Over the course of the 42 years of John Constantine's life he had faced down necromancers, dueled with the undead, gambled in damned souls, tamed beasts that had consumed entire spiritual planes, and seduced rulers of all manners of horrors. He had seen gods die and innocent lives burn. In all those years, he had never encountered a situation as difficult to explain as this one.
Charlie, a shapeshifter taking the form of a femme punk rocker, was currently sprinting across the darkened stone floor of the fiery plane. Charlie carried a naked blonde man over zyr shoulder, wrists and ankles bound as he bounced with every step. That man was John.
Long story short, John had sacrificed his soul to the demon Neron to save the soul of his friend Chas. Though John had resigned this to mean he was damned to hell for eternity, his old friend Charlie had unexpectedly turned up at the last minute and bailed him out by cheating Neron in a bet. All he knew about Charlie's motivations was that ze was a member of something called the Legends of Tomorrow. Though the two of them had escaped Neron's clutches, they were still deep in the pits of Hell.
John was weak. He felt as though he were near death. In truth he was beyond death; Neron had ended his life and taken his body and soul to Hell, where he tortured him physically and psychologically. John was already broken when Charlie had shown up and still hadn't had a full chance to recover. Being bound, naked, and constantly bounced with all the gentleness of a cross country sprint wasn't helping that recovery.
If Charlie stopped running though, they were finished. When Neron discovered the deception his rage was felt throughout the entire astral plane. Hellhounds, twisted gargoyles, and all manners of demons had attention focused on them. Charlie's abilities gave zyr enough endurance to maintain a sprint fast enough to outrun the creatures, but just barely. John hoped ze knew where ze was going.
That's when the heat waves rising off the pit of fire in front of them took a different shape. A shimmer of light revealed the waves to actually be the cloaking effect of a hidden vessel. It was a massive silver spaceship with a forked front, a glowing blue sphere of energy between the prongs. John sighed. He was being saved from Hell by a bloody spaceship.
The vehicle turned in the air and faced its rear to John and Charlie as it lowered to the ground. The ship's back hatch opened, revealing two individuals standing onboard. One was a young man in some sort of yellow and red spandex suit. The other was a young woman in athletic clothes standing at a control pad on the wall.
"Could use a little help here, Wally!" called out Charlie.
"Right," nodded the man in spandex.
He disappeared from the ship as a stream of yellow lightning trailed from where he had been all the way past John and Charlie. John looked over his shoulder and saw the lightning crash into the creatures chasing them, knocking them all aside one by one before rushing back into the ship where the man stood in yellow spandex again. The assist allowed Charlie to make it aboard unharmed. The woman at the control panel mashed the button on it to close the hatch as the creatures got back up. The ship rose away just before any of the creatures could get a hold.
"Bloody Hell..." groaned John, "Put me down and give me a second to catch up, will you?"
Charlie crouched and placed John against the wall. He sighed as he slumped against the cold metal, wrists and ankles still bound in front of him. John coughed as his head tilted back into the wall, muscles all still tense and body coated in sweat. He trembled as a sudden shiver unexpectedly overcame him.
"He's… naked," commented the woman.
"Yeah well if you know a good place in Hell that makes suits in my size," grumbled John, "You let me know."
"Come on, John," said Charlie, kneeling beside him, "Save your strength. Let's get you to the med bay and see about getting those chains off you."
"Yeah," breathed John weakly, "Just give me a moment, love."
John slowly got to his feet, assisted by Charlie. Everyone grabbed the wall for support as the ship lurched and the lights flickered. John cursed, only kept from falling by Charlie's grip on his arm (and a painful one at that). They were still in Hell. Just because they were aboard this tin can didn't mean they were out of danger yet.
The group made their way down the halls of the ship and quickly found themselves in the middle of another confrontation. Three more Legends were standing in the center of the hall, surrounded by about a dozen one-foot tall reptilian bipeds with pointed tails and wings sprouting from their back. The trio consisted of a woman in all-white tactical gear wielding a quarterstaff, a man in a blue snow coat and goggles wielding a strange gun, and a bald man in a leather jacket wielding an equally strange gun. They were standing back to back and fighting off the swarm of tiny creatures.
"Looks like you have an infestation," commented John dryly.
"Oh good," smiled the woman, batting one of the creatures away with her quarterstaff, "You found him."
"Have we met?" asked John, uncertain.
