19015/Making a Little Magic.

Making a Little Magic.
Date of Scene:	06 September 2024
Location:	House of Mystery
Synopsis:	John pays the price for his magic, but Witchblade steals it back for him. Sara sees John through new eyes and even through his own. Is it the start of a friendship or a recipe for disaster?
Cast of Characters:	John Constantine, Sara Pezzini

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John Constantine has posed:
The House of Mystery's library is a cavernous space - too large to fathom that this one room comes even close to fitting inside the house based on outside appearances. It's also where John prefers to do his spellwork.

Tonight a large circle has been drawn on the floor with candles at exact north, south, east and west. Each candle has its own little trinket in in front if it - still just outside of the circle - A bowl of grain, a hearthstone, a small jar of honey and a key.

A copper bowl filled with what appears to be normal water - appearances are often deceptive when it comes to John Constantine - is placed at the center of the circle. The bowl is surrounded by fountain pens carved from bone - their tips made of mithril and crystal quartz orbs - each the size of a large marble. Upon closer inspection, small sigils have been etched into the pens while the orbs appear to have something that resembles an eyelid etched into their surfaces.

Kneeling inside the circle, in front of the bowl, is John himself. It's one of the rare occasions that he's found without his typical attire. He's shirtless and wearing a pair of loose fit black silk lounge pants. Two lines have been drawn in blood near the center of his chest - right where his heart beats. One line has been drawn down each of his eyes from just above the brow to the cheekbone, one line vertically down his lips and smaller round dots - approximately the size of a thumb print mark each ear. But all of that may be missed in the fact that the man is covered in tattoos, all strategically placed as to not be seen when it's in his typical garb.

As he lights the candles along with, "Bound by duty, family by choice let no threat break these ties," at the lighting of each.

And so it begins.

Sara Pezzini has posed:
It was a pretty normal day for Sara. Work, exercise, file reports, read reports, scold one officer who failed to address a citizen of Bushwick with the proper respect. The citizen hadn't said anything, of course not, they were used to that sort of short and curt response from cops. Sara however, was having none of that in her precinct. Technically it was not entirely hers, there was a precinct captain there who had at first felt like he had her hoisted on him as a punishment, but after a year, the two of them now worked really well together.

Over all pleased with her day, she was heading to the parking lot to her motorcycle, about to open the back door out when she was forcibly stopped for all of three seconds. Truthfully, she didn't even know it happened really, though she felt... something.

==You will not take her, she is mine.== Atum called out to the House of Mystery, having firmly stopped Sara from going through the portal that was the back door.

==He has begun.== Came the reply from the House.

==We are coming.== Atum replied.

The conversation was not audible, it took place in seconds over the span of space and time.

Only slightly aware of something off in those three seconds, the door opened and Sara stepped through it in the library of the House of Mystery. The moment she realizes where she is, her eyes scan the room and there was John.

The previous evening she had asked him to call her, knowing full well that he wouldn't. It wasn't his style to ask for help, though when it was offered in the heat of the moment he would sometimes take it. Apparently Witchblade and the House of Mystery were in agreement that he was being forced to accept it in the heat of the moment. Realizing all of that in the few moments between stepping into the house and seeing John, Sara resigns herself to the situation.

"Forgot to call," she states quietly, calmly, not making any distracting motions, though she does start to move closer. Withcblade whispers in her head where to step, where not to step, ensuring she doesn't physically interrupt the magic being worked. "Apparently, the House called for you."

John Constantine has posed:
With a dramatic roll of his eyes, John mutters, "Bollocks," at Sara's arrival. But that's all the attention he can spare her in the moment.

It's a wonder his palms are ever without healing gashes, but then he does heal just a bit stronger than the average Joe. He lifts an ancient looking blade from the floor beside him - seriously, it's old and stained and looks like it might cause tetanus - and drags it across his palm. His hand closes into a fist to allow drops of blood to fall into the 'water'. The reaction isn't the same as it should be with water - John's blood floats on top.

He lifts his hands, palms up and closes his eyes. "Hestia, goddess of home and family, hear me. Sacred bond, connect these instruments. My blood, your power. In the name of family and unity, let your will be done."

As it always is, each repetition of the incantation comes with a louder, stronger, more insistent voice. Once, twice, thrice - it's on the fourth repetition that the liquid in the bowl begins to bubble and churn and it's on the fifth that it begins to glow.

And that's when Witchblade might feel it - the pain. But it's not physical pain, it's worse than that, deeper than that. It's a near overwhelming sadness and anxiety, the deepest regret in regards to what he's about to do. He squeezes his eyes shut tighter, but he can't help the one tear that escapes despite his efforts.

