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tampered2007-03-31 12:29 am
bitingnightmare.livejournal.com) wrote in tampered2007-03-31 12:29 am
Log; Complete
When; Mar. 29 (evening)
Rating; R (language, violence)
Characters; Elle Driver![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
venomouselle, the Corinthian bitingnightmare, the Swamp Thing onceholland
Summary; The California Mountain Snake attempts to bring the nightmare around in her own specialized, mildly bloodletting way, only to encounter a possibly violating weed thing.
Log;
Weapons check: two hand daggers, one for each arm, a pair of blades for the boots and the Hattori Hanzo sword, anything more and it wouldn't look like a friendly confrontation.
Elle Driver sighed and shut the door behind her, at least she didn't need to pretend she was doing something else. Luke possibly would have stopped her from going to see Cori. He likely would have tried to remind her of her own physical weakness or something similar she didn't want to hear. Cigarette in her teeth she made the quick walk to the apartment like she always had ready for a nice talk.
----
Patient sentinel. This role did not bother the Swamp Thing having served as Guardian of the Earth and Green. Dealing with a grieving nightmare was a simpler task although not as easy but it would not be such a terrible burden.
The elemental was every plant, every tree, every seed, every spore. He could manifest himself in anything of the Green, spawn himself from it. He might have been trapped here but the Green had expanded again, encompassing the City and all that made it up. Discovering the mysteries of this Green had been a journey in itself beyond his concerns with the likes of the now-deceased Constantine and his Corinthian... "friend."
For now, he was watching, sensing the arrival of newcomer. He manifested himself in the potted plant that sat nearby the door, a tiny watchful equivalent of an eye.
----
The apartment itself was silent, unusual for their little hovel that normally would have the faintest din of a TV running or some music playing... or even their voices exchanging some idea, some anecdote, something post-it worthy. But not today. The apartment had been deathly quiet for days, but the Corinthian was not dead.
He nursed a bottle of tequila, found the worm floating at the bottom utterly fascinating. What else deserved his attention? Nothing. He poured another shot of the stuff and tossed it back, the clack of the glass against the table the only sound in the apartment.
----
Elle stepped out of the elevator ending up at the doorstep. She was angry for many reasons. Angry that John was gone, John was dead. Angry at the gloating bitches. Angry that Cori was stupid enough to act as though the whole world passed. She pulled the cigarette from her lips and tapped the ashes in the planter.
"Knock, knock," she called out. "I know you are in there."
----
"Fuck off." Cori said to the knocks on the door. He knew who it was, at the moment he didn't particularly care.
----
"No need to get up. I'll let myself in." Laughing lightly to herself, Elle made short work of the doorknob with one of the hand knives. Excellent start already. She stepped in, assaulted with the smell of cigarettes and alcohol. It was a potent mix; an open window would be a definite improvement. With her heel she kicked the door shut.
"Hi."
----
Cori pointed at the door she so expertly broke through to enter the apartment uninvited. He didn't even look at Elle, black shades masking his teeth eyes. "Get out."
----
At that moment, a tendril lashed out from the plant, tightening around Elle's leg. The door had not shut, bouncing off the thickening vines and stems trailing into the room. The rest of the plant was swelling, twisting and popping into a humanoid shape, forming a very irate Swamp Thing.
"There will be no visitors," the creature gurgled through forming vocal chords, the constricting vines creeping along Elle's body attached to his arm, "unless the Corinthian wills it."
----
By the time Elle Driver pulled a dagger from her sleeve she was in a cocoon of foliage. "What the fucking hell is this shit?" She looked to Cori and tried to convince herself that she was awake.
----
"You will heed my... warning and commit no... violence," barked the elemental in his slow voice, his grip on the intruder tight but not suffocating. "Why are you here?"
----
"Deal with it," said the Corinthian to Elle Driver. His tone was soaked in indifference as the Swamp Thing detained her.
----
Elle glared at the offending vines around her. "Right. Whatever. Just let me go." Goosebumps prickled uncomfortably all over.
----
The swamp creature narrowed those red eyes. "Why are you here?" the elemental snarled, harsh as brambles, not bothering to release his grip.