"John, this is our fearless leader, Sara Lance!" introduced Charlie with a smile, lazily kicking away one of the monsters, "The bald bloke's Mick Rory and the other one's Leonard Snart."
Leonard punctuated his introduction by aiming his weapon at the creature Charlie had kicked and pulling the trigger. A stream of frosty mist engulfed the beast, but it hissed and leapt away with flames on its back.
"What are you doing?" asked John, almost in disgust, "You can't freeze an Empyrean imp!"
"I'm sorry!" retorted Leonard snidely, "I left my demon taxonomy textbook in my other parka!"
The other man used his gun to spray the creature with a cloud of flame.
"You can't burn them either!" groaned John.
"I ain't taking advice from no stinking limey" growled Mick, spraying another burst of flame into the swarm.
"We need to get going," said Sara, punting away another imp, "Gideon, where are we at?"
"Captain," came a calm voice over the intercom, "We are ready to depart for THE GREAT PLANE OF NONEXISTENCE."
The lighting dimmed and Gideon's voice dropped several octaves with the last few words.
"...Zari, Ray?" called Sara, exasperated.
"Working on it," responded Zari over the comms system, "I don't know what these things programmed into Gideon, but I'll get it out."
"Still," chimed in Ray, "best you use your own judgment rather than Gideon's navigation coordinates at this juncture."
"Guess we're flying out manually," resigned Sara.
"Is all of this typical for you lot?" John asked Charlie weakly.
"Oh yeah," ze smiled, "Always a party. You'll love it here, Johno."
"Alright," said Sara to herself as she pulled down her harness, "Let's get out of here."
Sara grabbed a hold of the controls, raised the landing gear, and activated the thrusters. She monitored the windshield as well as the various screens on the control panel. Sara could see on the rear facing camera that demons were hot on their tail.
"Hey!" yelled Zari impatiently as she walked onto the bridge, "What is taking so-?"
The ignition blasted to life as the Waverider rocketed away from the demons and across the fiery pits of Hell. Zari was thrown from her standing position onto her back as she slid into the wall.
Sara veered the Waverider to the side and narrowly missed a swarm of demonic bats. She took another sharp turn as she nearly crashed into a wall of black stone. She couldn't tell which way was up. She didn't know if any way was up. There was no navigating straight out of Hell. They'd have to leave the way they came in.
In 2035 a rogue group of Satanists managed to accidentally open a portal to Hell in the middle of Metropolis. Not that this would do the Legends any good at the moment, since they were in 1987. Sara punched the time drive and the ship was immersed in a greenish white light.
There was a momentary lull in the light, during which time Zari managed to scramble to one of the other seats and pull on a harness.
The Waverider dropped back out of the timestream, now in Hell, 2035. Next it was a matter of getting out through the portal before it closed. The task was trickier than it seemed, considering history dictated that the portal was only open for mere minutes before the Justice League forced it shut.
"Um… Captain?" muttered Zari nervously.
Zari's eyes were wide in horror as she stared out the windshield and saw the towering horned figure roaring at them. The demon stood taller than any skyscraper either woman had ever seen and his eye sockets were empty but for the white-hot flames erupting from them.
"Shit!" cursed Sara, rolling the ship to the side.
Zari gripped onto her harness and tensed her legs as the entire ship spun. Sara swooped the ship to the side. She tensed her body as she hunched over the controls.
"There it is!" she said, "Our one shot!"
Zari saw the circle of light pouring clean air into the rotten skies around it. Demons were slowly gathering below it, preparing to storm through. Sara knew from history that the Justice League shut the portal before any demons got through. If the Legends couldn't beat the demons through the portal, they were screwed.
Sara punched it. The Waverider raced ahead and up toward the portal. The portal began to shrink as the timeship got closer, only narrowly allowing its passage before sealing off Hell once again. The Waverider rocketed out of the small Satanic church that had been conducting the ritual. The Justice League all raced away to avoid the massive ship blasting away the walls and ceiling to soar into the sky before disappearing in a whitish green blip. They were now safely out of Hell and in the timestream.
"Whew," sighed Sara as she felt her body relax, "Everyone alright?"
"Um," muttered Zari, "I'm the only one here."
"...so no one else could have strapped themselves in," realized Sara.
"Nope."
"...that must have hurt."
"Okay," commenced Sara, "Status report. Mick, Leonard, what's the status with the imps?"
