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tampered2006-11-20 01:50 am
bitingnightmare.livejournal.com) wrote in tampered2006-11-20 01:50 am
Log; Complete
When; Nov. 18 (before midnight)
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 first half of an escape, pre-dates this
Log;
The Irish woman's photo had been taped to the bathroom mirror, sink below it full of water (no there weren't any felines involved). The nightmare had said he was shit at scrying, and in a sense that was true, but what he should have added was that nightmares aren't meant to scry. The last time he did it led to a series of events that banished him from the Dreaming for a year, but that was for spite and revenge. This was a different situation entirely.
The Corinthian wet his hands in the sink then pressed his palms to the glass, mirror to mirror, a dream to the waking world. Whatever had happened to John... none of it could change the fact that he once loved this woman, deeply, perhaps he still did even now under his foreign skin, under his alien tongue. The nightmare traced the dreamlines of the city, searching for the man who had his heart embraced by the lass.
---
That heart had been twisted, corrupted and marked by the Red God, a soul to be purified, all trapped in a wretched body. The owner had once been sure of himself, a silent glowing confidence, a sureness with an air of mystery, but all of that was gone now, a dark, horrible thing sulking about the manor as a refuge for normalcy.
Since his Marking, Constantine had lurked about the catacombs, feeling the most comfort there, feeling himself less likely to spiritually split open. All he could think about was poor sweet Astra. Poor sweet Astra. He did not know of his current appearance, but it did not matter, human or beast or atrocity. He only knew that he wanted to be redeemed, to forgive himself of something he could never. His desire was to be punished, punished, punished. Nothing was too horrible for him. He only sank deeper.
---
John.
An echo in the darkness, smooth and rich like the black depths that boiled in the subconscious, a budding nightmare. He didn't wander the catacombs of the manor; the Corinthian wasn't even on the premises, physically that is. His mind bonded with the shadows, a smoky glass through which he could breach, if his quarry would allow him. Eyeteeth sounded a low and urgent hrrsch, hungry.
---
A voice.
John stood up from his usual hunch, a hobbling gait he had grown used to and had accepted; it was natural, normal, even with the perception that he was an upright human being. Then again, no normal upright human being would want to live down here, naked and numb. Constantine was so numb, but so open, as if he were a fish and someone tore his underbelly open, releasing him after. He was swimming through the cold stream with his insides hanging out for all to see, just waiting for the dark to pick at whatever was choicest.
---
The creature lurked within the shadows of the dank hall, white muddled under a shroud of darkness. Even John's inhuman appearance couldn't faze the predator, nightmare mirror. Anyone else wandering the catacombs would not have noticed him without astral assistance. He was here for only one dreamer, one little man lost in the fog, and he would have him. The shadows melted away with his step, even the water between the cracks of the stones receded when he came near, a black thing dressed up in pale skin, white hair, and immaculate white clothes.
"Now there's the most lost man I've ever seen," purred the eye eater, to the Englishman or maybe just himself.
---
The confines mental rather than physical, what would have been a comforting sight was a gruesome apparition that grunted something that was beyond his ears. It had to be destroyed. It would hurt Astra. No more would hurt Astra.
The thing that had been John stopped for a moment, studying the nightmare with shining bestial eyes, red and empty, then rushed him with a crackling snarl, a noise neither human nor animal. It ran on its hind legs, akin to a hunchbacked chimpanzee with a lope and a stumble, the long neck forward and jaw lined with needle sharp teeth open.
---
His mouths smiled, devious, delicious. The white horror was a king in his domain; it was a matter of posturing like one in a wild territory that even nightmares were forbidden to go. Of course what difference would John, beast or mental prisoner, even know? The Corinthian prepared to make the breach, hands at the ready. As soon as the beast was within reach he made a grab for the sides of his... its face. Fingers pressed to keep those red eyes open as two sets of teeth opened, pulling at the magus to join his nightmare.
