tampered | Log; Complete-o [Part 1]

When; May 9 (morning)
Rating; PG13 (language, violence)
Characters; John Constantine

silkcutremix, the Corinthian

bitingnightmare
Summary; Several hours after capture, the nightmare finally tries to break the communication barrier between Constantine and himself.
Log;

The morning brought deeper furrows in the door of the bathroom, the trapped beast inside yowling and whining for its, his, freedom. He raked his claws along the wood, the limbs once seized by sedative hangover having since recovered their strength. He should have understood, but he did not. Could not anymore. Out. Out. Out!

Finding the door unyielding, the ex-magus fell back to all fours to pace in his frustration. This all was so simple but he could not figure it out just quite yet. He could not connect things as easily, as quickly. Problem solving fell uselessly between the stubby digits, the crackling, deadly intelligence thrown away. Discarded. It hurt him too much.

(He caught himself briefly in the mirror, but it was out of movement. The mirror was of no interest.)

Nervously panting, the wolf lapped a few uneasy, refreshing gulps of water from the open bowl. His heart quivered as he shook.

----

The nightmare had had better days. It was barely sunrise and already the magus had woken up, perhaps shaking a few other residents with him. Cori pulled his sunglasses down to rub at his tired teeth eyes. Real sleep had evaded him, chasing John down had tired him, keeping the man safe in the confines of their bathroom was stressing.

Perhaps he could placate the beast with something to eat. John and the wolf within him had to be hungry after all this time. It looked as if he'd been through more than just one fight with a Valentine brother. Damn, how many others had John injured... He shook his head briefly and approached the bathroom door, giving it a few knocks.

"I'm getting you something to eat," Cori said to John, even if the other might not understand him at all. The nightmare had raw salmon cut and ready on a plate in his other hand. Too bad it wouldn't fit under the door. A jiggle with his knife and the lock clicked. He twisted the knob open after a deep breath.

----

Constantine paused and went alert, ears erect, upon hearing those footsteps, the fiddling, the collection of scents so strikingly familiar. Fear overrode any comfort evoked from the fragmented human memory and the lupine was watching intently. The stronger primal mind had detected the odor of fresh meat, an item of interest, a prize for his exhaustion, but there was a two-legged monster attached to it. He was growing unafraid at least; attacking the towering beasts had become easier, tall or short. He licked at his nose, his chops. Food would come of this.

He watched to see what this particular two-legs (captor, bad, bad) would do.

----

The two-legged toothy captor stared down at the lupine magus, heart on his muzzle stained with blood (whose he didn't know and at the moment didn't care to know). He reached down to set the plate on the floor, well within the bathroom in case the wolf grew violent.

All the windows and the door to the apartment were locked, but keeping John further confined was for his own good. "What the hell am I going to do with you," Cori muttered to himself in a mix of frustration and near defeat.

----

Who the hell knew? The Corinthian might have notice the pissed on feces in the tub, the yellow dripping spray along the wall having long since dried. Constantine had claimed this tiny space as his own in the meantime, but what the ex-magus to do? Defend? He puffed his muzzle and gave a low bark before slowly, slowly creeping forward to sniff at the meat, a wary pair of very wild blue eyes glancing up at him. If the lady of disease had intended this, then perhaps the intended transformation had finally completed itself, Constantine acting, no, he was an animal: in how he moved, acted, lived. The characteristic clumsiness, the disregard for lupine body signals, the smirk in his eyes, all of it was gone.

----

The smell was rank and rancid, but the Corinthian hadn't expected any less. He watched the animal that had taken over Constantine sniff at the meat, fresh salmon to tantalize the lupine palate. Christ there was urine on his fur, perhaps from the pacing and scratching. He'd have to pour that stinging blue liquid over his wounds again... if Cori could keep him still.

The nightmare considered this. He didn't want to tranquilize John again in case the man should come to his senses, but those wounds could quickly become infected if not cleaned. There wasn't a muzzle in sight, but he had some cord, some nylon rope, hell he had his belt.