"Taken care of," assured Leonard.
"Little punks didn't know what they were up against," added Mick.
Sara had gathered the team on the bridge, where they all stood around the central counsel facing one another. They had all changed out of their tactical gear and uniforms to wear more casual clothes.
"Charlie, how's Constantine?"
"Pretty good, considering what he went through," said Charlie, "The turbulence didn't do him any favors, though."
"Sorry," muttered Sara meekly before assuming her confidence once more, "How long are we looking at, in terms of recovery time?"
"I don't know," shrugged Charlie, "Ask Gideon. She's the expert."
"John Constantine will make a full recovery," chimed in Gideon.
"Thank you, Gideon."
"Also, hail Satan."
Sara frowned at Zari and Ray.
"I'll take a look at her," offered Zari, walking off. Ray went to follow her, but Sara signalled him to stop.
"Ray," said Sara, "Since Gideon is offline we're going to need you monitoring Constantine's condition."
"Me?" replied Ray, tilting his head, "You realize I'm not that kind of doctor, right?"
"His body's going to be fine," assured Charlie, "It's his mind that's taken a beating. Maybe a cheerful disposition will help, yeah Rayge?"
"Oh!" smiled Ray back, "When you put it that way..."
His voice trailed off as he smiled at the thought. He walked briskly off toward the medical bay.
"Everyone else is on standby," continued Sara, "We don't know what our next move is, but sit tight and we'll find out."
"I need a drink," mumbled Mick as he wandered off.
"Me too," admitted Sara as the others went off as well.
Sara made her way to the bar on the raised area of the bridge. She rummaged through the different bottles. She pulled out a bottle of red wine and put it aside. She pulled out a bottle of whiskey that had been hidden behind it. When Sara went to put the wine back, she was confused to see that the wine bottle was nowhere to be found.
Sara's training kicked in. She drew a knife out of her boot and quickly scanned the room. Somebody had to have moved that bottle. Sara completed three scans of the room before she heard the sound of scuttling above her. She looked up and saw a small red humanoid with horns and a tail perched on the outside of an air duct, bottle of wine in hand. Apparently Leonard and Mick hadn't been as thorough as they had thought.
Sara tensed up. The imp moved first. He leapt at Sara flailing all four of his limbs. Sara swung at him with the knife, but his flailing miraculously allowed him to deflect the blade and run along Sara's arm, swinging down under her armpit. Before Sara could respond, the creature had pulled back the back of her jeans and poured the red wine directly down into them, soaking her underwear and leaving a massive red stain across the ass and legs of the pants. Sara let out a shrill gasp as the imp leapt back into the air duct cackling.
"MICK!" she roared, "LEONARD!"
Sara awkwardly waddled off the bridge, careful to minimize the warm liquid's dripping as the wet material rubbed and pulled and ways she really didn't want.
John's eyes slowly opened. He was in a bed. He was wearing some sort of hospital gown, but nothing else. He didn't recognize the room it was in, but the sterile silver and white coloring rubbed him the wrong way. He didn't like where he was. He had to get out. John went to sit up.
"ARGH!" he cried as pain seared across his back.
The memories came flooding back. The agony as Neron had used Jonh's soul coin against him, the ripping apart of his flesh as Neron flogged him, and John being forced to plunge a knife into his best friend's heart to save him. Though his back, wrists, and ankles still stung from the torment there were no physical indications of the torture. The only scars he would bear from the experience were the memories.
"Oh," came a cheerful voice, "You're awake."
John looked over to see a tall, muscular man with one of the brightest smiles he had ever seen. John didn't recognize the man, but more memories were starting to come back to him. Charlie had saved him before Neron could give him away. Ze had carried John through Hell and onto some sort of ship… They had also managed to get those cuffs off of him.
"Where in God's name am I?" demanded John, grunting at the pain that came with even the slightest movement.
"You're aboard the Waverider," explained the man cheerily, pulling up a chair next to John, "A timeship."
"A timeship?
"Mm-hm!" smiled the man.
"Bloody hell…"
"My name's Ray Palmer," continued the smiling man, "Nice to meet you."
"What do you want from me?"
"We can get into that later," said Ray, "Right now I just wanted to check on you and make sure you were recovering alright."
"I'm not."
"...sorry to hear that," offered Ray.
"Don't worry about it," sighed John, "Just tell me what you need from me and I can leave."
