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'Job' (13 years old) Eden Secondary School
Job sat amongst the burnt wreckage of his home, soot clinging to his fingertips, as he scrabbled through the debris in a desperate search for any of his former belongings. He looked up, startled, as his wife Sitis walked through the broken down doorway.
“Ah, Sitis my dear, what news of the children?” he coughed out, voice hoarse.
“I could not find them anywhere! Oh, where can they be? Has God truly forsaken us?” she lamented, pulling out a handkerchief from her pocket to dab at her eyes.
“Now, dearest, we must not speak ill of the Almighty. She—”
“—He!” cut in Ms Saraqael.
“Oh, yes, He, er, sorry!” Newt squeaked back, then continued under his breath, “He. He is not to be questioned.” The boy took his glasses off to rub at his now sweating brow nervously, smearing a soot stain over most of his forehead and into his right eye. “Ouch! Um, Ms Saraqael, it’s happened again!” he called out, squinting at her through rapidly watering eyes.
“Give me strength,” the harried drama teacher muttered under her breath, fingers impatiently tapping on the armrest of her electric wheelchair. “Right, let’s leave it there! That’s it for today! Tidy up the props and costumes and put them in their usual cupboards please. I’ll be next door in my office making changes to the script if anyone needs me. Oh, and Newt, get some water on that eye!” She turned briskly and scooted out of the room at speed.
“Here you go, Newt. You can use my handkerchief if you like,” offered Anathema with a kind smile. “There are plenty more in the props box.”
“Th-thanks,” stammered Newt, as he gratefully accepted the offering and unsteadily made his way to the cramped washroom behind the stage.
Crawley watched as the small drama group began to disperse, turning their attention to gathering up the scattered props and costumes for the end of the day.
He sidled up to Aziraphale. “Why did you rope me into joining the drama club to do this God-awful end of year play with you again? I thought you said it’d be fun.”
“Shh, Crawley! No blasphemy, please. You’ll get us into trouble,” hissed his friend as he took off his halo, handing it over to him temporarily. He then slipped off the flowing white robe he was wearing over his head, uncovering his uniform, minus its blazer.
Crawley smirked, taking off the long ginger wig with matching facial hair he had been forced to wear, to reveal his own shorter and darker red hair beneath. “What kind of a name is Bildad anyway?” he moaned, disrobing from his own black patterned monstrosity. “Why couldn’t I just be an angel like you?”
Aziraphale pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows at him, above knowingly twinkling eyes.
Crawley nudged him playfully with his elbow. “Hey, I could pretend to be angelic!”
“If you say so,” Aziraphale said placatingly. “Anyway, I enjoy drama. And, like I’ve told you before, I have to work on my stage presence if I want to be…” he paused to give a dramatic flourish with his hands, causing Crawley to groan on the outside but smile fondly on the inside, “…a magician!”
Walking over to hang their costumes back onto their labelled hangers on the portable rail, Crawley settled comfortably into goading his best friend a little bit more. “I like drama too. I just wish they’d let us perform something that was actually entertaining. And why a magician? There are so many better things you could be! Y’know, like, well…literally anything.” Aziraphale gave him a mock pout, which he ignored. “When I grow up I’m going to have my own flat. It’ll be all sleek and modern, with loads of gadgets. And I’ll drive a Bentley and wear sunglasses all the time, even indoors, so people think I’m really cool and mysterious.”
“Well, that all sounds very lovely, but I think you’ll find that’s not actually a job,” his friend responded pedantically. “Besides,” he carried on eagerly, taking something obscured by his hand out from his trouser pocket, “I just need more practice.”
“No no no. Please, no. No. Oh no no, don’t do your magic act. Please. Please, I am actually begging you...” Crawley groaned, letting his head roll back for dramatic effect.
“It’s ok — look, see? I’m getting better,” said Aziraphale, grinning. With a wave of his hand, he pulled a coin out from behind Crawley’s ear. “Ta da!” he announced, waving it proudly in the air as Crawley fought to keep an unamused expression on his face.
A burst of clapping from behind them alerted both boys to the fact that Newt had returned and appeared to have two working — although one was still rather red — eyes again.
“Ah, thank you, Newt!” said Aziraphale, looking very pleased with himself as he took an exaggerated bow.
“It was in your fingers,” grumbled Crawley, speaking out of the side of his mouth to his now overly buoyant friend.
“No, it was in your ear.”
“It was in your pocket and then—”
“Woah, sorry to break up the bromance guys!” smirked Gabriel, as he and Luke swaggered over from whichever corner they had been loitering in to avoid having to tidy up. Crawley couldn’t understand how these two brutes had managed to score the roles of God and Satan, respectively, in the play, while he got cast as some judgmental friend.
“Yeah, get a room!” sniggered Luke.
Aziraphale immediately dropped eye contact and stuffed the coin back into his pocket, cheeks pinking.
“Yeah, yeah, very funny. What do you guys want?” ground out Crawley, feeling his hackles raise with every step closer they took.
“Oh, what a great question!” mocked Gabriel. “Luke, what do we want?”
