Chapter Text
Every day started the same for Aziraphale, at 6 am she woke up and began the 3 hours progress of creating the day’s special desserts. Sometime around 8 am Anathema would show up for her shift and not too soon after Newt would show up with breakfast for both of them. Eventually, customers would show up, mostly the regulars, which is exactly how she liked it. Too many new faces would concern her and the last thing she needed was random people coming in and doing god knows what with her books and ruining the perfectly organized bookshelves she worked so hard to maintain. Once she ran out of desserts to sell for the day, she would close the shop. That normally happened around 2 pm, which gave her plenty of time for reading.
This was how her day went every day and any inconveniences to this daily schedule annoyed her to no end.
She quite enjoyed the life she had, her shop was on a nice corner of the street with very few shops around which meant no unnecessary conversations with neighbors. The only real space for another shop was right next to her but that space had been empty since before she moved in and she had done a pretty good job of keeping it that way, without causing any issues to the said person wanting to buy it, of course.
However, recently her efforts of keeping her life like this had gone no way. The space next door had somehow, without her noticing, become less empty and much louder than she would have liked it to be.
The vacancy of the space must have been filled on one of the days where she had to attend annual family meetings, otherwise, it would have never been filled in the first place. Oh, how she dreaded the days where she was forced to leave her peaceful life of reading as many books as she could without any interruptions to go see a family who spent most of her life ignoring her.
Nevertheless, there was still the issue of what, or rather who could possibly be moving in next door to her peaceful life. Whoever it might be must have never been taught to respect other people's things. The consent construction noises and moving trucks appearing in the back alley were to be expected. However, the loud and almost repulsive music coming from next door only worsened the idea of having a neighbor.
“Do they not realize that there are people behind these walls trying to have a calm day,” Aziraphale complained.
“They probably don't realize that we’re open like everyone else does…” Anathema commented while handing another cup of tea to one of the regulars, Shadwell.
“Still, they should still be conscientious of others around them.” Aziraphale began reorganizing a bookshelf, which always seems to calm her down.
“Well, at least they could play something actually good,” Shadwell complained while enjoying his tea.
“Oh yes, I bet you would much rather prefer something classical instead.” Anathema jokes.
“I don’t know, I kind of like it.” Newt began tapping his foot to the beat, which caused a silence among the group as the song continued to play. Playing was a song Aziraphale had never heard before but most definitely did not enjoy. Another one bites the dust… another one bites the dust...and another one gone, and another one is gone.
“ugh, bee-boop…” Aziraphale groaned.
“Still I wonder what kind of shop it will be…” Anathema stared out the front window.
“Hopefully nothing that invites more of the younger generation into the neighborhood, we have enough already with you two…” Shadwell complained again, this time directing it towards Anathema and Newt.
“I hope it’s a computer store. I love walking through those, although I'm no longer allowed to bring anything home…” Newt suggested.
“That’s because you always end up breaking it into more pieces than what you originally paid for…” Anathema glared at him.
“If you’re all so interested in finding out, just go over there then…” Aziraphale said, sounding much angrier than she intended to.
“C’mon, Azria. You are not just a little bit curious about who might be your new neighbor?” Anathema questioned.
“No, why should I be? The last thing I need to be is curious about someone who will probably be gone in the next month or so.”
However, Aziraphale couldn’t be more off in this assumption. While the constitution had eventually finished and amount of moving trucks has decreased within the next couple of months. There was still the problem of the music, which in Aziraphale’s opinion, whoever it might be next door, their taste had gotten much worse within these last couple of months.
Assumable, more what Aziraphale had been told by Newt and Anathema, the space next door was turned into a “vintage” music store. “The owner is actually a very nice person,” Newt mentioned.
“Yeah, she looked a little scary at first but she was nice. You should really go introduce yourself, as a neighbor would.” Anathema suggested.
“Mhm…’ Aziraphale tried to listen to them, but with the music next door, it was becoming harder and harder for her to focus, let alone enjoy anything in her life anymore. It was really starting to get to her.
Later that day, once the cafe was closed and Newt and Anathema went home, Aziraphale went to do her daily routine of getting to enjoy a quiet evening while reading. Luckily for her, the music from her new neighbor could barely be heard from her apartment, which gave her a chance to finally relax.
Sitting down with a cup of hot chocolate in one hand and a good book in the other, Aziraphale snuggled up with her blanket to finally enjoy the evening. Relaxing into it, she could finally for the first time in what seemed like months, she finally felt like her old self again.