"Keep eating, babe," said the Corinthian, as if the Englishman might still be buried there somewhere to hear him. He shut the door briefly to retrieve the white rope. Do it while he's eating, he won't suspect, Cori thought to himself.

----

That might have been Cori's first mistake: Constantine, or what was indeed, would be doing everything in his power to keep his muzzle to the meat and nowhere else until the said meat had disappeared down his gullet. He was eating quickly, that pink tongue darting in and out to lap up the chucks, the animal inhaling the precious, precious flesh with a famished intensity.

He was trapped, and he could feel that white two-leg's presence ever so closer. He snarled in his chest.

----

The Corinthian fashioned the rope into small noose, almost foreboding in his shadow if John could understand what the loop meant. He didn't intend to hang Constantine however, only muzzle him. The trick was getting it around his face.

While he wasn't exactly a cowboy Cori did his best to dangle the loop over John's head, careful not to touch him with it just yet. He had to wait for the right moment, as he did with the tranquiler, only this gesture put barely two or three feet between them.

----

The coming rope was a itching presence and, well, Constantine was not wiling to let something come that close once again, especially in these close quarters. Still, his mind was more interested in the fish, meat that was fresh and not soaked with the sour sting of cleaning fluid. Eat quickly and run.

----

Loop quickly and pull. The nightmare did just that. He lowered the rope just in front of that large lupine nose then held it back to lasso his muzzle. Cori gave the nylon noose a pull.

----

Did the Corinthian take the magus for being that stupid? You did that with a tame cow, a domestic dog. You did not do it with a wild and very food protective wolf, who seized that damn rope the moment it brushed his nose and thrashed it, drool and spittle flying as he growled.

----

The magus was a wild thing at the moment, a wild thing who did not know that the nightmare had faced greater beasts before, charcoal black lupines and Norse gods included. As long as Constantine didn't shift into that large battle tank form Cori believed he could handle him.

As soon as the wolf snapped for the rope the Corinthian lunged forward to wrap the other end around his lower torso. The better to bind his hind legs.

----

The nightmare was a threat, the wolf realized. Dangerous. Had to get away. The ex-magus' whole body thrashed then, kicking to get away, fighting the nightmare trying to restrain him. The rope was no longer a threat; the two-leg trying to wrap him was. Those jaws went for an arm, a leg, anything.

----

His heel slipped on some fluid, whatever it was it smelled rancid, but the Corinthian didn't care. He wouldn't let the wolf get him on his back, John at that point would be completely unmanageable. Sharp fangs sank into his forearm while his palm blocked his face. His brand new body was ruined, his uninfected body.

A twist of his wrist and the nightmare could have his thick throat under his arm. He could wrench that muzzle off and make a sick crack with his neck. Put two wolves under his belt. But John Constantine wasn't a wolf, despite his feral behavior and his dirty white coat; the wolf was John Constantine.

Cori dropped to one knee, whether those teeth remained latched on or not, and grabbed the fur at John's right shoulder tightly. He sought to knee the creature just below his ribs, in his soft belly.

----

Constantine whined and released when the nightmare hit, stumbling back to wretch and heave. Those wild eyes burned, whether with anger or the drive to flee and escape this creature now and forever, but neither seemed to be in immediate reach. Another snap at the pale flesh, once Constantine was well enough, would have to do.

----

No. He wasn't going to stop there. When the white wolf stumbled back, signaling his release from the Corinthian's arm, he pressed onward to corner the large lupine between bathtub and bog. He wasted no time in throwing his arms around John's chest to bring him down to the dirty floor with his own weight.

Teeth eyes snarled, his own two sets of fangs hidden by smoky lenses. Hands reached for his furry throat, fingers hooked like jaws as Cori attempted to straddle the wolfmagus.

----

His very thick furry throat. The wolf knew what the nightmare was intending to do and he would have none of it. His limbs wheeled, the stubby claws pawing the air, the yellowed teeth gnashing. His breath was hot, moist and fowl, a foam forming at the corner of his black lips. He would not submit. Won't. He on top. Not other. Him!

----

"Hrssch, sNaP oUt Of It."