Luke grinned wickedly and was about to answer when Anathema stomped past in her chunky ankle boots, carrying one of the large boxes of props. “Any time you guys want to pitch in and help, that’d be great, you know?” she grumbled, hoisting the rapidly slipping box further up onto her hip. The sudden jerk sent a clay pot that someone had stored three plastic lizards inside tumbling down from the top of the overstuffed box, where it smashed on the floor. “Oh, darn it!” she cursed, trying to look around the overflowing props to see what had fallen.
Luke and Gabe just stood there, sniggering unhelpfully as usual. But before Crawley or Aziraphale could offer assistance, Newt had already sprung into action.
“Sorry, Anathema! I’ll help you!” he said enthusiastically, stuffing the lizards back into the box for her and delicately picking up the fragments of pottery to deposit into the nearby bin.
“Thanks,” she grunted, struggling under the weight of the box as she moved off towards the door again. “And one of you lot grab that costume rail, will you?”
“Of course!” replied Newt earnestly, gazing longingly after her as she kicked open the door with one of the black boots and barged through it.
As soon as she had left, Luke and Gabriel gave each other a knowing look before rounding on Newt.
“Ooooooh! Has Newt got a crush on Anathema?” Luke sing-songed patronisingly.
The helpless boy turned bright red, almost visibly sweating again as he stuttered out “Um, no. I mean, er, I just think she’s…”
“You dooo!” Luke and Gabriel chimed in together with sadistic joy, before bursting into laughter.
Aziraphale gave Newt a small smile in sympathy, while Crawley rounded on the bullies. “Leave him alone! Even if he did, it’s none of your business anyway!” he snapped.
Gabriel stopped to give him his famous smugly entitled look, before it melted into a devious smile, making Crawley wish he had kept his mouth shut.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he mused. “I think I could be very easily persuaded to make it my business. In fact, I think I’m going to help!” He then turned his attention back to the rapidly perspiring Newt. “Go on, buddy,” he cajoled sarcastically. “Be brave, ask her out. I dare you!” Then he whispered into Luke’s ear, “I could use a good laugh!”
Newt was almost hyperventilating by this point. “Umm, no. I can’t, umm…”
Luke scoffed, “There’s no way he’s got the guts to ask her out. Look at him, Gabe! He can’t even string a sentence together!”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed with dark intent. “Nah!” he shot back. “He just needs some motivation.” He smiled menacingly down at Newt, the way a spider might survey a fly caught in its web: as a fresh, juicy prize, full of promise. “It’s like my dad always says,” the bully went on righteously. “‘You gotta think like a winner to become a winner!’ I do it all the time, and look at how great I’m doing. So. Ask. Her. Out!”
“Pfft,” Crawley said as he shook his head in disbelief at the arrogance before him.
“Now just a minute…” Aziraphale started, before he was cut off by Luke’s menacing voice.
“Shut up!” he sneered at them both. “Or do you want me to make you?” They both glared back at him but remained silent. Luke turned back to Gabriel. “He won’t do it Gabe; I promise you he won’t.”
“Well, I promise you he will,” shot back the conceited bully.
“Humm,” Luke drawled. “Wanna make it interesting?”
Gabriel shrugged. “Sure, what were you thinking?”
“I’ll bet you twenty quid.”
“Sounds like a deal!”
They both nodded, then turned back to Newt, who was not much more than a crumpled, sweaty, boy-shaped lump by this point.
“Right. You’ve got 24 hours to ask her out, with witnesses,” ordered Gabriel.
“Or not!” Luke laughed.
Gabriel’s smile was now a thin, tight thing. “Otherwise…I’ll tell her for you…” Newt gulped, “…in front of the whole school. Then she and everyone else here will know you’re a coward!” Gabriel leaned in towards him. “You’d better do it, buddy. I don’t like to lose,” he threatened, before turning and swanning off towards the door, picking up his designer backpack to swing onto his shoulder as he went. “Make sure you’re all at rehearsal tomorrow so I can collect my winnings!” he called out before the door finally swung shut behind him.
Luke gave Newt an intimidating smile. “Don’t you dare. There’s no way I’m letting Mr Rich Parents take a twenty from me. I need that cash, you understand? Or I’ll do something even more unpleasant. I’m pretty good at finding out people’s worst nightmares and using them against them; it’s a talent. So, do not ask her out!” With that parting shot, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the room.
Crawley heard Aziraphale sigh, just as he himself let out a belated breath.
Newt was beside himself. “What am I going to do?” he wailed helplessly, appealing to both of them. “Anathema’s so cool and popular. There’s no way I can ask her out in front of people. It’ll be much too embarrassing. But even if I did, and by some miracle she said yes, Luke’s still going to be coming for me!”
“It’s alright, Newt,” comforted Aziraphale. “We’ll just go and have a word with Ms Saraqael and then Ms Saraqael will fix it. I’m sure she’ll be able to sort it all out.”
“What?” cried Newt looking aghast. “No! Don’t do that! If she speaks to them, they’ll both hate me, and I can’t deal with the two of them after me. No, I just need to try to think of a way out of this…perhaps if I give them all of my pocket money they might call it quits and forget about it?” he said hopefully.
