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tampered2006-10-19 09:49 pm
bitingnightmare.livejournal.com) wrote in tampered2006-10-19 09:49 pm
Log; Complete
When; Oct. 16 (evening)
Rating; PG-13 (language)
Characters; John Constantine (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
silkcutremix), The Corinthian (bitingnightmare)
Summary; the illness takes another turn for the worse
Log;
His teeth eyes read over the text blinking on the screen several times. The man was a dog, certainly, but he wasn't a stupid dog. That old phrase how you can't teach an old dog new tricks didn't apply to John Constantine in his opinion. However the Corinthian still believed it was a ridiculous question to ask, because he felt ridiculous having to answer it. He took a lean against the edge of the table, cigarette between his fingers, his expression hidden behind those sunglasses (same pair that had survived the ordeal in the bathroom, thanks).
"Why," asked the nightmare, preferring not to precede that with a yes or no, just yet.
-----
Pencil still in his teeth, Constantine appeared hesitant for a moment, then the eraser end tapped:
"concern"
-----
Concern? Hrm, he should really give the magus more credit these days... The nightmare sucked down a good half a centimeter off his cigarette and exhaled away from the wolf before tapping the ashes out in the tray. He'd been smoking more as well, though he didn't have to worry about things like dangerous habits.
"I'm fine, this pestilence shit is a pain in the ass," he mentioned to John with a one-shouldered shrug, his gaze still averted elsewhere.
-----
Constantine gave the nightmare a cockeyed glance; it was his turn to suspect that this was not the complete story. Watching him smoke made his lungs itch, but the hassle had kept him there, at the terminal.
The eraser hit the return key, then, bluntly: "liar"
-----
Guess as a canine the Englishman's senses were still as sharp as ever, or even enhanced more so. He peered at the screen then finally looked at John with a quirked brow. Cream ivory pelt, long muzzle, big teeth, and the same clear blue eyes as the average magic man, only on four paws and with a furry ass. By now his cigarette was burning near the filter so the other wouldn't have to suffer long. He puffed a drag and looked to the window, maybe the clop walker would pay them a visit to distract John from his investigation.
"You've been a wolf for how long now, we haven't gotten anywhere with anything," aside from pinpointing the lady as the culprit, and she had announced it as much anyway. The Corinthian's own search through the city had turned up absolutely nothing, aside from meeting that Sakurazuka fellow who had little to give regarding John's situation.
-----
Constantine appeared to look down at him, somehow, over his large snout. Dogs were expressive creatures, although not in the vast spectrum that the human face could display, but Constantine was an exception; the lupine visage appeared to enhance the stoic poker face he usually wore.
Tap tap tap.
"long enough. anything what" He did not bother struggling with the question mark.
-----
Damn right the muzzle and black lining made him look all the more stoic, made the Corinthian feel all the more transparent despite being a white horror. He took one last pull from his cigarette then ground out the embers in the tray before leaning both palms on the table to read the text typed on the screen. Wouldn't John be lost without the advent of the computer era.
"With turning you back into a man," he said to John with another look, the kind that implied what else could 'anything' imply. "I combed everything on the surface, did almost half of the underground, nothing," of course the nightmare should know better.
Magic was the Englishman's territory, what did the Corinthian know of recognizing the proper alchemy to help John change? The futility of the situation was most frustrating after the realization that Lady Pestilence was likely the only one who could give return John back to his human form.
-----
A head tilt and a grunt. Constantine wished his teeth could grind, but they didn't, his jaw reduced to a strict scissors bite. He had been considering risking the label of becoming one of those annoying, fucking talking animals every third person with some supernatural influence had; an unmuting spell would be easier than the tiring chore of tapping whatever he had to say out. Then again, the slight turn in his guts might have suggested the return to humanity he had otherwise been planning for.
Maybe.
"not about me. about you. something i" -A slight hesitation- "said"
-----
He watched the magus try to... speak? Well some dogs could do that, 'talk' in their own funny roo'ing way, but he didn't expect John to pull a Barnabas lest Lady Delirium try to claim him as her own pet. He adjusted his glasses then looked at the screen again. Huh, so his reaction had not gone unnoticed. Choosing to stall, the Corinthian cleared his throat briefly as he tried to think of ways to address that.
