Notes From The Field

Apr. 17th, 2005 01:54 am theatrical_muse q: Who would you trade lives with / what would you do?

Eh. Tell you the truth, 'm not exactly consumed by envy of anyone else's life in particular just now... so if you'll gimme a minute, I've got to go through me list of enemies here. Lemme find the bastard who most deserves a good kick in the teeth, all right? I'll trade lives with him, and let him take all the shite I know's comin' my way.

Me, I'll be down the pub or some such the whole time. Be nice to see someone else get my consequences for once.

Mar. 18th, 2005 09:02 am theatrical_muse: What are you most dissatisfied with in your life?

. . . oh, fuck, most?

Listen, I could say a lot of things here. I could give you all kinds of specific things that haven't turned out as I've planned or as I'd like. I've been dissatisfied in one form or another since I was a kid. The problem is that after a good forty or fifty years it all piles up to the point where you can't separate the one from the next, so how about I just say 'me' and get it over with, hmm?



(OOC: My apologies, but the mun got precious little sleep last night. Chalk it up to that for the mun and a hangover for Johnny boy.)

Mar. 3rd, 2005 11:46 am theatrical_muse question: What can you say is truly yours?

Truly mine? Not a whole lot. Most of what you'd call really mine's been traded away at one point or another. That or someone else's staked a claim on it. Fuck, I can't say my blood, as most of that's not even properly human, let alone mine.

My scars. My nightmares. Just at the present moment, my soul, although that might change.

And my coat. No one touches the coat, all right?

Muse: John Constantine
Fandom: Hellblazer (misc. comics)
Word count: 72

The buzzer sounded. John sat up with a start, blinking repeatedly as the grubby, horrid room swam into focus around him. It had all been a dream- a long, horrible, torturous lifetime's worth of a dream, but still only a dream.

He rubbed at his face with both hands- young hands, unscarred hands, against a face thirty years younger than his still half-sleeping brain would have him believe- and fumbled for the pack of Silk Cuts that lay nearby. This wasn't the kind of warning a bloke ought to forget, but he'd be damned if he was going to face writing it all down without a fag to keep him company-

His mind screamed at him, his chest muscles shuddering in dream-remembered fiery agony, in the instant he touched the packet. There was a piece of me in the sink, there was a doctor saying it was terminal, there were angels and demons and I stuck it to them all but I almost didn't make it-

Reluctantly summoning all the willpower he could muster, he shoved the smokes aside and picked up the pen instead.

Three hours later he finally put down his pen and rubbed at his angrily cramping hand. Some of the details had slipped away from him, but he'd got all the important bits down, and then some. It would be enough.

He'd tell the others about it after they all walked out of Newcastle alive, and sane.

Muse: John Constantine
Fandom: Hellblazer (misc. comics)
Word count: 240

(OOC: I really don't think there is a happily ever after for John. Vengefully satisfiedly ever after, at best. But I can't see a happily ever after for him.)

Feb. 1st, 2005 12:07 am Oi! autobotsrollout and deceptrio!

Seen this yet? Seems someone's gettin' fed up with the American political process and is lookin' your way. Ever considered mounting a campaign?

Jan. 24th, 2005 12:06 pm theatrical_muse: What's the furthest away you've ever been from the place you were born?

This one's easy. You don't get much farther from Liverpool than Heaven.

Well- strictly speakin'- not Heaven per se. But there's those who'll tell you that Heaven is being in the presence of God, and if that's the case then I've been there. 'Course, said presence happened to be in the middle of a forest in the middle of bloody nowhere, but-

Yes, God, the God, the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic Big Beard in the Sodding Sky. THAT God. I've met Him. It's a really long story. I'd just as soon not repeat it, thanks.

As for why I went, that's another long story, but it had to do with a bunch of right bastards (even by my standards) in Hell, some things I had to do, the state of the world in general, and a lot of demonic taint. I'd as soon not repeat the experience if it's all the same to you, but then again I don't much want to go back to Liverpool either, so I take what I can get in the meantime.

Next question, please.

Jan. 24th, 2005 11:54 am theatrical_muse question: Describe your funniest childhood memory.

