the Job minisode. He's speaking of the language but that language exists as a way that they love one another and their name for it is synonymous with that love and Crowley is saying this in a moment when they have both got this all so backwards that they are all but breaking up with one another.

So, in that context? Aziraphale hears, instead: you don't love me.

This is then why Aziraphale turns away and starts to cry, instead of being like ohhhhh! you were speaking in our vocabulary! let me just have a quick think back on what you were saying-- ah, ok, I get it! let me run over and possession-kiss you now!... which is what Crowley was trying to have happen.

Crowley, though, thinks that there's no way that Aziraphale could have heard him say nightingales and not thought it referred to hidden speech. He gives Aziraphale a second, in which he's thinking that he's now got Aziraphale thinking back on the proposal and understanding the plan.

In order for this plan to work, what still needs to happen? The thing to cover the possession, right? They need another opportunity for that so Crowley makes one.

He walks back and, as we all well know, he kisses Aziraphale.

He kisses Aziraphale not just because of the existing emotions of the idea of Aziraphale going to Heaven but because this is the last shot of there being a moment to do so that could cover the possession that could, in Crowley's mind, save Aziraphale's life. He kisses Aziraphale to give Aziraphale the chance to possess him, which Aziraphale, as we've mentioned, likely wouldn't do even if he understood this plan.

This is also why the kiss is terrible. It's why they barely move. It's why Crowley can't deepen it and it just doesn't go anywhere. The whole point of the kiss is to give Aziraphale the chance to use the kiss as cover to possess him so, by default? Crowley can't really do much here but wait out as long as is feasible before this just starts to look weird to even The Metatron lol. It's why he's not really kissing Aziraphale much at all and why he hangs on for the seven eternities of this kiss to give Aziraphale as much time as possible and why he stays nearby for a moment afterwards, hoping that it would have still just then clicked for Aziraphale, who could then jump back into his arms and kiss him to possess him.

Meanwhile, Aziraphale just has no idea why he's being kissed right now and he's just been through an emotional gauntlet. Four minutes ago, he thought Crowley wanted to marry him. Now, they're getting ineffably divorced. He's getting unexpectedly kissed when Crowley was about to leave. This is all not even yet counting in what is actually happening with Aziraphale and his side of this and what Crowley isn't hearing him say this whole time, either. All of those things very much account for Aziraphale's reaction to this kiss, as you'll see.

And still, what happens?

Aziraphale kisses Crowley a bit. He holds him closer. Because he can't not do either of those things. He doesn't know fully what's happening here but he knows he loves Crowley and that Crowley is very upset and he can't not try to comfort him. He doesn't know how to not kiss Crowley, even just a little, even as this is a complete and utter disaster of a thing that Aziraphale can't really fully parse out because he lacks the context to understand even why this kiss is happening right now, let alone with the fact that Crowley doesn't know what Aziraphale thinks is going on and the plan that Aziraphale is trying to convey that Crowley hasn't been hearing.

So... speaking of that! Wait until you see just how frustratingly similar a plan Aziraphale has, even if he thinks something totally different is happening...

As mentioned in other posts, there is a scene in 2.06 that says that Aziraphale spoke to The Metatron the night before after blowing up his halo. It happens here:

So, Aziraphale actually did tell The Metatron where he could stick it the night before. This means that Aziraphale spent the prior night after where we left him during the bookshop attack anticipating that The Metatron was going to tell Satan that Aziraphale was fair game. This is one of the big hints that we're actually watching Aziraphale's fall in S2 and that Coffee Dude is really Satan, who has taken on the appearance of The Metatron in order to tempt Aziraphale.

Thwarting Heaven is basically Aziraphale's part-time job, though, and he doesn't want to fall. He's not just going to accept this fate. He's worked up a plan to try to stop it from happening.

Aziraphale doesn't see demons as lesser beings-- he's in love with one of them. He doesn't want to fall because being a demon means that your soul belongs to Satan for all of eternity and Satan is a) Crowley's assailant and b) The Devil... so, Aziraphale's a bit of a hard pass on falling. It's awfully dark, cramped and violent down there and Aziraphale, having spent thousands of years as Crowley's partner, knows better than most how being a demon comes with a great deal of pain. It doesn't matter to our Marvelous Mr. Fell that no angel before him has ever managed to successfully escape falling. He's going to try.

Aziraphale knows that he can't control the actions of The Metatron or Satan. He has to assume that Satan will show up at his door and he knows he can't outrun him forever. Aziraphale also has humility enough to know that he has a history of trusting the wrong people for the right reasons... and that Satan is the trickiest motherfucker there is. Aziraphale knows that his plan to avoid becoming a demon will have to include the assumption that he will fall for Satan's temptation.

As a result? Aziraphale needs a failsafe.

He needs something that will prevent him from becoming a demon should he fail to resist Satan's temptation. Hell is coming for him and, if it all goes wrong? He needs a way to protect himself. Aziraphale needs, as Crowley once needed with holy water, a failsafe against Hell. He needs insurance.

What is the one thing that could keep an angel from becoming a demon? Even if they fall for Satan's temptation, what's the one thing that could make it so that if Heaven then tries to make them a demon and cast them to Hell, it wouldn't work?

It's a bit of a mindfuck-- literally-- but there's really only one thing.

The only way that an angel being tossed to Hell by Heaven would avoid becoming a demon is if they were already, temporarily, a demon. You can't fall if you're already fallen, can you?

So, how would Aziraphale temporarily become a demon?

Yeah. They have almost exactly the same plan.

Just the key, romantic difference of Crowley trying to offer Aziraphale his mind even though it terrifies him because he'd do anything to save him and Aziraphale trying to offer Crowley his to protect them both from the being who had hurt them by hurting Crowley in the first place.

Both of them know that the way to save each other and to keep the looming threats to Aziraphale at bay is if they love and protect each other and stay together but they can't get one another to hear each other saying that and think, instead, that the other wants to leave when what they both really want is to be together.

Aziraphale's plan to prevent is fall is to have Crowley possess him. If Crowley were to possess Aziraphale, then Mr. Fell would temporarily be fallen because Crowley would become Aziraphale. They'd be together, in Aziraphale's body, with Crowley controlling the possession. Should Aziraphale fall for the temptation, he still won't fall to Hell and become a demon because it won't work when Heaven tries it since the already-fallen Crowley is possessing him.

Pretty good plan, right? In the morning, it becomes a matter of being able to tell Crowley what happened with The Metatron and what this plan Aziraphale has come up with for dealing with it is.

