7130/Thanks, Chas, We Needed That

Thanks, Chas, We Needed That
Date of Scene:	29 July 2021
Location:	Lighthouse Keeper's Cottage, The Laughing Magician Pub
Synopsis:	Temporarily healed of a curse, John jumps from frying pan into the fire.
Cast of Characters:	John Constantine, Meggan Puceanu, Morrigan MacIntyre

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John Constantine has posed:
    He's still sleeping the sleep of the dead; dreamless and peaceful, rather than the sleep of the damned when his cell phone, a thing spelled to always be safe within arm's reach - peals out the them to Taxi Driver.

    John answers on the second ring, heart thudding simply from that moment of being jolted awake from a death sleep.

    "Better be good, Chas," he mumbles.

    "... you're not gonna like this, John."

    Bloody hell, it's probably coming for them again, that is, bloody hell. But at least they'll wade through it's red depths together?

    If Meggan isn't awake already, he nudges her thus before he puts the phone on speaker. "Do I ever mate, what's about then?" John prompts.

    "Well, you remember those rumors about vampire activity in Brooklyn." - Wow, that has all the makings of a pretty horrid movie, dunnit? Wait, they did that one already.

    "Yes, Chas."

    "Remember how you spelled that map to continuously check for it?" Chas asks.

    "Yes Chas," Impatient, of course he remembers, he spelled it!

    Really, a man can't be best mates with the likes of that rotten bastard John Constantine without taking every opportunity to get under the man's skin.

    "Well remember how you told me to call..." It's intentional, it really is and it works. John's reaction probably has Chas sniggering silently, in fact, it certainly does.

    "YES CHAS! WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS IT ALREADY?!"

    "Well..." Long pause, Chas is a rat bastard innit he? "... it hit on something, but... there's a lot more power there than just a nest of blood suckers, mate."

    "We'll be there in... hour tops, at the bar," John grumbles before flashing a middle finger at the phone hand hanging up.

    "Well, luv, gonna be a day or... night it seems."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Chas picks his moments. When it actually coincides with the sigh of the sea rippling around the breakwater, the phone sounds more like a gurgle. Meggan does not pay it any heed whatsoever. So much for the +2 bonus to hearing from pointed elven ears. Legolas would be positively ashamed.

John bolt upright and worrying is one thing. She is currently facedown in a pillow, clearly suffocated to death, a smile on her face.

At least it was a good death.

No one is at immediate risk of changeling-inspired murder when the evil prognosis for present tides reaches them, a marine report no one asked for, Chas.

"You know he lives for this, mm?" Okay, reincarnation is a resoundingly fast process in the presence of forgiving waves. "Was going to suggest a full English breakfast, but no." Still facedown in feathery contentment, her blonde hair a frightfully soft tangle, she basically groans in mock annoyance. "Bet he positively scours the Internet and calls round to find something askew for you. Man's a right Watson and Guy Friday. What've you done to break him?"

Of course it's John's fault. Charles did not come that way into the world, couldn't have.

His shout really does haul her from sleep, and she blindly lifts her hand. He might get a hushing finger pressed to his lips, or she might jab him in the bicep. Hence being blind.

"Need white phosphorus?" Cause that's just lying around, is it? Well... actually...

John Constantine has posed:
    "Killed his mum's sodden, rotten monkey, I suppose," and by proxy Chas's ugly, vile excuse for a mother. He rolls over his lanky arse out of bed with a groan of a sound. Battered and beaten, at least physically. Those denim blues are clear though, widows to a soul a man's eyes, or so they say. John's soul will never be 'clear', but some of the soot and black can be pushed away for a day or two, maybe three.

    An immediate, but not so horrible as to buckle him, coughing fit reminds of the other order of business they need to deal with. He recovers at a nice shade of red rather than purple with neck veins popping. "Likely so, luv," in regards to the phosphorus.

    Getting dressed, especially when Hell's calling again in some fashion or another, is like a ritual for John from those same pants to the ending with that battered, beloved trench coat. May just be the only reason he's not softened to pull Nick from hell is his love of that coat; man might try to re-stake a claim.

