8326/Birthright: No Spoon full of Sugar

Birthright: No Spoon full of Sugar
Date of Scene:	19 October 2021
Location:	Back Room - The Laughing Magician
Synopsis:	Using the vial of materials from Papa Midnite, the Essence of the last person to have been killed by the dark poison, John Constantine removes Phoebe from the 'timeless' House of Mystery, and brings her home to the Laughing Magician. After pulling the dark magic out of his adoptive daughter, the two sit and talk a little about broken noses and old injuries. John is reluctant to involve Phoebe further in fighting her cousin Leksandria, but gifts her just a little bauble. He pleads with whoever will listen that she doesn't get caught in his wake.
Cast of Characters:	Phoebe Beacon, John Constantine

---

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    When John might have gone to fetch Phoebe for the elixer that Papa Midnite provided some of those ingredients for, she could be found wrapped in a quilt, half-curled up on an overstuffed, oversized, 'hooker-lipstick pink' chair, It's hard to curl up fully when your arm is in an immobilizer and everything hurts and you're trying to balance a book on a useless aching hand, but she was mostly asleep, with the dressing on that hole in her shoulder, that's gotten a little pussy. She also has a variety of brightly-colored bandaids on her fingers and on the back of her left hand.

John Constantine has posed:
    "C'mon, luv, up you go," John would have said without much fanfare or pomp. It's just the way John's are. Of course he would have helped her stand, but after that it was just a matter of a portal to the backroom of the Laughing Magician where he settled her into a chair at the big table.

    He doesn't waste a second once she's there. He pulls the jar from the cabinet he'd stored it in, spelled to locked of course despite the warding in the room, and offers it to a blanket bundled Phoebe. "You need to drink this, luv." Oh it smells *foul* but honestly, she's smelled worse from the stuff her old man drinks during 'out of body' type spells.

    Does she notice it? The circle he has drawn in the corner of the room? The one that's all about power amplification and keep what's outside the circle outside it and what's inside... inside?

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Mmmrng-- ow ow ow--" Phoebe mutters, half asleep still as she's grabbed up. She peers dazedly out of her dozing off.

    "--you're back... did you see her? Was she there?" she asks John, trying to clear her eyes of sleep as she's settled into a chair. Time begins ticking her way again as she's pulled from The House, and the burning begins. She takes the jar -- the liquid inside is an ugly, greasy greenish-black and glow-in-the-dark, and MAN does it have a stench. Her whole face seems to wrinkle as she gives an 'uggggh' "Is /this/ what Papa Midnite had in his jacket?" she protests, turning and looking to John. It was enough to work her awake, and then she looked at the cirlce.

    "... what are you planning? What's that for?" she questions quietly, and she purses her lips.

John Constantine has posed:
    "Just *drink* it, Phoebe," John replies. He's trying to keep the snippy out of his voice and mostly succeeding. She's out of the time stasis that the House of Mystery provided now so they're back to running with the effects of the poison. He's anxious.

    "Now."

    Those faded denim blues of his flick toward the circle and then back to his daughter. "It's nothing, just *drink it*.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    It's never nothing. He has a plan, and it's either going to hurt him, hurt her, suck for the both of them... but it will work.

    It has to work.

    Phoebe takes a deep breath, she can't even hold her nose because her other hand is beginning to burn. She's losing time.

    And down it goes. It tastes exactly as gross as it smells, coagulated hen's blood, ashes and black magic that tastes just like licking an ash tray dipped in gasoline. The scent of black pepper and roses and burning flesh.

    It's disgusting.

    But she drinks it, and then she drops the jar. Her eyes go wide. It steals her breath, and burns against the scarring of those blisters in her throat, traveling to her stomach, the perfect place to start dispensiving with some particuarlyl interesting effects. Her body curls forward as she retches, her stomach tightening.

John Constantine has posed:
    John snatches up a bucket he had about just in case, but he also shifts his sight to that in between. He needs to see what's happening, to see if she's about to barf up the last chance they have or if that's the last chance they have allowing her to barf up what shouldn't be there.

