David Tennant & Michael Sheen Also Think Good Omens Is A Romance

You're not imagining things. Crowley (David Tennant) and Aziraphale (Michael Sheen), the demon and angel duo in the delightfully whimsical Amazon Prime show Good Omens, do, indeed, give each other rom-com eyes. You know, the look that says, "I see something in you. I see you."

But what kind of love story does Good Omens depict? At one point, when the end of the world seems inevitable, Crowley proposes that he and Aziraphale abandon heaven and hell for the tabula rasa of another planet. It's mere inches away from being romantic. You can almost hear Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know" playing in the distance. Are Aziraphale and Crowley friends, two immortal beings brought together by their unlikely love for earth and all its inhabitants? Or are they — if you squint and believe in your heart — something more than friends?

Twitter's overwhelming reaction, as well as the many works of Good Omens erotic fan-fic would have you leaning toward the latter (and imagining their intergalactic romps in graphic detail). It's only been out for four days, and there's already fan-fic inspired by the show.

Good Omens provides more than enough evidence to cobble together a robust Tumblr devoted to shipping Crowley and Aziraphale. The glances! The grand gestures to save each other! The song "Somebody to Love" by Queen playing the moment Aziraphale loses Crowley! Come on.

While Good Omens winks at the subject of Crowley and Aziraphale's attraction, it won't outright admit it. That's nothing new for Neil Gaiman, co-author of the book and writer of the script Good Omens. "It's love story which isn't exactly a love story. They're an angel and a demon, two preternatural entities. But they're man-shaped and man-sized. This is their love story," Gaiman said in an interview with Refinery29 during a press junket.

While it only recently hit Twitter in full force, the subject of Aziraphale and Crowley's obvious (romantic?) attraction has long been discussed among Good Omens fans, hence the plethora of fan-fic. Gaiman once responded to a fan who asked him to settle an "unpleasant multi-fandom argument" about whether Crowley was "canonically gay."

In his response, Gaiman was both detailed and cagey. "Canonically, which is to say using the text in the book, you don’t get any description of Crowley’s sex life. The only thing the book says is “angels are sexless unless they specifically make an effort. You can infer, and (more to the point) you can imagine, and lots of people have chosen, not unreasonably, to ship him with Aziraphale, but you are still Making Stuff Up. It could be Making Stuff Up that happens between paragraphs, or Making Stuff Up that isn’t mentioned at all, but it’s still Making Stuff Up," Gaiman wrote on Tumblr. Essentially, Gaiman's answer boils down to this: You can write fan-fiction, but that doesn't make it true.

The show is going to make fans' temptation to "make things up" significantly greater. Sheen and Tennant picked up in the ambiguity of their characters' relationship in the script – and decided to lean in. During an interview with Refinery29, neither actor ruled out the possibility of romantic love between their characters.

"It's a love story, without a doubt. These two characters are each other’s significant other. They rely on each other. They’re beholden to each other. They’re bonded to each other," Tennant told Refinery29 during a press junket in New York. "Whether it's a romantic love story or not is in the eye of the beholder."

Well. We know what's in our eyes — even if, much like millennials, Crowley and Aziraphale avoid defining their relationship. Partially, that's because the relationship between two immortal beings who go centuries between reunions is quite hard to define — especially since we're boxed in by our very human perception of time. How do Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship goals compare to human ones? Are they sated by the occasional "hello" at big historical moments, or are those meetings during the 27-minute cold open in the third episode really an exercise in prolonged sexual tension? Do they, too, need cuddles to warm up this cold universe?

Since Crowley and Aziraphale don't define their relationship, it's also impossible to rule any categories out.

"I suppose the gray area with this is because they’re an angel and a demon, they don’t have partners. Who knows if they’re even sexual beings," Sheen said. "Because there’s an unexplained bit around sexuality, there’s the possibility, I suppose to project onto that canvas.”

To use Tennant's euphemism, "There’s some space to draw on.” Or, some space to run away to! Together!

Ultimately, Aziraphale and Crowley's relationship can't be easily slotted into a category of platonic, romantic, or once-in-a-blue-moon anyway. As immortal beings who experience time on a grand scale, they burst the need for the Kinsey scale as well as categories. They get to try it all. And that means they have the rest of eternity to spend together, laughing on benches and feeding each other expensive lunch.