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If one were to care enough to research it, and one had sufficient resources to do so, one might be able to pin down a rough date for the first time the word 'angel' was used as a term of endearment.[1]
This date, however, would most definitely be wrong, as the first time the endearment had been used on Earth was right at its beginning, by a demon for an angel that he did not really know yet.[2]
As the forward-thinking and intelligent reader that the author is sure you are, you might be wondering— is it actually a term of endearment if they barely know each other? Aren’t pet names reserved for, well, people you love and cherish with all (or at least some) your heart, while any other names you call others that aren’t strictly theirs are just... nicknames?
And sure, you would be right, but only if it was Aziraphale referring to Crowley. As at this point in time, the angel felt nothing more for the demon he stood beside than the general love and affection he felt for all living things, as per Her instructions.
The Demon Crowley, being a demon, did not have any such instructions.[3] Yet, as he stood there being shielded from the rain by a heavenly wing, he noticed a feeling of warmth spreading within him, coming from some unknown place deep inside. It was this feeling of warmth that led to him hesitating as he sauntered off into the gardens once the rain abated, shooting a smirk and a quick “Thanks, angel,” over his shoulder before he shrunk back down into snake form.
Crowley might have not recognised it yet, given how sudden and new this unexpected warmth was, but it was only a matter of time until he did. After all, even Demons are capable of recognising love.[4]
So, if one’s research turned up any answer for the first usage of ‘angel’ as a pet name other than ‘by the Demon Crowley to the Principality Aziraphale, about 20 minutes after the first-ever rain started and just before Aziraphale would unintentionally invent the concept of lying to God despite Her all-knowing and omnipresent-ness’, which it almost certainly would, one's answer would be wrong, give or take a few hundred years. After all, it’s not exactly like Crowley and Aziraphale were rushing off to write about the exchange in their diaries like a couple of giddy schoolgirls, were they?
The thing that this research could potentially tell you (with any iota of accuracy, at least) is the first time humans ever used ‘angel’ in this sense. That date, however, is not what we are concerning ourselves with today. It does not exactly matter when the term came into fashion, after all. All that we need to know is that at some stage, someone thought to use the word in this way and quite rapidly from there others began to do so as well.
No, what we are more interested in right now is why this word began to be used. Who started the trend? Did they realise it?
As it just so happens, the answer to the first of these two questions happened to have the same answer as our initial query, not that the two would ever admit it.
You see, once upon a time, humans were all too aware of their ethereal and occult brethren walking among them (not that they could necessarily recognise said brethren). In those times, whenever two eavesdropping mortals heard Crowley refer to Aziraphale as ‘angel’ they simply took it as Fact, a statement that the kindly-looking man was exactly what he was and wasn’t to be considered some lowly mortal. However, over time this awareness faded from the minds of man,[5] and with it came a new interpretation of Aziraphale and Crowley’s closeness.
For you see, here we have two fine men both of eligible age that are regularly seen dining together rather than with any female partners, one acting concerned at being spotted at said meal and the other gazing unusually softly at him with obvious affection in his eyes. These factors are very easily explained with the Truth,[6] as you and the author both know very well, but hardly anyone in these days would buy it.[7]
No, what these factors ended up doing is ensuring that both Aziraphale and Crowley were followed by whispers of ‘confirmed bachelors’ whenever they met.[8]
And when one of these so-called confirmed bachelors was calling the other a pet name that slowly seemed less and less blasphemous as time went on? Well, some of the people around them began to sit up and take notice.
“Oh look, dear, aren’t they sweet!” Mildred said on one such occasion, pointing out two men walking arm in arm towards them. “Edith was saying she saw them eating together at the inn earlier, and they seemed to positively dote on each other!”
Egbert scowled in response to this, but refrained from commenting as the men drew closer. Rather fortuitously, this allowed them both to listen in on the conversation the men were holding, so Mildred didn't yet press him on his lack of response.
“Come on, angel, it’s not like they’ll know it happened!”
“My dear, it’s simply too risky. You have no way of ensuring we won’t be caught, and if we are...”
“It’ll be fine, don’t worry so much.”
