7567/It's Not Good, Nettie.

It's Not Good, Nettie.
Date of Scene:	27 August 2021
Location:	2013: Liverpool, England
Synopsis:	Nettie answers a best mate's call. John's not okay when she arrives, he's so far from it. But he will be on the way toward being okay after the witch's visit gives him safe harbor from the storm brewing in his on mind.
Cast of Characters:	John Constantine, Nettie Crowe

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John Constantine has posed:
It's been about a week since Chas picked his best mate up from Ravenscar Secure Hospital. He knew right away that, while things may have been different for John, they weren't *better*. In the beginning he chalked it up to adjusting to the outside after three years on the inside, but then he caught John with a needle in his arm.

He's always liked his drink, but John Constantine never was the sort to turn to hard drugs unless it was bad.

The call came not half an hour later: "Nettie, it's Chas. John's out. He's not good. Something happened in there, he's got scars - inside and out. I don't know what to do, I don't think I can be the friend he needs for this."

But isn't that what a best mate does? They know when they're in over their heads and outsource the problem to someone that can actually help.

Nettie Crowe has posed:
    Nettie had been in school when the call came, taking notes from a professor who very nearly had a perfect Seal of Solomon theory but wasn't... quite... there. The number was familiar, but hadn't dialed her up in a while.

    After she'd heard the voicemail, she simply disappeared from the college. Movement was quick to Liverpool, and when she arrived, her gray hair was short, beneath a watch cap against the chill air. She was accompanied by fog, which hid her landing when the Witch came to call. She was wearing just a slightly out-of-fashion gray jacket with a safety-pin tucked into the lapel, a checked shirt and black skirt when she stepped to the flat door, and simply gave a polite little knock.

John Constantine has posed:
It's Chas that answers the door. "Nettie..." The amount of relief in the man's voice almost comes out in a sob, really, Ravenscar was supposed to *help*. He was supposed to have his old mate back but... "He's in his room, probably a bottle in already." It's only two in the afternoon. "I don't know what to do. Something happened in there and he just keeps saying he's 'fine' and that I need to stop naggin' like I think I'm his mum." He glances over his shoulder toward the closed bedroom door.

"Walls are made of paper in this dump, mate. I CAN HEAR YOU!" Shit, oh well. Guess the Nettie plan's out of the bag? "...and I don't need a bloody mum, I told you I'm *fine*, just havin' a spot a fun after bein' out of it so long! Chas there's just overreactin', Net. Made a trip for nothin'!"

Chas just... looks defeated. His expression is clearly 'see what I mean, *help* him because I can't'.

Nettie Crowe has posed:
    As Nettie stands at the door, her familiar makes himself known, the chubby crow landing on her shoulder with a harsh 'caaw!' of greeting to Chas. She's always accompanied by Corvax.

    "I see," she states quietly, and she walks in, Corvax hopping off her shoulder and landing on the back of a chair.

    "Hullo Chas!" the crow greets amicably. Though at John's call out, he ruffles his feathers. It's clear that however fond Nettie is of John, the hanged man's spirit inside Corvax does not feel the same.

    Nettie, meanwhile, just breezes through, and gives a simple knock on John's door to alert that she was, in fact, coming in, unless she's going to have to disarm some wards. And then she'll come in anyway.

    "Never a trip for nothin' if I'm calling on an old friend!" she cheerily replies, though her voice has just that little bit of an edge to it. Same edge from when John was younger and he was going to try something stupid. Her voice has teeth.

John Constantine has posed:
"I'm just going to... leave you two to it," Chas murmurs before he snatches a light jacket and a hat and heads on out the front door.

No wards to be gotten though, the door isn't even locked. John's sitting on the bed, leaning against the headboard. It's just a twin, cheap, saggy. It was the way of things back then. His clothes are obviously last night's, wrinkled and a few suspicious stains. Even then, he was found of white button downs, but the pants were generally jeans. It would be a year or two more before his misadventures with Nick and Zatanna led him to his beloved trench coat.

His left eye is near black as night, recent that. So is the busted lip. Bar fight, had to be. He's not shirtless, but that white button down is missing a few buttons and the rest of the are undone. Kick to the ribs during that fight's likely responsible for the purple and black other them.

But it's not the recent things that are really disturbing. It's the little circular burn marks near his temples, on his forehead. Healing, maybe a week old, almost gone. His last momento from Ravenscar, barely there but so telling. The rest of it, what's left after the time that's passed, is hidden beneath clothing.

