taxonomites | 001. [holo] he's starting to follow crows and climbing the ladder somewhere out

If you get right down to it, there are two ways John Constantine spends his day: either in immediate peril or out of it. (Although arguably there's also having just gotten out, and about to get into, but split that many hairs and we'll be here all day.) His appearance in the entrance chamber seems to indicate the former, both of which have their pros and cons. In immediate peril (he was) means now he's suddenly not, anymore, or at least not in the same way, but out of it - well, those moments are few and far enough in between that he likes to keep them for himself, thank you.

This moment: not shaping up to be one of those.

The prelude to this entrance is a rush of wings and a strange, inhuman clicking; the air ripples and warps and snaps back into place, leaving a tall, lanky man in his mid-thirties, dark-haired and dark-clothed, with the kind of pallor that actually takes some work to maintain in, for instance, southern California.

Maybe he's a vampire - just kidding. The dying implosion of air stirs a black coat open with the sleeves rolled up, the ornate tattoos on the backs of his forearms somehow alive like the oscillation of wind across water. "--to the light, I command th--what the fuck."

His arms drop; he staggers, collects himself as one hand goes to worry at his mouth. The rest of his face stays impassive, although his breathing hitches and the arm at his side trembles all the way down to the fingertips. More than the usual 'aaaaaaaa where am I' related shock is simple physical exhaustion, whatever it was he was doing husked him out, left him - well. Left him what, exactly?

"Goddamn," he murmurs, half to himself, half to - none of your damn business, that's who. "I really am getting old." A simple summoning, how do you fuck that up? Unless - he's not thinking about it, patting his pockets restlessly instead, and noticing the bracelet for the first time. "....Jesus."

The pocket search becomes more frantic. "Didn't just botch a summoning then, unless I hit the jewelry district on the way out." His expression flickers but doesn't crack as he finds not exactly what he was looking for in one pocket, but a woefully acceptable alternative. This turns out to be chewing gum, which he pops into his mouth like it's personally offended him.

The alternative he's not voicing is that he's dead, of course - summoning can kill a person, this wouldn't even be the first time. And there's no reason Hell shouldn't have an antechamber; it's been twenty years since he was ....admitted there, if you will. He shakes his shoulders out, fixes his shirt and coat sleeves, then moves to investigate the tablet, circling it like it might spring, but not picking it up yet. "At least the decor is nice. Very proto-scifi, I like it."

John Constantine: nerd. --just kidding. But nerd is still preferable to dead, frankly.

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If the FBI has a file on John, it can only be hoped that it's basically hilarious. And enormous.

There's a brief moment of weighted silence as he levels the kind of look at Sam people sometimes use to impart things to the elderly and the very young, brows up, chin down, infinite patience. If patience were made of blunt objects. "You do know you said that out loud, right?"

He has to be sure, you see. And as of yet he's only ever run into two varieties in that particular litany. "That kind of thing gets a person locked up pretty fast, just before they give you a nice white jacket."

Sam's is mostly 'Hannibal Lector's younger brother' even though that's not accurate at all. Not to mention the bank robbing. That wasn't him. And the grave desecration that...well that was him.

"Yeah. It's not a big deal here. Magic, vampires, demons...we've got them all here."

"In your spare time," John inquires delicately, tilting the tablet up to look more closely into it, "assuming you have any, do you work with the elderly? Because I'm curious as to where this kind of phrasing comes from, exactly. Magic, demons--" he leaves out vampires, on the grounds of having no basis for discussion as of yet, "whether you believe in them or not they strike me as a big fucking deal."

This speech ...exhausted, he leans back against the wall, one hand passing over his eyes. "But that could just be me. You seem to be the expert here."

"Uhm...guess I wasn't really clear on that? I meant that talking about them isn't a big deal here. As far as in my spare time? That gets used up by reading, working out and watching Nick at Night. Demon hunter is my job. I don't know that I'm an expert but I know my way around them."

"No, kid, I understood you. It's the willing suspension of disbelief that's giving me trouble." He straightens up, fixing the tablet with a look that suggests he is trying to pin it to something. "But I'm glad to hear you're a reader, what with future generations being in your hands."

It's not John's words that confuse or bother Sam so much as it's his tone. He tilts his head, brow furrowing as he runs them through his mind again trying to decide if they were meant in the usual way but then John doesn't seem that much older than him that he'd be talking about 'future generations' the way old people do. That leads Sam to believe there's another meaning to his words.

"What do you mean...future generations?"

Then again, all of Ruby's talk about 'Boy King' and stopping hell on earth could be getting to him.

001. [holo] he's starting to follow crows and climbing the ladder somewhere out

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