With this, the shorter man faltered and glanced into the taller one’s eyes, seemingly uncaring about the tinted glasses that hid them from view.
“Crowley, if your side were to find out, they’d destroy you.”
The man that was presumably named Crowley flashed a relaxed smile at his companion.
“Then it’s a good thing that they’re not going to, isn’t it?”
With this, the two men fell silent, and it wasn’t until they’d well and truly passed each other that Mildred risked glancing back at them.
“Oh, the poor dears. I can’t imagine how utterly horrid it would be to have to live your life hidden away like that! If they’re still in town for the next few days I simply must cook them something, make sure to remind me, dear!”
It was at that stage that Mildred finally glanced across at Egbert, only to see that his face was set in a frown.
“Are you quite alright, Eg?”
In response to this, Egbert grumbled quietly, but still didn’t say anything that his wife could interpret as actual words.
“Speak up, dear, I didn’t quite catch that!”
“...I said, it’s unnatural,” he muttered, glaring back at the men as they continued walking away.
Mildred paused suddenly, fixing a stern look on her husband.
“Unnatural?”
Egbert faltered slightly as his wife’s eyebrow climbed higher on her face, but pushed on nonetheless.
“Yeah. And blasphemous. Father Chad said so.”[9]
Mildred’s eyebrow seemed to reach its peak height, as it swapped out moving any further in order to stare pointedly at him from where it was perched on her face.
“Interesting. Now, tell me, is this the same Father Chad that regularly reminds us to ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’?”
“Well, yes but—“
“And that it’s not our place to judge others, that He would be the person to do that in the afterlife and that we should leave people to live their lives as they wish?”
Egbert frowned thoughtfully, mulling this thought over in his head for a while.
“I guess that’s true...” he conceded after a few moments of heavy thought.
“Anyway, I don’t see why it would be wrong,” Mildred pointed out. “Two people who love each other that much, seems perfectly splendid to me! And did you hear what one of them called the other? Angel.” Here she paused briefly, sighing wistfully. “What a lovely term of endearment. Tell me, Egbert, when’s the last time you called me something as sweet as that? Why, it feels like when we were practically still courting! Now come along, dear, I still need to get our supper started up.”
“Of course... angel.”
With this, the two continued strolling home, both none-the-wiser to the true nature of the pair they’d walked past.
Now, this single event might not seem like a lot on its own, but this was only one incident out of thousands. The ensuing ripple effect of people over-hearing people who’d over-heard people[10] who’d overheard Crowley’s use of the word angel to refer to Aziraphale meant that before long, the word was being used on a regular basis by those in love to refer to their significant others. Aziraphale and Crowley, of course, knew perfectly well that they were the cause of this unintentional phenomenon. They just did their very best to pretend they didn’t.
“Hey, angel!”
Aziraphale turned, almost on instinct, before realising that the voice did not, in fact, belong to Crowley, and therefore was most probably not referring to him. Sure enough, a feminine giggle followed the greeting, coupled with a shy ‘Hey...’, and the ethereal being knew that were he to turn and check he would simply find a darling young couple sitting in the booth behind him.
It had been happening a lot lately, Aziraphale had noticed, and he wasn’t quite sure when it had caught on. It almost seemed like one day he went to bed in a world where no one would even think of calling someone else 'angel' and woken up the next day in one where what felt like absolutely everyone was doing just that! It had made it frightfully hard to know if someone was referring to him, unfortunately, and he’d recently taken to reminding himself that everyone he knew was referring to him by 'Mr Fell' now. Well, everyone except for—
“Angel! Starting without me, are you?”
Ah, yes. Crowley. The demon in question slid into the booth across from him, and Aziraphale had to concentrate to quell the small smile that began to surface at the sight of him. They hadn’t run into each other recently, so Aziraphale did his usual cursory look over of him in order to work out if anything had changed.
Crowley had sunglasses covering his eyes, obviously, and he was dressed in more or less the same way he had been two years before. But his hair was shorter now, and was a drastically different style to how Aziraphale had last seen it.
“No, I wouldn’t dream of it! I just got a bit... peckish, that’s all, I’ve still got plenty of room left for dinner,” Aziraphale said. “By the way, I like the hair. When did you get it cut?”