An open bottle of whiskey, cheap rot gut, rests between his legs. A lit Silk dangles from his busted lips. A discarded bra, a high-heeled shoe, evidence of the bird he chased from his bed before dawn, lay in the floor. Otherwise the room's pretty neat and tidy other than the stench of stale smoke and booze.

Nettie Crowe has posed:
    "Right. Walkin' with Chas, Lady!" Corvax states from his perch, and then goes to chase Chas. Mind the minder, she was thinking as she closed the door behind her, and purses her lips. She keeps her gaze on John's body. She looks over him critically, like someone examining a piece of art for cracks, and when she walks forward it's with purpose. She's wearing knee-high combat boots. She's had the same boots since the 80's. They're older than John is, and have been resoled more often.

    She sits to his side, and just very gently reaches up and brushes her fingertips against John's blonde hair, away from the electric burns on his skin, just a simple, affection gesture from the old witch.

    "Got into a bit of a scrap last night?"

John Constantine has posed:
John doesn't even look at her; faded blues just fixed on the wall in front of him. "Sommat like that," he replies before lifting that bottle for a drink. There's not much left of it, hard to say if he's polishing off left overs from last night or if he woke and started a new one.

"He shouldn't have called you. I'm fine. I'm out, it's over. Just catchin' up, s'all. Lost time and all it."

He raises a hand to run back through that spiky blonde hair. Somehow it just winds up looking better. Who needs a comb when fingers through last night's gel works just fine? The gesture causes his sleeve to ride up, revealing the faintest of bruising around his wrist - restraints? Small scars there as well, left behind by the struggles that did more than just bruise.

The most telling there, however, is the one that starts at the base of his wrist and runs up to disappear beneath his sleeve - it's razor thin that, old... few years. Would have ended him, that and the matching one on the other wrist if they hadn't decided that a quick end was too good a one for him.

Drink, drugs, women (...and probably a bloke or two), fights... evidence, just what can be seen, screams that it could be a whole lot worse. What was supposed to have fixed him looks as if it should have broken him to bits and beyond repair. He's still railing against it though, kickin' and screaming against giving up again... like he had just that *one* time apparently.

Nettie Crowe has posed:
    Her gently fingers grasp at John's wrist as he brings the bottle down. The bottle is removed from his hand, and she leans to set it on the floor. Her fingers are cool, purposefully so, like she'd been holding an ice cube against them for a few moments as she looks at the scarring and bruises.
    "Oh, my lil' John-boy..." she whispers gently, her fingers trail down, from his elbow, trailing against the lines of the stories on his skin, and she raises her gaze to him.

    She takes a breath, and lets it out gently.

    "Lost time, or tryin' to find a new shell to protect yourself against the elements?" she asks gently. She runs her fingertips through his hair again, making it stand up in different ways. "I'm glad he did." she states, "I've seen you in a worse way, yes, but not by /much/. Your skin's tellin' me stories that your tongue won't, my boy."

John Constantine has posed:
He doesn't exactly jerk away, but John does pull his arm back so he can pull his sleeve back down. "Wasn't more than I deserved," he murmurs. That's the bitch of it all, innit? The place that was supposed to help him move past Astra, at least a little, did nothing more than drive home his feelings of guilt - punished him for it, reinforced the idea that he was deserving of all that happened to him and so much more.

It might just be that Ravenscar is what laid the groundwork for what he was to become even more so than the event that sent him there to start?

He lets his head drop against the headboard and closes his eyes *tight*. Tight enough that little creases form at the corners of them; things that'll be there more permanently later, but today he's really just barely a man, wrinkle free save for last night's clothing.

Those tightly closed eyes keep threatening tears well at bay. If the first one falls, they may never stop, or so it feels. "So, what've you been up to?" he asks, voice thick with those things he won't let fall. Changing the subject, deflecting, of course that's obvious, innit?

Nettie Crowe has posed:
    "Oh, you know, providin' advice to buddin' young mages. Went to see a band in the States, did a holiday in Germany, anxiously lookin' over my crystal balls every couple of days to make sure I didn't have to rush back." she states gently, and still strokes his hair in affection, and she shifts her weight so that she is leaning against him a little bit, her presence just there.

    "I know, poppet. I know." she whispers gentle-like. She only looked in her early twenties. Anyone else walking in, if they didn't know her, might have thought her the owner of some of the items left on the floor. She kept stroking her fingers through his hair, cool and gentle, the motions of a woman who could have had a thousand identities, but chose caregiver in this moment. "Did it help?"

