Log: Complete

[bitingnightmare.livejournal.com]

When; May 19 (approaching midnight)
Rating; PG13 (language)
Characters; John Constantine silkcutremix, the Corinthian bitingnightmare
Summary; After being fired for this incident, Mr. Constantine finally finds it in himself to visit the City High prom while a white shadow waits within the wings.
Log;

There was still time before midnight, but the rest of the prom goers had already gone to do what adolescents did on such a special evening.  The punch bowls were empty, only crumbs in the buffet trays, and some of the crepe decorations (confetti and tinsel included) were strewn across the floor.  Without the rest of the chaperoning faculty about no one would notice some ash added to the litter.

The Corinthian, hardly dressed to the nines in his jeans and t-shirt, sat at a single table nursing both cigarette and spiked punch.  He'd barely touched the glass all night despite adding his own midori to it.  He was waiting, for what the nightmare didn't know specifically, that or he didn't want to face disappointment.

He said he hoped to see him here.

----
It had been mostly silent with the exception of the restless hum of the City. Faintly, the Corinthian could hear the soft crinkle of crepe paper as it was trod upon by a heavy, tired foot. Onward, a familiar face revealed itself, tousled and scruffy as the graduates had done to the once elaborate set up. Not bothering to adjust his appearance, a futile effort he decided was akin to polishing dirt, he approached the table in slow procession, taking the seat across from the nightmare to slink into a weary slump. 
 
But it was him. Him.

----
He didn't have to glance up to see who was making those heavy footsteps across the fallen decorations.  He could smell it was Constantine, coming in from a fresh run perhaps.  He could hear his weight settle in the opposite chair.

"Fashionably late," remarked the nightmare with the faintest smirk and a look to that trademark coat from behind his sunglasses.  Even at night he wore them.  Cori offered his glass of the alcohol-laced punch.  "That's all that's left."

----
A fresh run, an opportunity to lope the other liquor he did through up out. He eyed the laced punch as if it were a poison for a moment, but the pain in his heart that stung him for company brought his fingers around it. He took a swig. Almost all of it no less. 
 
It was better than the pond water. He could still taste scum and feel the grain on his teeth.
 
"Better later than never," Constantine mumbled.

----
"Take in the sight while you can," Cori gestured to the empty square, "I think they had fun."  He nodded once referring to the students who had long vacated the premises, even if some of them were poxy little bastards.

"I was waiting for you," as if that hadn't been obvious.  He exhaled to the side, three ways.

----
John gave the empty square a look, imagining the students there, dancing with summer on their minds. Fickle teenage love. Like so many years before. He never knew this would be his last year. He would have not been able to bring himself to look at his last wave of students, not without cracking. 
 
His gaze returned to the last bit of punch at the bottom of the glass, unsure if he should finish it. He could not look at Cori, not in the shades or the teeth eyes.
 
"Something told me I shouldn't have spent the night curled up in the dirt, so I came here instead." I won't be crying alone.

----
The Corinthian felt differently about these students, perhaps because he was only a visiting teacher.  He wouldn't miss them; he'd likely see only a handful actually make it into the university.  No, there had to be an underlying reason for why he taught well but hardly connected with any of them, not even the faculty save for one...

"I'm glad you made that choice," said the nightmare as he reached over to pluck a small dried leaf from the magician's blonde hair.

Summer.  A season for the fickle and fleeting, yet it felt like the end of something, only if they wanted it to be that way.  He reached up to remove his shades then, tucked them in the pocket of his black jacket.  "What are your plans after this," he didn't specify what 'this' was.

----
John briefly gave the nightmare a funny look, until he saw that very leaf. He eyed it for a moment, eyed the nightmare's hand. There was something about the Corinthian, something that connected the both of them. He was something like a cat, for lack of a better analogy: finicky, reserved, neat, proper. What business did he have with an old dog like him? What did the nightmare see? It must have been easier to notice something other than a tattered, worn man with teeth for eyes.
 
(His heart bled for the kids. He'd miss each and every one of them. Maybe even that little cunt DS.)
 
"Keeping up with the rent," he answered distantly.

----
Feline in his secretive and mysterious demeanor.  What did he see in an old dog like John Constantine besides everything the Corinthian wasn't?  They had similar characteristics too; ones that fit like puzzle pieces though neither of them could see the big picture.

He laced his own fingers together and leaned forward.  "I can help you," the nightmare offered with a nod of sincerity.  They both lacked constant company, and at least in his case he enjoyed John's.