"YoU fUcK."

Both sets rasped angrily at the wolf while a deep feral growl emitted from Cori's own throat. The claws aggravated the wound in his arm. Fangs snapped dangerously close to his wrists. The nightmare needed the rope. He needed to take one hand off of Constantine to get it.

His lip curled in the face of the thrashing animal. The heel of his palm pressed down on the wolf's windpipe, to try and minimize the struggle while Cori reached back for the dangling nylon.

----

The Corinthian was pressing hard, but not hard enough, the thick cushion of hair providing just enough pillow between the palm and the neck. It was not enough to completely stop the magus but it held back the deadly jaws and their diseased froth. His hind legs bicycled almost comically while his body curled and twisted, trying so desperately to free himself. The forelegs wrapped around the arm, for a moment the ex-magus remembering the concept of grasping, but that required thumbs.

----

Comically was one way of putting it. Those hind claws were putting scratches on his sides, up his back. John fought hard for a wounded hungry animal, but he fought like an animal, until he wrapped his forelegs around the Corinthian's arm. The gesture alone almost caused him to freeze in his rope retrieval. No. Regardless of the Englishman's cognitive state he needed to be bound. Now.

Having managed to pull the loop end over Cori attempted to lasso it around that muzzle again, getting his fingers pulled in the process if necessary.

----

John "roared" in spitting defiance, trying to get his snout away with little luck; the nightmare's grip was firm. He was going to fight to the thread; his freedom, his very life, survival, was on the line. His teeth snapped as the rope came, his rage, his burning desire to be free, fueled by his sore windpipe. He snapped at the Corinthian's fingers, the rope. Did the nightmare fancy himself a Tyr?

----

His fingertips became caught in the struggle, clipped by the wolf's snapping teeth. They bled over the rope as Cori gave the noose another pull to snap that muzzle shut. Unlike Tyr, he was not going to stick his hand in John's mouth. The temptation to bite him with his teeth eyes ran strong however.

If he had that noose over the wolfmagus' jaws he could loop it once more around his thick neck.

----

Constantine found his teeth pulled shut, which fueled his fear and drive even more. He fought as much as he could, tarry lungs tight and wheezing and crying for air as adrenaline pushed them to their limit. He could taste the blood, no different from the blood of anything other. He had no interest in the other's flesh, although his sort made surprisingly easy prey.

Let go! Free! Go! Leave! Go!

----

The Corinthian paid no mind to those cries, no matter how pained they sounded. He tied off the loop around Constantine's neck, creating a makeshift muzzle through his knowledge of shibari. After all these years he didn't think those skills would come in handy again.

He tied the loose end of the rope around the base of the nearby toilet, leashing Constantine to it with only three feet of lead. But the nightmare still hadn't dismounted. He glared down at the wheezing creature.

"Maybe you failed at trying to help me, but I'm not going to fail on you," hissed the white haired beast. He stared, hard, as if the very act would get the message to Constantine.

----

In his forced submission, the downed Constantine only violently jerked his head to the side the best he could, avoiding eye contact. Was it the magus inside all that hair or simply an instinctual reaction? Even if the nightmare did indeed have teeth for eyes, they registered as an alpha gaze when they were "focusing" into the wolf's own pair.

(He had failed him. If he could not help him, no one else could. He could not help anyone anyway. Useless piece of shit.)

----

"......"

No reaction. Not even that brief but meaningful look the illusionist had mentioned. It angered the Corinthian, he wanted to hit Constantine for denying him the cognitive acknowledgment. The awareness that he knew someone familiar was with him.

He tightened his fists then stood up, allowing the wolf to flip back to his feet. "I'm not letting you go till you come back to me, you son of a bitch."

----

John did not. The animal had indeed pulled himself back to his feet, only to futilely tug at the rope and violently shake and pull against it like an unwilling horse. He grunted and growled and strained, forelegs uselessly clawing at the rope whenever he reared. He could not pant, could not regulate his body temperature. The hot cotton sensation already creeping through him pushed him harder.