*That's it.*
~Keep looking.~
He struggled against the monster that would be John, struggled against Xulchilbara's mark. The god had mentioned they were similar in function, two creatures alike, but the Corinthian disagreed. The Red One forced illusion, cast judgment, hell Cori was just a mirror, and he reflected true like only a loyal phantom could. Everything John Constantine feared, every guilt, every selfish need, every seed of self-loathing.
---
No longer was Constantine in the confines of the catacombs but instead at the bottom of a black, cold lake, ice in his long since burned lungs. Chains of souls, vice and guilt kept him there, far down with the bones and grasping hands. They wanted him, wanted to pull him deeper, but John had long since given up swimming. He could not reach the surface for that wonderful, beautiful gulp of precious air, resigning himself to that miserable suspension just above the many open white palms. He had forgotten what it had looked like above the water, above the sea. It was as if this state of existence was all he ever knew, all he would ever know. One way in, no way out.
The Constantine monster buckled over and fell to its side in a fetal position, the mostly human hands clutching at its somewhat furred head. There still were slight traces of his old blond hair and its usual rattiness.
---
You ever hear of a two-way mirror?
He asked, a voice penetrating the depths of that dark water.
Not everyone's here, John, do a headcount.
Indeed, he'd lost Astra to the darkness, lost his friends, lost his sister, even lost the damn rabbit. But what of those who didn't grab at him, grab because they couldn't, they weren't amidst the black depths. No best mate even if they were on the outs, no niece who loved him and aspired to be him, no Irish lass both of who'd freed each other long ago, no stage sorceress who vowed 'Reven niaga.' but hell she'd always have his back and he'd have hers, that was the way.
---
"Sure about that?" John mumbled, a tendril reaching out and securing him around his neck, pulling his head back, up to the surface, which he would never see. "Sa'll my fault..."
---
Fuck if I'm down there too.
Cori spoke in his own cocksure tone of voice. He had more dignity than to allow himself to join the ranks of anyone's guilt-ridden fallen comrades. And what ghost would want to follow John Constantine around, peering over his shoulder every waking hour to twist the knife of guilt in his gut while he lit a cigarette, drank a beer, took a shit. One bored with their afterlife maybe. Images, visions, reflections of the past, that's all they were. Astra did not belong there, neither was her image a plaything for Xulchilbara, now the magus wouldn't like that would he.
Come on, John.
The nightmare urged the other to keep ascending, to break the surface and breathe.
---
No, Cori wasn't. That was the first thing.
John finally had twisted himself around (or was that the dream ability of outside the body perception?) and his eyes, his dream eyes, scanned the surface, the vast surface of discarded and dead friends. They all were still grasping, calling for him, wanted to tear into him and his guilt, to sink that knife just a little big deeper, past the bone to the essence of being.
But... No... Astra wasn't there...
...She was up there.
---
Christ, Cori thought to himself, the breach was mounting pressure on his body, trying to stretch his mind till it was flat with a value of zero. Still he willed his arm into the water as Eve did to Matthew, calling him back to his life, his reality and not the one built on a foundation of guilt. He reached for John, but only the Englishman could decide if he should take the nightmare's hand or not.
---
It was a hand from the surface, with Astra up there, with those that had survived, still living. The blue eyes studied the hand, a fuzzy dream shape, but there was a familiar clarity to it, and it looked just a little warmer than the cold squishy leather that held him.
He reached.
---
For John breaking the surface might have been that breath of fresh air, a jolt waking his mind to a clear reality. For the Corinthian it was deja vu. It felt like being thrown through a wall in the citadel, glass shattering on impact, a heavy blow to the chest that contained no heart, but the little nightmare could take it. His center was safe from the paper tigers, the anchored mortals, the hose-nose demon beasts. The skull with teeth for eyes rested securely in the palm of his Lord's hand. The rip between worlds cracked the bathroom mirror in half as the nightmare fell to his knees on the stones of the catacomb floor.