Crowley shifted a little in order to slouch more comfortably in his seat, before flapping one of his arms in the air vaguely.
“Oh, I dunno, a year and a half ago maybe? Not too long after we last ran into each other. I’m guessing not much’s changed for you and your lot? Still going around, spreading peace and tranquillity and whatever else it is you wish to spread?”
Before Aziraphale could answer, a burst of raucous laughter erupted from the booth behind them. He turned to see a boy that couldn't have been older than sixteen wiping tears of mirth from his eyes, his other arm slung around the shoulder of a slightly flushed and confused-looking girl of about the same age.
“Oh, angel, you really are something else.”
“I— I only said that Mr Richards may as well just go off and move to Europe, given that it's all he talks about in lessons...?”
The boy snickered again.
“Exactly, angel. It was hilarious.”
The girl flushed deeper, clearly unsure of what to do with the dedicated and unwavering attention of a hormonal and interested boy turned in her direction, and Aziraphale tuned back out of eavesdropping in favour of talking with Crowley. Once he’d turned back to face the demon, however, he realised that he wasn’t quite able to look the other in the eyes.[11]
“People have, uh, sure been using that endearment a lot recently,” Aziraphale eventually stuttered out.
Internally, Crowley weighed up the pros and cons of answering in a more detailed manner before deciding that the risk of his words coming out as a jumbled mess far outweighed any potential benefits of adding value to the conversation. Instead, he settled for shrugging at the angel in lieu of an actual response.
“I, uh, wonder where they picked up the habit from,” Aziraphale continued.
“...Yeah, I wonder,” Crowley responded, praying to someone that his voice sounded a lot more collected than he felt.
The two of them fell silent, and both Aziraphale and Crowley found themselves reaching for sips of tea as they stared studiously away from each other.
“...I guess we’ll never know.”
Crowley and Aziraphale went along like this for many years after that incident, with the whole pointedly not-talking-about-it business. In fact, Aziraphale managed to avoid even thinking about the said topic for so long that when he happened rather suddenly upon the subject once again he found himself caught very off guard. You see, it happened early one October morning, when the Archangel Gabriel popped down to earth in order to give Aziraphale a commendation.
As so often happened with these sporadic visits, Aziraphale was completely unaware that it would be occurring until it did. One minute, he was pouring over his latest addition to his catalogue of rare books, the next he felt a wave of heavenly energy wash over him and glanced up just in time to see Gabriel closing the front door to his shop.
“Gabriel! What brings you down to Earth today?” Aziraphale asked, carefully closing the book he had been reading through.
Externally, he managed to keep a smile on his face and polite respect in his voice, but internally he was panicking. A constant mantra of ‘Please don’t send me back to Heaven please don’t send me back to Heaven!’ was running through his head, but he felt like he did a decent job of hiding it. This was verified when all Gabriel did was smile slightly awkwardly at him before he started to speak.
“The higher-ups wanted me to tell you good job with that whole Cuban... missile... thing.”
Aziraphale had to hold back a sigh of relief at this statement, and he felt some of the tension release out of his shoulders.
“Oh, yes. I thought it was getting a bit out of hand, left on its own, and figured the humans could do with a gentle guiding hand stepping in and helping with the negotiations. I’m glad it de-escalated before nuclear war broke out, things were looking a bit risky at a few stages there!”
Gabriel nodded firmly.
“Yes, yes, very well done on all of that. I’m sure you were very... helpful. Now, onto other matters— I heard a human male calling his partner ‘angel’ as I walked into the shop? Is that a... thing now?”
At these words, Aziraphale visibly started, and he awkwardly picked up the book he’d left on his desk and walked over to put it away. When he felt he was a safe distance away from Gabriel, he let himself reply.
“Wh— What, people calling their partners pet names? Or are you just asking specifically about 'angel’? Because both have been happening for, well, a while now.”
Gabriel made a slightly impatient noise as Aziraphale turned to face him slightly.
“Specifically ‘angel’, of course! I know about humans and their fondness for terms of endearment, I was mostly just wondering when the mortals started feeling like they were worthy of the name. Do you know where the trend started?”
