Log: Complete [Part 1]

[bitingnightmare.livejournal.com]

When; May 31 (evening into midnight)
Rating; R (language, violence)
Characters; John Constantine silkcutremix, the Corinthian bitingnightmare
Summary; With a visit from the shadows and a touch of desperation, the magician and nightmare gain a way to keep the full moon off their backs.
Log;

The office in which he sat was small, a room that served its purpose to the bare minimum.  Located levels below ground, it drowned out the noise of a cursed place, of people who had no worries beyond what petty trick the gods would play on them tomorrow.  The City had no laws for licenses, but that incident months earlier, several months earlier, had tarnished his practice above ground.  Now he strictly worked below, the good doctor with long red hair pulled back, his eyes too purple to be from birth.

There was a sense of listlessness in them; it'd been there since Castile had encountered the pair.  Perhaps it'd always been there even as he worked on a sheet of scheduled shipments for this week.  A full moon's week, though he wouldn't have been able to tell from the dimly lit sparsely furnished windowless room, but he knew.  He wouldn't forget.

----
Then a presence. Smoke against the back of his neck, exhaled with a restrained coolness.

"Suppose our good doctor doesn't take walk-ins now does he?" the familiar voice purred, its owner hunched over with a personal space violating closeness. Blue eyes gazed intensely against the back of Castile's neck.

----
The very brush of carcinogens against his neck made Castile's hairs stand on end, only briefly.  He maintained his own coolness, as cool as the surgical steel he wielded as an art form, but for now all he hand in his hands was a single ball point pen.

Those purple eyes glanced aside.  He didn't have to see Constantine to know he stood behind him.  "You would have to talk to my secretary, or did the other one already kill him," Castile asked casually.

----
Lips almost brushed the back of his neck, his ear, his hair. He seemed to be absorbing his scent, tasting what he could before the final hours of humanity ticked down. "You prefer the left eye or the right eye? Sure you could bloody stick a new one or two in if me good mate can't help himself to a sample." Constantine grinned.

----
"And I thought you operated as a professional," Castile quipped, "what do you want, Constantine?"

His scent lacked several of the natural oils of a human being, his own flesh replaced by metal under his skin.  It may as well have been sterile, and along with sterility Castile's scent held fearlessness.  He set his pen down and bridged his fingers together, waiting.

----
Another slow stream of smoke slithered through the magus' lips as he stepped back, taking a casual stance against one of the taller stacks of crates. His arms were cross, his face a cold sneer.

"I'll be blunt about it, to the point: You're trapped in here. You have three hours to keep me from tearing you apart like I did a few months back because I know you have a little something that'd stop it."

A card browned with old blood slid across Castile's writing surface.

----
"Are you implying your payment for this miracle product is allowing me to keep my life," he asked the blonde, a subtle smirk on his own lips.  Castile pinched a corner of the card and held it up to his nose.  He inhaled once.  "Impressive," praised the good doctor.

He didn't look much like a practicing street doc, dressed in a simple dark gray suit, blazer open to reveal his white button down shirt, sans tie.  Castile turned his chair to face Constantine, business card turning between his fingers.

"I'm just a scientist, what would you expect of me," he smiled at John, teasingly, "do that part where you breath on my neck again."

----
"Good lad." John helped himself to another deep drag. "You'll be having plenty of that soon if you fuck around and do nothing. Promise.

"The scientist knows how his little 'miracle product' works. He ought to make a miracle if he wants to see another night." His eyes narrowed. "If not, how many hard bits am I going to be nibbling around?"

----
"Threats," Castile concluded with another smile, "I know you make good on them."

His purple gaze roamed over the magician's form, from his shoes, up his pin stripes, to the trenchcoat on his shoulders.  "You clean up well," the good doctor repeated, something John had been hearing lately.  Castile's chair squeaked gently as he reclined.  "Hardly worth ruining a good suit, Constantine.  You could always say please, and call your shadow out, he knows what I want."

----
"It'd be worth the trouble." The smoke that trickled from his nostrils framed his face. In the limited light, those blue eyes occasionally shined with the glowing sheen of an animal's; one of the few lupine traits John kept into his human form. "I'm not the sort to say please, especially around your ilk."

----
"Then you've got to work on your negotiation skills," Castile narrowed his eyes, unamused by Constantine's manners.  He brushed smooth red hair behind an ear, the shell of it encased in thin steel and rivets to a point.

