Chapter Text
The University of Tadfield campus looked beautiful in the snow.
It was situated at the highest point of a quaint coastal English village, overlooking the houses and amenities that sat quietly in the foothills. The village, whilst being at first look rather unassuming, was in reality quite a miraculous place. The people were happy. The local businesses thrived. The weather was always perfectly appropriate for the season: fresh springs, hot summers, crisp autumns. At this time of year, the town always welcomed in a gorgeous, white, festive winter.
The University itself was all picturesque stone buildings that seemed to be handpicked from a book of fairy tales. A breath-taking library with winding wooden staircases, packed to the rafters with precious leather-bound tomes; cloisters that framed a beautiful grassy square, complete with central fountain; quiet pathways between departmental buildings that were arched by tall trees and verdant hedges. From the tallest towers of the oldest buildings on campus, the view out to sea was remarkable. Despite being tucked away in a quiet pocket of rural paradise, the University of Tadfield was one of those places that managed to thrum with excitement, curiosity and imagination. Amongst those lucky few who knew about it, the place was renowned for its astute, promising students and passionate, subject leading staff. It was, to sum it up, a wonderful place to be.
Especially at Christmas time.
Dr. A.Z. Fell was one of the most impressive and widely read literature tutors who a student of the subject could hope to learn from. He had been at Tadfield as a tenured member of faculty for five years, and was well loved amongst staff and students alike. He was a distinguished fellow, and could always be recognised by his cream coloured coat and tartan bow tie. Dr. Fell was a man known for his impassioned lectures and innovative research. His tongue was sharp: his readings of both poetry and prose could entrance even the least literary of listeners. Fell was a man who carried with him an aura of intrigue, a love for his job and his students, and stacks upon stacks of knowledge. He was also, as was widely agreed by all who met him, a rather handsome man. His old fashioned, neatly tailored sense of style only seemed to help him stand out, and never in a bad way. Oh yes; he had built himself a reputation in his few years at the University. It was widely accepted by now that on the Tadfield campus, there was no shortage of admirers for Dr. Fell’s platinum curls, sparkling hazel eyes and dream inducing smile.
The date was the first of December. Dr. Fell walked with keen stride across the University’s main courtyard, brown leather boots leaving footprints in the dusting of snow that lay on the ground. His button nose shone with the cold, the tips of his ears and the tops of his cheeks were tinted rose pink and his breath sent a warm cloud out into the air. He smiled, almost ear to ear, as he heard the University choir singing their Christmas set for the first time of the year. Oh, how he was ready for the festive season to begin. Despite the cold, he stopped and listened to their rendition of Joy to the World , bobbing his head and swaying gently as means of encouragement for the choristers that had come out so early in the December chill. The choir were always a key part of raising money for the Christmas Charity drive; as their song ended, he gave them a round of applause, tugging his gloves off to do so.
‘Absolutely wonderful!’
He chirped, slipping his wallet from his pocket and putting the first donation of the season into their collection bucket. Being early onto campus every day, he had managed to be the first donor every year for the last three (just by chance, of course. Though he was secretly becoming quite proud of his streak).
‘I do hope you’re reprising The First Noel this year. You do such a wonderful rendition!’
The lead chorister, a blue eyed second year with a head of brown curls, smiled widely.
‘Thanks Dr. F! We wouldn’t want to give away our whole set list, but it might be on there!’
The boy’s eyes sparkled in the morning sunlight, and Dr. Fell slipped his gloves back on, raising an amused eyebrow.
‘I suppose I’ll just have to stop by every morning and find out for myself then, shan’t I? Cheerio! Do keep on with the show, it is quite excellent!’
The students were, as always, cheered by his chipper morning demeanour - and when their voices rang out a little stronger as he walked away, he couldn’t help but smile once more.
