let them hate me, hit me, hurt me, nail me to their tree {semi-open}

[heckblazer]

WHO: John and CR, people who want CR can come play too!
WHERE: Hospital, John's recovery room.
WHEN: After this
WHAT: Recovering from his injuries and moping a whole heck of a lot. Come wish well, or gloat, or if you're brave, take pity on him.
WARNINGS: Mention of death and blood/gore/injuries, John being depressed.



[ After being scraped off the pavement, he'd been deposited in the nearest hospital to get his wounds looked at.

Between the expertise of medics and the bloody nanites in his system, he was on the mend. But alas, the fixes weren't immediate. Second degree burns on his face, and he still had to be checked out for potential exposure to cosmic radiation. Removed glass shards from his hands with stitches. A kneecap shattered, the shin bone beneath it broken and poking through the skin. Internal bleeding. Three cracked ribs and a broken collarbone. His back bruised, but his spine miraculously unharmed. He suspects something in the trenchcoat might have helped. Not in the pockets or even the lining, but something in how the thing breathed, like it was trying to protect him. He doesn't mention it in front of the doctors, lest they think him a nutter or take the thing for some sort of damn testing.

He wakes the next day with the lethargy that only medical-quality morphine can provide and a stiff back that he knows only hospital mattresses do to him. Apparently, the doctors were practically fighting each other for the chance to treat an imPort, especially injuries induced by another imPort. Or so John's nurse had said, trying to distract with chatter while changing the IV bag. He was easy on the eyes, but too talkative. Practically made John wait for people to file in with peanuts they could toss at him while they gawked. He side-eyes everyone who comes through the door, be they orderlies or visitors. ]

Y'know what the worst part is? Can't get a damn cigarette while I'm stuck like this.

[ Yeah. That's the worst part. Not the survivor's guilt or anything. ]

Comments

[glassfall]

[Cinders doesn't know John very well. He comes into her work sometimes, occasionally looking at Lucifer as if he's going to be devoured (and Cinders wants to tell him that it's fine, just as long as he doesn't poke the hornet's nest, but John doesn't seem like the kind who'll listen to that). He's always got some snarky remark to make - and a flirtatious one, too. Sometimes, he does both at the same time.

Cinders has awkwardly brought him some flowers, not really knowing what else to bring. They're tiger lilies, bright and flashy and loud - a bit like him, she muses. She smiles at him and sets them on the table beside him.]

I'd imagine it's for your health.

[heckblazer]

[ John has, ahem, somehow charmed the nurses into upping his painkiller dosage, so he's not sharpened when the bird comes in. He eyes the flowers wearily, but can't rightly think of a complaint. He thinks of being younger and passing by homes in the North that could afford to keep a garden. Lively and green English Gardens with barely controlled chaos, the likes of which nobody in suburban America has.

He's good enough to at least surface his head from the pool of nostalgia and drugs to regard Cinder. She was well-meaning, which made him wonder how long til his company became hazardous to her. ]

Doing anything for my health is jus' delaying the inevitable, but I guess I can't fault 'em for doing their jobs. S'good morphine, at least.

[glassfall]

[Cinders wants to ask what morphine is, but now is not the time, so the brief look of confusion she has at the word will simply have to suffice. Also, she works for the Devil, as John has no doubt seen by now. He can't possibly be any more hazardous than that.]

Everyone dies, John. Not everyone lives well.

[A pause.]

I thought these flowers might be appropriate. We have fire lilies back home that look similar.

[All in all, it's just another reminder that this is not where Cinders belongs - but she doesn't always mind.]

[heckblazer]

Living well is subjective, innit?

[ John was absolutely certain of very few things, but among those was that there was really only one way his life could go. It was the only way he'd want it, at that. ]

Not that I don't appreciate 'em, love. Usually folks don't regard me with their own goodness, though. Bit surprised they're not cursed or poisonous.

[glassfall]

Naturally. I believe the definition is up to each of us to figure out for ourselves.

[She chuckles at that.]

Curses, you've figured out my nefarious plan.

excellent lyric choice

[gravedangers]

The trick's not to be injured in the first place.

[It terrible advice, and the dry tone it's spoken with makes it clear Graves is entirely aware of that. But John, even with his limited interactions with the other wizard, had seemed from the start an accident waiting to happen. At least he'd survived this one.

But he's not just here to trade insults. Gentleman he is, he's brought along a bottle of scotch. One any nurse happening in just doesn't seem to notice for some reason, even after he places it on the bedside table in what should be clear view of anyone in the room.]

lmao i had to

[heckblazer]

Well, yer' no wrong.

