Chapter Text
Az’s heart was galloping in his chest. He could feel the blood rushing in his ears. He was still just another body in another chair at this massive table and yet he felt like if he didn’t speak up and act he would physically explode.
He heard the screech of his chair as he pushed back from the table and stood up.
“Someone needs to do something about this!” he burst out with a strangled cry. All heads swivelled to look at him. Shit.
This was not going very well at all, was it?
The staff meeting had started out so reasonably. So civil. Polite. But Az was feeling anything but civil and polite. Usually he was bored to tears at any and all of the many teachers’ meetings he was required to attend throughout the year. But today was different. Today he felt as if a colony of bees were living just under his skin, buzzing and ready to burst out at any moment. He fidgeted with his cufflinks, the pleats of his trousers, and most reassuringly, the buttons of his waistcoat, the worn felt a welcome texture under his fingers. He tried to keep it cool but he was objectively not cool.
He didn’t know why it was getting to him quite so much. He had been a secondary school teacher for decades. He thought he had seen every brand of unkindness children could bring against each other. But perhaps this was different because he thought things were getting better. He thought the world was changing. And then on a day like today it was so very clear that in so many ways things were terribly the same.
Mr Brumley, headteacher, had called the meeting to attention in his usual way; a curt clearing of the throat and a withering glare down the table. Az disliked the man for a variety of reasons: his backward-looking values, his lacklustre small talk (think: horses), and his general lack of actual caring for the students he professed to teach. But, Az was pleased he had called this meeting. It meant he was taking what happened seriously.
“There has been a rather serious incident,” Mr Brumley began, and Az nodded eagerly from his seat, waiting to see what would be done about it. Mr Brumley droned on, “For those who haven’t heard, there was a rather ugly episode of bullying.”
“Oh, it was just the usual sort of shenanigans,” cut in Mr Cartwright, oblivious to the displeased frown that creased Mr Brumley’s forehead at the interruption. “Nothing we haven’t dealt with a hundred times before. Boys will be boys and all that.”
Az tried with great effort not to roll his eyes.
“I rather think it was more than that,” replied Mrs Smith from across the table to Mr Cartwright.
“Could we please keep the commentary until the end,” Mr Brumley said, his voice low, even, utterly polite, which is to say he was furious. “I will summarize the events – in short, there was some unfortunate graffiti, a fistfight, and one boy has been taken to A and E. Perhaps nothing terribly out of the ordinary, but given that the boy requiring medical attention is, ahem,” Mr Brumley paused before uttering the next words, “part of the ell-gee-bee-tee community, there is a risk of media attention on the story. We must be seen to be acting with fairness and correctness or we risk damaging the reputation of the school.”
If before Az was a colony of bees, well, now he was a swarm. An angry swarm. He vaguely contemplated that he had never known the feeling of ‘blood boiling’ could feel quite so close to literal. There had not been unfortunate graffiti, there was hate speech! Painted on the wall of a major corridor! And there had not been a fistfight – a teen, a veritable child! – had been jumped by a number of students causing serious bodily harm. And that child was not a boy but rather a young person of… of… well, as far as Az understood it, indeterminate gender. There was another word for it. Az didn’t quite know. But he knew boy was incorrect.
“So,” Mr Brumley concluded, “I hope some of you will step up for the work needed to remedy this situation.”
Az took a shaky breath. Right. They were going to make this right.
“I’ve already asked the custodial staff to clean up the graffiti,” noted Miss Fern, lead administrator. Mr Brumley nodded his acknowledgement of this. “Restoration of the corridor is already underway.”
“I will draft up some statements for the media, and to send to parents,” noted assistant headteacher Mr Byrne.
“Perhaps we could have an assembly on kindness and respect?” piped up Miss Church, of the younger teachers, science department.
“Excellent idea,” Mr Brumley. “And an announcement tomorrow morning. I do think that will get us quite far.”
Az knew that his mouth was agape. He knew that he had lost all sense of decorum. It was just… none of this was a plan to remedy the situation. This was a plan for damage control. Image management. None of this was going to actually solve the problem.
He didn’t mean to stand up and shout. He hadn’t even intended to get involved. He didn’t need extra work on his plate. Frankly, he was always trying to find ways to do less.
But still, he had done it. He had stood up and shouted and now everyone was looking at him.
“Someone needs to do something about this! Not about our image – about the actual problem! This child was targeted for being different and I won’t pretend to know anything about it either but maybe that’s the problem! Maybe if we knew a bit more, maybe if it didn’t feel so different, our school would be safer for all students!”
Everyone was still staring at him. Even Mr Brumley seemed to be struck dumb.
In typical fashion, Az felt compelled to fill the vacuum with his own rambling thoughts.
“I mean, I really know nothing about what this student is going through, but isn’t there a thing – a thing other schools do about that? You know. A club. Not just for one group or the other. Kind of an outreach thing. Someone must know what I mean.”
“Do you mean a Gay Straight Alliance?”