The villains learned from S1, though, and they make sure that not only do Crowley and Aziraphale not have a whole night together to plan the way they did in S1 but that they don't have a moment together alone to speak freely for the entire rest of the season. Crowley is gone all night, held back from Aziraphale by Heaven, and Aziraphale's relief when he returns is palpable. He had worried that Crowley had been harmed and he also was terrified that he wouldn't come back since, without him, Aziraphale stood no chance of avoiding falling.

For the first few minutes of Crowley's return, Aziraphale thinks they still have a chance and isn't really focused on Satan arriving. He thinks if they can just sort out the Gabriel stuff and get all of these people out of the bookshop that he and Crowley can then have some time alone to speak to one another openly. Aziraphale very much wants to check that Crowley is alright after having been missing all night and to tell him what happened with The Metatron and get him on board with the plan. There never is time for this, though, because Satan shows up with the coffee before they ever have a moment alone.

The only alternative to it not being Satan is it being exactly what it appears to be-- The Metatron, apologetic, saying all the things that Aziraphale has always wanted Heaven to say. Aziraphale is not an idiot and has the feeling that this is not really The Metatron. He does want it to be The Metatron because Aziraphale is still feeling like he cannot provide the forgiveness of Heaven and the protection from Satan that Crowley needs. Aziraphale loves Crowley and all he wants is be able to end the pain in Crowley that he thinks he's not enough to stop.

What Aziraphale's own anxieties and insecurities try to tell him is a lie is what Crowley tells him, which is that that all Crowley truly needs is Aziraphale. Aziraphale's own anger and pain over what's happened to Crowley gets in the way of him seeing that he really provides for Crowley all of the things he thinks he isn't providing. It is those things he thinks he cannot provide that Satan offers Aziraphale-- that's what makes it's a temptation.

Aziraphale is genuinely wanting to take a job offer if it is exists. He doesn't actually believe he can change Heaven or even want to try-- he turned down the job offer when it was just the job offer. He only is tempted to take it when he is told that the job offer comes with protection for Crowley. Heaven admitting they were wrong about Crowley and offering through the restoration of his status the forgiveness that Crowley pretends he doesn't crave and the restoration of that status providing Crowley with safety from Satan and Hell as a whole are the things that Aziraphale feels he cannot provide for Crowley. Remember what we said above about him being mortified that Crowley had to get Shax as their source? It's here in this bit of the story, too. He'll do anything-- give up their life on Earth, work the worst job imaginable for all of eternity-- to be able give Crowley the peace and protection that he feels he's been unable to for their entire, very long, existence.

Still, though? Aziraphale would love it if this was really The Metatron... but he's pretty damn sure that it's not.

Aziraphale knows how unlikely that would be. He does know that change is possible in some people-- he's been watching that all week with Gabriel-- but he also knows that he let Gabriel into the bookshop largely because he has seen in Gabriel the likelihood of there being a Jim lurking under the surface for a long time.

The Metatron is a very different story.

There are also a series of things that happen upon Coffee Dude's arrival that seem really off and further suggest to Aziraphale that this is really far more likely to actually be Satan. We looked at some of those in other metas but to quickly recap: the dark suit, the temptation coffee, the quoting of Mary Poppins, the fact that none of the angels can recognize him and he has to go to Crowley to be identified and, most significantly in my mind, that Aziraphale seems aware of what happens when Satan possesses Crowley to get Crowley to let Aziraphale go with Satan alone. Aziraphale knows that it's very out-of-character behavior for Crowley to allow Aziraphale to go anywhere unprotected with someone dangerous like that. He catches Satan looking at him-- and then heads for the door immediately, as if to get Satan away from Crowley. He's almost certain he knows what just happened and who this is but he is a bit desperate to be wrong.

Coffee Dude being Satan also explains other things about Crowley's own ideas about what is happening in The Final 15. The reason why Crowley can't entertain the idea of it being anybody but The Metatron is because Satan was in his head and made him believe that he was looking at The Metatron and no one else. Crowley doesn't even know that Satan was there. It's also why he just stays put and mutters "they'll be back soon" to himself, instead of following Aziraphale and "The Metatron" across the street. It is also likely why Crowley appears to have forgotten that he can freeze time, which would have allowed him and Aziraphale to speak freely, and, instead, makes an entire plan based around their hidden language. Since freezing time is how they were able to help Adam in S1, if I were Satan? I'd make sure Crowley forgot that useful trick in S2. (Even if he didn't, Crowley could have just literally anxiety'd himself into forgetting it.)

So, Aziraphale gets back from being tempted by Satan and he's pretty sure that is, in fact, what's going on... but he's also secretly hoping that maybe he's wrong and it's not. He's still thinking they need to go with his plan to protect himself from falling because this is very likely to be Satan but if he's wrong about what's going on? If it's really The Metatron? Then, Aziraphale would take this offer because he feels like, if he had this to offer, then he would maybe have something of enough value to offer the person he loves... a person who always says that he is enough as he is but Aziraphale has been watching Crowley suffer for literal eons and it's all gotten to be too much.

So, Aziraphale gets back and this is where the first miscommunication happens-- one of the big ones that makes it so that Aziraphale doesn't hear Crowley's coded speech for the entire rest of the scene.

As Aziraphale arrives back in the shop, Maggie and Nina are just leaving. It's the middle of Nina's morning rush at the coffee shop and neither woman tells Aziraphale why they were in the shop. Aziraphale, like many of us in the audience lol, cannot figure out why the fuck these two are back here. Their decision to come back to the shop during Nina's rush hour after they were just endangered in the bookshop moments earlier is puzzling to us audience members... and we are seeing a fuller picture! So, it's mind-boggling to Aziraphale who, without the knowledge that we have that shows it was Maggie and Nina's own, weird idea, arrives at the idea that the likeliest conclusion is that Crowley asked the ladies to come back. It honestly makes more sense than Nina leaving her work for no apparent reason, right?

So, why does Aziraphale think Crowley would do that?

Because Maggie is the closest thing they have to family and Crowley is old-fashioned in the right ways. He wouldn't ask for Maggie's permission but Aziraphale knows that he'd consider telling Maggie of intent to ask Aziraphale to marry him, especially after the week they've all just had. Given that, moments before, they all just saw that Gabriel and Beez are a thing, Aziraphale sees Maggie and Nina leave the shop with nothing but little looks and "we're just leaving" and "I'm sure you two have a lot to discuss" and he thinks Crowley told them that he's going to propose and, of course, what happens right after this to reinforce this idea?!?!

Crowley stands up, takes off his glasses, looks charmingly nervous, and says that he supposes that he's "got something to say."

If you were Aziraphale in this moment, with everything happening so fast and no time to breathe (by the villains' design), and you had just had your world tilted on its axis several times in the last hour, and you and Crowley had been waiting a thousand lifetimes to feel like it might be safe to try to be openly together, and Crowley stood up in the living room in which you've spent countless nights, moments after seeming to tell your daughters that he was going to propose, you absolutely would think that Crowley is trying to ask you to marry him.

