un_fallen | (no subject)

(no subject)

A light rain is falling onto the wastes of Jubilee; still falling, if indeed it has ever stopped. The ground is beyond saturated, colorless mud and desolation as far as the eye can see, and the rain only promises to intensify. A bleak horizon is broken only by a low, equally colorless fueling station nearly invisible in the murk.

Raguel stomps around in it, his shoes making schlock, schlock noises in the mud, and if he realizes it's raining he pays it no attention. He felt something: perhaps no more than the stirrings of a wildly overactive imagination, but this was oddly familiar. By long practice he's learned to sort the instinct from the white noise and confusion that clouds most of his mind, and Raguel has always trusted his instincts.

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If it seems too soon for Crowley to have recovered, that's because it is. He nearly recoils from the touch of skin against skin, and isn't any great shakes at staying upright, either.

But he's been gone a year.

(He tries to let his mind only skirt around the edges of it: he's been gone a year.)

If he really knew the camouflaging effect of his shifting expressions, Raguel would be extremely grateful. Right now, there is an extremely somber one that hovers uncertainly on his face. He keeps a hand out since Crowley is less than steady.

"Persephone?" he asks, as though there was any question there.

There aren't any craft docked at the station - nothing that'd break atmo, so far as Crowley can make out.

But there will be.

When he manages to filter the meaning of Raguel's question through the noise of it, Crowley looks back at him and nods.

(That's another formality, and they both know that, too.)

He remembers that bit of this conversation too, and nods back.

"Can rest at the station till the ship comes. Rest out here, too, just. Wet." He gestures at the low blanket of unmoving clouds.

The mud isn't the only thing that makes the walk to the station difficult, but it definitely doesn't help.

Crowley's fingers end up leaving bruises on Raguel's shoulder, but they don't last.

Raguel is more concerned with Crowley's ability to hold on for that distance, but they move slowly and carefully, one foot in front of the other, and they make it without incident. There are very few people around, and those that are seem to look right past them as they approach.

"We're leaving tomorrow," Raguel explains as they pass a calendar mounted on a board of messy bulletins.

By then, Crowley's wearing what it takes to fit in, with the exception of a pair of shoes. The floor is cold beneath his feet, but it's better than shoes.

The light in the corridor flickers tiredly, but the room is dark, and passes for quiet. The chair in the corner isn't the most uncomfortable Crowley's ever sat in, and for the moment, that'll do. He's holding himself carefully enough that it doesn't much matter.

Raguel doesn't bother to turn a light on, but gestures to the bed.

"I'll call you when the ship comes. Not a good place to sleep, on board; it was bumpy."

And loud and dirty and hardly spacious enough to carry anyone. But out here, you take what you can get.

Crowley nods faintly, head already tipped back against the wall, but stays in the chair.

He's been gone for a year.

Out here, you take what you can get.

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