15151/At the Corner of Bad and Worse

At the Corner of Bad and Worse
Date of Scene:	15 June 2023
Location:	Chelsea
Synopsis:	It's another thing.
Cast of Characters:	Meggan Puceanu, John Constantine

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Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Hudson Boulevard and West 33rd Street gets more than the usual traffic with NYDOT shutting down two lanes on 10th Avenue and 11th Avenue, one apiece, to smother traffic and presumably handle road repairs due to the potholes from winter weather. That, and some pipe repairs, generally makes for a total bit of traffic hell in Chelsea.

Drivers forced onto the shorter road slither through Hudson Yards, the upscale site of a subway station, plenty of public art, and high glass towers.

Too many pedestrians trudge up and down, awash in a pile of unwelcome diesel fumes. It's hot and ugly.

A hot dog vendor looks over yet another EMT team leaving from the curb. Down the block a bit, white boards enclosing a pit for yet more development prominently shrills, "when s*** from the past comes and spooks you, tell it to politely f***" and the missing 'off' is most under red 'no standing anytime' sign, temporary and crooked, slapped up there. Several people lounge.

Why? In the shattered glass of a taillight and fumes of the departing ambulance, not more than fifteen minutes later...

A bike courier wipes out, thrown through the air in front of the sign on West 33rd. He bounces, cursing, spilling a variety of metal carafes filled by iced coffees, expensive espresso shots, and several swanky pastries over the curb.

John Constantine has posed:
"D'you ever wonder if the Fates or Furies or Destiny'r whatever as just plain fuckin' cunts? Why else would we get here just in time to see the poor sod wipeout and not soon enough to actually do anything to help him?" John takes a drag of his cigarette, glancing over at Meggan with a raised brow, and then he flicks the cig away, crossing the street towards the cyclist. His hands are heavy when they land on the kid's shoulders, but he lifts him up more or less carefully, looking at him. "You all right, mate? Got a skinned knee and elbow, couple bruises. You're gonna ache for a while." All the while, looking around as if to ask _why the fuck are we here?_

This is the problem with letting his synchronicity take the wheel entirely: unpredictability.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
"The Fates might, the Furies got civilised back when they got laws in Athens." Meggan seems proud she knows that. "I watched a film on the telly and they got all nice because Athena makes them go to court, and she presides or something. It's a right bit of shite, if you ask me, but I'm not the one with the scales and a blindfold for whatever weird games barristers get up to. You know they're a weird lot, they wear wigs and great fancy robes all day! Who does that?" Wizards, that's who but don't let Doctor Strange hear that.

She would loiter if she could, trying to remember to walk instead of float across the street because the floaty bit tends to alarm folks. They mean well. "Ooh, he's down for the count. Careful, that lot are annoyed," she warns John. Her battered backpack carries her school books. Uni ones, it's that time of semester end to return the old and wait on the autumn syllabi. "Gods, you're beautiful when you errantly help people."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The kid who took a spill isn't -- he's more like 35, lean and skinny, and has an impressive beard now matted with croissant bits and the detritus of the last accident earlier int he morning. Which is to say basically soon. His bike, a Cannondale, is worth enough even in parts for people to eye appreciatively, and the road rash on his knees and forearms looks a little savage for the food vendor. Hot dog man shouts, "Eh! That's a shitty intersection, you gotta watch!" One of his customers rubbernecking at the accident and John's help manages to trip, spilling relish down his shirt and sending the nicely boiled dog bouncing off the grey concrete. "Aw, man! Fuck you, God!"

The mutter from the fallen dude for getting help is more like 'Fuck that' instead of 'Fuck god' or 'Fuck me' but there's plenty of fuckity fuck mentioned when he sees his bike.

John Constantine has posed:
"Don't call me beautiful when you're doin' your co-ed thing, luv, we'll never get anything done." John pats the cyclist on the shoulder and picks up the bike. "You're shite outta luck for the pastries and coffee, m'afraid, mate." He watches the hot dog bounce around and all the 'fucks' being thrown and then smiles at Meggan. "Maybe we just got dropped here fer the symphony a' fucks, what d'you think, ducky?"

He raises a brow at her, then shrugs. "Yeah, didn't think so."

He takes in what the hot dog vendor says, about the shitty intersection, and he pats himself down, lighting another cigarette and walking back to his wife.

"I'm thinking there's something shifty here. You wanna gimme a little fae scan, make sure it isn't anything Fair Folksy? If it is, I wanna be ready for it." Those fucking elves and their fucking word-traps.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
"Fine, handsome in that windblown, weathered way." See, Meggan can shift with the wind and suit the purposes well enough. It's unkind to be flattering the warlock while he's in the coffee-washed gutter pulling up a courier, but the cyclist looks to be mostly intact except for the bloody scrapes and welts. He manages to get to his feet with assistance. "That's $50 outta... they're gonna kill me." His phone beeps a low, mournful noise. Heading over to the bike shows that he lost most of his load on the curb, meaning he has to twist it out of the way and lift the frame up, checking for scratches and damage to the forks. "Gonna cost me an arm and a leg." Under the brownish puddles on the sidewalk, a few bright red scratches of paint are left behind. Petty losses, but he cringes.