----
For once the nightmare was glad to have the elemental's intervention, but 'glad' was stretching it. Having the Swamp Thing around now was simply a convenience. "Answer him or he'll sprout a shrub from your bad eye."
----
"I'm here to talk to Cori." The prospect of having a plant growing out of her face flashed a mental image of a corpse dead in the ground, daisy's springing up all over. "Because it looks like no one else will."
----
"Isn't it human... custom to knock first?" The vines relaxed but they did not yield.
----
"Cori doesn't want to talk to anyone," replied the nightmare. Not exactly customary for him to speak in the third, but neither was there any trace of that Corinthian in his voice. "Throw her out," he said coolly, rational, cold.
----
"Do you actually think he would have let me in, Bush?" The California Mountain Snake wriggled and cut at the flora with the dagger. Snarling and irritated to find that most of her efforts were being undone, Elle Driver fixed a furious blue eye at the plant entity. "What are you worried for?"
----
"Then you should... not be here," breathed the Swamp Thing. Indeed wherever the snake had cut, threefold had replaced it with a warning tightness. "Constantine's death... should be the only death... we should cope with."
----
He grit his teeth, becoming impatient with the entire situation. Cori felt it warranted his rising from his seat and actually leaving his alcohol. He approached the pair, the snake tangled in the vines.
"I said get the fuck out, Elle. I don't want to talk. I don't need it," the Corinthian waved a hand. "Do me a favor and leave me alone," he hissed.
----
"Like hell this is coping!" She tried not to allow herself to be panicked by the increased constriction of the vines. "You're doing nothing but hiding, holed up in here like a scared little bitch. How brave."
Hardly being able to move, Elle tried to remember what pocket she put her lighter in. "It's fucking disgusting. A lot of people are worried about your ass--they aren't dead."
----
"Here you've fucking seen me, now go tell everyone I'm alive. Is that good enough for you," he growled in return. "Scared? You don't know the meaning of the word."
The Corinthian's fingers twitched, as if ready to remove his sunglasses. No, they wanted to curl into a fist and shut her up the hard way. Not yet, the Swamp Thing would hang him by an arm for that.
----
The lighter turned out to be in the breast pocket of her overcoat thankfully. Elle swallowed and focused on the bleach haired nightmare. "Hell no. This is bullshit immaturity. You can't just make connections with people and then drop everything and slip off into oblivion. I'm not asking you to stop grieving. I'm asking you to remember that you are alive."
----
"Corinthian," cautioned the Swamp Thing. "I will not... allow you to harm... our visitor either."
----
He quirked a brow over the blonde's words. "Heh, hey Holland explain to our 'guest' the difference between people like her and people like you and me." Was a nightmare and elemental alive in that sense?
The very irony made Cori forget his urge to strike briefly.
----
The Swamp Thing seemed to frown, but he complied: "We... are functions. We do what... we have been created... to do. We do not live... we are not mortals. I am protecting you... from the Corinthian... for if one falls... it shall not be the immortal."
----
Elle cradled the lighter carefully beneath the coiling plant tendrils, the flint successfully sparking and beginning a nice slow burn, allowing a path for the dagger to help forge through. "Fine, Mr. Function. We'll split hairs and argue connotations of words. I mean that you are missing and are missed. Something in me isn't saying boo-fucking-hoo and letting you walk off. I guess I'm crazy and you are an ass."
Her efforts to escape quickly unraveling. Back to square one.
----
The Swamp Thing was above cursing (most of the time) but this burning pinch of flame had led the creature to withdraw the tendrils. He wasn't terribly concerned either, knowing that there was more than one way to keep a snake caught and under control. Very easily he could manage both.
The tendrils having retracted into an arm and hand, the elemental rumbled: "Very well. This will be your... last warning: You may... speak but no blood... shall be shed."
----
The Corinthian backed away on instinct when he smelled the burning green. He too was no fan of fire on the skin. "Let me spell it out for you, Elle Driver," his temper flared, "go away, take a hike, split, piss the fuck off."
Cori pointed at the one eyed snake then looked to the elemental. "What the hell are you waiting for, or do you want me to get rid of her."
----
The one-eyed snake brushed off her shoulders. She definitely wanted to bathe later. "You're making a big mistake if you are going to turn me out on my ass. It's not going to get any easier. I'm not going to be shut out. In the meantime, let me give you something maybe you can cope with."