"It's… not that simple," said Ray, "You died, John."
"...that I did," conceded John, "I suppose you time travel types are opposed to changing that?"
"It's… complicated."
"Of course it is."
"Don't worry," assured Ray, "We have an AI, Gideon. She's great at figuring out stuff like this! She'll find somewhere we can drop you off when we're done."
The ship's intercom beeped on.
"Attention everyone," came Zari's voice, "Gideon is now back online. You should be able to regain use of her programs any minute."
"Ah," smiled Ray, "You see? Speak of the devil!"
"And I shall burn you all as sacrifices to my dark lord," came Gideon's voice.
"Speak of the devil indeed," muttered John.
"Sorry everyone," groaned Zari over the intercom, "Disregard my last announcement."
"Sounds like you lot have your hands full," noted John.
"Nah," dismissed Ray, "The others got this. This is pretty par for the course for us."
"So what do you need me for?"
"You should really be resting, John."
"Oh, bugger off!" spat John angrily, "I want to know what the hell I'm doing here!"
"Fine," conceded Ray, nervous at John exerting himself so much in his condition, "We wanted your help dealing with a group called the Cult of Darhk."
"Ah," realized John, "Damien Darhk's followers."
"You know them?"
"I'll help you out," agreed John, "but know this: we are dealing with a power far darker than anything you have likely seen in your mortal life."
"Aw, thank you!" smiled Ray, "Glad to have you onboard!"
John stared back in confusion for a moment. Had Ray not heard the second half of his sentence? If he had, he seemed unaffected by it. He still looked at John with the same warm, friendly smile he had worn since he walked in. John couldn't stand it.
"Alright," continued John, "What are you so bloody happy about, eh?"
"I just told you," said Ray, seemingly confused that John didn't understand, "I'm glad to have you onboard."
John stared back for a moment, trying to study Ray's face and figure him out. Ray stared back, still smiling. John had a better idea of who he was dealing with now. This man had been kind and gentle to John. It was a mistake John had seen countless people make before.
"Don't get chummy with me," warned John, "As soon as we take care of this business, I'm out."
"Oh," frowned Ray, surprised, "Okay."
"I know you think you want us to be all buddy-buddy while we save the world together," continued John solemnly, "but you don't really want that. Let me tell you something, Mr. Palmer, people like me? We're bloody hell for people like you."
"...it's Dr. Palmer, actually," said Ray quietly.
John nodded in acknowledgement. Ray shifted his attention to the computer next to John and began to look through his vital conditions.
Zari squatted beside the laptop on the ground, which had been plugged into Gideon's mainframe via the nearby wall. Zari's eyes scanned the files listed on the screen for abnormalities. Nothing. Then she checked the next cache. Nothing. Then she checked the next one.
"Bingo."
Gideon hadn't been possessed in the traditional sense; she had been reprogrammed by one of the imps. It was a simple hack, one that would've caused more inconvenience than actual harm and was relatively easy to fix. Unfortunately, with an imp still onboard all it had to do was hack into Gideon again and repeat. Zari could fix this over and over again, but it wasn't going to do them any good unless they took care of that imp. Zari
Riip!
"OW!"
Zari clenched her teeth as she felt her boyshorts sharply cut into her rear end as they were swiftly jerked upwards. The white elastic snapped back to Zari's lower back, causing her to let out another yelp as the imp leapt away in gleeful triumph.
"There it is!" called out Sara.
Sara, who had changed out of her wine stained jeans into sweatpants, stood alongside Leonard, Mick, and Wally. Leonard and Mick had their weapons drawn and Wally looked ready to go too. The imp hissed at them as they all assumed a tense standoff.
Zari, still frozen in a squat, slowly got to her feet as she felt the fabric deep in her butt settle and shift as she stood straight up. The denim of her skinny jeans clung tightly around her legs and butt, cementing the wedgie in until Zari could find an opportunity to take them off completely.
"Let's take it easy," suggested Wally, "Come on, there's no need to-"
The imp leapt at Wally and tackled him to the ground. Yellow lightning sparked around them and a moment later Wally was on the other side of the room, scampering up against the wall to get away from the beast. The imp itself was snickering. When Wally looked down he realized why.
In his rush to get away from the imp, Wally hadn't realized that the imp kept a claw on his pants. The result was Wally now sitting on the floor of the Waverider hall in his black hoodie, sharp black and red gym shoes, and a pair of red and beige striped boxers while the imp tauntingly waved his blue jeans over his head as a trophy.
