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English
Series:
Part 47 of Otter Omens (GO Ficlets)
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DIWS Who Needs a Great Plan?
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Published:
2022-03-10
Words:
912
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1/1
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26
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201
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Don't Azira-Fail Me Now

Summary:

An unnamed angel goes to Earth for a mission and stumbles across Aziraphale at a distance. They're excited to bring some juicy gossip back to the office, but Aziraphale doesn't act as they expected him to. What the Heaven?!
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An Outside POV in which the Heavenly gossip mill and propaganda isn't the kindest post-Apocadidnt, but our boy gets the last laugh.

Notes:

CW: use of mean nicknames against our boy (but don't worry, he gets the last laugh, sort of)

Written for the prompt 'Sloth' for WNAGP

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

I know you humans like to say, “Working hard, or hardly working?” Well, there’s a euphemism we have here in the Lower Choruses that’s equally cliche, but not nearly as catchy. 

“Don’t pull an Aziraphale.” Or, “Don’t Azira-fail me now.” “Don’t Azira-fuck it up.”

Get it? Oh, right. You wouldn’t, sorry. Aziraphale. He’s this Principality. Rogue. Retired. Whatever you call it, it was a bit of a scandal. He was already notorious for doing things like reading and eating. Not the ethereal image of an angel hard at work. But he was the best of the best, so we just called it 'eccentric' then. But since the whole Apocalypse Debacle, he's had quite the fall. Not a Fall fall (somehow), but certainly one of disgrace. The guidance we received from memos from Up Top were pretty entertaining to read, and the gossip even more so, and now the name's a joke. 

Although, you can’t argue that he wasn’t effective. But that doesn’t mean beings have to acknowledge that fact. Despite having the best Blessing ratings, wings down, of any of the Principalities, most angels choose to focus on the… peculiarities instead.

To be fair, Sloth is a bad one. It’s not just about productivity reports and reducing idle time metrics. There’s a spiritual part of it, too. Other Sins like Wrath, Pride… Well, they certainly corrupt the Spirit. Do nasty things to a True Form, them. But Sloth…

Sloth just eats it away. An angel suffering from Sloth… Their True Form will atrophy until there’s nothing left. Gone. At least if you’re in the throes of Envy, there’s something you still there. But an angel suffering from Sloth for long means they won’t be for much longer.

Scary. I know.

Anyways. I had a chance recently, to get down to Earth to collect a soul. Happened to be in London. Someplace called “Soe-hoe.”

And I saw him. Aziraphale. Ahh! Talk about running into a local celebrity! Not that I ran into him, of course. (And not that he’s local or really even a celebrity, of course. But, you know what I mean.) He was walking down one side of the street while I was on the other, just like that.

So I saw him, right? But then I Saw him. I couldn’t help sneaking a peek. Yeah, it's rude without asking, but I mean, you would, too, right? Not everyday you can see a Deadly Sin at work. And Sloth is one of the rarest among angels after all.

So, I do what any angel would do: I open my Eyes to Look.

And I See… nothing.

Well, not nothing. Not the nothing of Sloth having consumed the ethereal essence of a celestial being. But nothing special. It looked normal; ethereal essence all accounted for.

Like, come on! This is not the big story I was expecting to be able to bring back Upstairs. It's too boring to be believed! I figured maybe I wasn't looking for the right thing. Or maybe I wasn't looking hard enough. It shouldn't be this hard, an atrophied spirit should be pretty easy to spot. Leave it to Azira-fail to muck this up, too, am I right?

So I Look harder. I mean, I'm really focusing here, zooming in as much as I can without getting noticed. And just as I do, a grubby looking human trips and bumps into him. Gross, touching, but that's not what matters. What matters is that while I'm looking, Aziraphale steadies her(?), pats her on the shoulder, and for some unknowable reason gives her a minor Blessing of better fortune. 

And suddenly instead of the withered spirit I was hoping to get a glimpse at to tell the angels back home about, I'm staring at one of the brightest True Forms I had ever Seen. 

It was vibrant. Bold. Confident. Full of Faith. Of Love. I had to freaking shut my Sight to stop it! Unprepared like that, it was too much at once. Blinding even, like ow, a little rude much?!

I mean, really. What. The. Fuck.

There's no way Azira-fail… Of all beings to… What is going on?!

Maybe this is what they call Ineffable? Maybe there’s more to it than the gossip mills churn out. But there's no way they can be that wrong! 

If an angel like that has a stronger aura than the rest of us, then what does that say about the rest of us? Is it the book things? How many do you have to read to glow like that? 

Now I've got a headache and am still seeing spots, and for what? No one back home is going to believe me if I tell them. Heaven, I can’t even comprehend it myself, and I Saw it first hand!

And worse, believe me or not, telling them what I Saw would make it sound like I'm defending the most infamous angel around. As if! And being associated with that outcast is not something I can afford right now. Which means I'm sitting on the juiciest gossip of Heaven this week, and I can't even tell anyone.

So, it's not my fault I'm late. That's where I was before I came to get you. Not that I’d expect you to understand. With you being, well, you. Heh, but I appreciate you listening (not that you had a choice). The other angels might not, but you believe me, at least. 

You believe me.

...Don’t you?

 

Notes:

Thank you for reading!

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