    "Just try to relax, love." He doesn't tell her not to fight the puking... yet. But he's liable to stuff a sock in her mouth or something if she's about to ruin the effects of that nasty potion. He's such a wonderful father, innit so?

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Let's not think about from where he would summon a spare sock. Phoebe curls herself tightly, tears welling in her eyes. It was the second worst pain she's felt in the last few days. She gives a whimper of a breath, trying to force herself to relax.

    Inside of her, the influences from the two demons was again flaring up. Blisters on her hands where suddenly her powers were going haywire. Swollen joints and scarring lungs and the twisting feeling of old wounds and scar tissue coming back and going away again before the magic in the potion travels through her bloodstream. The skin around the wound turns a few more centemeters of black, and then turns an awful, evil sort of red color, and then the grayish of dead flesh. The blood vessels around it turn back as the blood works against it, recognizing that essence of one who came before.

    It gathers, and John might be able to pull the rest of it out.

John Constantine has posed:
    And that's just what he intends to do. As soon as the time is right, John starts chanting. Creole, a spell of his own design, but based on the things he's learned over the years from Midnite.

    As he does so, the darkness he draws from his daughter is a visible thing, almost tangible. It's s swirling stream of darkness that...

    He's turning into a ball of the stuff, his hands turn this way and that, manipulating that mess like a carnival worker spinning cotton candy. Black, nasty cotton candy, that's what it looks like.

    Still weaving his hands around in circles, controlling the darkness, John steps into that circle and with a tap of one toe, activates it to seal himself and that nasty cloud inside and... seal Phoebe out.


*ASSHOLE*

    He's still chanting, it's still Creole, but the tone of it all's changed, it's deeper, darker, more intense, his voice louder.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    And he pulls it out. The wound's not closing quickly, it's raw and scabbed over and awful looking, but it's no longer black and burning, but now looks like just... a regular giant healing necrotic venom wound instead of one with fetid black magic.

    It's fascinating to watch, in a manner of speaking, watching as John spins the ugly stuff around, pulling it and tugging it out of her, controlling it as the black magic tries to push its way out of his control,s eek something else to infect.

    And she's about to call out to him -- not that she can really do *much* -- and as she opens her mouth, she retches again, and grabs for the bucket.

John Constantine has posed:
    Louder, louder, louder, with no mind paid to his puking daughter. It's okay to puke. His voice grows to that booming level of 'I'm about to make someone hurt' that Phoebe would recognize as such even if she doesn't fully understand the words being spoken.

    The circle around him glows, but it's an iridescent dark glow, like a black pearl or a oil slick in the sunlight. Wagon wheel lines of swirls and sigils light next, coming from the outside of the circle to the center, to John's feet and upward; imbuing him with the power he'd placed there earlier... power gained from the blood of one Papa Midnite, stored away so long ago after one of their little spats, saved to be used in just such an occasion.

    Finally, if Phoebe understands nothing else of the words, she'll recognize the one he bellows as he shoves that ball of black cottony evil away from himself with a thrust of his hands outward, "LEKSANDRIA!"

    A little of Phoebe's blood and the tiniest bit of her essence pulled while extracting the magic facilitates and speeds the 'track back', sending that ball of misery straight toward the original source of it, hopefully.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Midnite does feel it, and there was a moment where he would have been angry -- but it was for a good cause. This way, HE didn't have to deal with it. And if John dies and the girl lives? ... well, she could be useful.

    The girl in question feels that pull, and she gives it. She breathes out as she curls, slowly sliding off the chair as she watches John work, her breathing turning a little labored with pain as he sends that dark magic after her tormentor, amplified.

    And somewhere, out there, it hits. It reverbates back through that connection to John, letting him know. He *hit*. There was pain, and the hounds are nipping at that necromancer's heels now.

