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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"I don't know if I'd go that far," Crowley replies dryly. "But they're not exactly something anybody but humanity could have come up with."

"Ah," he says, nodding. "Yeah, that's a pretty high standard. There are a few songs that I like, when I hear them. But I just hear them in passing."

Passing, for example, a gas station.

"A radio," Crowley says, struck with sudden inspiration. "How does that sound, for a housewarming gift? I mean, now that you've a place to keep books that doesn't actually have mildew on the walls, I'm fairly confident Aziraphael will start bombarding you with Literature. It's only fair I should get to corrupt you with modern dross."

"Are you going to ask if I listen to certain stations?" he asks with a grin. "I guess it does make sense that I know what's going on in the world. What people are listening to." He tries to repress the rather silly grin making its way across his face; it's almost as impossible that Crowley would want to give him one as it is improbable that he doesn't have one already.

"Oh. You think he will?" he adds, with the curious anxiety of someone who's just learned that a Very Important Person is paying them a visit and they aren't sure if they have any clean towels. Or in Raguel's case, running water, though that's been taken care of now.

"Yep," Crowley says confidently. "He'll use everything but outright violence to avoid having to sell a book, but give him a fresh mind ready to be illuminated by the great wordsmiths et cetera, et cetera, and he can't give them away fast enough. You have to take good care of them, though," he adds after a moment. "He always knows if you've been dog-earing pages, and that. It's sort of creepy."

"Oh, yeah, I know he doesn't like them to be tossed around. He loaned me a Rilke book once, and I always had to think twice before I stuck it in the bag with the shoes." He jerks his head to indicate the bag he's carrying; it certainly doesn't look like a safe place for books.

"Wow," Crowley says, "and you did anyway? Congrats on still existing on this mortal plane or any other."

"I didn't," he insists, sounding horrified. "If it came with me, I carried it. It's fine. I didn't break the spine or, uh. Anything."

"Preaching to the choir," Crowley says, sniggering. "I lived in a state of terror before I realised I was probably the one person who could get away with leaving a book open, face-down."

"Yeah, well. I suspect I wouldn't be so lucky. I'd get on the blacklist, or whatever he's got. Shunned forever. Couldn't set foot in the bookshop. Not allowed anything with words on it."

"Pretty much," Crowley agrees. "I'd expect surprise inspection tours, if I were you."

Raguel thinks about this for a moment.

"I'll have to add a bookshelf," he says at last, resigned. "Otherwise there'll just be a little pile on the floor. Maybe on the couch if I'm paying attention."

"Don't worry. I hear they assemble very easily."

So easily, in fact, that Crowley is going to have to clear his schedule just to come over and watch.

"Uh huh," Raguel says uneasily, glancing over. "Last time I used anything like a hammer I was knocking out a hole in the wall. As a window."

After a moment:

"You cared enough about having a window to knock a hole in your wall?"

"At the time," he says carefully, "that's how windows were generally made."

The badly suppressed grin on his face suggests that he may not be entirely serious.

"I'm just confused, considering that the window you had in your last place didn't even let any daylight in..."

"Sure it did," he insists. "Some. Well, enough. Anyway, the new window wasn't for light - it was for air. Stuffy place."

"In Los Angeles? Well, I suppose it depends on how you define 'air'. Anyway, it's all double-glazing from here on out."

He laughs, but Crowley's point is made in the rusty sound of it.

"Not in Los Angeles, but I see what you mean. Does double-glazing mean I can't open the windows?"

"No, you can open them - I'm just not sure why you'd want to let the smog in. Unless you feel more comfortable having a layer of grime over everything."

"Sometimes it's nice at night," he says, a little sulkily. "But I guess it depends how you define 'nice.' Breeze off the water, maybe, and by the time it gets to me it smells like exhaust and fast food." He shrugs, but it's lost in the movement of the wings.

"But it's still a breeze."

"It might be a little less rank up on the roof," Crowley suggests.

"Think so?" he says, thoughtful. "Haven't really tried it in the new place. Tonight's the first time I've been up there."

"Well, from the look of it, it doesn't seem like anyone else is up there much, either. You'd probably have it mostly to yourself."