un_fallen | (no subject)

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."

"A little harder to pass by when they're not looking up if that's what they do all the time."

Behind them, the clear blue of the sky is deepening and the temperature has already dropped slightly. It's still very comfortable, but the air doesn't seem to hold much of the heat.

Crowley's noticed. Even he doesn't feel the need to close his jacket yet - but even so. They stand in silence for a few minutes, the temperature dropping steadily - and at last, Crowley breathes in deeply once again, as though he can draw in the very last rays of light as the sun, now huge and red, sinks finally below the horizon.

Though there's a while yet 'til moonrise, there's little in the way of twilight - Los Angeles is far in the distance, and there are few, very few clouds to reflect a lingering glow. Crowley's grin flashes in the not-quite-dark.

"Well," he says.

Raguel has craned his head way back and is staring at the stars, which are thick enough to wash the whole sky with a dusty glow. Reluctantly, he drops his chin to face Crowley.

"Well," he repeats after a few seconds.

Now, Crowley does fasten his coat - with the sun gone from the sky, the heat is vanishing up from the ground with shocking rapidity. Unwinding his scarf and looping it tighter around his neck, he looks around; having located the nearest stunted shrub (the only one larger than his hand in the entire landscape), he scoops up the bag at Raguel's feet and saunters over.

Raguel follows warily, looking from the shrub to Crowley and back again.

"Why do I get the feeling that you and that bag are like the magician and the top hat?"

"If you're having Mary Poppins fantasies, Aziraphael would probably be more appropriate," Crowley retorts, setting the bag to one side.

Crouching down by the scraggly little bush, the demon fingers one of its spiny leaves curiously for a moment, before closing his hands around one another.
(Ehyeh asher Ehyeh)
o l'   y e l l o w   e y e s
s a y s   t a s t e   d e s i r e
f r u i t   i s   k n o w l e d g e
k n o w l e d g e   i s   p o w e r
i   a m   s n a k e
a n d   i   b r i n g   y o u   -When he opens them again, a moment later, a tiny flame is dancing in his right palm. Reaching out, he places it carefully in the centre of the bush.

He is momentarily distracted by the idea of Aziraphael pulling item after oversized item out of a carpet bag. He's watching Crowley, though, and grins at the little flame which is already growing in its new home.

"Is this where I make off-color jokes about voices from a burning bush?"

"Ardens, sed virens," he replies, looking up with a smirk. "Flagror, non consumor. And all that."

And indeed, the fire - licking bright and tentative tongues at the branches surrounding it - is leaving them whole, and unharmed. The bush barely qualifies for the name, after all; there's certainly not enough for it to sustain a fire for any length of time.

"Impressive," he admits, crouching down to look at it. The fire is the only bright point in the whole earthbound landscape, and blinding from this close.

"'M sure there are marshmallows in there if you look hard enough," he adds, half-wistful. He gestures vaguely in the direction of what he thinks is the bag.

Tugging it into the tiny circle of firelight, Crowley begins to rummage through it - setting out, as he goes, several cartons of Chinese food, which will not have the nerve to be anything but piping hot once opened, an unlabelled flask, and, finally, a packet of marshmallows, which he tosses across the fire to Raguel.

It's not, in fact, by any means certain that either of them put marshmallows in the bag in the first place. But Crowley sees no reason that this should be any sort of obstacle.

(Of course, the idea of the angel of Vengeance roasting marshmallows over a campfire is still quite blatantly ridiculous; Crowley snorts quietly to himself, and then blinks at the sight of his breath misting slightly in the air.)

"There are," he says, delighted, and grabs the bag. He leans back from the fire and casts around for some suitable sticks; there are a couple nearby despite the fact that they have no business being in the middle of the desert. He starts to reach for them, then glances back.

"You want one now?"