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Joanne had been a groundskeeper at the South Downs St. Peter's Church for 37 years. She'd started the job after all her kids had started school to occupy her sudden hours of free time. 37 years, and not once did she encounter a man as blatantly degenerate as Mr Fell.
Mr Fell moved to the South Downs 7 months ago, at the end of summer. School had started again and the church had put up flyers to recruit new volunteers. Mr Fell had enthusiastically volunteered.
Joanne had met him on his first day, where she'd learned he'd be helping with the upkeep and tidying of the inside of the church. "No gardening, no," he'd told her, "I did try it once, for a period of time, but it's more my partner's cup of tea."
He'd seemed like an upstanding gentleman to her at the time. He was polite and proper and he'd seemed like a good man, if a bit, queer at times. If only she knew then how wrong and right she'd been.
Mr Fell mentioned his partner often during their conversations. "Oh my partner does that too!" Pertaining a certain gardening technique, or "No my partner usually uses much more vulgar language when speaking to our plants." In a conversation about how loving plants helps them grow, which she'd found a bit weird at the time, but didn't think anything of. He'd even revealed they'd only been together officially for a short while, but had been in love much longer.
Their relationship had seemed sweet and Mr Fell had seemed to genuinely care for his partner, so Joanne wondered why the partner had never visited Mr Fell during his volunteer work, especially since the partner didn't seem to have a job. She also wasn't completely certain the partner Mr Fell spoke of was a woman, as she'd first assumed.
Mr Fell was quick to reassure her however, if unknowingly, when she'd asked if his partner would ever visit him, "Oh Heavens no, she would never set foot in a church, unless I'm in immediate danger." At that, he'd gotten a dreamy look on his face, which would've been sweet if the answer hadn't been that.
"So your wife isn't religious?" Joanne had asked. She didn't understand how Mr Fell could be in a loving relationship with someone who seemed to have such an aversion to the church.
"I wouldn't say she doesn't believe God exists, but their is certainly no love or worship involved."
With every sentence Mr Fell spoke of his beloved wife, Joanne understood the relationship less.
After that a month went by where Joanne went on with her work, occasionally speaking to Mr Fell. Until one day the topic of his partner came up again. They'd been speaking about the bad weather of the past few days and the gradually dropping temperature now autumn was starting.
"The weather has been terrible indeed," Mr Fell had solemnly agreed when Joanne had brought it up, "Especially for my husband. He doesn't fare well in the cold at all, my poor cold blooded snake."
There were several parts to that sentence that confused Joanne, but the most important one was that Mr Fell had just spoke of a husband when Joanne had previously been convinced he had a wife.
She'd been too shocked, and honestly too polite, to ask him to clarify, but it did take her several seconds to produce an appropriate response.
Joanne realised that she had to keep up with the times and that nowadays two men or two women in a relationship was seen as perfectly normal. Her niece was even dating a girl at the moment, it was just the modern world. However, she drew the line at whatever Mr Fell was doing. Had he left his wife, who he had only been together with for a few months, to immediately marry a man? The idea made Joanne's skin crawl.
After that conversation Joanne had found herself avoiding Mr Fell. She hadn't known what to think of him, but also hadn't immediately wanted to write him off. He was still a part of the church after all.
The next time Joanne had had an extended conversation with Mr Fell where he mentioned his partner, was during the first meeting for the annual Christmas celebration and fundraiser. They were discussing the layout of the event, when Mr Fell had suddenly made a surprising request.
"I know Christmas is historically a religious celebration, which would make the church the obvious location for the event, but I do have a small request." Mr Fell had fidgeted with the pocket watch in his waistcoat, which he seemed to do often when he was nervous. "Could we perhaps relocate the event to the community centre this year? You see, my partner is terribly uncomfortable on holy ground, but they would very much like to attend."
The request had seemed perfectly in line with what Joanne had known about Mr Fell's non-religious wife, except, Mr Fell no longer had a wife. Joanne also noticed Mr Fell had now referred to his partner with "they", perhaps he wasn't comfortable telling the entire table about his change in marriage status yet. Did Mr Fell really manage to partner up with a religion-averse person twice in a row?
In between her whirlwind of thoughts, Joanne had picked up the fact that the other members of the committee seemed sympathetic to Mr Fell and his partner's predicament and elected to move the event to the community centre, which meant they would be able to finally meet Mr Fell's infamous partner.
Mr Fell hadn't been very interested in clearing up Joanne's confusion on the partner situation, or perhaps he'd forgotten he'd mentioned his husband to her, because after the meeting he'd continued to refer to his partner with "they" even to Joanne.
She'd thought maybe he'd wanted to tell the whole committee at once, because 2 weeks later he'd told everyone how happy his husband was that he could attend the fundraiser after all. A few people had looked slightly confused at the mention, but Joanne hadn't been able decipher if that was because of the gender of the partner in general or if they'd also previously known of a wife.