"I suppose that gives you three hours to convince me otherwise.  Don't forget to factor in the time it would take to concoct a fresh batch, that'd be at least another forty-five minutes," the doctor nodded, it could have been a bluff.  "That leaves you two hours and fifteen minutes, I know how your type is horrible with mathematics."

----
"Don't be so daft," John coolly said, relaxing himself against the boxes. "He's going to make sure none of us get out of here. I have three hours until I won't remember a thing until Friday... Saturday or so. You have three hours until you're din." He checked his watch to confirm, then placed a hand on his stomach for emphasis. "Don't think I ate much today either. Me better half would be more than happy to make up for the difference."

----
"My expertise means so little to you.  Should you kill me, what then?  You'd have nothing."  Castile held his hands out in a simple but confident shrug.

----
"I'd find something else, mate. You're just one solution." John's eyes narrowed. "One door closes, another opens. Your life on the line here, not so much mine."

----
"Desperate times call for desperate measures," the redhead remarked in a mild mocking manner.  He leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees so that his fingers could bridge and cradle his chin.  "How many months ago was it that your mate brought your sick carcass into my shop?  You'd trust me not to repeat the same procedure," he smirked, "I could lace the serum with arsenic."

----
"Then let's comb another arsehole out of me hair and try to occupy ourselves for a few hours or so, eh? A few more and you'll be free of crawlin' around in this shit pit to do whatever bloody business you wank yourself off on." John gave his shortening cigarette a look before turning back to Castile. "'Less you come back and we can play this game again."

----
"It pays the bills," Castile smiled as he gestured to the paper work on his desk.  "You made that so very difficult when you slotted my last client," said the redhead, feigning disappointment, "here."

He rolled his chair towards one of the metal filing cabinets and fished a set of keys from his pocket.  With a pop of the lock he pulled the drawer out, revealing several miscellaneous items, a firearm included, but Castile didn't reach for it.  Deep in the back of the drawer was a medium sized box with a combination latch.  He carried this back to his desk.

----
"And you seem to want to keep on paying them," John commented, watching intently. "A little dose of parvo and a love bite of arsenic in there?"

----
"We all have to decide how we wish to live our lives, Constantine," said the good doctor as he settled his hands on the box.  "No, it's what you want.  It's the master list of chemical components and a vial or two.  Guaranteed to be unspoiled."

His fingertips turned the numeric dials on the combination lock, 666.  Unoriginal and yet ironic for the man who wanted the box's contents.  Sure enough there was a folded sheet of paper containing the proper concentrations for the ingredients in the serum and two small bottles of a clear liquid.  Castile rolled his seat back and gestured for Constantine to take it.

----
John's comment was snide, the magus having been pacing about the doctor with the impatience of a predator, hovering over his shoulder like an anticipating vulture. "Running out of ideas, were you?"

Cigarette in his teeth, his hands reached out for the box, then stopped.

This was a bit too easy.

He looked down at Castile. "There has to be a catch."

----
"What catch?  You have me by the balls don't you," Castile reminded the Englishman as he smiled, "as if I'd have any weaponry superior to your condition."  He said the last word with crisp consonants.  "Send the Corinthian my love."

----
John's gaze did not shake, his mistrust projected. Still, he took the box with a near over exaggerated caution, sensitive to any sudden, subtle movement the doctor... scientist might create.

Fool me once, shame on you. He tucked the box under his arm. Fool me twice, shame on me.

----
"Oh, and one more matter, Constantine," said the doctor as he reached out to touch the magician's arm, if John should even allow it.  His movement was slow and careful.

----
John should have flinched at this, but he did not. He continued to watch, his muscles tightening to jerk him away from the slightest offensive gesture.

----
The doctor's fingertips trailed along the smooth fabric, from John's upper arm to his elbow, feeling the other man's shape under the suit.  "Your... 'son'.. never paid his last bill, I don't suppose that responsibility would fall into your hands now would it?"

Castile did not remove his hand from John.

----
"He is not my son," John sneered, repulsed and angered by the very thought of him. The hand attached to the arm the doctor fondled squeezed, knuckles quickly whitening as the nails dug into his palm, pain to divert the quickening boil.

