un_fallen | (no subject)

"Uh huh," he says, looking Crowley over. He doesn't see anything immediately out of place, but that doesn't mean much. He takes the flask and unscrews the top.

"And you didn't spill the alcohol, that's important. Think you can sit up?"

Crowley eyes the flask speculatively, and decides, "Yeah."

In point of fact, apart from a few inevitable consequences of the tumble - largely consisting of dust, bent primaries, and unfortunate cactus spines - Crowley is perfectly all right. Which is not to say that he doesn't make a show of it, of course (although to be fair, probably at least one or two of those winces are for real).

Raguel offers him the flask once he's fairly sure that Crowley isn't about to dump it all over himself.

"Well, at least it's a nice place for a rest," he says with a sigh. The moonlight does throw the uneven cliff faces into relief where they blot out the stars, and the sharp shadows form complicated patterns.

His focus is directed more at the bent primaries at the moment, but he doesn't comment on them yet.

Crowley takes a bracing sip, and stares sullenly at the wreckage of the cactus stretching away between them and a sad-looking stump.

"It would've worked perfectly, you know," he says after a few moments.

"If we look past the potential for 'messy death spattered on a rock,' then yeah, it seemed to be working. Good move for emergencies and lunatic stunts."

He does not mention the need for a 'look where you're going' caveat in the manual.

"It's not my fault there just happened to be the - the only thing taller than a foot within a hundred miles," he continues.

(It's a toss-up as to whether he's actually heard Raguel or not.)

Raguel looks pointedly around at the several cacti visible from their sad little encampment in the dirt.

"It would work better someplace completely empty, yeah."

More empty than the desert. The moon, maybe.

"Fuck off," he says companionably, and passes across the flask.

"Uh huh," he says again, vaguely, and takes a swig.

"I think the moon's setting again pretty soon."

"Really?"

He twists around, blinking at the round disc of the moon, low in the sky.

"That was - "

Fast, he was going to say, but maybe that's not so. Time flies, as it were.

"Well, 'pretty soon' being an hour or so, but yeah." He shrugs.

"Not that I think we'd have a problem finding that fire again, in any case."

"True," he murmurs, settling back into his small crater of dust and cactus fragments. Then, though, an imperious gesture. "Come on, I'm a casualty here; help me up."

Raguel lifts an eyebrow at him, then makes a show of pushing himself out of the crouch to his feet with much internal creaking and popping. He silently extends a hand to give Crowley a pull.

"Oh, fine."

He still takes Raguel's hand, but doesn't yank it quite as hard as he might have. As payment for his benevolence, however, he's perfectly quick to steal the flask back. A sip, and then he stows it in his pocket, where his hands stay.

He spreads his wings a little, shuffling and flexing them experimentally - and making a face as a several spines fall to the ground.

Raguel watches them, acutely aware that he is in no position to be criticizing anyone else's feathers. And perhaps least of all Crowley's, which are generally in excellent condition.

"Oh. That doesn't look good," he says anyway, sounding a little concerned.

"Mmm," Crowley agrees; his lips purse slightly for a moment before he shrugs (wings and shoulders, and another small rain of needles) and his expression clears.

More than, even.

"I can always get Aziraphael to help me go through and get them all out."

"Does that mean you're going to tell him what happened?" he asks, grinning.

"And can you fly a straight line with your wings as they are?"

"I'll tell him something," Crowley says, with a wave of his hand. "Probably that you pushed me into a cactus after I, say... insulted your girlfriend. And in the interest of ever making it back to civilisation to do so, I think I'll find a way to manage."

"Okay," Raguel says doubtfully, trying to ignore the 'girlfriend' comment. "Does he believe that kind of thing?"

It's probably best that Crowley phrased it thusly - else he really might have gotten pushed into a cactus.

"Nope," he says cheerfully. "That's why I'm going to carefully layer it over unspoken implications that some people - of whom he knows I'm not one - don't know when to pull out of dives."

His expression darkens. He has to work at it, but he sort of manages; he figures it probably looks ok if he faces away from the light.

"Uh huh. And what's to prevent me from setting him straight on what actually happened?"

"You raise a good point."

Crowley purses his lips thoughtfully, looking at Raguel, then out across the desert.

"One secret for another?" he offers.

Raguel blinks. He hadn't actually been completely serious, but Crowley seems to be taking it that way. Or maybe he's only bluffing.

"How do you mean?" he asks, wondering if this kind of blackmail is really allowed.

A little more certain now, a little surer - with a moment's thought - that he might just be onto something.

"D'you have a lighter?"

"'Course I do," Raguel says to this bizarre non sequitur. Frowning, he pulls a lighter featuring a raised sheriff's badge out of his pocket.