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Crowley left off kneading his leg at the knock on his office door and said sharply, "Come in."
It was Eve. Probably one of the few who were brave enough to approach him here. She came right to the point. "Are you aware that people are making bets on who Dr Fell's husband is?"
He tipped his head a little on one side. "Have you made one?"
"No!"
He raised amused eyebrows above his sunglasses."Why not? You could probably get very good odds, if the last couple of times is anything to go by."
"It - didn't seem fair. I've seen you. Together, I mean."
"Off-duty, you mean," Crowley said, but he offset the dryness in his voice with an expression marginally closer to a smile than a sneer. "Are you going to tell the others?"
She shook her head. "I don't out people."
"Thank you."
She hesitated a long moment, frowning in clear puzzlement. "Can I ask why?"
"New year, new students. They're going to rumourmonger about something, might as well give them something relatively harmless to rumour about. Besides, it's hilarious when they catch on. No offence intended."
"So that's why you didn't tell me?"
"No, that was because it would have put you in an awkward spot."
***
After Eve left, there was another, more timid, knock. Crowley glared at it. Earth help him, if he was getting popular. He rolled his eyes, paused the text-to-speech program spouting the students' essays through his earbud, and growled again, "Come in."
It was two students, one wary final year, one terrified first year, with an apologetic summary about the first year being bullied into using the stairs, and neither of them his students.
"And why, exactly, are you bringing this to me? You're Literature students, why didn't you take it to Dr Fell?"
The final year student said, "You use the lifts."
A single beat of silence, as he studied her. Then, "Ah." He'd rescued her from the stair brigade once, too, when she was a first year. Clearly she remembered.
Dr Crowley looked at the petrified first year, took a breath, let it out, and a ripple of small changes took place. His face smoothed out, and his hard line of a mouth lost the sneering upturn at the corner, then softened a little. He shifted in his chair, changed angles, dropped his shoulders and opened his posture. It was clearly a conscious effort, and just a little unnerving in itself, how fast he managed to go from projecting "terrifying and utterly closed off" to "interested, attentive listener". He still wasn't as approachable as Dr Fell, of course, but he wasn't actively scaring you off either. "Tell me your ideal situation, if you had everything you need. And what's actually happening, if you will." A pen and a pad of paper appeared in his hand and he slid them across the desk. "Write it down, if that's easier."
The sheer amount of relief and disbelief in the first-year's eyes would have lit up the moon.
Dr Crowley sighed with clear exasperation. "I don't care what you may have heard, I don't tear people apart for needing things."
There was a long stare and then realisation clanked into place almost audibly. "Oh." About half the tension dropped out of the kid's body and a thin hand reached for the pen. Then paused. "Are you going to tell Dr Fell?"
"Only if he asks. If he does, I won't lie to him. Fair enough?"
A moment of consideration, then a slow nod and the student resumed writing and finally slid the filled paper over. Crowley took it, and didn't try to put himself through reading it in front of them. "I'll be in touch," he said, and they took that as the dismissal it was and fled. Crowley waited until the door closed behind them, and then pulled out his phone and sent a brief message to Aziraphale, "Angel, ask me about this meeting once we're home."