Log; Complete

[bitingnightmare.livejournal.com]

When; Jul. 12 (just after midnight)
Rating; PG-13 (language, nude dudes)
Characters; John Constantine silkcutremix, the Corinthian bitingnightmare
Summary; An incident in the middle of the night brings a mystery at sunrise.
Log;

A brief kiss to the chin had sent John on his way.  Hours later he still hadn't returned.

The old man said he'd be out for a smoke and some fresh air, a contradiction to say the least.  It should have taken him only minutes, thirty at the most if he'd been that disturbed.  Whatever had plagued his sleep was the Corinthian's doing by nature, but he had no way of knowing what it was specifically.

Cori looked up at the sky, dark and tinged with the purple and orange of an impending sunrise.  The weather was warm enough to ditch his (poorly stained) jacket and the streets around their apartment complex were completely deserted.  John wasn't in sight.  He lit a cigarette and started walking.

----
The Corinthian did not have to travel too far up the usual route to the forest beyond, a familiar shape stumbling into view. Its matted white fur, unkempt, appeared nearly translucent in the emerging light, revealing, for only a moment, just how thin the body beneath the coat really was. Its ears were flopped, but they did not bounce with what would have been a normal trotting gait. The creature was weary, tired, a weight settled squarely on its emerging shoulders as it trailed almost aimlessly home. 
 
It had yet to notice Cori there, choosing this time to lean against a wall, catching its breath in famished pants as the pavement began to warm with the creeping day again.

----
The nightmare suspected he'd have to look for a trail of cigarette butts or the man's clothing eventually.  For now Cori concentrated on the sidewalk, throwing a casual glance into the nearby alleyways.  No Constantine there, he would tell him if he was off to conduct a different kind of business.  He wasn't worried about John being out and alone, it was about John being out and alone and not knowing where.

The blood splotched sight in the distance should have come as a relief to the Corinthian.  Instead he squinted, not wanting to believe it at first.  The stained heart shape on his nose convinced him.

"Jesus Christ," he hissed then broke into a quick jog, meeting the magus at the wall.  "What the hell happened to you," Cori demanded as he crouched on one knee and carefully placed a hand on John's lupine shoulder.  The amount of blood concerned him, but without gaping red flesh in the midst of white fur he could only guess it wasn't John's.

----
Indeed, it was him. He, John Constantine, perked up, ears erect, as if brought out of a trance. Synchronicity? He barely managed, his body still struggling to resynchronize itself to the natural internal harmony of homeostasis. The nightmare would not have seen him otherwise if he had willed, was healthy, but the magus had suffered from trauma.
 
Dimly, John remembered a joke Chas had made. Something about half a dog and all the blood. It was dried on his body, rendering his fur sticky and hard, crusted to the skin.
 
He blinked those unnatural blue eyes, ears drawing back, then reflexively, his warm tongue licked at the pale, smooth face. No words. Fuck, John was shaking and nearly scared out of his wits. The body wasn't meant to live after being torn to fucking pieces, for one. The magus did not want to die, did not want to be trapped here. That would complicate things. 
 
But here he was, alive.
 
"Nothing much," he forced himself to puff. "Overexertion."

----
Cori felt comforted by the lick, but...  "What were you doing," he asked in a skeptical tone.

The Corinthian was worried but also suspicious.  The amount of blood on his fur warranted more than overexertion.  However long he'd been 'overexerting' it'd been long enough for the blood to dry.  Had John worked out some aggression by taking down a fucking moose?

"Are you hurt," he asked, fingers carefully prodding those stains for any open wounds.  Cori was surprised to find none, thus the only other explanation.  Teeth eyes hidden by shades glanced left then right.  "You're coming home now," he declared while slipping his arms under Constantine to lift, whether he protested or not.

----
A moose? That was a good idea. Wolves fucking killed things and got covered and blood then fucking snarled at everything over it. John had a lie tumbling in his head when the nightmare had wrapped his arms around that round white torso, squeezed out of him in the form of a protesting grunt when he was lifted.
 