---
Near the nightmare was the still huddled, fetal beast man, still trembling with its wretched head in its mangled hands. Or was trembling, much of it had stopped at this point, as the unconscious Constantine finally surfaced and bobbed along, in a comforting sea with the air and free birds. The water seemed shallow now, and hardly so dark nor deep. The tendrils and hands had easily released him, when he told himself that he was finished. Done. Gone. And that was where it all went.
The sky never looked so blue, nor the sea so small.
---
The Corinthian draped an arm across his stomach, feeling a pain there from what he thought was the breach, an after effect that manifested in a small amount of black blood wretched from his lips. Nasty. He raised his gaze to the fetal beast. Did John even know what he looked like? Fortunately there were no mirrors within the vicinity, Cori didn't want to know how the Englishman would react to his alien appearance. Fuck the bastard who did it to him too, but not on the Red God's territory.
Whether asleep or just rising from the depths of his dream, the nightmare attempted to lift the beast, to carry it... him along.
---
The sea gave away to the dark of reality, John on the floor now, certainly himself in his mind and aware of what his human self felt like. Such was not the case now, despite his very human like hands as he brought them away, to make Cori let go. He could walk himself, or so he thought. His face felt heavy and his body disjointed, its gravity wrong, wrong, wrong. Wasn't he supposed to be a wolf? Or a man? He felt like neither, was neither.
Grunt. He laid there on the floor, looking down at his body with a stiff horror only suggested by the gaping jaw and heaving chest. What the hell is wrong with him now?
---
"Don't fucking argue with me right now," said the Corinthian urgently as he reached for John again, "we have to go."
The magus was hardly in any shape to ride synchronicity or so the nightmare thought, no need to put the pressure on the old man, but they did have to move, and quickly. If he wasn't going to permit being carried, the least he could do was drape one of those irregular limbs around his shoulders to help the man walk. Cori was winded from the breach but would fight their way out if need be.
"I've got you, okay." He tried to reassure John.
---
Whatever. John was angry and bristled, exacerbated by his hobbling gait and feet, his hand feet. He felt more like a fucking chimpanzee than anything, with his cumbersome way of walking. On two legs or four, neither mode seemed to click well with him, when he thought about it.
... Wait.
"Yuu duff." The Xulchilbara-crafted monster knew how to speak through the long snout and needle teeth. John Constantine the man did not. "Ffahnee see-ehnth yuu ahaanth. 'Ow eth yuu...?"
---
"........"
Cori arched a brow, the first words coming to mind being 'cunt' and 'dick.' Calling him names already? What came next was a load of gibberish followed by 'how is you?' But John here was no chav, that couldn't have been what he said. However, just hearing that attempt at words instead of a demonic shriek brought a sense of relief to the nightmare.
"I'll tell you later, closest way out?" He asked John.
---
John was aware of how bad he sounded, but he did not turn to look at Cori (unless he wanted to slap him with that snout of his -- he could not quite judge how long it was yet... Shit, he had no idea how long exactly. No whiskers to tell him if he it was approaching something.). He used his free hand to feel his face, along the top of the snout, the lack of lips to articulate, the teeth that protruded even when his jaws were closed, like a crocodile...
He... He had to see what he looked like now. Godawful, probably.
"'Eeer," Constantine grunted, tugging him towards a shaft that lead out, or really, potential victims that happened to poke about in. He had tried to leave earlier, but to leave was to be hit with a creeping fear, a head escaping the comforting darkness of its shell. Could hardly remember the sensations now, the stupor of the guilt wearing off and the gray foggy memories with it.
---
Yes not having a toothy snout jab him in the toothy eye was quite preferable. Cori also didn't want to pull the nightmare shtick on John again, not when he was actually aware of himself and his surroundings. He kept his teeth shut, needed them to stare down those monsters so familiar with Silent Hill. There was some truth in the Red God's words; the Corinthian and the denizens of the manor were cousins of a sort.
John's 'voice' tore his thoughts away from the unnerving sense of kinship the place gave the nightmare. He turned towards the dimly lit shaft, brushing the sense of... something foreboding, something with the scent of an ancient musk from Corinth.