----
"Like father like son," the man's lips pulled into a smirk as his fingers clutched John's elbow.  Shnnk.  Steel claws parted from his fingers to dig into the Englishman's flesh, breaking through cloth to jam those bones.

----
The box clattered to the floor as John howled in pain, his free arm reaching around to pull that fucking pain-inducing one away.

(Fuck of a lot of metal bits to chew through if I eat this worthless sod.)

"Should have... fucking... known!"

----
"You really should have," Castile growled in agreement.  He considered this office a loss now.

Pull away if he must.  Something in that metal hand hissed as Castile's fingers literally popped off at the second knuckle, leaving the steel claws in John's arm.  The redhead didn't have time to laugh or celebrate his victory.  Anticipating the white horror's arrival any moment, he turned his cybered gaze to infrared.  The teeth eyes meant nothing if he couldn't see them.

Two hard thumps sounded against the office door.  A third sent it crashing open as the Corinthian entered, hauling a younger man at his side.  The left side of his face dripped blood down his cheek.  Couldn't resist.

----
John did, feeling those... things still embedded within his flesh. He stumbled away, his affected arm numbing with pain, severed muscle and nerve that would repair with the rise of the moon in the darkening sky. He did not pay attention to the soft shifting within Castile's eyes, the growing scent of blood that was not his own, flowering and staining the coat, his suit.

"I just bought that new... custom measurements and all... you stupid fuck."

Never mind Cori's arrival and his indulgence in his forbidden taste. For once, Constantine begged his body to shift earlier than norm, to do away with that thinning veil between man and its bestial perversion. He was angry and the pain was making him even angrier.

----
"He just bought that you stupid shit," hissed the nightmare.  He threw the damn lackey, apprentice, college kid drop out at the fingerless doctor.

Castile cared not for the mutilation of the young man either.  Assistants were a dime a dozen in the underground, and no one was ever truly innocent anyway.  He had a deeper interest in both the Corinthian and Constantine that outweighed his care for the hired help.

He ducked away as the body crashed across his desk, then Castile reached for the gun in the open bottom drawer.

----
The box was forgotten, saved later. Constantine was stripping; the suit could be salvaged, he hoped. The coat, everything. Shit.

He was just untying his tie, the coat and jacket strewn on the floor, when he saw Castile reach for something.

He charged. Oh no you fucking don't!

----
The Corinthian saw it first.  He grit his teeth and lunged at the doctor, their former enemy.  The man who fucking blew his brains across the street then held him in a damned fish tank for days.  All for what?  Were those eyes worth it?  It mattered little to Cori now as he wrestled Castile into the wall.

One bullet fired off into the ceiling.

----
"Fucking!"

That was an abused word for this evening. Constantine had instinctively staggered back, never mind the dull pain in his arm that shocked him whenever he moved it. Had to get whatever he put in it out.

Still, with the nightmare occupying Castile, Constantine could salvage the rest of his clothes and tear that fuck to shreds.

----
The nightmare flinched when the bullet zinged astray but if it didn't cut into his own flesh then he wasn't going to stop.  Long hair looked good on some men, and it certainly had its advantages here.  The Corinthian grasped Castile by his red hair to look into his eyes.  Those crosses had almost faded completely.

Fool me twice, shame on me.  The doctor sneered as the white haired creature tried to pull his classic trick.  Just what he needed.  He leveled the gun for Cori's face and fired off a second round.  It forced the nightmare to back off, his right ear bleeding heavily though not blown off.

----
Pants off, John found the nightmare stumbling away. More blood.

"Cori...!" Instinctive shout. His brow furrowed as he rummaged for last minute ideas, blood sliding down the white flesh, his own fur creeping along his back and arms as a white dusting. His mind buckled as the lupine features came to fore, but regardless, he never ever would forget the smell of a gun: cold metal and cruel explosion.

More importantly, that gun had to be separated from Castile's hand.

There were two of them at least, but only one of him.

----
Cori waved a bloodied hand at John absently.  Take the son of a bitch out.

His hearing in that ear was gone for now, but the Corinthian would survive.  More importantly, he was growing severely agitated by those who could bypass his look.  Wait until they fucking sleep, he reassured himself.

Fortunately Castile knew even a damned long nose couldn't kill the nightmare, so he leveled that automatic at the shifting magician.  "Did you think it would be that easy," he snarled, "you let that bitch rot my fucking body."  Nearly half of his flesh had been replaced by metal now.

