(no subject)

[dangeroushabits.livejournal.com]

Date: April 5, 2000, Afternoon
Setting: Belfast, Northern Ireland
Status: Private (John)
Summary: What John Has Been Up To, and In What Kind of Trouble He Currently Finds Himself...



He really should have seen it coming.

After the fight in the lobby, John had marched upstairs to his room, his thoughts clouded by a towering fury that had already begun to mingle with a sick, aching sensation in his gut by the time he'd reached the third floor.

So that was it, then. He knew what he had to do now. Same thing he'd always done, really. Only difference was, this time he was the one who'd been scammed, the one feeling betrayed. He couldn't even say it was unfair, or unforeseen. He'd had something like this coming for a long time, and paybacks were always a bitch.

But why Crowley, he'd thought, fumbling distractedly for his cigarettes and lighter, god, why'd it have to be him? Why the fuck didn't he tell me? He could have forgiven Crowley practically anything, yes, even that, if he had only been up-front about it. Crowley was a demon, he had his job to do and John knew (or had believed he knew) that even if he sometimes enjoyed the nasty tricks he played, or took professional pride in his work, he wasn't ultimately a malicious creature, taking no joy or satisfaction in seeing humans condemned to Hell.

But then, to spit such a revelation at him like that, like it was his proudest accomplishment--like John should have been impressed, for fuck's sake, like he ought to be happy about humanity's Fall and all the infinite variety of afflictions and miseries that had come with it, billions of people, thousands of years, all of it tracing straight back to that single, fatal moment of temptation--

His hands were shaking so badly as he tried to light a cigarette that the entire pack went flying, scattering on the hallway floor. He cursed vilely, and started to pick them up, but stopped as a sparkle of light reflecting off the engraving on the lighter caught his eye.

Had he had just a few more moments to calm down and think things through, he might not have done what he did then, but with his judgment clouded by rage and as-yet-unacknowledged hurt, he acted on pure impulse without a thought for how he might feel about it later. He threw down the lighter and left it there with the Silk Cuts, stalking on to his room to toss his few belongings into a bag and leave the Manor and its maddening occupants as far behind and as quickly as possible. He stopped only to drop off the feathered amulet at Ellie's door as he had promised. Adam could keep the soul gem; it was no more use to him by itself than when it had belonged to Belial.

His flight from Lower Tadfield hadn't stopped at his own flat in London. That place never had felt like home, but after the past several months spent mostly away, it no longer felt like a place he had any business being at all. And the tatty old mattress made his back hurt. Restless, unable to fall back into his "normal" routines and driven by a terrible sense of deja vu--another friend lost, another bridge burned, the notion that anything was ever really going to change in his shitty life thoroughly dashed--he had opted to keep going, catching the next bus to Liverpool to pay a visit to Cheryl and Tony.

He'd stayed only a short time and left with a bad taste in his mouth. Tony was, as usual, stoned out of his head and barely registered he was even there. Cheryl deserved better than what she'd got out of life, and her disappointment in him hung over the room like a tangible cloud. He had no answer to it--he was what he was, and either it was in the blood and therefore no fault of his, or entirely his fault and beyond his ability to repair. And now Gemma was off in France, showing every sign of carrying on the dubious family tradition in spite of his efforts to the contrary. There just wasn't much to be said. He didn't think he'd be going back there again very often.

The next stop had been the States, and a much warmer welcome from Zatanna, who, bless her, was always delighted to see him and sorry to see him go. He'd thought of her often since Kit had left, regretting in a vague way that they'd parted ways after so short a time and seen so little of one another over the years. She was too sweet a thing and too smart a lady to ruin with the kind of life he'd have given her; he had too much respect for her, and for the memory of her father, to try and rekindle things now. But she was a friendly face and a sympathetic ear, and knew enough about the weird shit in her own right that he didn't have to censor himself when he told her what had happened.

"Oh. That Serpent," she said thoughtfully when he recounted the fight and the connection he'd finally made. "Well, I suppose it's sort of an awkward thing to bring up in conversation. 'Oh, by the way, did I ever tell you I was the one who got your forebears kicked out of Paradise?' Kind of a downer, isn't it?"

