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... )
What are you up to today?
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If that answers your question.
[beat]
Are you killing a cat?
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I'm going to pretend you meant the blender and--[said blender whirs, for a few seconds]--tell you I'm making smoothies, which could be yours depending on how you feel about strawberries and if you'll tell me what you're doing.
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[on cue, one of those little noisemaker things goes off in the background; john has the one he brought back from india sitting on the table with him. this isn't symbolic at all.] If you wanted to be generous and forgiving you could keep me company, assuming your idea of an exciting afternoon involves boredom of the deepest caliber.
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[on ....that note]
You could skip the fruit and just bring the bottle.
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[a pause]
Thanks. You can let yourself in, it's still the same inconspicuous building.
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I'll see you in no time. Don't burn the place down before I get there, all right?
[/voice.]
Cat arrives not long after, as promised, pushing a cart she picked up to carry a large collection of flattened cardboard boxes--they transport more easily that way, and the spiked smoothie travels in a lidded pitcher on top of everything else. She has to struggle slightly to get it over the threshold of the door, and once inside she manuevers it to the middle of the front room and casts around for John.
"Delivery?" She calls.
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"You walked here," he observes brilliantly as he crosses the long aisle of the alley to her, both quietly pleased and afflicted by some pale sense of disbelief. Cat just does things like this, and while he is not entirely a foreigner in the land of human kindness, his visits to or from are so occupationally and voluntarily infrequent some of this shows in the instant curvature of his mouth. "And you're intending to both pack up the possessions of and overdose on nutrients an entire army, I notice."
A pause. "He worked in the back. But this can wait; get me drunk first."
There is no way the smoothies contain enough alcohol to do that, but welcome to more sloppily phrased 'I didn't want to do this alone, I keep failing at it.'
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"If you can get drunk off of this, you be my guest, but don't be a smartass and pull out a bottle from somewhere else. If everything's all prone to exploding you'd better be almost sober if you want me to be within five miles, okay?" She sips from her crazy straw, which isn't as crazy as it'd like to believe.
"Do you want to talk about anything? Before we start."
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"It doesn't look that big." She holds it up and tilts her head down to examine it, glancing back up at him from under her eyelashes when she's determined it doesn't have any glowing pieces or a series of mystic runes. Still, it feels like it has weight beyond the obvious, some feeling brushing the edges of her perception - she covers it with the pad of her thumb and keeps her eyes on John. "Why are you giving me this?"
Since that will probably tell her what it does just as well as outright asking that question would.
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That brief moment of awesome which was uh, Cat's chest, past, he leans forward again to touch her temples, brief and light - his hands are cold, mostly from holding the glass in front of him. "People die around me," he continues, like he's observing gravity exists, if only he completely hated gravity and was going to be bitter at it forever. "And I can't be everywhere at once, so this will protect you from influence."
Which he's mentioned before, but in a less specific context. "I used to be better at that." His grin is sideways, rueful, self-directed and incisive - if he'd been faster they wouldn't be on the verge of their particularly unpleasant packing job.
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"I appreciate the thought, let me establish that before I tell you that was a terrible thing to say and you know it was, I guess probably to try to make me cautious or maybe to want to run off and hide somewhere." She sighs very softly, leaning in herself now, head down. "You really have a problem with that. John, I'm not new to this, you don't need to worry about me--and maybe if anybody should hang onto this necklace it's you, but I'm guessing if I tried to give it back you'd just look all annoyed and say no."
This would be a good place to let go of his hand and pull away, but she tilts her head and smiles faintly up at him, affection tinting her concern: "Take it back? And maybe give it to somebody who could use it."
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