The problem is that Aziraphale sees Crowley trying to propose and he thinks that Crowley doesn't think anything is wrong.

He thinks that Crowley doesn't see a threat at all... how could he think there's something wrong, if he's been focused this whole time on proposing marriage and not on the fact that everything is completely and utterly bonkers and Some Sir Derek Jacobi Character is skulking about with creepy coffee?

Aziraphale so loves Crowley and wants to marry him that he gives him a pass on proposing while the wolves are circling instead of doing what Aziraphale really needs him to do, which is help him Bildad up a plan... all the while not realizing, because of the speed of everything and the misinterpretation of clues and context, that the marriage proposal itself is Bildad's bloody plan.

Aziraphale thinks that he has to *tell* Crowley that there's a threat and what it is. As a result, he's not listening to what Crowley is saying at the start of this scene. Neither, really, is the audience, at first. I think even us people theorizing overlook the bit below; I actually noticed this last of everything related to this theory. What Aziraphale isn't fully listening to and what we think is just adorable, nervous babble contains a really, really, really interesting bit of information:

If I don't start talking now, I won't ever start talking, right? Yes, so--

While Crowley is actually trying to tell Aziraphale here of an intent to use coded speech, it's the last line he gets out before Aziraphale interrupts him that tells us quite a bit about their relationship. After having seen this scene in full through its mention of nightingales confirming coded speech, we know that Crowley's proposal is a coded plan. We don't hear it in full until later in the scene but Crowley was trying to start it back here at the beginning of the scene and, when he does, he is expressing regret for how it's going to be phrased. He doesn't want to propose to Aziraphale like this but he doesn't think they have a choice. Listen to how he phrases that though: If I don't start talking now, I won't ever start talking...

Crowley is apologizing for the proposal he's about to say that isn't the one he'd really like to give but is the only way he can deliver this plan and that, if he doesn't deliver this plan, he thinks Aziraphale is going to die, and that will mean that Crowley will never get the chance to actually propose the way that he'd really like to-- someday, when it's just them and they're in the better place for it, which is also why he hasn't in the last four years since S1. What's so interesting about this is that Crowley is saying to Aziraphale that he wants to ask him to marry him one day and he is doing so in such a way that he knows this is not new information to Aziraphale. It actually winds up suggesting that they both have already, to some extent, talked about the fact that, if they ever found a way, they would like to marry one another. It's said by Crowley so casually that it is suggestive of an understanding that already exists between he and Aziraphale and is further evidence of the fact that they are already a couple.

Right, so... Aziraphale isn't hearing this because Aziraphale thinks that Crowley doesn't see a problem. He tries the downward hands of "not right now" and glancing out the window towards Coffee Dude as signals to tell Crowley not to propose right now. He both needs Crowley to stop because there is a bigger threat happening in the moment and also because Aziraphale is at about 90-95% certainty that it's Satan outside. He and Crowley have spent thousands of years hiding the fact that they are lovers from Satan because Satan would kill Crowley for it. Aziraphale is also trying to get Crowley to stop proposing just also because their relationship is theirs and he knows that Crowley wouldn't want Satan as an audience to it. (Factor that into Aziraphale's response to the kiss as well...)

We get that shot of Aziraphale just melting as Crowley continues to speak because Crowley all sweetly nervous and proposing is adorable no matter what else is going on but then Aziraphale has interrupt him so he can tell him what he thinks is happening. This is where the conversation then gets fucked in a way that means that Crowley doesn't hear a shred of any of Aziraphale's coded language, either.

Aziraphale, stressed out from all of this, makes an error here which, as Muriel would say, will prove just how human he is. It is, in fact, this very simple, very human error that will help to completely fuck up this conversation and keep Crowley from understanding Aziraphale's side of it just as much as Aziraphale cannot understand his.

That error involves this:

What Aziraphale is trying to do here is to signal to Crowley that he has to stop proposing because there is danger and to start to convey to him what he thinks that threat is. Aziraphale needs a coded way to do this. It has to sound organic in front of Coffee Dude. This means Aziraphale has to reference something to Crowley from their shared past that is like what is happening in this moment in 2.06 without saying so directly in a way that would alert Coffee Dude to shenanigans being afoot but that is conveyed in a way that Aziraphale feels that Crowley is bound to understand.

There is one night from their history together that they both absolutely know by heart and that had a situation that parallels what is happening in The Final 15. It's the big one that we've been watching unfold across both seasons now and so is likely to factor into this big plot twist of Aziraphale's fall here: 1941.

Like Crowley will be later when he references nightingales, Aziraphale is certain that if he references any part of 1941 that Crowley will be sure to know what he is saying, even if other factors actually prevent that from being true.

What Aziraphale is trying to reference from 1941 is this:

He interrupts Crowley with a version of what we can recognize as "that lovely American expression-- played for suckers!" Why this moment?

Because Aziraphale is trying to use the similar situation of the paralleling Greta as a comparison to what's happening here in The Final 15. While Aziraphale was fooled by the Nazi Greta-- believing her to really be the Allied Rose-- he is the one who is correct in the 2023 of S2. It's Crowley, who correctly identified the Nazis correctly in 1941, who is mistaken about who is watching them in 2.06. Aziraphale, though, is almost sure he's correct this time but he needs Crowley's help either way and he definitely needs Crowley to see that there's even the possibility of a Greta-like plot happening with it seeming to be The Metatron but it's really Satan.

(Not to mention that we've seen both Coffee Dude and The Nazi Zombie Flesheaters watching Crowley and Aziraphale through the bookshop window in S2.)

So, Aziraphale thinks: ah ha! I shall reference the moment in the church when it turned out that Rose was really Greta and, because this romantic night of ours is forever etched in Crowley's memory, he'll understand what I mean and know that we need to speak using our hidden language!

The problem, as you might remember, is that this is actually the only part of 1941 that Crowley doesn't remember because, to quote Crowley talking to Gabriel about Aziraphale earlier in S2:

He wasn't there, you see...

Crowley hadn't actually entered the church at this moment in 1941. *We* can see what Aziraphale is going for but Crowley has no fucking clue that Aziraphale just said to him: I think the plot is Greta in the church and I'm going to be using our hidden language!

All Crowley hears is: please stop asking me to marry you because I need to tell you about the convo I just had with my abusive dad who hates you yay so excited please hold that thought of matrimony, sweetheart!

So... Crowley holds the damn thought. 😂

Aziraphale, meanwhile, thinks that this would all be so much easier if they could just speak openly and he would like Crowley to freeze time so they can do what they did with Adam and speak freely and make a plan. As others have noticed, he starts signaling to Crowley the "time-out" hand signal, covering it up from Satan with other gesticulations. He's also saying "The Metatron you know" aloud (flipped around: "You know The Metatron"), in an effort to convey to Crowley that he believes the being watching them is really Satan.