Rating; PG-13 (language)
Characters; John Constantine (
silkcutremix), the Corinthian (bitingnightmare)Summary; the first half of an escape, pre-dates this
Log;
The Irish woman's photo had been taped to the bathroom mirror, sink below it full of water (no there weren't any felines involved). The nightmare had said he was shit at scrying, and in a sense that was true, but what he should have added was that nightmares aren't meant to scry. The last time he did it led to a series of events that banished him from the Dreaming for a year, but that was for spite and revenge. This was a different situation entirely.
The Corinthian wet his hands in the sink then pressed his palms to the glass, mirror to mirror, a dream to the waking world. Whatever had happened to John... none of it could change the fact that he once loved this woman, deeply, perhaps he still did even now under his foreign skin, under his alien tongue. The nightmare traced the dreamlines of the city, searching for the man who had his heart embraced by the lass.
---
That heart had been twisted, corrupted and marked by the Red God, a soul to be purified, all trapped in a wretched body. The owner had once been sure of himself, a silent glowing confidence, a sureness with an air of mystery, but all of that was gone now, a dark, horrible thing sulking about the manor as a refuge for normalcy.
Since his Marking, Constantine had lurked about the catacombs, feeling the most comfort there, feeling himself less likely to spiritually split open. All he could think about was poor sweet Astra. Poor sweet Astra. He did not know of his current appearance, but it did not matter, human or beast or atrocity. He only knew that he wanted to be redeemed, to forgive himself of something he could never. His desire was to be punished, punished, punished. Nothing was too horrible for him. He only sank deeper.
---
John.
An echo in the darkness, smooth and rich like the black depths that boiled in the subconscious, a budding nightmare. He didn't wander the catacombs of the manor; the Corinthian wasn't even on the premises, physically that is. His mind bonded with the shadows, a smoky glass through which he could breach, if his quarry would allow him. Eyeteeth sounded a low and urgent hrrsch, hungry.
---
A voice.
John stood up from his usual hunch, a hobbling gait he had grown used to and had accepted; it was natural, normal, even with the perception that he was an upright human being. Then again, no normal upright human being would want to live down here, naked and numb. Constantine was so numb, but so open, as if he were a fish and someone tore his underbelly open, releasing him after. He was swimming through the cold stream with his insides hanging out for all to see, just waiting for the dark to pick at whatever was choicest.
---
The creature lurked within the shadows of the dank hall, white muddled under a shroud of darkness. Even John's inhuman appearance couldn't faze the predator, nightmare mirror. Anyone else wandering the catacombs would not have noticed him without astral assistance. He was here for only one dreamer, one little man lost in the fog, and he would have him. The shadows melted away with his step, even the water between the cracks of the stones receded when he came near, a black thing dressed up in pale skin, white hair, and immaculate white clothes.
"Now there's the most lost man I've ever seen," purred the eye eater, to the Englishman or maybe just himself.
---
The confines mental rather than physical, what would have been a comforting sight was a gruesome apparition that grunted something that was beyond his ears. It had to be destroyed. It would hurt Astra. No more would hurt Astra.
The thing that had been John stopped for a moment, studying the nightmare with shining bestial eyes, red and empty, then rushed him with a crackling snarl, a noise neither human nor animal. It ran on its hind legs, akin to a hunchbacked chimpanzee with a lope and a stumble, the long neck forward and jaw lined with needle sharp teeth open.
---
His mouths smiled, devious, delicious. The white horror was a king in his domain; it was a matter of posturing like one in a wild territory that even nightmares were forbidden to go. Of course what difference would John, beast or mental prisoner, even know? The Corinthian prepared to make the breach, hands at the ready. As soon as the beast was within reach he made a grab for the sides of his... its face. Fingers pressed to keep those red eyes open as two sets of teeth opened, pulling at the magus to join his nightmare.
