Chapter Text
Grading papers, despite being the chore it was, never seemed to get old for Dr. Fell, always happy as ever to read whatever his students considered to be their best work. That’s what he’d like to think, logically he knows half of the assignments sat on his desk are partially thrown together attempts written in a hungover daze. Despite the lack of effort put in he was still smiling reading through them, as Dr. Fell never got tired of the new freshmen finding their legs in university life. On or off campus, employed or full time student, seventeen or twenty-one; the smell of newly found adulthood soaked through every last line.
Focused on his pile, a small shock came to him when he heard a small knocking on the opposing wall.
“Who is it?”
“Anthony J. Crowley.”
“Oh do come in, Anthony.”
“I prefer Crowley.” said the tall pale man entering the lecture hall.
He dressed in all black with a few darker gray accents decorating his neck and just above his shoes. Sunglasses indoors was one hell of a fashion statement, especially considering how Dr. Fell’s room was already dimly lit as it was. He claimed it to be for an “ambiance” though most of his students found it to be annoying. Well not actually annoying, but the candle lit atmosphere made it almost impossible to stay awake during his lectures. Warm and welcoming, it just made all the kids around him doze off.
“Well, Crowley, is there anything I can help you with?”
“Yes, the um– the board says they wanted me to discuss a lesson plan with you.” Crowley seemed hesitant to approach Dr. Fell, as if the calming room made him somehow more uneasy.
“That you know a bit about the book I’m planning on using, and maybe could pitch ideas.” His voice dragged oddly as he noticed the incense burning on a far off book shelf. It wasn’t even a lecture hall at this point, it felt like a therapist office. Crowley hated it.
“Ooh, what book?”
“Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil.”
“Oh yes, I have read that one.”
“Well, Dr. Fell, would you like to–”
“Oh please, if I’m calling you casually then call me Aziraphale.”
“Aziraphale? Not a common name.”
“Can't say I've ever met another!”
Crowley was mysterious, off putting, drab, and frankly, a wet blanket of a presence; but something about him drew Aziraphale in. As if there were some string tying their two fingers together and that if one moved the other must follow. The glow of the sunset lamps in the room could not match the glow Aziraphale felt from the opposing professor. Something in his skin perhaps? Or maybe his unnaturally red hair? He didn’t seem like the type to go to a salon to dye it, and yet it was perfect, like it grew in that way naturally.
“Well, the book was surely interesting.” Aziraphale started the conversation once again, he got up from his snug chair and brushed his hands down his front, stirred his tea that was now getting cold and began piling the yet to be graded works into his briefcase along with–
“Did you agree with it?”
“Hm?”
“Did you agree with it? Did you agree with what he was saying?”
“Well, I don’t know, I read it so long go and–”
“I just started reading it, he has a lot to say, Nietzsche.”
“Just started! Don’t you plan on lecturing it?”
“Yes, in a week or two.”
“You expect to fully read Beyond Good and Evil and come up with assignments and understandings in a week?”
“Yes.”
“That’s… That’s absurd!”
“Yes,” Crowley smiled, he leaned over and stirred the tea left on the desk, “Y’know, you can’t just let this sit here.”
“I was going to take care of it!”
Aziraphale was in all ways offended. How dare this man he’d met only in passing walk into his space asking about a book he hadn’t even read to teach it on a whim. He spent months designing the perfect curriculum, making sure everything was just so, making sure these students would be prepared for their lives after the class had run its course. And Crowley just waltzes into a specialized classroom with barely an idea in mind. In a week or two he said! He doesn’t even know when he’ll teach it, or if he will at all.
“What about your syllabus?”
“Hm?”
“You can’t just… make it up.”
“Why not?”
“Well! Didn’t you give them a syllabus in the beginning? How would they know what books to buy?”
“Nietzsche was on the syllabus in the beginning.”
“So… Let me understand this… You put a book on your syllabus without having ever read it? Do you know how ridiculous that is!”
“...I have a feeling you won’t like my answer.” Crowley had this bizarre smile. It had its own warmth and genuinity, but his teaching methods were so negligent.
“So, are we going to plan the lesson?”
“Why do I have to be involved in this?”
“The board told me I had to pick an English professor to check me over. I suppose they trust me about the same amount as you do.”
“Pick one?”
“Yes.”
“And you… picked me?”
“Yes. I sat in on one of your lectures, I like your methods.”
“I like my… methods?”
“Well, I’m not a fan of the lighting, but yeah.”
Aziraphale quickly felt a change within himself, from judgment and upset to being flattered. He chose me. He likes my methods. Given his past of being somewhat aloof from others. Something along the lines of being too annoyingly posh. Crowley has to be one of the first people to approach him with interest in him.
“Very well, when are you free to meet?”
The next day, a Saturday, had Aziraphale waiting in a coffee shop across the street from one of the campus buildings. He was mumbling to himself over his tea. He’s late. Right before his plan to get up and leave, forgetting about the meeting entirely, he saw a familiar figure in all black waltz through the door. Crowley, carrying nothing, sat in the chair across from Aziraphale.
“So how’s this going to work?”
“Well, considering it’s your lesson I figured you’d have an idea.”