The problem is that Aziraphale has just asked Crowley to stop proposing. He's just asked him for a time out in discussing their relationship. Even if Crowley has just forgotten that he can freeze time-- organically or as a result of Satan-- it's almost besides the point here how or why he has forgotten it because he's just not thinking of it in this moment... because he thinks Aziraphale is saying that he needs a timeout on talking about their relationship. He just kind of half-nods and lets Aziraphale continue and it's at this moment that Aziraphale is just like...

Because, if Crowley doesn't freeze time, they now have to do all of this in a coded way with Satan watching and that means that Aziraphale is about to Ineffable Husbands Speak for his damn life here... and his task with it is actually a lot harder than what we said Crowley accomplished above.

Aziraphale believes that he told Crowley he was using coded speech when he referenced 1941 and that Crowley will be listening for it. So, he now thinks he has to convey the following things to Crowley as soon as possible, all using hidden language (all of which can be found in what he says to Crowley following this, as we'll look at)...

...that he's pretty sure that the being watching them is not The Metatron but Satan; that he thinks he might be falling but he's not totally sure; that he needs Crowley's help to protect him from falling; that Crowley can help him by possessing him; that it's okay to possess him and he has permission; that they can cover the possession with a hug; and that if, in fact, it turns out that he's wrong and that is The Metatron, well! Great news! Aziraphale has been offered a job that Crowley is going to hate but that Aziraphale is excited about because he thinks it can get Crowley what he needs that Aziraphale can't give him so yay!...

...and Aziraphale has to convey all of that using coded speech that is based on nothing but recapping to Crowley the offer just presented to him by Coffee Dude.

Whereas Crowley at least was given a few minutes while Aziraphale was with Satan to come up with something to say that dovetailed with the topic-- to come up with the proposal so he could use amorous language to talk about possession under the surface-- Aziraphale is forced into freestyling into coded speech a fuckton of information using a topic that does not actually lend itself to words with possession-related meaning in their vocabulary anywhere near as easily.

Yet... He does it. I know he does because I took apart everything he says in this scene when I figured out what Crowley was saying and that's actually how I arrived at this theory. Just like with Crowley, while we could go word-for-word here, I'll just give you a sampling of it, but it holds up throughout.

First things first, he says that he thinks he might have misjudged The Metatron. Misjudged = Miss Judge, who is God. He's trying to say to Crowley that he thinks God is judging him aka that he might be falling. Just like with Crowley later on the scene, he uses Gabriel's name to say "message" and then lists Gabriel's entire job title in the sentence because it's actually a great way to explain the plan: Supreme Archangel and Commander of The Heavenly Host. To archangel is to be above angel, which is what Crowley calls Aziraphale-- to top him, to possess him. Crowley would be The Commander of The Heavenly Host. The Heavenly Host is Aziraphale-- hosted the party last night, hosting a party in his body anytime now if Crowley'd just hurry up and possess him already lol. Commander actually breaks down to "man who is with" but it also means someone in charge so it's Aziraphale telling Crowley that he'd be in control of it and that Aziraphale is okay with that, as he trusts him.

What happens pretty quickly, though, is that we start to flash between Aziraphale recapping to Crowley in the bookshop what Satan said to him and then a scene at Marguerite's in which we are, apparently, hearing those words be said. In reality, because we keep going back and forth on Aziraphale's "and then I said"/"and then he said"s, what we're being shown in the Marguerite's scene is, word-for-word, really what Aziraphale is saying to Crowley back in the bookshop.

If Aziraphale wanted to just tell Crowley what was said with no coded speech, he could have actually done it in a single, paraphrasing sentence. Instead, he plays off like he's excited-- and, complicating matters, he is a little excited if it turns out that it is The Metatron, if only because of what he can offer Crowley-- and he uses that to be able to seem like he's babbling a recap of what happened when, in reality, he's very specifically choosing certain words to convey the problem that he's trying to make Crowley see and the plan he has to survive it.

What this means is that when we flash over to Marguerite's, the words coming out of the mouth of Sir Derek Jacobi are actually the words being spoken by Aziraphale to Crowley in the bookshop, along with what Aziraphale says that he said in this scene. The whole scene is in Ineffable Husbands Speak. The plan is repeated in here a few places-- among them, there is that the word exploits actually contains ploit, which means to fall and is Aziraphale trying to really specifically say to Crowley what he thinks the threat is, and many other words being used like this. The one I want to point out, though, is my favorite and also tells what Aziraphale's plan to cover the possession was:

There are huge plans afoot...

This is really Aziraphale trying to convey the plan to Crowley and he uses the word plan in here, right? What kind of plan?

Huge plans afoot... What is a hug plan related to a foot in Crowley and Aziraphale's history?

It's Bildad the Shuite ("need any shoes?") and the simple embrace...

So, the first part of what Aziraphale says is conveying that he wants Crowley to possess him because he thinks it's possible that it's Satan outside and that he's falling and he uses that other time the two of them, from across a room, snuck something by those watching them to save lives to describe how they can do that. Aziraphale's idea for how to cover up the possession is for them to hug-- it's the simple embrace that Crowley came up with having Job and Sitis do to cover up the magical reappearance of their kids. Aziraphale believes it is Satan outside so a hug is bad enough, as far as he's concerned. He wouldn't make the plan involve a kiss because that would be suggesting that Crowley kiss him in front of his abuser and their relationship is private and theirs and Aziraphale knows neither of them would want that.

So, yeah, both Crowley and Aziraphale are trying to reference the damn Job minisode to one another at different times in 2.06 and neither of them see the other one doing so...

So, how does this all fall apart for Aziraphale then?

How does he manage to brilliantly use a recapping of the temptation job offer to convey what he thinks is happening and summarize a plan to stop it in secret to a point that we can see what he was going for right there in the words he chooses to say... but then everything still falls apart?

Because Crowley isn't listening for it at all. Not only did the 1941 reference mistake mean that Crowley is not primed to listen for coded speech, Aziraphale's genuine enthusiasm for what he might be able to offer Crowley overshadows the fact that Aziraphale genuinely does not want to go to Heaven or take this job. Crowley, still thinking that Aziraphale doesn't see a threat to him because he thinks the only threat is The Book of Life and that Aziraphale doesn't see it, believes everything Aziraphale says as Aziraphale says it.

As a result, his response is: "And you told him just where he could stick it, right?"

