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There’s some days when Aziraphale is the only voice in the bookshop. He isn’t alone. He definitely isn’t lonely . Not when he has the love of his long, long life curled up asleep on the sofa across the room from him. Not when their daughter, Maddie, is happily building the blanket fort between Aziraphale’s personal bookshelves that will be tonight’s dinner location.
There are days when Crowley just cannot talk. Just cannot push past the fog, the walls in his mind. The pressure. When even sign language isn’t possible. When movement and thought and sensory input is too much . On those days, the kindest thing Aziraphale can do is stay in the room. Be nearby. Be close and to hand for Crowley to lean on, to hide in. Maddie knows how it feels. Lives it day in and day. She and Crowley react in similar ways to oversensitivity. It was hard at first. Horribly, heart-tearingly hard.
Aziraphale and Crowley had messed up. They hadn’t understood quick enough. They’d made mistakes and they’d hurt Maddie more.
But they’d learned. They’re still learning but they’re building on a foundation now instead of scrambling for a raft in the sea. (They’d both relished in learning the modern sign language; it had been a long time since they’d learnt an entirely new language.)
Aziraphale closes his book gently and casts his eyes over his home.
Crowley lifts his head from where he’d had it buried in the back of the sofa for the past couple of hours. There are lines criss-crossing his cheek and forehead from the cushion. His hair is limp, uncared for today. There aren’t tears in his eyes, they may come later in the evening when they’ve told stories until Maddie falls asleep or they may not come at all. But he can’t keep his eyes on any one thing, not even Aziraphale. A fragility in the dipping of his eyelashes against his sharp cheekbones.
Maddie is finishing setting out the cushions inside the fort. Each one has its own place. This is Friday’s routine. It is Maddie’s joy as she sets everything where it should be.
Aziraphale smiles to himself. He rises and moves to pass Crowley to fetch Maddie’s plates and cutlery from the kitchen he installed specifically for her. (He won’t admit it, but he also may have hoped that Crowley would experiment with baking or cooking in his retirement.) (It was not an unfounded hope as the small shelf of recipe books can attest to.)
Crowley tips his head back as Aziraphale draws near, one arm reaching up to wave noncommittally for his attention. The angel runs his fingers softly through the long curls of Crowley’s hair before dropping a kiss to his temple. Crowley catches and squeezes Aziraphale’s wrist before curling back up. Maddie, having noticed her parents’ movements, brings over one of the spare blankets and drapes it over Crowley’s legs up on the sofa cushions. He smiles, the first bright smile of the day, and asks in sign for permission to give Maddie a kiss. She nods and giggles as Crowley scoops her up onto the sofa with him, planting an affectionate kiss to the top of her unruly hair.
No. Aziraphale is not lonely. Not one bit.