“Fair enough.” Crowley stretched his back, leaning back and cracking it on the chair, “Fuck.”
Within Aziraphale’s chest and stomach a fidgety warmth rose within him. He could feel his face go red and he began to sweat under his vest. He stared powerlessly at Crowley’s Adam's apple while his chin faced the sky. My God.
“I’m almost done with the book.”
“Already?” He snapped out of his daze.
“Yes, very good so far.”
“I skimmed through it last night to get a feel for the writing and message.”
“What'd you think?”
“Same as I remembered it.” Aziraphale gave a social smile. The kind he only used when uncomfortable, not knowing what to do in a social situation. Those who have seen it before found it genuine and calming. Crowley, however, looked at him with confusion and concern.
“What was that?”
“Hm?”
“That fake smile thing you just did? Weird as anything.” That same smile quickly faded. Aziraphale was struck with this insurmountable confusion.
“What?” How could he so easily see through him? He had been subconsciously wearing that smile for years by this point, he nearly forgot that he was even doing it. And here was this man, practically a stranger, calling him out on it.
“That weird– nevermind it, doesn’t matter. As for lesson plans I was thinking a few short responses, maybe some discussions.” Aziraphale was still coming down from shock.
“In, um, any particular order?”
“Whatever ends up working.”
“You are unbelievable. Do you know that?” Crowley smiled.
“I’ve been told.” The same deep warmth returned to Aziraphale. Crowley’s smile was not only genuine, but hypnotizing.
They didn’t see each other the rest of the weekend, until Sunday night at three in the morning, when Crowley sent Aziraphale an email.
“Hello,
I’ve finished the book, are you open to discuss it on Monday? My room is 1309 in William’s Tower, I’ll be free at nine.
Yours,
Anthony J. Crowley PhD”
Only after Aziraphlae had woken up at his usual seven-thirty for tea did he see the email. Three in the morning? Though perplexed by the timing he had nothing better to do than of course to help his estranged colleague. He began thinking over their past conversations from Friday and Saturday. Crowley had sat in on one of his lectures, and he hadn’t noticed. When even was this?
“Crowley?” It was nine exactly and the door was ajar. To his surprise Crowley was just sitting there throwing a ball in the air and catching it.
“Didn’t your office hours just end?”
“Yeah.”
“Weren’t you with a student?”
“No, they all understand the material just fine I think.” Aziraphale thought back to his office hours, people practically in line asking him all sorts of questions on what he had taught.
“So, you finished the book?”
“Yes, quite good. Nietzsche, a smart man, that one.”
“What sort of assignments were you thinking?”
“Nothing, probably just, the impact of Nietzsche’s work and how the difference between the concept of “good” and “evil” don’t really exist, all that nonsense.”
“Well, it seems you have everything sorted.” Aziraphale practically wanted to leave until he thought over what Crowley had said.
“Wait… You don’t believe that “good” and “evil” are real?”
“Well Nietzsche thinks so, and it isn’t really about what I think.”
“But what do you think?”
“I’m inclined to agree with him.”
“Entirely?”
“Sure.”
“I mean, he had good ideas and all but surely good and evil are real to some extent.”
“I think most things fall in some sort of gray.”
“See! Even you think it’s most things. That means some things are inherently good and evil.”
“I suppose, but if you think about it, with proper circumstances even things that are definitively one or the other can become gray.”
“Like what?”
“Well,” Crowley leaned back further in his chair, he gestured his hand to the rolling chair in front of him, inviting Aziraphale to join him on his level, “If someone saves a life. Inherently good, yeah?”
“Yes.”
“Well what if they did it for selfish reason?” Aziraphale scoffed.
“No, I mean it. Like, you save a life, but you only did it for… say the fame it brought you. Status as some kind of hero. It’s no longer a purely good act.” Aziraphale thought for a moment, the perspective challenging his own.
“But what do I know? Doesn’t matter all that much.”
“Aren’t you an ethics professor? Your whole job is having that sort of thing matter.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right, but all I really need to do is be interested enough to teach it.”
“If it interests you enough to do all this then it must be important to you.”
“Eh.” Crowley says, throwing his ball up in the air once again.
“How could you care so little?” Aziraphale spoke in a purely curious way.
“It’s easy if you try.”
“How do you make decisions in life then if it doesn’t matter?”
“I just do whatever I want.”
“Regardless of morals?”
“I’ve never wanted to do anything morally wrong.”
“But don’t you want to do good things?”
“I never consciously choose to do something solely because it’s “good”.”
“How?” Aziraphale was shocked by the notion.
“I do what I want. If it’s good then it’s good, if not, then it’s not. I’ve never done anything heinous, because I don’t care to.”
“Personally, I try my best to be good. Good for others, good for myself. It’s what’s right.”
“I’m not judging you for how you live, Angel. I’m just saying how I live. There is no right or wrong way to live.” Crowley yawned.
“It’s already eleven, I need to go home, water the plants. We’ll meet again tomorrow, yeah?”
“I suppose.”
Crowley guided them both out, just beyond the door he said his goodbye and went off toward the elevator, leaving Aziraphale standing there. Once the elevator door had already closed, his eyebrows furrowed.
“Angel?”