002. [visual] in debt to the earth

[antisaint]

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

Comments

[ location: the bowling alley ]

[antisaint]

He takes a second to look at the crazy straws and confront the one apparently intended for him with great bemusement, opting when he sits - looking more out of place than she, although his M.O. is such that he sticks out everywhere - to drink out of the side of the glass, thanks so much, because he ...dresses like that, indicative that his sense of humor is particular and stupid and tragically doesn't extend to crazy straws. Watch as his body actually goes into some kind of 'what the fuck, nutrients?!' related shock - that doesn't happen.

"Not really." Something small enough to be concealed in a closed fist transfers from shirt pocket to hand with a movement touched by an echo of flourish: not a magician's sleight of hand, but in the same gesture family. "But we have to; I did have ulterior motives beyond the obvious."

The situation at hand is really not this ominous - and yet. "Here," if she will oblige him by leaning forward, "I got you something."

'Something' is the amulet which not so long ago was Hennessy's, then briefly Angela's, and now Cat's, apparently, if she puts up with what appears at first to be the sudden attempt to put jewelry on her after ten days of knowing a person. "It's not a marriage proposal," he ...clears that right up, "think of it as a bulletproof vest."

Because that worked last time, he sees no reason not to reuse the explanation.

[ location: the bowling alley ]

[lambentstar]

Cat doesn't take it personally, because whoever takes rejecting crazy straws personally may need the adjective more than the straws do. What she does is note that his dignity, as ever, doesn't crack when things are difficult, and then leans forward to allow for acquiring a necklace as if it's the most natural thing in the world.

"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.

[ location: the bowling alley ]

[antisaint]

"That's because it isn't for your chest." Which doesn't .....actually derail him as much or as thoroughly as his line of sight suggests that it does, or wouldn't if he wasn't deliberately going there; indulgence is part of what keeps him on an even keel. "It's for up here."

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.

[ location: the bowling alley ]

[lambentstar]

Cat straightens her back when John's hands rest coolly on her head, and her gaze is now the quietly incisive, nonjudgmental one she turns on just about everything and everyone--she looks into more than she looks at, and so she catches one of his hands in her own and squeezes it.

"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."

[ location: the bowling alley ]

[antisaint]

"I have plenty of problems." ...that'll help. "I don't want you to be one of them. Ghosts," he elucidates, finally deigning to pick up his straw (one indicator that this is what it is, given that usually he'd refuse to have anything to do with something that neon on principle) and use it to stir the contents of his glass in a way that remarkably resembles stabbing it, "aren't always something I see because we're in the same place at the same time. Some of them I put there, and they're the ones who stick around. Like a string around my finger. Now I'm just waiting on Beeman, to see if he'll show. It'd be fitting, he loved this fucking place."

This is presumably no one's idea of a segue but John's, and this is why he shouldn't be allowed to talk to people. He holds onto her hand like he's forgotten she's there, a concept easily belied by his eye contact, which is constant and miserable. (It takes some ability to look into, rather than at, to recognize this as misery, which even so is more accurately guilt.) "Wear it," he continues, in a tone he wouldn't recognize was pleading if you told him, as most other people wouldn't, because - well, he talks like he does, "and pretend I didn't just paint such a flattering picture of myself. Pretend I'm being paranoid, it's a lot better than the alternative."

[ location: the bowling alley ]

[lambentstar]

As has been elucidated before and will be so again, Cat hurts easily and deeply with other people, the flipside of the mechanism that turns everyone else's happiness into her own. John stops her heart in her throat, wearing his misery like his monochrome and the set of his shoulders. It disarms her, because she doesn't have an answer for it, and the urge in her to just fix it can't find an outlet fast enough: yesterday was already late, today is worse.

"John," she says, her hand tightening on his, "Just--no, forget it." 'It' being whatever she might have said in lieu of releasing her grip so she can draw him into an embrace, fingers of one hand slipping up to the back of his neck and the soft borders of his hair.

"I'll wear it," she promises; it's not such a terrible concession, even if it's just to make him sleep easier, and while it's not a marriage proposal it still signifies something. He protects everyone, in principle, but in the specific--he's worried about her. "I know it's serious, I'm not just saying that."

