( AN OPEN POST #2 )

[charmlessness]

 
 
 

you know the drill. pick your poison (not entirely limited to those listed). reply with a prompt in the form of a post, photo, song, text, voicemail, whatever your heart desires & receive a response. simple, right? right.

 
 
 

Comments

[dabbling]

's like I've said, luv: The name's John Constantine.

[ john follows her, hand trailing behind hers along the railing. the whole place is practically teeming with dark energy. he can feel it crawling along the walls, slipping between the cracks in the floor. she had better stay close; a banshee can only do so much before she's realized her true potential — and with the way she's shaking, he's certain she hasn't quite gotten the hang of it. yet. ]

Lydia.

[ john repeats her name, allowing it to reverberate through his mouth and on skitter across his tongue. he wonders, for a short time, if she would say his name as lorraine once had. the idea causes a bit of a lurch in his gut, and he has to remind himself why he's come here. (can't blame the man for seeing what's right in front of him, can you? he's only human and that.) ]

Your surname wouldn't happen to be Martin, now, would it?

[ before she can jump to conclusions, his free hand raises, palm splayed in a quick — now, hang on a minute — motion. he's had enough of martin women leaping to conclusions for one lifetime. ]

I just so happened to know another banshee from around these parts, back in the eighties. Called herself Lorraine Martin. And me, well, I'm a few years right outside of the realm of coincidence, I'm afraid.

[shesimmune]

( like he said? does he really expect her to have heard everything he was saying while she was convinced that, if only for a brief moment, he was going to leave her carved up on one of those dissection tables?

john constantine. sounds like something out of one of those comic books that scott and stiles used to ramble about in school when they didn't think that anybody could hear them. only, something tells her that he doesn't quite have any of those superpowers.

he's right to put his hands up, because the second the word Martin leaves his lips, lydia's eyes are narrowed and she's spun around, staring at him with an please, explain expression. complete with an eyebrow raise and a hand at a jutted hip. any fear of this man has now been replaced with the ever present feeling of annoyance.

until, of course, he speaks of her grandmother, and that eyebrow raise turns into a furrow in confusion. )

You don't look old enough to have known my grandmother in the eighties. ( she takes a step towards him, arms crossing over her chest. ) How old were you, John Constantine? Ten, eleven, tops?

( all of this to avoid the fact that she's not yet ready to stomach the memory of her grandmother and all the things she didn't tell her about her life to come. all the confusion and hurt she could have saved her, and now here she's gone again, throwing some stranger her way.

always with the secrets in the martin family. )

If you're here to see her, you're a bit late. She died a long time ago at Eichen House.

[dabbling]

's a shame. She was a good woman, your grandmother.

[ john's expression falls into amusement as she attempts to punch holes in his story. he takes it, leaning an elbow on the railing as he listens to her. once she's had her say, of course, he nods his head. ]

Right, first thing's first — before we go any further, I'd just like to take a minute to point out that what you can do? Banshees, werewolves, angry Japanese trickster gods? Believe it. Believe in all of it. Because when you walk in my world, luv, you had better forget what you know and start realizing that the impossible just might save your life.

[ he starts past her, but as he begins his next point, he turns to her, pointing a finger as he looks down in her direction. ]

And number two: between you and me, I'll be takin' that bit about me age as a compliment, if you don't mind. Cheers.

[ john reaches the top of the stairs, eyeing a sign that indicates the chemistry lab is off in that direction. the direction that makes him feel ill in his bones. that'd be the one, of course.

can't have things going easy on him, now, can he? ]

[shesimmune]

( well, he got one thing right. if there was one thing lorraine martin was, at least in her earlier years, it was good. that's the side of her that lydia chooses to hold on to, not the side that drove a fellow banshee insane by experimenting on her. )

Your world. ( she reiterates the words, half amused and half annoyed. her lips purse now, and that eyebrow's gone right back to its previous spot high on her forehead. ) You walk into Beacon Hills high school one night, years after a sudden infestation of werewolves and banshees and angry Japanese trickster gods and suddenly it's your world? Where were you before all of this happened?

( she lets him walk by, because when it comes down to it, there's a much bigger problem at hand, and that's what brought them both here. or, rather, that's what brought her here; it's beginning to become more and more clear that she might be the reason he's here.

