7613/It's Okay to Puke.

It's Okay to Puke.
Date of Scene:	30 August 2021
Location:	Back Room - The Laughing Magician
Synopsis:	John manages to pull Phoebe out of the Underworld. She pukes a little and gets herself grounded for the first time by Chas. Not a good day to be a Beacon of Hope.
Cast of Characters:	John Constantine, Phoebe Beacon

---

John Constantine has posed:
    To say that John was a little on the crazed and manic side when he suddenly found himself tossed from the Underworld into Hell's Kitchen would be a severe understatement. When he busted through the doors to the Laughing Magician, the first thing he did was throw everyone out but Chas. Get out, get out now! No explanation, but with enough batshit crazy happening that every patron in the place got up and left without question and in a hurry.

    Then the frantic gathering of all the things he'd need began. It resulted in trips from the backroom to the House of Mystery and back again more than once.

    ...with Chas tailing him the whole time with questions like, "John, are you good? What happened? Are you okay? Talk to me, John!"

    "I'm not leaving her there. I won't..." was about all the reply the poor cabbie got, muttered and insistent in that insane way.

    So, Chas backed off and shot of a text, <Nettie, he's back, 911 it's bad, be on standby, I'll let you know when it's clear, don't come yet.>

    So, necessities gathered, circle drawn on the floor, a little bit of Phoebe's blood and a sketch of the white tattoo on Phoebe's left wrist, John kneels outside the circle as Chas watches on.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    It couldn't have been more than a few minutes. Phoebe had never felt someone else pull on her. Her hands were still pressed against her side, insisting she was fine. Was she insisting, or just thinking it. Her hair was broken up, bits and pieces left along the shattered glass as blood rushed in her ears, collapsing backwards. It was the most damage she had ever taken at once. She had seen the flash of Hellfire, magic slung with rage. Shattered glass. And when he had knelt next to her she wanted to say that she'd be all right -- but that'd be a lie. The pressure was incredible, like someone was forcing the air from her lungs. The familiar weight of the armor wasn't offering any comfort, and when her head leaned back, her eyes closing, she just felt so tired, and sick.

    Her stomach contracted. THere was suden pain and an icy-hot burning on her left wrist, as if evey vein was on fire and every nerve was freezing at the same time as she wearily struggled, in mistake thinking that something else was attacking her, in panic she curled up tighter, arms curling around herself.

    He wasn't going to leave the Glowworm behind, and she was too weak to fight.

    Blood calls to blood. The white circle on Phoebe's left wrist returns, pulling painfully through a thinning bit of existence, wrecked from the wars and battles where crows don't fly.

    Maybe she spoke, or screamed, or whispered, but John would hear her voice: "I'm not ready to die!"

John Constantine has posed:
    John settles into chanting, eyes closed, language Enochian. He's pulling out all the stops. Even if he brings the entire bar down around him, he's not leaving Phoebe there. He won't. He can't. She can't die because of him like...

    Stop it John, don't go there, don't picture their faces through a bus window.

    Chas watches, confused and anxious but afraid to say anything that might interrupt whatever this is; it's never really safe to interrupt whatever this is with John.

    The center of the circle begins to swirl into a gray, misty fog too thick to see there. Sweat beads on his forehead, brow all creased in concentration. Where is she... show me... show me...

    The fog never clears, it's only in his mind's eye that he sees the girl. It might be more than a little shocking for Phoebe when he actually reaches into that fog, snatches her up by the back of her collar like a damned kitten and yanks her through like she weighs *nothing*.

    The moment he has her through, the swirling mess of eerie fog turns instantly back to solid floor and a circle drawn. John falls back on his ass from the effort of it, shaking and reaching up to pluck that last Silk cut from behind his ear where he'd stuck it and light up.

    Chas' reaction is a little less subdued. "What the *fuck*, John?!"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    He could see her, curled up in a minor sense of agony and panic, the armor on her right side mangled, blood staining the matte gray of the kevlar weave. She gives a surprised and strangled sounding "AEK!!" sound as she's pulled through the circle, her eyes going wide before she's sprawled out on the floor of the Laughing Magician's back room. She lands hard, with a THUD on her armored butt, the sudden pressure change making her ears, lungs, spine, and she's pretty sure her ears and ankles pop in protest. Her hood was down now, showing the now uneven poofs of her hair, brittle waves and kinks broken. Her right side shows where the armor is bent in, scratching in irritation against skin that is only mostly healed. Smoke pellets and flashbangs are rustled out of the open pack, in preparation for a fight -- but she registers her surroundings.

