Chapter Text
It will begin, as always, in a garden.
It was the second week of starting at Immaculate Conception Preparatory Academy for Girls, and Aziraphale Angeles was feeling guilty over just how much she was enjoying herself. When the term had started, she hadn’t been sure as to what to expect, but so far it was surprisingly—well, wonderful.
Honestly, she had expected to hate it. The Holy Angels University system was designed so that you could spend the entirety of your academic career within it (and, in her family’s case, even after) and Aziraphale had known from when she was very young that she very likely would. This meant that entering high school was a simple matter of walking up a very steep hill to a new building. Her classmates, for the most part, had transitioned with her, and of course, she had a plethora of cousins in the school as well.
She had anticipated her troubles from her younger years following her here, schoolyard taunts of ‘Azira-FAIL’ echoing in her head. She’d imagined being ostracized at lunch, eating at the end of a table filled with family and their friends, only being acknowledged with the occasional snide comment about how much she was eating, and how she never pulled her nose out of a book.
But it hadn’t been like that at all. First, the homeroom that she had been placed in had none of her former classmates. As the most prestigious private school system in the city, students from all over matriculated in, not just from the associated middle school, so there had been plenty of new students to meet.
Even better, her homeroom was presided over by the head of the Theology department, which was always one of Aziraphale’s best subjects, and she’d managed to impress her professor on the first day. She was given the job of class rep, and that alone had given her the kind of protection and independence she had craved in her younger years. At first student council meeting she received a gold brooch with the emblem of the institution: a heart, encircled by thorns, pierced by a sword, wreathed in flames. Aziraphale had wrinkled her nose when she had received it, annoyed by the heavy-handed, overlapping imagery. But even so, she felt proud to have it shining on her lapel.
It wasn’t just the pin she loved; it was the whole uniform. Her brand new oxfords, with the sharp contrast of white and black. The silky feel of her stark-white summer knee-highs. Her brand-new summer uniform, the polyester skirt in inverse eternity tartan, with the matching camel colored tartan blazer and tartan bowknot tie. Her starched linen blouse, neatly tucked in, and large white grosgrain bow, perched like wings atop her perfect high ponytail. Or at least, her attempt at a perfect high ponytail. She found her white-blonde curls rather refused even the most maximum hold gel or hair spray, so by the end of the day a cloud of frizz had usually fought free it’s constraints and made it look like a haze or halo around her head.
Also, the high school was much more lax in how it corralled its students. Meaning, classes were held at regular times, and it was up to you to make sure you attended the correct number of sessions every week; other than that, your day was free for independent study. Aziraphale was allowed now to spend almost the entire day in the library, or quiet classrooms with cozy window nooks for reading. Combining that with her class rep pin, which allowed her to roam the halls as needed, she felt free for the first time in her life. It was heady.
Her evenings had been a delight of tea and cocoa, cozy blankets and books now that she had moved into the dorm. Her cousins, including Michael, were all in the upper years’ dorms, so after dinner, she didn’t even have to see them. Even better, some combination of her family’s connections and her pristine academic record had scored her a single room. The only thing that had disturbed her peace so far had been the loud music coming from the room across the narrow hall, but even that had been turned down when she knocked on the door, without her needing to say anything.
She knew this peace wouldn’t last, but for now it was all just so lovely.
Now, two weeks in, she was comfortable in her routine. She was in the back of Professor Tracy’s classroom, where there were several very cozy chairs set on a plush, if worn out, rug. It was one of her favorite classrooms so far; set on the third floor, overlooking the school’s science building and extensive gardens. The chairs were set in front of an unlit fireplace that probably didn’t even work, but Aziraphale thought gave a nice ambiance to the room. She was quite comfortable and, having already completed attending the necessary lectures earlier in the week, full intended to camp out in this chair for the rest of the day. She’d plugged in the electric kettle on the nearby shelf, intending to enjoy a cup of tea with the pastry she smuggled out of breakfast in her handkerchief. She’d gone so far as to carefully unlace her oxfords and set them next to her book bag, so she could tuck her feet under her.