Problem: this question assumes I had what lot would call an actual childhood. I mean, yeah, I was born same as anyone else, I was two and three and five and ten and all that, but come on. I slapped me ol' dad with such a curse when I was twelve that he was guaranteed a slow, nasty death and practically all fucking eternity as a ghost. Didn't find out until after I finally broke the curse that the bastard was bound for Hell, I s'pose if he hadn't been pesterin' the rest of the living that I probably should've left him spectral…

Mind, he did try to abort me an' me twin, so I suppose what I did was at least ironic, if not outright funny.

Up yours, Dad.

Description? Pssh, I don't know; how would you describe sgt_preston? Up there with Superman for your basic squeaky-clean, if not worse. From what I've heard, if he goes into a pub they offer him tea, and he likes it. Doesn't smoke, either. Won't gamble. Stayed a virgin 'til he got married. I don't think he even knows what curse words are. Wouldn't touch magic with a ten-meter cattle prod, far as I know. And he's a believer, which I most definitely am not. Not to mention him bein' an optimist by nature, or the bit where he thinks well of people 'til they give him reason to think otherwise.

Men like him exist to rid the world of men like me.

This past year started off more-or-less like all the others: completely unnoticed, owing to the hangover. I don't much care for facing major milestones sober. Done that too many times to be anything but burned. . . anyway, it started off simply enough, and it went downhill just as fast as every other year ever did. I could give you the details, but why bother? Assume there were demons and idiots and scum every which way I turned, and that there were a lot of words like 'bollocks' and 'shite' and a few grandiose gestures that made me feel better but didn't do much else beyond pissing the powerful off.

And then it was June. Tim Hunter's doppelganger came back from whatever Godforsaken dimension that thing was exiled in. I turned up in time to crack the sodding thing in the head with a brick in a sock, and it tried to kill me before it went down. . .

And I landed in London, and ran into a big bloke calling himself Hagrid, and got a job, a proper respectable they're-leaving-me-alone-with-children? job. Got told I couldn't be sent back, worse luck. Met the Marquis de Carabas, got introduced to the finest FBI agent I've ever seen; that went well, exceptionally so. Met the giant fucking transforming robots, accidentally turned a couple of 'em into human beings. Met a lot of other people, some of whom knew me, some who didn't, one of whom claimed to be me in some kind of Jungian archetypal way. Got roped into writing for an advice community.

Realised I'd been in a different bloody universe for months on end a little before my birthday. Got snapped out of feeling sorry for myself by a visitor. Again, that went well.

Made it through the birthday all right. Made it as far as the end of the year, in fact. Currently stayin' in Boston with the aforementioned visitor, which is more luck than I've ever deserved.

You want anything more reflective than that for my year in review, you're going to have to pay for the whiskey first.

Muse: John Constantine
Fandom: Hellblazer (misc. comics)
Word count: 328

Nov. 21st, 2004 01:26 am Locked to catwoman28

Logan International Airport's an easy enough spot to reach, albeit a little tough to get out of. A determined visitor will make the effort, though, and today Constantine is determined to do so. Admittedly, he can't boss the cabbies around the way he does Chas, but that doesn't stop him from trying. He's got an appointment to keep with a certain blonde of his acquaintance.

I expect you already know part of the answer I'm going to give. The First of the Fallen gets to be first on the list; I can't deny that. Wouldn't mind seeing his colleagues right alongside him, either, most of them've given me enough trouble over the years that I sure as hell wouldn't want to shuffle off this mortal coil knowing they might be at my back... but I'm not stopping there. No, I can think of a few others who deserve properly final comeuppance. Can't tell you what I want to do them, mind, since doing that prematurely would make said comeuppance pretty well impossible. I've got plans for them, see. And some of the rest, well, I've already seen to it they got theirs. Ask Gabriel, or what's left of him. But there's one left on the list at the end of it, and as long as I'm doing up the First, I might as well do him up too...