She could promise not to go, or not to become one of these problems haunting his footsteps, but they're adults and they know better than that. So she can give him that, and do this.

[ location: the bowling alley ]

[antisaint]

John closes his eyes into her shoulder; his self-image is not bound up in the kind of loathing that would make him reject this on the grounds that he's undeserving - he may not be, but he'll take it anyway because comfort, especially of the concrete, tangible variety (the only kind that's real to him) comes in short supply. He doesn't stop even consider that he shouldn't let her do this, even having just said the people who get involved with him are not often people who meet happy ends. It's compromise; for a minute he lets her hold him, her fingers in his hair spiraling points of warmth and the smell of strawberries (but not really that, something sweeter underneath) shuttering open a brief memory of bright, hot blue summer, a time he can't place that's gone too fast to indulge in.

But he would if he had the chance, he's great at indulgence. And even though he's pretty sure - with the kind of rueful amusement that isn't positive it's pleased by this or not - that having come all this way with boxes in tow, there's no way Cat would let him skip out (again) on dealing with Beeman's effects, that's where he'll try to take this if it goes on for too long. So he lifts his head and adjusts the amulet a little, which doesn't need doing, and gifts her with "Serious as cancer. Come on, if I don't tackle this now we'll just end up upstairs."

His ego, coupled with some ...small stage of progress. Perhaps Cat will beat him about the head and shoulders depend on which one wins out.

[ location: the bowling alley ]

[lambentstar]

"You're awful conceited," Cat says, in the line of indulgence she's sure he deserves enough for her to be doling it out, skipping his beating in lieu of kissing his cheek and moving on to finish her smoothie, a spike of freezing shock inevitable with the speed she does this. She rubs her tongue against the roof of her mouth and eyes him sideways, still close. "And I will staple your mouth shut one of these days, if you tempt me."

('Awful' as she uses it here is more in line with the way the word is used where she comes from: 'awe-ful', excellent, good. There's a twist of irony in it anyway, but it's not criticism all the same.)

"Do you have a filing system?" That's a sudden change of tone, but it's relevant, coupled with a sharpening of her focus. "I mean, along the lines of how we're going to sort things."

[ location: the bowling alley ]

[antisaint]

John puts a hand over his heart in a dual gesture of 'conceited? I, Constantine?' and as though he's deeply wounded she would threaten such harm to his face. Both sentiments are absolutely silly, of course, but it's a welcome little moment of lightness between what he's just said and what they're beginning. He has to tell her that the threat the amulet guards against is not even remotely hypothetical here in Taxon, and - whether this is interpretable or not - that's his fault too, Balthazar less like the string around his finger than some weight around his neck.

It'll keep for now, though. The remainder of the pink mixture in his own glass goes untouched, although surely right now precious vitamins and minerals are roiling around his insides, attacking at will. Still in such close proximity - and then closer still, he leans forward a little to put a hand on her knee, something innocuously deviant playing around the corners of his mouth. "You need to see it. One thing you could say about Beeman was that he defied categorization."

The tiny, diminutive bowling alley owner who also damn near made the goddamn Philosopher's Stone, and knew ahead of time to bring John cough syrup, unassuming with a strange fondness for bugs and those ridiculous noisemaking toys -

Want anything from India?

Oh, just the usual, if you don't mind.

Beeman, this is a foreign country we're talking about. I could pick up anything.

No, no, I don't have one from India yet. Perfect, really, your going there.

Defying categorization, indeed. He changes his mind and tips the glass upward, riding the resulting cold headache like coming up out of a wave of ice. This could be symbolic of not leaving anything wasted, or it could just be a fucking smoothie. "And the last time I did this I put everything in one box."

It had almost surprised him, that everything about Lily fit in such a small thing, but then when a person had been dead for as long as she had - she was always losing things; sometimes neither of them could remember if they'd ever been there at all. Did I have a blue sweater? I thought I had a blue sweater, and he was too busy trying to remember without looking what color her eyes were to answer.