"It's nothing, John. You changed, it was unsettling enough," said the nightmare, unsure what else to say. He could have just as easily been too sensitive to the other's words, as Morpheus had warned him not to be.
-----
The magus was blunt. "my arse"
-----
The shortness of his reply frustrated him. Clearly his attempt at circling the subject John was addressing was not working. He tipped his sunglasses just slightly and stared at the man dogging him, behind the black lenses of course. The Corinthian was tempted to type out his reply, just to show off the wonderful advantages of owning thumbs, but he wasn't feeling that petty... yet.
"Where do you get off saying I wish I had a pet like you."
There, cards laid out on the table. Two could play the poker game, except the nightmare was not quite as stoic.
-----
Cards on the table, huh? His reasoning was simple.
"i can take care of myself" Maybe a wolfish grin tugged a bit at the corners of his lips, or the best that they would allow. His teeth were still clenched on the end of the pencil as he continued. "but i could shit on the floor" Pause. "if you want"
The blue eyes squinted at the text box as he leaned back to survey the message. Fuck, this was the Corinthian: Any pets this guy probably had promptly had its eyes eaten.
-----
"Well I'm glad you're that adept at knowing what I want," said the Corinthian in his characteristically cool tone.
The grin almost could have looked like a snarl if John's hackles had been raised. As for pets, well he never had any and had barely ever considered taking care of one. The nightmare was too invested in people to even consider animals. Well, there was Matthew... who would vehemently reject being considered a pet, besides, Matthew was his friend.
-----
If you say so.
John didn't bother typing the next bit, choosing instead to squat in that familiar, ominous position many a property owner had dreaded.
-----
"NO."
The Corinthian immediately went to grab John, circling his arms under the dog's forearms from the back. Whatever prompted that immediate course of action, well... the magus was nothing compared to Gregory the Gargoyle, but it conjured the same property owner dread.
.
-----
Oh, Constantine wasn't going to shit on the floor; he had more decency than that, but the sudden grab had startled him, the hair-trigger threat instinct of the wolf leading him to crane that large neck around and nip at what his teeth could skim along the nightmare's pale flesh. With hardly a growl, the speed had startled even the magus.
-----
One couldn't trust a man who'd pissed on the king of the fucking vampires, right? Not that the nightmare was privy to the details of that moment in the magus' life. Besides, John was a cocky little shit sometimes with a penchant for the bawdy. The sudden reaction triggered an instinctual one in him, releasing the wolf when he nipped, but the Corinthian managed to snarl only his normal mouth teeth. He fell back on the floor, still sitting up with a hand over his bare shoulder. No blood so far, though it was red.
-----
Sod playing nice then. Any sort of concern he had for the Corinthian, a genuine granule rare enough as it was, had just died horribly like all the rest of his mates. At the very least, he did not cause any damage. Physical damage.
Bugger it all. He turned away from the terminal and trotted off to go sulk. Maybe try to smoke. The pencil having fallen on the floor after he gnashed his teeth, he left it there, tired of communicating.
-----
The Corinthian was still on the floor when John left to sulk. Sulk? Sulk!? It only frustrated him more to see the Englishman walk away. Whatever happened to the slamming, the rapier wit? Yes admittedly he made the wrong move by trying to subjugate the wolf in him... He felt more enraged with the woman who started this snowball of events but came to calm himself, slowly. The nightmare picked himself up and the pencil, setting it near the terminal. He grabbed John's cigarettes and took them over to where the wolf was sulking, unless that place should be under the bed, dark and cave like.
He offered the cancer sticks and lighter as a peace offering, no bricks though.
-----
It was hard to offer a juicy nugget of a typical Constantinism when he had just left his, perhaps only, means of communication in the living room. He didn't even have to look over his furry shoulder to see the Corinthian; he knew at some point he would be tromping along after him. For what, he didn't know. Right now, he, John, blew it.
He was too big to fit under the bed, he knew, but still, he tried anyway. It was a cramped, cramped squeeze. Almost claustrophobic. Sure enough, then appeared ol' Cori, with his essential vice in hand. Didn't have to see that either; he could clearly smell it.