----
So much for Cori's gesture. The magus' chest heaved, slightly swollen from change but not going any further, not yet. He wanted time anyway, needed anything he could squeeze from this lovely fiasco.

His eyes were facing down the barrel of a loaded gun, but his mind was elsewhere. He knew Castile could fool him, had something in mind he did not doubt, and he knew he could fool himself along with it. To his benefit.

John curled his lip, spitting: "I'm sure you didn't slip that little beaut in me pills several months back on a random fancy."

----
"Call it curiosity," Castile smirked, "anything to get what I want.  I doubt you'd be willing to leave him here a second time though."

Without warning he fired a round at John's knee.

----
That broke John's concentration, just as his body was breaking out into that familiar feverish heat. He collapsed to the floor to his side in a loud ragged inhuman yowl of pain.

No, can't stop here. Have to keep thinking it's... Convince it's...

"Your little," he huffed in red, red pain. "... Practice still... is in need... of some new employees... still."

----
"You don't shut up, Constantine.  It must run in your family," Castile remarked.  He hadn't been present when young Saul had his limbs ripped away, but he knew the boy's tongue would do him in.

Cori heard John hit the floor, that red sound of flesh and bone splitting under the pressure of a lead round.  He remembered how the Englishman had shattered the tank and carried him back to the flat.  In a sense this man had brought them closer to each other.  Too bad the Corinthian had an inappropriate way of saying thank you.

"Hrrsschh."

 

Teeth eyes snarled as the bloody nightmare rose up to pull Castile back and throw him flat on the desk next to his eyeless assistant.  He cared not for the gun.  John was changing already.  He needed the serum now, and the good doctor here was getting in their way.

----
John egged his body on: The pot is not boiling and the goddamn moon is full and overhead and why haven't you gone out and torn open a screaming virgin yet? Come on, that's it, come on.

It was a forced, strained change, whether on his body's reflexive part or his maddened convincing, but it was working. The injuries on his arms, the fresh sting and throb of his knees had welted up; those had to go. He screamed in bloody agony as body fluids both clear and red oozed and streamed in painful rejection. His frail form would repair itself, but those projectiles had to go. Go go go. OUT!

Maybe he should have waited, but fuck, he was done with Castile. He was going to tell him so with his better half's teeth (if he could).

----
"Never turn your back on me, cunt," snarled the nightmare who grabbed that neglected pen and jammed it into one of Castile's eyes without even thinking to lament its loss.

The Corinthian slammed the doctor's arm against the edge of the desk till something snapped, causing him to drop the gun that fired on impact once more.  Castile's body could take heavier damage now that it was half metal but even he still had real bones buried under his flesh somewhere.

Now there was John to deal with.  Cori looked to the growing wolfman as the doctor collapsed onto the floor in shrieks and blind scratching.  The box, if he could reach it without triggering a chase.

----
John was rapidly losing himself as his body expelled the foreign objects in a bloody pulpy mess, the rest of him swelling, twisting into that vicious predator shape. The box was not too far away, the magus on his side. All of it was automatic now, downhill and nothing he could do himself to stop it.

----
"I could kill you both," Castile rasped as he searched for the pair, writing instrument still wedged in his eye socket.  He crawled along the floor, feeling for the gun, almost too close to Constantine.

Cori found the firearm first.  He considered putting a bullet in the man's brain, but then who would they threaten should the serum require further investigation?  He did the next best thing... and emptied the rest of the clip into the doctor's legs.  An eye for an eye, really.

"Come on," said the nightmare as he tossed the empty gun aside.  He placed both hands on John to prop him up as much as possible, then reached for the box.  His uninjured and bloodied ears ignored the painful groans from the redhead.

----
The sounds of gunfire were distant. The sounds of Cori voice were half a world away. Too bad everything else was so vivid, his muscles and guts locked in a throbbing, pulsing dance as they tore him apart from the inside. His fingers felt as if they had split open, as did his face

His final human vestiges had to laugh at this, realizing why the gap in his memory had started here. The pain would always be new to him for as long as his diseased amnesia lasted. He never knew what it was like to start dreaming after all; he always remembered the end of it.