----
John remained leaning back in his chair, gazing at his friend, his ruiner. Was this a plot on his end to ensure that the nightmare had him at all times? Constantine knew how to read the little buggers. Reading those smaller twin sets was very difficult. 
 
He had to scowl, had to turn his head to the side: Lost independence he fought tooth and nail for. Security, although on a thin plank that rattled whenever ol' Wanker Paulie gave him the eye. His belief in himself that he could survive. 
 
A cat could live a solitary existence. A wolf could not.

----
The nightmare could survive alone, and he had for several years, long years he couldn't quite remember but they seemed to stretch beyond a blurred horizon in his memory.  Something familiar about it too...  He couldn't thrive alone however, but he felt he thrived in Constantine's company, during those few moments they were together.

"I fucked up," Cori admitted under a blow of smoke.  The paper had burned to the filter so he ground the rest of it out on a plate.  "Let me do something to make it right," he said with a glance to John out the corners of his teeth.

----
John too had to admit he thrived in the nightmare's presence. Funny that, with all the female faculty he talked with, smiled with in passing, some he actually felt he had a chance with. His contagious condition made him feel otherwise. He was secure in what he was, comfortable in both skins and in between, but he felt like the piss-yellow hair and the trenchcoat was just a sheepskin.
 
His used to make his living by lying. Funny that he could never escape living it. They would have found out eventually. Sex was more mundane, even that of the homosexual sort. Best to be fired on the grounds of sex than be scrutinized because everyone thought he'd eat them if they fucked up in his class. He didn't want them to perceive him as a monster.
 
Constantine's brow furrowed. "Do you realize what you have done to me by losing me job?"

----
Sometimes it took a monster to overlook the monstrosity of another.  John knew Cori had embraced it, since they started skipping the rubber step (but he had his own condition to contend with).  That moonshade brow mirrored the other's furrow.

"I know what I did and I want to help you overcome it," the nightmare nodded, "you can't do everything alone."

Those unnatural pieces of bone lining his eye sockets studied Constantine intently.  That was the problem wasn't it; wanting to be independent, not wanting to be alone.  They needed to reconcile the two.

----
"'House pet' is not a career option," sighed John. He thought nothing of the Corinthian's extra teeth, a feature that made him familiar more so than terrifying. The fact that he could freely reveal his other self had saved his sanity. Made him feel more like a valid person.

----
"My ass," the nightmare countered with a quirk of his brow.  He tapped the tablecloth, leaning farther across towards Constantine.  "I'll charge you rent if I have to," said the Corinthian, his normal mouth a mixture of a smirk and a smile, "you're no house pet, old man, you're a friend."

----
A comforting words. John could not bring himself to gaze into the teeth, keeping it on the table where his elbows were. 
 
"I need a job, Cori. Something... fulfilling. Alec got me past the drug tests at the high school. They'll find out anywhere else."

----
"And I'll be there to kick your ass out of bed to go find one," he offered under another smile.  He could give John his independence, only if the man would allow himself the security of at least having a place (someone) to turn to.

The Corinthian tapped the man's arm.  "We'll find something else."

----
John had to suck it up and admit at least he wasn't turning in to a woman. He reminded himself that he was not sexist, not the wolf the women sometimes described him as. He wasn't sure which definition was worse to be.
 
"Pull the university strings," he shrugged, knowing he barely had the qualification to teach high school as it was. Night school was something he admittingly struggled through.

----
"I can do that," nodded the paler blonde.

"Do you want to live with me," asked the Corinthian.  He wasn't the type to make it seem as if Constantine didn't have a choice.  He would always have a choice, just like saying 'no' when he could have, but he didn't.  Cori pinched the edge of John's sleeve, as if unsure his close proximity was welcome, but he hoped.

----
John forced himself to look into those teeth eyes. Still bitter. Angry. 
 
"Greener pastures, I suppose."

----
Not what he'd hoped to hear.  The nightmare's brow furrowed again briefly, only briefly.  He averted his gaze but did not remove his pinch from that trenchcoat sleeve.  "I didn't come here to slow dance in a burning room," he said quietly.

----
"Now you're avoiding me," John grumbled. "Your little analogy would work better in the school gym than out here."

----
"Sometimes I think you wish you didn't like me," he admitted his reason behind that avoidant behavior, his careful demeanor with Constantine.

----
"Sometimes," John sighed. "I can't help it. I'm bloody attracted to you."