It's at this that the score comes back into the scene, having fallen silent for Aziraphale's words. It also falls silent again when Crowley is wording during his proposal; it's so quiet that you can actually hear "this planet" echo in the room. The score here has a foreboding sense to it that matches Aziraphale's response, which is that tight "not at all" full of ohfuckohfuckohofuckohfuck...

The score is doom-y because Aziraphale is realizing that Crowley did not hear a single word of wordplay in Aziraphale's job offer explanation. They are still at square one when it comes to communication and Crowley still doesn't know that, ironically? YES, Aziraphale did tell The Metatron just where he could stick it-- that's what actually started all of this!

Only, Aziraphale can't outrightly say that because the conversation path there then only leads to discussion of what could be happening as a result of telling off The Metatron, which, in a bit of truly insane irony, would not help Aziraphale get across a plan for stopping what is happening as a result of him having told off The Metatron.

So, Crowley just starts to express his upset at this ("we're better than that") while Aziraphale tries to figure out how to regroup. They are now boxed into the topic of the job offer, really, and Aziraphale's one chance to speak long enough to convey the plan through using the job offer recap as the surface-level speech topic is now gone. There's also no easy way to change the subject to something else to try again without it looking really obvious so Aziraphale is forced to stick with this.

He's also boxed into a corner here because he can't sound like he's against Heaven because they're being watched. No matter who it is watching them, if Aziraphale sounds too much like he's caught on to what's going on, that'll be the end of their chance to make a plan happen together... and that just might result in Aziraphale falling.

Aziraphale is now forced to try to repeat aspects of the plan in fragments in replies to what Crowley is saying in hope that Crowley will hear it and catch on and it... backfires.

Backfires is probably an understatement, actually. It implodes, pretty dramatically.

What Aziraphale is trying to do is reassure Crowley that he's still on their side while also not sound like he's against Heaven and, if Crowley had been listening for coded speech, this would have easily worked. In Crowley's ranting response, he winds up blurting out that they (Beez) offered Crowley his job back in Hell and he said no-- something that Crowley should have mentioned back on Monday, when it happened-- but Aziraphale is mainly thinking of the plan he needs to get Crowley to understand and enact, as well as how he needs to use words that don't sound like he's against Heaven. He winds up saying, as we know:

"Of course you said no-- you're the bad guys." You're. The. Disguise...

Aziraphale is trying to say "you're the disguise", meaning that the fucking plan is for Crowley to possess Aziraphale and that's how they're going to disguise Aziraphale to keep him from falling. They're going to make Heaven think he's still an angel when he's really a demon because of Crowley possessing him. Aziraphale is absolutely grasping at things here because this barely makes sense without Crowley understanding what Aziraphale said in the offer recap earlier but Aziraphale is throwing phrases in here to try to hope that he will start to catch on because this is basically all he can do at this point.

The reason why Crowley doesn't hear it, though? Or hear anything remotely close to it? Not even just because he's not listening for coded speech here but because of Aziraphale's past of saying things he doesn't mean when he's upset. It's suddenly getting kind of like The Bandstand Argument up in here and Aziraphale is frustrated because he didn't actually mean for it to be. He's trying to tell Crowley something, even if he understands why Crowley might not hear it.

It's here where this takes a bit of a heartbreaking turn. Aziraphale isn't just frustrated that Crowley can't hear what he's saying-- he feels badly about it because Crowley taking all of this at face value means that Crowley is getting hurt by what is being said and Aziraphale doesn't want him to be hurt. He tries to fix it and, unintentionally, makes it a whole lot worse.

Aziraphale uses three words-- light, truth, and good-- to seemingly describe the side of Heaven. In Crowley and Aziraphale's speak, they have before used Heaven/Up for Aziraphale as shorthand to Crowley's Hell/Down. Aziraphale is trying to sound like he's all yay Heaven! because they're being watched but "the side of Heaven" here is actually Aziraphale and the side that he is on... and that side is Crowley's side-- their side together-- because the words that Aziraphale uses to describe that side of Heaven aka his side? The side of light, of truth, of good?

Yeah, those are all words he's used to describe Crowley before...

Aziraphale is using language here that is associated with Heaven but that he sees as being associated more with Crowley and, again, if Crowley were listening for wordplay, he would have understood this. He's not, though, so he takes it as Aziraphale just used positive, loving words he's used to describe Crowley to describe the place that has tortured them both for millennia... and he is, understandably, fucking horrified.

What Aziraphale was going for is to say in a way that could be overheard that Crowley is his side and he did so by using words of Heaven to describe Crowley and you know where he got that idea from? From this guy and what he said just moments earlier still being in Aziraphale's head:

Crowley is Aziraphale's Heaven. That's what he was trying to tell him. Unlike Gabriel and Beez, though, Aziraphale is being watched, so he had to phrase it in a coded way and hoped that Crowley would understand. He did not because this is the No Nightingales season lol.

Instead, Crowley's reaction-- "When Heaven ends all life on this Earth..."-- then causes Aziraphale to realize something that confuses him completely:

Crowley thinks there is something wrong.

Crowley's panic-stricken and all "tell me you said no!" and Aziraphale is like... *blinks*... honey, I came through the door four minutes ago and you reacted like I just got back from picking up my dry cleaning and started asking me to marry you and now you're acting like *something is wrong* wtf?!? If you thought something was wrong, why were you *proposing*?!

Of course, Aziraphale can't tell him he said no, and he's actually getting a bit angry, as well as confused. He's upset that Crowley thinks he'd just leave and that he's not appreciating that Aziraphale could maybe have an answer to their problems with going to Heaven (it's not really an answer but emotions aren't logical) and he's starting to get his back up a bit. We've reached the line that becomes the turning point:

If I'm in charge, I can make a difference.

For what it's worth, this line does wordplay out to something that goes along with what Aziraphale is trying to convey, but... it's wordplay, but it's also not. Aziraphale's lines that follow are also attempts to recap and convey the plan, like this one is, but there's just a great deal of surface level truth to this particular line.

Aziraphale still needs Crowley to possess him to keep him from falling but he's also thinking about the fact that maybe he'll have been wrong, maybe this'll have been The Metatron, maybe it's true-- if he's in charge, he could make a difference. It expresses the lack of power that he feels when it comes to the outside factors impacting their relationship. The fact that those feelings are very, very genuine-- and Crowley knows that better than anyone-- just winds up helping to make it seem not like there's also a wordplay level at all to Crowley.

It's here that Crowley basically starts to pray and we see how that response has visibly confused Aziraphale. It would because Aziraphale, again, has no fucking idea lol what Crowley thinks is happening. The moment that Aziraphale said that he could make a difference if he was in charge, Crowley realized that Aziraphale had every intention of going with The Metatron and he went into Defcon Whatever The Highest Number Is Panic Mode because if Aziraphale went with The Metatron without possessing him first? He was going to get Book of Life'd! He was going to die!