----
The Corinthian considered this situation carefully.  John had warded the perimeter of the underground warehouse; they had taken out the only two residents here and that left two corpses upon which the werewolf could gorge himself before John could turn on the nightmare too.  He quickly made his choice and locked the office door, trapping the four inside.

"Just you and me now," he uttered, making direct eye contact with the shifting Englishman.  Those other two didn't count now that they were incapacitated.  Cori opened the box to remove the sheet and vial.  He didn't respond to the predatory machine as he read over the instructions, but he kept a close watch on John's movements.  He too was fearless.

----
The manbeast's fur had thickened to its full volume, over the solidly muscled frame and adding more to the beast's size. He, it stretched and shook itself off like any other dog before rising to its hind legs to howl in that low harrowing cry of primal release. It listened. It sniffed. It flexed those large black claws in gory anticipation.

... And it paid no mind to Cori, appearing more focused on Castile. Dead prey was easy prey. To kill was pleasure.

----
To properly administer the serum he needed a damned needle.  How much time did he have to actually measure the concentration and pull back the right amount on a fucking hypoderm?  More importantly, could they trust the doctor's word that this was the right serum?  That's why they needed to keep Castile and his gofer alive, to test it.  If John would let him.

"No," said the Corinthian in a firm but human voice.  He placed himself between the limp bodies and that war machine who wanted to tear into them.  He did so while pulling back an amount of clear liquid into the needle.  Teeth eyes gnashed at the werewolf, daring it to challenge him.

----
The beast's nostrils flared and its upper lip puckered in very clear anger; challenge answered. It brought a cruelly perfect amalgamation of hand and paw back and swung at him.

----
This creature was quite different from the quadrupedal (albeit still quite large) lupine from Swartalfheim, but a wolf was a wolf and a spine was a spine.  However, he would never choose to kill John on a whim and Cori was certain he could take what the werewolf could dish out.  Crashing paws included.

The nightmare ducked under the swing, careful not to drop the vial or needle into the latter was full.  He let the now empty bottle crack against the floor then stabbed the needle into Castile's prone back, delivering half a concentration made for two.  Now they had insurance.

John was still a force to reckon with.  Being the shorter of the two Cori kept low to the floor and threw all his weight into the werewolf's midsection.

----
Constantine, or what was him, brought the backside of his swiped claw back, whistling over the nightmare's head. It took the tackle with only a stumble, a slight weight-bearing shuffle. A mere adjustment.

Killing a werewolf is easy if you had great aim. Killing a werewolf with your bare hands is possible if you were faster than it, which was seldom the case. The Corinthian had a better chance, although that was a debatable matter in itself.

The clawed hand tightly clutching the back of the nightmare's head and lifting him wished to prove otherwise. The Corinthian's nose and the beast's nose were only inches away, the creature analyzing this familiar nuisance with an annoyed scrutiny, as if debating whether to pop his head like a tender fruit.

Snorting in his face, he was thrown aside.

----
Killing this one with his bare hands was possible but unlikely, for more than just the sheer advantage John had in strength and speed.  He didn't want to kill the wolfmagus, and maybe it smelled that reluctance on him.  Cori did want to jam that needle deep into his flesh.

Teeth eyes stared deeply into those shining blue ones.  The claws clutching his head had pricked his skin but the Corinthian didn't flinch.  His little mouth sockets snarled, rippling with a different kind of full moon energy.  His cold skin itched as he reached behind himself to grip the werewolf's wrist.  He wasn't going to go airborne that easily.

His free hand, the one with the needle, came swinging across to stab John in the neck and depress the serum.  With his own developed muscles the white horror kicked his legs up to wrap around the beast's waist, to keep him there long enough till the needle was empty before his back could crash into the filing cabinet.

----
Constantine roared, hot spittle flung from those ridiculously long canines, the noise shaking the office before it rolled away into a low growl in his deep chest. There was something in its body, something that burned as it permeated through its veins. It knew the other morsel of prey that had formerly interested it would not be going anywhere, thudding to all fours to charge, maw gaping.

It slowed and stopped, blinking. A trail of drool slid down its black lower lip. It shook its head, then squinted through the wooziness, as if trying to focus right.

Cori...?

----
The nightmare groaned on the floor, adding to the office casualties though his own injuries were considerably less than that of Castile and the kid.  All he'd really need was a couple days to heal and maybe a slick guilt trip on John to give his aching back a massage.  These thoughts reminded him that his old man was under the predator's coat.