"Stay right there!" ordered Sara, charging the imp.
"Bet you're regretting the fashion choice of skinny jeans now," sneered Leonard to Zari.
"Shouldn't you be focusing on that thing!?" spat Zari, gesturing at the imp as it nimbly bounded off of Sara's face and charged the rest of them.
"Good point. Don't worry, we've got this," assured Leonard.
Leonard pointed his gun at the imp as it powered up, emitting a humming sound and glowing a soft cyan blue. Leonard pulled the trigger and the gun emitted a hissing sound as a low pressure stream of water sprayed out of the gun and made a small puddle on the floor. Leonard stared at it expressionlessly for a moment.
Mick aimed his gun next and pulled the trigger. His gun let out a high pitch screech before releasing a burst of red energy and emitting a thick pillar of smoke directly into Mick's face, who began coughing and wildly waving the smoke away.
"That thing must have sabotaged your guns," realized Zari.
"No shit," grunted Leonard angrily.
The imp leapt at Leonard next, who swung his gun to knock the creature away. Instead the creature grasped the gun and pulled it away from Leonard before scampering away, causing Leonard to briefly lose his balance before steadying himself and glaring at the little devil.
The imp made its way back to Sara, who delivered a sweeping quarterstaff blow toward it. The imp limboed under the strike and sprinted between Sara's legs as she leaned forward to grab the beast. The imp next did a nimble backflip onto Sara's back as she was still bent over. Then it pulled back the waistband of the sweatpants before pointing Leonard's gun into it and pulling the trigger.
Sara let out an unflattering scream of discomfort as freezing water filled her pants and underwear, soaking them through and sending chills all down Sara's legs and back up her spine. She was still stumbling in discomfort when the imp discarded the gun and fled up into an open ventilation shaft, taking Wally's pants with it.
No one spoke for a few moments. Wally managed to get to his feet and regain his composure. Mick fiddled with his gun and got it to stop smoking, Sara removed her soaked sweatpants, revealing the wet white high cut underwear underneath. Leonard found his discarded gun and picked it up. He scowled in frustration.
"Nice work out there," said Zari dryly.
Without looking, Leonard pointed his gun at Zari and sprayed her down with the weak stream of water. Zari yelped and sputtered as she jumped away and shook off the water, glaring at Leonard.
"Okay," said Ray as he double checked John's Vitals on the computer, "Is there anything else you need?"
"Well my cigarettes for a start."
Ray looked over at John, sitting in the med bay bed while staring forward with a look of apathy.
"I… can't do that," said Ray uncomfortably.
"Why? Does it have to do with my health or are you just that much of a bloody boy scout?"
"Eagle scout, actually."
John rolled his eyes.
"Just tell me when I can have a goddamn smoke," he sighed, "and while you're at it, tell me when I can have a drink and a shag too."
"We need to wait until Gideon is reliable again," explained Ray, "Until then no smoking, no drinking, and no… um, shagging."
"I'm telling you, I'm fine," groaned John, "What happened to me in Hell wasn't real. It didn't cause any actual damage to my body."
"That's not the part I'm worried about," frowned Ray.
"Oh," chuckled John weakly, "You're worried about my mental health. How considerate. I have been feeling rather stressed lately. You wanna talk about my feelings, big man? Maybe show me a couple of ink blots?"
"...when was the last time you saw a therapist?" asked Ray.
John scoffed.
"John, what you went through was… incomprehensible," explained Ray, "You're going to need someone to talk about it."
"And I will," nodded John, "Which is why I want to know when I can have my flask again."
"A person, John."
"Which is why I want to know when I can have a shag again."
"You do realize how obviously unwell this all sounds, right?"
John groaned and swung his legs off the side of the bed. Ray tensed and got up to catch him, but John proved himself capable of standing. The warlock sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve.
"You said you need your Gideon or whatever online to give me the all clear," he said, "Sounds like you're going to need someone to take care of your pest problem."
"John," sighed Ray, following after him, "at least let me find you some actual clothes first!"
But John continued his march toward the bridge in his hospital gown. Ray jogged after him. He wondered if John had any idea where he was going. He must have been following the noise. The sound of the others fighting the imp could be heard echoing down the halls.
"Oi, lay off! Ow!" came a voice from around the corner.
