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.

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"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?"

With the room to do it, Crowley hoists himself to his feet, pushing his knuckles against the floor rather than the flat of his hands.

He leaves the discarded pistol on the ground.

"I trust who I trust," he says. "Aziraphael... Aziraphael found him vain, overly concerned with his status and the public opinion of himself, and to have been willingly blind. Aziraphael found him a politician and a businessman, and that's what he is."

Crowley's gaze wanders past Raguel, drifting over the flotsam of the stage, the elements of show stashed away and left to gather dust, before looking back.

"But Aziraphael also told me his repentance was genuine. And that, in the same situation, he wouldn't do the same thing again."

Raguel looks at the gun on the ground. Or maybe just at the ground; it's hard to tell.

"Okay," he says, sounding disappointed. "Two opinions. Independent confirmation, and all."

He's watched Crowley getting up, but something seems to register with him in a rush.

"What happened to your hands?"

"Oh," Crowley says, and holds them up, slightly sheepish. "You were about to light up the hall like a... bright thing. That would've been hard to explain."

"Oh," he says, "damn. Didn't realize, or I'd have paid more attention to the wolf."

He steps around toward the door, giving the water pistol a wide berth.

"You could always say there was a power surge," he suggests. "I've used that one before. Didn't believe me, so I made a power surge. Like a charm."

Crowley immediately whirls and plants himself once more between Raguel and the door.

"I've your word, now?" he asks. "That you'll leave Senator Tam be?"

"There you go again, trusting my word," he says, exasperated.

"Yeah, fine. Long as he doesn't do anything else stupid." His expression hardens.

"I make no promises about the wolf, though. Think I've met him before."

Crowley's lips thin into a hard line, and he's silent for a moment - thinking it over.

"I'd prefer you didn't, personally," he says finally. "It'd only cause more hassle."

"But he did, you know, tear your throat out."

"Yeah, I noticed that," he says, without irony.

"And burned your hands by extension, I'd say. It's only fair."

The old gleam is starting to resurface in Raguel's eyes. It's good to have a target.

"Just," Crowley sighs. "If I can't talk you out of it, at least make it discreet, alright?"

"I am always discreet," he insists.

This time, Crowley doesn't even bother.

"Thanks," he replies instead, wearily, and then blinks at the absurdity of what just came out of his mouth.

" - Why did I just say that? You owe me a drink. And I knew you'd see reason, anyway."

"Have I seen reason?" he asks, opening the door behind Crowley.

"I told you, you trust too easily." He slips out before Crowley can protest, adding, "Anyway, how come the one who just had his neck removed is buying the drinks?"

"Stress," Crowley reasons, sliding out behind Raguel, and checking the coast, left-right.

"And I don't trust too easily," he adds, calmly. "I just knew you'd see reason."

(hush, hush, Bright One)
And now, Crowley is too close; and too close, with Raguel, means within range. Crowley is within range, and the pistol full of holy water lies discarded behind them, and the remnants of Raguel's fire are crackling off him in ways as invisible, and as thickly palpable, as the residual heat in the air around him, and it's almost, tantalisingly, a dare. But it's not. I trust who I trust.

(and soon you'll have wings)
"I know you have seen reason."

(hush now)
Crowley smiles, a little bit, and the sliver of what shines through looks hardly out of place on him at all.

(still now)
"Because you believe in redemption."

(we'll go home)

"I trust you can find your way out without getting shot?"

He gives a start at Crowley's proximity - almost like old times, he thinks, before he cuts that thought out as efficiently and completely as possible.

"I guess," he says, shrugging uncomfortably, but of course he's not talking about finding his way out.

"See you, then."

Mine, he thinks, trying the word out as Crowley turns toward the melee at the foot of the stage. It seems to settle comfortably there, given Crowley's bizarre concept of ownership.

Satisfied, Raguel slinks back into the enveloping shadows, steps sideways, and disappears. A moment later, the rhythmic beat of wings is lost in the noise of the crowd.

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