Finally he opens his eyes, red rimmed and wildly bright from all that damned wetness threatening to leak out. From beneath one knee, he pulls out a photo - it's him holding his infant child, beaming down with the light and love only a father can have for this new life in his arms. He kisses the picture and tosses it into the bowl and watches as it burns in mystical flames.

The memory of the first time he held his daughter - he won't forget /her/, he could never do that. But that one precious moment in time is just gone.

Once the photograph is gone, all of the items in the circle flash brightly for a brief moment before they fade back to their normal states.

It's done.

John lets out a gasp of a breath and drops back so his ass end is resting on the heels of his feet. It /hurts/. He isn't sure why, he isn't sure what it means, he just knows that it hurts and that /something's/ gone.

But in typical John Constantine fashion, he shoves the hurt down, climbs to his feet and says, "See, luv, easy peasy, wannit? They'll each need to add a drop of blood to the items to bind it to them specifically - they'll just absorb it when it makes contact."

Sara Pezzini has posed:
In most situations such as this, Witchblade does not share the magical effects, the 'what happens' or 'how it works' part. He has always believed that it would overwhelm his wielder to have to sacrifice themselves for his purposes /and/ try to understand the magic involved in the world. Some of his Wielders in the past have been magical in nature, and for them he shared, but Sara was just a New York cop, he never shared.

Today... he shared.

Feeling the pulls of power in the air, sensing the presence of who's magic was being called on, Witchblade opened Sara up to the behind the scenes. What John felt, followed by what John was doing. For nearly a month she had bitched and complained about John. He was an asshole, arrogant, cocky, and British (though that last one was not really a complaint, just a statement). Now, in this moment, Atum could show her the man, show her who he really was, and what it was he did.

It was a flash, a moment, pulled away into magic to watch as John gave away the most precious moment any man could have, to Hestia, and just so he could make some items for the Justice League Dark. It would have been enough to know that he'd done it, but to feel it, even for that brief second before Witchblade severed it...

Tears leaked from her wide eyes without being stopped, without shame, and her jaw was slightly slack as he turned to look at her.

==Go over and touch me to him== Witchblade whispered in her head, and without pause she did just that. By the time she reached John, the bracelet had formed into the Gauntlet and she laid it, her hand, against his arm.

Hestia would probably throw a temper tantrum, she would cry foul, she might even try to get back at Atum for it, but as Sara touched him to John's arm... he was given the memory back from Sara's living through it.

"No, it wasn't easy-peasy," she states softly, using her left hand to wipe her eyes. She knew what Witchblade had done, and she agreed with it. "He shared everything... you are /not/ alone any more."

John Constantine has posed:
Not just item, but itms that would go a great deal further in keeping the team /safe/. The cost for so much protection for so many people, the cost had to be great - it had to be a /true/ sacrifice.

It only takes a beat for him to realize what's happened. Sara's tears are all the evidence he needs to reach the conclusion that /somehow/ she knew that he gave up a part of himself that left a hole that will likely ache forever - even without him knowing what used to be in that hole.

Bollocks.

His cover's blown. Asshole, arrogant, cocky and a /Scouser/ - that's different from just being British - but all of it is his armor, his shield and now it seems someone's ripped that armor away.

"You're a real bloody git, you know that!" he yells, obviously as Witchblade, not Sara.

Then she touches the gauntlet to him before he has a chance to jerk away. That moment comes rushing back and hits him like ten tones of bricks. It almost brings him to his knees - it certainly would a less stubborn man than him.

It's easy to see him start to rebuild those that wall, wrap himself back up in that armor. It happens with the setting of his expression into something akin to a scowl rather than the grief that was there and the relief at getting back what he didn't even know he was missing.

"What if I want to be alone then, luv?" John asks Sara with just a bit of bite to his tone.

Cocky, Arrogant, Asshole - it's that last title he's trying to win back in the moment.

Sara Pezzini has posed:
Stepping back, Sara blinks a few times to make the tears stop. She realizes that Witchblade may have given John something, but he also took it away. She knows why, it was all her fault for not looking deeper. It was her fault for not taking the time to actually care. She'd let the fact that once he'd nearly killed innocents on his own team, even though it wasn't really him, and his arrogant cockiness ensure she never tried to actually /know/ him.

==She needed to see you.== Witchblade replies, this time to the House and John, but not Sara.

"We both know that's a lie," she replies to him, but she does give him space. "I'm not saying I'll live up your ass or anything, I'm pretty certain there are things there I don't want to touch, but you can rely on me John."