Today she intended to begin on the recommended reading list that had been provided to her by the terrifying University library assistant, and had checked out the few books that were carried by the high school library. While she waited for the kettle to be ready, she stared out the diamond paned windows that arched upwards, almost reaching the painted tin ceiling. It was probably the best view on Mt. Eden, overlooking the gardens and orchards that tumbled down the hillside to the valley below. Her eyes traced the highway that hugged one side of the mountain, only to then twist away into the distance, raised high above the valley so it nestled between the treetops.
She could see dark clouds gathering at the edge of the valley and could see it would likely rain soon. Thankfully, she didn’t have any classes in the science building, which was detached, but she had her white ruffled umbrella with her anyway, and thought she might come up with some sort of excuse to go outside with it later today. Her brother had brought it back from Japan, and she was somewhat eager to use it, even if it wasn’t really needed.
She had just settled in with her cup of tea, taken a bite of the pastry, and read the first page of Dangerous Angels when Professor Tracy interrupted.
She hadn’t meant to interrupt her, of course. Instead, the teacher who was rapidly becoming her favorite professor was standing at the windows, peering down in the direction of the orchards. “Oh no, Mr. Shadwell. Ohhh leave them alone, they’re fine,” she fretted, and then finally reached for the hand crank to open the window. As soon as it was swung open, she was calling out and waving, “Mr. Shadwell! Mr. Shadwell! Oh dear, I don’t think he hears me, Sargeant Shadwell!”
Well. There would be no reading through that nonsense. Aziraphale untucked her feet and wandered in her socks up to the window to look out, and immediately saw the problem. From this vantage point, it was easy to see the three girls lounging in the stone circle at the center of the orchard, and farther up the hill, the insufferable Mr. Shadwell making his rounds. The last call out of Professor Tracy had stopped him in his tracks, leading him to stand, eyes roving over the building, looking for the offending distraction.
There was no time to waste. Aziraphale was already back in her chair, shoving her feet in her oxfords and desperately tying up her laces. She’d have to leave her things, but she thought it would probably be fine, as Professor Tracy and her had an understanding...and with one last glance around she snatched up her umbrella and ran out of the room.
Aziraphale hated running. It conjured up the worst memories for her, sweating and taunted in gym class, in white T-shirt that she felt was unnecessarily tight. Michael, her cousin, laughing and pinching the flesh above where Aziraphale’s gym shorts dug in. “Like a fat frosted cupcake,” she teased, and the nickname had stuck. It had taken over a year before Aziraphale could eat cupcakes again without furious tears. (Not that she had given up eating them, though, because Michael was not taking that away from her too. She just sniffled through through deliciousness.)
Yet now she was running, out of the classroom, down the hall, and then down the stairs in leaps and bounds, taking multiple steps at a time and then out outside, down more steps towards the STEM building and the accompanying gardens. She had recognized one of the students from the orchard immediately: Eve. They’d met in homeroom, and had started a tentative friendship; at any rate, Eve saved her a seat every morning and afternoon in their homeroom.
The heat outside was oppressive, even with the increasingly storm dark skies, the humidity instantly freeing wisps of curls to halo her face and fluffing her ponytail. She tried to smooth the white blond strands back against her scalp even as she ducked behind an impressive hedge of oleander, trying to see where Shadwell had gotten off to. She sighted him as she passed the long line of towering cypress that ran alongside the driveway behind the school. He was shouting up at Professor Tracy, who was hanging partly out the window, obviously hoping to catch the notice of the students and get them to move. Shadwell sounded apoplectic, and was alternating between stomping his feet and vigorously pointing at the professor.
Aziraphale hurried down the limestone steps at the edge of the slope to the gravel path that wound through the orchard, gritting her teeth as sweat began to drip between her breasts and collect along the underwire of her bra. Eve and her were going to have words this afternoon in homeroom over this.
When she reached the stone circle, she pulled up short. Eve was there, sure enough, with her long dark curls, lustrous eyes and smooth complexion. Aziraphale couldn’t help but return a helpless smile as Eve caught sight of her and grinned, a mischievous brow arching. But Aziraphale’s smile faltered when she caught sight of Eve’s company. First, there was a boy. Wearing their uniform, no less. Where had he even gotten it? From Eve? What was she thinking? If she was caught with a boy they would be expelled! And her other friend—Aziraphale gave this second girl a look over. “Good Lord,” she muttered.