The Corinthian got a declaration of love and friendship in the form of a hammer punch to the nose.
----
"Enough!" the Swamp Thing commanded, his seriousness indicated by the ebbing pain Elle might have begun to feel deep within her. He was ready to physically apprehend the nightmare should he have responded in kind, perhaps with something a bit sharper.
----
Oh he wanted to respond in kind. He wanted to exchange blood for blood, an eye for an eye, that sort of thing. In this case it was his nose. It bled on contact, the second time she'd done this to the Corinthian. How did that saying go... Twice is the charm? His fingers twitched, aching to grab the woman by the hair (gold like John) and pull her towards the table where he could smash out her eye (blue like John) on the glass.
He could taste it. Instead he corrected his stumble. Let the damn bog god take care of her. "Consider yourself lucky," hissed the Corinthian, blood already dripping down to stain his teeth.
----
Elle snorted, there was a sharp pain worming its way in her gut. She grit her teeth and fought to ignore it. "Coward. Bitch. I don't believe this. You're just going to cease to be wrapped in the role of mourner."
Her hand tingled; she shouldn't have used so much force with him standing so close to her. "You are as bad as her, upholding your banner of 'no one understands.'" Just thinking of Zee or whatever her name was fed the crackling fire of her anger and bitterness. This calm solemnity was not what death was supposed to be about. This acceptance, lack of bite and fight was incomprehensible.
----
"You misunderstand me. I don't care," Cori clarified in a chilled tone. His face appeared expressionless, that of a nightmare, one who knew better than to engage an elemental in combat. Not over this.
"If you're done now, just leave." The Corinthian looked to the Swamp Thing. He seemed not to care that the creature was hurting her, as long as it got Elle out.
----
The searing sensation in her torso was melding with her anger. Breathing was becoming difficult now too. The assassin's nostrils flared as she glared at the nightmare, the strange being she considered her friend.
"Liar. You are a fucking liar. If you didn't care you wouldn't be having a pity party. You'd function like any other day with the roommate not about." Elle's vision blurred as she blinked rapidly to keep her tear ducts from over flowing. Was this finished? Not by a long shot. Shakily, her fingers wrapped around the handle of the Hanzo sword.
----
"Intruder, stranger," intoned the Swamp Thing coldly, indifferently even if it was apparent that he truly wanted no one hurt. What must be done must be done.
"I am manipulating the flora... deep within your bowels. I can... make them do whatever... I please. I could allow them to... tear you apart or... plug you up. Take your hand away from... your weapon and leave."
----
"You better listen to him, he's not shitting you. Hand off the weapon," said the Corinthian, ignoring her accusations about his roommate. John Constantine was hardly a roommate, he was far more.
"You broke the fucking door knob, don't make me break your toys."
----
Elle grimaced and steadied her stance. "Hospitable house plant we have here." Breathe, Driver, Breathe. No use explaining to them that she felt like shit now and was grasping her magic feather of a sword incase of she ate concrete.
"You both suck. This stalemate is doing jack shit. You are just going to stay like this--miserable. Plenty good that'll do you. I admire...the logic." God, don't let me vomit.
"Really, lose everyone you knew because you lost the one you knew."
----
"That is the Corinthian's choice," sighed the elemental.
----
The nightmare stepped over to the coffee table for his pack of Mild Sevens. He wedged one of those cancer sticks between his lips and lit the end as he took a deep drag. Cori approached Elle again.
"That's life isn't it," he exhaled the gray smoke in her face, his mannerism naturally paralleling that of a certain man they'd lost. "Where's the damn witch when you need her," muttered the Corinthian, "if she doesn't want to walk, make her." He nodded to the Swamp Thing, "my choice."
----
The snake coughed and turned her head. "I don't give flowers. So have a present, fucker." She threw one of the several packs of Silk Cuts she had been handing out at his feet and let her gaze drop. Blinking wasn't helping anymore. A hot trail of moisture rolled it's way down her cheek.
----
The Swamp Thing softened for a moment, but his decision was firm, and as the Corinthian's sentinel, he would comply with his request. There was a greater significance of those cigarettes to the nightmare than the elemental, but then again, the Swamp Thing had been their contents grown into one dried being. Memories.