"I'm too old for this bollocks." He squirmed, although it was far from a determined thrash. Snort. Grunt. "I can walk meself! I made it all the way from here an' there on me own! Bloody hell!"

----
"You're right about one thing," the nightmare conceded dryly.

For certain he referred to the first statement out of John's mouth; too old for getting bloodied up and rendered too weak to make it home.  Well, he considered perhaps the Englishman would have made it up the stairs after taking a six hour nap on the street.  However, Cori concluded he couldn't walk himself by how feebly he thrashed.

The nightmare walked off with only minor difficulty, and most of it was in the attitude of the 180lbs of dogmeat in his arms.  "Whom does it belong to," he asked his bloodstained captive as Cori began the most dangerous part of their journey: the stairs.

----
"Moose. Sick, was on 'is last legs. I had to oblige in the easy free meal, you know?" He gave a feeble wiggle, but the limbs remained straight once again, dangling. Sigh. "Old and stringy like me but you try taking down a pissed sod in the prime of 'is life with hooves the size of dinner plates." Puff. "With your mouth."

He eyed the stairs. A six hour nap sounded really good right now. He could scale them after that.

----
"And it didn't crack your face off," Cori countered with surprise.  Surely he was glad to see John in one piece, but bloodied and too tired to walk?  "Outdid yourself this time," for the umpteenth time, again.

He took a step up, then another, readjusted John in his arms to dangle those forelegs over his shoulders.  Cori cradled his heavy bum and completed the rest of the flights, grunting infrequently.  He set Constantine back down on all fours in front of their door.

"More impressive than taking out a moose," he smirked, dusting his hands free of blood crust.  The nightmare retrieved his keys then opened the door, seniors first.

----
Surprisingly, John had allowed himself to be manipulated in the Corinthian's arms, but only because he agreed to the silent fact that those stairs were not possible at the moment. Once on the floor, he shook himself off, more blood dust powdering off his coat, then pushed himself inside. He was filthy and tired, caught between two extremes.

Christ, Cori had bought it.

The couch looked all too inviting, but, fearing the blood and the nightmare's ability, he shoved himself to the bathroom in the direction of the tub. His legs and tail and all of him still shook, those slack, thick ears vibrating.

----
While the magician made his way to the bathroom, its door left open much to his fortune; the nightmare went to the kitchen to steep a comfort brew.  Plain old English breakfast Tea.  With that arranged, he followed John to the bathroom.

"Bath?"  Cori asked, suggesting an actual tub filled with hot water as opposed to a cascading stream, after he rinsed the blood off of course.  The sun was rising, no sense in having John sleep right away.  The white blonde didn't think he could go back to sleep himself.

----
"I 'ave it," the magus insisted.

Constantine's paws fumbled with turning the cold water switch, then the hot water one. A balance. He did not turn the shower on, pawing the drain shut before he waded as any other creature. He could see himself in the metal. It was then when he realized he never really had many opportunities to see himself as an animal, to which he studied himself for a moment, before bracing himself for the nightmare's insistence on assistance. He wanted to shift out of this fucking shape, but the very thought of the brief alteration of perspective had made him nauseous to the core. His world did not want to stay put as it was.

----
In that case if John had the water pressure and temperature, Cori had the sponge.  It was something he could use to help scrub the blood out; blood he assumed wasn't John's.  No sense in staining the apartment with moose.  He covered the sponge in shampoo (a conditioning one he used for himself) then scrubbed at his fur.

His strokes were short and firm but at a medium pace, massaging almost.  The nightmare was surprised to find the blood everywhere, deep in his fur almost deep enough to stain his skin.  Some moose had died a terrible death for John to get his few minutes of victory rolling in its carcass.

"What pissed you off enough to take down a Canadian," Cori asked casually while he rinsed.

----
"Bloody accents," he grunted gruffly.

John would have countered with scent rolling, something he had to compulsively engage in for his sanity's sake every now and then; sort of like his fingers and an unlit Silkie, something just done because he did so.