----
His chair squeaked against the floor as the Corinthian scooted it closer to Constantine.  "I'm attracted to you too, I can't avoid you," he shook his head while his hand crept along that sleeve to settle over John's wrist.

----
John liked that touch too much. He studied that hand, how pale it was to his. "Will you still be teaching at City High now that I'm gone?"

----
"No, I shouldn't," said the paler of the two.  He didn't want to teach in the place where he'd played a role in the Englishman's termination.  "My assistant earned himself the right to teach the class alone," Cori added with a slight smirk.

His fingers circled around John's darker wrist.

----
"Bloody poof, he is. Looks like a she." Having long set the glass on the table, he wrapped his hand around the other wrist, tenderly. (Looks like a friggin' oreo, he wryly thought.) Suppose he could live with Cori, even if he was seemingly happy teaching. The days would otherwise drift, marked by the moments of nostalgia that would take him and make him quietly tear for the older days he somehow had left behind. He was better then, stronger.

----
"Knows what he's talking about though," nodded the Corinthian, and his praise for the TA had little to do with the... figurative cocksucking.  He too noted their hands, the contrasting shades (the colors fit, in his opinion).  After a silent moment the nightmare leaned forward, his lips lightly brushing along John's ear.

"You make me happy."

----
"You have no idea," from his end. A slight breeze ruffed some of the fallen crepe paper.

----
He liked to think he had an idea.  The Corinthian brushed his lips across that ear (pierced?), down to Constantine's neck, and along his stubbled jaw.  He smelled the night on his skin.

"Come home with me tonight."

A proposition perhaps?  Or maybe the first step to a new beginning.

----  
A lingering trace from his old days, that single stud nestled in the magus' ear, lingering as the smell of the woods, the forest, the trees. He smelled of green rather than smoke, the natural world rather than the City.

His voice was small: "I don't want to cry alone."

----
"You don't have to, baby," said the nightmare into the crook of his neck, the collar of that beaten trenchcoat smelled of the smoke.  Cori used words that felt familiar to him, as if they'd known each other all along, adding to his intense gravitation towards John.  "Shed me some tears anytime."

----
"Didn't you hear me?" John whispered, booze and something else interesting on his breath, a squeeze to the hand he had in his own. "Earlier."

----
"You've been out, I know that much," Cori said as his fingers tightened around John's.  He rested his chin in the crook of his neck.  While the nightmare might not have heard forlorn howls over the bass beats from the DJ tables he wouldn't put it past the magician to sound them.

----
"All you need to know then." John's gaze went off into the distance with the intensity of what he sometimes was and most of the time was not. Howling made him feel better, as difficult it would be for the magus to admit that. Didn't give him a hangover the following morning either.

Distantly, a song danced along the wind: And any fool knows/ a dog needs a home...

----
He kissed the other's neck then raised his head to sit up straight.

"Come with me," Cori said, giving their clasped hands a tug as he stood from his chair.

----
John stood with him, perhaps looking for some bright face of a clock. What time was it?

"Where are we going? Your place...?"

----
"We'll go there afterward.  I don't think you've ever had a ride on my bike," the nightmare shook his head with a smile.  He kept his grip on John's hand firm.

The purring robust Delilah was parked on the other side of the street, opposite the entrance to the prom festivities.  There were two helmets hooked to her handlebars, as if the Corinthian had been anticipating Constantine's company.  As for the time, closer to midnight than it was before, but not quite the stroke.

----
No, John had not (not in this universe). He used to ride to school on a beaten red scooter, but that had been stolen, once being the thief making it sting all the more. He spent the last few years walking to school; couldn't afford another, not even a goddamn bicycle on his budget. His landlord was a fucking prick.
 
He gave the motorcycle a wary look as the both of them approached, even more so with the Corinthian's foresight. He didn't take either of the helmets even if he could smell which was new, allowing the nightmare to decide which was his. Admittingly, motorcycles scared him.

----
Scared him just like being jobless and possibly having to be dependant on someone else scared him?  He offered the newer helmet to John, a dark glossy storm gray just like his mysterious disposition.  He finally released the other's hand to slip on his own helmet, a shiny black stark contrast to his hair.

"Watch your coat tail," said the Corinthian as he mounted the two-wheeled monster and kicked the stand.

----
John strapped his helmet on, reminded of the time when he first purchased that scooter and bought a helmet to go with it, then cut corners and ignored it all together. He still had that, gathering dust in the closet.
 