----

He shook off the feeling of defeat and opened the higher cabinet containing the stinging blue fluid. If he could bathe John that would help but the struggle to do it would only make more wounds. Cori poured the blue stuff over his bite mark first, a minor precaution because his body would do the rest of the work.

"It's going to hurt," he warned the wolf to no avail. The nightmare turned on the shower first, to wash away the urine and feces in the tub. He then doused John's wounded areas with the disinfectant. It was messy, but they had few options.

----

The disinfectant stung and the magus had no way to vent his pain, ease it. Calm it. Nothing. His jaw was clamped, leaving him to cry in his throat in that high whistling whine and uselessly struggle some more. He could hear the water thunder against the smooth oily surface of the tub, smell the hard minerals and grit in the liquid wash himself away. All of this had mounted his irritation but already his age and human habits were ebbing away at his fight. He was stuck and afraid.

----

He told himself to do nothing to ease the magician's pain. John was feral and likely to injure them both before he could finish cleaning those wounds. The spot on his shoulder attracted Cori's attention. He set the bottle down to inspect it closely, using his legs to barricade the Englishman if necessarily.

Let him cry.

----

Those blue eyes were wide in fear, the ears back and tail low. He still "mumbled" a growl when the nightmare came closer, his forelegs pawing at the rope as paws did and not another feeble attempt at "grasping."

The shoulder spot had yielded a matted sticky area with dried blood down to the skin, a hole hidden beneath the thick fur. A bullet wound.

----

"God dammit," Cori hissed, recognizing the shape of the wound. At least he could already determine it hadn't penetrated the bone, else his very pawing and grasping foreleg would be a lost cause.

Forceps they hadn't used since winter came out. The nightmare stepped over the wolf to hold him still with his knees. Professionally this sort of thing happened with anesthesia, but Cori had none at his disposal. The extraction would be painful, but he silently promised John to make it quick.

By now the tub was rinsed out but with the muzzle on the magus could not drink from it yet.

----

Through the makeshift muzzle, John "screamed" and struggled under the nightmare as the foreceps dug into the old wound to pull the bullet out. The sting was nothing compared to the agony bleeding through his nerves. He did not want to hold still and he writhed with his bestial strength, testing the limits of the rope and its knots. The rope would hold but would the shape it was strung in keep? His black nails scratched against the tile, those blue eyes that caught sight of the nightmare's smaller sets of teeth behind the shades nearly begging him why he was suffering so.

----

"Give me a fucking second," he barked at the wolf beneath him.

Who knew why the Corinthian continued to speak to Constantine as if he could be understood. Was it his desperate attempt to catch on to a leak of humanity? Was it his way of coping with the possible loss of his friend and lover? For the second time. No, he was determined to prove this was no loss, only a temporary setback. Clink. The deformed metal came out of the wound, a bullet indeed, and Cori wasted no time in depositing it in the sink. It was too large to go down the drain, but he intended to keep the evidence anyway.

"There," he said, dropping the forceps in the sink as well. He used the blue liquid to flush out the dirty wound. At least they didn't have to worry about fabric remnants.

----

John's whining in his throat crescendoed away as the pain subsided. He no longer fought at this point, with the exception of leaning back against the rope, his blue eyes staring mindlessly at the stained white bog for lack of anything else. He tried to crack his jaw open for a desperate trickle of cooling air into his body heated by panic, quick and shallow. His back was a fearful slump, at this thing's (someone) mercy (I know him).

(I am.)

----

"Yeah I thought you'd like that better," said the Corinthian while capping the blue bottle. He used one of the (unfortunately) chewed up towels to dab away at John's fur.

Would have to toss those out, he thought to himself. Once he was sure he'd wiped away the excess disinfectant (the less for John to lick off), Cori reached out to undo the loop around his muzzle using his good hand. He'd barely done anything for his own wounds beyond flushing them.

----

John shook himself, shaking himself of the pain, the liquid, the creeping lucidity that sent uneasy trembles through him. The towels had been mangled out of his anxiety, fibers and some shreds littering the floor.

(Cori?)

He growled at him upon being freed, but he still maintained his low submissive slump.