“Newt, you shouldn’t have to do that,” stated Crawley. “I’m sure there’s another way out of this. We just need some more time to think of a plan.”
“But whatever I do, one or both of them are going to be mad at me,” insisted Newt wretchedly. “There’s no other way. It’s fine, I think I’ve almost got £40 saved up anyway. I was going to use it to pay for a subscription to Easy Electronics magazine. I need to learn now to build circuits better if I want to be a computer engineer when I’m older. Every time I work on something at the moment, it just seems to go wrong! But, it’s ok, I’ll just have to save up again and wait a bit longer.”
He walked sadly off to drag the costume rail out of the room and towards the storage cupboard next door. “Thanks for trying to help guys, but there’s nothing you can do. And please don’t tell the teachers. I’ll pay them the money. It's easier this way.” He gave the stubborn rail an extra yank as one of the wheels started to stick. “I’m just glad Anathema wasn’t there to hear it. She’s so lovely — like completely out of my league, lovely — and she really doesn’t deserve to be treated like some prize in a stupid bet.”
“No, but you don’t deserve this either!” argued Crawley.
Newt shrugged, half pulling, half dragging the uncooperative costume rail, with its perpetually dodgy wheel, awkwardly around the corner of the door. “What can I do? That's just the way things are; the guys with the most power always end up calling the shots. We’re all just feeble mortals compared to them!” And with that final remark, he rounded the corner and disappeared down the hall to the cupboard.
“Gaah!” Crawley raged, as he took in Aziraphale’s glum face. “It’s all so unfair. Newt didn’t do anything to them!” He stomped off, gathering the last of the discarded props from the stage to start flinging them into the correct boxes.
Aziraphale grabbed an empty box and moved closer to help him. “I know. He really is an absolute poppet,” he agreed. “But, you know what those two are like when they get together. Always egging each other on, neither one wanting to back down and lose any of their power.”
Crawley grumbled as he stuffed the last items into the boxes and then hopped off the stage to collect their backpacks. Handing the light blue one to his friend, he asked, “What are we going to do?”
“What can we do, other than tell a teacher?” Aziraphale questioned, as they walked out of the door, boxes in hand.
They plodded down the corridor silently for a few moments, both thinking, before they reached the storage cupboard and placed the boxes on the waiting shelves inside.
“I don’t know,” Crawley finally said, “but there must be something. We can’t just let them get away with it; it’s not right.”
They made their way towards the exit and out into the summer sunshine, letting it wash over them, cleansing away some of the uneasy thoughts the stressful situation had subjected them to.
“Whose house are we going to tonight?” asked Aziraphale.
“Don’t mind.” Crawley shrugged easily. “Yours is a few streets closer than mine, so shall we head there?”
“If you like, but that does mean you’ll have to suffer through my mother’s healthy snack!” his friend said with a grin.
“Hey, I don’t mind ‘ants on a log’,” defended Crawley. “Besides, she’s getting more adventurous. She even used dried cranberries instead of raisins the other week!”
Aziraphale laughed back at him. “Ok, fine,” he agreed. “First a snack, and then we can try and think of a way to help Newt.”
“Now that’s my kind of deal,” said Crawley, moving closer so that his shoulder bumped occasionally against his best friend’s as they walked off down the street, side by side.
***
Aziraphale’s brain, like his stomach, was running on empty when he entered the busy dining hall for lunch, doing his usual scan for Crawley. They had not managed to come up with any sort of satisfactory solution to Newt’s problem while doing their homework last night, nor this morning during the first period English lesson they shared. All of Crawley’s ideas involved breaking at least two school rules to teach both bullies a lesson (which would not end up helping Newt), and Aziraphale’s own plans were centred on confiding in different members of staff who could solve the problem for them (which Newt had made very clear that he did not want them to do).
Following lunch, they only had two more lessons before meeting for drama club (or the ‘Eden Entertainers’, as they were known) after school, and for one of them they would be separated: Crawley taking History, while Aziraphale had Art. That didn’t leave much time to come up with something, so lunch was going to be their best, and probably only, opportunity to think of some way to help.
Crawley appeared from behind him. “Any luck?”
“Well,” Aziraphale started hopefully, even though he could sense what Crawley’s answer was likely to be, “I had thought we might try Mr Raphael. Him being a guidance counsellor does mean that he’s technically not a teacher, and he’s always so positive and upbeat about everything.”
“S’not gonna work, angel,” Crawley groaned back at him. “He might not technically be a teacher — and he’s definitely better than the alternatives — but you know Newt’s not going to go for it.”
Aziraphale sighed, frustrated at the whole situation. “Got any better ideas?” he said helplessly. “Or one single better idea?”
Crawley opened his mouth.
“That doesn’t involve locking one, or both, of them inside a cupboard.”
Crawley closed his mouth and glared at him, glarefully. “You know you’d enjoy seeing them both trapped in the props cupboard together too!” he retorted, unable to completely keep the look of glee off his face as he was surely imagining the muffled shouts and bangs.
