guardian
Written for Spooktober 2021, Prompt: Angels/Demons. Set post-movie. Comments and kudos would be awesome. Enjoy!
Fuck.
He's in trouble.
He'd vastly underestimated this job. He'd gone barreling headlong into danger, too reckless, too cocky, too sure that it would be an easy exorcism, his first since narrowly avoiding the end of the world – both sides had seemed to have gone to ground in the aftermath. No demons, no angels, no fucking half-breeds messing with the balance for three glorious months. But it couldn't last forever.
John had spotted the demon at the train station when he'd parted ways with Angela, sent her off for a new start somewhere far away from all the things that haunted her here in New York. The demon had been brazen and stupid, and it had attracted his attention far too easily. John couldn't bring himself to ignore it. Now, he realizes that it wasn't meant to.
It was a trap.
And now he's walked himself right into a whole fucking nest of soldier demons.
There's too many to fight. They are all hidden away inside one singularly unfortunate human and they explode out of their host before he realizes what's happening, before he can do anything to contain them or drive them off. One of them stays in the host, and the cocky little shit spews snarky comments at him while the rest instead spew seemingly endless amounts of some gross black ichor that burns when it hits his skin. They pin him down and their leader boasts of their victory over the one who thwarted the arrival of the anti-christ, the great fucking John Constantine finally brought low, while the others swipe wildly at him with their gangly clawed limbs, rending flesh and breaking bones.
He can't even run away from them. Even if he could escape them, escape this room, escape this house, he has nowhere to go. With his health vastly improved by Lucifer's actions, he finds himself walking most everywhere now… and he doesn't have Chas waiting outside anymore, grumbling about being left to wait in the cab. Injured as he is, he's sure he wouldn't get far before they caught up to him.
He is overwhelmed.
He is dying.
Figures, John thinks. It figures that he'd waste his second (third?) chance at life so soon after getting it and for something so stupid, something he should have seen coming and been smart enough to avoid.
The pain starts to fade into the background of his consciousness until it's something that he can almost ignore – it's a feeling he remembers from his shitty childhood, from the psych hospitals, from his first suicide and the second. It won't be long now. Death is coming quick.
And then, there is a light.
It's nearly blinding and he closes his eyes against it on instinct, so he does not see the horde of demons disintegrate into nothing, but he hears their high-pitched screeches of pain as they discorporate. He hears a body drop – their unwitting host. For a second, there is an eerie sort of silence. And then, he hears approaching footsteps.
Lucifer, probably, back to collect what's his, unwilling to let any of his minions claim the prize. John doesn't think he's fucked anything up badly enough to get himself doomed to hell again just yet, but who knows?
But then he hears the faint whisper of wings.
Huh. Not Lucifer, then.
Somehow that's almost more surprising.
He opens his eyes.
"Chas?"
"I know, I know. Stay in the cab, right?" Chas jokes softly, an angelic smile on his angelic face. He crouches down at John's side, eyes flicking over his many wounds. "Lucky for you, your guardian angel doesn't listen very well."
"Mine, huh?" he manages something that's almost a laugh at the absurdity of that. Making Chas watch his back when he's the reason the kid is dead in the first place, dragging him into this war, into this life. "Guess you drew the short straw to end up assigned to me. How unheavenly of those sanctimonious assholes."
"You'd be surprised how easy it was to get the assignment. It's like they don't like you up there or something," Chas counters, long accustomed to John's attitudes towards both heaven and hell. "But don't worry, I'm not going anywhere this time. You can't get rid of me that easy." The boy turns serious, then. "But you have a choice to make, John. You can stay, if that's what you want – to keep living, keep fighting. I'll heal you and I'll keep watch over you. Or, you can come with me and you can be done."
It is tempting, John thinks, the idea of being done with all of this. The never-ending war between angels and demons and humans. He is tired of fighting. He is tired of losing. He is just… tired. He wants to rest. Despite his attempts to buy his way into heaven, a part of him never expected to get there – the idea of it now, with Chas, is almost too good to be true, almost too much to resist.
But there is still so much to do. So many battles to fight. So many questions… Why had so many demons been loose? Why had they sought him out? What were they planning?
"I can't go with you, Chas," he says, "Not yet."
Chas does not him ask for an explanation. It is entirely probable that he understands John's reasons better than he understands them himself. The angel nods, reaches out and briefly rests a hand on John's chest. Slowly, the cuts and breaks and bruises fade away into nothing. When they are gone, the world snaps back into sharp focus, but the pain does not come with it and John is left gasping for breath in the wake of yet another death.
He is alone in the room, the remains of the demons scattered like dust around him, his own blood staining the floor.
He is alone in the room, but perhaps he is not so alone, after all.
"Til next time, Chas," he mumbles as he gets to his feet, eager to leave this place before anyone happens upon the mess.
He never is sure if he imagines the sound of wings.