"Are we there yet?" Dorian asks, so deadpan that John struggles briefly to be annoyed before giving up and scoffing good-naturedly.
"Almost."
The road ahead of them curves gently around the mountain, trees and craggy rock blurring past the car on either side. John inches down the windows, just enough for the cool air to ruffle across the top of his head, and relaxes back in his seat, tapping beatlessly against the steering wheel.
"You doing okay?" he asks casually, glancing over at Dorian. To be honest, he has no idea if an android can get tired of driving for four hours, but Dorian looks as unfazed as he did earlier when John picked him up this morning.
The trip is, admittedly, impromptu, but so have been every one of John's best decisions. There's a couple of water bottles tossed in a bag in the backseat, along with a package of something he grabbed from the pantry without looking, and Dorian climbed in the car without a word when John announced they were going somewhere.
"I've never been out of the city before," Dorian says, eyes fixed intently out the window, and John jerks the wheel a little out of surprise before correcting their course.
"Oh," he says in response, and immediately feels stupid afterwards.
Dorian doesn't seem to notice, his hand inching forward to press down the window controls. A fluttering sound fills the car interior as the wind surges in, and John blinks reflexively when it slaps against his face.
"Hey-" he starts, when he glimpses Dorian poking his face outside curiously. "Quit that, you're going to knock your head off."
"I'm sorry, what?" Dorian says loudly over the sound of the wind, and John has a brief mental image of a dog sticking its head out the car window for the first time.
"You're crazy," is all he says in return, and he eases on the brakes for the next turn.
The parking lot is small, a couple of spaces tucked into the side of the mountain and strewn with fallen branches. John winces grimly as his back tire bumps over a particularly large limb on the way in, and Dorian rolls up the window again as they park.
"Is this it?" Dorian asks, when John pulls the keys out and exits, muttering incoherently as he bends to examine the damage to the undercarriage.
"This the place?" Dorian asks again when John doesn't answer, climbing out of the car. "It's nice."
John snorts, casting an absent glance upwards. The sunlight filtering through the canopy is pale green, dappling the covered ground in scattered gold. The air's cooler here beneath the trees, slightly damp, and when he breathes in, all he smells is the dark earth.
"Not here," he says, pushing himself up to his feet. "Grab the bag, will you?"
Dorian pulls the pack out of the backseat obligingly, then pulls it open and looks inside. "You know, man, I'm not even surprised anymore. Is this packaged ramen?"
"Don't knock it," John says absently. "They're good crunchy." He looks around, finds the narrow hiking trail winding up around the corner of the lot and out of sight into the trees. "Come on, it's this way."
Dorian's quiet for all of five minutes, during which John focuses on planting one foot in front of the other and evening out his breaths. It's not a long way to go, but the trail is tricky, doubling back in some areas and overgrown in others.
"So this," Dorian says from behind him, as John steps awkwardly over a sprawling fern and ducks a low-hanging branch simultaneously. "This is your idea of a fun time?"
"What, you're not having fun?" John grumbles. He misplaces his foot and slips on the wet leaves coating the trail. The ground tilts from beneath him and he pinwheels briefly, feeling the familiar clench of disorientation in his gut as he stumbles backwards.
Dorian's hand catches his elbow, another hand flying up to plant itself between John's shoulder blades, and John stares up at a tiny patch of sky overhead for a moment, adrenaline coursing through his veins.
"Oops," he says, too late, and Dorian huffs quietly in amusement before tipping him upright.
"Should I lead you in?" Dorian says gravely, and John snorts before he can catch himself.
"You know what, I think I'm good." He shrugs away Dorian's lingering hand and bunches his hands in his jacket pockets. They resume climbing, and if Dorian's walking a little closer behind John now, neither of them mention it.
It's not long before there's a thin sheen of sweat on the back of John's neck where his collar rubs against his skin, his breaths coming in deeper and harder. His legs are interesting- one burning slightly with every step and the other painless and annoyingly functional. Either way, John's relieved to see the trees thinning out in front of them, giving way to bright sunlight and a small area where the trail levels briefly before continuing to spiral upwards.
"We're not going to the top?" Dorian questions, when John stops.
"Nah, the top's overrated," John grunts, stepping off the trail onto the spongier ground. "This is nicer, trust me."
"That sounds risky."
"Yeah, well, that's me. All about risky." John maneuvers around a pile of mossy boulders, pushes aside a couple of thin branches, and there- there is it.
It's almost exactly as he remembers, which gives him some pause before he moves forward to let Dorian stand beside him.
The trees open out to reveal a short jut of dirt and stone before a sheer drop down the side of the mountain, overlooking the valley. A sea of green spreads out below them, sloping down and up again along the ridges of the hills, and on the far horizon, a glittering line where the city lies. John feels the wind against his face, blowing cool along his hairline where sweat has gathered over the past half hour, and he sees it rippling across the treetops, a silvery wave that shakes the leaves and fills the air with rustling sighs.
Dorian's quiet, and when John glances at him uncertainly, he sees that Dorian's looking over the valley with undisguised fascination, his circuits pulsing sporadically with every blink.
"My dad used to take me out here," John began slowly, looking back to the front. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Dorian's head turn towards him, and he carefully fixes his eyes in the distance. "First time was when I was about eight, I think. Just a kid. We couldn't make it all the way to the top because it gets real steep after this bit, a real tricky climb."
The words come easier the long he talks, and he only stops to clear his throat once and recollect his thoughts. "So my dad, he takes me out here instead, said his dad did the same thing when he was my age. Told me it was the next best thing."
He watches a tiny dark speck of a car crawl along the gray line of the highway cutting through the valley. The city seems so small from here, so innocuous...he wonders for a moment if his dad thought the same thing once, that all that glitters is just a cover-up for the twisted shit underneath.
Dorian's hand bumps against his shoulder, just enough to jolt him from his thoughts, and John blinks up at him.
"He was right," Dorian says, the skin around his eyes crinkling in the faint smile he always seems to wear, and John humphs, looking away to hide the twitch of his mouth. Dorian's hand settles comfortably on his arm, a familiar weight that John can't bring himself to push away this time.
"Hey," he says after a few moments. "You've never been to the beach either, I'm guessing."
"No."
"Well, we can't have that."