Log; Complete

[bitingnightmare.livejournal.com]

When; Sept. 16 (dusk)
Rating; PG-13 (language)
Characters; John Constantine (silkcutremix), The Corinthian (bitingnightmare)
Summary; a tittle of the twonky telly
Log;

Days after the incident near the Opera House, after Scarab had stitched his wound cleanly, The Corinthian was still keeping a low profile, maybe for his safety but mostly for his sanity. He didn't want the hassle of dealing with anyone who might ask why his neck had a huge friggin' seam through it, nor did he want to by chance run into the trio he'd faced that night. It was too much shit to deal with, on top of a TV that picked up random frequencies and a kitchen that barely worked.

And sooooo... the Nightmare decided to make their apartment a little bit more livable. It was *their* apartment because the laughing magician hadn't yet chosen to leave, permanently. Every time John disappeared for hours he always seemed to return, cigarette still burning between his lips. In any case he donned a new pair of jeans and a standard black tank to work on the wiring. At some point The Corinthian obtained a new pair of glasses, no different from the old pair, which he wore even into the evening. The window was open as well, allowing some fresh air in as the white-blond worked a few tight screws.


John's penchant for seeking trouble had yet to curve, all of it thinly disguised as exploring. Particularly, he had been interested in the magic community. So far it had not turned up too much, but, he figured, time would tell. Given the nature of things, it would probably come to him if he did not come to it first. This world, John had soon learned, was a patchwork, an amalgamation of worlds and universes and dimensions meshed together. There had to be some kind of magic in it, somewhere. His sickly demonic blood thirsted for it.

He immediately took a disliking to the latest addition to the apartment: The pirate cat. He would come up with a creative way of disposing of the thing in time. Sacrifice always worked: It impressed and appeased many supernatural forces.

The day's exploring done, John came "home," finding the Corinthian working on that bloody telly again. The two of them had been discovering why such a nice (and heavy) device had been discarded outside almost desperately: There were plenty of psychic crud stains in and around it. Explained why a disgruntled demon decided to have at his arm well enough. As well as the random receptions and channel numbers. Some fetishes, even for him of all people, John fucking Constantine, should not exist.

"Hullo. Tired of the Weather Channel?"


Why. Did Everyone. Think. He Adopted. The Pirate Cat? The animal roamed the complex freely, if anything *it* had adopted *them.* In a manner of speaking anyway. The feline was nowhere to be found at this time, perhaps a bit of a magician itself. The magic or supernatural community here was prevalent; it just wasn't the kind of magic John Constantine was used to, the Nightmare would suggest, just as he didn't really understand the Red Pyramid. All that blood, and by sunrise it was gone, the massacre erased as if the gods of The City would not dare suffer the embarrassment of such an inhumane stain. Hmm, he never really did work out what happened that night, choosing to preoccupy himself with other things, like this state of the art television. It was all facade, the little shit.

"Yes," The Corinthian answered, on the floor on all fours, his face wedged between the wall and the back of the panel.

His voice had returned the afternoon following Scarab's excellent surgery. What had been a gaping red grin had been reduced to a fine smokey black line with criss-crossed notches. It looked a bit like a botched tattoo, really. Hm, with a subtle flick of the flathead screwdriver another frequency took over the blue screen. Two commentators spoke in rapid Spanish as a wrestler in blue-sequined mask crushed another in the ring. Good going.


John hung up his coat and took a gander at the latest broadcasting. Whether the Corinthian regaining use of his larger mouth was a good thing was debatable.

"Fancy a bit of Mexican wrestling then? M'Spanish's rusty" - he didn't know a lick of it- "an' I need to rest these dogsa' mine here. Beats the other fine gems put out for the faceless masses, eh?" He was using both "gems" and "masses" loosely. Very loosely.

The Englishman collapsed on the couch as if oblivious to the mess that had occurred the other day as well as the nightmare's work. A couch was a couch and given the state of this place, he had no reason to be picky. And disturbing ol' Cori would come later. He could almost hear his feet crying in relief.