    She'd been here once before. Also after being dead for a little bit. It was a weird Tuesday. But now, Phoebe Beacon, the young woman who'd been crashing in Chas's apartment, was laying on her back with armor that was fitted a little too well to her form to be generic.

    "... Chas?" she asks, and then she tilts her head further to the side and sees John, and as the wave of relief washes over her, unfortunate so does the worst feeling of a hangover, motion sickness and nausea. Her eyes go wide, and her stomach heaves before she can get John's name out.

John Constantine has posed:
    "It's okay to puke," John comments, tone flat. "Nothin' wrong with a good pukin'." Still flat, maybe even a little cold. Now that she's here and it's over, he pushes himself slowly to his feet and starts toward the door without another word. He doesn't open the portal to the House, so it's hard to say where he's going really.

    "John?" Chas questions, carefully before raising his voice a little and repeating, "John?!"

    John keeps walking so Phoebe gets the full brunt of his confusion and irritation with a barked, "What did you do, kid?" His unhappy face is a whole lot harder to look at than John's. He looks more like a disappointed father than an angry asshole, that's probably why.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "... something really, really stupid." Phoebe comments, and she closes her eyes to stop the room from spinning. "Left my friend's karaoke party and my elderly dog, put on work clothes, broke into the Met, followed a couple of screaming shades into the Darkness, performed a fudged Rite of the Trecherous Heart, gave up a Hope for a fare, found John in a glass pyramid and then got wrecked by a wraith with knife hands as he dug into my lungs from under my armpit." she states. "How are you?"

John Constantine has posed:
    "S'what happens when you try to play with the big boys as a little girl," John calls back over his shoulder and then he's gone to God knows where. Maybe he just went for his stool out front.

    "Yeah, that was pretty stupid," Chas agrees readily. He squats down nearby and asks, "Do you need... medical attention?" Part of him just wants to hug her, but another part is about as pissed as John likely is at the moment. "What were you thinking, Phoebe? Could have been the death of you both..." Disappointed Dad voice there for sure. "You can't play around with this shite, fuck, it's kicking *John's* arse and he knows what he's doing."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe stays laying on the floor. The armor felt surprisingly heavy. Maybe it was the weight of dissapointment. The floor is nice. It's safe.

    "If I'd been there, maybe he would have... maybe I could have--" she trails off, and she breathes out.

    "I wasn't playing around. I /don't/ play around," she shakes. "I have been asked to heal by the Titans. I've been to the Justice League to heal people. I don't.. it's not..." she begins to cry then, finally the gates breaking loose. "This is my life too. This is what I am. I run to danger because it's my job. Because if I don't someone else will, and they /will/ die and I can't. I'm expected to do this, aren't I, forever? I gave up my mom for this, my senior year of highschool so that I could be /available/ if they needed me and now I find someone who's broken like I am."

John Constantine has posed:
    "No, you couldn't have..." Chas isn't one hundred percent sure of that, but he's ninety-nine point nine. "Not much stands in the way of John when he's minds put to something, kid."

    Once squatting makes his knees ache, he stands and offers a big hand up. He's still pissed, disappointed, that expression's still there. But there's puke on the floor and it stinks. He's not going to leave her in it. "Get up." It's not a request.

    "And no, you're not expected to do this forever, but if you feel you must, don't run after John, Phoebe. You'll get caught up in it, pulled under by it and it'll be the end of him or it'll at least snap another piece of him in two."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    There is grossness, but at least it's to the side. She's not going to lay in it, that would be just too sad.

    She reaches one hand up, and then realizes it's covered in blood, and reaches the other hand up before she just looks up at the sky in a way only frustraited teenage girls can (good practice for your weekends, Chas), and she takes off her glove. Her hands are still bruised.

    "No. I couldn't have. Just would have solved my own stupid guilt." she mutters, and she grasps Chas's hand. It tingles.