*That's it.*
~Keep looking.~
He struggled against the monster that would be John, struggled against Xulchilbara's mark. The god had mentioned they were similar in function, two creatures alike, but the Corinthian disagreed. The Red One forced illusion, cast judgment, hell Cori was just a mirror, and he reflected true like only a loyal phantom could. Everything John Constantine feared, every guilt, every selfish need, every seed of self-loathing.
---
No longer was Constantine in the confines of the catacombs but instead at the bottom of a black, cold lake, ice in his long since burned lungs. Chains of souls, vice and guilt kept him there, far down with the bones and grasping hands. They wanted him, wanted to pull him deeper, but John had long since given up swimming. He could not reach the surface for that wonderful, beautiful gulp of precious air, resigning himself to that miserable suspension just above the many open white palms. He had forgotten what it had looked like above the water, above the sea. It was as if this state of existence was all he ever knew, all he would ever know. One way in, no way out.
The Constantine monster buckled over and fell to its side in a fetal position, the mostly human hands clutching at its somewhat furred head. There still were slight traces of his old blond hair and its usual rattiness.
---
You ever hear of a two-way mirror?
He asked, a voice penetrating the depths of that dark water.
Not everyone's here, John, do a headcount.
Indeed, he'd lost Astra to the darkness, lost his friends, lost his sister, even lost the damn rabbit. But what of those who didn't grab at him, grab because they couldn't, they weren't amidst the black depths. No best mate even if they were on the outs, no niece who loved him and aspired to be him, no Irish lass both of who'd freed each other long ago, no stage sorceress who vowed 'Reven niaga.' but hell she'd always have his back and he'd have hers, that was the way.
---
"Sure about that?" John mumbled, a tendril reaching out and securing him around his neck, pulling his head back, up to the surface, which he would never see. "Sa'll my fault..."
---
Fuck if I'm down there too.
Cori spoke in his own cocksure tone of voice. He had more dignity than to allow himself to join the ranks of anyone's guilt-ridden fallen comrades. And what ghost would want to follow John Constantine around, peering over his shoulder every waking hour to twist the knife of guilt in his gut while he lit a cigarette, drank a beer, took a shit. One bored with their afterlife maybe. Images, visions, reflections of the past, that's all they were. Astra did not belong there, neither was her image a plaything for Xulchilbara, now the magus wouldn't like that would he.
Come on, John.
The nightmare urged the other to keep ascending, to break the surface and breathe.
---
No, Cori wasn't. That was the first thing.
John finally had twisted himself around (or was that the dream ability of outside the body perception?) and his eyes, his dream eyes, scanned the surface, the vast surface of discarded and dead friends. They all were still grasping, calling for him, wanted to tear into him and his guilt, to sink that knife just a little big deeper, past the bone to the essence of being.
But... No... Astra wasn't there...
...She was up there.
---
Christ, Cori thought to himself, the breach was mounting pressure on his body, trying to stretch his mind till it was flat with a value of zero. Still he willed his arm into the water as Eve did to Matthew, calling him back to his life, his reality and not the one built on a foundation of guilt. He reached for John, but only the Englishman could decide if he should take the nightmare's hand or not.
---
It was a hand from the surface, with Astra up there, with those that had survived, still living. The blue eyes studied the hand, a fuzzy dream shape, but there was a familiar clarity to it, and it looked just a little warmer than the cold squishy leather that held him.
He reached.
---
For John breaking the surface might have been that breath of fresh air, a jolt waking his mind to a clear reality. For the Corinthian it was deja vu. It felt like being thrown through a wall in the citadel, glass shattering on impact, a heavy blow to the chest that contained no heart, but the little nightmare could take it. His center was safe from the paper tigers, the anchored mortals, the hose-nose demon beasts. The skull with teeth for eyes rested securely in the palm of his Lord's hand. The rip between worlds cracked the bathroom mirror in half as the nightmare fell to his knees on the stones of the catacomb floor.
