002. [visual] in debt to the earth
John Constantine has inherited a bowling alley.
In a burst of bizarre irony - perhaps even the kind worthy of giant hamsters God's sense of humor - the man who owned the place had not a week ago died of bees (and Balthazar), so were he in other circumstances he might have approached this by like ...finding a new apartment. One not above a bowling ( Read more... )
In a burst of bizarre irony - perhaps even the kind worthy of giant hamsters God's sense of humor - the man who owned the place had not a week ago died of bees (and Balthazar), so were he in other circumstances he might have approached this by like ...finding a new apartment. One not above a bowling ( Read more... )
Did somebody say 'dead languages, magic, the inner workings of Hell'- why yes. The sudden appearance of a skinny thing in a slip dress with a glow-in-the-dark star stuck to the side of her face (not...aesthetically, it looks like she just kind of smacked it on there) is not the most professionally reassuring, but he'll probably survive it.
"Oh, you!" Enfys. "I'm Bruce Wayne's silent partner, I was stalking you earlier-" what, "-and I was going to track you down anyway but this is just a shitload more convenient because I happen to be a fucking genius at all those things except drinking blood."
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There's a moment where his face flashes slightly less impassive: Bruce Wayne, really. The guy with the--well. This shifts over into the subtle echo of what, if a person is so inclined to such an interpretation, might be a grin. "That's too bad, considering I'm looking for someone to bite me. It's a business proposition." ....so. He doesn't appear to think that's weird or anything, but then, well. What is weird, in this context--fucking hamsters, those were weird. "But if you can read Aramaic we can still set something up."
Assuming she's going to go there after the rest of that, John.
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"And here's me without a set of fangs to make it worth your while," without blinking, although she does put on a bit of a theatrical sigh, "which is really a shame, I don't do enough biting these days. What do you need read in Aramaic?"
The reading glasses that Enfys isn't in desperate need of but occasionally has to make use of are being dug out at this point, as she wanders a short distance from her tablet to procure them from the case on her vanity.
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A considering pause. "I think saying it wouldn't be worth my while might be jumping to conclusions. On my part."
Not that he ever does that.
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"Oh, that's what you're after." Identifying the texts, she means, thanks for sharing with the class, Enfys; she could equally be referring to the notion of her teeth being worth his while. Returning to sit on the table (not at) with her glasses in her hand, now, she regards him speculatively. "We down one demonologist, that it? I don't have a handy one, have to pull double duty-" that is an axe leaning against the end of her bed in the background, by the way, "-so I should be able to do you up proper."
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If a demonologist was what one would call Beeman; John just mostly called him his friend. And the fact that he's dead is three hundred percent John's fault, but we're keeping our woe in narrative and not dialogue here, so not much of that shows on his face. "Don't let me take you away from anything important, but I've suddenly got all this extra time on my hands."
So like ....now's fine.
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"Shit happens." Despite the phrasing, it's probably more sincere than a lot of 'I'm so sorry for your loss'...es that he might otherwise expect; Enfys is sorry, but sorry doesn't make somebody any less dead, and she doesn't dwell on other people's pain any more than she focuses on her own. (She's a healthy, sane kinda girl.)
"So! I'm not busy, I'll throw some jeans on and be there in a bit. Where're you at?"
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It's not that death is funny, per se, or like ....at all. But it is something he's used to, and while in private he experiences more difficulty moving on than a lot of people who aren't, say, regularly visited by ghosts, he doesn't actually want anyone else to dwell on his pain, thank you so much. So he can appreciate this, but it's still important Enfys be aware the things he's asking her to look at belonged to someone who isn't just absent by virtue of Taxon ( ... )
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A dead man gets a little more respect than an absent one; Enfys could explain to somebody why she had to mess up their shit (or blithely apologize if she had no excuse), but she remembers packing up things that her mother would never touch again and hiding photographs from her father and she'll be careful. Not deferent, but- careful.
"I always land on my feet, you know, like a cat. See you soon."
With that delightful announcement, she ends the transmission and starts putting together a bag of what she might need, not endearing herself at all to the fashionable ladies of Taxon by indeed just shoving jeans on underneath her slip and digging out her jacket. (Leather. For the record.)
Since recently becoming one of the few people in Taxon to get around with their own transportation, Enfys shows up faster than she might've otherwise and with a more noteworthy arrival; the sound of an approaching motorcycle is more distinct when there's almost no traffic.
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It's all the other little things: the bizarre jars overhead, the collection of noisemakers - what does he do with these bits of a life piled up like the confetti and glitter aftermath of some block shaking party? Having done this before should make it easier, but the fact is that he almost never has - there's always been another person to ask, to call in that one last favor. I can't handle this, I'm busy, you do it.And now, in the very literal sense, there's no one else. So what he's doing - as in ( ... )
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With her bag against her hip and her jacket under her arm, Enfys grins up (not as far as some; she's long and thin and blade-like) at him in the manner of someone who smiles because she can see how the world is, hate and love it in equal measure, and if that means she looks slightly like a crazy person-
-well, look, she is a crazy person. He should go ahead and get used to that right now, because the only thing at the end of this rainbow is a rabbit hole and you probably don't want to know what's at the bottom of that.
"Enfys Llewelyn," she supplies, "I forgot to say. I'm a librarian."
That's one of many things she can call herself, yes, but for some reason it's the one that she takes the most pride in - and therefore what she presents to Taxon as a whole. She follows him back there to see how far he's got already on that whole 'identifying' thing, and the slightly distressing surroundings of Beeman's space have the curious effect of focusing her, bright and untrustworthy thing that she is.
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But meanwhile: if allowed, John will take her coat, observing in tandem that knife's edge eye - he recognizes it, if not in exactly that guise. She can get settled in, as he both returns her belated introduction and obfuscates it, looking at her from under the same half-lidded assessing cast they were uh, leveling at one another before. "John Constantine." The first half of which she already knew, but, "I'm going to get you a chair."
And so he vanishes briefly to the larger part of the alley, in effect not really saying what he is, or does, and that's ...annoying, but it also doesn't have an easy explanation. While no one could mistake him for modest, that's where his pride is, in being ( ... )
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Producing her glasses and her own notebooks, pens and the like from her bag, Enfys sets it down underneath the chair he gives her (John's manners are...weird, but so is he, and Enfys is not the sort of person to really notice much less object - sometimes people say things, sometimes they don't, and in due fairness she hasn't bothered to ask) and starts, for simplicity's sake, with what's already in front of her. The jaggedly bright colours that she tumbles around the world in shear off for a while, and she's a different person when she's working; quiet, focused, disinterested in her surroundings. A stiletto blade instead of the lochaber axe.
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Apparently Enfys regards her own personal space roughly as much as anyone else's - which is to say she barely seems to notice John moving in and out of it. She does notice, but it doesn't register as anything she should object to, so she doesn't let him distract her. Work is work, and fuck, she has missed working. She's missed a purpose, a goal, sitting down with her studies and assuring herself of her own fucking competence.
(The fact that her shoulders aren't like rock with stress is a minor miracle.)
"Do you have a pen?" she asks, glaring at hers with asperity when it gives up the ghost.
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He holds this out to Enfys somewhat dubiously; if she's particular he'll go look for something else, because he knows from particular. "Can you make anything out of it? I'm guessing you aren't making notes on the quality of the prose there."
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