Well, That Was A Thing (Good Omens One-Shots)

15; The Soldier & The Starmaker

Context: Pre-canon AU, in which Crowley and Aziraphale met in Heaven before The First Rebellion. Also: a look into the future where some dots will be connected.

Word Count: 6,000

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While many assumed free will was never an option for the angels of Heaven, this was actually not the case. They used to. Yes, they were created to serve Her first and foremost, but they were allowed to think for themselves, to have interactions, to be unique. However, not all of them were aware of this because their mind never went any further than Her. She was curious, and wanted to see what they would do. This was before She became omniscient, and actively entered everyone's thoughts at all times. She started doing that after the incident with Lucifer.

Everyone knows the story of the angel Lucifer, who wanted to be greater than God Herself. It was thanks to him that angels would never have freedom like that again, and humans almost suffered that same fate. But there were two angels, who restored The Almighty's faith in the species She hadn't even created yet. It is thanks to them that humans have free will. While Lucifer would do as he pleased to further his own agenda, the aforementioned ethereal pair made their choices in a selfless manner. This is the story of those two angels.

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"Where is that blasted little principality?" Muttered Michael as she walked into the main courtyard. Everyone who saw her coming knew better than to stand in her way when she was upset, so they quickly made room for her. Some would wager they could feel the anger radiating off her as heat. Whether that was an accurate statement or not, was another matter entirely.

Michael was the archangel in charge of training soldiers ever since The Almighty decided Her Heavenly flock needed to learn how to fight. While all her students were very impressive, none were more-so than Aziraphale, the most light-spoken of all the principalities. He was also, much to her dismay, the most stubborn of the bunch. No, he was not willing to directly disobey, but silently skipping out on practice was a common occurrence. The thing about Aziraphale was that he would give his all whenever he was tasked with something, even if he didn't like what he was meant to be doing.

Aziraphale didn't feel right in a military uniform. He knew it must've been right, since that's what The Almighty wanted from him, but for some reason it just never clicked. In spite of that, he became one of the best soldiers they had. This was one of the main reasons Michael would grow so upset with him. So much talent and potential, wasted on a department he didn't even belong to! According to Michael, anyway. The Almighty didn't see the harm in it. Nine times out of ten, the young principality could be found spying or trying to help the angels who worked in Creations. He loved it there.

The Creations Department was God's experimentation zone. Here, angels would try various methods to create and build things She wanted for Earth. Her main reason for this was for them to figure out the most efficient way to make something specific, so She could use the same method when She finally chose to create Earth. What made this department fascinating to some, and infuriating to others, was the free will aspect of it. No, not for them, for the humans. In order for this new species to have free will, meaning: the choice to believe in what they wanted, there needed to be 'earthly' or 'natural' reasons for everything's existence. This was where the less creative angels grew annoyed, because they saw it as overcomplicated.

Aziraphale didn't really mind, he loved having to think outside the box. Here, he felt like he clicked, especially with a particular redhead named Raphael. The two were inseparable whenever Aziraphale would sneak away from practice. For an archangel, he was very laid-back, and had considerably less responsibilities than his siblings. Uriel was not in the mood to answer all of Raphael's questions today, so they sent him off to the outer regions of Heaven to keep working on the stars. Neither of them minded, since this tended to give them more time to have fun.