8748/O Johnny Boy

O Johnny Boy
Date of Scene:	20 November 2021
Location:	House of Mystery
Synopsis:	Sorting through some of the matters that come after he clawed his way out of Nergal's fabulous hospitality, John finds an avid listener in Meggan. Takes one stuck in Hell before to know how it goes.
Cast of Characters:	Meggan Puceanu, John Constantine

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Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The House of Mystery holds a good many secrets, far too damn many for any one man or woman to fully decipher. For the moment, the only immediate concern held by Meggan rests fully upon where to find a proper cuppa.

Never mind that the Laughing Magician might have thaumivoric tendencies or other strange tastes. She simply needs refreshment, and after perusing that roundabout path looking for something warm to drink on, the girl in Constantine's shirt and her own tall socks meanders back to find him, one cup in hand.

John Constantine has posed:
At some point over the course of the evening, John had moved from bed to the sofa in a den that would be more at home in the Sixties. An old, boxy CRT television sits in an ornate wooden cabinet. The wallpaper on the walls is a floral printed made slightly tacky and yellow from cigarette smoke. The shelves are stuffed with knickknacks, none of them John's.

He lays horizontal on the sofa. He's wearing his 'uniform' for lack of a better word - the long coat, shirt, and die. His shoes are encrusted with ashen grey mud that has dried, and a mercifully-extinguished cigarette dangles from between his fingers just above the shagpile carpeting.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Wherever the House acquires its decor remains something of a mystery, but you don't question your hostess. The sentient presence within earns Meggan's respect, since their past engagements most frequently involve emergencies and trouble. Besides, she has tea, and in some ways, that can be worth more than anything else in the world. A turn where she wasn't expecting one brings her off the ground, floating rather than smacking into a wall when a door opens itself and there he sprawls in all his shabby relaxation.

Pale grey-green eyes mellow into something closer to seafoam as she instinctively pauses, a measured regard blowing away second guesses like crumbling leaves. Awful carpet, but the desire to scrunch her bare toes into it almost detracts from the main event. "You making up by binging Love Island or just getting the highlights, love?" Tilting her head sends a white fan of hair slipping from her shoulder. "Thought you might be a spot thirsty. Mind company?"

John Constantine has posed:
It's then that John notices the content on the television is not much more than an old test pattern dating back decades. His eyes flutter a bit, awoken but still bleary, and he tilts back his head to look towards Meggan. There's a shrug of his shoulders, feet shuffling to make some room for her to sit down.

"Went on a little bit of a tear," he explains, gesturing towards the door as though it might still lead wherever it was he went, "Didn't want to wake you."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Meggan's smile arcs up, and she bothers padding over the carpet. For a girl who scorns the earth by floating over it -- maybe some ancient argument of her parents -- she certainly enjoys going barefoot or experiencing tactile sensations. The socks inhibit that, but wearing that kind of dress, the stolen sort, she makes do. "People actually put this in their houses? Must've not been right in the head or trying to do something modern primitive." He so kindly moves his feet and they can go right back into her lap or slung over her to reach the arm of the sofa if he wants. John need not move around too much.

Her fingers land on his knee, the other hand supporting the tea. "That was sweet of you," she murmurs. The cup's passed his way if he wants to share. "I can't remember the last time I dropped off like that. Everything all right out there? We shouldn't expect a heap of lava to come through?"

John Constantine has posed:
"Right as it ever gets," John says with a wide, noisy yawn, "By which I mean not very, but it'll keep another day or two. Truth be told, I'm scaling back a little bit on the outside visits. Seems everywhere I go nowadays somebody wants to talk about somethin'."

He shakes his head, tossing the spent cigarette into the ashtray but serving to only make it land on the coffee table.

"FBI bird had a real bone to pick, now I've gotta make an appointment with the Witchblade of all bloody people. You know, times of my ancestors? Witchblade wasn't someone you dealt with. They just WERE and you kept out of the bloody way."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
She stretches over to drop the cup off on a nearby table or, failing that, floats the thing somewhere out of the way. Meggan's fingers curl lightly against the fabric of John's pant-leg, unconsciously kneading gently into the muscle. "Reason enough. Your doppelganger was running about like it had to keep the candles burning at both ends," she muses. "Plenty for you to clean up. You dealing well with the constant calls and expectations, or has it driven you round the bend?"