---
Near the nightmare was the still huddled, fetal beast man, still trembling with its wretched head in its mangled hands. Or was trembling, much of it had stopped at this point, as the unconscious Constantine finally surfaced and bobbed along, in a comforting sea with the air and free birds. The water seemed shallow now, and hardly so dark nor deep. The tendrils and hands had easily released him, when he told himself that he was finished. Done. Gone. And that was where it all went.
The sky never looked so blue, nor the sea so small.
---
The Corinthian draped an arm across his stomach, feeling a pain there from what he thought was the breach, an after effect that manifested in a small amount of black blood wretched from his lips. Nasty. He raised his gaze to the fetal beast. Did John even know what he looked like? Fortunately there were no mirrors within the vicinity, Cori didn't want to know how the Englishman would react to his alien appearance. Fuck the bastard who did it to him too, but not on the Red God's territory.
Whether asleep or just rising from the depths of his dream, the nightmare attempted to lift the beast, to carry it... him along.
---
The sea gave away to the dark of reality, John on the floor now, certainly himself in his mind and aware of what his human self felt like. Such was not the case now, despite his very human like hands as he brought them away, to make Cori let go. He could walk himself, or so he thought. His face felt heavy and his body disjointed, its gravity wrong, wrong, wrong. Wasn't he supposed to be a wolf? Or a man? He felt like neither, was neither.
Grunt. He laid there on the floor, looking down at his body with a stiff horror only suggested by the gaping jaw and heaving chest. What the hell is wrong with him now?
---
"Don't fucking argue with me right now," said the Corinthian urgently as he reached for John again, "we have to go."
The magus was hardly in any shape to ride synchronicity or so the nightmare thought, no need to put the pressure on the old man, but they did have to move, and quickly. If he wasn't going to permit being carried, the least he could do was drape one of those irregular limbs around his shoulders to help the man walk. Cori was winded from the breach but would fight their way out if need be.
"I've got you, okay." He tried to reassure John.
---
Whatever. John was angry and bristled, exacerbated by his hobbling gait and feet, his hand feet. He felt more like a fucking chimpanzee than anything, with his cumbersome way of walking. On two legs or four, neither mode seemed to click well with him, when he thought about it.
... Wait.
"Yuu duff." The Xulchilbara-crafted monster knew how to speak through the long snout and needle teeth. John Constantine the man did not. "Ffahnee see-ehnth yuu ahaanth. 'Ow eth yuu...?"
---
"........"
Cori arched a brow, the first words coming to mind being 'cunt' and 'dick.' Calling him names already? What came next was a load of gibberish followed by 'how is you?' But John here was no chav, that couldn't have been what he said. However, just hearing that attempt at words instead of a demonic shriek brought a sense of relief to the nightmare.
"I'll tell you later, closest way out?" He asked John.
---
John was aware of how bad he sounded, but he did not turn to look at Cori (unless he wanted to slap him with that snout of his -- he could not quite judge how long it was yet... Shit, he had no idea how long exactly. No whiskers to tell him if he it was approaching something.). He used his free hand to feel his face, along the top of the snout, the lack of lips to articulate, the teeth that protruded even when his jaws were closed, like a crocodile...
He... He had to see what he looked like now. Godawful, probably.
"'Eeer," Constantine grunted, tugging him towards a shaft that lead out, or really, potential victims that happened to poke about in. He had tried to leave earlier, but to leave was to be hit with a creeping fear, a head escaping the comforting darkness of its shell. Could hardly remember the sensations now, the stupor of the guilt wearing off and the gray foggy memories with it.
---
Yes not having a toothy snout jab him in the toothy eye was quite preferable. Cori also didn't want to pull the nightmare shtick on John again, not when he was actually aware of himself and his surroundings. He kept his teeth shut, needed them to stare down those monsters so familiar with Silent Hill. There was some truth in the Red God's words; the Corinthian and the denizens of the manor were cousins of a sort.
John's 'voice' tore his thoughts away from the unnerving sense of kinship the place gave the nightmare. He turned towards the dimly lit shaft, brushing the sense of... something foreboding, something with the scent of an ancient musk from Corinth.