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To thee I do commend my watchful soul, Ere I let fall the windows of mine eyes.
Shakespeare.
If there was anything the ethereal and occult have in common, it was the uniqueness of every entity’s eyes. That would make sense, they were all of the same stock after all, nearly the same design and all that. Demons were once angels, only fallen.
The eyes, despite both contain their supernatural essence, always reveal the true nature of a person. In this case, not person.
Hastur’s were dark inky dots that was just slightly disturbing to look at for too long, oily slick beads. Ligur’s eyes were bright like hellfire. They don’t feel good when they are glaring at you, which knowing Ligur’s personality, was often. Beelzebub had the eyes of a fly, which was unsettling when they directed their gaze at you. Like a million watchful eyes, tearing you apart piece by piece, always suspicious of all your actions. All of them were terrible.
You might say that’s because they’re demons, so they all ought to be terrible. Crowley would’ve agreed, after all his own eyes were that of a snake, and they’ve definitely caused discomfort throughout millennia to the humans of earth. But the thing was, the angels’ weren’t really any better, only that they were better at hiding it than the demons.
Gabriel had fucking purple eyes for Satan’s sake, which, in Crowley’s honest opinion, would’ve still been terrible if they weren’t purple. Those orbs look more twisted the more you stare at his blank and depthless eyes. They look as if they’d swallow you whole. Michael’s own pair were crystal and quicksilver, always scheming and calculative, sharper than Gabriel’s vacuum. Though they might’ve donned a more corporate and modern attire nowadays, you can still see traces of the ancient warrior underneath that fought the Morningstar in the Holy War.
Uriel’s were amber and golden, but not at any way kind. It was hardest to read their eyes. You never really seem to know what they were thinking. It feels sinister. Sandalphon’s were grey like ash, crackling with lightning beneath the glassy surface. This one was ready to smite anyone who displeases them, paired with his annoying smirk, Crowley would definitely hate seeing those eyes.
One commonality these eyes had were that they were all cold and unforgiving.
Now the angel’s eyes may not be as revolting as those from hell, but they weren’t any form free from the distrustful and unnerving impressions they give like that of demons’. In short, from these enough, you’d be able to discern that neither of heaven or hell was, by any case to be trusted.
However, there is a loophole to that statement, as was most statements and rules (Crowley was good at finding and exploiting those loopholes, which was how he was good at his job.). There was a pair of eyes that Crowley actually enjoyed seeing occasionally. (Though who was he kidding? He wanted to see them more than occasionally.)
Unlike Crowley who hides his eyes behind dark glasses as a form of protection from privy noses, Aziraphale bares it for everyone to see. Even then, compared to Crowley’s eyes which were rather obvious when uncovered from the tinted glass, Aziraphale’s were nearly impossible to read had Crowley not study it for nearly 6000 years.
Interesting enough, his Angel’s eyes were neither cold, nor unforgiving. Curiously, Aziraphale’s eyes had always been peculiar, even in heaven and hell’s standards. Idiosyncratic, in a way that does not fit in the whole celestial spectrum. Crowley has never seen anything like it, and frankly he’d really prefer not to.
Aziraphale’s eyes did not have a particular color. They were iridescent, ever changing, ever different.
Most of the time they were crystal blue, at least until you stare at it longer. (Thankfully, no human ever manages to meet his eyes for too long. Must be part of the mortality thing. An angel’s stare ought to be unfathomable for a human, and so they always find themselves looking away.) Crowley, being of the same stock as Aziraphale, manages to stare just long enough to catch them change color from time to time at different angles of light.
Sometimes, they were greenish blue, like seaweed washed ashore by the waves. And when this happen, Crowley remembers the smell of the ocean, of the beach, of oysters shared by a Roman restaurant from a thousand years ago. Other times, they were blue with golden flecks dotted on them, like an ornate jewelry crafted with much masterful skills. And Crowley’s mind would then slip under the folds of a theater with different ladies and lords watching the famous plays of one William Shakespeare, an Angel smiling bright, an Arrangement comfortably established.
Aziraphale’s eyes could also turn bluish grey. And Crowley would recall stormy clouds from the horizon, rain threatening to fall, an upset downturn of an Angel’s lips, crowds gathering up by the ark. On dark, nearly black eyes Crowley immerses himself on a night of bombs and burning churches, of nearly burnt books and little demonic miracle. A sudden paradigm shift in the air. There’s dark eyes, shifting in different directions, only this time lit with blues and reds and purples. There’s You go to fast for me Crowley. And oh his heart would be in his mouth again, struggling to break free from his lips.
And of course, there’s hazel, where beginnings were started and endings were made. Always in a garden, though in a more different context, in a different setting, in a different possibility that balances precariously between certainty and ineffability.
These were only the physical qualities of his Angel’s eyes. He hasn’t even started talking about how they would crinkle when he smiled, how they sparkle in delight, how they’d dim out when downtrodden, how they twinkle with mischief. They’d start blazing when furious, not a Holier-than-thou smiting blaze, just a warm fire that was neither heavenly nor hellish in origin, but just as deadly when provoked.
Aziraphale's peculiarity did not only limit to that. Unlike all of heaven and hell, his eyes were always warm.
More than anything, Crowley supposed, Aziraphale’s eyes would be the first to greet his own in the morning, glasses perched on his nose as he’s been reading through the night, not really needing sleep but simply humoring Crowley’s request to lay next to him at night, and whatever color they might be in, Crowley couldn’t care less, because there’ll always be a “Good morning my dear, did you sleep well?” in the mornings, with a really bright smile on his Angel’s lips.
Crowley would groan, but secretly pleased with all this.
After all, more than anything, he’ll have his Angel’s eyes forever with him.