Hung up his coat *where*, The Corinthian would have asked were he not busy trying to work some wires and switches. The loud raucous cheering from the TV could have easily been mistaken for an outpour of noise from The Coliseum, that is if it weren't in Spanish. With John's remark he didn't bother peering around the other side of the panel to see what was on. At least the moaning and groaning this time was non-pornographic, although somewhat suggestive for a man-on-man contact sport. Ahem.

"Maybe they'll broadcast that footie shit for you, Constantine," said the white-blonde. That's right, take a knock at the pride and joy of England's top sport.

So was the last name a bit of a formality? Hearing the other call him *Cori* sort of grated on his nerves, in a way only a laughing magician could achieve. Tired or not, John's peace wasn't bound to last due to the luck of his bloodline. A shadow loomed through the window, small and robust. Its wooden leg knocked against the sill before the feline decided to land on the couch, right next to the Englishman.


The slob had thrown it on a chair, of course. Briefly he considered the couch, but the peg legged newcomer made him glad he didn't. Bloody thing shed and he had better things to do (or so he claimed) than embark on a quest for tape to get the damn hair off.

Constantine silently (a rarity) regarded the cat with a brief scowl.

"Never was the one for sports.” He continued to ignore the wretched, hairy thing. "Nice try, mate. Name's John, by the way." He was a bastard and he reveled in it.


Whoever thought John Constantine, the laughing magician, the con job, hobo instincts, Dumpster Diving Diva extraordinaire, would even give a toss about some cat hairs. Did he not like the animal because it reminded him of himself, sans the mange? Now that was a funny thought. The feline curled up as if he owned the couch, disregarding the blonde as well. 'Rrurrrrrrr,' it rumbled from the throat before closing its one golden eye. The Corinthian hadn't acknowledged its entrance either.

"You'll be stuck with it for a while," he said while studying two wires, one blue and one green.

What did wires have to do with channels anyway... unless the Nightmare had stupidly severed the coaxial cable, which he had not. They didn't even *have* a cable running into the wall. The fancy TV's fancy technology was all internal, proving to be an even greater challenge for the amateur technician. Hm, he touched the blue wire to a few copper bits.

"What do you see now, John," asked The Corinthian, too busy to argue the name rebuttal, or perhaps silently conceding to it.

The Mexican wrestling was replaced with something just as loud, just as elaborate, and just as meticulously choreographed: Classical Chinese Opera.


The opera may have been in Chinese (John did not quite recognize it) but listening a bit, there was something strange, a hissing garble in it. It made the hairs on the back of his neck prick up. The rapid string of Spanish did not grind along his nerves like this did:

... Con... stan... tine... I... watch... you... I... will... devour... you...

It was like listening to a record playing backwards, only there had been an actual evil influence involved. Well, maybe it wasn't evil, but calling things that had the intention of feasting on him evil would be to his benefit. The grinding nails underneath the energy of the opera definitely did not sound like it was intending to step out and share a fag with him.

Bugger his moment of good will with lugging the damn thing home in the first place, then. Maybe he could sell it and dump the sodding thing on someone else...

"Change it," was the disturbed Englishman's reply. He was not the one for TV, a memory years deep involving a foot through Maggie Thatcher's face momentarily surfacing. Another thought: performing an exorcism on a telly. Hnn, that might be something to try. Or he could get whatever was in there to cooperate.

Sigh. He mentally ran through the list of what he could do while the Corinthian continued to tinker.


So the Englishman had little taste for the finer arts, which was fine. The Corinthian preferred crunchy guitar chords and sweat over sopranos and white face powder anyway, not to say that he couldn't appreciate opera. A memory in... Venice was it? Italian opera, a production whose name he couldn't remember. There were good feelings associated with the city, but he couldn't place why. In any case, he definitely recognized the sense of unease in John's voice. He looked up from his work to the other.