----

He watched the wolf carefully, wary of picking up any body language that might signal an attack. The nightmare had noticed a shift in John's demeanor, either submission or comprehension. But without those characteristic nudges, licks, and bastardly barks Cori couldn't be completely sure.

Nevertheless, he left the rope off John's muzzle, trusting him to not bite while the Corinthian washed the blood from his arm in the tub.

----

John did not bite. He found no need to bite. The nightmare was not a threat unless he was touching him. Disturbing him. Threatening him.

Get away, get away, get away.

John trotted off, panting in relief, pacing up and down the studio with a very natural lupine gait. The magus walked with a rolling lumber. Now he was light on his toes, aware and alert, searching for that one way out.

There was none.

----

The door was deadbolted, the windows locked, blinds halfway drawn to allow the morning light. It was an experiment, to see if John might recognize the apartment. The smells of the kitchen, their scent on the couch, in the sheets, just one spark of recognition. There was something else he could do too, after washing his bites.

The Corinthian didn't bother with dressing his injuries, or even visiting the hospital. He was immortal, he didn't need it. The magician needed his sense of self more than Cori needed band aids. With his arms still dripping wet he left the bathroom to retrieve a pack of Silk Cuts. He lit one cigarette.

----

John reared up on his hind legs to claw feebly at the door, having made the association that these doors led out, but this one did not give just as the other one had not until he opened it. He was growing afraid again. Trapped.

(Home?)

He sniffed at the floor, fearfully minding the Corinthian as he investigated. Then he sniffed at the air; familiarity. He had to pause and watch, those black nostrils quivering as the creature pondered his fixation on the odor, feeling his lungs tighten with need once again. No spark. Distant association.

----

Cori even made sure to exhale in John's direction, a rude gesture to almost anyone else, but even that seemed to not register with the Englishman. The Silk Cut was the ace up his sleeve, however he had other things in his bag of tricks (his bag of memories).

He crossed the apartment to the kitchen, where the laptop blinked every few seconds. A pile of brown fabric sat on one of the chairs. The nightmare picked up the trench coat then tossed it to the floor for the wolf to investigate.

----

John leapt away from the flying noisy piece of clothing as it tented and shrunk to the floor, ears flat and hackles briefly rising as he circled the cloth nervously, curiously still. He nosed it and sniffed, smelling (himself) in the fibers. It was new but old, and was soon no longer regarded as a harmful object. It was his. His.

So he urinated on it.

----

"............"

The Corinthian watched with zero amusement as the man pissed on his own coat. At least it meant he recognized the coat, a pity he'd have to get a new one after this. Fortunately the zippo lighter and what remained of his watch were on the table and not in those now urine-soaked pockets.

"Hell you need a new one anyway," muttered the nightmare. He wedged the Silkie between his teeth and filled a bowl with water then set it on the floor for John.

----

John gave his marked coat a sniff of approval before finding other things to investigate with his simpler lupine consciousness, nevermind those bubbles of deeper suggestive thought. The flat was seen with different eyes, and those different eyes would examine and explore the best they could. The nightmare still made him uncomfortable, so he still avoided him and his unusual shaded gaze before hopping on the couch. He sniffed that, dropping to his back to wriggle on it like a furry yellow-white grub.

----

The nightmare huffed softly for several reasons, besides his just having cleaned the flat to the best of his ability. Now there was a shredded bathroom, urine on the floor, and a brand new dusting of fur on the sofa. Still he couldn't help but smile at the gesture, smile just a little for the wriggle. But quickly his expression became serious.

"John," said the Corinthian.

It was an opportunity. The white blonde creature approached the grubbing one, fingers on the arms of his sunglasses. He concentrated hard, wanting as much control as possible. He quickly removed the dark lenses.

----

Constantine's attention had shifted to this funny little gesture performed by the creepy Corinthian, this menacing forceful two-legs that did not seem to stop bothering him. He paused his scent-roll, this absorbtion of odor to take with him in his coarse hair, watching this movement with a curious canine interest.

Then their eyes met.

Onward to part 2!