[ location: the bowling alley ]

[lambentstar]

"We could always do it by utility, maybe, or shape, or size--those work, or we could just do the easier thing and just figure it out while we go. Not that anything about this is easy." Cat slides away from the table and straightens her shirt, unnecessarily, just for something to briefly do with her hands. She's done this before, but never for someone close to her. (Not strictly true, but everything about Bo fits in one box in her mind, and she doesn't open it more than she has to. He doesn't have anything to do with this.)

"If you need a break you better tell me, once we're back there, we're not rushing this so as you end up being a mess after." That caution delivered, Cat gets behind her cart again and wheels it towards the door John came out of when she showed up; the wheels are smooth and rubber, and thus unlikely to scuff anything, which is one of those disposable details Cat pays attention to.

[ location: the bowling alley ]

[antisaint]

John comes to the conclusion that Beeman's collection of ...objects is best left just viewed; his biggest problem aside from all the spiky emotional navigation is where to start. Perhaps Cat will have some idea, given that she has the emotional intelligence of something more complex than an aphid. This would put her one up on John, as his spare shrug and "it's no problem," starkly attest.

So not an aphid, maybe, but Cat is still less remarkably lacking in the Jenga tower equivalent of relationship-related blockage; either way, if allowed, he will gently - in the physical sense, stop looking at me - remove her from cart-pushing duty, because this thing has to go up a set of stairs just past the door. Beeman's work space is not large, so the cart itself barely fits down the slatted metal walkway, but there's room to push it off to the side and out of the way. This does mean they're going to be doing this in the leftover area of about ten by ten feet, but they aren't exactly strangers to one another in that regard.

A few items are already separated out, mostly books running the gamut from 'disturbing' to 'more disturbing' to 'weird,' and a space has been cleared on the battered table where Enfys was doing her translation - and less recently, where John assembled the holy shotgun in a fit of rage-induced efficiency.

He's not unaware of the fact that they're going to have to do this in the spot where Beeman died; it would be impossible not to be. It was different leaning over the table with Enfys, that was significantly not immersing himself in the facts of his surroundings, that was work, and therefore distracting. He curses, reflexively, and hasn't wanted a cigarette this much since he got to the city. "I wouldn't put your hand anywhere you can't see; he liked bugs."

A pause, looking somewhere to the shelves ahead of the table. "Used to give him shit about that all the time, the bug thing. But he was - great, he could find anything, make anything. Smartest guy I ever knew, right up until the point where he trusted me."

'Faith,' specifically, was the word Beeman had used.

[ location: the bowling alley ]

[lambentstar]

The extent of the place catches Cat by surprise, because there's really no way to anticipate something like Beeman's collection--maybe the way it looks, but not the way it feels, or the deeply complicated way it smells. She didn't mind surrendering the cart to John, in another of those moments she's vaguely aware make her seem less than independent; it's the last thing on her mind, right now. The space is confined beyond the obvious ducking and narrowness, she thinks, but any space still occupied by ghosts is--

--she remembers John thinks in terms of literal ghosts and doesn't voice that, picking up a box and beginning to fold it into shape with an air of practice as she watches John.

"If you're really blaming yourself for what happened to him, we're going to be in here a lot longer, because I will not let you leave until you get somewhere with that." This is the kind of bluntness that comes attendant with her, and while she hopes it's not going to be so jarring he'll throw her out she couldn't just let that pass anyway. It's delivered mildly, in spite of what it is, and she sets down her completed box before picking up another one, still standing. "Or I guess you can ask me to go, but then you'd be doing this on your own, and if you were going to do that you'd probably have done it already. Did he have a name besides Beeman you knew about?"

[location: the bowling alley ]

[antisaint]

John stares at her for a second - it really is just a second, though it feels longer; one casualty of moving from plane to plane is the blurred sense of linear time - mostly incredulous. It could be he wasn't expecting someone so soft to also be so fucking blunt, but it isn't incongruous, it's another facet of caring when being gentle isn't enough to penetrate - or when it takes too much patience. He is highly aware that he's a drain on that particular resource by rote. Or by carelessness, or design, pick one depending on the day and his state of mind.