While the magus would have otherwise soaked if left alone, he mentally confessed to enjoying the feeling of the sponge as it cleansed, penetrating that thick fur to his sensitive skin. What he should have noticed were the locations of the particularly saturated spots, the worst located along his tender underbelly and soft neck. His legs would have been drenched should he have been the predator his form was meant for but they were hardly as bloody. Fortunately, the water was rinsing the evidence away, tinting the water an iron yellow. 

His stomach was empty.

----
Although Cori had noticed the placement of the bloodstains he didn't pursue their origin.  As long as John wasn't wounded he didn't much care how or why he was stained, beyond the possibility that the owner of this blood might come back for him.  He assumed the moose, the centaur, the warlock, or the average chav was long dead.

That sponge rubbed along his barrel chest, massaging down to his belly, his empty belly.  The Corinthian made note of this, its shape convincing him Constantine had torn someone else apart.  Still he didn't question the man.  He pulled the bathstopper instead, letting the dirty water twirl yellow around the drain.

"Man skin, if you will," he requested of John as he squeezed and rinsed the sponge.

----
He glanced back at Cori. Fuck, who was he kidding? They both knew he was lying, but perhaps Cori might have taken it in jest. He was intact, that was all. Intact.

Closing his eyes while the nightmare had scrubbed had brought those images of tearing teeth, shredding him, rending him open like a bloody package. The flashes of grizzled fur were the last things he had seen before his vision, red, dimmed away, and he had...

... He was dead, wasn't he? He couldn't have survived that. Had some mysterious benefactor who had witnessed the cold reality of lupine nature come along on a whim of wonderful, ignorant human compassion? Was it one of the City's many healers?

That snake god. Was he, it really bluffing or did it truly meant its curse? He could not deny the electricity that surged through his soul, binding the curse to his body once they were reunited. Did he truly resurrect?

He noticed Cori's request then, emerging from his own personal forest of thoughts with a huff. "Love to, not... not right now."

----
The Corinthian knew John wasn't dead or undead by City standards because he had felt his heart.  It was beating, perhaps not at a relaxed pace, but it was alive.  That mattered to him the most.  Cori knew the Englishman was lying about something, most likely the origins of the blood.  This didn't matter as much.

As an incentive he leaned closer to that thick tuft of white ear.  "I have tea," said the nightmare, tempting the man to shed his fur for skin and a comfort beverage.

---- 
Christ, a rock and a hard place. Constantine honestly wanted to shift out, but his body wasn't ready yet. He was afraid. The Corinthian felt no wounds, nothing on him felt open but the magus was uncomfortable in his own skin, physically ill. He would have been happier with no mortal shell of which to speak of. He should have been without a mortal shell
He shouldn't have been alive.

Was this how Cori felt when he had died? Did he get a resurrective hangover?

"I can... lap it up." Not really. "Just fine."

----
"Not while standing in the tub," he countered.  How long could the man last on those four legs?  And to curl up in that hot water was to drown unless he kept his chin up with magic.

Furthermore, he wanted to see that John was all right, his human face far easier to read than the lupine one.  Was that the explanation for the old man's stubbornness?  He didn't want the Corinthian to pick out his lie?  The nightmare pushed the stopper over the drain again, letting the tub fill with fresh warm water.

"Change, I'll get the tea," he upnodded to the magus, then stood to give the man his privacy while he checked on the tea.

----
That look. Cori was serious. Bloody hell. Constantine was going to have to make an attempt against the creeping stability he had only barely managed now. The eyes (or lack thereof) of the nightmare upon him leaving for tea made slipping out a little easier. What if he found scars beneath? How would he explain those?
 
As the warm water filled, clearer and cleaner, he looked down that large snout, concentrating, working his human form up. His knees folded forward from the shorter, thinner legs, fur thinning away as his normal flesh had emerged from beneath. He paused when his chest and back had widened and flattened out to human proportions to lie back. Already he was on the verge of throwing up what should have been a near bursting meal of moose.
 