Sigh. Guess he didn't fuck up as bad as he thought. He had to scratch and claw his way out from under though.
-----
For what? What else but to make peace with the only person with which he didn't mind sharing company all the time. It was hard for the Corinthian to imagine sharing his time with the others, extending himself to them, not that he considered them bad company. He had even (sort of) reconciled his relationship with his maker and still could not fathom being around the brooder for long. Matthew was an exception, but now the raven was trapped here because of the nightmare. John Constantine he could stand to be with, he didn't want to wreck that over a little wounded pride.
Wasn't the magus lucky he didn't sit on the bed before the man could crawl out, choosing to take a seat only after that bushy white hide had vacated the space under.
-----
Luck indeed. Constantine's lungs were good enough at tightening themselves in smoke craving discomfort as it were. Of course, he still resented being assisted, but in regards to the lighter, here, in the bedroom, there was no real convenient alternative. Shit, Cori, the nightmare he owed too much, would have to do.
He appeared a little distant and shaky, eyes once focusing on the pack no longer, as a wave of dizzying nausea washed over him as he sat up in an uneasy sit. Good, he anticipated that. He was willing to puke his canine guts out for a few days with a finale of shedding all that stuffy fur if it involved getting his thumbs back.
-----
"You still feeling like shit," he asked John, not yet lighting a cigarette for him.
He reached out to give the man a pet to the head, between the ears. He hadn't touched the canine much since his return, finding the form strange and almost unsightly due to the person who brought about the change in the first place. But he could sort of tolerate the quadruped form, could even see the appeal that had attracted those girls to flock to his side. Stupid Constantine magnetism worked for him as a dog, what kind of luck was that.
-----
Yes, he mentally grumbled, slightly twitching from the nightmare's touch before weakly nodding. For a moment, he pictured himself and Cori swapped, wondering how peculiar it would be to scratch him behind the ears himself. Probably wouldn't; he never wanted to rub Mange's the rabbit's belly. Hell, was the nightmare restricted to human form? Perhaps so, if he were to be the dark mirror of humanity. Coming to unfortunate blokes in their little beds as a sheep or a toaster wouldn't quite have the same impact.
Aw, bugger that, he pawed at the air, hopefully in the direction of the smokes, give me the bloody fags.
-----
If the magus was that curious he could always reflect on the nature of the S&M piglet from the barn, what she was in essence, the culmination of guilt, fear, desire, nightmare? He came to people as many different things, the black-cat-turned-ghost-white that had crossed their path, the unwanted stepchild playing the odd one out in the family unit, and sometimes yes a toaster chasing its owner down a corridor of doors made out of jello. Dreams and nightmares were strange creatures. At least one thing was certain, as a human ol'Cori liked being scratched behind the ear, especially the pierced side.
Scritch scritch, he felt odd petting John like that, but if it made the old dog feel a little better then why not.
"Keep your pants on," said the nightmare. Hah, get it? He offered the Englishman a smirk then tapped out a cigarette, a Silk Cut, for the other. Before he relinquished it to John he upnodded to the dogface. "I'd light it for you, because I want to," he clarified, but left the decision up to the other.
-----
Light it then, Constantine had decided, saving his ponderings on the nature of the nightmare for later, namely when he had a working throat that could do more than make simple dog noises. The petting had relaxed him indeed, if helped the symptoms of an oncoming something. He parted his jaws a crack to pant a little; again, he was hot, unusually hot.
-----
Since the dog didn't shake profusely in protest nor did he try to bite the nightmare's hand for even suggesting such a gesture, he tucked the cigarette between his own lips and sparked the end, stealing a pull from the Silk Cut. Still a lady's brand in his opinion, but he had come to also consider it a Constantine's brand. The gray wisp escaped his lips as he offered the cigarette to John. He thought about asking the man to lift his paws and beg for it, but no he wasn't going to be that cruel to the man who'd attempted being nice for once. The Corinthian appreciated the concern.
-----
John, disturbingly, did not immediately go for the cigarette. He eyed it for a moment, as if trying to figure out the benefits of each. Starve a cold, smoke out a fever? He slowly took the filter in his teeth and stepped back to sit, as if an increasing gravity sat on him and dragged on. He looked silly, as if sludging through a swamp of intoxication, trying to focus on the shades, the silver hair, the white in the mellow fuzz in the room that all looked the same. Dogs were better suited at seeing motion, but this impending illness was impairing him as well.
