13299/Better The Devil You Don't

Better The Devil You Don't
Date of Scene:	07 November 2022
Location:	Gotham Arms Tavern - Burnley
Synopsis:	A Gotham drinking contest goes all wrong. John walks in.
Cast of Characters:	Meggan Puceanu, John Constantine

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Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Gotham is one of those places that tests its luck, and constantly likes to test its dark fortunes. Couple buddies from a law firm get too rowdy and bug criminals in a case they know they can't prosecute, but they can make them look like fools. Opposing gangsters make pool into a contact sport. Enforcers for one of the mob families uses an opportunity for an object lesson.

Which will it be tonight?

As the luck of the draw would have it, it's a drinking contest in which some of Gotham's youngest and richest can't back down from without losing face. A cadet branch of a Falcone-allied family, a few ugly words, and now it's a parade of shots. Shots for everyone. The only way to get out is to concede or drop. Fluids flowing from the bottles make for a fancy dance, and the bartender is none too happy about the business.

Hard to blame patrons for looking deeply uncomfortable. Someone's going to call in the cops sooner or later, but one of the city's petty scions -- as opposed to a Wayne, a Kane, a Lane or a Drain (ha ha) -- precipitates less of a crisis. Which begs the question why Meggan is involved at all.

Sucks to be her caught up questioning someone about plowing under a park, and that person being in said law-group posse forced to engage in some celebratory action. Sucks to be assumed that she's with them.

"I used to /tend/ at the karaoke--" No one's listening. The bartender delivers another glass. Six are in front of her. Six that might as well be water. Nothing like a gun under the counter or a glare from the suited criminal types. She sighs, drinks. They're going to be there all night until someone dies of liver failure or Nergal rescues her, whichever comes when Hell freezes over.

John Constantine has posed:
Neither Death nor Nergal are bound to show up, though; Death's busy and Nergal's probably still licking his wounds from the last time he got anywhere near a Constantine.

Instead, it's Meggan's actual husband that steps into the bar, rubbing his face and lighting a cigarette on his way in. There _is_ a No Smoking sign, but he doesn't see it; or it doesn't see him. Whichever. He stops at the door, scuffs his shoe against the floor because he stepped in something outside, and then scans the crowd. when he spots Meggan, he smiles, a bit besotted, and starts making his way over.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Nergal probably hates the Constantine line, and it doesn't help the latest Laughing Magician is old enough to hug her plush Creeper and ask when /she/ gets to create her own realities on the telly. Or the game system that she patently isn't allowed to have. The standoff between Ceci and Meggan on that front hasn't exactly chilled, especially what with November progressing into December at a nice clip. An unnatural one though. The world being so hot isn't a good thing when the autumn-aspected woman is already happy enough to feed on intimidating others. Even if she doesn't mean to.

As it stands, she puts down the empty glass slightly rather than with a thump. At least seven other people caught up in the fool's imbroglio do the same. Another splash of well vodka comes with a shout from another corner. "Get out the Stoli at least. What's this crap?" It's a tad more colourful when a goon from said crime family eans in with a knowing weight, throwing his intimidating shadow on a man who just wants to get out of here alive, get back home alive. Plenty of bartenders in the city been in that role, Meg too.

John won't have trouble finding her; not many people have a thick braid trending from gold at the ends to screaming, deep red at the top, though the copper highlights are starting to darken. She might end up a brunette before it turns to snow on the next equinox.

John Constantine has posed:
If there's one thing John knows how to do, it's avoid trouble.

Wait, no, the other way around.

But still, finding his wife in this situation doesn't exactly _worry_ him, at least not for _her_. Meggan is, at least in this crowd, the closest to invulnerable as one gets, and so his worry is more for any of the others should they piss her off. Or rather, for the amount of effort it would take to stop her from putting her hand through someone's face, because he can see those copper tones in her hair.

He walks around the small crowd until he finds himself shoving people aside to step up behind Meggan's chair. He leans over, ashes his cigarette off to the side and whispers in her ear: "You 'avin' fun, luv?"

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Not invulnerable to public criticism, censure, Batman. Cause just about no one is immune to Batman, not even Superman. Meg takes a moment to spot the familiar tell in the mass of heaving anxiety and competitiveness, violence being the rotten cherry atop the whole thing. Unfortunately the intoxicated people don't slough off, they slouch in chairs, and their emotional turbulence feeds her too.

Never ask her about the one time the patrons of an Irish bar turned her into a mermaid. Right awful.

She tilts her head, flashing a look from John to the door and back. Too late; he's caught in it. The ringleader of this fandango, a man with red spots at his cheeks and the look of old Gotham money and some hot blood to go with it, mutters at his enforcer. Another round is coming around, and Meggan doesn't even pretend to sniff at the drink before she swills it. It could be bleach. Might be something that strips paint, it's that clear. Not Stoli, anyway. "Oughta run 'fore they blow out your liver," she warns too late as a greeting, straight-backed. Another person slumps off his stool.

John Constantine has posed:
"You say that like I've all that much of a bloody liver to count anymore," John shoots back with a snort. He looks up at the assembled congress of rowdy men, lowlifes, and quote-unquote dangerous types, and then he takes another long drag of his cigarette, flicks the thing away, and blows the smoke out to the side.

John's hand slides onto Meggan's shoulder, then up the side of her neck, to her chin, and he tugs a little on it. Assuming she isn't holding fast with her superior strength, he just tilts her head back a bit so he can kiss her on the mouth briefly.