Aziraphale is left looking confused by Crowley being so distraught that he basically starts calling on God for help because, ya know, four minutes ago? To Aziraphale? Crowley was like oh hey, you're back, so where would you like to honeymoon? and now he's like Our Frances, Who Art Probably Elsewhere From Heaven...

Aziraphale is like what the fuck is going on?

Crowley then speeds through a sentence at 100 mph (because anxiety) where he says he didn't get to say what he was going to before and he thinks he better say it now... and then, like a record with a stuck needle, he starts to propose to Aziraphale again.

We know why-- he's got to tell him the plan!-- but, to Aziraphale? This is literally the most batshit insane thing he can imagine.

Aziraphale is pretty sure that's Satan outside and Satan who attacked Crowley in front of him, in their house, while Crowley was in Aziraphale's own desk chair, and Satan who is going to tempt him into falling and if it's not? It's The Metatron, and the offer being genuine would mean that they could find a way out of this mess, if only Crowley would listen to him, and what is Crowley doing when Aziraphale needs him most?

When he really needs Crowley to hear what he was trying to say and give him the help he needs?

When who he needs is 1941 Crowley-- the Crowley that Aziraphale gets all the time? The one who gently reassures him and helps him through all the ups and downs of being a professional conjurer? But who he's getting is Alpha Centauri! Crowley, who isn't listening to what it is that Aziraphale needs and whose inability to hear it hurts?

Aziraphale doesn't know what it is that Crowley is so afraid of but the longer the proposal that Aziraphale cannot parse any additional meaning out of goes on, the more clear it is that Crowley is falling apart. His voice starts to go; he's in tears. Aziraphale is upset that Crowley is upset and would give anything to just talk to him the way that they usually do. He can't understand how Crowley doesn't seem to see that they're being watched and that there's a threat and just keeps going on about their relationship when the threat of Coffee Dude is literally looming right outside.

Aziraphale eventually starts responding to Crowley's proposal lines-- all of which, as we've said, are a plan for Aziraphale to possess him, repeated in different ways, over and over-- with similar pleas of his own. They're literally gesturing at one another at times, alongside the words, the suggestion that each other take possession of the other.

Come with me. *hand gesture from Crowley back to himself* To Heaven...

Because of the highly sexualized way in which Crowley and Aziraphale talk about possession, there is an element of comedy to this incredibly depressing scene once you see the hidden language at play.

The only way for both of them to talk about possession in a hidden way is to use vocabulary related to sex. What ends up happening as a result is that their whole persuasive arguments back and forth to one another wind up becoming sexually euphemistic to a point that they are basically just finding different ways to refer to sex and suggest that the other take them...

...and neither of them realize this because they do it so fucking often when flirting that it's not unusual enough for them to flag it as off. 😂

Aziraphale is standing there, likely hearing every innuendo in Crowley's proposal, and simply thinking that Crowley is asking him to marry him with a bit of an Ineffable Husbands Speak twist to it because of course he would, right? They just speak like this to one another all the time now so, if the context isn't emphatically suggesting 'hey, I am using this cant vocabulary of ours to convey a hidden message', neither of them are actually listening for one.

Meanwhile, this is Crowley, getting so hysterical that, at one point, he almost starts to laugh when he's saying "an us" (anus) and has, therefore, officially, reached the point of just yelling "ASS" at Aziraphale in an effort to get himself possessed so that Aziraphale won't die because they are currently trapped in a total fucking nightmare so dark and depressing that it is also kind of funny.

This, I'd imagine, is also why he can't go any further here and is just like "you in me, what do you say?" like please get this, angel, or I'm going to jump off the roof...

Meanwhile, Aziraphale, earlier, was just as euphemistic:

It'll be just like the old times. Only even nicer.

Old comes from auld, which meant adult and nourishing. Only (one); even (emphasizing a balanced sense of power; a word of reassurance); nicer, which you can read about here.

They get so turned around that Crowley even shouts the word "toxic" at Aziraphale about Heaven and Hell in such a way that it comes out as "TALK-ic", in an effort to try to say I'm trying to talk to you and get him to hear other levels of meaning in what is being said.

He's not the only one. There's also this:

Crowley actually doesn't understand what Aziraphale is offering him. Not really. He thinks he does and so does the audience, if they don't see what Aziraphale is trying to say. Crowley does know what it's like to struggle with Heaven and he understands that aspect of what Aziraphale is going through but what he isn't seeing here is that Aziraphale is specifically referencing the offer because, like Crowley will do with mentioning nightingales a moment after this, Aziraphale is trying to call back to to things he said earlier so that Crowley will listen for hidden language. Crowley's quick dismissal of it shuts down another avenue for Aziraphale to try again to say the plan and Aziraphale is again hurt that Crowley only thinks the surface level of what is happening is the only thing happening-- that he thinks Aziraphale truly would want to go to Heaven.

If Crowley knew what was truly happening? If he understood that Aziraphale was trying to say that he thought he was falling and needed help? You know Crowley would have done anything. He'd have gone along with Aziraphale's plan and possessed him. They could have gone together in Aziraphale's body into the elevator. It wouldn't have mattered if it was Satan or The Metatron-- they would have been there to protect each other and faced it together.

While it doesn't matter for the plot of S2 whether or not The Book of Life is real because what really matters is that Crowley thinks it is, there is a lot of suggestion that, at least in the way that Crowley and Beez believe it to be real, it doesn't actually exist. It's anxiety. It's as real as Crowley made it to be. If he had talked about it with Aziraphale, he likely would have found out it's not true. Aziraphale isn't worried about it in The Final 15, despite being threatened by Michael with it, which suggests that it really is balderdash and complete piffle. Michael is never shown having gotten the authority to do it by The Metatron and Michael is pretty impressionable and could have been one of the angels Beez and Crowley once teased into believing in it. Beez's embarrassed reaction in 2.01 suggested that they believed that Crowley was correct about it when he said his reaction was that it wasn't real.

It likely means that Crowley's entire plan in The Final 15 is for a threat that doesn't actually exist.

It means that Crowley's own anxiety and not being open with Aziraphale and talking about it kept him from being a partner to Aziraphale when Aziraphale needed him more than ever and made him blind to hearing what Aziraphale was saying he truly needed.

That "I need you" moment hits a little differently now, doesn't it?

If Crowley walks out the door, so does Aziraphale's ability to not fall.

When you think about it... of course it does, right?

How do you not fall? You let in the love of those around you.

It's also how you get back up if you do fall. Everything goes down, as Gabriel observed, but the flies go up. So do the birds-- the nightingales. Just not in S2.