"Please go, Elle Driver." The creature's request was soft. His only benevolent warning despite the grown flora within Elle.
----
He didn't say a word over the signature Silkies that landed at his feet but he looked at them, studied the purple emblem, recalled the white paper and the scent. His own cigarette had bloodstains on the filter, from his open wound. Cori could taste them. But he said nothing as the Swamp Thing escorted her out, their friend, maybe not anymore.
----
"Don't fucking touch me, plant." Elle growled as she turned around. What a waste. He was becoming a waste of time, of emotions of everything that had been built up. "If either of you see Cori, tell him I’m sorry and that if he wants to talk to me, he'll know where I be. Other than that you both can just eat me." The conviction of her threat was lost in the dwindling, weak tone.
The California Mountain Snake hated the feel of defeat almost as much as she hated a man gone sour by his own choosing. She gripped the wall of the hallway to keep walking upright.
----
The farther Elle walked, the more the pain within her had lessened as the intestinal flora retracted. The Swamp Thing solemnly watched as Elle staggered out of sight, turning to the Corinthian after. "I did not... enjoy doing that."
----
Cori watched Elle as well, watched her walk away defeated, whatever she wanted to call it. It wasn't fair to her and he knew it. The nightmare puffed on his cigarette then addressed the elemental.
"Do you believe me? I'm not going to be a menace to society, I want to be alone." His voice was tired, as tired as the departing snake's gait.
----
She made it to the elevator. Breathing was easier now. Elle pressed the glowing button again and again not sparing a look down the hallway. The door would be fixed tomorrow. It'd be like she wasn't even there. Wouldn't be the first incident like that in the City. Her sigh was lost as the doors rolled open. She stepped inside resolve to remain indifferent ended as the doors shut.
----
The elemental studied the nightmare carefully, those red eyes glossy enough to glow. "I respect... your desire to be alone... but no, I do not. I am afraid... that must be earned."
----
He considered that response, not one that pleased him at all, but Cori didn't protest the elemental's decision. "Fair enough," said the nightmare as he flicked the quickly spent cigarette onto the floor. He ground it out with his toe then returned to the apartment, leaving the thrown pack of Silk Cuts where they were.
Rating; R (language, violence)
Characters; Elle Driver
venomouselle, the Corinthian bitingnightmare, the Swamp Thing oncehollandSummary; The California Mountain Snake attempts to bring the nightmare around in her own specialized, mildly bloodletting way, only to encounter a possibly violating weed thing.
Log;
Weapons check: two hand daggers, one for each arm, a pair of blades for the boots and the Hattori Hanzo sword, anything more and it wouldn't look like a friendly confrontation.
Elle Driver sighed and shut the door behind her, at least she didn't need to pretend she was doing something else. Luke possibly would have stopped her from going to see Cori. He likely would have tried to remind her of her own physical weakness or something similar she didn't want to hear. Cigarette in her teeth she made the quick walk to the apartment like she always had ready for a nice talk.
----
Patient sentinel. This role did not bother the Swamp Thing having served as Guardian of the Earth and Green. Dealing with a grieving nightmare was a simpler task although not as easy but it would not be such a terrible burden.
The elemental was every plant, every tree, every seed, every spore. He could manifest himself in anything of the Green, spawn himself from it. He might have been trapped here but the Green had expanded again, encompassing the City and all that made it up. Discovering the mysteries of this Green had been a journey in itself beyond his concerns with the likes of the now-deceased Constantine and his Corinthian... "friend."
For now, he was watching, sensing the arrival of newcomer. He manifested himself in the potted plant that sat nearby the door, a tiny watchful equivalent of an eye.
----
The apartment itself was silent, unusual for their little hovel that normally would have the faintest din of a TV running or some music playing... or even their voices exchanging some idea, some anecdote, something post-it worthy. But not today. The apartment had been deathly quiet for days, but the Corinthian was not dead.
He nursed a bottle of tequila, found the worm floating at the bottom utterly fascinating. What else deserved his attention? Nothing. He poured another shot of the stuff and tossed it back, the clack of the glass against the table the only sound in the apartment.