His eyes fell to his chest, whiskers tickling the skin, his detail-limited sight finding only the long scar left by the ixupi's axe at the museum. He traced it with a trembling human hand. Taut flesh, whole flesh. Returning to a complete human perception had him reeling from a bout of vertigo, the bathroom twisting around him and beneath him. His hands made a futile effort to grip the ledges, to keep it still.
 
"Shit," he hissed, stomach ready to empty at the slightest movement.

----
That tea had already been poured into a mug.  Cori was merely listening to John's body crick and crackle, choosing to give the man the courtesy of changing in private.  He didn't know the specifics, but he could tell how the magus felt.  John should have given him more credit, or maybe he did and relied on the Corinthian's understanding to not prod... too deeply.

"Here," said the white blonde as he returned with the mug.  He'd waited till the bathroom had gone silent and all that hushed out was a 'shit' from the magician's own lips.  Cori sat on the bog and offered the tea, his toothy gaze subtly roaming along his naked body.  No wounds.  Good.

"I brought some advil," he added with a shake of the bottle in hand.

----
"I want nothing," John growled, curling his lip into an irritated sneer out of his pain, his head back. Nothing for his belly until he was sure it'd keep its current contents down good and proper-like. The moose took a lot out of him, he remembered. The wolves' teeth took more out of him than he would have liked.

The magus knew how to lie, but he knew that a lie led to another and another. A lie always grew, like a fucking tumor.

----
"Liar," Cori replied in a cool manner.  He sipped the Englishman's tea then, since John acted as if he'd have nothing of it.  Those teeth eyes leveled just above the rim, watching the other carefully.

----
"I know what I want. Nothing," Constantine grunted, letting the nightmare have his tea. Shit, his hangover was getting the better of him, but he had been a grumpy old bastard in the past, right?

----
"What happened," he asked, calm and collected despite the man's behavior.  Cori held the mug out to him, another chance to soothe that hangover, if he would just take it.

----
John eyed the cup. Goddammit. He shut his eyes, trying to take his mind off the backdrop of teeth. "So I bit off a little more than I could chew, alright?"

----
"Just take it," the Corinthian said, not knowing if John wanted it but certain it could help.

That answer didn't tell him much, not as much as the blood patterns on his fur, or the fact that his naked stomach looked lean for having taken down a moose.  A fight perhaps?  He considered John again, having noticed his irritation since he grunted along in his arms.

"I'm glad you made it without a scratch then, I'd love to see the other guy," he smirked.
----

"Bloody awful. Tore him several new arseholes to shit out of." The moose or the new assumption the Corinthian made? Whatever. John gave that tea a look again.
 
"Take your clothes off. I know what I want now."

----
"Excuse me," Cori asked, arching a brow.  Well someone would have to hold the tea if he was going to undress.  The nightmare played it risky by setting the mug on the edge of the tub.  It could fall at any moment, or John could very well finally take it for a sip.

----
John did not take it. He did not want tea until he was certain that tea in question would stay down. Instead, he watched the nightmare in his groggy, nauseous haze, wanting him over that damned tea.

----
He dropped his clothing aside, just his jeans and a now faintly stained t-shirt (black for a change).  It being a walk just before sunrise he'd forgone the skivvies.

Cori stood at the side of the tub, naked and still lacking his precious metals, they'd have to fix that in time.  Teeth eyes looked down at the Englishman.  He was hiding something, the nightmare didn't know what.  He didn't think John had worked out what he wanted yet.  For example; two couldn't fit in that tub lying down.  Or could they?

----
Oh, had John plenty of secrets. Last night was the confirmation of one new addition. His blue eyes, dull, adjusted, not used to the sight of that cock with nothing adorning the frenum. There was a heavy fatigue settled the magus' weary muscles, but his expression suggested that the Corinthian best give fitting himself with him a shot. He never thought he'd taste his skin again, smelling the gentle traces of the sea that always lingered. Better than any tea ever brewed.