This second girl lounged on the stone benches that made up the ring of circle, long legs spread out before her and weight resting on one arm, while the other was propped up on her bent knee. The only thing that kept it from being ridiculously lewd was that she wasn’t wearing the skirt uniform. Instead, she was wearing the pants, in the black eternity tartan, completely out of season. Her matching blazer had been tossed over the bench behind her. Her shirt was untucked and her tie was tied like a boy’s. She was wearing what were likely very fashionable sunglasses, because they looked ridiculous, and her head tipped back so she could look down her nose at Aziraphale as if Aziraphale was the one that deserved to be judged.
But, worst of all, was her hair. Loose, like Eve’s, but carefully styled, deep red curls. It hung down her back in ringlets, and Aziraphale was sure it wasn’t naturally that color. No one had the right to that much color, on their head, it was obscene, and wasn’t that just the perfect word for this creature, she thought, as her eyes traced down the long line of her tanned throat, and did she have her top button undone?!?
Eve was laughing, “Oh c’mon, if you glare any harder you’ll burn a hole through them,” and the floozy had the gall to smirk.
Aziraphale whirled around to face Eve, hands on her hips, white umbrella still clutched tightly in one hand.”Have you lost your mind? What are you doing down here? With a boy?” She threw out an arm and waved it up and down to encompass the offending human, who was adjusting a pointless, but lovely, matching headband on their shaved head.
“Oh? Jealous already, Azira?” Aziraphale stepped back and her mouth fell open, eyes wide. “What? No! Of course not! I just,” and hold on, she wasn’t the one out of line here. “BOY!” she snapped back, and gestured again.
“It’s just Adam. We’ve been friends forever, Adam having such a time of it at the boys’ school, and Tony had the brilliant idea to have them hang out with us here! I mean, if they’re in uniform, and we just hung out in open classes, how would anyone even tell? We’re firsties, professors don’t even know us yet, really.”
There was so much wrong with that statement, and too little time to unpack it all. “You and I are going to have a talk after study hours tonight. But for now, Shadwell is doing his rounds, and you all need to get out of here,” she could already hear him cursing and sliding on the gravel at the top of the orchard. Tony–of course this delinquent would have a boy’s name–looked up the hill in what might have been a vaguely interested way, but it was impossible to really tell with those stupid sunglasses. Then, quick as a snake, she was up on her feet and was exiting the circle, one hand saluting with a “Ciao.” She slipped between the trees and was gone.
Aziraphale rolled her eyes, and went to follow, but Shadwell had spotted them. “I see you, ladies, stay where you are! Miss Angeles!” He was in sight of them now, but was slowed by the steep incline of the gravel path.
“Oh!” Aziraphale spun in a circle, fretting, and finally her hands flew to the gold brooch on her lapel. “Oh no,” she lamented, but there was nothing for it. She unfastened it and then quickly reattached it to Eve’s blazer. “Stay behind us,” she told the boy, who wisely hadn’t said anything so far, thank the good Lord, because she didn’t think she’d be able to handle any more idiocy at this point.
They barely had time to turn around when Shadwell burst through the bushes. “Out of class!” he spat. “Smoking? Drinking?”
“Please, Sergeant Shadwell, I think you know me a good deal better than that.” Aziraphale stepped forward.
She hated “cheating” in this way, but she also knew that it would take nothing short of a miracle to get Shadwell to get him to let this go. Angelic influence was required. And by that she meant, of course, the Angeles family name. Her family was the founding benefactors and remained the principal donors to the Holy Angels University System, and being a part of that family did come with certain privileges.
“Eve is a class rep with me, and um, Professor Tracy saw this student out of bounds so we were sent to escort them back in. For demerits,” she said, nervously tucking wisps of her white-blond hair behind ears.
Eve stepped forward and tapped the badge for good measure, trying to distract Shadwell from getting too close of a look at her companion. Although, Aziraphale really wished she hadn’t, because now Shadwell would ask—
“Hrmph. And where’s yours, then?”
