Interlude4 – Text messages
A/N: Guest appearances from the rest of Mick's team!
John in the show usually borrows other people's phones (and doesn't know Google) and he strikes me more as a talker, not a "texter", so I tried to work out his texting style.
Two weeks after Mick's phone call, he received a text message from an unknown number.
'Our parents names were Mary Anne and Thomas Constantine. Ive older sister, Cheryl, but she moved out when I was a kid and hvnt heard from her since.'
Mick was sitting at his desk in the BAU control room, busy with paperwork. His colleagues were there, too, bored to pieces writing the reports about their latest case. He grinned at the sight of the message, drawing attention from the other agents to himself.
"Oooh, someone looks happy," Beth called with a smile. Mick ignored her, which was unusual for him. He texted back:
'I have a younger sister, Jenna. Our parents died when I was 10, had to take care of her.'
He hit Send. Then he started another message:
'I'm a sniper.' This message was sent, too.
He waited anxiously for the reply. He was afraid John would back down after that last message, even though he didn't strike him as an easily spooked person. Mick's shooting skills practically defined him, he was proud of them and it was one of the most important details about his life.
"Mick?"
He registered Cooper's soft question. The team leader surely tried to pose as a father figure.
"It's John Constantine," Mick explained, "he decided to send me various details about himself."
Mick's phone chirped again with another text.
'Lookit u. So grown, responsible and badass.'
Mick laughed, relieved. He saw by the corner of his eye that the other agents exchanged a curious look.
'Playing the role of a proud older brother now?', he replied. He received a response almost immediately:
'Nah'
And a short while later:
'Ur more fit for it. Except the proud part. Any plans for visiting ur homeland in the nearest future?'
Mick's heart started to beat faster. When he had been unable to reach John with the test results, he'd been afraid that the exorcist avoided him. This Jasper man had assured him that John would be happy having a brother, but two weeks of silence after that had made Mick doubtful again. He was almost desperate; ready to go looking for his newly found sibling, despite having no idea where to start. He would figure something out. He was an investigator after all with a lot of contacts, but he'd be reluctant to use them for a private search.
Now John practically suggested they should meet.
Stunned, he said that to Cooper.
"Do you want to?" the team leader asked. The other agents were listening to the conversation, not speaking, watching their teammate start bonding with his brother. They glanced at each other with knowing smiles: Mick was visibly happy John contacted him, so they were happy for him.
Mick slowly started to type a response and asked his boss absently:
"Would you?"
'In a month I'm gonna spend some time at Jenna's. You're welcome to come over,' he texted.
The reply came in after a minute.
'Ill let u know.'
Mick could barely focus on his report but managed to finish it. He didn't touch the subject of his brother in conversations with his teammates. The others didn't push it, the topic being fresh and still developing.
Mick and John had spent an hour together before Rawson had to get back to work and Constantine was picked up by his giant of a friend. It wasn't enough time to get to know each other; they weren't even sure they were brothers, so they couldn't share any too private details. John explained he spent most of his time in the UK, and when he was in the States he lived in his friend's house in Atlanta or rented a room in NY. Mick had rented out his flat in Swansea when he had started to work for the FBI, living with his family when he came over. That was about everything they had known about each other before John decided to send the first text. The rest of that hour they spent talking about their taste in music and differences between American and British bars and pubs.
The next day Mick received another message. He was at that moment sitting in the back of Cooper's car - with the rest of his team around him - on their way to another crime scene.
'I was a frontman for a punk band in Liverpool. Now I lead a band of misfits fascinated by the occult.'
'You mean ghosts, demons and magic? Do you believe it's true?' Mick replied, making sure his teammates sitting on both sides of him didn't read it over his shoulders.
His phone chirped again.
'I dont have to believe. I know its true. Maybe ill show u someday.'
Mick never really gave the idea of magic and ghosts too much thought, he treated it like a Halloween story, but he was ready to open his mind to whatever John wanted to show him. He wondered what Cooper thought about the prospect. The team leader very carefully avoided the topic of John's occupation.
'Then maybe in return I can teach you how to shoot and fight,' Mick offered.
'Not while were in the uk given the gun restrictions and I fight dirty,' John countered.
'I'm looking forward to it anyway,' Mick confessed, smiling to himself. He realised that he was waiting for his vacation not because of Jenna, but because of John. Sure, he was happy to see his sister, but he'd known her all her life. With John, they had twenty-nine years to fill in. John didn't promise they'd meet anytime soon, but Mick was sure they both would do their best to spend some time together.
The next day the message came from a different number. The Red Cell was still working on another Long Distance Serial Killers' profile and Mick, reminded again what he could turn into if he became angry and stopped caring, welcomed the distraction; he started to wonder whether John had his own mobile, though.
'I have 4 tatts, all for protection purposes,' the message read.
'I have one from my army times. My spotter has the same tat,' he replied when no-one was paying attention to him.
'Aww, soldiers loyalty,' John replied. Mick still had to get used to the lack of apostrophes in John's texts. Constantine had a weird style of typing, replacing 'you' with 'u' like a teenager, avoiding apostrophes and the use of big letters when they weren't automatically corrected by the dictionary, but still kept his texts legible.