    "Bar by way of House?" Because he ain't flyin', Meg. Of course the words come as easily as anyone else might ask, 'bar by way of the I-90' or some such.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
"What has a monkey to do with it? Is it a cursed paw?" Sorry, the reference does not compute even though it probably ought to. She's much too content to stay put and imagine the joys of a good omelette, save that John insists on awakening and then trodding off into the great wide world unescorted by anyone save a soot-stained cabbie.

The coughing turning him all the wrong colours gets a decided look. Turhing a horrid shade of puce or tomato still warrants a minor catastrophe. Unfortunately, the bout passes by the time she sits up and he's off to raid the various furniture that supplement a closet barely deep enough to stash two skeletons in.

"I'll bring along the particulars," she notes, for reclaiming standard issue summertime fare is just smart. T-shirt, jeans over a pair of capris or a skirt. Vampires and all. "Aside from stakes and the water that Father Marciano keeps blessing for me, is there anything else?" Boots, those are smart. "You know, we could always ask Blade's thoughts on this one. He keeps such nice white phosphorus rounds."

And sunshine! He earns a pass in her books, but then she's as far from undead as one can get. Off to the races, then. "To the House, though you'll note it's still faster for me to skim you over the waves there than wait for the bus?"

John Constantine has posed:
    ...and so it goes, point A to B is reached via a quick jump to that wretched House and then to the bar's back room. "Nothin' off the top, but I dunno what else we're dealing with yet," delayed, in response to Meg's question. This time, the House is kind and lets him step out of the portal on his two feet.

    He reaches into his pocket from the blue and pulls out a piece of paper that looks suspiciously like the one he burned just what... not even hours enough to go to count?

    "Morrigan McIntyre? Why do I know that name?"

    It could be coincidence that he's speaking her name as she may be arriving on her own? Likely not though, like that old Bitch Synchronicity at work, tilting things in his favor, what with a nest and a 'something more powerful' as yet to be determined on the horizon.

    "Chas!" he calls out as he steps into the bar proper... but the pour me a drink isn't needed. There's already one there, in front of his stool, the vile one no one else will sit upon.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The bar in Hell's Kitchen is depressingly dark compared to the sunshine outside. Meggan is something of a heliophile, and she flits over to the doorway to break a seal on the hermetic nightfall and absorb some of those rays. Truly, she's the antivampire in the equation.

A girl needs her vitamin D and the basking need not take overly long to prove satisfactory. Her green eyes practically close, leaving the usual suspects to mill around or take wagers on how long until John blows something up or someone blows him up. 6-2 odds that they happen simultaneously, per the chap in the green shirt in the corner.

No concern of a uni student lounging by the doorway, not at all. Hell's Kitchen follows its own rules and only cares when someone thinks it should care. It's not the natural form of sunbathing as far as summertime events go.

"Suppose we'll find out," she says cheerfully. "That taco truck is back! Oh good. I've an idea for lunch. After all this is wrapped up with a bow on it, mind."

Morrigan MacIntyre has posed:
No, Morrigan doesn't appear when John mentioned her. But the red head does wander in probably ten minutes later, looking like she was in the middle of something. She's careful not to bump Meggan by the door and for the most part she's defended against the sun in her sunglasses, suit coat and jeans. She gives a dip of her head to the sun soaking one. Then she's heading off towards the bar, "Someone said you needed something, Constantine?" the Irish woman asks with a bit of an eyebrow quirk.

John Constantine has posed:
    en minutes is a lot of time. ... enough to be on double down into that scotch and sipping on the second. Smoke from a lit Silk in the ashtray wafts as always.

    John's attention turns to Morrigan when she approaches. "Well, what's that about, luv?" he asks, knowing full well like than not what it's about. But he's paranoid, just a little, of course they really ARE out to get him so... some slack's to be cut, innit?