John Constantine has posed:
"Yeah," it's not so much a lie as it is a sideways truth really. John's no longer catatonic like a zombie waiting to wake up. Now, well, he's just trying to be the zombie and ignore the all those feels that hurt too much.

It finally becomes necessary to pluck the cigarette from his lips and ash it before ashes end up all over the place.

No, it really *is* a lie. It didn't help. Being half out of his head with it, falling into that catatonic state he was in after he got there, that was better. This is Hell.

"Should maybe stayed longer though."

...if only because it was easier to find the pain and punishment he feels he deserves when he was in there. Out here it's bar fights and booze to make himself feel better, to feel like he's paying proper penance for his sins. In there it was just beatings when no one was looking and torture disguised as 'therapy'. He didn't have to work to punish himself.

"It's never going away."

Nettie Crowe has posed:
    "Mm." is Nettie's first response, and as he goes to pluck the cigarette from his mouth, she taps herself down, and makes a face. Always in the other jacket, unless Corvax gets it first.

    "They would have killed you." she points out, no-nonsense. She doesn't have to look at him. She looks to the wall. "They would have killed you because they don't know what we do. An' they wouldn't understand. To them, what you have seen is not Hell, it is fantasy. The product of a sick mind and a sick man, but however bitter their medicine, it was only ever poison." she states, and she reaches to hold his hand, her pale fingers entwining with his.

    "An' no, heart, it's not going to go away. Even if they did kill you."

John Constantine has posed:
"I killed her, that's all they needed to know," John points out in return. "I deserved to die." ...and burn for it. If only he knew how hard he'd fight to stay out of Hell in years to come? "I killed her and sent her Hell." A twisted version, but basically the truth of it. Nergal killed her, he just fucked up enough to allow it to happen.

When that first tear falls, followed by the flood of them after, it's not ugly sobs. It's mostly quiet, with just a few hitching breaths here and there. For a while, they flow unchecked down his scruffy cheeks - all that scruff still a little patchy between youth and the blondness of it. Eventually he raises his right hand to press his index finger and thumb into his closed eyelids like he might damn it up with them, stop the flow.

Nettie Crowe has posed:
    "You made a mistake in casting, in a moment of trial," Nettie corrects, "and you cannot correct it yet." Her voice was even, but she allowed him to cry. She didn't try to shush the tears, or tell him to man up, or own the mistake. He was owning it. He chained it to himself and allowed others to abuse his body for years. She sits on his left, and holds his left hand with her right, stroking her thumb against the back of his hand as she reaches her left hand up to brush her thumb by his cheek, turning to look up at him.

John Constantine has posed:
John cries for a loooong time. It never reaches full out sobbing but there's a lot of sniffling and hitching breaths before it's over. But before it is over, he winds up putting that cigarette out and just curling in against Nettie like a little boy might after waking from a bad dream.

Except he's awake and still in his bad dream and the tears don't stop until he's exhausted himself and cried his fool self right to sleep. Tomorrow he might drink a bottle or two and get in a row at the pub, but he won't turn to needle or a snort. The next day there likely won't be a row and it may only be one bottle.

Healing, such that ever will be with him in this matter, began with the little gray-haired witch that just took the time to make him feel cared for and safe enough to let the walls down just long enough to finally *feel* some of all it and let it out.

...otherwise it might have sat and rotted and festered and taken John Constantine down a much darker path than the one he chose in the end; that of the last line of defense between the stupid mundane and the nightmares that stalk them in the dark. Mankind's trench coat wearing defender from down there, in the trenches.

Nettie Crowe has posed:
    Annette Crowe knows the pain of loss, and that feeling of helplessness that comes with making such a mistake, with such gravity. She continues to stroke John's hair as if he were a wee boy, letting him curl up against her, even letting his head against her lap. She'll sing snippets of half-recalled lulabuys in all the languages and tongues she knows, holding his hand, giving little squeezes of her fingers against his, and when he finally cries himself out, exhausted and worn, she presses a little kiss to his forehead, and traces a circle against the crown of his head. He'll dream of a better bed, a warm body beside him, and the sound of rain against a windowpane, all surrounded by a hand-knit afgan blanket of blues and purples instead of the visions in his head. A dream of rest, and a calming of the voices that howl from his spirit.

    She'll stay until Chas and Corvax return, and share a simple meal with Chas, but she'll be long gone by the time John wakes up. Physically, at least.

    After all, who else will protect the protector?