"Not a fan," remarked the Nightmare before he pinched the wire and removed it from the copper piece. The channel switched back to the wrestling match. The blue-sequined star had been laid to waste by a man dressed in onyx black.

Rrurrr, the cat noticed the Englishman's discomfort and thought to capitalize on it by clawing its way onto his lap.


The Spanish returned, but the nails still remained, still echoing into Constantine's inner being about how much it wanted to tear out his innards and string him up with them, fuck him through the gaping wounds, quarter him with the loving care of a mother.

Jesus.

The nails made their way onto his lap.

"Ahhhwwwh!" Damn that cat. He glared down at it. "Now you climb all over me-" it tapered off into an irritated mumble as he tried to shove the animal off.


The Corinthian didn't have to look at John to sense the man was still uncomfortable. He could smell the fear, the cold sweat threatening to bead on his skin, the start of a quiver in his throat. At their distance of several feet his simple gesture wouldn't have a heavy affect on the blonde. He raised his head from behind the set and pushed his sunglasses down to peer at John, to see what he saw. By then the moment had already passed and all the Nightmare noticed was a poor feline tumbling off the couch. The pirate cat hissed at the Englishman. One could almost swear that it uttered a guttural 'arrr' before scrambling under the bed. It peered out with its single glowing gold eye.

Well as long as the animal found refuge *somewhere*... He pushed his glasses back up and shifted off his knees to sit back against the wall.

"What's wrong," The Corinthian asked in a cool tone.


"The weirdness came to me," was all John had said. Murphy's law, he realized: The trouble found him. Or he found the trouble and a stupid attraction had manipulated him into taking it. Doesn't matter. Fucking thing would act up if he decided to show it to the window to see if it could fly. Or something in the telly was keeping whatever was lusting for his precious flesh inside. An overwhelming primal fear restrained him from wanting to touch it.

"Here's an idea, Cori: Leave the telly alone. Whatever you're doing, mate, it's not working."


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

He stared at John with a sightless lense-shielded plain look. The weirdness huh? And what could he possibly mean by that. The Nightmare figured he was referring to his own bad luck, the kind that traveled around a Constantine like the cloud of Silk Cut smoke, permeating the layers of his clothes so that he always smelled of it. In this case the bad luck was their inability to solve the random channel malfunction, and he was more than willing to place that blame on John. Still he rose to his feet to face the testy machine.

"I'm gonna get this piece of shit running, Johnny," said The Corinthian, tit for tat. He gave the TV a light rap of his knuckles, instantly tuning into another channel.

"Stay tuned to watch barely legal cubs get theirs from the bears they love," purred a fresh faced young man.

"Aw fucking hell," muttered the white-blonde, back where they started! He took John's advice and turned the thing off for now, before addressing that other concern. "This have anything to do with whatever did a number on you," he asked. Of course he noticed the scratches the Englishman had received.

The cat in the meantime settled in its dark hiding place, content to watch everything unfold in silence.


The beast, for lack of a better term at the moment, rattled spiritually inside the telly at the sudden ruckus. It settled into an uneasy "silence," disoriented, but only briefly. John was treated to the brief satisfaction of a growling, needling wail of resentment when the nightmare's finger met the off button.

"Don't think you'd want to, more I linger on it," grumbled the Englishman, the symptoms of creeping fear subsiding. This thing possessing the telly had the power of presence, a fear aura of sorts, more than likely selective. Some fear auras could paralyze, instantly if you were truly fucked.

The scratches on John's arm had healed to red puffy lines. Somehow, they still burned like tiny coals when he put pressure on them, but those were supernatural injuries for you. An animal's claws brought bacteria. A demon's claws were something else, depending on what attacked you.

John rolled up his sleeve to look, to help him think. Sometimes an injury or a scar would resonate with near the attacker, but his didn't. "Something else. Whatever got me was probably an accomplice. Might be why what is in there is so pissed off. Hell, can you feel it?"