Defying school rules was rather a talent of Crawley’s. Over the years they had known each other, he had gotten into trouble for breaking (or ‘questioning’ as his friend liked to call it) a good deal of them. This had earned him the perennial reputation at Eden of being a ‘troublemaker’ for always asking (as Mr Metatron liked to call them) damn fool questions. At first this had worried Aziraphale. He himself always tried his hardest to follow the rules, but over time he’d slowly come to realise that Crawley might have a point. His rule breaking was less an act of simple rebellion and more about challenging each rule he saw as unjust in an effort to improve or correct it. Although he was still sometimes frustrated or worried when Crawley did this, he had also started to admire the way his friend seemed to have an intrinsic sense of what was right.
Crawley nudged Aziraphale forwards in the direction of the queue. “Come on, let’s get something to eat; we’ll think better once we’re not hungry.”
As they grabbed their trays and shuffled slowly along the line towards the serving hatch, Aziraphale craned his neck to try to see what options there were for the day. The syllabus at Eden High might have been dry and conservative, but the food they served was far from it. Coming from a family whose two-week rolling meal plan centered around uninspired and traditional meals that could mostly be described as ‘stodge’, he revelled in any excuse to expand his culinary horizons. As Thursdays were ‘Try a New Taste’ day, he was feeling especially excited as they finally neared the front of the line.
“Oh, Asian sweet and sticky short ribs with rice and greens,” he read from the sign. “I’ve never had ribs before… Mother always says they are too messy. Perhaps I should just stick to the ratatouille for today.” As he felt himself begin to dither he looked sidelong at his friend, not missing the little glint that appeared in his eyes whenever he thought he might get the chance to encourage Aziraphale to break ‘the rules’.
“She’s not here now though, is she?” he replied smoothly. “So, you’re free to try the food.”
It was all the encouragement Aziraphale needed, and he quickly made his daring request to the server before he could change his mind.
They settled themselves onto a little table in the corner of the hall, Crawley with his BLT sub and Aziraphale with his plate of temptation. He breathed in appreciatively, enjoying the heady aroma of the spices with the rich, sweet undertone of the sauce to balance them out.
“I wish my parents would cook more food like this,” he griped, picking up his cutlery as he pondered how to go about eating this new delicacy. “I mean, you’ve been to my house for dinner before and suffered through ‘Stewsday’ enough times — it’s all vegetable and no seasoning! My mother lives in fear of the stock cube!”
Crawley laughed. “Well, at least your mum doesn’t force you to read the Bible every night before bed so you can become a vicar when you’re older,” he shot back with a smirk. “I mean, can you even imagine me as a vicar? I’d be bloody awful!”
“Shh, language, Crawley!” Aziraphale hissed back anxiously at him as he tried to slice at his ribs with a knife and fork.
Eden had very strict rules on both blasphemy and swearing. Well, it had strict rules on just about everything. When he was younger, Aziraphale had tied himself in metaphorical knots over them, trying to follow each one as diligently as possible. Since moving up to the high school, and thanks to spending so much time around Crawley, things had slowly started to shift for him. The rules, which had always seemed so black and white, were starting to blur at the edges, causing shades of grey to filter their way in. The stories, the rules, the dogmatic statements, they just didn’t seem to make as much sense as they once did. Even though he could not yet bring himself to be as brave as Crawley — openly questioning these long-held beliefs and to heck with the consequences — some small doubts were starting to emerge. They rattled around in his brain during every R.E. lesson or quiet reflective moment in assembly. They were always there…and they were multiplying.
“What if we spoke to Anathema?” said Crawley, in between bites of his lunch. “Y’know, told her about the guys being jerks and making that stupid bet without Newt’s permission.”
“Humm?” queried Aziraphale as he awkwardly tried to scrape meat from bones.
“And then, then, we could get her to pretend to ask Newt out, y’know, in front of them, after practice. Then neither of them would win the bet, coz she’d’ve asked him out. If he didn’t get the chance to ask, it’d make the whole thing null and void. No winners, no losers, and neither of them able to be mad at Newt! Just a random act of G— , er, somebody.”
Aziraphale looked up from his task. Crawley was brimming with excitement, a devilish look upon his face. “But,” he began, trying to parse the information as he started on another rib, “well, wouldn’t that upset Newt? If we told Anathema he liked her, I mean?”
“Ah, but that’s the best bit, we don’t have to tell her, do we? She knows what Luke and Gabriel are like — just use your hands, angel, everyone does — they’re always doing stupid stuff like this.”
Aziraphale looked around at the other diners happily using their fingers, admitted defeat, and picked up a rib to begin eating it. He let a small noise of satisfaction pass his lips as he sank his teeth into the tender meat. The flavours were just as delicious as he had hoped and the mess involved made him feel positively wicked.
Crawley smiled knowingly at him and continued. “If she asks, I can just tell her that I’ve got no idea if Newt likes her or not. Simple!” He sat back looking proud of himself. If it was from besting the bullies, helping Newt, successfully tempting his best friend into trying forbidden food, or perhaps all three, Aziraphale couldn’t tell.