Aziraphale flushed bright red and whipped back around to the bookcase, hoping Gabriel wasn’t observant enough to notice the obvious colour in his cheeks.[12]
“I— I have absolutely no clue at all, wouldn't even be able to tell you the first time I heard it being used. Would you— Would you like that investigated, by any chance?"
Gabriel hummed thoughtfully, and Aziraphale felt he could collapse in relief when the archangel spoke again.
“No, I don’t think it’s necessary really. I suppose it’s spreading love and joy among the mortals, and the effort necessary to track that down could be better spent elsewhere. It’s just a curious habit, I suppose.”
Cheeks finally willed to calm down, Aziraphale slowly turned to face Gabriel with an only slightly strained smile on his face.
“Curious indeed,” he heard himself say, but when he was fully facing into the room, he realised that it was empty.
Of course, all this happened before the end of the world that wasn’t. After that, many things began to change for Aziraphale and Crowley, most notably how they acted around one another. In terms of events that would inspire two oblivious dumbasses to get their shit together and just confess already, the threat of Armageddon was pretty high up there.
So, fairly soon after the Notpocalypse, Aziraphale found himself leaning a little closer, Crowley found himself reaching a little further, and within a matter of weeks they found themselves teetering on the edge of an abyss that they’d carefully ignored the existence of for, well, over 6000 years now. And when they fell into said abyss, it wasn’t with a push or a shove. No, instead, they looked each other in the eyes, and with all the weariness of two immortal beings who were God-and-Satan-damn done with ignoring this huge pit, stepped in hand in hand. And once they’d finished falling?[13]
Well, what was the point of avoiding the implications of a word when you’d just started acknowledging that those implications were true?
It was a week after Aziraphale and Crowley had taken that final step, and they’d both found that going from 6000 years of pining into a relationship within a matter of hours resulted in a surprisingly seamless transition. Oh, sure, there had been moments they’d temporarily forgotten themselves, instinctively pulling away and glancing over their shoulders just in case someone from either side was watching, but on the whole, things had gone smoothly.
It was about 10 am, and Aziraphale was sorting through a stack of books Adam had so thoughtfully provided him with when the bell to the shop tinkled. He glanced up, fully prepared to tell whoever it was that was looking to buy a book that he was taking the day and possibly the rest of the week off due to unspecified personal reasons, so they’d definitely need to look elsewhere, and instead found a smile breaking out on his face.
“Crowley! Good morning, dear. How are your plants doing? They looked ever so beautiful when I saw them the other day, I do hope you’re remembering to tell them that!”[14]
Crowley stood just inside the doorway, an indescribably fond look on his face. He was balancing two cups of what was presumably tea on top of a box that Aziraphale recognised as belonging to the cafe across the street, and upon entering he’d removed his sunglasses. However, rather than moving any further into the shop or answering Aziraphale’s greeting, Crowley seemed quite content to stand where he was and just stare at him for the foreseeable future. Aziraphale soon felt a flush rise to the surface of his cheeks, but before he could do or say anything Crowley managed to find his voice.
“Angel, you’ve changed your outfit!”
Now, on its own, this sentence doesn’t seem like much. But to understand the true meaning packed into these words, you have to understand two things:
Firstly, Crowley has seen Aziraphale wear the exact same outfit for, well, roughly 180 years now.[15]
Secondly, the amount of pure love and affection that he managed to put into the utterance of that single sentence (and, indeed, the first word of said sentence) was frankly staggering, and Aziraphale found himself unsure how to react in the face of it.
He settled for flushing an even brighter red and looking down at himself self-consciously, tugging on the hem of the soft and well-worn sweater he’d decided to pull on that morning.
“Oh, this old thing? I just thought it would be more comfortable, you know, and I figured I would have time to change if we decided on leaving the shop.”
When Aziraphale glanced back up, it was to find Crowley very suddenly in his space, drinks and pastries lying forgotten on a table.[16] Crowley was smiling gently, the kind of smile that he would later deny the existence of if it was ever brought up again, and Aziraphale instantly found himself smiling back in return.
