Title: Sacrifices (Part Three)
Author: fatedtoflames (DJ)
Pairing: John Constantine/Chas
Rating: Strong PG-13, may go up later
Spoilers Movie: Lots.
Summary: Chas is changed for heaven's purposes, but that's one thing John won't accept. He stages his own personal war against heaven to win back the young man's spirit that he knew and loved, but everything has a price…
The night was unusually quiet for downtown LA. Cars were honking, music banged from inside clubs and apartment buildings, and half the streetlights were out along the main thoroughfare, as usual, but there was still that silence.
Maybe John was the only one that could hear it. It was a spiritual silence, a silence of the many whispering voices in the alleyways, a hostile, tense silence. As if something important was about to happen and all the demons who usually roamed the streets knew it.
John didn't particularly care at the moment. Maybe he should have paid more attention, but his mind was now on more pressing issues. He lit up a cigarette, relishing the feeling of the nicotine calming his senses. It was his last for the day, he swore that this morning- half a pack. No more.
It was a long walk, but he had a half hour to get there, and he didn't particularly want to take a cab. He took long strides, keeping an eye out for any strange activity, but the streets seemed…dead. Once in a while a car would drive by, but other than that, eerie inactivity. Just the sound of his shoes clicking on the pavement and a catfight a few streets away.
Gun shop on 3rd, he repeated mentally as he reached the address. He looked in the windows of the store, but they were pitch black. No lights on inside, and the dim streetlights only shed light on the decorative gun racks in the front windows.
Never one to give up that easily, John walked to the front door, and immediately knew something was different. The iron gate behind the door hadn't been pulled down. No shop owner in downtown LA would simply forget to pull down that gate; it was one simple thing that kept a lot of thefts from happening.
Something was wrong here.
He grabbed onto the doorknob and turned, expecting to find the resistance of a locked door. Instead, the knob turned and the door popped open easily.
Something was most definitely wrong here.
He pushed the door open further, and that's when it hit him. The overwhelming smell of sulfur and the blood of demons. He considered turning back, but there was something else in here, something different…an angelic presence.
"Chas?" He called out carefully, walking in and letting the door swing shut behind him. Utter silence in the room, no sign of the presence he sensed. Maybe it was just residual, from all the energy in the fight.
"Chas, you here?"
He reached over and flipped on the light, and the light bathed the remains of at least seven demons on the floor, mostly flaked away. John checked his watch.
He'd arrived here in 31 minutes.
All of this had been done in one minute.
He took a few more steps, and then quite suddenly, something hit him square in the back. He stumbled forward into a display of rifles and then recovered and spun around, ready to fight…
Nothing. No one was there.
Then, something tugged on his hair from behind. He spun around again, and perched on the rack of rifles was Chas, squatted down on the top of the rack, wings folded, eyes piercing and curious, his outfit spotlessly white. The angel had been teasing him.
"Jesus, Chas…you scared me, you little bastard."
Chas's eyes flashed golden and his head tilted to the side.
"I'm impressed, you runnin' around murdering demons."
A smirk.
"You know, when you were alive I couldn't get you to shut up, and now that you're dead I just wish you'd say one damn word to me."
A long silence. Then, Chas's hand snapped behind him and pulled a gun from his belt, snapping it forward and pressing the barrel of it against John's forehead.
"Die."
John barely had time to duck, and he felt the bullet actually pass through his hair as he dove to the floor. And by the time he landed on his stomach on the floor and looked up, Chas was nowhere to be seen.
He looked around, breathing hard, trying to figure out where the angel had gone. No doors had opened, no windows had broken…there was no way he could've gotten out.
John was trapped in a store with a homicidal angel who had a gun.
He slowly stood up and backed toward the door. He could still sense the angel, Chas was still here, but nowhere to be seen.
That is, until he backed into him.
He spun around and cursed, and before he could move he received a sharp kick to the stomach that sent him to the floor. The angel leaped forward and slammed one foot down on John's chest. The gun was once again pointed at John's forehead, and he didn't dare move.
He'd been trapped and pinned by his own apprentice. He would've been humiliated if he hadn't been scared shitless and trying not to show it.
The funny thing was, even with a gun pointed at his head, John was struck with awe at the utter beauty of the boy holding him down. The piercing gaze, the undoubtedly soft brown curls, the skin that seemed to glow with Heaven's light…
Suddenly, without taking his gaze off John, the angel reached up to the desk and grabbed an ink pen. He tucked the gun in his belt, and then reached down and ripped John's shirt open in one swift movement.
John's breath caught in his throat. He considered striking out at the angel, almost afraid that he would be stabbed through the heart with the pen. But instead, the angel began to write a series of symbols on his chest.
Once finished, he stepped back and admired his handiwork for a few moments- then he turned and walked out the door.
John lay there for a few moments, confused and uncertain of what he should do. Would Chas come back to kill him? Would he ambush him the second he walked out the door?
Only one way to find out.
John took one more look down at the writing on his chest, and then shook his head and stood up. He walked out the door, and nothing happened. No ambush. The angel was gone for sure.
John just didn't get it. One second the kid made a shot at killing him, the next second he's shrugging off a perfect chance to finish the job to do some fancy artwork (and ruin yet another $200 shirt).
John sighed heavily and looked up and down the street. He needed to get home and sleep before anything else, or he'd just pass out in some alley. Not a good idea in this city.
But once home, the mystery only got worse.
He removed his shirt and went to the mirror to brush his teeth, and that's when he realized that the symbols on his chest weren't so strange after all.
In the mirror, they read 2435334730.
