This was not his finest hour. Not by any stretch of the imagination. With absolutely no one willing to babysit Geraldine, he had been forced to resort to the last person who should be allowed to take care of children. God, Chas was desperate. Why else would he be leaving his daughter in the care of John Constantine? There was no rational explanation, other than parasites of the brain, a possibility one should never truly discount. Chas wasn't sure what a brain parasite would do to someone like him, but he didn't want to find out.

It wasn't just Chas who found the situation surreal. "Seriously?" the exorcist had laughed. "You're leaving me in charge of Geraldine. No offence mate, but have you lost your fucking mind?"

"Please, John. Renée'll kill me if I leave her a lone and something happens." pleaded Chas.

"Renée'll kill you if she finds out you let me look after Geraldine. She hates my guts." John shrugged aimlessly. "Always has done, ever since she found me shagging her best friend at the wedding."

"Her married best friend." Chas pointed out. His friend shrugged vaguely again. "And anyway, that's not why she hates you. It's a contributing factor."

One of many, many events that had coloured Renée's opinions against John. And even that didn't begin to cover it. No, Renée's hatred of John ran deeper than that, not so much jealousy as – Chas wasn't sure there was a word for those nights she spent waiting for him to get home, those days when Geraldine was acting out and she had to deal with it all alone because her husband was busy, busy saving other families while neglecting his own.

"You think the best man's speech had something to do with it?" John smirked, intentionally oblivious to the real reason.

"For the last time, John, you were not the best man because you were pulling one of your disappearing acts so none of us knew where you were or even if you were alive. Hypnotising Renée's brother into doing a strip tease was just childish."

"Should've asked me instead as him then, shouldn't you?" John said smugly, echoing the same conversation they'd been having ever since he had gatecrashed the wedding in the first place. Heckling the priest, sleeping with the married chief bridesmaid, ruining the speeches and doing whatever it was he'd done to the karaoke that had almost got them kicked out of their own reception, that was just the punchline. It sounded hyperbolic, like some kind of horror story young couples would be told in future to dissuade them from tying the knot. For a long time after that, Chas had really, really wished that John had stayed gone. It was amazing Renée hadn't left him there and then. So yes – the wedding was a contributing factor but whatever had happened then, all those years ago, Renée would have despised John anyway, it was just a fact of life. Like gravity.

Anyway – Geraldine adored him, so for five minutes, she'd be fine while Chas quickly went and bought Renée some flowers for their anniversary. He would send John to get the flowers, except that would be even more insane than leaving him with Geraldine, and besides, Chas loved Renée. He was sure as hell going to buy his own gift. He might not be a perfect husband but he wasn't a shitty one either.

"You behave for Uncle John now." he said, hugging Geraldine as he left. She nodded. Chas turned to John and added, seriously. "You two kids play nice."

"Ha bloody ha." John muttered.

"Mommy says bloody's a bad word, Uncle John!" Geraldine sounded scandalised. "No bad words. Or else I'll tell her you were here."

John shot Chas a look that the big man had to work hard not to laugh at. "When she grows up, mate, she'd going to be worse than Renée." A rush of pride filled Chas as he looked at his daughter, bossing 'Uncle John' around like there was no tomorrow, and there was nothing the demonologist could do about it, no spell or charm or curse that could stop Geraldine Chandler. It was funny because she did it all in that sweet, innocent way she had that completely disarmed the manipulative exorcist, who was more used to dealing with murderous entities possessing children than actual children themselves. Add that to the fact his own childhood had been so painful and it all combined to make the world's worst babysitter. Wow John, wow.

Wow.

He left the house and drove as quickly as he could to the store, where a sales assistant decided to start an argument for no apparent reason holding him up for longer than he would have liked. And then he couldn't find any nice flowers so he settled for roses hoping it wouldn't come across as unoriginal. Traffic on the way back was laughable, as if someone up there was doing this on purpose, and if that was the case then it was probably because he was friends with John. When everything was going wrong and you didn't have a scapegoat, you blamed God. And if God was punishing him John had to be involved somehow. Really it was just an excuse to be pissed at the exorcist and that was that. Sometimes you didn't even need that. Sometimes he did all the work for you.

Other times, like today, he'd keep an eye on Geraldine and barely complain at all except the occasional sarcastic remark every five seconds or so. You could make it into a drinking game, take a shot every time John is a dick, that kind of thing, except you'd probably end up with liver failure by the end of the night and Chas didn't want to add that to his already impressive catalogue of deaths.

It took about twenty minutes for him to get home when it should have taken ten, and he drove the whole way in silence because if he put any music on, he'd have to turn it over before he got back so John wouldn't make unsubtle comments about it. Finally, he arrived hom, pulling the taxi up and running inside, all the while praying Renée wouldn't be back and ready to take Chas' life count down to zero with one look. He opened the door to silence. Ominous, terrible silence. Not Renée then. There would be arguing if she was back, had found John and was on the warpath. But then again, it wasn't like Geraldine to be so quiet either.

"Hello?" Chas shouted. "John? Geraldine?"

"Help me Chas..." a choking cry from upstairs. Oh God. Oh dear God.

Chas hurtled up the stairs three at a time, charging into Geraldine's room without thought as to the possible demonic entity he might find.

In retrospect, he should probably have slowed down a little but that wouldn't have stopped the image he was presented with being so funny. If he hadn't been out of breath already, he sure as hell would've been from laughing so much.

Nothing, nothing he had ever encountered in his life was so freaking hilarious as the sight of John Constantine with little ribbons in his hair and rainbow stickers on his face. It was all Chas could do not to run downstairs and grab the camera, tears of laughter rolling down his cheeks.

"Oh thank God." John muttered, standing up. "Free at last."

"Sit down Uncle John!" Geraldine insisted. "I haven't finished making you look pretty yet!" In one hand she held up a little make-up kit and Chas doubled over laughing again.

"Don't you dare." John glared at Chas, stickers all over his face rather detracting from his attempt to look menacing.

"My lips are sealed." Chas lied, secretly planning to tell everyone. But he wouldn't. Still. It would be the funniest thing ever. All he had to do was take a photo. No. Just, no. The temptation was strong but he could resist it.

Still, he was glad he'd let John babysit after all. It couldn't have gone better. And Renée didn't suspect a thing.

A week later he was forced to eat those words when he arrived home one day to find Renée in her most irritable mood.

"I got an interesting call from Geraldine's school today." she said. "Apparently Geraldine told her principal to, and I quote, 'sod off'." Renée raised her eyebrows and Chas' heart sank. "Now where could she possibly have learnt a word like that?"

Well, shit.