When the day of the Christmas celebration and fundraiser finally came, Joanne had been floored. Mr Fell had arrived fashionably late and instead of the expected husband, he'd arrived with a striking woman on his arm. The woman, who Mr Fell introduced to everyone as his wife, was tall and slim as opposed to Mr Fell's shorter and fuller figure, and had long wavy red hair. She'd been wearing a long black silk dress and, for some inexplicable reason, sunglasses indoors.
Joanne hadn't been able to keep her eyes off of the pair all night. The wife referred to Mr Fell as "angel" and shared her plate of food with him after they splurged on the various snacks available to raise money for the children's hospital. They did really seem to be happy and in love. The wife hadn't spoken much to the adults at the event, but had seemed more interested indulging the kids and their copious amounts of questions and tales.
The entire spectacle made Joanne's blood run cold, because the existence of the wife in Mr Fell's life meant that for there to also be a husband, Mr Fell had to be cheating on his sweet and generous wife. Joanne couldn't believe she'd misjudged Mr Fell so badly.
Mr Fell hadn't seemed to realise he had revealed his adulterous lifestyle to the community, flitting between conversations with neighbours and checking on his wife. He had seemed happy and most of the other attendees had seemed just as happy to engage with him.
It was true that Joanne didn't see or talk to Mr Fell much outside of the church, but she couldn't believe that would make such a difference that she had seemed one of the only people even slightly put off by the presence of Mr Fell's wife.
There was one other lady, Barbara, bless her heart, she'd been quite closed off since her son had suddenly left, who had seemed to notice the same thing Joanne did. After locking eyes from across the room, Barbara approached her for a bit of Christmas gossip.
"I thought that Mr Fell didn't bat for that team," Barbara had murmured once she was close enough, "Last I heard he had a husband."
"Oh thank god, I thought I was the only one that noticed that," Joanne had responded. She really was relieved, she'd almost thought she'd gone mad.
After that evening Joanne had kept in occasional contact with Barbara. Mostly to keep eachother updated on the Mr Fell situation, but she'd also noticed Barbara appreciated having someone to talk to.
Mr Fell alternated between mentioning his wife and his husband, sometimes just referring to a partner, seemingly randomly, which had only confirmed Joanne and Barbara's suspicions that Mr Fell was cheating on his wife with a man. Until one day Barbara had come with a new theory. Apparently her remaining daughter had suggested the possibility that maybe Mr Fell wasn't cheating, but was simply in an open relationship with both his wife and his husband.
The theory had seemed ridiculous to the both of them. A person didn't have multiple partners that all knew of eachother, that was degeneracy at it's finest. And if it was true, the poor wife had to live with her husband knowing he also shared the bed with another man on frequent occasion. How sad it must be for her to know she's not fully loved. Joanne and Barbara didn't know if this option was better of worse than the cheating.
The theory had seemed plausible, it would explain why no-one in the village seemed to care if this village was a lot more progressive than Joanne had originally thought. So they let it be for the moment, occasionally keeping eachother updated, but no longer devoting their full attention to the topic.
And here they were, 7 months after Mr Fell moved to the South Downs, at the spring barbeque, looking at Mr Fell who brought his husband to the event. No-one seemed to bat an eye, in fact, everyone seemed delighted to see the husband came. It didn't seem like anyone thought it was weird that Mr Fell either had multiple partners or was cheating on one of them.
Joanne and Barbara were looking at the pair from the other side of the park. Joanne noticed the husband had an awful lot of resemblance to the wife, down to the hair colour and the sunglasses. Although the sunglasses did make more sense this time, as the sun had made a rare appearance and didn't show signs of disappearing soon. Even the clothes of the husband were all black like the wife's had been. It made Joanne a bit uncomfortable to see. The husband seemed to tell Mr Fell something while looking around.
—
Aziraphale looked at Crowley's mischievous face and rolled his eyes. Crowley turned out to be delighted by the fact that Aziraphale accidentally confused two of the church ladies on Crowley's gender and relation to him. After he had found out about it at the Christmas fundraiser he'd forbidden Aziraphale from clearing up the confusion, to see what came of it. Still a demon it seemed.
"Angel they're looking at us again. How long do you think it'll take them to figure it out on their own," Crowley said while subtly looking over his shoulder.
"My dear boy I really do think it's starting to get a bit rude. Joanne will barely speak to me and Barbara already has enough on her plate with her daughter leaving, however deserved." Aziraphale didn't really think it was that rude, but he had to give Crowley something to push back against, that was their dynamic after all.
"I didn't think I'd ever be able to confuse humans in this way again, who knew we'd move to a village with confused church ladies and a transphobe?" Crowley genuinely looked delighted at the notion, although Aziraphale knew he was pissed at Barbara's ignorance and this was his way of giving payback.
"You are insatiable. Quit your staring and get me another kebab. Please."
At that, Crowley swirled around and slithered of with a theatrical bow. "As you wish, my angel".
—
Not much of note happened the rest of the month. The village seemed entirely content with Mr Fell's relationship(s) and Joanne and Barbara were still not sure what to make of the situation. They were apprehensive to approach other neighbours on the subject, afraid to come off as ignorant or bigoted, but they were extremely confused and also increasingly unsettled by Mr Fell and his relationship.
