2012-10-28 Inside Out

It's easy to make inferences about a man based on the way he acts. It's easy to judge him by the cover. It's easy to assume. It's easy to take bits of a puzzle and think the picture is easy to solve, but most of all, it's easy to be wrong.

Constantine knows about wrong. He knows about making assumptions and he knows about judgment. He judges and assumes with the best of them. He judges based on small pieces of information that are unrelated to a whole and since he has no concern for any consequences, he's got no problem vocalizing those judgments to anyone within ear shot... or mega horn range.

But when you're alone with yourself, it's hard to be as judgmental as you might like. It's hard to make any assumptions at all. In a dirty t-shirt at a kitchen table, with the fog of a hundred cigarettes hanging in the air and the stench of an open bottle of half empty (pessimist) Kentucky Gentleman, it's hard to even /have/ to judge.

The facts just sort of stares at you. You're a bastard.

Blonde hair hangs like half a curtain over one groggy eye, trying for all the life of it to catch flame on the amber of the cigarette burning between his sticky cracked lips. Constantine stares at the symbol carved into his palm, blood still oozing from where he's just finished cauterizing it, and can't help wondering how long before all the judgment and assumptions catch up to him.

"You're a bastard."

He tells himself pretty regularly, in case he ever tries to forget. He tells himself and clinches his fist so his nails dig into the bloody black burns firing the dulled pain through nerve bundles. It's sometimes the only way to remind himself he's still alive. His other hand scissors around the cigarette filter and pull it away with saliva clinging to his lip.

The bottle of whiskey. Not to forget, he never drinks to forget. He drinks to remember, it's a penance for being so horrible. Punishment for still being alive. The lip of the bottle goes to his mouth first, turning so he can suck down several long gulps. Dull his senses for the next part when he pours some of the amber liquid over his open hand and grinds his teeth against the pain...

"You're a bastard..." His head lulls back with the nausea of sudden onset burning... dropping until his skull is laying against the back of the chair and turned over on one side to stare at the dark figure standing at the opposite side of the room. "Tell me somethin' I don't know..."

"Your cancer has relapsed..." The voice chides with a grin of white teeth that shouldn't be visible

"That's better..." Constantine's voice isn't nearly as challenging this time around.