John Constantine has posed:
    In that last second, right as he releases it, John's eyes turned black as the starless night sky. It only lasted a moment. He staggers and drops to one knee inside the circle, eyes closed, little tilted head shake. But that only lasts a moment as well before he pushes himself up and steps out of the circle. He's wearing a little 'take that bitch' smirk on his face.

    "Halfway there, love," John murmurs. "You can move back to the loft now, but your room will stay where it is in the wretched Pile of Sticks. You can't stay there, not yet." It's not *just* that it's too dangerous, staying there more than not will mean Phoebe's aging is slowed more than it isn't. That's not something he wants for her, or for Chas or for any of them really. Aging is supposed to happen, it's normal, the natural order of things.

    "You okay?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe looks on from her place, slumped on the floor. There's bloody foam that she's wiping off her mouth, with a disgusted sort of face. She looks down into the bucket, and just... slooowly sets it aside.

    "... everything hurts. I feel like I got hit by the saturday J-train." she mutters quietly, and she looks to her left hand. She reaches over, and rips off one of the mandaids, the Man-Bandaid (TM), and then closes her eyes, and tilts her head back.

    "That sucked. Remind me to not do that at the next costume ball we go to?" she questions, her eyebrows rising up.

    "... the room wasn't too bad, had a claw foot tub and endless hot water." she comments, and she gives a small smile, looking over to John. "... so. How... am I supposed to fit Beacon-Constantine-Chandler on my bus-pass?"

John Constantine has posed:
    "Now you're your father's daughter," John replies quietly, a very rare moment of him hinting, even jokingly, to Phoebe about how much his *everything* hurts pretty much every damned day these days.

    "*Next* costume ball?" John's eyebrows raise with that one. He looks a little mortified, like is that an *all the time* dad thing? "Get a bigger bus pass?" he suggests. "Or one of those ones on your phone?"

    "I know what I need to do to get the rest of you sorted, love. Until I do, I *need* you to stay behind wards, either down here or the loft, aye?" Not that it's really a question, it's more adding the 'aye' on the end to soften the 'you're not allowed outside, young lady' bit.

    "I don't trust... I've put a lot of work into the wards here, I *know* the power behind them and I know they won't fail."

    He should be hugging her or something and he *knows* it, but the knowing of how to be that person, it still eludes him.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe knows hugs are a progress. Her hugging Chas happened once without her realizing it, and after that it was building back up to it. She pushes herself up a bit, making room on the floor next to her if John just... wanted to sit. An invitation.

    "I'm joking. That's the last one I would have gone to. If I'd graduated from my regular highschool, I would have gotten a thirty-thousand dollar scholarship. But, y'know, some people just deserve to have their septums adjusted." Phoebe states quietly, "Ordinarily the orphans come out, we light a candle in memory, then we go backstage and eat pizza and all the rich people eat wagyu and stuff. When I turn eighteen I'm no longer in the program." she gives a wry sound, and she reaches into her pocket, and she pulls out a playing card. She taps a finger against it in a flick, and then turns it over. Gotham bus pass. Even has a chip in it. Constantine, Phoebe A. It's slightly muddled though, because her brain is just... tired. And then she flicks her finger against it, and it turns back into a hearts playing card.

    "I know." she states, and she looks at the playing card, turning it over in her hand to have something to fiddle with. She could try packing the slugs again. "I'm in danger if I go out there right now from... everything. I didn't realize how much I relied on magic. My T-cell count was negligible. They tested me for all sorts of disorders to come up with some sort of... answer for it." she admits. "I didn't get sick from everything I've been around 'cause... I couldn't. Now, I catch a cold? The /Flu/?" she asks. "Let alone 'take another giant death scorpion"...."

John Constantine has posed:
    John hesitates a second before he accepts the unspoken invitation. He settles onto the floor with a little bit of a groan. "Taking a page from your old man's book, aye?" he offers before he lets his head drop back against the wall. He doesn't, at least, look as horribly ragged and tired as he did just last night. A few hours in Whitechapel helped there.