What else could Constantine do? He still was an opportunist at heart and, swinging his leg over the beast to wrap his arms around the nightmare's torso (paying mind to his coat tail, indeed), where else could he go but the forest? In retrospect, he enjoyed humanity too much, its people, tragedies and triumphs (as few they were for him), to throw it all away to follow the whims of his disease.
 
He liked seeing his students smile, smirk, laugh. He missed Matthew and his quips. His heart already ached.
 
"Go wherever," said Constantine, pressing his cheek against the nightmare's back.

----
He could always return, perhaps not to be paid, but he could certainly see them again and this time as an equal, a visitor among friends...  The Corinthian would personally provide a distraction from the administration's wandering eyes.

Tooth eyes glanced over his shoulder upon hearing John's words.  Wherever.

He loved that pressure around his waist, the weight on his back.  And while they were both urban dwellers for the most part Constantine had his forest, the nightmare had one place that always felt familiar and intimate to him.

The engine rumbled to life with a turn of the key, and immediately a heavy wind hit them as Cori drove them out of the Square.  He took them through the City streets, empty at the dead of night, and onward to the jump gate where Delilah pushed through, bypassing the forest to land on rock and sand.

Ten minutes till midnight.

----
John had his eyes closed for the most part, feeling the rumble below him as the powerful thing ran along the gravel. He let himself smell the City, allowing his more sensitive nose to illustrate it for him. He identified things, sometimes the little things that evoked ripples across the memory pool. A few bubbled from below, from so deep ago. 
 
He could smell the forest, the green he had trotted through in the shaggy nude, remembering for only a moment of a swamp and a lump down in Houma, where he looked down upon it. He was introducing himself with that sure smile he never lost. He was clean then, and was a man. 
 
Abby still didn't like him, didn't she? Never did. He smiled, maybe chuckled. 
 
The beach was a creeping odor of salt. He did not have to open his eyes to know. This place felt special somehow. A deep breath of Cori's back, and he knew why.

----
He pulled the bike to a sharp stop, kicking up sand with the rear tire.  Delilah could stay on the platform however, no need to risk granule damage to her engine.  Cori's fingers slipped under John's, signaling to dismount.  The tide had come in, bringing the sound of rolling waves closer.  He tugged his helmet off and propped the motorcycle on her stand.

"Wherever, right," he smiled to the Englishman.  The smell intoxicated him, something deeply rooted in the nightmare.  He felt he was born here, though he recalled never having parents.

----
John followed, nudging himself off the large cycle to follow suit, running a hand through his moist hair. He shook his head. 
 
"Sex on the beach?" he smiled.

----
"Those kids did do a number on the punch bowl," he replied, grinning.  The nightmare stepped off the platform only to claim a seat on the soft sand.  He gestured for the magus to join him.

----
Ex-magus, Constantine would have mumbled as he shuffled along on those ever-heavy feet of his to the nightmare's side. "Look, Cori," he grunted as he comfortably settled himself. "I am not the one to say no, but, shit, what do you have in mind?"

----
"Can't I spend some time with an old man," asked the nightmare with another small smirk.

"When I saw you I felt like I've always known you," he nodded once.  That feeling stretched beyond last year, beyond the hot dusty weather of Texas, the drowning swamps of Louisiana, the pomegranate scent of Venice.  "But I think you're afraid to know me," that or Constantine knew him too well.

----
"Somewhere," John distantly sighed, leaning back to prop himself up on his elbows. The waves continued to lap at the shore, he could smell the salt even more in the air as the rest of him soaked in the scent.

Then John smiled. "You're an ex-murderer."

----
That remark caught him off guard.  He had worked hard to cover up his previous record, as hard as John worked to conceal his condition.  No one was supposed to know about it because his.... former nature never left survivors.  The Corinthian glanced to the smiling Englishman, mild shock filling his expression.

"How did you know," asked the white blonde.  For all he knew the other one could be bluffing and Cori had just admitted guilt with his response.

----
John tilted his head back, eyes closed. "Not even placing the puzzle pieces years apart could stop me from putting them back together. I haven't lost everything just yet.

"You fucked one and let him live."

----
Words couldn't describe the anxiety that left him.  For all Constantine spoke of losing his job and having to be dependent on the one offering him food and shelter, he had the Corinthian there by the balls.  The fact that he was reformed would mean nothing to his superiors.

"You always knew and you never said anything," the nightmare quirked a brow at John, "you live dangerously."

