(Untitled)

[aj_crawley]

Crowley left his coat and scarf, but there's no snow outside. Even terraformed, Londinium is a central planet, close to the sun; its winters tend to be mild. So there's no snow outside. It's only dark, and cold, and Crowley's back, black-clad and ram-rod straight, is hard to spot at first, but for the noise of him crunching swiftly and stiffly over

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[gonna_live]

He'll hear footsteps on the gravel -- shuffling a little, maybe. Moving slowly, but doggedly.

"Crowley." Kaylee's voice is soft, and without any kind of reproach.

[aj_crawley]

"Kaylee," he says, before he looks up. It doesn't sound right; the first syllable more exhale than sound.

He looks away again too fast, also, and then he presses panicked hands abruptly against his diaphragm as though he can stop the sudden -

He makes a noise (ironically) like he's been punched in the stomach.

As though he can catch it and push it back in -

[gonna_live]

"Hey," quick, troubled, and her steps quicken as well. "Hey," and she's kneeling in front of him.

[aj_crawley]

"What?" he snaps, "What?"

His face is twisted, again, into something like fury, and he hides it in his hands.

His shoulders jerk once, then twice, and then twice more in quick succession.

[gonna_live]

Hell.

Oh, hell.

Please, God, let him be laughing, Kaylee prays -- and ventures, impossibly hesitant, a light touch to his knee.

[aj_crawley]

It's not so different, in the shape of it. And when he presses the heel of one hand to his forehead, the face beneath it is dry.

He bends a little lower over his knees, silent, and shaking.

He can't,

there is

nowhere for it to go.

[gonna_live]

She can see her breath out here.

He didn't bite her head off when she touched him. Her other hand on his shoulder, then. Say his name, barely audible, and let it sound like a question.

Her coat is inside, and the stone on her knees is numbingly cold.

[aj_crawley]

"Shit."

One.

Wǒ xiǎng mèi ěr,Two.

mèi xīn,Three.

biàn shítou.
If clearing his face of it is hammering smooth a piece of steel, so be it.

Steel, and stone.

(There is no time, for that.)

[gonna_live]

Kaylee curls her hand tighter on his shoulder. Waits. Tries to will away the dread.

So many things I don't understand, she thinks.

[aj_crawley]

Crowley lowers his hands lightly to the steps, and lets the icy cold of the stone seep through his fingers.

Finally, and his voice awful, and flat:

"You shouldn't have had to see that."

Any of that.

[gonna_live]

"My sensibilities ain't so delicate as all that," Kaylee says after a long moment, and without any hint of humor. "And I did see it, so... there it is. And here we are."

[aj_crawley]

"Yes," he says, tonelessly.

"I don't think I need to ask you not to tell - him. The one from just now."

[gonna_live]

"No. You don't."

She hasn't moved. "Far as I'm concerned, nobody else knows, neither."

[aj_crawley]

"It's funny."

He turns to look right at her. In the dark, his sunglasses look like two holes in his face.

"I talk to dead people all the time."

[gonna_live]

Kaylee sits back on her heels. The hand on his shoulder falls to the stone step.

[aj_crawley]

He shrugs.

"You, and River, and - Hoban and Naomi, and all. Susan, that - time. You'd think I'd be used to it."

" - I am used to it."

"It was just... unexpected."