2013.10.10 - Gemworld: Protect Ya Neck, John Constantine

The terrible thing about associating with people who use magic is that you are never, ever really safe. You know that you're never, ever really safe, because that's how magic works. It can get you when you're staring it right in the face, sure, but it can also get you twenty nine years later when you're sorting your recycling.

It gets Pete Wisdom five days after he told a princess that he had a flask that could summon John Constantine. She had gone pale then, paler than she already was, and told him to give it to her. Upon refusal, she told him to not use it under any circumstances. Then they went to Hell.

Waking up in the middle of the night with a person in your room isn't fun, even when it's a young woman with no obvious weapons. It went about like this:

Pete: Gunshots. Amy: Magic shield. Pete: You have my flask. Amy: I'm Amethyst you pretty much knew this was going to happen. Pete: May I come? Amy: Yeah okay.

And so they're here, standing in the middle of nowhere. It's day time, somewhere in the country, a place with green hills and rocky cliffs and distant mountains. The sea is somewhere nearby. It smells like that, anyway.

Amy, the black haired punk in too much eyeliner who was a princess the last Pete saw her, is up on a particularly large outcropping. She climbed it freehand rather than levitated, but she still left Pete on the ground below.

She stands there, silhouetted by the rising sun, considering what's in her hand. She tosses the flask over the side and then disappears, retreating away from the edge.

The flask falls, hits a rock, and begins hissing smoke. A second later, Amy comes leaping off the edge. The figure summoned by the flask barely has time to look around before her boots hit home. She always did great in archery practice.

John Constantine forgot two important things about journeying in the lands of Gemworld: 1. Watch your step, kid 2. Protect ya neck

And, well, Wisdom? Down the bottom of that cliff. He's smoking a cigarette and looking overly amused, because he's a prick, really, and he's leaning against the cliff face. She's a punk, and -- he's honestly not much better off, all things considered. Much more sedate than his teenaged years, but only because there are no safetypins or badges or patches involved, and the t-shirt under his leather jacket's logo-free. He's also texting someone when the glass smashes, and he glances up with his thumbs on the fake keypad. There is only the slightest wince of sympathy. Or it might be cigarette smoke drifting up into his eye.

Constantine was leaving a bar in Chinatown. A place where he had found himself getting shitfaced with Zatanna's little cousin, of all people. He has a bag under his arm from a little place called Lee Ho Fook's. herbal components, healing agents, things of that sort. He had just lit a cigarette when all of a sudden, his landscape changes. No longer in Chinatown, he isn't sure really WHERE he is. He has a brief moment to start to get a bearing of where he is, when it occurs to him that there is a distinct whistling sound coming from above. Again, only a split second to turn in the direction of the sound and look up before the boots meet him squarely in the face. He had no time to brace himself, and is caught completely unawares. Which is why he went flying three feet back, ass over teakettle, and promptly knocked uconscious. He had just unwittingly tried someone's Wu Tang style, and it was more of a strain than he could bear, the poor limey bastard.

Amy lands hard on the ground, unable to roll or brace for impact in any way. It doesn't seem to bother her too much, because she gets to her feet and brushes her jeans off as if she had just slipped.

She saunters over to inspect her handiwork, clearly feeling way cooler than she did thirty seconds ago. The teen nudges the bag with the toe of her boot and then kicks it away. She squats down beside him, producing a red gem from her jacket pocket. With one hand, she grabs Constantine's hair, lifting his head up. With the other, she puts the gem to his forehead.

It's packed full of healing magic. It's good and good for you.

"Sup, Constantine," Amy says, her voice harsh. She knows how to be mean. "Welcome to Gemworld."

And he can feel it, too. The land is different. It's in the energy of the place. The magic, so to speak. It's alien and bittersweet.

Now it's definitely a wince. Pete keeps his mouth shut, but does go around the two -- stays the hell out of the way -- goes around to collect the bag and sort out if anything in it broke. Least he can do. Thankfully, he is at least pretty sure Amethyst won't actually kill Constantine. She's one of those hero types. He thinks. More or less.