[ It must be a comical sight, seeing a magically-endowed individual encased in bandages and tubes. From what little John gathered, the bloke came from a place where magic was more the norm. It meant strength in numbers, and awe-inspiring powers used to fix the slightest of inconveniences. He was sure a bit of wand-waving would fix someone like Graves in such a position. He does eyeball the bottle appreciatively, though. ]

Nice vintage. What were the big songs that year? My recall's a bit fuzzy from painkillers at the moment.

[gravedangers]

Doubt you're familiar with the Bellchant Choir.

[Yup, magical world complete with their own music makers- or given the age of the scotch, choral groups. He hadn't exactly had the hippest music to listen to growing up in the late 1800s...or since. Some wizards just got stuck in their ways.]

I was never much at mending people, tragically. But if your attacker had the bad manners to rip your coat I'm your man.

[heckblazer]

[ Not that John means to snort so loudly, but the drugs deteriorate what little social filters he has. He nods at the aforementioned coat hanging from a hook adjacent on the wall, nearly blending into the other dry and clinical colours of the building. ]

The coat? Naw, she's made of tougher stuff, been with me through most of me highs and lows. Might've been in worse shape without it, really. Can say so in present company, since you wouldn't think me bonkers, mate.

[storyseeker]

Slip me a few bucks and I could help you out with that. But then they'd probably kick me out.

[Elena leans against the doorframe to his hospital room, giving him a crooked smile. She hadn't come here to see him, but when she'd heard the nurses chattering about an imPort patient and they'd let the name slip, he'd wanted to say hello anyway.]

Hey there. I hadn't heard you got ported back.

[heckblazer]

Not sure where I'd hide 'em anyway, the medical gowns don't leave much to the imagination.

[ It slips out before John notices to whom he's speaking, but as his head tilts towards his visitor his shoulders droop. There weren't many people whom were stable, or so doggedly nice with an interest in the well-being of someone like John. Maybe he's imagining that worried look on her face since it gives him an excuse to think of his sister and dwell on guilt. He shrugs it off, literally in fact. ]

I've been better, anyway.

[storyseeker]

[Elena chuckles as she slips from the doorway into the room. No, no they do not, something she remembers from experience.]

I promise not to peek underneath. As long as you don't roll over, your modesty should remain intact.

[Up close, he doesn't look too hot. She's seen worse injuries, but it's obvious why he's in the hospital.]

Should I see the other guy?

[heckblazer]

[ After a moment of not being a self-absorbed, depressing twat, John remembers that he has adequate deduction skills. Another, closer look at Elena infers that she may not be here just to come pity him. ]

The other guy is a long story that'd give you nightmares and it looks like you've lost enough sleep already. No 'fense, love.

[pummelgranite]

[ Here's the thing about The Good Drugs. They don't just make being awake and in pain more bearable, but they make needing to sleep almost every minute of the day that much less shitty as well. When you're in a morphine dream you are ready to get shit done. When you're in a morphine dream, and have been dabbling in the dark arts for most of your life, and laid up half mad in a hospital, and being badly missed by a fucked up kid with way too much power, you are ready to notice that suddenly you are wandering around underground tunnels around impossible twists and switchbacks, but always down. Always down into the dark.

Well golly it probably would be a good idea to turn around and go back to that other dream with all the cats in the super market. Hell, even the old nightmare where all women are topless but his dad's been drinking is probably a better idea than this. ]

[heckblazer]

[ There should be the smell of dirt and the feel of it under his feet, but there isn't. His eyes should squint and strain against the growing dark, but they don't. He hasn't figured out yet whether it's a bad dream, his astral form faffing around in the absence of his body being competent, or both. Regardless, it would be a good idea to get the hell out of this physically-impossible tunnel of impending doom. But he wouldn't be John Constantine if he didn't pursue bad ideas.

The drugs are good enough to slow him, and so he hasn't yet figured out who's underworld he's wandering through. There's enough beings that he's angered over the years that the obvious doesn't come to mind just yet. ]

[pummelgranite]

[ Down, down he goes, until he reaches her throne room.

There she sits on a throne of stone, on a cushion of human skin. The long, elegant bones of her arms move gracefully as she points one bony finger to point. Silverfish and centipedes scurry among the knuckle-bones, and thin white fingers.

The People from costumes and makeup roll over the rack she has pointed to, and then flips through the garments until the Queen nods her skull once. It's Astra's skin: preserved as a single piece, freshly laundered and pressed. She stands up, and allows the costumers to help her slip one leg at a time into- ]


[ Persephone sits up from where she had been curled on the floor and blinks at him a few times. ]


John . . . ? Izzat you?