Just as she felt herself drifting off to sleep, which tends to happen for her during these types of days. She heard a loud noise followed by yelling next door and the music is turned down. She tried to ignore and go back to her peaceful evening, but once the yelling had stopped the music began again, however, this time was much louder than before. So loud that even in her apartment, which Aziraphale considered her safe place, she could hear the music.
It takes quite a lot for Aziraphale to be truly angry, sure she had been annoyed and maybe even a little frustrated about things before. However, being truly angry was never something she felt, until now.
She quickly set her book and her cup down at the side table next to her and stormed down the stairs of her apartment. Stomping her way through her closed cafe to the front door and out to the next store over, anyone who was around at that time in the street would have noticed that she was a woman on a mission.
Opening the door to this said “vintage music” store, she walked in and immediately went to the front desk where two young teenage boys were arguing.
“Excuse me…” Aziraphale said, trying not to interrupt, sure she was angry but she wasn’t a rude person. If someone is having a conversation she wouldn’t want to intrude just to complain.
“All I'm saying is that you should listen to other music, something happier.” one of the boys said.
“And all I’m saying is music can be interpreted in many different ways, maybe MCR makes me happy. Have you ever thought about that?” the other one said.
Looking at both of the boys, Aziraphale could tell how very different to each other they both were. One with short brown hair and a shirt with some sort of joke on it, Aziraphale couldn't make sense of how it could be funny. While the other brown had black hair covered his eyes and overall black attire on. Either way both of them, in Aziraphale's opinion, looked very unprofessional.
“I just don’t understand how it could be though…all the song is about sad stuff like setting things on fire and how teenagers suck. '' the brown-haired one argued.
“Teenagers do suck.” the black-haired one said back.
“We’re teenagers!” the other one yelled.
“yea and you both are super annoying…” from the back room, out came a tall woman with long dark red hair, wearing mostly black and tinted glasses. “Please stop arguing about stupid things, you know how hard it is to talk to my plant with two children arguing about music. Besides, the only music allowed in this store is Queen,” she noted and both of the boys sighed.
“Anyway…” she looked over and finally noticed Aziraphale standing there, “oh, a customer! Why did you two say anything.” she glared at the two boys who also finally noticed her standing there.
“I’m so sorry, ma’am. I hope you weren’t waiting too long.” she smiled, “is there anything I can help you with?”
“Well...i..” she tried to find the word, but she didn’t expect this person to look so kind and well...pretty.
“She’s probably here for some classical music…” the black-haired one noted.
“You shouldn’t assume things, Warlock.” the woman spoke without breaking eye contact with Aziraphale.
“Yea, maybe she wants something like Elton John or the Beatles.” the brown-haired one added.
“N-no...I actually…”
“Again, we shouldn’t assume things, Adam…” she turned to look at both the boys and mouthed something to them that made them walk to a different part of the store. “So what can I help you find today?” she turned back to Aziraphale with a smile.
“I-i’m not actually…” she tried to say.
“How about we start by genre, maybe I can find something you might like.” she walked over to one of the music shelves and Aziraphale followed.
She began looking through each row, mumbling about what might be a good choice. Eventually, she picked one out and tried to hand it to Aziraphale, “this might be something you’ll like…”
“No, thanks. I’m not a huge fan of bebop.”
When Aziraphale didn’t grab it, “well, maybe something else…” the woman turned back to the shelves.
“Actually, I'm not here to buy anything…” Aziraphale spoke.
“Oh, you’re not?” the woman turned back to her.
“No…” she took a breath before speaking again, “I own the cafe next door.”
“Oh, the Angel!” She seemed excited.
“‘What?” she blushed.
“Sorry, that’s just what your employees describe you as so I kind of thought it would be a cute nickname if we ever met. Though this is the first time we actually talked, why has it taken us this long to actually talk? We’ve been neighbors for like 4 months now.”
“That’s not important...i-i came to talk to you about your music.” Aziraphale stood tall.
“Oh, yeah...sorry about-”
“Normally I wouldn't bring this up, I hate to be an inconvenience. However, the loud music at all hours of the day, while I'm trying to bake or read has been a problem. I can’t focus and I would like to turn it down at least during business hours, or even better, just turn them off.`` She spoke fast.
“Right, of course. However, in my defense, this is a music store, also I wasn't exactly sure when you were open.” the woman rubbed the back of her neck. “Sorry, I'll make sure we keep it down, Angel.”
“Thank you…” Aziraphale began to turn to the door and stopped, “also my name is Aziraphale, not Angel.” she turned back to the door and walked out, going back to her hopefully peaceful evening without worrying about any loud music that the cute red-haired lady next door would play.