He may be more interested in watching Amy's technique, here, than in watching John get beat up and yelled at.

He may live another day if he doesn't let on.

The prone Hellblazer comes back to consciousness with a gasp and a jolt, "What it in sweet fuck--" he says, sitting bolt upright. "Gemworld? How the fuck am I in Gemworld?" he asks, looking around. "What the fuck is going on.."

Then reality sets in, and he asks the important question, "Why the FUCK am I sober?" just about the time he sees Pete standing off to the side. His eyes narrow, "Oh you fuckin' twat." he says, voice gruff. He reaches into his trench, pulls out his battered pack of Silk Cuts and lights one. He looks to Amy now, "Oh christ. What the fuck are /you/ doing here?"

Amy squints, her expression bemused in a challenging way. "I think the answer to what the fuck are you doing here is right next to the answer of how the fuck are you in Gemworld, you colossal dick."

She stands, looming over Constantine. The boots don't just kick, they also make her taller. "I was in Hell the other week, Constantine. I had dinner with Mephisto. He told me you got out awhile ago. Did you forget about your promise, or were you tied up with more important things?"

"Fuck you, she stole it," adds Pete, not unkindly; he folds over the top of the paper bag, then holds it for until they're done. "All I did was tell her it existed. Had to. Warned you. Didn't know magical princesses broke into strange men's rooms, deflected bullets, and nicked shit from their sock drawers." Then, cigarette taken from mouth; cigarette, ashed. He probably shouldn't be looking so impressed. It's probably fairly tactless. "On the Helicarrier. You'd probably better cooperate, mate."

Constantine sighs and stands up, dusting himself off. "Right." he says to Pete's explanation of things. He looks to Amy, "Sorry, I misplaced whatever promise I made in my head in between getting out of Hell, and saving people from their own stupidity when it comes to trying to bring things about they have sweet fuck all understanding of." he checks himself over for damage, and satisfied to find none. "But no. I didn't forget about whatever promise I made." he takes a drag off his smoke, "whatever it was.." - he's not even real convinced himself that he remembers. "So if you guys got outta hell, what do you need me for?"

Amy springs forward. She bursts through the air like it's glass filled with purple stardust. The light changes her clothes, her hair, and puts a sparkling sword in her hand.

It also changes her face. She's snarling, eyes wide, almost shaking. Her sword hand is still. This is good. She has the length of the blade at Constantine's throat.

"Everyone here almost died. Many people did. You did that. You made me do that. Since I'm such a nice fucking princess, I'll remind you: you help me kill Eclipso, or I kill you. Want to pick again?"

And this? This is where Pete shuts up. His face is expressionless, his attention tuned completely to Amethyst's body language-- and that sword. Just because he can't help but trust her better nature does not mean he is not working through the calculus of potential combat and preventative measures. After a second his attention divides: he's also watching Constantine's hands.

Constantine has been threatened with death many times, in many places (and planes), by many people, with many things. This won't be the last time this happens either. Eventually you get to the point where you develop a certain cavalier attitude towards it. "Listen, yer nibs." he says, taking one step back, and using a finger tip to lightly press against the sword and push it out of his way. He makes no move to disarm her. "If you think you're going to get anywhere barking at me like /that/ you're sorely fucking mistaken. You want to put a pointy thing in my neck? Get in fuckin' line. I'm sorry whatever happened here happened. I'm even sorrier that I caused it. Now - I'm sure that at some point I promised you I'd help take care of your little problem, by which I mean that *I* will probably take care of your little problem. I offer my deepest, most soulful mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa that I can't remember what, when, why, or how I made said promise but I'll stand by my word because I take promises seriously, and give them out about as often as you have a cheerful fucking disposition. What you have to understand is that when you've seen and done what I've experienced the only thing that keeps you sane and unsuicidal is to soak your brains in as much alcohol as humanly possible so the voices get muffled and the memories a little blurred. So you can stop with kicking me in the goddam face, pointing swords at my throat and dealing out threats that we both know you aren't gonna make good on because for some reason you decided it was time to bring me in because what good would it be to kill your bloody cavalry thirty seconds after summoning it, right?" he takes another drag off his smoke, takes two steps back to where he was, and returns the point of the sword the same way he moved it.

