When they first met it had taken John about twelve sentences – eleven more than usually necessary, but spoken as fast as most people spoke one – to reach a conclusion about Chas. The only one he'd reached about him since; that he could be useful. It had taken about the same amount of time for Chas to conclude that with John dead he would be,

'Actually! Fucking! Murdered, John!'

John spared a glance at the diagnosis letter. He should have rolled it up and smoked it.

Chas was practically hyperventilating as if he were the one dying, and not just a kid who needed to be more careful with what he read. John finally pushed the offending letter aside, obscuring it behind a half-drunk bottle of wine. He sat nonchalantly at the table. Chas was standing, pacing – too short to really tower over anyone, but his eyes were so big, and they did this indignant thing sometimes that was best dealt with by averting your gaze.

During the course of Chas' sprawling rant, (at one point he'd insisted they get a second opinion on his diagnosis), John focussed on how many layers Chas wore. It was funny to watch the shaking rage of someone in fingerless gloves and a scarf that made them redder and redder as time passed. One of life's little treats.

'You're always saying you want to help.'

'Yeah! Because I don't know anything and if something happens to you I'm fucked!'

John had definitely just heard Chas say he didn't know anything. Maybe he was hallucinating?

'Seriously,' Chas shook his head, 'you are unbelievably selfish. Did you even think about me?'

Like he was disappointed. Like he was a teacher and he was disappointed. Johnny, did you think about your actions?

'No,' you little prick, 'no I didn't! I was too busy thinking about eternity in Hell. It's distracting!'

'You've got time to deal with it then! How long do you have left?'

John choked.

'Months.'

'Months!' Chas actually laughed, 'you're a fucking piece of work. What are we going to do?'

John threw a third of the red wine down his throat then said,

'I have no idea what you're going to do. I'm pretty sure where I'm headed though,' thinking of a bar, any bar.

'The fucking grave?'

John smashed the wine bottle against the door without thinking. His breathing was heavy, but Chas didn't even flinch. Those massive eyes showed he was deciding something.

Finally he said, 'I don't know if I'm coming back, John,' and picked up his keys, and left.

The wine left an angry red splotch on the door, no good to anyone.

If he wasn't the greatest fan of conversation and it took Chas twelve sentences to say what most people could in one, then why bother with him? John had asked himself this numerous times in Chas' presence, but only in his absence did he gain any insight; because Chas was the only person he knew who was simultaneously dumb enough to help him and smart enough to keep up with him.

Without Chas to do the physical work, John had some experience of what it meant to be bone-tired. His lungs burned in a way previously unknown to him, like a hideous promise of things to come, and he needed his energy for the actual exorcisms. If word got out that John Constantine was fair game, was too busy coughing up his own blood to shed yours, it would all be on account of his apprentice's fucking tantrum.

(Yes, and not because God had seen fit to saddle him with something he clearly couldn't handle, and a stress-relief system that would kill him. One of life's little tricks..)

Chas' endless stream of words usually got in the way of this kind of contemplation.

So when, a week later, he found Chas waiting outside in the cab, John was in the back seat and spitting out a destination, (169 Cottonwood Avenue), before he knew it, and they were on the highway before he released a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. He filled the next breath with nicotine.

'John,' it was the first thing Chas had said, 'can you please not smoke that in here? Here being my livelihood?'

I could, John thought, but it would seriously interfere with my smoking.

'John I'll buy your drinks for a month if you put that out,' said all in a stream with his eyes closed like he was just trying to get through the sentence without flipping out.

John exhaled, filling the cab.

'You're too young to buy alcohol.'

'I can't afford it either. Put it out.'

John took one more long, deep drag before obliging.

Considering there wasn't exactly a standard tariff for the service of pulling demons out of loved ones, John was familiar with peoples different methods of bargaining for things they really wanted. Chas' method was to ask for so much with such consistency that eventually you gave something.

Of course it helped when you had a captive audience.

Chas had pulled over on the hard shoulder. The little bastard wanted to talk. And John had to give him props for leaving him with a choice between answering his questions or walking out on to a road where no pedestrian could hope to survive.

Chas was still holding the wheel, stealing occasional glimpses at John in the mirror. There was still a denial in Chas' eyes, almost an accusation. A refusal to believe what was in front of him and a righteous anger stemming from the contradiction of what he thought should be true and what was.

John had spent enough time in mental health institutions to pick up basic psychology. There were supposedly five stages to grief; denial and anger were taken care of that first night. Chas was bargaining now, in words and looks. Depression was next, then acceptance. All shit options.