    ".. I'll just.. clean myself up and go. They're going to want the armor back, and my bike's parked at the Met." she frowns, and draws shakily up to her feet.

    And then she looks up to Chas, looking to his expression, and then drops her gaze. "... I can come by and take my stuff out of the room and put it in storage again."

John Constantine has posed:
    "Wait, what? No one's telling you to get your shite and leave, kid. I'm pissed, I'm not kicking you out. What you did was foolish, dangerous and stupid. You know next to *nothing* about this world yet and you've probably just set John's deciding to really start teaching you back years because he'll keep coming back to *this* moment when he could have lost you."

    Chas runs both hands down over his face in only the way a frustrated parental figure can, touche' Phoebe. "I'll talk to him once he's come around, but he's messed up, Phoebe, not just... because of this. Don't know what he went through while he was gone and I likely won't ever know the all of it, but might be best if you try to give him a little space for a bit while he settles down, wraps his head around it. But that doesn't mean you need to leave the apartment. Who's gonna water the cactus?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe figured it would be the end there. She takes a deep breath, and she looks around to the room, and then gives a sound of discomfort (it was too feminine to be a grunt), and then reaches for the latches to take off the armor. It splits, and she pulls it off, carrying the chest piece at her side and is wearing a work-out top beneath it.

    "Honestly, I can't imagine. Just being in the place for hours /hurts/. It's like breathing in... I dunno. Breathing in slime, and everything just felt squished and pressured and weird and the train was weird and the whole time I was there with Dr. MacIntyre at least, but traveling with a bunch of strangers through train stations was just..." she trails off, and then frowns, and then looks up. "... I didn't want him to be alone. Because..." she picks off some of the dried blood, and looks at her gauntlet. "Belong alone in the dark is something I /can/ empathize with... here... I'm... I'm feeling all right. I'll grab the mop and clean that up--" she states, and then gives a very slight smile up to Chas.

    "... you realize the Cactus is substitute John."

John Constantine has posed:
    "It does suck," Chas agrees. "But John? He prefers it that way. Then he doesn't have to worry about anyone else. Still, whatever happened fucked him up hard. I've known him a long time and I knew it the second he came through the door. He needs to let this go, let the fucking Gods deal with it, because he's not one. If he doesn't, I'm afraid it'll be the end of him."

    He circles around to the armor and mentions, "They got that in my size, wherever it came from? Lives I got left might last longer with some of that."

    He glances down at the mess on the floor and back up. "I got it, go get cleaned up. ...and the tie kind of gave it away. Fits, I supposed, all prickly and shite. I'm still pissed and you're grounded. In by nine during the week, ten on the weekends until further notice. Until you can prove you can be trusted not to jump into this bullshit headfirst without back up. I know you're capable with the mundane stuff, but you're not even out of preschool yet with this life. You won't make it out if you keep doing stupid shite like this."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe looks at Chas a moment, opens her mouth, and closes it. "Yeah... I thought this would be the end of it. If he's in over his head, I'm not much of a lifeguard." Phoebe admits quietlly and then she blinks, and looks down at the armor. She feels her cheeks and ears darken and get hot, and she gives a small laugh. "Ah, well, I can ask, but the guy's version only comes in bright red and green." she jokes.

    ... and then she gets grounded. She opens her mouth to challenge, but she is living under Chas's roof. Her nose wrinkles, and then she takes a breath and nods. "That is very generous and fair and wise, and I'll go clean up and... I dunno. Meditate on maybe not jumping into stupid stuff so quickly."

    Phoebe feels her hands buzzing. She's going to need rest. She stands, looking to Chas a moment more, holding her armor at its collar with both hands.

    "... thank you, Chas. For everything."

John Constantine has posed:
    "I mean it, no sneaking out. You can hang on the roof, but I'm gonna talk to John about warding the place to let me know when you're here or not until further notice." Chas snags a mop and bucket out of a small closet in the room and starts toward the front to fill the bucket. "Christmas colors, that'd bug the shite outa John," he murmurs. That might just be reason enough to wear it.

    The thank you gets an upnod, not much more. This is what family does, innit?

    ...and once he sees John's stool vacant, he's firing off another text. <He's gone, don't know where, see if you can find him if he's not already there?>

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Chas would receive a text back: <I got him.>

Along with a little heart emoji.