Dr. A.J. Crowley was one of the University’s newest permanent faculty members. An influential researcher in the field of ecology, he was a respected but, as of yet, a relatively unknown entity amongst both students and his colleagues. His mind was fine tuned to understanding the inner workings of the natural world, and he was good at sharing that knowledge. And yet, despite the tenderness with which he could speak about plants and landscapes, he had a harsh approach to his students. In his first months at Tadfield, he had successfully cultivated not only the University’s greenhouses, but a reputation for the tough marking of coursework and an unforgiving response to the misuse of planting equipment (whether accidental or not). However, one key piece of information about Dr. Crowley had spread around the University like wildfire, and this was the thing that had now come to precede him: he, with his auburn locks, honeycomb eyes and stylish black clothes, was an incredibly attractive man.
It was his first Christmas at the University, and as he walked up towards the main courtyard and heard the first notes of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen , he decided that today he was feeling particularly surly. Tugging his collar up further around his neck, he swiftly headed round onto the back campus route that would lead him to the department of life sciences. It would add a few minutes to his journey time, but he much preferred that to hearing a bunch of fresh-faced undergraduates squawking about tidings of comfort and joy. As he crunched his way along the frost covered path, the cool winter sunshine glinting off his dark glasses, he tugged his coat around himself just a little bit tighter.
Aziraphale went through his usual morning ritual, which consisted of hanging his coat and scarf, propping open his door to welcome curious students and settling in his desk chair with a contented sigh. He was putting on his nifty reading glasses when Tracy swanned in holding his memos and mail.
‘Good morning cherub, and how are we today?’
Aziraphale allowed the department’s finest administrator to round his desk and pop a sneaky kiss on his cheek as she dropped his papers into his tray. He replied in his usual cheerful tone, tinged with an undertone of festive excitement.
‘December the first, my dear. It’s a special day!’
Tracy took a small stack of papers from the very top of his letter pile and placed them front and centre on his desk.
‘These are all of your Charity Drive related memos. I’ve set them aside so you can have a read! They need you to start recruiting volunteers from other departments straight away.’
Aziraphale, who had been shuffling through some uninteresting papers sent by management, started at this.
‘Me? Surely not, they usually have someone else recruit! The volunteers are normally all sorted by this point!’
‘They told me to tell you that they can’t outsource that part of the process any more.’
Aziraphale slumped, gazing at the stack of Wilde essays he needed to mark.
‘I have three lectures, two tutorials and a dissertation supervision today, and I need to get the second year Victorian Literature coursework sorted! Why are they springing this on me now?!’
His hands came together, and as they began to worry Tracy reached down and placed her palm on his balled up fists.
‘I know, love. Relax, you know Gabriel’s only done this to try and make it hard for you! You’re Aziraphale Fell, it won’t take you two minutes to gather a few keen students who want to help with the drive. You can ask them to spread the word, I guarantee you’ll have a full volunteer team by the end of the day!’
Aziraphale relaxed slightly, the tension dropping out of his shoulders. Tracy was, in all likelihood, right. Aziraphale had founded the festive fundraiser in his first year at Tadfield; it had raised a great deal for charitable causes in the local community and beyond, and as a result had quickly become a much loved tradition at the University. Last year, the finance department had come under new management; whilst they hadn’t been able to brutalise much departmental funding overall, they had certainly tried to switch things up where possible. Their big boss, Gabriel, had been quite insistent that the previous year’s Christmas Charity Drive would be the last, as there was no longer the budget for it. He really had seemed put out when staff and students had sided with Aziraphale, who had fought tooth and nail to keep it going. He huffed.
‘That man. You’d think he absolutely bloody hated Christmas with the way he’s so determined to kill this project!’
Aziraphale unfurled the first memo, and was presented with a list of times at which he was supposed to drop in on various lectures run by other departments to try and recruit their students. His lips tightened at the audacity of it; he was one of the busiest staff members in the whole University, constantly tutoring his charges and giving classes, yet the bloody finance department had scheduled an appearance for him in some random class every half hour of the day. Tracy, noting his swiftly building rage, gently took the memo from his hands. She of all people knew how much trouble Dr. Fell might end up in if he were to release his full wrath; he could publicly decimate Gabriel’s reputation with ease, but it would most certainly come back to bite him - no matter how righteous his anger.