The voice seemed to unfurl from the back of the room. It seemed to come out of nowhere. It seemed to hit Az like a freight train at top speed.
“Yes! Yes, that’s it! A Gay Straight Alliance!”
He looked gratefully towards the corner but had difficulty spotting the man who had spoken. He seemed to be sitting in the shadows and was – improbably – wearing sunglasses. At a meeting. With the headteacher.
But Az didn’t have time to focus on all of that. He whirled back around to Mr Brumley. “I do think that would make a difference – help to educate the kids about… about… the LGBT community. And in turn make someplace safe that students in that community can go.”
“Hmmm… I have heard that Fiddlebush Academy has one of those,” Mr Brumley mused. Fiddlebush was a rival school that Mr Brumley tended to hyperfixate on. “Yes I do think that would help, to say we were forming one of those. Of course it will need faculty support,” Mr Brumley looked down the long edge of his nose meaningfully towards Az.
Oh shit. Here was the extra work. Another thing to take him away from his precious armchair and ‘to be read’ pile.
“I’ll… I’ll do it,” he said, shakily. He didn’t see what choice he had.
“You will need at least one other of your colleagues to step up, each club must have a minimum of two faculty members to oversee,” Miss Fern put in, kindly but firm.
Az cast his eyes frantically across the table, looking to see who had been more sympathetic to his cause. Certainly not Mr Cartright.
“Count me in,” said a voice from the back, lifting a solitary finger to the sky. Az squinted, trying to better see who was speaking.
“Thank you, Mr Crowley,” Mr Brumley said, glancing absently at the papers before him. “Well, I think we all have enough work to do. Remember to keep a unified message when conversing with students or parents. This is an unfortunate thing that happened, very out of character for our wonderful school. It has been addressed and we don’t expect any further ugliness. Understood?”
A mumbled chorus of assent, and then the meeting was dismissed. Az, finding he was somehow still standing, began to make his way to the back of the meeting room to see this mysterious Mr Crowley.
Mr Crowley was relatively new to the school. Though he was roughly the same age as Az, Az had been made to understand he was relatively new to teaching as well. There had been some comments about him being a green teacher when he first arrived a few years ago, washed up from life as a rockstar, or a drug addict, or or or. Az supposed these rumours swirled because he wore trousers that were slightly more snug than propriety demanded, and his hair was always immaculately coiffed, and he just generally looked cool. The rumours had swirled but in time Mr Crowley was left to his own devices. It appeared he taught a competent course – mathematics and physics, as it turned out – and most people simply ignored him. Mr Crowley had made it clear he was not interested in any work-related socializing and after a few rebuffs the faculty of the school had declared the feeling was quite mutual, thank you very much.
“I, er, um, thank you, Mr Crowley” Az began, finding Mr Crowley as he was about to file out the back of the room.
Mr Crowley shrugged. Was everything about him languid? Was he the human embodiment of the children' s current favourite word, “chill”?
“Not a problem, Mr Fell,” Crowley replied with a little bow.
“Please – call me Az. Short for Aziraphale which is a mouthful,” Az said.
Crowley looked as if he might choke.
“Az, then. I didn’t like what happened any more than you did,” Mr Crowley replied. “And it was clear those wankers weren’t going to do a thing about it.”
Az was not going to let it show that he was vaguely scandalized by Mr Crowley’s language use while in school and possibly still in earshot of other colleagues.
“I really was quite surprised by that, I must say,” Az murmured. “But here we are now! I must confess I know very very little about the topic at hand. I just wanted to tell you that before we get started. I’m absolutely willing to do the work to get up to speed but I’m hoping you might be able to guide me a little? Do you have any experience in setting up this type of club, or working with this group of students?”
Once again, Mr Crowley shrugged.
“Nothing to it,” he said, his voice so smooth it sent a shiver down Az’s spine. “And nothing to worry about. At the end of the day, kids are kids. We create a space for them and let them lead the way. I figure if you just listen to kids, then you’re halfway there already.”
“Right you are,” Az said, already feeling cheered and on firmer ground.
“Besides, you’re the literature bloke, aren’t you? Surely there are some,” here Mr Crowley waved his hand in the air vaguely, long fingers tracing large circles, “books you could read on the subject? Research you could do?”
“Right you are again!” Az grinned, nodding to himself. “Yes, I’ll start on it tonight! Perhaps we could touch base tomorrow sometime and work out logistics?”
Mr Crowley nodded his ascent and then, the conversation apparently over, he took his leave, spinning around and strutting out the door on his long legs. Az cleared his throat and looked down, composing himself a little. The trousers really were as tight as the rumours often remarked.
“Oh, and Mr Fell,” Mr Crowley said, from over his shoulder, just outside the doorframe.
“Yes, Mr Crowley?” Az asked, his cheeks reddening to have his thoughts interrupted in this way.
“If we’re going to be working on this together, just call me Crowley. Mr Crowley is for students, strangers and wankers.”
“Crowley,” Az repeated, trying it out in his mouth.
“Ciao,” Crowley said, with a wave of his hand. And he was off.