“Oh, um,” Aziraphale glanced around like she actually expected to see it lying on one of the stone benches, and not like it was pinned to Eve’s blazer plain as day. “It’s around somewhere. Forget my own head next,” she smiled and laughed weakly, and prayed Shadwell didn’t ask why the girl behind them had no hair and broad shoulders. She was delivered, though, by a single distant bell toll. “Oh goodness, we need to get going to our next class! Thank you Sergeant, you’ll take over patrolling where we left off, yes? Ok!” And then she was steering Eve and the boy forcefully up the gravel path, through the break in the crumbling stone wall around the orchard.
It wasn’t until they were back in the building, the halls crowded with students passing to their next class that her heart started to calm. They followed her as she ducked down a side stairwell that lead to the basement level and pushed open the door on the distant side of Mt. Eden. The slope would lead to the bridge that connected their crest of Mt. Eden to the lower hill of the boys’ school.
She turned to Eve. “Ok, you have to get him back to his own school, he can absolutely not be here when classes let out for the day. All in all, this was a terrible idea and I can’t believe you let that girl tempt you into it!”
“Azira, thank you so much for coming to get us—
“No, best not thank me, I do feel a bit like I’m sending you into the lions’ den. I have no idea how you’re going to get him back on campus.”
Eve reached up to her lapel and began to unfasten the pin, but Aziraphale reached out and covered her hand with her own to stop her. “Oh, no need to worry about that. You can get it back to me another time. You better hold on to it for now, it might be useful.”
Eve smiled, dazzling Aziraphale, and then threw her arms around her, hugging her tightly, and for a moment Aziraphale was breathless. Just as quick, Eve stepped back and took up Adam’s hand, and pushed open the door. “I’ll see you at dinner!”
“You better!” Called out Aziraphale, but then the door swung shut with a heavy snap, and she wasn’t sure if she’d been heard. It seemed too final, and she wanted to see that Eve and that stupid boy were safe, so she headed up the stairs. She cleared the basement level, then passed the stairwell entrances that lead to the classrooms, one, two, three, floors. Here, a red velvet rope cordoned off the stairway, like an exclusive club awaited beyond, and she awkwardly stepped over it. When the staircase turned again for the next level, the marble steps gave way to concrete. There was a heavy wood door here, with a keyhole, but she knew it would open for her. She pushed it and now she was in an empty storage space, under the sloped roof of her school. It smelled musty and old, it was hot, but stronger than that was the sharp scent of cedar, which paneled the entire space; roof, floors, walls. All intended to drive away the moths, she supposed, because stacked floor to ceiling, across the wide space, were hundreds of books, stacked to the roof, forming twisting corridors interspersed with antique furniture. Aziraphale left this all ignored and picked her way through until she came to a ladder against the wall.
Looping her umbrella over her wrist, she climbed up until it reached the hatch in the roof, and leveraged it open with a strong, firm shoulder against it. It gave, flinging open and she made her way through. She was in the bell tower; the large brass ladies hanging heavy overhead, a choir of sixteen, ropes strung across the soaring space overhead. Aziraphale spared them only a quick glance of appreciation before she opened the side door and headed out onto the roof.
The roof was bordered by a white limestone crenelation, and Aziraphale stood behind one of the merlons to stay hidden from anyone looking up from the ground. She could see Eve and the boy approaching the bridge. Mercifully, it was cooler up here. She wasn’t sure if that was because the roof was able to better pick up the increasing breeze, or if it was because the storm was finally closing in. She reached up to smooth down her frizz against her head to no avail. She could feel it instantly curling back up.
“Well that went down like a lead balloon,” and Aziraphale wasn’t surprised to see Eve’s friend sauntering up to her. Because of course she would know how to get up here.
“I’m sorry, what, ” snipped Aziraphale, already at her wit’s end with this girl.
“I said, ‘that went down like a lead balloon.”
“Oh, yes, rather, ” snarked Aziraphale, because honestly, whose fault was that?
“Well it just seems a bit of an overreaction if you ask me, handing out demerits for sitting outside.”
Aziraphale rolled her eyes. “Yes, sitting outside and demerits, that’s definitely what you had Eve risk,” she said with another head to toe look over of Tony that shouted, you are as slow as you are pretty. A second lookover did not improve her opinion. Tony was still in the eternity tartan pants and black blazer, with her tie tied like a boy’s. As the breeze whipped her deep red curls back, away from her graceful neck, Aziraphale noticed a pair of long black snake earrings, twisting in loops down from her ears and definitely longer than allowed by the student handbook.
