river_meimei | (no subject)

(no subject)

River sits in the copilot's chair, staring at the blank impassive screen. It's switched off, even the brief WAVE DISCONNECTED light dark now. Around her, the ship is silent, but for the hum of the distant engine.

She doesn't look to see if there's a log of that call.

After several minutes, she reaches for the controls again. A few quick taps connect her to the Cortex, and bounce the signal through the appropriate buffers; this call is outgoing, to a number she doesn't need to look up.

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Ship's clock, it's morning. As it happens, on Lavinia, it's morning too.

The tinny, electronic chirrup repeats, and again, and a few too many times.

Crowley flickers into being, bed-rumpled, with a faded blue shirt and sharp blue eyes.

River tucks her chin against her knees, studying him.

"Hi," she says, after a minute, and quietly.

He looks... drawn. Eroded, somehow, as though the elements, wind and waves and sand, have worn the skin of his face down close to the bone underneath.

"River," he says stupidly.

River's face tightens fractionally, in what might be concern.

"I called." That might be a question, or just a statement; it's said in the same hesitant, almost gentle tone.

"Yes," he says, and that seems to snap him into wakefulness, eyes fading through a sickly green and back to yellow, pupils elongating to familiar slits - suddenly wary.

"Everything okay?"

"We're flying."

That's with a faint smile, the first one this conversation, and it seems to be a yes.

It's gone again, when she adds seriously, "Are you?"

His shoulders slump back into their half-awake slouch as Crowley relaxes a little. Not all the way - a wave from Serenity is too rare for someone as paranoid as Crowley to dismiss all worry out of hand.

(And there's River's question.)

But he relaxes a little.

"Same old," he says, which in one context is a lie, but in another - in the context of years, decades, centuries, millennia - isn't a lie at all.

"Always are." River's voice is gentle, just a bit.

Same old can mean fine, or it can... not.

"Yeah," Crowley agrees. "Always am."

Still flying can be a good thing. Or it can... not.

There's something a little distant in Crowley's face when he speaks, which doesn't mean 'cold' or 'reserved', but simply means 'far away'.

"So to what do I owe the pleasure?"

River is quiet for a moment.

Then: "I'm supposed to buy you a beer."

There's a funny, complicated sort of humor somewhere under the words, and in the sideways quirk of her mouth.

"Sup- oh."

There are very few people in the 'verse who might conceivably, around this time of year, make a point of buying Crowley a beer.

One of them is asleep in the bedroom behind him.

Another one (perhaps, if she remembers) is Kaylee.

So -

So Crowley's face flickers through a range of emotions rather too complex for having just woken up: surprise, something private and close to fond, and then faint alarm.

"You've been talking to him? Raguel, I mean? Did he - "

Did he tell you why, but that's not important right now.

"Said hi."

River looks more exasperated than anything else, though it doesn't have the lethal edge of fury it would have a few months ago.

"Okay," Crowley says, after a moment. "That - okay."

It doesn't sound particularly dire, at least. And Crowley hopes that if Raguel were in trouble - or... more trouble than usual, anyway - he'd not pick River, of all people, to contact.

"Did he - "

Crowley interrupts himself with a cavernous yawn.

"Did he, er. Say anything else?"

"Said to wave."

What River knows, or doesn't know, is often hard to tell. There's gentleness in her gaze, when the exasperation fades again -- but then again, she likes Crowley, and he's looking pretty clearly exhausted anyway.

(And this is a wave.)

"I did," she adds earnestly, and unnecessarily.

"I can tell," he replies, something honest tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"Swing by sometime, and you can buy me one in person."

River makes a face at him.

It is a face that clearly says that beer is gross, and she is too young to drink (even though she technically isn't), and Crowley can buy his own beer.

(She might buy him terrifying fruit juice.)

"Alright," he says, looking away and raising his hands, palms outwards. "Was worth a shot, anyway."

River studies him.

"I'll pick a surprise," she says.

Instead of beer.

His eyes flick back up to River's face. After a moment:

"Something that's actually meant for drinking," he warns.

River heaves a dramatic, and entirely fake, sigh.

"You're very picky."

"Well," he says, lowering his hands before one comes back up to scratch at the back of his neck. "Comes from tasting more than a few things that aren't meant for drinking."

"I promise."

It's meant to sound mock-grudging; it doesn't, quite.

"Too kind," Crowley replies, creakily inclining his head.

It's meant to sound mock-grateful; one out of two isn't bad.

I know, River would probably say, smugly, at some other time.

Instead: "I'm very generous," she says, and it's teasing, except that the concern and fondness both still lurk underneath.

There's a quiet cracking sound as Crowley rolls his shoulders, after which (swallowing a tiny yawn) he leans sideways, against the corner where the Cortex hub is set deep in the wall.

He looks at River, long and considering.

"You actually make it in to buy it, maybe I'll tell you why you're supposed to be doing it."

"I will."

After a moment, she smiles, just a little.

(I'm one of the ones)

"Uh-oh," Crowley says, cracking a grin.

(Cracking: a good word for it.)

"Then I should probably make up something interesting to make it worth your while."

Maybe. Maybe not.

It might be... good. A good thing.

Maybe he wants to.

River sticks her tongue out at him.

Amicably.

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