    He really just wants to know that she knows what she needs to know about why she's here before he tells her what she needs to know so he's not giving information to the wrong person by mistake - convoluted mess his line of thought?

    The Fates don't think John has time for such games.

    It doubles him over quick, in a blink, he almost falls from the bar stool. It's enough to get Chas vaulting over the bar from his spot polishing glasses behind it and calling, "Meg!" ... as if the fae disguised as a proper uni-student likely won't be already there or on her way at the first of it. It *sounds* like John's trying to bring the devil, the kitchen sink and his lungs up from his chest when the coughing starts. Red to purple to the ghostly pale of 'not enough oxygen' happens rapid fire, one to the next.

    There, laugh the Fates, now she knows why that fluffy mutt of hers left her a message.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Ten minutes of sunbathing counts as a lifetime of brooding over a drink, doesn't it? By the time the redhead makes her timely arrival, Meggan may have come up with an order for that taco truck and marked every person in a block radius also focused on taco trucks. That yellow explosive burst of interest that permeates people's general feelings can be attributed to fresh corn tortillas.

She breaks into a smile for the passing woman, that trickle of interest a bit like a lighthouse beam going in the opposite direction the main lenses direct one powerful ray into the night. Fingers wiggle a wave to Morrigan.

Until that hacking begins and she turns on a dime, a spritely walk covering a good deal more distance than it rightly should. If only Merrell made seven-league boots. Those flimsy sandals barely slap the ground at all.

"This is the problem," she explains with none of John's uninhibited playing of games. His accent is several degrees south and rougher than hers, though categorically separated by all of 76 miles, betrayed as English watered through a Gaelic lens. "He's been caught unawares by it several times. No evident trigger, not only the cigarettes. Obvs smoking like a chimney does no lungs good. When it goes pear-shaped."

A look going from Morrigan goes to Chas, reproachful in a gentle way. "No need to shout, you've practically blown the roof off the place. Agitating more won't help." Because this is calm? No, it is not calm, but the empathic waves knocking over a fortress made of sand need to hold out just a little.

Morrigan MacIntyre has posed:
Morrigan gives a bit of a 'really' loft of her eyebrows, "Someone said a healer was needed." she states. Then he's coughing and doubling over and Morrigan winces at that. There's a sniff of the air and a frown, "You're couging up blood, Constantine." she tells him. Then she reaches out to see what exactly is wrong. She closes her eyes and does the magical look over of things. She doesn't touch John, because she doesn't want to lose a hand really.

"You're in bad shape." she states a bit with the obvious. Her fingers twitch a little, smelling the little whiff of sulfur on the air. "He's been cursed." she tells Meggan and him. "And from the smell and the level I'm guessing you pissed off the wrong demon. I can hold off things for a bit, but I cannot cure you." she frowns to that as she opens her eyes.

She looks from Constantine to Meggan, "There's got to be a way to cure things, though. I don't feel it being a lifelong curse. It doesn't have the weight to it." she admits. That's good news, right?!

John Constantine has posed:
    Sorry Meg, Chas doesn't panic easily but this? "John!" He's right there, so reaching out to steady his friend when John's fit continues in starts and stops, second of reprieve for some air and back at it again with the battle. "Then do it!" the best cabbie, and best friend, in the damned ... well, from Heaven to Hell actually, bellows at Morrigan. He'll feel bad in a second, he really will. "Meg..." Do something, someone do something!

    Morrigan spells out the truth of it, even as John's fight to suck in air continues. When he manages to look up, first toward Meg and then at Chas, his lips are stained red, there's little spatters of the same, red, on his white shirt.

    Finally those denim blues of his, wide and frantic, find Morrigan and all he can do is nod, a bobbling little motion as frantic as the look in his eyes. 'Help me'.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Balance of being fae -- technically their bigger, scarier sister. So in Meg's case, at least with a balance enough to count. Curses and oaths are their stock in trade, though of a slightly different ilk from their infernal counterparts. Gives some weight to the whole story about the fae originating from the angels who took no side in the First War.