Funny that the beast, however supernatural it was, seemed bound by the laws of the television, by.... Pioneer, though the i, o, and second e had fallen off the logo. The Corinthian rubbed at the back of his neck then looked at the TV screen once more. Black, blank, off. It didn't seem beastly, although one could say the random channeling was evidence of an attitude problem, but to him it was just a malfunctioning piece of technology. How ironic that the Nightmare was not as sensitive to the beast as the mage was.

While John spent some time being introspective, he approached the kitchen counter and pulled two cigarettes from his new pack of Mild Sevens, then tucked both between his lips to light. A flick of the flame sparked both ends to a warm subtle glow. Puff. The Corinthian made his way to the couch and offered John the second cigarette.

"Careful, it's not what you're used to," he smirked. "No, I can't. If there is something there it's not letting me on to it," which could be a smart move on the demon's part.

The white-blonde took another pull off his cigarette and gave the TV a look. Damned if he knew it was too good to be true, good condition 57" monitor found in someone's garbage, tch. He turned his attention back to John, to the scratches on his arm.


"Thanks, mate."

John took the cigarette, allowing himself to adjust to the brand. Definitely not a Silk Cut, but his trembling nerves, a numb shudder, would take anything to placate them. The blue eyes that had seen too much were fixed on the screen. Nothing. Dormant, he guessed. The wanker wasn't happy about it being shut off.

"He can pick and choose, show himself to who he wants to show himself to. Doesn't like me." That was putting it lightly. "Guess he was going to be carted off back to Hell in that little box. Didn't turn out like he was expecting though. Could be a ploy, souls an' that, or," he weakly smiled, eyes distant, "Hell is short on shit entertainment."


Allowing himself to adjust to a non-ladies specific brand? The Corinthian remained on his feet thinking about what John said regarding the TV. So if it were capable of being shut off by a button then clearly it wasn't an archduke of Hell or anything else important. Remiel and Duma, or The First, whoever governed that shithole these days probably hadn’t cared to see it go missing. Demons were a dime a dozen, whether bred in the bowels of the beast or conjured by a ballsy street magician. At least it wasn't the big green bloke come to warn him about more impending doom.

The Nightmare pulled on his cigarette, gray smoke escaping three ways. He could sense John delving into old matters, old memories, perhaps searching for the last person he slighted that could have sent the lower beast on a revenge mission. There was the dee-ee-vee-um-eye-el, but if the books at the library were accurate then that couldn't be the case or else the Hell they knew was in as much trouble as John. Hmm, he studied the scratches on his arm again.

"It could be a local yanking your chain," suggested The Corinthian. The City had leprechauns fall from the sky, water turned coffee, gravity upended, why not a local trickster, eager to get his hooks in the ultimate challenge. "Let me see those," he upnodded to John's marks and moved to sit on the sofa arm.


John momentarily scowled at the offending television set, realizing that perhaps ol' Cori was right: despite the stench of evil that bloody set was copiously oozing out now, he could be on the business end of a bluff.

Sigh. Hearing those sorts of threats should be nothing new to him either, but there he was, in a strange place in a strange land with more than likely strange rules. He was a fish thrown out of familiar seas. Let this incident test him. Survival of the fittest, wasn't it?

"Probably. Cheeky bastard."

Rolling up his sleeve, Constantine offered his arm with its puffy streaks marking the skin. Should he have been lacking the infernal blood that had been tainting his veins for years, the wounds would have taken longer to heal. Perhaps never.


The Corinthian took a moment to study the scratches behind his sunglasses. The lines reminded him more of an infection than claw marks. Knowing he needed a closer look though the removed the sunglasses from his face and tucked them on his collar. He kept the cigarette in his mouth though, getting the embers dangerously close to John's skin. Once his fingertips touched the man's wrist he could feel the tainted blood pulsing through his veins. Everything gave a particular signature, and Nergal's was strong. Puff. Finally he removed the cigarette from his mouth.