Their insecurities can be summed up by how Aziraphale has never fully understood how Crowley means bookshop. It's the one word between them that they each think the other fully understands but they don't. They get the sexually euphemistic way that Aziraphale uses it ("...but we both get plenty of use out of it, don't we?") but it really comes down to how they each see Aziraphale. To Aziraphale, the bookshop that is metaphorically him is a compromise. It's not good enough. To Crowley? The bookshop is everything because the bookshop is Aziraphale and the place Aziraphale made for them. The clever idea his clever partner had for them. The place where Crowley feels loved and safe. It's all he needs, just as it is, but Aziraphale thinks it's not enough and wants to be able to offer more.

Aziraphale thinks they're talking about the bookshop itself in 2.06 ("oh, Crowley, nothing lasts forever") because it's been on his mind all season. It's the bookshop from which Aziraphale would like to move, and if you think that Crowley's proposal was ill-timed, ooh boy lol, this is not the best time to start to tell that one, particular person you'd like to go to that cottage by the sea, Aziraphale... but Crowley?

He thinks, of course, that Aziraphale means their fucking relationship and on go the sunglasses...

...in reality, part of why Aziraphale feels stuck in the same daily round of the bookshop is because of Crowley's attachment to it. It's because of Crowley having been devastated by the fire. Aziraphale thinks it would be better for them if they could find a way to move, if he can find a way to get out of the mess that is the embassy bookshop situation, but he hasn't yet found a way to talk to Crowley about that and tell him he'd like to them to go live together and it's only coming up now... when he's otherwise basically said he's leaving for Heaven. As a result, Crowley thinks that the nothing that lasts forever in question is their relationship.

Their words are so fucked at this point that Crowley winds up thinking that Aziraphale just said that their millennia-long love affair was a fun lark but it's over now that he's going to take over Gabriel's job.

Aziraphale's anxiety that Crowley likes the safety he could provide with the bookshop-- if not ever enough of it-- more than he loves him as a person; Crowley's anxiety that Aziraphale would choose Heaven and not him. Both of them knowing that it's insecurity talking-- Crowley even believing that he must have the short end of the stick enough to stop leaving and stay when Aziraphale asks him to come back-- but they're both so confused from what they think has been said during this scene that they're extra-vulnerable.

When Crowley tries "no nightingales" and the kiss as a last-ditch effort to get Aziraphale to understand The Book of Life as a threat and possess him, it doesn't work. Just like how Aziraphale also fails to get Crowley to understand that it is, likely, Satan that is watching them and that Aziraphale is about to fall without Crowley possessing him. What makes the kiss so heartbreaking and romantic is, actually, the fact that it is such a fucking root canal of a thing. Why?

Because both of them were waiting for the other to understand and possess one another. There's 90 billion interminable seconds of neither of them actually really kissing one another because both of them have a plan that involves possession for which this kiss could provide cover, even if it's only Crowley whose plan actually involved a kiss.

The kiss is so awkward because it's a pretense for something else, more than it is a kiss they both just want to share for the sake of kissing, and they both know they're being watched. Aziraphale is more in shock over the kiss happening because he has emotional whiplash from a proposal to a break up to being told he didn't love Crowley to a kiss out of nowhere. Crowley is basically not moving because he's kissing Aziraphale in the hopes that Aziraphale has gotten the plan and will start kissing him back and possessing him any second now. This renders Crowley basically a passive participant in the kiss. He might have been the one that started it but, once he touches his lips to Aziraphale, he basically doesn't move because that would be against the point of why he's kissing Aziraphale.

The same things that cause people to think that this looks like a pair of eighth graders trying to kiss for the first time lol are also just that way because of the plot reasons why this kiss is happening more than the emotional ones. The circumstances involved mean that this kiss actually says exactly nothing about how they normally kiss.

Crowley never tries to deepen it-- or, even, honestly, really to kiss Aziraphale much at all-- which honestly... was probably confusing the living fuck out of Aziraphale. Imagine for a moment that they are long-time lovers who have been kissing for thousands of years. How incredibly fucking weird would it be for your partner who knows how to bring the vavoom to go from proposing you get married, to ranting about Heaven, to proposing again in a series of sexual euphemisms, to telling you that you never loved him and that he's leaving you, only to then turn around, walk back, and give you this bizarrely dry kiss, the likes of which the two of you have never shared in all your worst days?

Not to mention that, if you're Aziraphale? You need Crowley to possess you or you will fall to Hell. This kiss could have covered that, as insane as all this emotional up-and-down of the last few minutes has been. This kiss could have saved your life and it doesn't because you can't get Crowley to get past his own stuff enough to hear you-- no wonder you're pissed enough to say, angrily, that you forgive him for it. Falling to Hell is going to mean that they take your memories. It's a form of death first before you're a demon. The only way to avoid that would have been for him to possess you and he wouldn't. Is it because he doesn't know? Is it because he just won't-- that it's too much for him, after everything? If you're Aziraphale, you don't know.

All Aziraphale knows is that all of this hurts and, to make everything all even worse, that kiss was such a mess (and it's likely the last one) that it feels like they might have broken what was between them with it and that, alone, is reason enough for Aziraphale's reaction when they pull back from it. Is it any wonder, then, that Aziraphale after that kiss is just a fucking mess?

That he is this close to saying the I love you that he feels but he's also so fucking angry that his emotional devastation flips within a few seconds to frustration and the all-too-self-aware "I forgive you"... because that's what this is all about. That's what Crowley, feeling unforgivable, has always seemed like he needs to heal and the thing that Aziraphale doesn't have the power to give him. He's not enough to end Crowley's pain-- unforgivable, that's what Crowley is, according to Crowley.

He's just not enough for Crowley, period, is what Aziraphale thinks. Not good enough. It doesn't matter how much Aziraphale loves him, he doesn't think it'll ever be enough to overcome the pain of Heaven having cast Crowley out. That's all he wants to do-- end Crowley's pain. Make Heaven say they were wrong and give Crowley the peace he deserves and the safety that Aziraphale feels like he can't offer him on his own.

Crowley, in the end, goes out the door, rather than acknowledge that he knows why Aziraphale feels this way. Aziraphale is left gasping "no" and touching his lips over what he thinks will be their last kiss... because Crowley is gone and also because he's likely going to fall now. The option for that to not to happen went out the door with Crowley.

Satan comes back in right afterwards and we get the scenes that see Aziraphale slip towards that fall very quickly without Crowley there. The bookshop goes to Muriel and Aziraphale almost refuses the temptation and goes to Crowley but, like Beez, upon the realization that The Book of Life likely wasn't real, Aziraphale sees Satan twist the knife by flattering him and then intentionally letting him hear the "The Second Coming" comment that proves that it was all a ruse. In that moment, Aziraphale knows that they wouldn't put him in charge of Armageddon and that there is no job offer.