Dark golden lashes slant low in a blunt affirmation of her thoughts shifting elsewhere. "A demon," she repeats what Morrigan's told her. "Not a spirit, cultist, or something other than that. Infernal lines running through there, not sommat else?" Trust the woman who just filtered through the muck to find something other than dross, really.

John's panic is eating away at her eroded calm, though she puts a finger to her brow and holds. Not a pinch, just pressure. "Chas, mate, you need to reel it in before you crash the stock market," she jests, though her eyes carry a certain sharpening quality, a sheet of vibrant green. "No one wants that, might have some rich bloke banging around complaining. So it's a curse. Conditions must apply. Either fulfill them, substantiate them, break them? I know bargains, and I know curses can be lifted by their makers. Twisting them, that might be tough."

Morrigan MacIntyre has posed:
Morrigan gives a look to Chas and hisses at him baring her fangs when she does. Then she smiles and turns back to Meggan and John, "I'm not going to hurt him. You have my word on that." she tells Meggan. More because she knows how the woman feels a bit. But when the guy she likes gets busted up she can't really get all panicky and let him know it.

Then she reaches out and settles her hands on John's shoulders and takes a deep breath of her own before she bows her head and lets that flowing violet energy start to trickle out of her hands and it seeps into John's form.

"It might take a few seconds to get going. I'm sorry for any discomfort." she tells those gathered. "Do you know what might have cursed him, Meggan?" she asks her.

John Constantine has posed:
    Dawning that should have happened days ago if not for sheer willful ignorance blooms. Maybe it's the clear head he woke with this morning that allows him to click the pieces together of what should have been obvious but wasn't through the muddled mess he's been lately.

    When he can finally take a breath to spit out words, the first ... did anyone have any doubts on it? "Bollocks." Fifty fifty crap shoot that, could just as easily been Bloody Hell. "Astaroth," is the next he spits out. Has to be, just has to be. But... why?

    ... Chas goes from frantic panic to 'what the fuck, John'? anger in just about two point two. "The bloody hell you goin' on about? Astaroth?" A raised eyebrow in question to Meg. "You know about that? Or is he stupid enough to deal with a crowned Prince," albeit one of the slightly lesser of the bunch according to most recordings. "... alone?"

    There are *rules* John, it's why the system works and everyone stays alive, innit?

    Hands thrown in defeat, anger... in the air, not a fist thrown at John's face, might be a blessing that, and Chas stalks to the other end of the bar to polish glasses. Either Meg knew and no one told him or Meg didn't know and that's just as bad; worse even. Either way, glasses is his job at the moment, keeps fists from flying.

    ...back to John, color returning and wiping blood from his lips on a napkin from the bar. "Well, I owe ya, luv," he says to Morrigan. He probably pay the debt when called on to, she seems a nice sort, not one he'd stiff.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
"I've begun to think we need to keep a calendar for all those brushes." Meggan's quite serious about the fact for all that John probably might grow nauseous at the thought. CHas' punishment for stirring up trouble resolves itself. He's the cabbie, taking tolls and locations sort of fits his bill. "We can get a start on that. Would you go back through your phone records, GPS? That's something."

Asking someone with a peculiar temporal relationship to recall the calendar means snagging a pen and paper, or a napkin. Her messenger bag coughs up the necessary supplies, and she dances backward to a stool that ends up being there mostly for show once she gets her legs crossed.

"Astaroth the *great duke*?" Yes, she knows her daemonology. "Or this one of those fiddly situations where a name applies to the lesser one and not the greater one cause a scholar transposed a vowel?"

The odd frisson of neutrality locks into place, her head tilted to the side. "At least it's not the bitchy red one." That one has a name, and the vibrations in the floor and rolling out into Manhattan's bedrock murmur their thrilling dislike of said unnamed infernal exarch.

Chas' questions do not get answered. Certain things have to stay behind a unified front, until the explosions can happen with closed doors in the way. She tries. She really does try. "What did you twist?"