"Now, we can do this one of two ways - fucking civil like, or you can run me through my neck and put my outta my goddamed misery. Either way, get on with it sunshine because I ain't got all day."

He takes another drag, and looks Amy right square in the eye, waiting. There is zero fear coming off the man right now.

The sword is an idea of a sword, a concept magically given form. It cuts. It cuts Constantine if he presses too hard. When he tries, Amethyst lowers the sword in the direction he guides it and keeps it there.

The blood has gone out of her again. She is white as postcard snow, eyes bright and open and not a human color. Her breath is quick, her lips pressed thin. She is silent as Constantine speaks, a wordless apparition that once stood at the foot of Pete Wisdom's bed while intending to haunt another man's dreams.

When he gestures to bring the sword back, Amethyst leaves it by her side.

"I will never be civil with you, John Constantine," she says. The steel in her voice is shot through with anger. It's an impurity that leads to sorrow. She falters. "I won't be civil because I won't let you pick and choose when society suits you."

With her arms bare, Pete's study of her body language is much easier. Her muscles are tense. She is holding onto her sword with all her strength because it's the only thing in reach.

The shaking in her voice forces her to speak more quietly. It's the only way to stay in control. "You won't even say what you did. You keep dancing around it, but you never say it. I don't think that's because you feel guilty. I believe you. You've seen so much that, by comparison, I'm some stupid little girl and this is some backwoods land not worth mentioning."

Amethyst's eyes water but she doesn't dare reach up to wipe at them. She doesn't trust her hands. "When I first came back to you, Constantine, I wanted to offer you a chance to be human. When you laughed at me and disappeared, I thought I was stupid for trying because you gave up on that. I was wrong then. I was stupid for trying because you're just so fucking selfish that you'll only be human when it makes things easier for you. You've been doing things like that for so long that people have to die for you to keep on, and you're okay with that."

Amethyst finds her free hand is moving on its own. She grabs at her necklace to stop it from doing anything else. Her tiara fades, and with it the armor and the sword, and her blonde hair spun from a fairytale. Amy Winston stands there in her drug store mascara and her jacket held together with safety pins.

"Fuck you, John Constantine. Fuck you for taking the easy way out and laughing at the people who don't. Fuck you, because I'm just another asshole who doesn't get you."

She turns away, hiding her face. The air splits beside her, showing a glimpse of the street where Constantine came. "Talk to Wisdom if you solve this Eclipso thing. I really do hope you take care of this for me, Constantine."

Wisdom's silent. He does step up and move to put the paper bag in John's hands, and if the blond Englishman should try to meet his eyes, they're looking, but shuttered. Knowledge that he's an intruder in this, maybe. There's no judgement, at least, even if there's also no sympathy.

It's a look Constantine'll be familiar with:

This is how Pete looked at him twelve years ago, after things went completely pear-shaped.

As they do.