He thought about the plan as he quickly tucked into another rib (they really were rather good). The thought of lying, even now he was older, still sat uneasily within him; it had always been drilled into him that it was a sin. But this would be to help a friend and save him from major embarrassment, so surely it was the right thing to do. Besides, he reasoned, Crawley would be doing the talking and he was always much better at telling a convincing lie than Aziraphale had ever been.
He swallowed another mouthful with an appreciative hum, before picking up his third and final rib.
“Enjoying those, are you?” smirked Crawley cockily, but his eyes betrayed only fondness.
Aziraphale chose to ignore this remark. “I don’t like the idea of lying to her, but it is for a good reason,” he admitted, licking his fingers happily. “It’s a very clever plan, Crawley. We just have to hope it works.” And with that he began devouring his last rib with gusto.
Crawley leaned back in to offer him a napkin. “S’ok. I’ll talk to her. I know you’re still not comfortable with lying. We’d better get a move on and finish eating though, if we’re going to find her before lunch ends.”
***
It was five minutes to one and lunchtime was almost over. They had looked in the playground, music rooms, by the lockers, dining hall and back out in the playground again. They had even surreptitiously hung around in the corridor outside the girl’s toilets for a while to see if she came out (feeling rather uneasy about it as they did), but with no luck. Anathema was nowhere to be found. Finally they decided to approach a gaggle of year 8 girls and were snootily informed that she had left school during lunch for a dentist appointment, and would only be arriving back in time to catch the start of the next lesson.
“We have to find some way to speak to her before Drama Club.” Crawley had begun to pace, a sure sign of his agitation. “It’s too risky trying to catch a word with her while the two idiots are around. She’s not in either of my last two lessons. What about you?”
Aziraphale paused. Technically he did have art at the same time as Anathema, although she would be next door in the studio, which was reserved for students who were working with clay or sculpting. He and the majority of his class remained confined to the main art room, where they were currently working on still life sketches.
He gulped. “Um, there might be a way I could speak to her, but I’d have to think of a lie to tell Mrs Shax about why I would need to go next door to the studio. She’s very strict about wanting students to work in silence, and we aren’t allowed into the studio unless it’s for a specific project we are completing. Anyone caught in there without permission gets in serious trouble.”
Aziraphale began to twist his fingers. Thoughts about having to tell so many lies convincingly, and all that could go wrong if he failed at just one step, started to mount up inside him.
Crawley frowned. “Are you sure, angel? I know that’s going to be a lot for you,” he said, concern painting its way across his sharp features.
Aziraphale thought about the alternative, of Newt’s autonomy and dignity being sacrificed just to win a bet. The feeling that gave him was even more sickening. “Quite sure,” he replied, holding his chin a little higher and trying to keep his voice steady.
His friend looked at him sympathetically. “Well, ok then,” he finally said, still appearing a little uncertain about this new turn of events. “Just try not to get too in your own head about it, alright? Remember, it’s for a good reason. You’re doing the right thing.”
The bell rang, its sharp trill startling both of them where they stood.
They hurriedly made their way down the empty corridor to their next class together. Aziraphale stared down at his feet as they hastened along. He could feel the familiar twin fears of doubt and anxiety clawing for dominance in his mind. He would have to lie, at least twice, convincingly. Was it still a sin if it was to help somebody? There was an honest way to solve the problem after all — by telling a teacher — but Newt had been very clear, and he couldn’t blame him for thinking that it might make things worse. In fact, he was probably right. The stories were very clear…although, they had been making less and less sense to him recently. Crawley questioned everything, but questions sat less easily inside Aziraphale. Questions led to more doubts, and as a believer, he wasn’t supposed to doubt anything. But a small voice at the back of his head whispered, maybe it’s not as simple as all that after all…
Crawley grabbed his hand, giving it a quick squeeze before dropping it again. They weren’t able to indulge in this gesture of friendship as much nowadays. Part of Aziraphale missed it, but Eden High was not a place where innocent acts like that were tolerated by staff or the more devout students. But the comforting touch did manage to pull him back to reality from the uneasy place he had been dwelling in.
“Look, I’ve got Newt in my history class. I’ll tell him to hold off on paying them until after rehearsal and that we might have a plan. I won’t tell him what yet, in case things don’t work out, but hopefully that’s enough to stop him from throwing his money away for a bit longer. Sound good?” Crawley asked.
Aziraphale nodded back and they paused just before the door to the maths classroom.
“Hey, did I tell you we’re learning about the witch trials in history?” Crawley prompted, clearly trying to change the subject for his friend’s sake.
“Oh, really?” he answered, still preoccupied with the battling thoughts in his head.
“Yeah, well, turns out Newt’s actually a descendant of a pretty famous witch finder. Weird right? He had some strange long-winded puritanical name too — sounded pretty horrible — nothing like Newt at all.”
Aziraphale could tell that Crawley was trying his best to distract him with the sudden change of topic, and he was grateful for the effort. He just hoped that he would fare better in his upcoming trial than those poor condemned women of the 17th century.