John focussed his attention on the cars drifting by, lives separated from him by just a sheet of glass, containing him like a disease.

'I'm not paying you for this.'

'I don't remember the last time you paid me John and neither does my landlord. That's why I spent the last week moving into a shitty bedsit that I've had to convince everyone is really awesome because my fridge is within arms reach of my bed.'

John smirked so Chas couldn't see it in the rear-view. He never thought about Chas' life outside of him. He tried now to think where he'd been living before, if he'd lived alone, anything he might have learned, but found only a hazy grey space containing Chas and the vague outline of a room around him.

'You're pathetic,' he said.

Chas tilted his head and said almost to himself, 'The fridge is really pretty awesome once you get used to the noise.'

A moment.

'Plus, fuck you.'

John sparked up again, since they were sitting still and probably about to be offed by a truck any moment it hardly seemed to matter. He cracked open a window at Chas' expression though.

'What are you gonna do, John?'

Good question. Usually when people heard, 'cancer', they switched off. It was a separating point, you either Had Cancer or you were normal. And when those who were normal became those who Had It people grimaced and turned away, and if they tried to look into what cancer meant they saw only the hazy grey place and the person stuck there. But through the smoke Chas was watching him.

'169 Cottonwood. Rip whatever is it out of this kid and take it out on my liver afterwards.'

'John..'

'We don't go any further than that Chas.'

This was honesty. What are you gonna do in the face of the impossible? Carry on. He was a fucking Zen master.

'Send it back to Hell and pray I don't join it.'

Chas was still just looking at him, that frown like the weight of the world rested on his over-layered shoulders and all he had to do was identify the right book to fix it all.

'Chas. Drive.'

Like he hadn't heard him;

'You're going to Hell?'

'I told you that.'

'I didn't think you meant it.'

John grit his teeth at Chas' naked lack of experience. As if his ultimate fate was just a jibe in an argument and not the catalyst behind his every action. But Chas hadn't seen that. He'd read about it. It was still an adventure he could close the pages on.

'But you, you're the best person I know.' Off John's patently disbelieving look Chas winced slightly, flustered. 'I mean – you do so much?'

He looked so young when he said that. Lost in a world where balancing the books equalled salvation.

Like John wasn't lost for the same reason.

John felt a pang of something, some acknowledgement of awful humour as he looked at the sincerity of Chas' confusion. He looked out the window and said with a hint of amusement,

'I need to go to Hell for you to give a fuck?'

Chas shook his head, although he could have just been protesting the situation.

'I've never.. never lost anyone.'

'You get used to it.'

Chas did not look comforted. His hands had moved from the wheel to his stomach, absently clutching at the material there, and John recognised the physical motions of someone trying to cling to a security that had never truly existed in the first place.

He was young and scared, needing so badly for something to be given when John was only capable of taking away. Chas could no more help him than the doctors could.

As he watched Chas attempt to hold it together, John heard a voice inside him that had been sounding since his diagnosis, but which John never allowed himself to still long enough to hear.

There really is no hope.

John threw what remained of his cigarette out the window.

'I haven't given up, Chas.'

'Right,' said Chas in a distant voice, hands returning to the wheel at a precise 10 and 2 position as if he'd just learned how to drive. Stage 4; Depression, making itself known.

Except John didn't really think there were stages, not when you could mix them up, skip stages altogether, carry some through into others as Chas had carried his denial. What was the point in a system you didn't adhere to? Commandments you could break without fear of punishment? As if death wouldn't arrive until you'd gone through your neat, orderly stages. Although he knew from experience that once you reached stage 4 your fate was as good as sealed.

John leaned forward as far as the cramped cab would allow, and placed a hand on Chas' arm. Chas swallowed, and for a second John saw all of the resolve he'd gathered flicker. All the determination and fast-talking that Chas hid behind dissolved and revealed the terrified soul of someone standing on the edge of loss with no one to counsel him. And John surprised himself with the strength in his own voice as he said,

'Chas. Drive.'

Chas seemed to notice for the first time that John was touching him when his arm moved to release the hand brake. John never touched him. Things were changing.

He was scared.

He pulled out into the traffic anyway, and soon Chas was asking what John knew about the exorcism they were heading to. A few more minutes later, John was answering.

169 Cottonwood and a prayer against the inevitable.

They drove.

The five stages of grief according to the Kübler-Ross model: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.

Thank you for reading, reviews appreciated!