"Most people get at least two." Jesus, does he even know this? There's a thing to assuage guilt. "He died because I got him involved in something bigger than either of us - right about where you're standing - and it was already a week full of fucking carnage. So if you can absolve me, be my guest. Tell me it wasn't my fault, or there was nothing I could have done; I've certainly never heard that before."

[ location: the bowling alley ]

[lambentstar]

"Do I look like somebody who can absolve you? Because I'm not, I can tell you that, only--you're walking around with a hole in your chest, and I'll leave it the hell alone if you want me to, but if you're going to try to pick it open wider I'm not going to help you with that." Flinching from the spot where she is, or at least looking it over again, are things Cat isn't sure she should do; she's been where people have died before, so she decides not to spook visibly, although it's still a ripple of apprehension down her spine. That's more from John than the place-memory here, though, because this is dangerous and bleeding territory she's walked into.

There are good reasons that most people shy away from stating things that boldly, because people, as a rule, don't like hearing them - they hurt at the best of times, and she's only talking like this to John because she really does have limits to how wounded she can watch someone get. Bruce already fell apart practically in (at) her hands, and she can't do that again with John or anyone else.

"We're both grown-ups, John, I'm not going to tell you that you have to forgive yourself, because you don't, and if anybody could make you I'm definitely not that person, but if I don't call you on what you're saying I don't think there's anybody else here who's going to, and you're already fucking tired and you hurt and that is not going to help you." Now she does sit down cross-legged, next to a stack of cardboard in progress, which in terms of unspoken communication paired with her lowered eyes and quiet voice speaks to firmness of resolve and her own brand of fatigue that never seems able to slow her down, until it does. "And I care about you, which I know sounds like bullshit considering how long I've known you, but I mean it."

[ location: the bowling alley ]

[antisaint]

John laughs under his breath, which given the conversation - or vivisection - at hand might be one of those hoarse terrible sounds like sandpaper, but is instead fairly genuine, if not light. Given the givens. "Not really."

And that's maybe too easy; he is not a person who trusts easily or often without consequence, but Cat is, likewise, a person who seems easy to trust. He stays standing, until that makes him uncomfortable - and it's possible to do that, he remembers the spider uncurling in sudden, unexpected relief and running - and then picks up a flattened box for something to do with his hands, and because he's not actually going to stand here and watch her do what he's supposed to be doing. "But you're not the first person to get tired of watching me destroy myself."

It would take a serious dearth of self-perception to avoid the awareness that he is not exactly the easiest human being to be friends with, and although his voice still carries some faint cast of bitterness the way other voices contain, say, breath, mostly he's gentle about it. Of course, contextually speaking this just means he's not actively trying to stab her with what he's saying. "Although you might win the prize for most persistent."

Whether or not this is a good thing seems to be up for interpretation. He looks at the shelves and immediately decides to start anywhere but with the noisemakers, thank you, electing instead to pick up what appears to be a ...fucking geiger counter (that's there, no one could make this up). This necessitates stepping around Cat some, with the semi-serious air that she might, say, attack his shins. "I'm not going to ask you to leave," eventually, after setting the machine aside because he might actually need to use it at some point, which is ...distressing. Or would be for someone normal. "If I wanted that I'd just go, it's not like I'd be kicking myself out of my own place."

Refraining at least from any verbal commentary on how good he is at that, which ....small wonders. Either way, it's not his bowling alley, as much as it obviously is now.

[ location: the bowling alley ]

[lambentstar]

"Yeah, well, I hear that a lot. I guess my type's not hard to figure out." It's almost as if Cat's absorbed a trace of John's excess bitterness and turned it on herself, but of course she brought this with her. It's an old problem, and she knows this isn't the time or place to tackle it--and what would she approach it with, anyway? She's not going to stop being herself.

"That doesn't mean I don't want to listen to you. I mean, you're the one who should be talking if you want to, I'm just eating up all the air because I talk too much when I'm worried and I can't really do anything about it. Do you think we should start with jars? Those stack easy and we can fit a lot of them in each box, if we sort them out by size." Not having looked up, all she knows about what he's doing is that he's moved something without boxing it. They still don't have a plan here, which seems like it might be worth addressing before she makes his day any more miserable than it is.