It didn't help that Mr Fell was acting like nothing was amiss. He kept up his volunteer work at the church and kept being kind and talking to Joanne whenever possible. Avoiding him didn't seem to help as he seemed oblivious to her attempts.
One day he started telling her about the flowers his husband had been growing and how beautiful they'd become.
"Oh Joanne you simply must see them, he did such a good job growing these beauties. I even convinced the church to let me decorate the space with them an bit."
Joanne had just smiled and nodded while he told her the husband would be by later that week to deliver the flowers. She didn't know how that was gonna go, with Mr Fell's partners' aversion to even being near the church, but she was curious to see what was going to happen, so she made a not to herself to be there when the flowers got delivered.
On the day of the delivery Joanne was pretending to look busy near the entrance of the church grounds, while Mr Fell was somewhere inside. Suddenly she heard a loud voice yell.
"Aziraphale! I'm here! Better come get your flowers because I'm not taking them to you!"
She whipped her head around to search for the source of the voice and saw what seemed to be the husband standing just outside the gate with two crates of flowers on the ground.
Mr Fell came rushing outside to the gate. Joanne walked closer so she could overhear the conversation. Mr Fell would want her to see the flowers anyway.
"Hello my dear…" Mr Fell said.
"Yes, hello angel," The husband said with a kiss to Mr Fell's cheek.
"Right, well thank you so much for coming here my dear. I know how much you hate it."
"Yeah yeah you're welcome. Who's the lady looking like she's pretending not to listen to our conversation?"
Shit.
Joanne quickly stepped forward with an outstretched hand. "Oh I'm sorry, how terribly rude of me. I'm Joanne, the groundskeeper, you must be Mr Fell's husband."
"Can't shake that hand I'm afraid, holy ground and all that. And not Mr Fell's husband at the moment, no."
Joanne dropped her hand with a confused look on her face. "I thought Mr Fell's husband was coming to deliver the flowers? That's you is it not? You were at the barbeque with him."
"An observant eye, Yes I was, and at the New Years celebration and the Christmas fundraiser. I even occasionally take him out to eat, he's very spoiled."
That confused Joanne even further. "But, But…" She floundered for a moment, looking at the expectant smirk and raised eyebrow of Mr Fell's not-husband.
She regained her composure and started talking before she lost her nerve, "I remember his wife being with him at the Christmas fundraiser, as well as the New Years celebration."
This seemed to amuse the not-husband greatly, who looked at Mr Fell with a big grin.
"You wanna tell her or should I?"
"You do it you horrible snake, you got us into this mess." Mr Fell raised an accusing eyebrow at the not-husband, who seemed entirely unbothered and turned to Joanne.
"Yes, his wife was with him at both events. His wife, who is occasionally his husband, and also occasionally his non-gendered partner, like now."
It took Joanne a moment to comprehend what was being said to her, when it suddenly clicked. Her niece, the same one with the girlfriend, told her about this phenomenon a few months ago. She had explained that sometimes people aren't men or women and sometimes people are both, depending on the day, that must be the case here. Joanne didn't fully understand the concept, but must just be the modern world.
"Ah, I'm terribly sorry for the misunderstanding. Mr Fell didn't tell me."
The not-husband, or partner she now knew, rolled their eyes. "Yeah he does that sometimes, forgets to tell people and confuses everyone in the process. I bet you thought he was cheating right? That happens a lot."
Joanne felt her cheeks heat up, suddenly very embarrassed. Mr Fell may have not told her, but it was on her for assuming the worst of Mr Fell and it seemed the partner knew that, if the look they were giving her was any indication. She really did need to apologize.
"I really am sorry for assuming and not just asking Mr Fell." She looked at the partner. "And I'm sorry to you for the uncomfortable situation I must have put you in just now. Mr Fell, please introduce me to your partner."
Joanne walked towards the gate, this time determined to meet the partner where they were at and shaking their hand. The aversion to the church made sense now, her niece was the same way, she'd explained a lot of people in their community had bad experiences with the church. It saddened her that they distanced themselves from god, but everyone deserves to be treated with respect, so she won't force the partner to enter the premises.
"Ah yes of course. Crowley, this is Joanne, and Joanne, this is my lovely partner Crowley." Mr Fell beamed at both of them and entwined his hands in front of his chest.
The partner, Crowley, took Joanne's hand in theirs and gave it a shake. "Charmed."
During the exchange Joanne thought about how she should tell Barbara, if it was even her place to tell Barbara. In the end she chose to let the situation be for now. She didn't know if Barbara would be as receptive to this explanation as she had been.
After the introduction Joanne helped Mr Fell carry the crates of flowers inside, while Crowley drove away at a ridiculous speed in a vintage car. She looked at them speed off with a look of disapproval, but smiled when she saw her look mirrored on Mr Fell's face. He really wasn't so bad after all, and neither was the partner.