----
Elle stepped out of the elevator ending up at the doorstep. She was angry for many reasons. Angry that John was gone, John was dead. Angry at the gloating bitches. Angry that Cori was stupid enough to act as though the whole world passed. She pulled the cigarette from her lips and tapped the ashes in the planter.
"Knock, knock," she called out. "I know you are in there."
----
"Fuck off." Cori said to the knocks on the door. He knew who it was, at the moment he didn't particularly care.
----
"No need to get up. I'll let myself in." Laughing lightly to herself, Elle made short work of the doorknob with one of the hand knives. Excellent start already. She stepped in, assaulted with the smell of cigarettes and alcohol. It was a potent mix; an open window would be a definite improvement. With her heel she kicked the door shut.
"Hi."
----
Cori pointed at the door she so expertly broke through to enter the apartment uninvited. He didn't even look at Elle, black shades masking his teeth eyes. "Get out."
----
At that moment, a tendril lashed out from the plant, tightening around Elle's leg. The door had not shut, bouncing off the thickening vines and stems trailing into the room. The rest of the plant was swelling, twisting and popping into a humanoid shape, forming a very irate Swamp Thing.
"There will be no visitors," the creature gurgled through forming vocal chords, the constricting vines creeping along Elle's body attached to his arm, "unless the Corinthian wills it."
----
By the time Elle Driver pulled a dagger from her sleeve she was in a cocoon of foliage. "What the fucking hell is this shit?" She looked to Cori and tried to convince herself that she was awake.
----
"You will heed my... warning and commit no... violence," barked the elemental in his slow voice, his grip on the intruder tight but not suffocating. "Why are you here?"
----
"Deal with it," said the Corinthian to Elle Driver. His tone was soaked in indifference as the Swamp Thing detained her.
----
Elle glared at the offending vines around her. "Right. Whatever. Just let me go." Goosebumps prickled uncomfortably all over.
----
The swamp creature narrowed those red eyes. "Why are you here?" the elemental snarled, harsh as brambles, not bothering to release his grip.
----
For once the nightmare was glad to have the elemental's intervention, but 'glad' was stretching it. Having the Swamp Thing around now was simply a convenience. "Answer him or he'll sprout a shrub from your bad eye."
----
"I'm here to talk to Cori." The prospect of having a plant growing out of her face flashed a mental image of a corpse dead in the ground, daisy's springing up all over. "Because it looks like no one else will."
----
"Isn't it human... custom to knock first?" The vines relaxed but they did not yield.
----
"Cori doesn't want to talk to anyone," replied the nightmare. Not exactly customary for him to speak in the third, but neither was there any trace of that Corinthian in his voice. "Throw her out," he said coolly, rational, cold.
----
"Do you actually think he would have let me in, Bush?" The California Mountain Snake wriggled and cut at the flora with the dagger. Snarling and irritated to find that most of her efforts were being undone, Elle Driver fixed a furious blue eye at the plant entity. "What are you worried for?"
----
"Then you should... not be here," breathed the Swamp Thing. Indeed wherever the snake had cut, threefold had replaced it with a warning tightness. "Constantine's death... should be the only death... we should cope with."
----
He grit his teeth, becoming impatient with the entire situation. Cori felt it warranted his rising from his seat and actually leaving his alcohol. He approached the pair, the snake tangled in the vines.
"I said get the fuck out, Elle. I don't want to talk. I don't need it," the Corinthian waved a hand. "Do me a favor and leave me alone," he hissed.
----
"Like hell this is coping!" She tried not to allow herself to be panicked by the increased constriction of the vines. "You're doing nothing but hiding, holed up in here like a scared little bitch. How brave."
Hardly being able to move, Elle tried to remember what pocket she put her lighter in. "It's fucking disgusting. A lot of people are worried about your ass--they aren't dead."
----
"Here you've fucking seen me, now go tell everyone I'm alive. Is that good enough for you," he growled in return. "Scared? You don't know the meaning of the word."
The Corinthian's fingers twitched, as if ready to remove his sunglasses. No, they wanted to curl into a fist and shut her up the hard way. Not yet, the Swamp Thing would hang him by an arm for that.
----
The lighter turned out to be in the breast pocket of her overcoat thankfully. Elle swallowed and focused on the bleach haired nightmare. "Hell no. This is bullshit immaturity. You can't just make connections with people and then drop everything and slip off into oblivion. I'm not asking you to stop grieving. I'm asking you to remember that you are alive."