----
Unaware of the risk John had run, unaware that he should have been dead, Cori had no idea the value of his scent, the smell of the sea.  Without the wounds to show for it he could only guess the other guy, be it a moose another werewolf or a common enemy, had fared worse and the injuries the Englishman had obtained had been healed.  That could have explained his fatigue.

He sank his foot in the warm water, careful to step between his knees and settle between his thighs.  The Corinthian's weight raised the water's height almost to the rim.  After a thought he took that mug and leaned back against the magician, more than willing to drink it if John here wasn't.

----
John did not, wrapping his arms around the nightmare and burying his face in the crook of his neck, savouring him. Earlier had only reminded the magus of just how fleeting life was, of how valuable having Cori with him in the comfort of a bath. He gambled, that was one thing, losing was another. For once, he had lost, and he had paid with his life.
 
Sort of. For now, he had a second chance. The little things.
 
John Constantine closed his eyes, his face in the pale, slick skin, happy to be human, whole and alive.

----
That pale skin recalled the cool scent of the sea, the crest of foam along the waves washing across immaculate sand.  Cori draped a hand over one of John's, his other held the mug.

He sipped his tea, feeling the magician's shadow behind him, then the weight of his breath on the crook of his neck.  The rough flesh of his unshaven cheek.  Something happened out there, much more significant than John let on.  He had formed another mystery, tightened in ethereal glass and labeled with his name only.

The nightmare didn't mind so much, not for now.  They both had their secrets.  It was only crucial when secrets came back to tear a new one out of their asses.  It didn't change his trust in Constantine.  The old man had made a strong effort to come home, which was enough.

----
It had evoked several special nights, with their bare bodies on the sand, backs to the fine grains, bellies to the stars. All Constantine knew was that there would be more nights like those; in the event of permanent death, he would have traded his soul for one last one...
 
No. He was alive. Shouldn't linger on it. Move on, mate, move on.
 
Silence. 
 
The nightmare should have noticed his sudden appreciation for life; Constantine would have been pissing and gloating otherwise, parading his pair. He sucked in his breath, lips to Cori's ear, a partial truth sliding slowly out in a low mutter.
 
"I haven't seen her for awhile, mate."

----
He felt his heart beat, rhythmic and very real against his back.  The Corinthian, once a heartless cold blooded murderer, still an efficient killer, could tell the difference.  John was alive.  Several others wouldn't be if Cori could find those who'd dare to put his heartbeat to rest.

He had noticed, but didn't think to ask, not after his previous rebuttals.

"Is she dead," asked the nightmare, his tone cool and quiet.  How he had guessed was his own mystery.

----
What else could happen to a wolf mother? It was not out of the question, or terribly uncommon. John winced, feeling something in the pit of his stomach spur the nausea back with a harsh kick. She might have been nothing more than a bloody wolf like any other, but she was a wolf he had grown attached to. Familiarity. She was firm and adhered to the rigid pack structure that had served her species well for thousands upon thousands of years, and she had disciplined him with primal law older than any man's, harsh and fiercely just, but John sort of liked her. She was very patient for a... woman. 
 
She must have liked him too.
 
A sigh. "I don't know, mate. I don't know."

----
He considered John's pause over another sip of tea.  She may have been dead or dethroned, most likely the former.  Cori remembered when he came to feed her and the 'pups' during John's... death.  He remembered sitting alone under the dark of night, and her howl that reminded him the Englishman would be missed.

What was she to him beyond a symbolic reiteration that his curse was still in full swing?

"And the pups," Cori asked further without looking to John yet.

----
"I didn't see them," he replied, masking his anger. His pups had turned on him, killed him. He saw his own bastard dog children tear him open and string his innards at their fancy. Their eyes in brief beady glints held nothing but the beasts they were, lacking the special human cognition that had made the magus' specie so successful, so able to conquer nature and break free of the constant cycle of hunger. Constantine had been judged as a wolf, not as a father. He was inferior. The Bitch was a loner, but the pack that had assimilated his children were a formidable force of nature, fit for the strongest and most able. They had no need for a white, wheezy waste of a wolf.
 