    "Even if we get your powers sorted, I don't know, love. I don't know if I want you in *this* fight, with her." It's not even so much that he doesn't trust her or... it's just that he doesn't want her to see *him* and the lengths he's willing to go to, likely will go to, to end that bitch. Especially if ending the bitch means the end of him in the process.

    He reaches into a pocket of his trenchcoat and pulls out his own 'all access ID". He flicks it around face toward Phoebe, nine of diamonds. Did she even know that was his card?

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe gives a smile at John, and she looks at his card. Nine of Diamonds. She lets her smile fade a little bit against the knowledge that revelation shows, and she gives a grin to John.

    "Does it work for getting backstage at concerts?"

    "... one of my classmates is the captain of the cheer team. She kinda had it out for me. It was... December. Cold. She and a couple of the linebackers cornered me by the school fountain, told me if my mom died, I'd be a full orphan again. It's not that they were wrong, it's that they shoved me into the fountain and pretty much totaled... most everything I owned. I was already sleeping at a friend's place. I didn't have much int he way of clothes, so I just broke. I broke her nose, Pulled one guy's arm outta socket by flipping him into the fountain, and broke the other guy's collarbone." Phoebe frowns.

    "... and then kidnapping me. Keeping me in the dark. Letting my powers run to the brink of exhaustion like some sort of test. Nearly killing the woman on the train. Killing one of the homeless people in the warehouse. Making it so I couldn't even... I couldn't sleep, because what if one showed up and hurt one of my friends? What if it hurt --" she trails off, and she draws up her leg, stiffly pinning her left arm.

    "... my mom. What was she like, when you met her?" she asks, and Phoebe's tired head just leans oh-so-lightly against John's shoulder.

John Constantine has posed:
    "Works for whatever I want it to work for. It was my way into bars at fifteen." From the looks of the old, yellowed, frayed thing he's had it *that* long. It's not like he couldn't just illusion another card. There's a story there, why *that* card. But he's not sharing it tonight.

    "I was eight when I broke my first nose. With a rock, kid was in the hospital for weeks. He made a comment about..." John lets the 'about' fade to nothing, but the almost saying of it has him rubbing light, subconsciously at his left forearm, where scars have long faded, but can still be seen beneath tattoos, some of which were meant just to hide those scars. The little round ones.

    "No one will *ever* hurt you like that again. Ever." Not even him, it's part of why he doesn't just let her heal his every ache and pain, every little injury. Never again.

    "You..." John replies quietly. "Your mom was like you."

    He tugs his Silks from his pocket and lights up as an excuse to pause the conversation a moment, before he lets his emotions get the better, can't have that now can we?

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "I know, I know -- I'm not a first aid kit. I'm not responsible for doing it for anyone and everyone. And if anyone tries, you would stand between me and every nightmare they could inflict. You an' my other Dad. You've got me. Just... it's something I can do, so when I offer, it's because I want to. The World's better for you being in it."

    How wonderful Life is while you're in the world.

    "So... a healer? Blindingly bright? A giant pain in the butt with too many questions?" Phoebe inquires. She's too tired to pull her head away when John lights up. She just lightly leans against his shoulder.

John Constantine has posed:
    "Kind, protective, compassionate, fierce," John breathes out along with a cloud of smoke.

    "Not really, love." Not a better place, a lot of better people than John Constantine would still be alive if he wasn't around.

    "But the things I do, Phoebe, they have cost. They're *supposed* to have a cost. Checks and balances. I know the cost going in. It's not up to you to negate that cost even if you can. It's not up to you to erase my magical debt. It shouldn't be erased. I'll just end up owing somewhere else if it's erased all the time."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "I know, I know... debt will balance off somewhere else, where it might not be expected. That's why I said I was just going to look at your head."

    She gets quiet a moment, and she flicks the card in her hand. It's still shiny and new.

