un_fallen | (no subject)

Crowley's seen six thousand years of breath-taking vistas, but even he's forced to admit that what greets them as they finally clear the peaks is an impressive sight; a vast, harsh expanse, the face of an old and weary god, pockmarked and stubbled from this great height with canyons and jagged outcrops, and the dry and unlovely scrub that distorts the edges of their shadows as they glide silently overhead.

Raguel keeps going, veering slightly to the southeast, until the scrub thins out a little and the scattered houses and little towns disappear altogether. They land in a rocky flatland bounded on two sides by shallow valleys, and aside from the few scraggly plants there's not another living creature in sight.

"Nice, isn't it?" Raguel says as Crowley touches down beside him. It doesn't sound like a throwaway question.

Crowley doesn't answer at first, turning inside the dusty swirls and eddies of his landing, taking in the full three hundred and sixty degrees. The heels of his snakeskin shoes scuff minutely, deliberately against the ground, like the sound of rasping scales, and his nostrils flare as he breathes in the scorched air.

(There's a whisper of a breeze, stunned by their landing; unconsciously, or unselfconsciously, his tongue flickers out to taste it.)

It has been a very long time since Crowley was last out here. On each horizon, fading slowly with the light, the smudge of mountains. This is a crucible; dry, and immense.

"It's big," he murmurs finally, when the dust has settled.

It doesn't sound like a throwaway answer.

"Yeah," he says happily, and it's pretty rare that Raguel sounds happy about anything.

"You'd have to go for miles to even come to a road. Pretty rare, this close to a city."

The bag settles on the ground with a disgruntled clank, and as he takes in the rest of the view his gaze lands on Crowley's pensive expression.

"You okay?"

"Yes," he says, compelled, for some reason, to speak quietly. "It's just been a while."

There are places - some like this, some not at all, and none for reasons that he can explain - that reach down into Crowley's hindbrain and push buttons that ought never have been there in the first place.

When he turns to Raguel, his eyes are very, very yellow.

"I'd forgotten how... impresssive it is."

He looks pleased, if a little startled; Crowley has seen the wider world much more recently than Raguel has, and he half-expected the scrub-littered emptiness to be met with wisecracks and derision.

"Mm," he says, thoughtful. "Been a while since I was out here myself. Lately when I go it's been places farther east, but that's not quite the same."

There's usually a coyote with a motorcycle, for a start.

Crowley'd been turning away again, angling both face and wings towards the sun, eyes half-shuttered in simple - primitive - pleasure at the heat. At this, though, he slants a look back at Raguel, grinning.

"You have deserts ranked in order of preference?"

Raguel has been facing off toward one of the valleys, half-buried in memories. When he turns back his expression is indignant.

"It's not preference, it's just different."

Raguel's not quite within range for a punch to the arm, so Crowley settles for a genial buffet from one of his wings, raising another gentle puff of dust from the ground.

"Joking," he murmurs. "I know from different."

He makes an attempt to hold the affronted look, and is nearly successful.

"I guess they don't look that different," he allows. "I used to come to this area a lot. Lately... not so much."

This doesn't seem to be particularly good or bad, but he looks thoughtful.

"Any reason?" he asks, speaking over the soft rustle as he fans his feathers out a little further, catching more of the slowly fading sun. "Or just... because?"

He hesitates.

"I used to come because it was away from people. Away from work, you know. Peaceful. I went because I needed to, but I guess I've found other places to do that."

"Hn," Crowley says peaceably, sideways gaze trained steadily on Raguel. A beat, and he looks back out towards the sun. "Well, far be it from me to discourage that."

He sounds curiously sincere - moved to a more than usually mellow candour by the heat, by the sudden heady dose of it after the wet and cold of London winter.

(He's smiling, just a little, and at nothing in particular.)

"Yeah, I'm not too bothered by it," he admits, breaking into a grin. "But I should still come out here once in a while. Other places are nice, but they haven't got the view."

Or the silence, most of the time. One of those things you don't realize you missed until you have it again.

"This your usual spot, then?"

"Around here, yeah. Far enough that you can't easily hear traffic, and not so far that it takes hours and hours to get there."

He grins into the sunset now as well, talking a little more freely.

"The coast is nice this time of day, too, but you have to really work to find a place that isn't covered with people. Usually it's up a tree or something. Not very comfortable."

Crowley's a little surprised to find that - of all things - he's awkwardly, genuinely pleased that Raguel's chosen to take him to -

Fortunately, before he can open his mouth in sun-warmed honesty and say something about it, he's blindsided by the image of Raguel crammed sulkily into the top of a palm tree. If he has anything to communicate, it's more than likely lost beneath the sniggers.

Raguel has an idea what he's imagining, but he happens to agree that it's fairly ridiculous.

"Or up on a mountain somewhere," he adds quickly, before Crowley starts putting together angels and trees with a holiday theme.

It may be a little too late - Crowley can quite easily be seen making a mental note to himself. But then again, Christmas is a long way off; it's unlikely, in the paper-strewn recesses of Crowley's mind, that he'll be able to find it again.

"I think I'd stick with the desert, personally," he says finally.

(It's not that his face is flushed with good humour; it's that the sun, kissing the horizon, has streaked the sky in brilliant pinks and oranges.)

(Sure. Raguel doesn't mention it, but he can see that Crowley really wasn't kidding when he said he would enjoy the dry heat.)

"Yeah, I do, most of the time. The beach isn't worth the effort. Getting out over the water is a little better, but like I said, I haven't really tried going very far."

"It's nice," he says. "If you've got the weather. 'Course, ironically enough, it's been a while since I've been out over the sea."

No bad thing either, considering; it was the long flights too and from his station in the east that invariably took him across the Mediterranean. And these months of not yet having to resume those flights, of not having to pick up on a Sunday night and leave it all behind for another week, have been - well. He's grinning again.

"Well, we'll have to give it a try next time," he says easily enough. "Good or bad, the weather is one thing you generally don't have to worry about around here."

He notices Crowley's grin again - it's surfaced more than once since they got here.

"You've had... good times, I guess, in deserts?"

He figures that Crowley's recent desert visits (with War popping her head in for a cheery wave every so often) were not what one would call 'good times.'

"No more than anywhere else," he says with a shrug - an extremely expressive gesture, when one is sporting a whopping great pair of wings. "I mean, I should think I've spent more than enough centuries wandering around in them to have a fairly balanced range of experiences. It's just - been a while since I've been able to appreciate the climate without also worrying about stepping on a land-mine."

"Yeah, I can see how that would kind of ruin an evening stroll," he says, wincing. "And I guess flying there is generally too risky, too."

"Mm," he agrees, as the sun slips lower still. "For some reason, they're sort of twitchy about their airspace. Go figure."