(Untitled)

[aj_crawley]

It's a picture-postcard sunrise as Crowley ghosts back through the streets of L.A., headed towards Raguel's apartment, and it gives his face a little colour. He feels strange - flattened and insubstantial, like nighttime in the desert has eroded something out of him, worn it away with cold and dust, from right around the time when he found that it

Comments

[a_fell]

The furniture inhabiting Raguel's apartment is improbably stylish, but the contrast between the owner and the place's understated elegance isn't as jarring as Aziraphael might have expected. It's all rather tasteful, in fact, and he's more than a little certain that Crowley had a hand in it - if for no other reason than that he can't imagine Raguel taking the time to pick it out, any more than he can imagine Crowley suffering Raguel to decorate his pet project with worn but serviceable charity rejects

[aj_crawley]

Crowley doesn't reply; doesn't react.

He just stands there, framed by the doorway and - still, so utterly and suddenly still, his hand resting loosely on the doorknob.

[a_fell]

He looks - small, there. Small, and so far away.

After a moment (long enough), he leans forward and carefully places the mug on the coffee table, brushes some imaginary lint from his trouser leg. And only then does he stand, and take a couple of steps toward the demon. Crowley doesn't look well at all.

"Are you all right?"

[aj_crawley]

Flat black sunglasses track Aziraphael's movements, follow his hands as he sets down the tea and brushes off his trousers, look back to his face as he gets to his feet.

And still, Crowley just stands there - just looking at him, and nothing else, as though he can't quite process the fact that Aziraphael is here. That despite everything, Aziraphael somehow knew where he was, and came to him, and waited for him, and is here.

"Aziraphael," he says, stupidly.

His sunglasses are supposed to be a shield. A multitude of sins, he'd told Raguel. But there's no hiding the cracks running through the demon's expression. Not like that.