See, I can do without the rest of the Lords of Hell getting their final comeuppance from me. They'll tear each other apart eventually. It's what they do. I can do without being the one to deal it out to the wastes of skin I've met along the way, too. But in the end, what I really want to see is a nice, tightly sealed room. Big, small, I don't care. I just want this room set up so that once the two beings in question are inside, they can't get out and the only thing that can get in is a constant, unalterable, real-time, one hundred per cent accurate view of everything that happens on Earth. I want it so that they can watch and watch and watch but can't ever alter any of it, or influence it the least little bit no matter how hard they try, and they can't get out or get anyone to let them out, either- except Death Herself, when she comes to take the Universe away after even the last bloody archetype's gone. Nice. Safe. Secure. Unalterable. I want that room made. I want the First stuck in it.

And I want the First of the Fallen's companion in that room, from now until She comes to open the door, to be God.

Finish your fucking war and get the hell out of my species' affairs, the both of you.

Current Mood: disgusted

But it got into the brain and would not let go, so the only way to be rid of it is to inflict it on others.

***

The scowl appeared on Constantine's face almost as soon as the cleaner handed him the plastic-shrouded garment. "Tranh, this isn't my coat."
"What?" asked Tranh, the cleaner, a Vietnamese man with salt-and-pepper hair.
John poked at the plastic; it crinkled. "Not mine. There's been a mixup."
"Nonsense," said Tranh. "I checked the ticket twice. This one's yours."
"No, see, it's not, and I can guarantee this is the case, 'cos I specifically remember that my coat was made of cloth when I brought it here." He reached down and pulled about half the plastic away, then poked at the coat again. "Does that look like cloth to you?"
Tranh bent over, squinting at the coat with a suddenly growing expression of dismay. "Looks like leather," he muttered.
"Right. I'm not gonna pay for clean-up on someone else's leathers unless we're very good friends." John folded his arms across his chest. "How'd this happen, and where the hell is my coat?"
The smaller man didn't answer; he was already hunched over the computer that served for a cash register, a weirdly high-tech touch in a business of clattering hangers and the stink of carbon tet. "Looks like... oh, looks like my boy mixed up the tickets in the machine..." He looked up. "Another coat came in the day you brought me yours."
"Lemme guess," said John wearily. "The other bloke's already been and left with mine?"
Tranh nodded.
"What's his name?"
Tranh peered at the screen, reached for the mouse. Several clicks later, he looked up again. "Frank Castle," he said.
"Right," said John, digging in his trouser pockets for a scrap of paper. Snatching up a pencil stub from the counter, he asked, "Got a number I can reach him at?"

Christ Almighty, you expect me to keep track? I sold my soul to three different demon lords without letting any of 'em know about the other two; that got me cured of lung cancer, though it hurt like fuck. I spun off all the Hell-worthy bits of my soul into an entirely separate entity and sent it to Hell disguised as all of me, and they bought it, and children's souls got released from Hell because of it. I won't even bother going into detail about the bit with the First of the Fallen and the holy water, although that was pretty damn entertaining. . .

Seriously, though, there's been too many lies for me to keep track of 'em all, or which one's biggest, or which had the worst consequences. Walk back along my timeline and have a look for yourself if you really want to know. They all run together after a while.

Ah, this one's easy. Finally.

Single, white male troublemaker, looking for woman who's looking to raise some hell. This is not an ad for the faint of heart, the easily offended, or the exceedingly fragile. I'm the one your mum told you to keep away from, and your dad'd probably bar the door and buy a shotgun if he knew I was about. I can guarantee you a damn fine ride you won't soon forget; call me and find out.

One note: I smoke, drink, and swear as I like. Straight-edge types and anyone with hopes of going to Heaven one day need not apply.

Vulnerable? You know, you lot have a real talent for asking stupid questions. You didn't seriously think I was going to answer this one, did you? I'm a lot of things, but suicidal isn't one of 'em. There are too many beings out there that'd like nothing better than to spend the next few millennia operating a full-scale Room 101 with my name on it for me to give away that kind of information.

As for invulnerable, that requires me to believe my own bullshit, and even I'm not that much of a fool.

Not since Kit, anyway.

Hell if I remember. Might as well ask me 'what happened the first time you ate food'.

Crate of Tennents Super, crate of Bushmills, several cartons of Silk Cuts, a new coat, and trousers. I've about fuckin' had it with the Hogwarts robes, thank you. And the coat didn't stand up too well to bouncing off the streets of London when I got to this world anyway.

's my birthday.

Now where'd I put the good whiskey?

And how the hell have I managed to live this long?