-----
"I'll keep looking around for someone who can do something," he said to John, smokeless and yes a bit easy to gloss over for someone with color blindness. "All I've found in this whole damn place is that doctor and a vet," but the Corinthian preferred not to elaborate on the veterinarian.
Was the dog still seated on the floor? Else he would have continued scratching the man--er... wolf... dog man behind his heavily furred ears.
-----
Not unless I think of something first, mate. Don't trouble yourself.
Constantine was indeed seated, ears airplaned, but the cigarette, while soothing to his addiction, was not helping much else. He felt as if a hot pillow had been stuffed in his mouth and was instead intensifying the dizziness and disorientation. Burning up. His jaw slacked and the cigarette fell, the rest of him slumping to the floor into a furry heap, the warm tongue against the cold, hard floor as he gasped. He knew the sensation of vomiting all too well; it was coming back like an old friend.
Something was very, very wrong.
-----
Fuck. Not again. The waves of nausea and illness were choosing their moments wisely weren't they? He pushed off the bed and ground the cigarette out with his boot before kneeling beside John.
"John, John," he gave the scruff of his neck a little shake, "motherfucker."
The Corinthian did what he knew worked best. Despite the Englishman's weighty frame as a wolf he managed to quickly lift him up and carry him to the bathroom. That poor place of what should be cleanliness and introspection, the calm of a morning shave, reduced to blood in the grout and other fluids down the drain. The tub was the location of choice, in case the man couldn't stand on all four legs at all.
-----
Constantine felt himself carried. He hardly put up any resistance, his muscles growing molten and heavy like lead, more limp than steady. His skin was hot under the fur, but he felt himself hotter. He was weak and lethargic as a human, wouldn't be surprised if it translated that way going back.
He was sure he was going back, wasn't he?
In the tub, he was a limp pile of dirty yellow-white fur.
-----
At the risk of losing his fingers (they'd just heal anyway, if he could reattach them that is), he wedged his index and middle into John's muzzle, trying to get a feel for the man's temperature since he didn't know how else to check with a furry forehead. He did know that old tail about a dog's nose being cold and wet when healthy, warm and dry when otherwise so he checked the blackened knob too.
It felt a bit like deja vu, the Corinthian turning the water on, pooling it under John's lupine face. Maybe the Englishman was shifting back into a human being after all, maybe. He didn't think he should get his hopes up, choosing to sit, watch, and care for the other's immediate condition instead.
-----
There was something in his mouth, probing through his jowls and dark lips; Cori's fingers. He could taste the sour oils as well as he had smelled them, both on his fingers and from what they had left on the doorknobs. Pining for any relief, a painful process already. Being reborn with three devils as witness briefly flickered into his mind -- wonder what they, he would be saying now? Laughing his red arse off.
His tongue and teeth were still hot, unusually so as his breath normally was moist and warm, and his nose felt, poor Cori, dry. Constantine had been feeling a little down all day, but nothing he could normally shoulder off.
The dam simply broke.
-----
A dam broke all right, literally. The nightmare tried to cool the dog down with water to his mouth, remembering when John had first turned and lapped at the cool liquid in the palms of his hands. Considering the man's temperature and overall ill manner he didn't think that was going to become a repeat performance. He made sure not to soak the dog and left only the faucet running.
"Jesus christ," he hissed to himself, trying to keep the Englishman conscious. "What the fuck's.. happening to you," there was a brief moment when the Corinthian's voice faltered, but it passed quickly.
He braced the edge of the tub with one hand, kept the other on John's neck. The white-blonde shut his teeth eyes, trying to reach those he knew who could come at the silent call of their name, but to no avail.
-----
John did not drink. John knew he could not drink. Anything going into his belly would be brought back up again with a lovely helping of stomach acid to taste. How funny was it that he had been eating himself to the point of bursting before at the peak of his health and quite cheery, as far as he went. He could hear the Corinthian. He wished he went through with the speech spell shite to tell him that he was still there, just feeling godawful. In his weakly haze, he tried to catch a glimpse of his paw in hopes of seeing the stubby digits uncurl and spread outward into fingers.