“Thank you,” he said gratefully and stepped forward to open the door. “Come on, let's get a wiggle on.”
“Wiggle on,” Crawley repeated in mock disdain from behind him. And he didn’t even need to turn around to know what sort of a face his friend would be pulling.
***
Crawley sat on the stage, eyes flicking nervously between his updated copy of the script and the door. Since parting from Aziraphale after their maths lesson, he had no idea what had happened to his friend during art. He hoped he could rely on him to be brave enough to risk doing the right thing, even if it meant lying and breaking the rules. Aziraphale had never taken to lying easily and Crawley could spot his tells from outer space. This was going to be a high pressure situation with a lot riding on the outcome. He knew that his friend, deep down, would want to try his absolute best to accomplish this task but, just like with his magic act, his ambition might not quite match his abilities. Was he even going to be able to speak to Anathema? And if he could, would he be able to convince her to do this for Newt? It was a fine line to tread, telling her just enough information to make her want to help but not so much it would break Newt’s trust in the process.
None of the three had appeared yet and Crawley could only take that as a bad omen. His head was swirling with enough unanswered questions that they could have created their own nebula. So it was with great annoyance that he noticed Gabriel making a beeline for him.
“Hey, you heard anything about the bet yet?” he demanded.
Crawley shrugged noncommittally and turned a page of his script.
“Oh, come on, you must know something. I thought he’d use you and Azi as the witnesses. So…am I going to be buying them both a load of nappies for Christmas or not?” he chuckled, sending a wave of anger and disgust through Crawley.
Taking a breath, Crawley tried to dig deep to emulate some of Aziraphale’s patience. “No idea. I haven’t spoken to him since yesterday,” he lied. “And anyway, it takes 40 weeks to gestate a baby Gabriel, not 25.”
“How would you know?” the walking definition of arrogance countered.
The door at the far end of the room opened, and Aziraphale and Anathema walked in together, their faces unreadable.
“My mum’s a midwife,” Crawley replied, not taking his eyes off his friend’s face.
“I thought she made kids’ shoes? She had that stall at the fête last year.”
“Huh? No, that’s just her hobby…she’s a midwife slash cobbler,” he said distractedly.
Without bothering to wait for a reply, Crawley slid off the stage to go speak to his best friend and Anathema. He was halfway across the room when the door opened again. Ms Saraqael entered, followed by Newt, closing the door he had just opened for her.
“Good afternoon Eden Entertainers! We have a lot to get through today, so let’s not dawdle. Bildad, Zophar and Eliphaz, I want you three up on the stage now. We’re going to be practicing your scene first,” she ordered. “Everyone else into your costumes and grab a script to start familiarising yourselves with the new lines. Come on, chop, chop, we haven’t got eternity!”
***
They might not have had eternity, but it sure felt like Crawley had lived through it by the time they had finally wrapped for the day. He had been separated from the two people he most wanted to speak to all throughout rehearsal, stuck practising trying to sound more critical as he and the other two ‘friends’ delivered their lines to blameless Job. Ms Saraqael was like a hawk, and every time he would try to catch Aziraphale’s eye, she would swoop in and shout “stop!” before making him start over again. In the end, it was easier to just put his frustration at the situation towards his performance as he berated Job for the loss of his children.
“Good! That was much better this time! You’re really starting to get a feel for it,” Ms Saraqael praised, as she beamed at him. Crawley internally shuddered at the compliment. She then reversed backwards so she could take in the whole group while she addressed them. “We’ll be ready for the full dress rehearsal next week. So Newt, prepare yourself for some very gross makeup that looks like boils! Right, I’m going to print off some flyers for the show. You all know the drill by now. Tidy up and then come see me early next week to get your final scripts. Remember, there’s no practice tomorrow as it’s Friday, so have a good weekend if I don’t see you again!” With a beaming smile she spun her chair around to make her way back to her office.
Crawley yanked off his wig and beard, throwing them down so he could make his way off the stage and towards Aziraphale, who was standing in the middle of the large hall removing his costume as quickly as possible.
“Did you manage to do it? How did it go? Were you caught? What did she say?” he hissed quietly at Aziraphale, his questions finally able to break free from the spiraling gravitational vortex of his mind.
Aziraphale was just leaning in to answer, when suddenly they noticed Luke and Gabriel start to converge on Newt. Crawley was about to jump in and save him, when a shout from across the hall caused both him and the bullies to pause.
“Hey, Newt, want to come help me with this costume rail? One of the wheels is sticking again,” called Anathema.
Newt looked nervous, but grateful for the temporary reprieve, as he trotted on over to be of assistance.
“Also,” Anathema said, speaking slightly louder than she normally did (which was saying something), “I wondered if you’d like to go out with me this weekend. There’s this new Wiccan shop that’s opened on the high street I wanted to look at.” Newt stared back at her, mouth slightly agape. Anathema smiled kindly as she continued. “Maybe afterwards we could stop at that juice bar that does all the healthy new age drinks too. Some vitamin C could really help perk up your aura. It’s looking a little flat today.”