==She needed to see passed the past, a hard lesson for her to learn.== Witchblade then added, almost at the same time she was speaking.

"Listen," she sighs, shaking off the pain she'd felt through John by actually shaking her arms a little, like they were cold. "I fucked up with you. I was the idiot, so don't blame Witchblade for being the kind of asshole he is, cause one asshole to another, you two aren't all that different."

John Constantine has posed:
Witchblade all up talking in his head just gets a grumbled, "Sod off," from John. That hole may be filled back up again, that ache mostly gone, but John doesn't like feeling vulnerable - not one bit. Right now he's feeling vulnerable and it's really messing with his reputation - and his head.

"Listen, luv, you don't want to get all caught up in my orbit, trust me on that one. I'm better alone because that's just the way cards fall, ey?"

That? Well, he truly and honestly believes that to be true. He causes nothing but pain, or even death, to those around him. "It's already happened, hasn't it? You lot left high and dry because someone came after me? It wasn't the first, it won't be the last. You don't do the things I do, know the things I know, live the life I've lived without pissin' people off - pissing /things/ off, powerful things."

He suddenly has a powerful need for a smoke, she he wanders across the room to the table where he left them. He rubs a thumb over the old battered lighter, feeling the etchings in the faded gold briefly, before lighting up. "I'll do what needs done for the League - unless it includes that irresponsible little prat - but I do best when I..." Don't have to worry about emotional attachments? Don't have to worry about people he cares about outside of just being teammates? Don't what? He doesn't finish the sentence. "As far as my arse goes, nothing up there but a bunch of hot air."

Sara Pezzini has posed:
Remaining in the spot she was standing, Witchblade still the Gauntlet on her right arm. It was starting to creep into her mind how alike she was with John in some regards. She was willing to sacrifice herself for the cause, to go where no one else would to do what no one else could. In the past, doing that lead to the death of her partners and friends. She had tried once to cut herself off from the outside world, to just do her job and deal with it alone, but it failed.

"John, human beings aren't meant to be alone," she states with a soft sigh. "You know that, you just don't want to face it. It's easier to be alone, to say that you're better alone, to work alone... but you know as well as I do, its bollucks."

She finally crosses the room toward him, not rushing in on his space but getting out of the circle and closer. "You aren't alone in the powerful things that want to kill you. I have things hunting me to get their hands on Witchblade," she goes quiet a moment, staring off at nothing but not the glassy stare that indicates Witchblade taking a moment of her time.

"You've been through hell, literally. You've done it alone out of fear for what would happen to those around you, for what /has/ happened to those around you," she finally focuses on him again. "I do the same thing. Either I push people away or I just don't let them in to that part of my life. My Aunt knows about Witchblade, and that puts her in danger, so I made certain she has wards and protection but that doesn't mean that the things that want me won't go after her."

She takes another step closer, canting her head. "Teach me," comes out of no where. "Teach me what you do and how you do it. Everything, and don't pull the 'you don't want to know' crap, I do want to know. Because the way I see it, I've seen a lot of it before, and I'll see far worse, and I know I can handle it."

John Constantine has posed:
Teach me - the request actually sends a chill through John that causes the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The rest of what Sara said just gets lost with that last bit. Teach me. How many people has John tried to teach? Many. How many of them are now dead? Lots.

He gestures around the room they're in. It's truly /huge/ with shelves that reach the ceiling - and those shelves needing one of those library ladders that runs on a track around the room. "Do you know how may of the books in this room are bound with human skin, luv? How many of them would drive a man mad by just the cover being opened?" He shakes his head a little. "I'm not ready to do that yet, luv."

He didn't say 'no' at least, just not yet.

"I know you got that bloody /WANKER/," he's still a little pissed at Witchblade, "...all up in your head and I know that makes you stronger, keeps you safe, keeps you alive - physically. But the things I do, Pez - I don't think you could walk that bloody line." He doesn't know her well, but he's seen enough to know that she lives in a world that's black /or/ white and his is black /and/ white blending to gray and often times so gray as to be black.

Sara Pezzini has posed:
Standing her ground on the request, Sara offers John a half smile. "I didn't have the will or mental strength to handle being joined with the Witchblade. I was just a cop, doing my job for the city, and BAM I was thrown into a world I didn't even know existed."

She glances around the massive room slowly, even turns her body around to ensure she sees it all. "Four years ago I would have thrown up, right here on the spot, just hearing that human skin was used to bind books. Today however, that's the least of the worries out there in the world."

