gabriel_tam | (no subject)

(no subject)

Everything about the opening ceremonies for the new Family and Life Support Center is tastefully coordinated in order to appeal to a wide variety of supporters and clientele both.

There's a large platform stage, of course, with tables for speakers and dignitaries set on either side of the center podium. Row upon row of chairs are arranged in gentle arcs between carefully-laid-out aisles, for the ease and convenience of the listening audience.

At the same time, the event planners had been wise enough to realize that the multitude of children expected would never be able to sit still for speeches, and as a result the Center's grassy courtyard holds a small-scale fair, complete with booths and prizes, food and games and all sorts of fun.

Adults and children wander freely back and forth, enjoying the event.

It's a beautiful day.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Demons don't apologize.

"Sorry," he says instantly, "I thought you were Tam's pet wolf. Honestly, and he lets that thing out around children."

He looks momentarily disgusted, an expression that quickly mutates into a businesslike grimace.

"Where is he?" he asks, voice low.

"No," Crowley says flatly, arching his back to try and hold his shoulders away from the door. "No. Gone, and you're not going after them - look, could you let me go?"

Slowly, he eases his weight backward until his hands drop back to his sides.

"Why not?" he asks, still calm.

"Because," Crowley says, hunching forward with a faint sigh of relief. "They're mine, and you can't have them. And," his eyes flick up to Raguel's face, "neither can Nic Rosse."

"Nic Rosse," he says, failing to keep the disdain out of his voice, "has very little to do with it."

"Anyway, I only want one of them. And you shouldn't hurt the others, they haven't done anything. Except the wolf, of course."

His eyes gleam alarmingly. It would be laughable to call it worthwhile, but whatever he's lost, Raguel is at least free now to take his own vengeance.

"I have no intention of hurting the others," Crowley says stiffly. "Maybe you've forgotten that's not the only thing mine can mean."

He lays his hands down carefully in the cradle behind drawn-up knees.

"What I want to know is why you've come for Gabriel Tam. If you're not here on Rosse's orders - and I'm fairly sure I don't believe you on that count - then why? What's your reasoning, Raguel?"

"Oh, he pointed me in this direction," he says, shrugging.

"Loaded and cocked and pointed at his enemies. Fucking hypocrite. But I looked into Tam on my own. All kinds of fun stuff that he doesn't even bother to hide. Weapons, allies, shifting playmates. He stands to gain quite a bit. Own gain, own glory. Not fair to the rest."

"And I haven't forgotten," he adds, face strangely blank. "What it means."

"You mean the IIGA?" Crowley says, though it's hardly a proper question. "Sure. He stands to gain a lot. I stand to gain a lot - that's why I'm a supporter. That's politics. But those weapons are also a slightly thicker red line between folks on the Rim and the Reavers, Browncoat idiocy or no. That's what the IIGA is about."

Pale and dishevelled and faintly clammy, Crowley's still visibly - tangibly - nervous.

He curls his lip.

"So if that's why you've come for Tam, now, then you're doing a pretty shoddy job at digging up justifications for barking when Rosse says bark."

"I am not Rosse's puppet," he says, with a certain amount of cold pride.

"You'll have to find a way to trust me on that one. And given that you've just claimed a man who Rosse clearly wants dead, I hope to hell that he doesn't imagine you are, either." Raguel's general confusion seems to have diminished somewhat; anger is keeping him focused. It's not an improvement.

"Yeah, IIGA. You can't seriously be sitting in here to defend your own hope of personal gain. And you know how I feel about unfair advantages," he adds, and the dreamy look returns.

"So. You seem pretty sure this one should be thrown back. Why?"

"What I think of him doesn't matter," Crowley retorts, shifting on the cold floor and wincing slightly.

"You're here on account of the IIGA, and I'm telling you the IIGA is neutral, at worst. It gives the Rim some form of defence that might actually be halfway effective against what's out there - and whilst it might boost Tam's popularity around the fringes of the Alliance, yeah, it's a start on redressing the imbalance of power between Core and Rim."