They didn't.
Rating; PG-13 (language)
Characters; John Constantine (
silkcutremix), The Corinthian (bitingnightmare)Summary; the illness takes another turn for the worse
Log;
His teeth eyes read over the text blinking on the screen several times. The man was a dog, certainly, but he wasn't a stupid dog. That old phrase how you can't teach an old dog new tricks didn't apply to John Constantine in his opinion. However the Corinthian still believed it was a ridiculous question to ask, because he felt ridiculous having to answer it. He took a lean against the edge of the table, cigarette between his fingers, his expression hidden behind those sunglasses (same pair that had survived the ordeal in the bathroom, thanks).
"Why," asked the nightmare, preferring not to precede that with a yes or no, just yet.
-----
Pencil still in his teeth, Constantine appeared hesitant for a moment, then the eraser end tapped:
"concern"
-----
Concern? Hrm, he should really give the magus more credit these days... The nightmare sucked down a good half a centimeter off his cigarette and exhaled away from the wolf before tapping the ashes out in the tray. He'd been smoking more as well, though he didn't have to worry about things like dangerous habits.
"I'm fine, this pestilence shit is a pain in the ass," he mentioned to John with a one-shouldered shrug, his gaze still averted elsewhere.
-----
Constantine gave the nightmare a cockeyed glance; it was his turn to suspect that this was not the complete story. Watching him smoke made his lungs itch, but the hassle had kept him there, at the terminal.
The eraser hit the return key, then, bluntly: "liar"
-----
Guess as a canine the Englishman's senses were still as sharp as ever, or even enhanced more so. He peered at the screen then finally looked at John with a quirked brow. Cream ivory pelt, long muzzle, big teeth, and the same clear blue eyes as the average magic man, only on four paws and with a furry ass. By now his cigarette was burning near the filter so the other wouldn't have to suffer long. He puffed a drag and looked to the window, maybe the clop walker would pay them a visit to distract John from his investigation.
"You've been a wolf for how long now, we haven't gotten anywhere with anything," aside from pinpointing the lady as the culprit, and she had announced it as much anyway. The Corinthian's own search through the city had turned up absolutely nothing, aside from meeting that Sakurazuka fellow who had little to give regarding John's situation.
-----
Constantine appeared to look down at him, somehow, over his large snout. Dogs were expressive creatures, although not in the vast spectrum that the human face could display, but Constantine was an exception; the lupine visage appeared to enhance the stoic poker face he usually wore.
Tap tap tap.
"long enough. anything what" He did not bother struggling with the question mark.
-----
Damn right the muzzle and black lining made him look all the more stoic, made the Corinthian feel all the more transparent despite being a white horror. He took one last pull from his cigarette then ground out the embers in the tray before leaning both palms on the table to read the text typed on the screen. Wouldn't John be lost without the advent of the computer era.
"With turning you back into a man," he said to John with another look, the kind that implied what else could 'anything' imply. "I combed everything on the surface, did almost half of the underground, nothing," of course the nightmare should know better.
Magic was the Englishman's territory, what did the Corinthian know of recognizing the proper alchemy to help John change? The futility of the situation was most frustrating after the realization that Lady Pestilence was likely the only one who could give return John back to his human form.
-----
A head tilt and a grunt. Constantine wished his teeth could grind, but they didn't, his jaw reduced to a strict scissors bite. He had been considering risking the label of becoming one of those annoying, fucking talking animals every third person with some supernatural influence had; an unmuting spell would be easier than the tiring chore of tapping whatever he had to say out. Then again, the slight turn in his guts might have suggested the return to humanity he had otherwise been planning for.
Maybe.
"not about me. about you. something i" -A slight hesitation- "said"
-----
He watched the magus try to... speak? Well some dogs could do that, 'talk' in their own funny roo'ing way, but he didn't expect John to pull a Barnabas lest Lady Delirium try to claim him as her own pet. He adjusted his glasses then looked at the screen again. Huh, so his reaction had not gone unnoticed. Choosing to stall, the Corinthian cleared his throat briefly as he tried to think of ways to address that.