Constantine is the definition of stone-faced. He takes the verbal beating because among other things, that's what he does. He takes a last drag of his smoke, dropping the butt and crushing it under his shoe. "It's real easy to stand there and judge, isn't it? Throw the judgement and the fuck yous and the assumptions in my face because all you see is what you've gone through. Do you think that when I've left you, or Zee, or anyone else -- you just wake up one morning and I've left without a trace -- that I just got sick of shit and took a piss?" he shakes his head, "Fuck. You wanna talk about taking the easy way out? That's it, right there. Whenever that happens, it's because someone else has broken a bobble, or performed a ritual, or just flatout fucking shanghai'd me because there's something afoot that they can't bloody well deal with. You know, I don't wear a fucking cape or run around with a set of fucking bat ears on my head or fly around in a fifty billion pound erector but it doesn't mean I haven't done shit to curtail the demise of this miserable fucking race and the ball of rock it infests more times than I got fingers on my hands - and it doesn't stop there." pinching the bridge of his nose between his eyes, "There's always a plane, or a reality, or fucking hell or heaven itself that of all the people they could tap put it on my shoulders..and every fucking time, I've delivered. And every time - there's a cost. People /do/ die because I can't save everyone, because my first solution didn't work so I have to think of something else, because it's not like the fuckers I face want to steal money, or real estate, or some kiddie pool shit like that. They want to destroy the world, and everyone in it, or subjugate the lot of us into some kind of infernal slave, or maybe they just wanna fuckin' eat us like humanity is a walkin' fuckin' buffet. So every time I've just up and pissed off, it's because somewhere or even someWHEN, somebody fucking needs me to come to the rescue and I do it as much as I can and I carry all the failures with me. I hear the screams when I try to sleep, see flashbacks when I'm walking down the street, get reminded when I hear a voice that sounds familiar..because that's the cost that I pay. Every. Fucking. Time. So go ahead, sit there and make your judgement. Say Fuck You. Call me inhuman, soulless, and selfish..but I'm still here, and I'm still gonna take care of your demon problem, and then when I'm done you'll no doubt have something /else/ pithy to say." he half walks, half staggers despite his sobriety (or maybe because of it) and leans against a rock that's large enough, "Because no doubt how I've done it, or the fact that I've done it at all, it STILL won't be good enough for you." a beat pause, and pulls out another smoke and lights it before looking up a the sky, "So now, instead of telling me why I'm such a fucking tosser, why don't you tell me shit I /don't/ know so I can do my fucking job, eh?"

Amy doesn't turn around. She stands there, arms crossed, watching the sky. For a moment, it seems like she's not going to respond. Then, in a quiet voice:

"I don't think you're soulless. If I did, I wouldn't have said what I said."

She turns her head, looking over her shoulder at Wisdom. She looks defeated. "Doctor Strange knows more about Eclipso than I do. Ask him if you really do have any questions. The portal's closing in thirty minutes. Don't stay that long. This is troll country."

Then, shoving her hands into her jacket pockets, she starts down the hill, walking with the sun at her back.

Constantine nods, simply saying, "Oi. I'll check in with 'im then. Apparently Zach knows him so I got an in. I'll do my own research, too." he is saying this to both people. He sighs, takes a drag and exhales. He goes over to Pete to get his things, "I swear to fuck, Pete. Thought I was gettin' dragged to Hell so I could get you guys out of a jam but instead I end up a fucking twat. You ok, boyo?"

"Oh I'm grand," Pete says, all of a piece; he claps John on the arm once the somewhat-battered bag's been foisted off back on its owner. "Sorry, mate. I know what it was for. I told her she couldn't have it. She disagreed. Fortunately for me, we're already back from hell." He glances over his shoulder, looking down the hill at Amy's departing back, then back to John and the portal. "And just proving I'm mad as everyone bloody thinks I am-- go on back. I think she needs to win an argument, and I'm good at losing."

Constantine looks back, watching Amy walk away. He sighs again. It's not a exasperated sound. It's tired. Weary. He looks back to Pete, "Listen." he says, face wreathed in smoke, "Have her come get me in forty eight hours. I'll have the info I'll need and be ready to deal with this motherfucker."

"I'll tell her. She'll probably have me come get you. Which'll be interesting, because I just left a baby velociraptor on my CO's desk," Wisdom says probably more philosophically than anyone has a right to, then pushes John lightly toward the portal. "And when it's all done, I'll give you Tamdhu at least older'n I am."

He backs up a couple of feet, then, and waits for a second before starting to hike down the hill after Amy. Because he really -is- insane, clearly.