[heckblazer]

[ In a way, he's thankful for the fucked up druggy magic trip ripping away the pretense and forcing him to confront his rotting innards. Where he expects to see again the terror of Newcastle and hear his own cries of madness, he finds a slight but firm acceptance, like a stone rippling in a pond. When he blinks or tilts his head he sees the girl taken by Nergal and the girl taken by Persephone overlap like a double exposed photograph. When she hurls sarcasm or "nuh-uh"s at him he hears whispers of a universe where she might have lived. He's been running from what was in his own mind until he mashed face first into a roadblock. Denial, John muses, is half the agony.

But thank God for bad trips and lucid dreaming. Otherwise John might have to confront this realization sober, in the real world, with verbal communication.

He blinks, finding the heap of blue hair and designer clothes very much in her own skin. ]

Pers - Laur - oi. Why you on the floor? S'there even a floor in this buggering place?

[zee_zatara]

As if Zee wouldn't be here. Considering what had put him here, she resisted the urge to show up with Get Well Soon! baloons and flowers.

She did bring gifts, of course. Some basic toiletries because nothing makes you feel filthier than being in the hospital for a stretch, a few books and magazines and several packages of nicotine gum.

"This is more for the nurses' sake than yours," she says, tapping the side of the gum packaging. Then she kisses his forehead, because this is one of those situations that calls for it.

[heckblazer]

Oh, bless her and her awful habit of being much kinder than he deserved in a thousand lifetimes. She must have forgotten things like his habit of passing out in gutters if she thought laying on cheap polyester hospital bedding would make him feel unclean. He only pretends to hate it for a moment when she leans over and brushes her lips on his head, too. He makes sure to affix a semi-embarrassed frown by the time she pulls away, at least.

"Well, the nurse might have to thank you for both of us, then," he answers dryly, "Bloke didn't look like he skipped leg day. More your type than mine, I think." He is, of course, doing his best to avoid discussing the source of his injuries or their general implications. For now.

[zee_zatara]

No, she just made sure he cleaned himself up to somewhere near presentable. And, that time she found him in an alley, adopted by a family of opossums- or, at least, adopted as a heat source- flea-dipping and de-ticking him.

"Hm, might just have to check him out later," she says, giving him a mischievous smirk that she hopes makes him feel a bit better. Or at least a bit of distraction.

She lays her hand on his, and murmurs a few backwards words. She still doesn't have her healing magic, but a good sensory illusion is just as good, if not better, than painkillers- and unlike Dilaudid, will not make his face all itchy.

[heckblazer]

Unfortunately, the magic induced relief works a bit too well and the emotional constipation that he hid behind drugs and sarcasm begins to leak out. When his eyes re-open he looks tired, truly and utterly. He's done enough joking around with his other visitors. In front of her that arrogance melts away.

"Maybe they should've finished me off. For all the good I've done them."

[aberranthubris]

[ Charles had been in the hospital a few days under surveillance for the concussion his clone generously had gifted him. He was still battered and bruised, one eye swollen and lip split, the back of his head like a battlefield. The staff had told him not to put himself under any kind of stress and hard work, so he had given a rest with his usual rigid shields with his telepathy. The staff was excited about another imPort being admitted a few days after him and because boredom was a serious issue, Charles decided to find the man and see if they could entertain each other for a little bit.

He rolled to the door of John's room with his wheelchair and knocked politely. ]

Hello. Would you mind some company?

[heckblazer]

[ With a comical under-reaction, John gestures to the casts he's sporting and the tubes he's hooked to before replying nonchalantly. ]

Don't have much choice, mate. Heard from the orderlies I wasn't the only one of these imPort types admitted, though. Wasn't sure whether I'd imagined it. Lotta morphine, see.

[ He might notice - either through verbal cues or sensing John's own inner monologue - that he's not quite being casual. There's calculation and curiosity, trying to figure out what his new visitor might want. ]

[aberranthubris]

[ It doesn't seem like he's bothering the man at least, which is why Charles pushes himself over the threshold and wheels the chair next to John's bed, offering him his hand. ] Professor Charles Xavier, [ he says with a small smile. ]

I imagined we could perhaps entertain each other a little bit. Unless you rather would watch reruns.

The staff seemed quite excited to know there were more than one. I don't think I will ever get used to being fawned over in quite such fashion.

[ ooc: Permissions post in case you would like to opt out of telepathy! ]

[heckblazer]

[ Alright, there was definitely something...odd about this bloke. He's entirely too nice, and if he's an imPort that means powers of some sort to watch out for. If John weren't stuck in this bed full of blasted drugs, it might be an easier read.

Trying not to make his skepticism too obvious, he reaches with his good hand and a brief nod. ]

John Constantine. Pleasure, mate. Get a few good licks in on the other guy, at least?