    "I think I saw her last night, when Chas was keeping an eye on things." Phoebe replies. "She looks like -- /I/ look like /her/." Right order of operations. She is her mother's daughter. Kind. Compassionate. Protective. Fierce. Good qualities to espose.

    She takes a breath, the scent of the silk cuts settling around them as they sit in the back room.

    She doesn't push the issue. She looks at the wall, contemplative a moment.

    "Do you think, once things are safe, before we find a way to send them all off to Dukhat, or wherever they'll go... I could meet her?"

John Constantine has posed:
    "You do, you look just like her." John reaches out to pat Phoebe's leg and give her a little warning that he's about to stand before he does so. Then he offers a hand down to her. "Let's get you back to your room, aye. I have to get to work on ... there's just something I need to work on." The perfect circle.

    John shakes his head. "No, love." He wouldn't *really* deny her that, would he? "...that place is, it's not something you should see as it is. But once we fix it, I can summon her back so you can meet her."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    PHoebe gives a smile, and she draws her other leg so that John has room for standing, lifting her head off his shoulder. She attempts to push herself up, but it's just not *comfortable*. She looks up as the hand's offered down, and she grasps it, grabbing his arm above his wrist for the best and most firm of grabs.

    "... no, I want to see it. I want to help them move on... they're my family. It's the least I should do." she replies, pushing a little bit on that one, but she gives a nod, and then stretches her arm up, trying to crack her neck.

    "... it'll be nice to sleep in my own room. My other room. My other-right room?" she frowns, her nose wrinkles, and she tilts her head back a moment, her stomach tightening.

    "... uuurrgh... that was the worst smoothie ever."

John Constantine has posed:
    John doesn't say anything else on the matter of the Village, whether he softens to the idea of her seeing that hellscape or not, it likely remains to be seen. Right now though, it's all too fresh in his mind to be able to agree to it.

    He'll help her upstairs as far as the door to her room and leave it at that.

    Inside, on her pillow, is a little silver locket. When she opens it, she'll find a picture of herself on one side that John took in the bar and a picture of himself at seventeen on the other. It's a simple affair, nothing fancy and scroll work-esque, just a simple locket. On the back, in the tiniest letters, it reads: Be better than me, sweetheart. Love Dad.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe is helped upstairs, and she ducks into her room (after taking a quick look around and making sure nothing is wildly out of place outside her room), and finds the bed is made, fresh sheets and blankets and that pink pegasus plushie that she's had forever. And on the pillow, the locket. She reaches down, her brows knitting, and draws it up, opening it first and looking at the pictures. John, of course, punk rock. Phoebe with her hair in braids, and she takes a deep breath. She turns the locket over, and she gives a small smile, her ears tearing up a moment. She takes a deep breath and turns to look over her shoulder, to see if John was there.

John Constantine has posed:
    Really child, you know your father better than that. John was gone before she even opened the thing, through a portal and out before anyone had the chance to make a fuss over a silly little bauble left on a pillow.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    She figured he would be. John Constantine did not do touchy-feely fussing. That was Chas's department, but Phoebe sits on her bed, holding the locket in her hand, and she takes a deep breath, focuses her thoughts on the blonde man with the sadest blue eyes, and she *thinks* at him as hard as she can when she whispers:

    "I love you too, Dad."

    And maybe it reaches him. Maybe it doesn't, but Phoebe lays in her bed and holds the locket in her hand.

John Constantine has posed:
    He didn't go far, just back downstairs to work on the perfect circle, but it's still something that Phoebe managed to do it. Very few can get into the head of John Constantine. It's so very faint but he hears it.

    His smile's a proud one, but his eyes are still just as sad when he whispers, "I just hope doing so won't be the end of you, love." It's not meant for her to hear. It's more a spoken hope, perhaps even a prayer.

    If anyone at all is listening. Please don't let me drag her under, don't let her get caught in my wake and drown.

    What he does think back, meant for her to hear, is a simple, "Goodnight, love."