He's left standing there with a choice to make-- he can go to Crowley or he can get in the elevator and, if he gets into the elevator, he knows who it is for sure now who is holding open the door. He knows what awaits him, which makes it a bit of a suicide attempt, in that he knows he's in the last moments of his life, as his memories will be taken from him and he won't come back as a demon the same.

He could go to Crowley but, like Beez earlier in the season when they realized that The Book of Life wasn't real, Aziraphale is that thing we talked about at the start of this meta.

He's embarrassed.

He knows he could go to Crowley and Crowley would tell him that it was all okay and they could talk it through but Aziraphale knows now that there is no chance that he's ever going to be able to provide Crowley the kind of safety and peace that he thinks he can't provide for him and he knows that Armageddon is coming again and that they're going to have to stop it all over again and just keep living this circular nightmare forever and he can't take it anymore.

In that moment, he wants coffee but he's too worn out and, in his unpredictable predictableness, he chooses death. He doesn't truly want it but it's a relief from the same kind of suffering-- a false freedom-- and he falls for the temptation of that in the moment.

It will ultimately wind up okay. They seem to have made an accidental fly in The Bentley when Aziraphale drove it that could restore memories. There is an overthrowing of Heaven/Hell on the horizon that might even make it so that Aziraphale is the last angel who ever falls and the concept of a demon changes a bit in S3. There are ways forward but there is no plan already happening when Aziraphale gets into the elevator. He had one; so did Crowley. They tried to communicate across a space while being watched-- like in the Job minisode, like in 1941-- but, this time, they failed, and that, I think, is the point of the No Nightingales season.

Their communication gaps are really their own insecurities reflected back to them. Aziraphale, no matter what Crowley does or says, feels like he is not good and not good enough for Crowley, so he's always felt like Crowley can do better than him. He thinks he should have been able to figure out how to give them a life that's better than their bookshop compromise by now.

Aziraphale doesn't stop to think about how this really doesn't make sense... about how Crowley would never just ask him to marry him with The Metatron lurking in the street... about how he asks him to run away with him sometimes in a panic when trouble is looming, yeah, but this is different from that. This isn't run away with me to our stars, angel! but I would like to marry you.

He doesn't stop to consider that because all Aziraphale can hear is his own inner voice telling him that he should have been able to give Crowley this life a long time ago.

Meanwhile, Crowley doesn't stop to think that Aziraphale would never want to leave him and so, even if tempted by this restoration of status offer for Crowley, would not actually want to go to Heaven. He doesn't think about how they're being watched and so Aziraphale is trying to code his speech because Crowley's own biggest insecurity-- one of his worst nightmares-- is Aziraphale going full Heaven Pod Person on him.

Crowley loves a happy ending to a love story but he doesn't truly think he's ever getting one because it's always going to be too late for him-- he's damned, after all. The only happy ending to a love story for him that he'd ever want is to be with Aziraphale forever and that has seemed impossible from the start, given that he's a demon and Aziraphale is an angel. Crowley doesn't think they get a happy ending and he thinks it's his fault that they won't. He has just been trying all these years to make it so that Aziraphale doesn't get hurt in the process and now what's happening in 2.06? That he's not good, that he's unforgivable, that he's damned, is coming home to roost and he's got to watch what feels like Aziraphale on a path towards death, slipping through his fingers, with nothing Crowley can make happen to prevent it.

They both so desperately want the other to believe they are as good as they see each other as being and would do anything to convince each other of that and suffer when they feel like they're failing at it. What neither of them really fully realize, fundamentally, is that they don't need to accept labels and judgements of those who have harmed them. It's a hard thing for anyone to learn and, sometimes, they let each other in and listen to one another reiterate that they're great as they are and, other times, it gets harder and miscommunications happen as people get too stuck in their heads.

That's S2 but it won't be S3.

Aziraphale only wants Crowley's restoration of angelic status because he thinks it will make Crowley see that he's not unforgivable and because it will keep him safe from Satan if he's an angel again. Aziraphale doesn't need Crowley to be an angel to love him-- he's painted his entire damn house the color of Crowley's demonic eyes. He's absolutely mad for him, just as he is.

The same is true of how Crowley feels about Aziraphale. Aziraphale knows that Crowley loves him but he doesn't love himself-- not enough, anyway. He feels like he's a failure when he's really brilliant. He thinks he's not a good person when he's unfailingly kind. He thinks he doesn't have anything to offer Crowley when all Crowley wants is Aziraphale, exactly as he is...

The Nightingales finale in S1 is about them getting it so very right in the moment. What they say to one another is exactly what the other needs, which is what makes it so romantic. It shows how well they know one another and that, more often than not, they get it right. When a series of unfortunate events and their own anxieties pile up at the same time, though, we get the No Nightingales finale in S2 when, overwhelmed, they both let their own fears and anxieties get the better of them, and the inability to speak freely and to pause, as they usually do, and ask what each other's exactlys mean, exactly, eludes them.

And, even then, after it all falls apart? The most romantic thing is still happening because they are both still trying.

In the end, they're both still trying with the exact things the argument over Gabriel in 2.01 made it clear that they're both helping one another to work on:

Crowley stays by the car, because he's promised to stay and work through things without succumbing to fear and running away. He fucked up and walked out the door but he stays nearby, to show he loves him.

Aziraphale leaves their song to be played for Crowley, because he's promised to try not to succumb to fear and blurt out angry words he doesn't mean. He fucked up and said things he regrets but he has the car play "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square", to show he loves him.

Crowley says with his actions: I am always here and I won't leave you on your own. Aziraphale says with his: You are my whole world and anything I do, I am trying to do for you.

They honestly didn't really even break up so much as both just get enormously fucking confused.

And here's where I'll leave you by mentioning one, final thing...

It actually is about 2.06 but it's a bit of foreshadowing from the final shot of 1.06, in this moment here:

Much amazing discussion has been had about the piano in the last scene in The Ritz in S1-- about how their song is being played and about how the piano lid looks like a wing and makes this scene something of a parallel to others, like Eden and Before the Beginning, that end with Crowley and Aziraphale each sheltering one another with a wing. All of that is stellar and I agree with it but I think there's one, subtle thing that gets overlooked about this piano-- and that's the piece of it that is involved in it being played in the first place.

Just as unraveling nightingales is a key to Crowley and Aziraphale's hidden language, their nightingale-themed song is being played by a human on the piano-- on piano keys. In order to access those piano keys to play the song, though? The pianist had to first do one, specific thing...

She had to access the keys by first moving back the cover that hides them when not in use and let them see the light of day. Without doing this? No piano. No piano?

No nightingales.

What is action that the pianist did to play the song in 1.06 called then, in musical terms?

Lifting. Up...