#in which Michael outs himself as basically a naughty Aziraphale

[problematicwelshman]

Michael Sheen Q&A (2008)

Source

When were you happiest? When I'm with my daughter.

What is your earliest memory? When I first wrote my name.

Which living person do you most admire, and why? Some anonymous Red Cross worker in a war-torn area no one will have heard of.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Not living up to what I believe.

What is the trait you most deplore in others? Lazy thinking.

What is your most treasured possession? My books.

Where would you like to live? London: the greatest city in the world.

What would your super power be? Shape-shifting.

What makes you depressed? Not being creative.

What do you most dislike about your appearance? I would like to be taller, thinner and more rakish looking.

Who would play you in the film of your life? I would.

What is your most unappealing habit? I am very impatient.

Cat or dog? Dog. My tragedy is that all I want is a dog and yet I have been cursed with cats all my life.

What is your favourite smell? My daughter when she's just come out of the bath.

What is your favourite word? Discombobulated.

What is your favourite book? The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell.

What is your fancy dress costume of choice? Alex from A Clockwork Orange.

What is the worst job you've done? Picking up litter from the side of a motorway at 6am, while it was freezing cold and pouring with rain. I was 17.

If you could go back in time, where would you go? Elizabethan England: I would want to meet Shakespeare.

What is the worst thing anyone's said to you? I've obviously totally repressed it and one day when I'm standing on the top of Tesco shooting at strangers with a rifle, I will suddenly be shouting it out.

What is your guiltiest pleasure? Listening to music that is considered very uncool, such as ELO and Enya.

What do you owe your parents? Everything, really. My dad is a Jack Nicholson lookalike and a frustrated performer, my mother's into reading and poetry. I suppose the thing I owe them most is my confidence.

Who would you invite to your dream dinner party? Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Laurence Olivier, Albert Einstein, Buster Keaton and Stephen Fry.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse? I think I say 'wow' too much.

What has been your biggest disappointment? Welsh rugby since the 70s.

When did you last cry, and why? This sounds incredibly pretentious - last night reading Shadowplay by Clare Asquith, which is about the coded politics and hidden beliefs in Shakespeare's plays. I cried when I read about him finishing The Tempest and having to stop doing the thing he most loved in the world.

How do you relax? Reading.

How often do you have sex? As often as I can.

What is the closest you've come to death? I had a near-death experience when I was 24. It's a very, very long story.

What single thing would improve the quality of your life? Seeing my daughter more.

What song would you like played at your funeral? The End by the Doors.

Where would you most like to be right now? Nowhere other than where I am.

Tell us a secret After today, I have no clean underwear left.

[hedgehog-o-brien]

OK, but there must be hundreds of thousands, if not millions of angels (of all shapes, ranks and sizes) in Heaven

So 

Where’s the fic in which a couple (or maybe just the one, a young and impressionable little fledgling angel whose wings have barely started molting for the first time) listens to Gabriel briefing everybody on the Official Reason The Apocalypse Is Cancelled and thinks to themselves this is a load of bullcrap

(Bc you know. You just know Gabriel would say all the wrong things. Like, what do you mean ‘unforeseen circumstances’? We’re Heaven, our job is to foresee. Circumstances. And how could it be that an angel as wicked and evil as Aziraphale is still, you know. An angel? And hasn’t fallen? Something does not add up here).

And so the young fledgling starts to wonder

And they’re not alone

Soon, there are clusters of angels everywhere, heads bent together and talking furiously in low voices.

... gave away his sword ...

... what? why? ...

... thought they might need it ...

... I don’t understand ...

... love for humans ...

... and demons from what I hear ...

... but why ...

... saving the world ...

... more important ...

... ineffability ...

... good guys? ...

... are we? ...

... is he? ...

... Fucking Gabriel that’s for sure ...

And as the whispers spread (especially that last one), the young fledgling decides to delve into the Earth Observation Files to go see for themselves what Aziraphale has been up to in the past six millennia.

And there’s no time in Heaven, but if there was, it would take them a lot of it before they came out again, looking very thoughtful.

They spends some more not-time in a quiet corner (somewhere the harp music isn’t too obnoxious), a deep frown on their angelic face and eyes red-rimmed and shining. There’s a sniffle, occasionally.

And then, finally, they seek out the nearest Whispering Angel Cluster and tells them what they’ve seen. And the conclusion they’ve come to.

(One or two angels in the cluster gasp, unbelieving. They decide to take the matter to Gabriel, despite the fledgling’s protests and ask is it true? About Aziraphale and his demon, is it true that they saved humanity? Is it true that they saved humans? Not just from the Apocalypse, but many many many times before? Is it true?

And again, Gabriel scoffs and laughs and says exactly the wrong thing (’Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that naughty angel, sweet child. He and that wily serpent of his won’t bother us any longer.’) and that’s all the proof the young angels need that Something Is Not Right.

They return to Fledgling #1, wings drooping and head bowed. There are more whispers (... can we? ... Gabriel would murder ... Hellfire, they said... Should we?) and eventually, after eons of deliberation, a decision is made.

And so it happens that on a bright, sunny Saturday morning in SoHo, the door to a bookshop tingles open and half a dozen remarkably bland looking humans walk in. And after Aziraphale has called Crowley back to heel and has wrested the nice, leather bound and heavy first edition of the Principia Mathematica out of his demon’s hands, and after the angels have been persuaded to come down from the top of the bookshelves...

He asks them why they’re here. The answer leaves him confused and makes Crowley laugh so hard he almost cracks a rib:

Teach us

Teach us compassion

Teach us to be kind

Teach us about humans

Teach us about what we’re meant to protect

Teach us how to protect

Teach us how to be the Good Guys, like, for real

And Aziraphale is confused and touched (mostly confused), but he agrees. Under one condition: they will have to listen to the demon too, because Aziraphale knows he would be nowhere near the angel he is today if it hadn’t been for Crowley.

(Crowley goes oddly quiet at that for a moment, before he realises Aziraphale is basically giving him shared command of a mini Host. Then he starts howling with laughter again).

Then the rest of the fic is basically just Aziraphale, Crowley and their mini Host of fledglings getting into various kinds of (food and non food related) shenagigans. 

(‘Angel, when they said teach us, I’m pretty sure they did not mean teach us about the best place to get Vietnamese Pho!’ ‘Shut up, Crowley. Also, don’t think I didn’t hear how you told Amriel about how you were aboard the RMS Carpathia in 1912. And let me just say, I knew it.’ ‘Shut up, angel.’)

At a certain moment, Gabriel and the others get wind of aforementioned shenanigans. But by then, it’s too late as the Mini Host has communicated all their efforts and findings back to the various other MIni Hosts that are still in Heaven and now everybody is thoroughly convinced Gabriel’s a fucking prick who Should Not Be In Charge. It’s not a second Rebellion, per se. It certainly involves a lot less sulphur and brimstone and screaming. But when all’s said and all’s done, Gabriel finds himself permanently retired, along with Michael, Sandolphon and Uriel, as a New Policy is put in place:

To Be The Good Guys, We Have To Be The Good Guys

‘Eloquently put,’ Crowley sniggers. Aziraphale tries not to laugh before he tsks and shakes his head. ‘They’re learning, dear. Give them time.’