crowley after six thousand years has all this patience and all this ‘your pace, angel’ about him and he never says but it’s not out of his own self-preservation vis-a-vis the mortifying ordeal of being known (tho it is vis-a-vis his safety from hell, which we’ve seen he’s willing to risk for aziraphale’s sake – that’s another post). he does it for aziraphale’s. crowley is ready to be known, but he knows that aziraphale – with his faith, with his loyalties to heaven – isn’t ready to know.
in a sense, crowley keeping quiet about the specifics of his feelings for aziraphale is another protective move in a long line of protective moves. crowley’s silence protects aziraphale’s status quo with regards to right and wrong v Right and Wrong as heaven denotes it, and instead crowley allows aziraphale the time and space to work up to challenging it himself. crowley lets aziraphale do it himself, he lets aziraphale come to those conclusions himself. and aziraphale does do this work! just very slowly. he agrees to the arrangement. he understands that he and crowley are in something that both heaven and hell would disapprove of. he doesn’t want crowley to be able to destroy himself, and then he decides he trusts crowley enough to not destroy himself (thereby leaving aziraphale behind). he gets involved in the raising-warlock scheme and doesn’t disclose every part of it to heaven. he goes slow – crowley sees that.
crowley allows him that. if the world weren’t ending, crowley would’ve waited even longer. but aziraphale is still clinging to heaven – he hasn’t given up on that blind faith. he still wants heaven to be good. he’s giving heaven every chance to prove itself as good so he doesn’t have to upset that status quo.
which is why it all blows up when crowley says he wants them to run off together. crowley can’t give aziraphale any more time; there is no more time. crowley submits himself to the mortifying ordeal of being known in a last desperate attempt to get the reward of being loved, but aziraphale isn’t ready to realign his worldview yet. he isn’t ready to acknowledge all the things about heaven and about crowley that must be true for what crowley is saying to be true. aziraphale is in fact flat out startled, and because he isn’t ready, he lashes out and rejects it. and actually, aziraphale in a very real sense has already betrayed crowley – he knows where the antichrist is and he’s already told heaven, and he’s lied to crowley about it. even though aziraphale wants heaven to do the same thing crowley wants – which is to stop the antichrist and the coming armageddon – he is keeping crowley out of it. he’s already put all his eggs in heaven’s basket, and then crowley shows up and submits himself, wholly and completely, to the mortifying ordeal of being known, and aziraphale basically goes, what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what am I supposed to do with that. it’s no mistake that crowley’s unforgivability v aziraphale’s holiness is a part of the arc in this conversation – aziraphale is thinking about it, and crowley is deliberately telling him, you know me better than to define me by that. but how can crowley be right over heaven? only if heaven is wrong. aziraphale can’t let go of that, not yet.
and for the first time really, crowley is storming away: he’s submitted himself, and aziraphale hasn’t known him. he’s rejected him.
but crowley doesn’t give up. he comes back: he submits again to the mortifying ordeal. aziraphale is listening to him. this is so important. aziraphale isn’t rejecting him easily the second time. he tries to tell crowley – he tries to let crowley into his plan now, but it comes down to asking crowley to trust heaven, and crowley knows better. the conversation about crowley’s forgivability comes back, and aziraphale is telling him that even if heaven won’t, i will, and that’s what matters between them right then. but it isn’t until aziraphale comes to the conclusions about heaven on his own in his conversation with the metatron that he fully understands what crowley was really telling him, and he understands. when aziraphale goes to the bar, he understands everything crowley is telling him, everything crowley has told him, and when he says “I’m sorry to hear that” in response to “I lost my best friend,” it’s what it says on the tin!! he’s sorry!! he didn’t trust crowley and he should have!! he’s sorry for the rejection he’s sorry he didn’t understand he’s sorry he betrayed crowley he’s sorry he let crowley leave.
and then he asks crowley for help. this isn’t a skip by the apologies they need – this is direct action apology. aziraphale undoes his betrayal. he came to tell crowley where the antichrist is. he came to tell crowley how to stop him. they are back on plan-anti-antichrist. actually crowley says, “i’m not going there,” but he’s going to go where aziraphale is, and they both know it. aziraphale is saying, i believe you. i understand you. i know you. but there’s one more step for them before they achieve the reward of being loved: they have to save the world, or it will all be over. aziraphale doesn’t actually need crowley in order to do this, but he wants him there. this is aziraphale’s alpha centauri, but we don’t just save ourselves. we’re better than that. we save everyone. and crowley says, tell me where to go.
at that point, there’s no longer any question that they’re going to do whatever they have to, and they’re going to do it together.