(no subject)

[un_fallen]

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.

Comments

[un_fallen]

"You're being kinda hard on them, I think," Raguel says loyally. "Europeans are people, too. It says so in the Constitution somewhere."

[aj_crawley]

"Yeah, right after the part where it says 'Sit!', but before the part where it explains about not going to the loo on other countries' lawns. Oh wait."

[un_fallen]

Raguel snickers, and doesn't even notice the shady conversation going on in back of the building across the street.

"Well, you know how they get when they've had too much to drink," he admits.

They land softly on the roof of his building - Raguel a little less softly, but no one on the top floor will hear them.

[aj_crawley]

"Yeah," he agrees, folding away his wings with a quiet rustle. "Must be pretty embarrassing, waking up the next morning with a bunch of other men in wigs and knee-highs, a traffic cone, and a signed Declaration of Independence."

[un_fallen]

"Yeah," he admits. "It probably put them off binges for life." He pulls his wings in as well and eases open the roof hatch, which squeaks loudly around rusty hinges.

[aj_crawley]

"Not that I've anything against binges, mind," Crowley says, holding the bag whilst Raguel clambers down. "Gluttony, and all. And useful. I'm sure I've had some of the best times in my existence on binges. Just because I don't remember them..."

[un_fallen]

"I only do it in the middle of the desert, myself." He nods vaguely back the way they came, which doesn't mean a lot in the darkened stairwell. He holds out his arms for the bag so that Crowley can follow him down the ladder.

"Probably not the best times of my existence. But I still like the desert, so it can't have been that bad."

[aj_crawley]

"And probably wise."

The hinges squeal again as Crowley pauses to close the hatch after him. A scowl, however, and they fall abruptly silent.

"If you got hammered and started wandering around in that trenchcoat of yours, you'd probably get taken in."

[un_fallen]

"Wouldn't be the first time," he says cheerfully. "And I wasn't even hammered."

He goes down the first flight of stairs silently, then hesitates.

"You wanna coffee or something? Or get one back at the bar?"

[aj_crawley]

"Hmmm," Crowley ponders for a moment. "The bar, I think. You're only going to have to come open the door for me anyway, and then we'll decide we need a drink there, too. Might as well just cut to the chase."

[un_fallen]

"Okay," he says, slinging the bag comfortably back over his shoulder and bounding the rest of the way down.

"It's pretty close, anyway." He looks at the still-closed door of the building, bouncing on the balls of his feet like he's already had four or five cups.

[aj_crawley]

"Well, don't wet yourself with excitement," Crowley says, arriving at the bottom at a leisurely saunter. "It'll still be the same place as it was earlier."

[un_fallen]

"Let's hope so," he says, pulling the door open. "Got locked out once. I'm sure it didn't help my reputation around here, opening the same door over and over to the same hallway."

He's out the door of the building before he thinks to add, "Uh. It was a while ago."

[aj_crawley]

What!

"How long ago? For how long?"

Cutting someone off from a favourite watering hole seems unnecessarily cruel, to Crowley.

[un_fallen]

"Couple of years back," he says, trying (and failing) to sound nonchalant.

"It was only for a few weeks. I found another door that worked, and haven't been back to the old place since."

[aj_crawley]

"Um," he says. "Okay."

At least it was only for a few weeks. And yet - Raguel doesn't exactly sound like it wasn't a big deal.

"Did you ever figure out why?"

[un_fallen]

He snorts, but doesn't meet Crowley's eyes.

"There's a why to these things? At the time I assumed I'd just been locked out from the inside, but when I got back I figured out that it's not really a matter of control. From inside, anyway."

[aj_crawley]

"Well," he says after a moment, hands deep in his coat pockets, "if it happens again and you're that desperate to get in, you can always stow away on a flight to Heathrow and use our door."

[un_fallen]

"I wasn't - er. I mean, I don't." But he can't seem to find a way out of that sentence that isn't a downright lie, so after a few seconds of flailing he gives up.

"Yeah. Thanks," he concludes glumly.

[aj_crawley]

A few moments pass, measured in the (relative) silence of the Los Angeles streets. Crowley seems to be undergoing a sort of internal struggle; at last, he lifts his chin out of his scarf again and says:

"I'm making a great sacrifice here, for my tormented curiosity, just so you know. But since we've already Shared tonight, I'll drop it if you don't want to tell me what you're actually on about."

[un_fallen]

"Not much of a secret," he says, but he still hesitates before he speaks further.

"Last few years, I haven't done well without down time. I don't get it in many places, and I don't like needing that kind of thing. And not being let in, I figured it wasn't random. Everything happens for a reason, all that."

[aj_crawley]

Crowley nods slowly, one hand tugging idly at the end of his scarf.

"That's... understandable," he says at last. "I've - well. I get it. Though that might not be what you want to hear from a demon. For what it's worth, it hasn't done Aziraphael any harm."

Crowley's hand disappears abruptly back into his pocket.

"The down time, I mean."

[un_fallen]

"No, I guess it hasn't. But our duties are pretty different." He turns down a side street automatically, not paying a lot of attention to where his feet land. It's clear he's been this way quite a few times already since the move.

"I don't guess it makes much difference who it comes from, if they've got somebody trying to pull their strings," he adds with a small smile.

[aj_crawley]

"Fair," Crowley says with a shrug. And then wryly, "Though for something like down time, at least, I can always make the argument that sloth is in the job description. Not that it'd go over well, but it'd be worth a shot."

[un_fallen]

"Have you ever tried that?" he asks, awed.

"I mean. Can you, without getting fidgety?"