Newt quickly glanced towards himself and Aziraphale, completely dumbfounded. All Crawley could manage was a bewildered shrug, while his friend, much more helpfully, offered him an encouraging nod.
“Oh, umm, yes. Thanks, Anathema, I’d love to!” he replied, finally able to get the words out.
“Great. It’s a date!” she said with a smile, before her eyes shot a quick glare at Luke and Gabriel. The bullies just stood there in silence staring back at her, brows furrowed and jaws slack.
Anathema and Newt, lugging the costume rail along with them, planned when and where to meet on Saturday as they lumbered off to the exit.
Once they had left, Gabriel and Luke made their way over to Crawley and Aziraphale, the previous confusion turning to mistrust on their faces.
“Did you guys have anything to do with that?” Luke interrogated.
Crawley spluttered a few consonants at them, trying to bring his mind back online from the shock of the date proposal, which had actually looked pretty real to him.
“No, we’re as shocked as you are,” Aziraphale said, as he rushed in to save him from his verbal floundering. “Who could have guessed that Anathema actually liked him back?”
“Aziraphale, are you sure nobody put her up to it?” probed Gabriel.
“I’m sure, I…you have my word as an angel,” Aziraphale said, holding up the costume, complete with halo, still in his hands.
Gabriel and Luke scowled at him for the awful joke, but it seemed to have the desired effect in deflecting any further inquiries.
“You’re such a dork,” Luke grumbled. Although as he and Gabriel wandered away, they seemed satisfied enough with his explanation.
“I would have won you know,” boasted Gabriel, as they leisurely headed out of the door without even attempting to tidy anything away.
“No, I’m telling you Gabe, there’s no way he would have asked her!” asserted Luke.
As the last couple of drama students each grabbed a box and departed the room, Crawley and Aziraphale were finally left alone.
Crawley let out a sigh of relief, not even upset at the amount of props that were still scattered about, left for them to tidy up. He looked at Aziraphale, completely stunned by his friend. They had known each other for over eight years, and he still had the ability to surprise him. Although the more he thought about it, he supposed he shouldn’t have been as shocked as he was. Whenever he’d put his trust in Aziraphale before, he had never once let him down.
“I can’t believe that worked out so well! What did you say to her? How did you get to speak to her? That was brilliant!” he enthused, letting all of his thoughts tumble out at once.
Aziraphale grinned back at him proudly. He put one hand into his pocket and carefully pulled out a stick of charcoal with his fingertips. “I used my sleight of hand to hide the last few pieces of charcoal, so that I could ask Mrs Shax to let me go next door into the studio to get a fresh box. I did it right under her nose and she never saw a thing!” he said excitedly. “I told you I’m getting better at my magic tricks.”
Crawley laughed at him, amazed. “Okay, I promise to never say anything negative about your magic act again!”
“I’ll just have to slip them all back the next time I have art, though I don’t know if the stain will ever come out of my trouser pocket” he winced.
“You could Miracle it away,” Crawley suggested, then seeing Aziraphale’s dubious face he added with a wave of his hand. “S’fine, my mum’s got one of those Miracle Stain Remover bars at home. I’ll show you how to use it — but what about Anathema?”
“Well, I explained all about the bet and told her I had no idea if Newt had a ‘pash’ on her or not, but she just sort of squinted at me and mumbled something about my aura. Then she said to leave it to her and that she knew what needed to be done,” he said with a shrug. “I didn’t even get a chance to tell her about the ‘fake date’ plan before she shooed me out of the room. So she must have come up with all of that by herself!”
“Really? Huh, well, that all worked out perfectly then! We made a great team!” Crawley said, clapping his hands together.
“Yes, I suppose we did.” His friend’s smile faltered slightly. “Do you…do you think I’m going to Hell for lying?” asked Aziraphale, looking a little less certain than before.
“No such thing as Heaven or Hell, angel.”
“Well, I don’t know if I’d go quite that far, but…I am starting to wonder about certain things more and more,” his friend replied quietly. “I’ve had so many questions about it all lately. I don’t know what to do. It’s just, I’ve spent so long following everything to the letter, believing that was the only way to be a good person. But if I’d done that today, then things would have ended up so much worse. So…perhaps you were right; perhaps lying isn’t always wrong. But, if I start questioning, does that mean I'm like you now?”
Crawley, the atheist that he was, chuckled inwardly at this. Aziraphale had only just started to allow himself to ask the questions. He had a long way to go before he would be anywhere close to where Crawley’s own viewpoint lay. But he knew that Aziraphale would need support on this journey, whatever he ended up believing and, crucially, the time to figure things out for himself without pressure.
“Y’know, nobody has to know you’re starting to question things if you don’t want them to, because it’s your choice. I’m not gonna tell anybody. Are you?”
Aziraphale shook his head.
“Then nothing has to change, does it?”
“But, what am I? If I start to challenge the rules and the stories, does that mean I’m not a faithful believer anymore? I just want to understand, to have things make sense again. I want to do the right thing and be good. If being a devoted follower without questioning doesn’t make me that, then what does? So, what am I? Who am I then?” his friend fretted.
