un_fallen | (no subject)

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Crowley has been surprisingly charitable for most of the time spent in Raguel's new apartment - criticizing everything, of course, but only in the most general way. He pronounces it barely habitable, which Raguel takes to mean that he's done a decent job. And if the shower (and by necessity, the bathroom) has slightly larger dimensions when Crowley walks out of it than when he walked in, Raguel doesn't mention it.

It's late afternoon when they step out into the hallway and furtively climb the ladder to the roof. It's not much of a view, but the sunlight through dry air casts sharp shadows that make the grunge a little harder to see.

"You don't think anyone will notice us, with the sun still up?" Raguel asks, a little nervously.

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"Hire a bloody van," Crowley says, with a look that, even in the dark, conveys an admirable sense of what the fuck is wrong with you. "Or - 'borrow' one, if that's what you're more comfortable with."

Crowley's protestations aren't exactly hypocritical; he definitely wouldn't entrust his possessions to a disreputable-looking carpet-bag. It's simply that - when he does move - Crowley doesn't really tend to bring that much with him.

"But what if there's not time to get a van? I might need to go right then. Without anyone knowing where I'm headed. Hell, half the time I don't know where I'm headed."

In the past, this was generally because the building he was in was either being condemned or flooded or had burnt down due to arson. But still, he's had several thousand years to get used to being able to pick up and go.

"Er," Crowley says. "If there's a reason you need to leave right then without telling anybody, then chances are you have more important things to be worrying about than what's going to happen to your couch."

"I guess," he concedes. "Maybe in a decent building the place'll be less likely to just burn down, or whatever."

"Unless," Crowley concludes, with an indefinable air of satisfaction, "you get careless with the marshmallows."

"Damn it," he says amiably, "there go all my plans for a barbecue with the neighbors. It was going to be good, too."

"Why? Were you going to go pick up another wife to do the cooking, or - ?"

For a moment he looks badly stricken, but it's hard to see given the darkness and their angles in the air.

"I, uh. It was kind of a cook-your-own thing."

Indeed, Crowley doesn't see it. And yet... not quite the witty rejoinder he was expecting.

"Fair enough," he says calmly, even a little cautiously.

(He's not even sure that there's something amiss - but on a subject like this, he knows from personal experience that it's best not to assume.)

They fly in silence for a little while at a relaxed pace, and the sparkling lights of Los Angeles come closer little by little.

"I don't think I will, you know," Raguel says, as if there'd been no interruption. "It was stupid enough the first time. In a lot of ways."

"Yeah," says Crowley (surprised, even gratified, though it's hardly to be heard in his voice). "I understand."

"Having - having done it, you wouldn't change it, but... that doesn't mean you'd do it for a second time."

"Yeah," he says, sounding relieved. "Exactly. It's no reflection on her, it just. I'm not exactly suited to it, you know?"

Not quite what Crowley'd meant, perhaps - or at least, not entirely. Still:

"That too," he replies, nod lost in the darkness.

Raguel is new enough to talking about this that - for now - that's about as far as he's able to go in casual discussion. Still, he's not unaware that there's potentially much more to it.

"That too," he agrees.

"Well," Crowley says finally, watching the dim shapes of the mountains glide by beneath them. "Suppose you learn something new every day."

"Mm," he says, and glances over.

"And what did you learn today?" he asks, something like a grin once more audible in his voice.

"For one thing, how to roast a marsh- "

Bugger.

"-mallow," he concludes after a moment, looking sidelong at Crowley.

"Yeah, they're not too tricky after you've done one or two. From what I hear, though, they never get less messy."

Crowley doesn't reply - not beyond a noncommittal grunt - scowling down at the approaching city lights as though they, somehow, are responsible for outing him.

"Kind of makes you wonder what else we're missing out on," he says, looking farther off toward the sea. "Not that I want to go native, or anything. But I'd never have thought to try that."

"You're one to talk about not going native," Crowley sniffs, though there's no real bite in it.

"Nothing wrong with it, anyway. Humans come up with some bloody good ideas."

"I haven't gone native," he says, surprised. "I feel like I know less about it than any of the others I've spoken to. Well, almost." There might be a few things he's observed more than most.
"And yeah, I agree with you there. Takeaway, now. That was real genius."

With a truly heroic effort, Crowley bites back another remark on Raguel's tawdry past (by now forever so labeled in Crowley's mind), and instead supplies, "Velvet Underground."

Raguel's silent for a moment, thinking. It does sound vaguely familiar, but...

"Uh. Okay, what's that?" he asks, mentally bracing himself.

There's a short but very, very expressive silence.

When Crowley speaks, though, it's not so much horrified as it is simply rather resigned - as though, perhaps, this isn't the first time he's had to explain this to a culture-proof angel.

"A band," he says wearily.