The talk of Witchblade raises her gaze to his face, measuring how serious he might be. Takes hardly a moment for the empathy to clue her in, but a mercurial man and his demonic counterpart did a number on her, and that's that. Shifting, she almost carefully curls into his vicinity a little more. "An appointment? Better than her putting it through you, that's for certain. Much as I know about them, no one wanted a Witchblade or the Magdalen's attention. Better they pointed in one direction, the one you weren't in. You know better than me." A quiet beat. "Than I? Me. Doesn't matter much."

The infinity knot around the back of her hand shifts, scars in silver undulating ever so slightly in proximity. If his hand isn't occupied, it soon is, her fingers curling with his if he'll tolerate it.

John Constantine has posed:
"I don't know," John answers with another lumping shrug of his shoulders, "Everyone wants a piece. Don't much feel like explaining shit. Figure if I stay tight-lipped about it long enough everyone'll just move on."

He flicks the television off with a grunt, tossing the remote off to the side and letting out a yawn.

"Don't suppose we have anywhere to be today?"

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
"Only truths we are owed are to ourselves. Voltaire said it was only to the dead, but he never suffered a haunting, did he?" Tilting her head a smidge, Meggan brushes her pin-straight white hair off her shoulder again. All the time they have been together, it's never been aught but gold and silver woven together in an unlikely crown. But this, like the bleached pallor and the eternity knot scar, remains a changed thing. "You do it your own way and always have. But remember you've friends to count on when you need. Chas, me, Zatanna, Jonathan, and others can all run interference when needed."

The loose undulations of her fingers conform to the line of John's calf, still reducing lean muscle to putty given enough time or him not pulling away. Like a cat making biscuits, the slow motions satisfy some deep, almost unconscious need. Contact with him feeds the empath's soul, even if the Tuath de Danaan side is under lock and key.

"The only plan was whatever we felt like." She gives a dreamy blink, then curves the sunny smiles that were never rare, until a demon robbed the sky of its star. It dawns anew. "Shall we?"

John Constantine has posed:
"Speakin' of Chas," John starts, sitting up and clasping his hands between his knees, "When'd he become such a big girl's blouse? Adoptin' kids. Playin' mother hen. Is that how he's always been? Did I just not see it?"

He shrugs his shoulders again and shakes his head, staring off to the side with a curl of his lip: "Not that it's bad, I guess. Just ... weird. I don't do this team shite, Meg. Not anymore."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Moss-agate eyes, more grey than their native green, widen slightly. Slowly the laugh coalesces out of a rusty prison, shoving open a crooked door to achieve its escape. Been a time since that traipsed about freely, though Meggan's shoulders loosen up. She releases her hands from John's legs as he shifts on the couch, glancing uncertainly and then shrugging. Throw caution to the wind, dealing with the tangled fate lines of John Constantine.

Impulse control is not her forte. She leans in to rest against his side, easily nudged off. "Rich coming from you, darling. You've seen him face down Nerly-who-shall-not-be-named, even though he have wanted to bog off fast as he could. Not so much a great big girl's blouse after all?" His question gets fair shrift, though. "He's got Geraldine, how is it surprising he might take on another. More surprised me the court accepted you considering you've British citizenship and they get prickly about that."

No judgment much rendered there, more the soft wonder at how little sense the US judicial system makes. And she /works/ in it, all said and done.

"You don't have to do any of it, love. No one makes those decisions for you but you. They might have a laugh or rib you." She shakes her head, putting her hand on his if he won't shake her off. "You left where you /have/ to do any shite. Same as I. Life is what you want it to be, not what others demand of you. Not that it won't ruffle feathers, but so what? If you want to spend the next decade flaffing around, I dunno, learning French and doing fuck all, then do it."

John Constantine has posed:
"I don't know. Used to be all this felt like a great big laugh. We'd have the fuckers lookin' like gits with their pants down and we'd stroll off down the road laughin' as we went. Now we have to take it all serious ... "

He just shakes his head, falling back onto the couch with a heavy sigh.

"Anyway, fuck talkin' about that tonight."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The lack of filters afforded by the greater sum of her birthright stowed away thanks to the biggest right bastard in the arcane community -- barring his actual employers -- gives Meggan a keenly sharp lens of empathy turned on the world. Even dialing it back a little has its limits.

Sometimes those waves roll over with strength enough to send her spiralling down with a subject all the way to the uncharted depths. Sometimes she can float. John hasn't shoved her off yet. He's flopped back or slid sideways, seemingly unbothered by her leaning into him or touching his hand. Her fingers curl around his, and she nudges him over so she isn't quite so squished in the corner.

"We good, then?"