John might struggle not to twist his own shoe on the uneven ground splashed by coffee, iced coffee, cubes, and other detritus. Broken glass sparkles and threatens to rupture his footing. Nothing out of the ordinary, and he risks being sideswiped by a bus pulling up through the heaving mass of annoyed drivers.

Meggan throws out her hand, mostly to steady him, though someone shoving past knocks her forward into the warlock from behind. "Oof, sorry. Nn, one of us? I'm not feeling badly round here, and I should be bait for it, if not you--" His net of synchronicity is what it is, as the doors to the bus peel open. Four or five people push off, and whoops! There goes someone spilling their Stark Phone onto the ground, bouncing screen down with an almighty crack.

"We've all been there," she sighs.

John Constantine has posed:
"Beats being pancake, mate," John points out to the cyclist, before the entire intersection goes _batshit_ with bad luck. He dodges, ducks, gets steadied by Meggan, and then the Stark phone hits the muddy water, and John _freezes_. He doesn't move a _muscle_. "Stop," he tells Meggan, slowly reaching for her wrist. "Back up. Slowly. Carefully." He starts to move onto the curb and away from the intersection. "It might not be Fae, but it's _something_. Bad luck? Cursed ground? Haunting?"

John takes a long drag of his cigarette and then drops it on the asphalt, crushing it with his heel. He brings his hands together and ebdsn his fingers in a particular way. "Grossman stole this one from me," he confides in his wife, before pulling his hands apart and creating a little window square with his index fingers and thumbs, so he can see leylines and other magical affectations of the area. "Where aaaaaaare youuuuuuu..?"

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The white zebra stripes of the intersection mark where pedestrians can cross Hudson Boulevard and be reminded that their past shit doesn't have to influence their future health. Mental health hurray! The sea of glass towers and a couple older relics from Chelsea's days as a cheaper part of NYC stick out. There's a low white brick building next to a bodega, or what was once a bodega and features an insurance company's logo kind of prominently in the window. Dude must be making bank except it's all the wrong kind of insurance. Casualty? Nope! Car.

That said, Meggan floats to a halt where squished up against John's back. Her hair falls over his shoulder given the proximity and it's a rare day she bothers to be taller than him -- call it a preference -- but responding to a threat is not unknown to turn her Amazonian in height. Not like her true form is actually closer to that than diminutive. "Backing up then. Just like..."

Crunch. Her heel comes down on the StarkPhone, and the bus rider now on the ground throws his hands up in the air, shouting loudly in Spanish about graceless elephants and other unkind references. Cue jumping up a bit.

The little square finder doesn't show the leylines marked up, but it sure shows he's standing in a large roughly rectangular crater full of smoking ashes, spilled coffee, and a set of cracks superimposed into a big, wide grin. Or a maw. It's the same thing, and it's happy!

John Constantine has posed:
"... what the fuck are _you_?" John blinks as he watches the maw smile through the finger-window, his eyes squinting. "Oh. Hrm." He frowns. "Oh, shite. Ohhhh, shite. Meggan, darling, we need to clear this entire intersection, maybe the street -- oh, shite." He glances at his blonde partner, looking annoyed. "And check your phone, se eif you still have Danny's number." He looks back through his finger-window at the smiling street. "I think we have a genius locus on our 'ands."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The grin continues to grin, speckled in trash and various detritus cast off by the people trudging unaware that they're walking on a face. A cursed sidewalk face. If there are eyes, which of the small pits in the old concrete slabs count? Are the curbs eyebrows or sideburns? It's not TOO much of a face, mostly just a vague alignment that suggests a big hungry mouth. Nomnom. It just yawns open, filter-feeding on whatever feet wander by.

There aren't any particular *teeth* in the maw, the better to let everything just tumble in. Noooooooooom-noooooooooom.

Meggan can't really see what he sees, not without actively peering over his shoulder and he told her to stay still. The bus dude has his phone and is gesticulating angrily in her direction, and washed in pedestrians coming too and fro. His bus draws away, headed elsewhere at 2 km/h. She glances back over her shoulder. "Danny? 'ite Rand, or the ghosty spooky one that knows Robbie?" Look, Danny is pretty common overall. Still, though, his warning is enough for her to scrunch up her face. "How fast you need me to get 'em to move?"

John Constantine has posed:
"No, luv," John shakes his head a bit. "Not those. Look under 'Street'," John says as he starts to weave a spell _around_ the giant grinning mouth in the street, one that will push people away, nudge their subconscious to stay away from this spot, this place, this weird and consumptive intersection that seems to be leeching their fortunes. "If this is what I think it is, I need to consult someone's got the right perspective. I need Danny the _Street_."