The next morning, as promised, the bell rings promptly, and despite choosing to stay up all night reading instead of sleeping, Aziraphale is nowhere near dressed for the uniform check, and when he looks over at Anathema’s bed, he sees she’s still asleep.
“Oh, Ms. Device! Please, you need to wake up!”
The young woman in fact does not wake up, instead rolls over, mumbling something along the lines of, “5 more minutes. Book said so.”
Aziraphale stands up as he starts to get dressed manually, for appearances, scolding her, “The book is going to be thrown at you if you don’t. Get. Up! You heard Mr. Kaufmann, same as me. Morning bell, 10 minutes to prepare our uniforms for inspection. Downstairs.”
Thankfully, Anathema does start to rise from her bed, whining, “It’s not even sunrise!”
Aziraphale doesn’t stop his pace as he says without missing a beat, “We’re well past sunrise.”, right as he goes into his drawers. “Oh no, tell me I didn’t already lose a cufflink.”
Anathema pauses putting on her trousers to look at him. “You gotta be kidding. And on the first day of training?”
“I do not have time to worry about a small piece of silver I’ve only ever worn on special occasions!” comes the voice from the floor, where Aziraphale is currently on his hands and knees looking for it.
“Alright, no need to snap at me! I’ll just help you look for it.” Anathema stands up, holding her tie. “And in return, you will help me tie a Windsor knot.”
Aziraphale sighs, but really, after all of this before the official training has begun, what can he do?
“Never slip your hands into your pockets. It’s quite unprofessional.” Kaufmann criticises as he inspects everyone’s uniforms, while someone behind him makes a note of it in the gradebook.
“Wrinkled trousers. You’ll do well to iron those.”
“I see you’ve knotted your tie correctly. Well done. But you’ve buttoned the top button instead of the bottom.”
“A disgrace to the Windsor name. And those shoes are as spotted as a Dalmatian.”
This student incorrectly decides to protest this, “No they’re not! I can’t even see anything!”
Kaufmann laughs, “Oh, so you know better than someone with 25 more years under their belt than you?”
The student wisely shuts up after that, so Kaufmann moves onto Anathema, who’s right next to Aziraphale.
“Very good knot, Ms. Device. But fix your jacket. You have too many inches between the jacket and your waist.”
Aziraphale flinches before Kaufmann even says, “Mr. Fell, what has happened to your cufflink?”
Aziraphale’s immediately apologetic, “I am so sorry, Mr. Kaufmann, I searched high and low, and couldn’t find it anywhere.”
Kaufmann shakes his head in disappointment, “A butler never blames anyone but themselves, Mr. Fell. And what they don’t blame on themselves, they fix themselves. Am I clear?”
Oh please, someone discorporate me right now.
Out loud, Aziraphale only says, “Absolutely sir. It will never happen again.”
“See to it you find that missing cufflink. If you were on the job, something like that would’ve gotten you fired.”
Some loud footsteps behind them makes Kaufmann pause long enough to turn around, seeing Crowley saunter vaguely down the staircase as he joins them.
YOU ARE READING
At Your Service
RomanceAt a prestigious academy where competition is fierce, sparks fly between passionate angel Aziraphale and the rebellious demon Crowley as they go undercover to train to become royal butlers.