Coming back around to look at him, she shakes her head a little, "I walk a line every day, between what I know and what is actually there. Between the human law and the things that don't fit into it. I've done things John, that went straight into the black. I didn't like, I didn't want to do it, but I had to."

Walking over to the chair by the table, she actually sits in it. "You don't know me, not really. You know the image that I present, the mask I wear for the world. The Avenger, the NYPD officer... there's more to me then that, a lot more. So don't believe for a minute that I'm not capable of what has to be done when it has to be, because I am, and I will."

John Constantine has posed:
"Do you know who Satana Hellstrom is, luv?" John asks, but it's not really important if she knows or doesn't. "A few weeks ago, I summoned her into the back room of the Laughing Magician with the intent of 'convincing' her to join the fight against Galactus. Of course that affords the League protection in that no harm will come to me or mine by her." So, same deal he struck with Mary.

John walks over and leans down to place his hands on the arms of the chair Sara chose so he can look her right in the eye. "That night, I fed her succubus appetite with a human gang banger that was responsible for the death of a child in a drive by. I watched her suck his soul dry and didn't blink."

He pauses just long enough to not quite give Sara room for a response before, "Can you go that dark? Because that's how bloody dark you need to be able to go to live in /my/ world."

He pushes back away from the chair and her personal bubble, but still holds eye contact, waiting for her answer.

Sara Pezzini has posed:
Sara had no idea who Satana Hellstorm was, so she shook her head when he asked. She had intended to listen to every word he said, but the conviction behind his words, the House, Witchblade, the magic in the air, something triggered the psychometry, the one part of Witchblade that he attempts to avoid allowing but something, just sometimes, even he can't control it.

In that moment Sara was there in the back room of the Laughing Magician. She wasn't herself, she saw and felt everything as if she were John. As John, she summoned Satana. As John she worked the deal. As John, she reached through a portal to the House of Mystery to grab the gang banger and gave him up to the demoness. And as John, she had no issues with doing to for the crimes he had committed, for killing a child with no remorse.

In real time it was a matter of minutes, John watches as Sara's eyes rolled back in her head and she went some what limp in the chair. For Sara, it took exactly the same amount of time that the original had taken. No amount of John shaking her or asking what was wrong, if he even did, changed a thing.

When she came out of it, her head rolled forward and she looked lost, only for a few seconds and then her eyes cleared. She was breathing harder, as if she'd just run the length of a block or two, and tiny beads of sweat had formed on her brow.

"Humans /are/ the worst kind of monster," she breaths, as if John has just said it rather than her having lived his moment. "No regards for one another, constantly fighting each other for invisible lines on the map, or make believe territories in the city. Could I get some of your scotch?"

John Constantine has posed:
It's a testament to just how much John knows that he doesn't try to interrupt what's happening. He's seen it before - these vision episodes. He's even had a few himself. He just waits it out, Silkie dangling from his lips. He's ready to catch her should she topple off the chair, but otherwise he just watches.

Once she comes around, well he still stands there and for a long few moments he doesn't speak. He does gesture to the little table by the chair she's chosen. Where there once was nothing but a lamp, now there's a bottle of scotch and a glass. House or John? Hard to say.

"Tell me that again tomorrow, after that bloody slap upside the head's worn off and the scotch haze is gone. Tell me that tomorrow and mean it and we'll talk about learning to live in my world." He plucks the cigarette from his lips and uses it to point up the stairs - that weren't there a moment ago. "Bedroom on the left's for guests. If you need me, I'm on the right."

Of course she could leave if she wanted to as well.

He turns toward the stairs himself, but pauses to look back, "Oh, and don't go pokin' around these books - you're not ready for what might bloody well poke back."

Sara Pezzini has posed:
Grabbing the bottle of scotch and the glass, Sara opens and pours just a few swallows into the glass before setting the bottle down. The glass goes to her lip and she downs what she poured, not enough to get drunk but enough to tamp down what just happened, or rather the emotions connected to it.

After the scotch goes down, she just breaths out, "I'll tell you again in the morning." with a nod, before pouring a little more into the glass.

It wasn't what had happened that effected her, what John did made sense for John to do, it was the fact that she could /feel/ it all /as/ him. That was way more personal that she ever wanted to get and yet there it was, in her head. Maybe that's why she wanted scotch, the left over imitation John on her head.

Grabbing the bottle she stands up, another deep breath taken before she just takes herself to the bedroom on the left. Normally she'd just say something like, 'Nah, I'm fine, I'll go home' but this time she wasn't fine, and she wasn't going home. There was a lot of information and feelings to get through, and she wanted to be certain tomorrow when she looked him in the eye that she meant what she said.