“Seems a bit ridiculous, though. Big stone seating area in the middle of an orchard, why put a bunch of benches up if you don’t want anyone to sit there? Why give us all this free time and the ability to sort our own schedules if they don’t trust us to go inside to class when we’re supposed to?
“Oh for g—for goodness sake, you brought a boy on campus! Eve could have been expelled!”
Tony smirked. “ Eve, huh?” And anyway, the point is that we wouldn’t have even been noticed if we were allowed to sit outside. Doesn’t make much sense does it?”
Aziraphale could feel her face hearing. “Best not to question things. The rules are the rules, and they’re not that hard to follow. Just because something seems ineffable, doesn’t mean that it isn’t right.”
“Ineffable? Did you really just throw the word “ineffable” into conversation, just like that?”
Aziraphale answered with a glare.
“Just trying to give you some trouble,” she said, giving a blinding white smile.
“Well, I dare say you’ve succeeded. What were you thinking, bringing a boy on campus? And dressing him in our uniform, have you lost your mind?”
She paused because she could see how, across the bridge and down the hill, she could see Eve and the boy duck behind a crumbling stone wall as campus security drove by in a golf cart.
“A boy? You mean Adam?”
She really should have reported this girl when she had the chance. “YES. HIM. Who else would I mean?”
Tony shrugged and leaned her shoulder and hip against the merlon next to Aziraphale’s, somehow lounging while still upright. “I dunno. Adam’s probably more a girl than me, I figure. They certainly look better in a skirt.”
Aziraphale couldn’t help but glance down at Tony’s long legs, somehow making tartan pants look fashionable. They would just have to agree to disagree about that one. When her eyes came back up, Tony was smirking again, and the heat of the day seemed to have returned. Lightning flashed in the far distance, and they could see a curtain of rain begin to steadily make its way across the valley below.
“They’re going to get caught,” fretted Aziraphale, and she wasn’t sure if she meant in the rain or by security. Thunder rumbled in the distance.
Tony took off her sunglasses, hooking the arm of them in the V of her linen blouse, which only emphasized that yes, she really had left the top button undone. She peered down the hill and then back to Aziraphale, and frowned. “Aren’t you a class rep?”
Aziraphale’s brain had short circuited the moment she had met Tony’s eyes, no longer hidden by the sunglasses. ”What?”
‘“Didn’t you have a flaming sword?” Tony asked, reaching out and twirling a finger over Aziraphale’s lapel, thumb smoothing over the spot the material still indented in. “I’m sure you did. It was glittery as anything.”
Aziraphale had never seen anything like her eyes. Like harvest moons, golden to the point of glowing. “Oh, um. Yes.”
“Lost it in the mad dash, huh? Or did Shadwell confiscate it?”
And there was that damnable smirk again, which finally broke her out of the spell of Tony’s eyes. “Well, if you must know, I gave it to Eve,” she huffed, her face burning under Tony’s scrutiny.
“You what?!” Asked Tony, her smirk dropping into an open mouthed, genuine laugh.
“I gave it to Eve! She was trying to take Adam all the way back to the boys school, it’s dangerous! If she’s caught she could be expelled! So I said take the pin, don’t thank me, could help you get out of a tight spot, and don’t forget to be back before you’re missed. Oh, I do hope I made the right decision.”
Tony started to roll her eyes, seemed to remember she wasn’t wearing her glasses, and abruptly turned to look for Eve again. “Oh, I’m not sure an angel like you can do the wrong thing.”
Aziraphale’s heart sank a bit. Angel? What does she mean by that? Not that she cared what this delinquent thought of her, but she had thought she was being judged on the basis of her own merits, not by her family name.
“Well, thank you for the reassurance, I guess,” her ingrained good manners forcing her response. Lightning flashed, immediately followed by a boom crack of thunder overhead. The curtain of rain swept up the mountain, obscuring their view of Eve and that idiot Adam. Aziraphale hurried to open the umbrella and with a flick of her eyes, communicated to Tony she should step under it. Not a moment too soon, because the rain poured down around them. It was a tight fit, and Aziraphale could feel the heat from Tony’s body seeping into her body, from shoulder to hip.
They stayed there together, eyes straining to see their friends through the storm.