"Don't get weird on me," the Nightmare said in... warning? As the pink tongues slithered out from his eyes and ran their cold and damp touch along the red marks. They tasted John's skin as well as the creature that marred him. He saw the lives of those whose eyes he'd eaten, and saw fractured images of the eyes of the dead. If this creature was indeed a demon, whether succubus, wraith, or unseelie, The Corinthian would sniff it out.


John's lip curled at the approach of the smoldering end of the fag, but at this shaky "test" of trust, whatever it was, it was taken away. Constantine had been three-quarters through his own.

The tongues of the Corinthian were surreally cool, a contrast to the heat that pulsed and throbbed through the wounds in response. A bubble of pain was giving way to a fountain, but a name whispered forth, a liquid babbling: Amanatael-Notrahxesiel-Roeh. It's flow was sickly, a sludge, the syllables scratching along the conscious like steel wool. Its origins were indeed infernal, but it sprang from somewhere different than the underworlds John and perhaps even the Corinthian himself were familiar with.

The Englishman, meanwhile, only watched with an almost puzzled fascination (with the occasional wince). Interesting method of getting information that was.


Can't handle a little cigarette burn? The Corinthian had been on the receiving end of those a few times, and his skin had no scar to show for it, the perks of being a creature of The Dreaming, that was. Well he held the cigarette out at near arm's length now so he wouldn't lose it in case John should swing a fist up in his face for the gesture. Because he didn't throw a punch he continued, following the length of the scratches, from wrist to the tender inside of his elbow.

The redness tasted of hellfire, coal, typical beast of the underworld really, but whose? There was a Lucifer in this city who could very well have brought his own Hell with him. Once he managed to catch the entire name, the Nightmare stopped with the tips of his cold twin tongues just above the elbow. Ahem, he lifted his mouths from the Englishman's arm and puffed on his cigarette.

"Sounds like Aman'teal Notraxsil Row," he said, butchering the name that came to him like a brillo pad to the ears.


An eyebrow was curiously cocked. The name was unfamiliar, but then again, he was in unfamiliar territory. If things went his way, however, that name would have power.

But if he was going to do any extractions, exorcisms and whatnot...

"Nice." A rare comment. "So we have something, but, uh, you think you can get our friend in the telly's name?"

He was tickled by the mental image of the nightmare licking the glass and plastic panels.


Compliment or not, The Corinthian didn't seem to hear the praise. Without the sunglasses one could see his teetheyes narrowed, eyebrows furrowed. It was a needy thing, the beast in the telly--er... TV. Licking the panel wasn't going to help much unless the set was a twisted version of a d'jinn and its lamp. In that case John could do his own licking since it was he the demon wanted, and likely his call the demon would answer.

"Maybe Amanatael-Notrahxesiel-Roeh," he repeated what he thought he heard, gaze focused on the floor. Smoke trickled from his teeth eyes.


John had finished his own cigarette, taking one of the several beer bottles littered around the couch and discarding the butt. He chewed on this name, letting the vile string bleed along, letting it reveal what it wanted to. It was akin to letting a leashed dog take him wherever the hell it wanted to go. So far, the concentration exercise had yet to yield anything outside of irritating the wounds, the name breath running over coals.

This might involve the harder stuff, John figured. Question was did he want to try to negotiate with Night of the Living Videodrome here or flat out exorcise the twonk?

"Oh, Cori," the Englishman began. "How would the neighbors feel about a little, say, magic?" Little was hardly the word.


Several? Don't take the nightmare for a slob simply because he seemed to be sharing his apartment with one. He'd tossed what trash had been laying about, and used one bottle specifically for an ashtray, which John quickly pointed out. He leaned over to tap the cigarette against the rim. Harder stuff hm? As if The Corinthian couldn't handle it, right. Whatever he needed to dish out, be it Night of the Living Videodrome or the piss of a virgin, he could take it.... as long as it didn't make destruction of the apartment.

There was that name again. Were the white-blonde to stop cringing every time he said it maybe John would lay off. Maybe not.

