#with all his gesturing
Something I only noticed during my latest rewatch: aziraphale’s little smile once he understands the extent of crowley’s plan. he keeps his face impassive while crowley can see him, but in the end cannot hold back a smile. notice how as soon as he feels it coming he turns away from crowley so he doesn’t see, and tries to get his expression under control again.
i wonder if the smile is just prompted by the almost comically excessive grandiosity of crowley’s plan itself, or rather by the realisation that, despite their fight and almost 80 years of no contact, crowley still not only showed up to help him when he was in trouble, but also pulled out all the stops to do so. this isn’t just him sneakily miracling the nazis into forgetting about the whole deal with the books, or putting them into a trance like he did with sister mary loquacious and calling it a day. he diverted a bomb for this. there was absolutely no need to do something so showy, and yet he did anyway.
this is a big gesture, it speaks volumes, and i think aziraphale realises it and that’s why he can’t help smiling. i think this is where he realises that they’re going to be okay. that whatever there was between them hasn’t been ruined beyond repair. a quieter rescue could have been chalked up to one last bit of help for old times’ sake, perhaps. but this? this can’t be mistaken for anything other than what it is: crowley caring, caring so strongly, like he always has.
(… and all this is before the books, which, although technically a smaller gesture, is even more telling than the bomb. it’s no wonder all aziraphale could do afterwards is stare at crowley’s retreating back. what else can you do after so many beautiful revelations, all in the span of ten minutes? crowley hasn’t left forever. crowley still cares. that would be enough to bowl anyone over - but then there is more, as it turns out. crowley not only cares. crowley loves.)
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