(she doesn't acknowledge this fact, though, because the idea alone is enough to make her stomach turn in an uneasy manner. just how much was her grandmother keeping from her?)

clearing her throat, lydia takes another step towards the lab. part of her tells her to go in and learn more, while the other, louder part of her wants to go as far as physically possible away from these screaming — yet silent, all at the same time — bodies. )

It's not so bad in there. ( something that shouldn't be said about corpses by a teenage girl, so she continues: ) I mean, if you're used to that kind of stuff.

[dabbling]

England. [ john answers simply.

but the answer is never really that easy with john — how could it be? opening up with hey, by the way, swung about to keep an eye on you. sorry i'm late, luv. traffic's hell isn't his way of doing things. he'll get there; at the moment, this — whatever this is — is taking precedence.

he felt the entity as soon as he'd crossed city limits. chas and john exchanged quirking eyebrows and pursed lips. his fingers had reached for a fag instinctively, and he'd muttered i hate this bloody town around the filter. it's old, something ancient. it makes the hallways pulse and the city streets come alive. beacon hills was due for its true purpose any day now.

good thing he'd shown up when he had, eh?

she's still talking just at his shoulder, most of her words falling on deaf ears. it isn't until her final note that he turns his head towards her. his lips are spread into a grin, all mischief and battered charm. she has no fucking clue.

his back is pressed to the door frame as he steps hesitantly. the door swings slow as he presses his palm to it, creaking on its hinges. the outline of the bodies is visible even in the darkness. when his fingers reach out to turn on the light, nothing comes. ]

Well, that's just bloody typical, ennit?

[ john moves inside the biology room fully now, pulling a small torch from his coat pocket. he points it, illuminating the corpses that lay in the distance. as he crosses the floor, his nose draws in the scent of sulfur, thick and ruminating. ]

I was all for a bit of dissection, back in my day, but this—?

[shesimmune]

( there's a lot lydia could say to this man at the moment, but a couple of very specific questions come to mind, first. number one being how the hell he even got involved with her grandmother. following shortly after is if he was in england, did he come all the way back to beacon hills just for her?

instead of following through with these or any of the other countless thoughts that have popped into her head, lydia simply shakes her head. it's been a whopping couple of minutes with john constantine, and she's just about finished with him. maybe it's the attitude, maybe it's the overwhelming "i'm the greatest" vibe that seems to radiate off of him, or maybe it's the fact that she doesn't really feel all that bothered by his presence. she only wishes she was.

stepping back in the room, she's suddenly glad for the cold front that the town's been having. imagine being in a hot room full of freshly dead people with open wounds. the thought alone is enough to twist her lips in disgust. )

There's no way you couldn't have seen that coming. ( she resists a snort, arms crossing once more as she steps behind him, eager to stay close just in case whoever did this is still in the building. ) That's supernatural cliché number one: the lights won't work.

( now, if only this were really a horror movie, and they actually weren't currently standing in a room full of corpses that are clearly meant for some kind of evil that beacon hills has not yet seen. that would require a luck that lydia martin does not possess. )

Have you seen anything like this before? I didn't recognize the language.

[dabbling]

She's an expert now, is she?

[ john holds the torch between his teeth, reaching toward the nearest corpse with both his hands. the skin is carved into, symbols and glyphs spread like art. the wounds are still fresh, but that does nothing for the smell of rot that reaches the back of his throat.

he turns over the corpse's hand in his own, looking at the specific symbol placed at the center of the palm. john raises a brow, mouthing the word hel-lo around the base of the light. he takes a step backwards, removing the torch. ]

You wouldn't.

[ he shines the light toward lydia. ]

That there's a demonic language.

[ the beam is pointed over the row of bodies. they're young, but older than the students that might frequent these halls. now, they're victims of a nasty bastard with a grudge on this town. the same one that's moving underneath their feet and hiding in the shadows. ]

Enochian, they call it. Straight from Hell's Bible — not your average King James version, this. What we're dealing with is something big. One nasty bugger looking to sink its teeth into your Beacon Hills.

[ john grins. ]

Lucky I'm here, then, eh?