"I doubt they'd mind, you've already seen how abnormally fucked up this place is," said the Nightmare while unfolding his glasses once more. The feline had crept out of its hiding place now, choosing to weave its furry way through their legs for attention. Meeooowrrr. He breathed in the last of his cigarette and tossed the end down the same bottle before.... reaching down... to pet the pirate.

"Those scratches, they're like a homing mark, it knows where you are at any given time," he explained, perhaps the source of his... worry, concern?


Indeed, John was a slob. A big one.

The Englishman gave a glance towards the marks before rolling up his sleeve. Tracking, huh? Surely he could retaliate with a few counter seals of his own. Required a blade of some sort though and it was not like the temple that was his body had been free of liberal desecration to begin with.

"Clever, isn't he?" Constantine mumbled, more to himself and ignoring the pirate cat clop-walking around their legs. He raised his voice then: "Alright, luv, I'm going to get this bastard talking, but we're going to need a few things." Blue eyes studied the telly and its dormant occupant for a moment. "May work. May not.

"Now take your pick: Blood or piss?"


Like a stain on the couch, large enough to be conspicuous and deep enough to not wash out.

The clop-walking was the most interesting part of the cat. Felines were excellent predators, using stealth to their advantage. What stealth did this one have with all the clopping? And yet it appeared to be healthy and robust, perhaps hand fed by the locals. If that was the case then the pirate had a high dose of irresistible charm that just didn't work on Constantine here. He continued to pet the purring beast.

"Yours or mine," The Corinthian asked John, never one to answer a laughing magician's question without first identifying the hitch.


Ah, the Corinthian was good, but Constantine had expected no less from him.

"Well, then: Are you a menstruating female?" was the magus' reply. Virgin's blood would be as effective, but oh, let's see ol' Cori's reaction to this one.


Good, but how much? Well maybe Constantine would never know, and things were better that way.

He arched a brow over the other man's question but was not to be fazed by his crude wording. The Corinthian merely tilted his sunglasses down to bear a hint of white teeth over the rims. He didn't smile, he didn't smirk, he seemed almost dead serious, or deadly amused.

"I'll raise you one and invite you to check."


For a moment, just a mere moment, if by a cruel trick from Desire itself, there was the temptation just to make sure but John's common sense got the better of him, and he didn't.

"We can never be so sure, can we?" It seemed to have rolled off his back. "Now how's the supply of virgin blood?"


That's right, feel her tawny eyes burn as his fingers manipulated the strings, the tendons, all that she puppeteered, all that he gloried. The smoke of Desire's voice dissipated in common sense's wake. He pushed his glasses up and reached behind to rub the back of his own neck, hum.

"You don't know what you're missing," said The Corinthian, just as casually, "none here."

He figured he spoke for the both of them with *that* remark. The City probably had its fair share of virgins though, despite being a rogue place harboring the Underground, Club Automatica, and other temples of vice. Some people were just that virtuous, or prudish.

"You can probably buy some underground," he suggested.


The Underground. Every large community of some sort had some kind of tender white underbelly no one wanted to talk about but in their hypocrisy dealt with and within it anyway. Constantine was well acquainted with black markets of vary kinds, both suspicious and scummy. The question was, in this place, where was it? He could find it himself given the time, but let's see if ol' Cori had anything...

"Hn, show me."


The cat meanwhile had decided to stare at the two, either bored out of its mind or deeply amused by the banter, or did it understand? Once the men openly discussed the Underground the feline clop-jumped onto the couch, then again up to the window sill, taking its leave.

Hn, he didn't think much of the pirate's exit and turned to consider John's request again. Lucky for him the Nightmare didn't interpret it as one pertaining to that other invitation. Ahem.

"I've been there only once, with the butcher and the vigilante," and the girl but he didn't bother mentioning Alessa, the one who seemed to hold power in both. The Corinthian idly felt the slowly fading black scars on his throat. "Yeah I can show you."