John stabbed resentfully at a chunk of ham with his fork. (Zatanna's breakfast concoctions were amazing, and she was generous with them, which was definitely not the only reason he enjoyed visiting with her, but it was certainly a big plus.) "He bloody well ought to have said something. Ten years, and he knows damn well I trusted him with my life--hell, my soul, even--and he didn't trust me enough to tell me the truth."

"And look what happened when he did," she observed mildly.

John snorted. "I don't think he expected me to put two and two together. And he was probably right. It was staring me right in the face for more than a decade. I must be getting senile." He sighed. "Anyway, doesn't really matter, does it? I'm done there. If there's one thing I do know how to do right it's leave when I've worn out my welcome."

"Too well, sometimes," Zatanna murmured, refilling his plate for the second time. "You're putting words in peoples' mouths again, moron," she continued affectionately. "He said 'Mind your own business,' not 'Get out of my life, I never want to see you again.' And people say a lot of stupid things when they're angry. You should know. You're good at that, too."

John grumbled a bit and saved himself having to continue that conversation by attacking his breakfast with a vengeance. But it stayed in his mind as he bid her goodbye a few days later. It went against everything he'd learned through painful experience to consider the possibility that things could be sorted out. Once he bolluxed up a situation, it tended to stay bolluxed up. But the thought lingered, nonetheless.

He'd contemplated visiting the Hollands while he was in the neighborhood, so to speak, but they had never greeted his appearance with much pleasure and no doubt had their own troubles, as they always had. They had deliberately stayed out of the Sprout's life, so they wouldn't have news of Tefe, either.

He didn't feel up to returning to London just yet, and it was on the spur of a completely irrational impulse that he caught a cab to the airport and bought a ticket to Ireland.

He had no idea what he meant to say to Kit, if he could even find her. Apologize, maybe. Make sure she was getting on all right. Let her slap him. Something. Just to see her again. He wouldn't ask more, he had no right to and was far, far too late if he had.

He was just so bloody sick of words left unspoken, wounds unhealed, friendships shattered, hope and happiness turned to dust. He wanted something to end right for once. Or at least, not as wrong as humanly possible. Was that really too much to ask?

It was probably just as well that Kit's sister Claire was the one to answer the door. Sorry love, she's out...d'you want to leave a message? Well, I'll tell her you came by then. What'd you say your name was? ....Oh. Right, well, I'll tell her. He had his doubts that that message would ever be delivered, but it was all right. Stupid idea anyway.

So now, nearly a month out of the Manor, he stood by a street lamp in Belfast, lighting a cigarette--back to matches, he hadn't had the heart to pick up another lighter--the inner turmoil faded to a dull ache, and wondered what the fuck he was going to do with himself now.

He glanced at his wristwatch, thanking some nameless benevolent power for the hundredth time that he hadn't pitched it in a rubbish bin as he'd considered doing when he first realized he was still wearing it. He still wasn't sure what it did, apart from its obvious functions, but it hadn't set him on fire or teleported him to a prominent spot before Lucifer's throne or anything of the sort, so he had decided to keep it on in spite of the many excellent reasons why he probably shouldn't. It was bad enough he'd left the lighter behind.

Six o'clock, almost. There had to be a decent pub around here somewhere...

He should have seen it coming, or more accurately, sensed it. All his life John had been a magnet for the bizarre and otherworldly, mostly of the uglier variety; it was in his blood, and he'd learned by necessity to pick up the subtle cues that would tell him when something of that sort was near. But months spent in Tadfield Manor, acclimatizing to the constant presence of supernatural entities of all sorts in a climate of safety and neutrality, had dulled the sixth sense that should have screamed at him to pay attention, raise his defenses, prepare for a fight.

He caught wind of it just a little too late. One of Hell's bottom feeders, not one of the Fallen, never touched by the Presence and not particularly interested in him personally. Only an easy target with an interesting aura.

And then it had pounced, and everything else went away in a wash of terror and utter, unspeakable revulsion as John fought to protect his mind, his memories, and everything that made him who he was from the filthy thing that was crouched inside his skull, trying to take them away.