"It's nothing, John. You changed, it was unsettling enough," said the nightmare, unsure what else to say. He could have just as easily been too sensitive to the other's words, as Morpheus had warned him not to be.
-----
The magus was blunt. "my arse"
-----
The shortness of his reply frustrated him. Clearly his attempt at circling the subject John was addressing was not working. He tipped his sunglasses just slightly and stared at the man dogging him, behind the black lenses of course. The Corinthian was tempted to type out his reply, just to show off the wonderful advantages of owning thumbs, but he wasn't feeling that petty... yet.
"Where do you get off saying I wish I had a pet like you."
There, cards laid out on the table. Two could play the poker game, except the nightmare was not quite as stoic.
-----
Cards on the table, huh? His reasoning was simple.
"i can take care of myself" Maybe a wolfish grin tugged a bit at the corners of his lips, or the best that they would allow. His teeth were still clenched on the end of the pencil as he continued. "but i could shit on the floor" Pause. "if you want"
The blue eyes squinted at the text box as he leaned back to survey the message. Fuck, this was the Corinthian: Any pets this guy probably had promptly had its eyes eaten.
-----
"Well I'm glad you're that adept at knowing what I want," said the Corinthian in his characteristically cool tone.
The grin almost could have looked like a snarl if John's hackles had been raised. As for pets, well he never had any and had barely ever considered taking care of one. The nightmare was too invested in people to even consider animals. Well, there was Matthew... who would vehemently reject being considered a pet, besides, Matthew was his friend.
-----
If you say so.
John didn't bother typing the next bit, choosing instead to squat in that familiar, ominous position many a property owner had dreaded.
-----
"NO."
The Corinthian immediately went to grab John, circling his arms under the dog's forearms from the back. Whatever prompted that immediate course of action, well... the magus was nothing compared to Gregory the Gargoyle, but it conjured the same property owner dread.
.
-----
Oh, Constantine wasn't going to shit on the floor; he had more decency than that, but the sudden grab had startled him, the hair-trigger threat instinct of the wolf leading him to crane that large neck around and nip at what his teeth could skim along the nightmare's pale flesh. With hardly a growl, the speed had startled even the magus.
-----
One couldn't trust a man who'd pissed on the king of the fucking vampires, right? Not that the nightmare was privy to the details of that moment in the magus' life. Besides, John was a cocky little shit sometimes with a penchant for the bawdy. The sudden reaction triggered an instinctual one in him, releasing the wolf when he nipped, but the Corinthian managed to snarl only his normal mouth teeth. He fell back on the floor, still sitting up with a hand over his bare shoulder. No blood so far, though it was red.
-----
Sod playing nice then. Any sort of concern he had for the Corinthian, a genuine granule rare enough as it was, had just died horribly like all the rest of his mates. At the very least, he did not cause any damage. Physical damage.
Bugger it all. He turned away from the terminal and trotted off to go sulk. Maybe try to smoke. The pencil having fallen on the floor after he gnashed his teeth, he left it there, tired of communicating.
-----
The Corinthian was still on the floor when John left to sulk. Sulk? Sulk!? It only frustrated him more to see the Englishman walk away. Whatever happened to the slamming, the rapier wit? Yes admittedly he made the wrong move by trying to subjugate the wolf in him... He felt more enraged with the woman who started this snowball of events but came to calm himself, slowly. The nightmare picked himself up and the pencil, setting it near the terminal. He grabbed John's cigarettes and took them over to where the wolf was sulking, unless that place should be under the bed, dark and cave like.
He offered the cancer sticks and lighter as a peace offering, no bricks though.
-----
It was hard to offer a juicy nugget of a typical Constantinism when he had just left his, perhaps only, means of communication in the living room. He didn't even have to look over his furry shoulder to see the Corinthian; he knew at some point he would be tromping along after him. For what, he didn't know. Right now, he, John, blew it.
He was too big to fit under the bed, he knew, but still, he tried anyway. It was a cramped, cramped squeeze. Almost claustrophobic. Sure enough, then appeared ol' Cori, with his essential vice in hand. Didn't have to see that either; he could clearly smell it.
Sigh. Guess he didn't fuck up as bad as he thought. He had to scratch and claw his way out from under though.