Crawley thought carefully about how to answer this. He had given up believing a long time ago. In fact, he wasn’t completely sure he had even believed properly to begin with. This was a much bigger part of Aziraphale’s identity than it was his own. He was very impressed that Aziraphale had found the courage to finally start to examine ‘the system’ and was proud of him for it. But he knew his friend was going to be in for a long and difficult time, suddenly having to figure out what he believed for himself rather than just letting others define that for him. Crawley needed to give him something to cling to, something to help stop him feeling so unmoored. Aziraphale liked certainty. He liked knowing he was doing the right thing. But most of all, he didn’t want to feel alone in the world.
“You’re still you,” Crawley reassured. “I guess when I started to question things, I decided to put my faith in myself, be on my own side.”
“That sounds a bit lonely.”
Crawley had never thought about it that way before. He hadn’t felt truly alone for a long time, not since he’d met Aziraphale. “Nnnyygh, well, not really, you’ve always been there with me. We’ve got each other. You know I’m always going to be there for you. We can put our faith in each other, call it our own side.”
“Oh.” Aziraphale paused. The stitch that had been knitting his brows together unravelled and a smile slowly spread across his face. “Yes, I like that idea! Our side.”
A spark of warmth ignited within Crawley when his friend uttered those words. But as he felt his cheeks starting to inexplicably heat up, he made himself turn away and gathered up the nearest box, unsure what had him feeling shy all of a sudden.
***
Aziraphale neatly folded his blazer and placed it into his backpack once they were both outside the school. With the summer sun burning a hole in the bright blue sky, it was far too hot to wear it. He looked over at Crawley, who was roughly stuffing his own blazer into his bag and then inevitably struggling to do the zip back up afterwards, and smiled fondly. There were going to be a lot of things he needed to reassess. Especially if he was finally going to allow himself to start internally examining everything and trying to figure out what he actually believed, rather than what he had simply been told to believe. This was important to him; he wanted to make sure he was actually doing the right thing, not just the expected thing. He had to allow himself to ask these questions, even with the risk that they might evolve into more doubts. Perhaps Crawley’s way of seeing things wasn’t so ‘bad’ after all; maybe challenging long-held beliefs could actually be a ‘good’ thing.
Almost everybody in his life believed the stories wholeheartedly, secure in the knowledge that each rule should never be broken or even queried, especially those at school and within his own family. He didn’t feel ready to tell anybody else he was starting to question his beliefs just yet. He was sailing in uncharted waters, but he didn’t feel adrift. Crawley would always be there for him. ‘Our side,’ he had called it — and it had made Aziraphale feel even closer to him somehow — something new that was just theirs. It felt like a safe harbour, a place where they could just be themselves, a home.
“You know, I think you might be right about Anathema asking Newt out for real,” mused Crawley. “Do you remember when she tripped over that piece of scenery on the stage earlier, and Newt came to help her up?”
“Yes, he’s very kind,” replied Aziraphale distractedly.
“Yeah, but I meant the way she was looking at him. Sort of like…well, you know when she almost ran into me with her bike the other day and then ended up falling off it? When I helped her up afterwards she definitely didn’t look at me that way!”
“I thought you bumped into her?”
“Nooo, she was riding towards me — without looking where she was going as usual — and then had to swerve into a bush at the last moment!”
“Humm, I suppose she can be a little clumsy sometimes,” replied Aziraphale, still somewhat unconvinced by this version of events. “But anyway, Newt seems to like her.”
Crawley nodded his agreement and they started walking in the direction of their homes.
Like a single grey cloud in a clear sky, a thought suddenly drifted across Aziraphale’s mind.
“Crawley, do you ever, um, think about having a girlfriend?” he asked, feeling the sudden need to break eye contact in favour of staring at the pavement.
Crawley cleared his throat, appearing to take a moment to ponder this. Aziraphale was left waiting for an answer, an odd sensation having seeped its way into his stomach.
“I don’t really see what all the fuss is about to be honest,” Crawley finally supplied. “I mean, girls are fine. Some of them are fun to talk to and everything but…” His sentence trailed off, punctuated at the end with a single shrug.
“Oh, that’s good — I mean — that makes sense,” Aziraphale quickly corrected, his cheeks growing warm.
The strange feeling in his stomach slowly started to recede, and he wondered if perhaps he had just been feeling hungry after all.
“So what about you then?” Crawley asked, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye.
“What about me, what?” Aziraphale responded, puzzled by the question.
“Girlfriends…d’you ever wish you had one?”
“Oh.” The query took Aziraphale by surprise, in truth he’d never actually considered it before. The thought felt somehow foreign in his mind. “No, not really. I’m quite happy with things as they are,” he replied honestly.
Crawley snaked in so that they were walking more closely together again, shoulders and elbows occasionally brushing against each other, as they shared a shy smile.
“D’you wanna come over to mine and play some more Overcooked on the Xbox?” his best friend offered brightly.
“That sounds perfect.” Aziraphale grinned back at him, then looked up into a clear blue sky.