un_fallen | (no subject)

It took a jolt to get Raguel to leave Southdown. The need to find out what happened had been growing for a while, but it was a half-heard conversation between Aziraphael and Gabriel Tam that finally got him to do it. There are still more questions he didn't want to ask the angel, and the longer he stayed, the harder it became to ask them. He needs some face time with the Senator.

He's planted himself in the crowd watching Tam's latest speech to calm the paranoia over yet another Reaver attack on a settlement, but he isn't really watching it. He's thinking, talking to himself - and if we are completely honest - justifying his absence from Persephone.

In his opinion, tracking is a pleasant change from moping and doing nothing at the abbey. That was necessary, but now it's time for action, if action is possible. Someone planned this. Someone pulled the trigger. Gabriel is another step toward getting there.

And once he's found the one behind it, maybe then he'll allow himself to go back.

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The once-standard media conferences at each of the stops on his -- tour, he decides, for lack of a better term -- have gotten a great deal more difficult since the Amesbury Incident.

Gabriel Tam deals with aplomb, as much as he can manage, which is no insignificant amount. He shakes hands with the town's mayor, smiling for the camera, and it's thanks to years of training that he doesn't flinch when he spots a familiar face in the crowd out of the corner of his eye.

Raguel doesn't pull any of his fancy, quick-moving tricks this time; the situation is familiar enough and he can see that Tam recognizes him. For now, that's going to have to be enough.

As long as the man gets off that stage quickly. Patience is a virtue.

All things considered, it doesn't take long.

Gabriel nods to the media liaison, who moves forward with practiced ease and takes over the more routine aspects of the conference, freeing the Senator to attend to whatever else has been placed on his schedule for this stop.

Everything's going according to routine protocol -- at least until he gives an unobtrusive sign to Mark Jiang, who makes his way to Gabriel's side with deft, professional ease.

"Sir?"

"Mark, I'm going to need a few minutes before we proceed."

"Of course, Senator."

The Senator crosses stiffly to the wings where he can't be seen, then farther back into the building where a few turns take him well out of earshot of the media. He turns once to glance behind him, and when he turns back there's a demon leaning against the wall.

"You've been talking to Aziraphael about the murder," Raguel says, without preamble. "Tell me what you know."

There's a pause.

"Uh. Please, I think. Hi, Tam Tam." It's clearly added as an afterthought, but at least he's trying.

He nods to him.

"Raguel."

Pleasantly said. It's a start.

"I don't actually know anything more than the Prior does, I expect."

Yet.

A beat.

"I am sorry for your loss, though."

It sounds sincere; more than that, he looks sincere.

"Maybe you don't, but some things are--" Raguel's sentence drifts into silence and he frowns at the wall.

"He is not... stable. I asked things only he would know. Left the rest. And, uh. Obliged." He looks a little funny, saying that. It's like the word just popped out after long disuse.

"I can't begin to imagine how difficult it must be for him."

For either of them, for that matter, but he's walking a fine enough line as it is.

"For what it's worth, I'm looking into it as best I can."

"Yeah. Shouldn't leave him alone too long. Not, you know." He gestures expansively at the air near his own head. "All there."

He drops the hand and shakes his head, though it's more of a shudder than a negation.

"You're looking into it. How?"

You'd know what that's like, he doesn't say. Nor does he let the sudden stab of sympathy show; if it were mistaken for pity, there's no telling how things would go.

"As best I can," he says. "I'm tracking what hints I can find."

A pause.

"I don't suppose you know if there's anything of a more ... specialized professional nature that might have come into play here?"

"I know that he--"

He stops abruptly, listening; apparently satisfied, he continues. "Aziraphael can pick up things from him. Strong things. Specialized things," he adds, inexplicably with something close to a leer.

"The news got it right about the Reavers. They don't know, they don't know that Crowley was shot first, just before they were boarded. Somebody knew. They're still asking the wrong questions."

In his agitation he rocks away from the wall and back again. His fingers set up a consistent drumbeat against it.

"Somebody knew, yes," he says, carefully. "Otherwise it doesn't seem likely that he would have been shot."

Gabriel takes a breath and says,

"What I meant, though, was -- would you happen to know if this was a result of any, er, official displeasure? From --"

He still can't bring himself to say 'Lucifer.'

"-- Rosse, for example?"

Raguel stops moving.

"I would hope," he says carefully, his face darkening, "that he knows better."

He's silent for a while, thinking or listening or parading the possibility in front of whatever advisers he trusts in the mess of voices in his head.

"If he's behind it, he wouldn't tell me first. But he knows I'll find out."

"You'd certainly be better suited to inquire in that arena than I would," he agrees, with the dryness to his tone somehow pointing out the understatement.

"I'll find out," he repeats. "Probably would've gone after Aziraphael first, though. Rosse likes to mess with Crowley. They have a strange relationship," he confides in a whisper.

His demeanor changes abruptly; now it's an open, pally politician type. The kind you assume is lying.

"But who doesn't?" he asks, laughing heartily. "Crowley has lots of enemies. Some of them are even human."

"I know."

The quick shifts in Raguel's demeanor are extremely unsettling. It's all he can do to keep from taking a step back.

"And that's where I plan to start looking."

A breath.

"I'm afraid I don't have much longer before Mark comes looking for me..."

Raguel looks sharply behind Gabriel, as though Mark might be coming up the hall and would shortly be a pile of ash. Mercifully, though, no one appears. He turns back to the Senator.

"Lots of things to ask you, still. Coordinates, weapons, enemies. And there was something special on that ship. Those Reavers had just come from a feast, and Crowley doesn't run. From Reavers," he amends after a pause.

It's true; there's a lot they need to discuss, evidently, and very little time.

A thought strikes him, and without letting himself consider it too much Gabriel reaches into an inner pocket and comes out with a coded link, which he offers to Raguel.

"Here. It's encrypted, and preset to reach one that I have. Textwaves are easier on the power cell, but it'll support audio and video link too."

He takes it carefully, running one gentle finger down the side.

"Thank you," he says, and it migrates unseen into some inner pocket. "Audio links are better. Text might not say what I mean." He shrugs and turns to go; there are audible footsteps now and it will be easier if he isn't seen here.

"I'll be in touch. And, er." He glances back. "Borrowed a skimmer. You should see about getting better security for those government ports."

A conspiratorial wink, and he's gone.