-----
For what? What else but to make peace with the only person with which he didn't mind sharing company all the time. It was hard for the Corinthian to imagine sharing his time with the others, extending himself to them, not that he considered them bad company. He had even (sort of) reconciled his relationship with his maker and still could not fathom being around the brooder for long. Matthew was an exception, but now the raven was trapped here because of the nightmare. John Constantine he could stand to be with, he didn't want to wreck that over a little wounded pride.
Wasn't the magus lucky he didn't sit on the bed before the man could crawl out, choosing to take a seat only after that bushy white hide had vacated the space under.
-----
Luck indeed. Constantine's lungs were good enough at tightening themselves in smoke craving discomfort as it were. Of course, he still resented being assisted, but in regards to the lighter, here, in the bedroom, there was no real convenient alternative. Shit, Cori, the nightmare he owed too much, would have to do.
He appeared a little distant and shaky, eyes once focusing on the pack no longer, as a wave of dizzying nausea washed over him as he sat up in an uneasy sit. Good, he anticipated that. He was willing to puke his canine guts out for a few days with a finale of shedding all that stuffy fur if it involved getting his thumbs back.
-----
"You still feeling like shit," he asked John, not yet lighting a cigarette for him.
He reached out to give the man a pet to the head, between the ears. He hadn't touched the canine much since his return, finding the form strange and almost unsightly due to the person who brought about the change in the first place. But he could sort of tolerate the quadruped form, could even see the appeal that had attracted those girls to flock to his side. Stupid Constantine magnetism worked for him as a dog, what kind of luck was that.
-----
Yes, he mentally grumbled, slightly twitching from the nightmare's touch before weakly nodding. For a moment, he pictured himself and Cori swapped, wondering how peculiar it would be to scratch him behind the ears himself. Probably wouldn't; he never wanted to rub Mange's the rabbit's belly. Hell, was the nightmare restricted to human form? Perhaps so, if he were to be the dark mirror of humanity. Coming to unfortunate blokes in their little beds as a sheep or a toaster wouldn't quite have the same impact.
Aw, bugger that, he pawed at the air, hopefully in the direction of the smokes, give me the bloody fags.
-----
If the magus was that curious he could always reflect on the nature of the S&M piglet from the barn, what she was in essence, the culmination of guilt, fear, desire, nightmare? He came to people as many different things, the black-cat-turned-ghost-white that had crossed their path, the unwanted stepchild playing the odd one out in the family unit, and sometimes yes a toaster chasing its owner down a corridor of doors made out of jello. Dreams and nightmares were strange creatures. At least one thing was certain, as a human ol'Cori liked being scratched behind the ear, especially the pierced side.
Scritch scritch, he felt odd petting John like that, but if it made the old dog feel a little better then why not.
"Keep your pants on," said the nightmare. Hah, get it? He offered the Englishman a smirk then tapped out a cigarette, a Silk Cut, for the other. Before he relinquished it to John he upnodded to the dogface. "I'd light it for you, because I want to," he clarified, but left the decision up to the other.
-----
Light it then, Constantine had decided, saving his ponderings on the nature of the nightmare for later, namely when he had a working throat that could do more than make simple dog noises. The petting had relaxed him indeed, if helped the symptoms of an oncoming something. He parted his jaws a crack to pant a little; again, he was hot, unusually hot.
-----
Since the dog didn't shake profusely in protest nor did he try to bite the nightmare's hand for even suggesting such a gesture, he tucked the cigarette between his own lips and sparked the end, stealing a pull from the Silk Cut. Still a lady's brand in his opinion, but he had come to also consider it a Constantine's brand. The gray wisp escaped his lips as he offered the cigarette to John. He thought about asking the man to lift his paws and beg for it, but no he wasn't going to be that cruel to the man who'd attempted being nice for once. The Corinthian appreciated the concern.
-----
John, disturbingly, did not immediately go for the cigarette. He eyed it for a moment, as if trying to figure out the benefits of each. Starve a cold, smoke out a fever? He slowly took the filter in his teeth and stepped back to sit, as if an increasing gravity sat on him and dragged on. He looked silly, as if sludging through a swamp of intoxication, trying to focus on the shades, the silver hair, the white in the mellow fuzz in the room that all looked the same. Dogs were better suited at seeing motion, but this impending illness was impairing him as well.