‘Chin up, love. Why don’t you just get it over with? Go to the first one on the list, ask for some helpers and get them to recruit!’
Aziraphale dragged a hand down his face, sighing in defeat. This project had once been his baby; now, it was beginning to bring him a considerable amount of stress.
‘Yes,’ he stuttered. ‘Yes, that will- right.’
Resigned to his fate, he perused the list again. He was busy for the first hour’s worth of scheduled visits at least. He finally settled on the first one that he could make it to between delivering his nine o’clock lecture on Dickens and his half ten tutorial on Fantasy Fiction .
‘Ten o’clock, drop in at the start of the Plant Ecology and Evolution lecture, Life Sciences building, lecturer A.J. Crowley.’
He noted down the details, then binned the offending sheet of paper.
‘That will have to do.’
‘What are you talking about!?’
Anathema rolled her eyes. It was only half nine, but she had already had quite enough of Crowley being prickly.
‘He’ll only be dropping in for a minute or so. Usually they recruit for the project outside of class time, but clearly something has changed if Fell is coming in to ask people himself.’
Crowley almost growled in frustration, rounding his desk and slamming down the memos that the graduate student had just handed to him.
‘The last thing I want is some arty farty book doctor coming into my lecture and talking about Christmas. Send him to someone else’s class!’
Anathema rolled her eyes. ‘Messing staff members around is absolutely not within my remit. Besides, Dr. Fell is great! I’m not going to lie to him just because you want to have a tantrum!’
Crowley glared at her, before huffing in defeat.
‘Dr. A.Z. Fell. What in the bloody hell kind of name is that anyway?!’
As he rushed down the hill to the life sciences building, Aziraphale tugged at his collar. Though he’d never give Gabriel the satisfaction of admitting it, this was utterly demoralising; having to run between lecture theatres was the job of a first year student, not a respected member of staff. He swept into the foyer, cheeks pinked from the cold - and perhaps also from the slight jog he’d just taken in order to be on time. He’d never met an A.J. Crowley, but all the same he had respect for his fellow academics and he’d like to take up as little of the man’s lesson time as possible. Walking up to the desk of the shiny new build science block, he looked totally out of place and utterly wonderful.
‘Excuse me,’ he spoke softly, still working on catching his breath. ‘You couldn’t possibly point me towards lecture theatre three, could you?’
The brown haired boy sat behind the desk gave him his directions, and Aziraphale thanked him as he headed off.
Crowley looked at the clock as his students filed into the room. No sign of one Dr. Fell, but then he’d never met a punctual humanities expert in his life. As he shuffled through his lecture notes, he overheard a conversation between two girls in the front row.
‘Dr. Fell? As in blond Dr. Fell?’
‘Yes. The English tutor. The one who does the readings at grad ceremonies!’
‘He’s coming here? To PLANT class?!’
‘To talk about the Christmas drive! Anathema told me so…’
Crowley, who would normally baulk at his area of expertise being referred to only as ‘plant class’, was rather distracted by the outright blushing he could see manifesting in some of his students as they spoke of this ‘Dr. Fell’. This arty, poetry reading, apparently blond, now LATE, Dr. Fell-
The door swung open, and Crowley heard a pair of feet pacing across the theatre floor towards him. The students fell silent, and watched the University’s beautiful, subject leading arts lecturer stride towards their gorgeous, terrifying plant ecology lecturer.
‘So sorry I’m late. Dickens ran over! A.Z. Fell, I’m just here to give the students a little heads up about the Festive Charity project.’
There was a tentative pause in the man’s rambling, and Crowley soaked it up.
‘Oh, I do hope they told you, I did ask them to confirm with you!’
Crowley prepared himself to snark. He checked the time on his watch, confirming that this incredibly posh man had been cheeky enough to turn up a total of one minute and nineteen seconds late.
Then, he turned around to face Fell. Suddenly, he found that he was feeling very charitable indeed.