"Besides, I promised Ceci I'd bring mum home before brekkie."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
"It regrows, doesn't it? Can't be all up to the gills in drink." Oh, how little the metamorph understands actual human biology, or she's just preoccupied on the stew of hate, ambition, competition, and everything else brewed up by the bad boys of law and crime crossing paths. Her DNA may be rewriting itself every ten minutes; it doesn't actually help her in other ways. Smoke floats over her head in a halo, purified of its poisons by proximity to her. There's the real disappointment; she can clean the atmosphere like a filter. John must have noticed the house doesn't require nearly as much cleaning on that front as it used to, at least in rooms they share when he's burning a Silk Cut like no one's business.

A glass is dropped in front of John while others groan at his public display of affection. Worse if there's tongue. "Get started," the bartender says in a flat tone of withered apathy. Anything to get home.

She turns slightly, mouth still against the crease of his lips. "We get points if they all perish o' alcohol poisoning?" Not the right words to murmur where she can be heard. Someone's bound to get shirty.

John Constantine has posed:
It's not just the house. John's been breathing better since sleeping next to her. It's a whole thing. Nergal and Lucifer and all of them are probably rolling in their hellholes wondering when John's going to die if his wife keeps cleaning his lungs out.

John looks at the glass and lets out a long sigh. He can't really say no, now, can he? He takes the glass and lifts it. "Cheers, boys." Then he downs it, not as smoothly as Meggan, but smooth enough that he's clearly done this sort of drinking before.

"Long as they perish of their own consumption, luv, I'm not too worried." He doubts Batman cares about organized crime dying of intoxication.

"You boys ready to call it quits? Yer never gonna out drink her, you know." He slides his hand over the back of Meggan's neck, squeezing affectionately. "Especially not in the state you've got her in. All this testosterone makes her competitive."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Lucifer probably wants nothing to do with John. Better if he doesn't. But if John's going to visit or extended stay in Hell, problems abound in the cheerful monster that is his luck wandering around. Not that he's free of three-quarters of his pacts, but the fourth quarter is entirely owned by one Meggan Constantine ap Puceanu.

The inbound grump scowls and sweeps out the drink mats, the glasses, and a few menus with a brush of his arm. They make noise hitting the ground akin to an angry bus smashing into a newspaper vending box. "You think you too good for this? Some kind of sicko meta that oughta be confined? Our city, our rules. Drink."

John Constantine has posed:
John frowns. "Easy there, mate, no need to get your knickers in a twist." He pulls out another cigarette and lights it slowly, before looking up at the man. "Me, I'm not a meta or any of the sort. But me wife here, she's got some special blood, and you'll be smart if you apologize for suggestin' she oughta be anythin' other than free-fairin'."

He looks at the mess on the floor. "It's also hard to drink when you toss everythin' on the floor," he observes, a little more absently.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The annoying response from Constantine is just a mosquito bite to a man already primed for violence and hurting others. He jerks his head at the bartender. Wise guy, is he? The tumbler slapped down is no shot glass. Meggan flinches from the loud sound; it's dramatically noisy. Her gaze tears away from John to the offered drink, and there's no salivating at the prospect of either that or a fist to the face.

"Think we've won here," she says, clear as a bell. "Maybe shove off for some brekky?"

John Constantine has posed:
John gives the tumbler a look and then turns to Meggan. He reaches for the tumbler, tips it back, and downs the whole thing, before setting it down gingerly on the table again and taking his wife's hand.

"I think brekky sounds just about perfect right now, luv. Gents, if you don't mind. The missus and I have somewhere to be that smells less like a fraternity punchbowl that got lost in the loo."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The criminals aren't so concerned, since they have their way out to scatter, but the enforcer is left both snarling and trying to figure out what the hell a fraternity punch bowl means. He's not the brightest bulb in the shed. The glass on the floor and the mess of discarded shot glasses, napkins, and other debris isn't entirely to their liking either. They can't exactly back down to save face, but one drunk stumbles for the door, pushed against a table, scrambling.

Meggan bares her teeth, and look too close, they might be a touch too pointy around the canines. Just enough to give pause, if they look too close. "Nicely? Feck off." She loops her arm around John's waist and it may kill his cool factor, but she can move so much faster that way.

John Constantine has posed:
John is still unconcerned about the entire debacle with the criminals. He's faced Hell Lords, superhumans, and stood before The Presence. He does _not_ consider this a dangerous place to be and, to be fair, if these guys knew anything about John, they wouldn't be here.

Even moreso if they knew choice things about Meggan.

John doesn't mind the arm around his waist. Cool factor is something you got or don't, it can't be killed. Also, how would having someone that looks like Meggan grip you like that kill the cool factor? If anything, it would make it skyrocket.

He reaches up and grabs Meggan's face, pressing a kiss against her mouth. "Get us out of here, luv. IO've got plans for you before the lil'un wakes."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Oh, if they knew anything about him. She's the cannon.

He's the roach who simply won't die and gives the last finger to reality before the lights go out, having found a way to get to the end. John's the dangerous one, believe it.

The names, the faces, they're committed to memory. Bound to come around soon, such as it is.

For now, they're out into the morning, squinting in the sunshine, and the autumn Tuath looking sharply back over her shoulder. "I'm going to do terrible things to them later. Like make them absolutely /starving/ for hot dogs when there aren't any around. Hot dogs are awful."