Now that was a given.  He leaned back on the sand, not caring how grains trickled under his jacket, under his denim.  His fingers worked on the tie's knot, so close to the man's throat.  He was loosening the strip of fabric.  "I'm not out to ruin you."

Five minutes till midnight.

----
"Put it wherever you want. Between the ribs." That smile never left the ex-magus' face. "We're both base murderers, aren't we?" Reformed or not. The nightmare was reformed; Constantine would have taken monthly if he had not locked himself up. The nightmare would continue to unclothe him as John rambled on in some kind of morbid fantasy: "Or how about me throat, in the heart, some artery. Watch me bleed to death. It'd be something beautiful."

----
"That's where you've gotten me," he countered while separating the two sides of his tie.  Cori didn't specify murder weapon or point of impact, he felt John knew.  The old man was good at outfoxing others, including ex-murderers.  They were both criminals.

"I think it's called a stalemate."  He started to unbutton that white shirt, wanting to bare John's chest.  It was an excellent target for the butterfly blade he always kept in his boot, several vital organs housed in this one area, but all the nightmare wanted to do was hear his heartbeat.

----
It was calm under the coarsely haired chest, hardly frantic. The magician had not died nor his confidence. "I knew you wouldn't. Too many times where it could have been ace sensationalism on the news and you passed on it. The lounge could have used a little red, right?

"You have a knife on you, don't you?"

----
"I do," he admitted casually, listening to the pace of John's middle-aged heart.  The rhythm was calming to him as it was calm in general.  Cori sensed no fear in the other man, as if he had dealt with other things just as monstrous and dangerous before.

"Back of the right boot," he disclosed as a gesture of loyalty, John could reach for it anytime too.  His fingertips crawled along his chest, down the center of his stomach harboring a great length of hot viscera, to that trail of course blonde hair just above his belt.

"You could have killed me," said the Corinthian.  He knew the Englishman had dark tricks as well.

----
"I know how. I didn't want to. I don't." John ran a hand through the hair of the nightmare. Cori would not bite. There were more terrifying things lurking in his memory other than softened serial killers with teeth for eyes. Well, soft to him only, really. Almost confused the ex-magus. "Same reason for you."

----
"Yes," he concurred quietly.  The rolling tide made him imagine the sea washing over John's chest, leaving a faint sheen on his skin.  He wouldn't dream of drowning the man, but the vision of Constantine underwater was beautiful to him.  There was something infinite about this place, with pockets of finite magic.

Tick tick tock.

"Were we fighting again," Cori asked against his chest, almost absently.

----
Suddenly, the magus was there, lying there. He had awoken from something, sinking away from the haze of some distancing dream with the weight of reality. He felt the sand under him, the Corinthian on him.

This was familiar.

"Fuck me sideways if I know. Did the world end?”

----
"Third time would be a fucking charm," said the nightmare, looking almost annoyed if that were the case.  He looked over the palm of his hand; still intact and freshly colored.  John's bare skin was also that familiar darker shade of beige.

His tie was also untied, his shirt very unbuttoned.

Cori smirked, lacing his fingers together to rest both hands on Constantine.  He settled his chin on top of his knuckles.  "Was I up to no good?"

----
Here, John noticed the air against his bare chest, the pressure of flesh against flesh as Cori rested. "Think you were heading south, knowing you." He was still blinking away another branch from another lifetime that meant the world to him before, but nothing now.

----
Logical route to follow from tie to trousers.  The Corinthian also felt as if something important had passed; an invaluable conversation that was a new kind of beginning, complete with old revelations.  Whatever it was it sounded like background noise now, like the wash of water and foam across the sand.

"It sounds like a good idea as any," Cori nodded against John before flicking his tongue across the blonde hairs that dipped below his waistband.

----
The memories fading fast, Constantine still knew that both sides of him had enjoyed this. He fell back against the sand, his back flat and eyes closed.

"Always after me prick, are you." A smile, one unaffected by the trouble that had previously burdened it.

----
"One of the few I'm hard pressed to deny I enjoy," said the nightmare in a most professorly manner.  The tone was a joke on his part, its previous significance lost to memory though one wondered if it had completely disappeared or simply been buried.

He undid the magician's buckle and parted the metal teeth of his zip.  These gestures were familiar to him, somewhere nine months old and long consummated.  For a brief moment Cori remembered it also got them in trouble, but that felt like a dream, something that could have been.

There was no trouble in sight here.