"And we all know how you feel about unfair advantages."

He grins, apparently delighted.

"We do, don't we? What's 'out there' that the Rim needs defense against, save the Core? You wanna protect them from themselves, is that it? It's been tried. Tried and failed. From themselves." He snorts.

"People forget that selves can change."

Crowley stares at Raguel, mouth hanging ever so slightly open, before giving a strangled, coughing laugh. Elbows on his knees, he presses his eyes to the back of his hands, and says;

"I can't believe I'm sitting here trying to have a rational political discussion with you."

"The Reavers, Raguel," he repeats, then, without looking up.

The palms of his hands are an angry, mottled red.

"I can't believe you're sitting here trying to have a rational discussion at all," he says, and shrugs.

"Reavers, huh." He looks thoughtful, as much as one can when sitting in a storage closet covered in blood.

"Like I said," almost to himself. "Selves can change."

"Selves can change," Crowley echoes tiredly. "Gabriel Tam isn't worth your time. Not anymore."

"Not anymore?" he repeats, looking up sharply.

"You think I'm working from old information?"

Crowley gives him a lopsided grimace that could pass for a grin, half-seen over the tops of his knuckles.

"No. Your information is too new."

"Uh huh," Raguel says, and leans forward. He's grinning, but his expression looks forced as well, badly disguising a layer of anxiousness.

"And they call me crazy. How d'you figure?"

"Two years ago," Crowley says, yellow eyes flickering like the afterimage of Raguel's flames. "Two years ago, I just might have let you take him."

He turns his hands over to examine his palms, fingers flexing and curling as though trying to catch the cool air he blows through them.

"Teacher taught me not to lie.
Cross my heart and hope to die."

He speaks dispassionately, now, though some curious quality of the words themselves curls off his tongue and palate and seems to leave a stain. He looks at his red hands, and pictures the blotchy handprint left across River's cheek.

"Fifty needles in my eye."

"This time two years ago, I'd've been tempted to lend a helping hand, because of what he was once cowardly enough to let them do to River Tam."

Raguel stares at him, comprehension slowly dawning.

"I remember River Tam. I... remember what."

There's a long, uncomfortable pause.

"He let them do it?"

He doesn't raise his voice, but he's half-up off the floor by the time the words are out, eyes blazing, flames sparking unnoticed from his fingertips.

"He was told," Crowley enunciates carefully, "not to ask questions."

Raguel laughs. Long and loudly. He reaches out for the door - and Crowley - sees the flames on his hands, and drops his arms again.

"Crowley. Let me finish what I started. Quick and easy."

He looks grimly at his hands as the fire fades away.

"Or not so quick."

"No."

Moving awkwardly, Crowley reaches behind himself - hisses, at the way the movement bunches and stretches the skin of his shoulders.

He tugs at something tucked into the back of his belt, and when his hand comes back into view, one finger is hooked clumsily through the trigger-loop of a small water pistol.

"You said it yourself," Crowley says, looking up at Raguel.

He takes the pistol in the flat of his other hand, hefting it gently before putting it to one side.

"Selves change."

He looks warily at the pistol, then back at Crowley.

"Maybe. But two years is not a very long time," he points out. "Even for them."

His gaze drifts to the door behind Crowley and then, slowly, back to the pistol.

"How convinced are you?" he asks, shifting to the balls of his feet.

"Come to think of it, what makes you think I've changed enough that I don't grab that thing and shove right past you? Maybe you need it."

"I'm convinced enough," Crowley says quietly, and he could be replying to anything.

And then, separately;

"He spoke with Aziraphael."

Slowly, slowly, he shifts his weight away from 'halfway to the door' and is once again just standing in a storage room.

"I think you're too trusting," he says, but without much conviction.

"What did Aziraphael make of him?"