John sucked at the nightmare's neck, meditating: Survival of the fittest. Civilizations rose and fell, but the wolf packs would dominate the wild until a more superior creature had killed them off for their place.
 
He nipped.
 
Red in tooth and claw, but the barrel of a smoking rifle was warmer than blood.

----
In essence the creatures had no way of knowing how lucky they were to live in the City, a place where their habitat remained unchanged, unpaved.  They were unable to recognize the value in the man who had brought them an easy meal for all these months.  Weakness was in the eye of the beholder for their kind, mortal and immortal alike.  Weakness was in the softness of the bone for the wolves.

Cori hadn't recognized his anger, his focus having shifted to the mouth on his neck.  He tilted his chin up, giving the other better access to his throat, his jugular.  It paralleled going belly up, but their advantage was in complex layers, layers that could hide the knife hidden behind someone's back.  That was their risk, but he trusted Constantine.

"Nn," he sounded when the man nipped.  It felt good.  The nightmare took the hand he held and dipped John's fingers into the mug so that he might suck the tea from them.

----
Yes, a distraction. This kept Cori from going deeper into the subject and kept John from realizing just how feeble he still felt. The teeth against his fingertips were electrifying, but nothing came up. His body wasn't ready for that yet.
 
John breathed against that neck in famished huffs, taking more and more of that skin, working up. His tongue slid around the niche of the back of his ear, teeth taking the rim, lips feeling delicate structures that curled into the intricate inside.
 
Those wolves would never know this kind of joy. He rested comfortably in that.

----
He suckled the tea off his fingertips.  Never mind whether John's nails were clean or not (but Cori made a note to trim those this week).  The comforting normalcy of it seemed to soothe John's nerves, that's what he wanted.  He didn't need to get it up, especially not after the previous night hehe.

"Mmhm," sounded the nightmare, pleased with the warmth against his ear, "there's no sense in letting the morning waste away."  He nodded while dipping the Englishman's fingers again to drink his tea.  His mystery was his alone, but it lived in their home.

----
It'd better stay a mystery. "Donuts or bacon?" John paused for a moment to play with Cori's ear. He liked that ear. Made him forget about his stomach. "Or are you making more than tea?"

----
"Donuts."  They had a box, miraculously not empty from vigorous consumption.  The Corinthian suggested them, thinking the sugar of a comfort food would help with his recovery.  Constantine could have his bacon too, in the form of a Silk Cut.

"At the table or in the bath, sir," Cori added in a mocked tone of servitude and a smirk, finally glancing over his shoulder to the other.

----
John buried his face in the nightmare's white(-blonde) hair, one of the strongest points of his scent nestled there. He took a deep whiff, speaking into the strands, "I'm not finished with you yet."

----
It smelled like the sea to be sure, but another trace lingered close to his scalp, something less immortal and more recent.  He hadn't showered after their little ride through the night; his skin under the white hair held traces of sweat and sex.

"I'm going to request a bigger tip," Cori replied in a joking manner.

----
John chewed at a patch of hair, muffed: "There's ol' Jack."

----
"Ha ha," he laughed dryly then set the mug of tea down on the bathroom floor.  Cori reached behind himself to gently but firmly push John's face back so that he might escape the tub, to return with a box of donuts and cigarettes.

----
John had to laugh himself, this one good natured as opposed to dry, but he let Cori go, knowing he would return, which he had. His stomach felt much better at this point and he could smell them. While he could not gorge himself as he had usually done, whatever he had eaten at this point felt as if it would stay down.

Bacon and donuts indeed.

----
"Breakfas' o'fuckin' champions," said the nightmare as he climbed back into the tub, a small box of donuts in his hands and two lit cigarettes nipped between his lips.  He leaned back again, offering John the bacon first, then his choice of donuts.  Not really.

"Caramel's mine," Cori claimed around a puffing Mild Seven.

Sugar to settle the nerves, a gesture to comfort Constantine despite his independent and stubborn solitary posturing.  John had come home after all, it was always a good place to come to.