----
"Corinthian," cautioned the Swamp Thing. "I will not... allow you to harm... our visitor either."
----
He quirked a brow over the blonde's words. "Heh, hey Holland explain to our 'guest' the difference between people like her and people like you and me." Was a nightmare and elemental alive in that sense?
The very irony made Cori forget his urge to strike briefly.
----
The Swamp Thing seemed to frown, but he complied: "We... are functions. We do what... we have been created... to do. We do not live... we are not mortals. I am protecting you... from the Corinthian... for if one falls... it shall not be the immortal."
----
Elle cradled the lighter carefully beneath the coiling plant tendrils, the flint successfully sparking and beginning a nice slow burn, allowing a path for the dagger to help forge through. "Fine, Mr. Function. We'll split hairs and argue connotations of words. I mean that you are missing and are missed. Something in me isn't saying boo-fucking-hoo and letting you walk off. I guess I'm crazy and you are an ass."
Her efforts to escape quickly unraveling. Back to square one.
----
The Swamp Thing was above cursing (most of the time) but this burning pinch of flame had led the creature to withdraw the tendrils. He wasn't terribly concerned either, knowing that there was more than one way to keep a snake caught and under control. Very easily he could manage both.
The tendrils having retracted into an arm and hand, the elemental rumbled: "Very well. This will be your... last warning: You may... speak but no blood... shall be shed."
----
The Corinthian backed away on instinct when he smelled the burning green. He too was no fan of fire on the skin. "Let me spell it out for you, Elle Driver," his temper flared, "go away, take a hike, split, piss the fuck off."
Cori pointed at the one eyed snake then looked to the elemental. "What the hell are you waiting for, or do you want me to get rid of her."
----
The one-eyed snake brushed off her shoulders. She definitely wanted to bathe later. "You're making a big mistake if you are going to turn me out on my ass. It's not going to get any easier. I'm not going to be shut out. In the meantime, let me give you something maybe you can cope with."
The Corinthian got a declaration of love and friendship in the form of a hammer punch to the nose.
----
"Enough!" the Swamp Thing commanded, his seriousness indicated by the ebbing pain Elle might have begun to feel deep within her. He was ready to physically apprehend the nightmare should he have responded in kind, perhaps with something a bit sharper.
----
Oh he wanted to respond in kind. He wanted to exchange blood for blood, an eye for an eye, that sort of thing. In this case it was his nose. It bled on contact, the second time she'd done this to the Corinthian. How did that saying go... Twice is the charm? His fingers twitched, aching to grab the woman by the hair (gold like John) and pull her towards the table where he could smash out her eye (blue like John) on the glass.
He could taste it. Instead he corrected his stumble. Let the damn bog god take care of her. "Consider yourself lucky," hissed the Corinthian, blood already dripping down to stain his teeth.
----
Elle snorted, there was a sharp pain worming its way in her gut. She grit her teeth and fought to ignore it. "Coward. Bitch. I don't believe this. You're just going to cease to be wrapped in the role of mourner."
Her hand tingled; she shouldn't have used so much force with him standing so close to her. "You are as bad as her, upholding your banner of 'no one understands.'" Just thinking of Zee or whatever her name was fed the crackling fire of her anger and bitterness. This calm solemnity was not what death was supposed to be about. This acceptance, lack of bite and fight was incomprehensible.
----
"You misunderstand me. I don't care," Cori clarified in a chilled tone. His face appeared expressionless, that of a nightmare, one who knew better than to engage an elemental in combat. Not over this.
"If you're done now, just leave." The Corinthian looked to the Swamp Thing. He seemed not to care that the creature was hurting her, as long as it got Elle out.
----
The searing sensation in her torso was melding with her anger. Breathing was becoming difficult now too. The assassin's nostrils flared as she glared at the nightmare, the strange being she considered her friend.
"Liar. You are a fucking liar. If you didn't care you wouldn't be having a pity party. You'd function like any other day with the roommate not about." Elle's vision blurred as she blinked rapidly to keep her tear ducts from over flowing. Was this finished? Not by a long shot. Shakily, her fingers wrapped around the handle of the Hanzo sword.