“It suits you, angel. I love it.” Crowley said, before pulling him in for a kiss.
They did not, in fact, end up leaving the shop that day, not that either of them were surprised. Indeed, as the evening approached, Crowley didn’t even pretend to make a move towards going home, and Aziraphale didn’t bother asking if he was going to. They both already knew how the day was going to end, that they’d find themselves curled up together on Aziraphale’s newly manifested bed, revelling in the closeness while approximating sleep, and nothing needed to be said to confirm it.
It wasn’t until noon the next day that either of them brought up the idea of going anywhere, and even then it was just in order to grab lunch in the cafe across the street.
And when they heard the woman at the table beside them call her partner ‘angel’ as they sat down? Well, they continued on exactly as they had been, only pausing slightly for bites of food and the occasional hand squeeze.
Crowley may have started a lot of trends throughout the years, but this one was undoubtedly his favourite.
[1] In this case, the author did care enough to research it. Unfortunately, the author is also a 16-year-old who was a) using their phone to write at the time of typing this sentence, and b) definitely not committed enough to actually find the relevant resources just to write one sentence in a fic. They have schoolwork, okay?
[2] Yet being the operative word, as this particular angel and demon happened to have long and hopelessly intertwined destinies laying ahead of them, even if they were not aware of that fact at this time. Presumably you, as the reader of this particular fanfic, are, unless you got hopelessly lost on your way to your latest Marvel ship. If so, hello, we hope you will enjoy your stay, please make sure to come back with the proper preparation sometime soon!
[3] In fact, he had hardly any instructions at all, now that he’d successfully tempted Eve into eating the apple. Really, all his side seemed to want him to do was cause some general chaos and mayhem, both of which seemed like perfectly achievable tasks for him.
[4] They just might need to be practically hit over the head with it a few times first. (What, I didn’t say they were good at recognising love. I just said they could. If they chose to. Which Crowley would. Eventually.)
[5] Aside, of course, from a select few humans that consequently got written off as either nut jobs or zealots due to all the ‘findings’ that ‘archaeology and science’ were ‘proving’ that ‘contradicted these beliefs’.
[6] Providing, of course, that said Truth made sure to include that the Angel in question was just about as oblivious as he could possibly be, and that the Demon genuinely didn’t realise just how soft he acted around the other and therefore was not able to put the appropriate walls up.
[7] This makes sense. Why would you want to buy it anyway? What are you going to do with a random fact about these two random beings? No, there are much better things to spend your money on. Books, for one thing. Amazon Prime subscriptions, for another.
[8] Well, not quite whenever they met. The term ‘confirmed bachelor’ isn’t exactly universal to every time period and country, but the general gist of what people said all falls into a similar category.
[9] Yes, you read that right, Chad. To the author’s immense surprise whilst researching, this extremely modern-sounding name is, in fact, old as shit.
[11] One could argue that he was rarely able to look the demon in the eyes, due to the ever-present status of Crowley’s sunglasses, and one would (technically) be quite correct. It was more the principle of the matter, in this case. Aziraphale was unable to look in the general direction of the demon’s eyes, and under his glasses, Crowley was facing the same issue.
[12] Luckily enough for Aziraphale, Gabriel wasn’t . In the wise words of dreamy from the Good Omens server the author is on: ‘Aziraphale may be an idiot in our terms, but don’t forget that in angel terms he’s enlightened’
[13] falling, with a lowercase ‘f’. This is not the type of fic to include Falling, although the author quite enjoys those as well.
[14] Aziraphale had, and at length. To no one’s surprise but his own, Crowley couldn’t even bring himself to pretend to be mad at the angel for making them ‘soft’. He did make sure to discipline them extra sternly once Aziraphale had left, however. Couldn’t have them thinking he was losing his touch, now, could he?
[15] Excluding, of course, the years spent looking after Warlock, but those hardly counted. For one thing, neither of them were really acting as themselves. For another, they didn’t actually find much time to interact, between the whole ‘raising the (mistaken) antichrist’ thing and their other duties.
[16] Not that they mattered, of course. They’d quite suddenly find themselves to be still hot when the two beings got around to eating them.