'I'd call it stupidity, but we were young and wild,' Mick texted back.
'Im no psychologist, but wild is the last word I would use to describe u.'
'Based on what?' he asked curiously. They barely knew each other!
'Probably the same thing u create your killers profiles on,' John replied and Mick was sure he smiled while typing it.
It was possible. Unlike his team leader, Mick had no major psychology training, he based his profiles on his natural knack for reading people. The branch of FBI he worked for was called Behavioral Analysis Unit; the ability to describe a person based on what they did was fundamental for their work, but it wasn't unique. John was interested in magic and Mick knew that sometimes – especially Derren Brown type of magic – it was more about reading other people than having quick hands.
And Mick's tattoo, placed on his side so he had to be shirtless before anyone could see it, was one of the wilder things he did in his life. Not counting his military career. And the chain of one night stands.
"You two should get a room," Gina suggested. Mick switched his phone to vibrate.
"He's on the wrong side of the pond," he replied absently, putting down the device.
"He?" Gina asked incredulously.
"John Constantine. My brother I met for the first time three weeks ago. Before your vivid imagination gives you too many pictures to process," Mick replied with a wicked smile. Gina blushed, Prophet laughed at the sight.
"He's still texting you?" Prophet asked, welcoming the distraction.
"Yeah. Apparently he decided to let me know the worst of it before we meet."
"Okay, sibling shenanigans aside, I think I found our killer," Beth announced from her laptop. They gathered around her. Mick's phone did not vibrate with a new message anymore that day.
On the fourth day, John again texted from a different number.
'Tell cooper I wont try to turn u to my devious occult ways. Im sure hes worried.'
Mick at that moment was lying on his couch with an icepack to his face. Texting one handed was difficult. He was so glad he had a day off.
'Well, tell Chas the same. I just got a nice shiner from a boyfriend of a certain female who wasn't supposed to have one,' he typed and hit Send.
That really hadn't been one of the best moments of his life.
Chas The Bear Cabbie was the only one of John's friends Mick knew about (he didn't know of the role Jasper played in John's life), and only because they had met him in San Francisco. The two were obviously close, with Chas being protective and John more open around the man.
This time John called back. When Mick picked up, his dear older twin brother was laughing hysterically.
"Oh boy, seriously? I'm so proud of you right now!" John managed to say between bouts of laughter.
"Yeah, thanks a lot, mate, I really appreciate it," Mick replied dryly, silently glad to hear his brother's voice again. He knew they had similar voices, but John's Liverpool accent gave it a certain edge. It was interesting to listen to it.
"No, really, I'm proud. We have more in common than I thought," John assured him, his laughter subsiding.
"Oh yeah?"
"Oh yeah," John confirmed proudly.
Mick wasn't in the mood to dwell on it any further.
"Changing the subject, do you actually have a phone?" Mick asked.
"No, but as you can see, we manage to contact each other just fine."
"You manage to contact me."
"From my friends' phones. If you need me, call any number you got my texts from."
"Okay," Mick replied and with that, they ended the call. So much for keeping their blood relation to themselves, but Mick decided that John probably knew what he was doing.
The exchange of messages continued until the day Mick went on his vacation, with two or three calls in the meantime. John used three different numbers during that time. Then it was quiet for four days, during which Mick was too busy to worry about it. He and Jenna spent almost every minute together; talking, shopping, watching movies, going to pubs, and Mick also helped a little around the house.
He, of course, told Jenna about John. Jenna knew Mick had been adopted, but he was just an older brother to her, the lack of blood relation being absolutely irrelevant. They were family; they had the same surname, spoke with the same accent and suffered the same loss when their parents had died. But for her, John Constantine would be Mick's brother only, not hers. She wasn't sure she wanted to share her brother with someone else. She also was one of the very few people aware of a silent conflict Mick was going through right now: as proud Welshman as he was, he was apparently born Constantine and English. He had never wondered about his origins before, fine with what he was raised. She hoped that this John figure would not try to make the situation more complicated.
On the fifth day, when Mick started to feel a little bit bored and Jenna was out at the moment, the doorbell rang. Mick went to open the door.
The familiar figure of his twin brother stood at the doorstep. Dressed - as before - in suit pants, white shirt and a red tie, presenting a stark contrast against Mick's dark jeans and worn-out, long-sleeved t-shirt with holes for his thumbs. They stared at each other for a short while, John taking in his sight and Mick wondering how the hell John found him because Mick for some reason hadn't given him Jenna's address. Well, John hadn't asked, that's why.
"Hello, brother," they said simultaneously and smiled.
A/N: In the UK it's very hard to legally own a gun. John in "Arrow" certainly could shoot well enough to put holes in tires in the first try and Mick was described as one of the best snipers in the world, so.
The use of "mobile" instead of "cell phone" was intentional. I know I probably mix British and American English, but this time I knew what I was doing. ;)
And, shame on me for checking the names of John's family and not the origins of his and Chas' friendship. I'll whip my back with pasta (uncooked).