Morrigan MacIntyre has posed:
Morrigan's hands move from John once she's done what she can do. She steps back to give a conversational distance between folks. The smell of blood is stuck in her nose and it doesn't help. She looks to Chas who is doing the dance of anger and not punching his friend. "Well, that is all I can do for the moment. Though I can see about synthesizing something that might ease symptoms if they come back." she offers to them.

Then she's looking between the three others and there's a soft shake of her head, "If you need help with...the Great Duke I can try. Though for the moment I have to get back to some things. I apologize for popping in and out, but...hospitals, kids, they can't be left unattended for too long. Much like your Constantine." she smiles to that.

She puts her card on the counter and then turns to head out, "Just stay alive, John. That'll be payment enough." she chuckles to that.

John Constantine has posed:
    Chas, he stays down there, muttering curses under his breath that might be on par with whatever Astaroth's done to John if the man had any power to put behind them.

    John watches until Morrigan's out the door and then turns denim blues to Meggan.

    "I had the book, I needed answers and he's known for givin' them in some circles." It's not much of an explanation that. If John Constantine had the right spell, the right instructions... even the Duke shouldn't have bested him, right?

    "...he showed with Astra," barely a whisper. "It was just a second, not even, the circle failed, lost my will. Bloody bastard breathed on me. Right stink that, makes brimstone smell like roses."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Explanation given and not sufficient, but enough. Meggan stops bothering to write down names, since they will not be required. Page and paper set to the side, she slips the pair of objects back into her bag.

His ice-fair eyes meet hers, green and perfectly calm. "He attacked you and continues to." A quirk of her mouth curves the fullness of that unhappiness. This is what you signed up for, Meggan Puceanu, stop being so horrified on behalf of others. But that's like telling John to quit smoking.

"So vampires. A curse that's, what, making your life dwindle bit by bit. I *know* we don't simply stride into Mordor..."

Her fingers curl to him, calling, gentle. "But dropping the bloody island on Sauron's head, maybe not the best way to go about this?" Pity future generations of Constantines, truly.

John Constantine has posed:
    Even Chas softens at the mention of Astra, but he still has his piece to say on the matter. "Well, maybe, John... if you had friends at your back durin' that summonin', will wouldn't been so easily stolen." Wise cabbie, that one. "I'm meetin' with a couple about a haunting in Westchester. This vampire thing starts looking too big, *call me*." A pointed look is tossed Megward, 'make sure of it, that he *calls me*. Then the best mate and cabbie ever, heads for the back, as in the storage back, not the board room back, to deal with inventory. "Map's on the table, shite you need to try'n take a closer look before you head out's set up!"

    If John's the brains of the two, Chas is surely the heart. Without one, there can't be the other. It's as true, if different, as it is with Meg.

    He slides off his stool to head to the back, but not before he takes a moment to pull Meggan in for a kiss with a bit of demon tainted blood still staining his lips. It's quick, nothing to get motors running and he whispers in her ear after, "Because we all know how that ends, luv."

    John pulls back to look her in the eye when he adds, "We walk in, kick arse, take names and Sauron marks my soul. Wouldn't work, thrice damned has a better ring, better ta stick with just the three."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
If John doesn't want to call them, what are they really to do? Chase him down and in the process, destroy half the city? Who's he gonna call, Ghostbusters afterward?

Best mate is the best mate for a reason. The girl in a string of short-lived relationships knows better than to raise a condemning eyebrow, to speak in grumpy terms. Besides, that would hardly be very fun at all. Life is meant to be lived.

The heart Chas may be, John the brains of the operation, and Meg? Is she the soul? Does she get to *have* a soul for the three of them? Maybe she's the positive balance for him.

No reason to blush but she does even as he gives her a kiss, and some people may surely be repelled by his blood smeared over her lips. Their lips together, really. Ought to be vile but if his cigarette smoke hasn't chased her off, nothing will.

Her hand sculpts his shoulder to his elbow, a passing caress. "You keep marking up that soul, I'm going to have grow you a new one. Won't work nicely to call you John the Thrice-Damned."