tampered | (no subject)

When; Friday, April 18th
Rating; R for blood
Characters; Eden Mac Cionaoith

eiremagic and John Constantine

lullabyoflondon
Summary; Eden decided enough is enough. John's coming back whether he likes it or not.
Log;

Eden hated magic.

It was a waste of time; a waste of energy, and it served almost no purpose at all. But sometimes, even she had to admit that it was the only solution. It resonated in her blood, bitter and powerful. She was her father's equal - more than that, truly.

She opened the little bag of bandages. John's blood, demon tainted. She could feel power in it, but more importantly, she felt the anchor in it. That was the secret, really; blood always returned to the source. She had calculated this for days - to find John, not the demon whose blood infected his. That was easy enough. If there was anything that Eden was a master of, was blood.

She traced out the heavy lines of her equation, watching them shimmer wetly, the cut on her finger throbbing. She could feel the corrosive reaction in her gut. Every line, precise, done ten times in chalk before she even thought of doing it in her blood, before she even considered adding power. She turned them. There were no words, no focus; she was past that level. Words did nothing.

The reaction was the same; like a hole in her stomach, her lungs began to collapse. The human body wasn't designed to wield the power. Her sacrifice was always herself. She would never imagine using anyone else. She refused to be her father's daughter.

She found John in London; reached through, dropped the anchor on him. It was up to the idiot to feel her back.

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He gave her an angelic smile--or about as close as he could get to one without the universe breaking.

"Was it, then?" he said. "Maybe I ought to add that to my job description. John Constantine, comes when called." A wink.

"He'll live," John added. "So long as you didn't hurt the booze, anyroad." And then he gave her a more genuine smile. "I never meant to leave. Not until I'd sussed out what's going on in this bastard place. I don't give up like that."

She rolled her eyes at the smile and returned it with one of her own; if the universe broke with his, it screamed with hers. "Shite, I'm just glad I caught yeh before yeh turned crazy. Yeh know how much blood in that rag i'n't yers? I'm surprised yeh haven't kicked it, yet."

She stood and offered a hand. "Of course yeh didn'. Too many fuckin' curiosities, too many fuckin' odd bits. Yeh know we were on the bleedin' Titanic the other day? Nearly froze tae fuckin' death."

She smirked. "Good thing yeh weren' here. Yeh'd have whined about the smell."

For a moment, his casual smugness faltered. "Yeah. I know. I--fuck it, never mind that bollocks, there's worse than having a bit of Hell in you. Like having a bit of you in Hell."

With effort, he shook off the looming melancholia before it could descend on him, took the offered hand, and pulled himself to his feet. "The Titanic, no bloody joke? I always thought those deities had a sick sense of humor. Glad I missed that," he added with too smug of a smirk.

She pulled him up and then her legs gave way; she sat down again, hard. "Shite," she muttered. "No, I'm fine," she protested. "Tons better than I'd be otherwise. Promise, swear, all that nonsense."

She sat there for a minute. "It was a fuckin' nightmare," she said. "People wailin' all over the place, I couldn' get anythin' runnin', cold as all fuck. Of course yeh'd miss is, yeh lucky bastard."

She cocked her head to look up at him. "Fags on the bed. Thought I'd use 'em as an anchor if the shite hit hard."

He hesitated at the sight of her like that--but her reassurances were good enough for him. "Right," he said, adding with half a grin, "but no more magic before supper."

His expression darkened, though, and he shook his head: "I'll catch the next rotten curse here, count on it. For every bit of good luck I have, there's a sodding awful spell around the corner--"

He was already heading for the bed, gratefully picking up the cigarettes and lighting one.

"Yeh're not me da," she retorted and stood up, shaking a bit but managing to keep herself upright this time. "Don' want yeh tae be, either." She pulled herself up to kiss John on the lips, her hands in his hair.

She pulled away a moment later. "Shite, fucker," she said. "Yeh need a shower."

"Good on you--" And he was quite happy to kiss her back, at least until she pulled away. Then he just kind of looked sheepish. "I didn't exactly have time before coming here, you know. Bit of a rush and all that, in case you didn't know."

She grinned at his sheepish expression. He looked like a goofball, really. "'sides, that's the blood of me ancestors yehr soaked in, yeh should pro'lly get it off yehrself before yeh break out in hives or some shite." She raised an eyebrow. "Magical hives. Like the kind given by magical bees."

She reached for her bag. "Don' wanna keep yeh," she said with a raise of an eyebrow.

"Pure and honest blood?" He smirked, back to the cocky bastard again. "Fuck me, I'm lucky I haven't swollen up and died already."

He was on his way to the shower already when he saw her reaching for her bag, and there he stopped. "Cassidy ought to be out a while longer, right? You can stay a bit if you want."

She nodded. "But it's useless, don' even think about keepin' it. I leached all the magic out to get yer sodden ass back here."

His words reached her, and she felt the remainder of her blood go straight into her face. What was she, 12? There were results, of course there were, they had just shared what could be equated to a magical orgasm and she was blushing like a schoolgirl! She sat down on the bed.

"Oh. Yeah, righ'," she added, the blood rushing in her face. "'m not blushin'," she lied. "It's just the retribution, yeh know, when the universe snaps back like a rubber band."

He regarded her with half a smile playing across his face for a moment. "Oh, yeah?" He absently reached up to rub at the back of his neck with the hand that wasn't preoccupied with his cigarette. "That shite's probably nasty--I wouldn't know. No retribution in my magic, and all that."

This much was true, but what he didn't add because he didn't like to think about it was that his magic often came with a crash. The low after the high.

There were, of course, ways to put it off...

"If you're feeling low enough, you probably ought to go," he said after a moment. "Rest up a bit, like."

He was offering her an easy out. There was, after all, no way for him to know if she really was feeling that bad.

Eden looked up at him and her stomach rolled. The universe had it in for her. She shook her head. "No, no, I'll stay," she said, curling her legs under her. "Yeh don' mind me sleepin' here, right? While yeh shower, while the universe refixes it's target on someone else."

Another moment of that ambiguous smile. Then he said, "You do what you need to, love." And he tossed his cigarette into an ashtray and headed for the shower, pulling the door half-closed behind him.

Eden watched him leave. She didn't know why she couldn't leave; she didn't know if she ever would.

She collapsed against the bed. The pillow stank; whatever. She'd shower, later.

Eden closed her eyes, and fell asleep.