Work Text:
Bomb.
Books.
Oh lord.
Crowley had departed after the offered lift home, leaving Aziraphale free to fall apart over his newfound realization.
He loves me.
Oh, lord.
I love Crowley.
We are an angel and a demon, and we love each other.
Dear lord, what are we going to do?
What…
…And that, of course, was when the MIF (Miracle Inquest Form) materialized on Aziraphale’s desk, his unscheduled miracle having been flagged for review.
Having a breakdown in peace, Aziraphale thought as he picked up a pen, was clearly too much to ask.
~ ~ ~
MIFs were better than discorporation paperwork, but that wasn’t saying much.
Aziraphale filled in the redundant personal information. Name, rank, mission. He confirmed timestamp, location, and energy expenditure of the miracle under investigation. He affirmed that said miracle had not detracted from his primary assignments. He noted that he was within his quarterly budget.
Section A complete, he moved on to Section B.
Summary of Miracle
Keep it simple, Aziraphale reminded himself. Whatever he reported needed to be true enough to verify.
He wrote: Protecting select parties against effects of explosive.
Justification for Miracle
Someone had noted in the margins: Performed while under strict bear-witness-but-do-not-interfere orders. [1]
Aziraphale defaulted to his most well-worn justification. Countering infernal activity.
He swallowed, feeling it all over again, that moment in the church. Alone, betrayed, played for a sucker, facing discorporation, and then…
Adversary performed demonic intervention, redirecting explosive to strike consecrated ground. Miraculous counter-maneuver was necessary to thwart machinations of the Enemy.
Next field: Parties Impacted By Miracle
Aziraphale gripped his pen.
Shielded corporation, thus enabling my continued work in service of the Great Plan. Also removed all holy water from the vicinity,
—that horrifying moment, all his consciousness narrowed to the necessity of keeping Crowley safe, when he’d realized with a split second to act that airborne liquid posed an infinitely greater danger than any bomb—
thus averting desecration of sacred substances. Note: Did not shield proximate humans, in accordance with bear-witness-but-do-not-interfere.
Aziraphale hesitated. If Administration decided to run the calculations — unlikely, but possible — they might notice a disparity between the miracle size and the number of protected parties indicated on the form.
He couldn’t list Crowley, of course. Which meant…
Aziraphale steeled himself, and returned pen to paper.
Books
—the angel responsible for reviewing MIFs might not know what those were—
(material belongings used to transmit teachings) were also shielded from destruction.
Claiming credit for Crowley’s blessings had never felt so painful. Every pen stroke was another offense, lodging itself in Aziraphale’s heart.
He kept writing.
Books in question included teachings of Divinely Inspired humans, thus their preservation serves the Greater Good.
Whoever processed the MIF might see through that last sentence, Aziraphale’s unfortunate penchant for materialism being no secret from his colleagues. That was all right. It meant they wouldn’t question whether the miracle had been spent on something, or someone, other than books.
~ ~ ~
Aziraphale finished the rest of the form. He reread his work with care, checking for any errors, ensuring that nothing he had written hinted too closely at what had actually transpired at the church.
Then he put his pen down, sealed the MIF, turned it in with a finger snap, and — though he’d lost the flow — tried to resume his interrupted breakdown.
“I don’t want material belongings!” Aziraphale told the cushions of the couch that he’d considered Crowley’s since 1800. The words came out with unexpected force. “I want my heart back!”
It wasn’t true.
What Aziraphale really wanted — and what he could never have — was the freedom to give his heart away.