He looked up from his spot on the ground; up at the murder machine that could have his throat any second now, but still his scent was strong and fearless.  Teeth eyes narrowed at the werewolf while Cori stilled his movements.  Watching and waiting for the serum to succeed, or disappoint.

----
Constantine was not feeling anything like a murder machine at this point: His memory was fuzzy and it all felt as if he had waken up into some sort of god awful dream that would not end. He was begging to wake up from it all but he would not.

But coincidence or irony? There was Cori right in front of him. He placed a thick paw on his lap just to be sure he was there.

----
Cori didn't flinch when that massive paw touched him.  He waited for those claws to prick him, stab him, or pet him.  When John seemed to be doing the latter he concluded... the serum worked, the fucking thing worked.  It wouldn't be their third strike with the needle after all.

He placed his own hand on that paw, up his hairy wrist for leverage so the Corinthian could sit up.  Blood had dried and crusted over the right side of his head, but the nightmare had a high threshold for pain.  "Can you hear me in there."

----
Slowly, John nodded, trying to form the word with his floppy tongue. He just noticed the hair, the ridiculous size, a goddamn strength that electrified his blood. Not even a fresh transfusion of demon blood could come close to how great he physically felt. He could fucking run a marathon and think nothing of it.

(He felt like that months ago. Funny that he had forgotten already.)

Castile couldn't have gone so far to wreck his own filing cabinet though. Blood had stained his white nightmare (the fucking good kind) red. He drew his ears back in guilt.

----
"Leave them, we might need answers later," suggested the Corinthian as he reached out to pet those soft ears.  No guilt necessary, at least not to a serious extent.  He pressed his own sweating forehead to John's muzzle.  "Let's grab your clothes and go."

----
That was something John could not disagree with. He closed his eyes at the nightmare's touch before rising up to his awkward two-legged stance. The beast knew how to move, John still was not too sure on his toes, having spent his time lounging around the flat before the moon had waned; the gaits were easy to differentiate. His freshly injured knee had healed.

Still, he bared his teeth at Castile. Gathering up his clothes as the nightmare suggested, he noted that the pen in the doctor's eye was a nice touch.

Turning to Cori, he imagined the celebration routine that was to follow... assuming he did not revert on the way back, anyway.

----
A celebration, if only.  He would have liked to celebrate that way were his ear not half split from the side of his head.  Fortunately the wound was only a deep graze and would heal within days for a nightmare.  Perhaps they could celebrate after all, if John played his cards carefully.

"You owe me a fucking massage," Cori added as he stretched on his feet, spine cricking as he flexed.  Maybe he could call in one guilt trip.

----
When did a split ear stop him? John would have to help that, back and all, answering the nightmare's attempt with a long pink tongue cleaning him off with all the insistence of a mother with her cub.

----
Licking blood from his wounded ear, his blood.  It stirred something within the Corinthian, something that should wait till they returned to the flat.  Still he was hard pressed to deny that the office desk and the two bodies around it didn't tempt him.

He reached up to cradle John's massive ripping hand in his own and kissed those claws, nails coated in blood as well, and whose blood the nightmare didn't really know nor care.  He made sure that box with its paper and remaining single vial went with them too.

----
There was a symbolic appreciation in this, a hunter and another, a caress of lips across the predator's tools: his own five unretractable knives black and ominous as immaculately carved obsidian.

John, a purring growl in his chest, slid his hand away and turned back to Castile. He might be living to see another day for now, but he would be paying both his own and his son's debt after all. His way.

Once he positioned himself, he sank to all fours and lifted a leg.

----
Cori had the combination box and some of that salvageable clothes in his other arm when John decided to deliver a parting gesture.  Hn, the nightmare had to give a faint smirk.  The man was going to wake up with massive blood loss and a terrible smell.  For once he didn't feel like kicking the magician for a mark.

As a matter of fact, when the stream was all said and done, he pushed up on his own toes so that he might speak to John quietly.  "I know where you can put it later."

----
Magic words.

Constantine, ears forward and nostrils filled with his own acrid wolf piss sinking into the good doctor's clothes, rose up again, those black lips tugging into a very clear semblance of a smile.

His tail would wag to that.