-----
"I'll keep looking around for someone who can do something," he said to John, smokeless and yes a bit easy to gloss over for someone with color blindness. "All I've found in this whole damn place is that doctor and a vet," but the Corinthian preferred not to elaborate on the veterinarian.
Was the dog still seated on the floor? Else he would have continued scratching the man--er... wolf... dog man behind his heavily furred ears.
-----
Not unless I think of something first, mate. Don't trouble yourself.
Constantine was indeed seated, ears airplaned, but the cigarette, while soothing to his addiction, was not helping much else. He felt as if a hot pillow had been stuffed in his mouth and was instead intensifying the dizziness and disorientation. Burning up. His jaw slacked and the cigarette fell, the rest of him slumping to the floor into a furry heap, the warm tongue against the cold, hard floor as he gasped. He knew the sensation of vomiting all too well; it was coming back like an old friend.
Something was very, very wrong.
-----
Fuck. Not again. The waves of nausea and illness were choosing their moments wisely weren't they? He pushed off the bed and ground the cigarette out with his boot before kneeling beside John.
"John, John," he gave the scruff of his neck a little shake, "motherfucker."
The Corinthian did what he knew worked best. Despite the Englishman's weighty frame as a wolf he managed to quickly lift him up and carry him to the bathroom. That poor place of what should be cleanliness and introspection, the calm of a morning shave, reduced to blood in the grout and other fluids down the drain. The tub was the location of choice, in case the man couldn't stand on all four legs at all.
-----
Constantine felt himself carried. He hardly put up any resistance, his muscles growing molten and heavy like lead, more limp than steady. His skin was hot under the fur, but he felt himself hotter. He was weak and lethargic as a human, wouldn't be surprised if it translated that way going back.
He was sure he was going back, wasn't he?
In the tub, he was a limp pile of dirty yellow-white fur.
-----
At the risk of losing his fingers (they'd just heal anyway, if he could reattach them that is), he wedged his index and middle into John's muzzle, trying to get a feel for the man's temperature since he didn't know how else to check with a furry forehead. He did know that old tail about a dog's nose being cold and wet when healthy, warm and dry when otherwise so he checked the blackened knob too.
It felt a bit like deja vu, the Corinthian turning the water on, pooling it under John's lupine face. Maybe the Englishman was shifting back into a human being after all, maybe. He didn't think he should get his hopes up, choosing to sit, watch, and care for the other's immediate condition instead.
-----
There was something in his mouth, probing through his jowls and dark lips; Cori's fingers. He could taste the sour oils as well as he had smelled them, both on his fingers and from what they had left on the doorknobs. Pining for any relief, a painful process already. Being reborn with three devils as witness briefly flickered into his mind -- wonder what they, he would be saying now? Laughing his red arse off.
His tongue and teeth were still hot, unusually so as his breath normally was moist and warm, and his nose felt, poor Cori, dry. Constantine had been feeling a little down all day, but nothing he could normally shoulder off.
The dam simply broke.
-----
A dam broke all right, literally. The nightmare tried to cool the dog down with water to his mouth, remembering when John had first turned and lapped at the cool liquid in the palms of his hands. Considering the man's temperature and overall ill manner he didn't think that was going to become a repeat performance. He made sure not to soak the dog and left only the faucet running.
"Jesus christ," he hissed to himself, trying to keep the Englishman conscious. "What the fuck's.. happening to you," there was a brief moment when the Corinthian's voice faltered, but it passed quickly.
He braced the edge of the tub with one hand, kept the other on John's neck. The white-blonde shut his teeth eyes, trying to reach those he knew who could come at the silent call of their name, but to no avail.
-----
John did not drink. John knew he could not drink. Anything going into his belly would be brought back up again with a lovely helping of stomach acid to taste. How funny was it that he had been eating himself to the point of bursting before at the peak of his health and quite cheery, as far as he went. He could hear the Corinthian. He wished he went through with the speech spell shite to tell him that he was still there, just feeling godawful. In his weakly haze, he tried to catch a glimpse of his paw in hopes of seeing the stubby digits uncurl and spread outward into fingers.
They didn't.