Ray and John rounded the corner to see Charlie, dressed in zyr usual punk attire, stumbling back and forth as the small imp perched on zyr shoulders with a fistful of hair in each claw, gleefullying swaying about as it drove Charlie about the hall.
"An Empyrean imp stuck around, did he?" mused John, "Just one? Easy enough."
John's eyes rolled back as he began reciting an ancient Germanic chant. The imp seemed to recognize the chant and leapt off of Charlie's back to charge John. Luckily Charlie made a dive for the imp and grabbed it by the tail, allowing John to continue the chant. The imp screamed and covered its ears, it's movements becoming more jerky as it slowly began to twist different parts of its body before it completely turned to stone.
"There we go," sighed John in relief, "Good thing it was just the one. Usually the little devils attack in packs, and that spell only petrifies one at once."
"Don't worry, Charlie!" shouted Sara from around the far corner, "We're here!"
Sara and Wally both rounded the corner and turned to the rest of them ready to fight, only to both relax when they saw their opponent as a statue on the floor. It was then the others noticed that neither Sara nor Wally were wearing pants.
"You know something?" smiled John, "Maybe I could get used to a place like this."
"Oh, John. You're awake," realized Sara, before glaring at Ray, "...and out of bed."
"I tried to get him to rest," insisted Ray.
"No worries, big man," assured John, clasping a hand on Ray's back, "Now that your little imp problem is taken care of, Gideon can take over. You don't have to dote on me anymore."
"Um…" muttered Ray, unsure of how to respond.
"Dr. Palmer here tells me you lot are going after Damien Darhk," continued John, "Well you're in luck. It just so happens I know just how to take down the man."
"That's great," replied Sara, "Glad to hear-"
"This is a one time offer though," continued John, "I do these sorts of things one way: my way. I don't have time to be holding anyone's hands, is that clear?"
"...is he always like this?" Sara asked Charlie irritably.
"Pretty much," ze said.
"Now," continued John, looking down at his hospital gown, "What do you have in the way of trench coats? Red ties?"
Ray tucked the deck of cards against the table before shuffling it deftly within his hands and quickly and precisely distributing hands to each player seated at the table card by card. Also seated at the table were Mick, Charlie, and Zari.
Ray has spent a considerable amount of time studying the most efficient shuffling and dealing methods. Though Ray didn't have a great deal of interest in poker itself, he enjoyed hosting poker nights aboard the Waverider because it was something he saw on Star Trek.
"Oh, Leonard," smiled Ray cheerily as the pale-haired man arrived at the table, "You want one of these visors? They're pretty nifty and help hide your face if you wanna... You know... Bluff."
Leonard raised an eyebrow. Ray had said 'bluff' like it was a dirty word.
Indeed Ray was wearing one of the green visors in question. Even if Ray hadn't completely lifted his face to see Leonard, there was no way the visor could have hidden his enormous grin from anyone.
"Listen up, boy scout," said Leonard with what could only be described as a cross between a sneer and an eye roll, "I'm not like you. I don't just lay myself bare for the world to see. I play it subtle, close to the vest. When you have a calm, confident demeanor like I do, you don't need silly toys to cover your face. You don't even need to bluff. You just have to play it cool."
"...so that's a no on the visor?" asked Ray after a moment, unsure of how exactly Leonard had answered the question.
"Let me put it this way," continued Leonard, leaning in closer to Ray and staring intently at him, "Do you think you can tell what I'm thinking right now?"
"I mean I can't say for sure," considered Ray, "but if I had to guess, probably something about Mick?"
Leonard continued to stare for a moment. Then he furrowed his brow, pursed his lips, and let out a short sigh. He indignantly took a visor from Ray's hand and put it on.
Across the table, Leonard's husband quietly chuckled to himself.
"You lot weren't going to start without me, were you?" asked John, strutting in.
"John!" smiled Ray in surprise, "You wanted to join us?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," said John, pulling up a chair, "Keep your trousers on."
"I thought you didn't want to get… chummy with us," said Ray.
"Don't think of it as chumminess," smirked John, "Think of it as me engaging in another addictive habit."
"...I guess I'll take what I can get," sighed Ray.
"That's the spirit, big man," said John, "Now let's get started! I've been itching to make marks out of you lot since I stepped aboard this ship."
Ray smiled. He hadn't expected John to open up even this much. Maybe there was hope for his recovery after all.