----
"Intruder, stranger," intoned the Swamp Thing coldly, indifferently even if it was apparent that he truly wanted no one hurt. What must be done must be done.
"I am manipulating the flora... deep within your bowels. I can... make them do whatever... I please. I could allow them to... tear you apart or... plug you up. Take your hand away from... your weapon and leave."
----
"You better listen to him, he's not shitting you. Hand off the weapon," said the Corinthian, ignoring her accusations about his roommate. John Constantine was hardly a roommate, he was far more.
"You broke the fucking door knob, don't make me break your toys."
----
Elle grimaced and steadied her stance. "Hospitable house plant we have here." Breathe, Driver, Breathe. No use explaining to them that she felt like shit now and was grasping her magic feather of a sword incase of she ate concrete.
"You both suck. This stalemate is doing jack shit. You are just going to stay like this--miserable. Plenty good that'll do you. I admire...the logic." God, don't let me vomit.
"Really, lose everyone you knew because you lost the one you knew."
----
"That is the Corinthian's choice," sighed the elemental.
----
The nightmare stepped over to the coffee table for his pack of Mild Sevens. He wedged one of those cancer sticks between his lips and lit the end as he took a deep drag. Cori approached Elle again.
"That's life isn't it," he exhaled the gray smoke in her face, his mannerism naturally paralleling that of a certain man they'd lost. "Where's the damn witch when you need her," muttered the Corinthian, "if she doesn't want to walk, make her." He nodded to the Swamp Thing, "my choice."
----
The snake coughed and turned her head. "I don't give flowers. So have a present, fucker." She threw one of the several packs of Silk Cuts she had been handing out at his feet and let her gaze drop. Blinking wasn't helping anymore. A hot trail of moisture rolled it's way down her cheek.
----
The Swamp Thing softened for a moment, but his decision was firm, and as the Corinthian's sentinel, he would comply with his request. There was a greater significance of those cigarettes to the nightmare than the elemental, but then again, the Swamp Thing had been their contents grown into one dried being. Memories.
"Please go, Elle Driver." The creature's request was soft. His only benevolent warning despite the grown flora within Elle.
----
He didn't say a word over the signature Silkies that landed at his feet but he looked at them, studied the purple emblem, recalled the white paper and the scent. His own cigarette had bloodstains on the filter, from his open wound. Cori could taste them. But he said nothing as the Swamp Thing escorted her out, their friend, maybe not anymore.
----
"Don't fucking touch me, plant." Elle growled as she turned around. What a waste. He was becoming a waste of time, of emotions of everything that had been built up. "If either of you see Cori, tell him I’m sorry and that if he wants to talk to me, he'll know where I be. Other than that you both can just eat me." The conviction of her threat was lost in the dwindling, weak tone.
The California Mountain Snake hated the feel of defeat almost as much as she hated a man gone sour by his own choosing. She gripped the wall of the hallway to keep walking upright.
----
The farther Elle walked, the more the pain within her had lessened as the intestinal flora retracted. The Swamp Thing solemnly watched as Elle staggered out of sight, turning to the Corinthian after. "I did not... enjoy doing that."
----
Cori watched Elle as well, watched her walk away defeated, whatever she wanted to call it. It wasn't fair to her and he knew it. The nightmare puffed on his cigarette then addressed the elemental.
"Do you believe me? I'm not going to be a menace to society, I want to be alone." His voice was tired, as tired as the departing snake's gait.
----
She made it to the elevator. Breathing was easier now. Elle pressed the glowing button again and again not sparing a look down the hallway. The door would be fixed tomorrow. It'd be like she wasn't even there. Wouldn't be the first incident like that in the City. Her sigh was lost as the doors rolled open. She stepped inside resolve to remain indifferent ended as the doors shut.
----
The elemental studied the nightmare carefully, those red eyes glossy enough to glow. "I respect... your desire to be alone... but no, I do not. I am afraid... that must be earned."
----
He considered that response, not one that pleased him at all, but Cori didn't protest the elemental's decision. "Fair enough," said the nightmare as he flicked the quickly spent cigarette onto the floor. He ground it out with his toe then returned to the apartment, leaving the thrown pack of Silk Cuts where they were.