Title: Aftermath (Part Two)
Author: fatedtoflames (DJ)
Pairing: John Constantine/Chas
Rating: Strong PG-13, may go up later
Spoilers Movie: Lots.
Summary: Chas had a family, of course, though John had never made an attempt to get to know them. But after Chas's death, secrets are revealed that may force John to get to know them better than he'd ever wanted…and force him to protect them from forces beyond their control.
X-Posted to three Constantine communities(total) and my private LJ.
The next morning, John awoke to a very odd sound.
Squeaky squeaky squeaky squeaky
He slowly sat up in bed, looking around. The squeaking sound continued like a violin bow being scraped across dry strings over and over, chipping away at John's hangover.
Squeaky squeaky squeaky………squeaky………squeaky squeaky
Whatever it was, it was most definitely going to get shot. John grabbed his handgun from the nightstand and stood up, following the sound to the kitchen. The sound stopped for a few moments, then started up again, and John's eyes landed on the box on his kitchen table.
"Damnit, Chas, only you would give me a possessed cardboard box," he muttered, putting the gun down beside the box and looking it over. The squeaking sound continued, pausing every few moments. The harsh sound was really getting on his nerves now.
He tossed the envelope aside and grabbed onto the lid, prepared himself to come face-to-face with a trapped demon, and opened the box to be looking right at…
…a brown, fuzzy hamster sitting in the exercise wheel in its cage.
John stared.
The hamster stared.
John put the lid back on the box.
He headed to the cabinet and pulled out a bottle of whiskey, taking a long swig of it before turning and walking back to the box and pulling the lid off again.
Hamster still there, up on its hind legs, its whiskers twitching.
This time John decided not to account it to a hallucination. He grabbed the edge of the cage (which was surrounded by books packed tightly in the box with it), and he lifted it out, setting it on his kitchen counter.
It was a small cage, but the hamster had obviously well-taken care of up until Chas died. Food was literally stockpiled on a container on the side of the cage, constantly feeding in to the hamster, though it was low now. Same with the water, barely any left, but there was a huge water bottle. The cage was deep, and at least six inches of bedding sat on the bottom.
It was as if Chas knew the hamster would take a while to get to John, and always had him packed for the long hiatus.
John caught sight of a piece of paper taped to the side of the cage and he tugged it off. He opened it up, and on the inside was a short note:
John,
His name is Killer. You need to clean his cage once a week, refresh his water once a day, and refill the food every time it gets low. Have fun!
Chas
He gave me a hamster. Honest to God, the boy gave me a hamster, John thought, pinching his nose against the awful smell coming from the cage. It needed to be cleaned.
He sighed and turned back to the box, where he found dozens of books, a bag of bedding, and a bag of hamster food. He sighed and set about cleaning out the hamster's cage so he could at least get rid of the God-awful smell…
…but halfway through cleaning it, he got a surprise.
He dumped the old bedding out of the cage into a trash bag, and when he did, he heard a huge clunk. He looked down into the trash bag, and sitting in the middle of the bedding was a large cross.
No wonder the cage had so much bedding in it; there had to be enough to hide the cross.
But hide it from what? John asked himself, studying the cross carefully. It was heavy, maybe iron, but there was no way of telling without having someone take a look at it for him.
He set it aside and finished cleaning the cage, setting it all up on a stool in the corner of the room. In other words, as far away from him as he could get it.
"I'll deal with you later," he said, pointing an accusing finger at the hamster. Killer just sniffed the air and began drinking his now-fresh water.
John moved to the box and began pulling out and stacking up the books, seeing some titles that were even unfamiliar to him. There had to be at least thirty books in this box. Then, about halfway through, he accidentally dropped one.
The book hit the floor with a hollow thud, and John raised an eyebrow. Books didn't make hollow 'thuds'. He picked up the book and opened up the cover, only to find that it snapped open to reveal a hidden compartment in the book.
Inside the fake book was a videotape.
John set that aside and quickly reached for another book. Then another.
All of the books were fake, and all of them contained a video that only had a date written on the label. The oldest one was two years old, the most recent was…
…the day before Chas died.
John took a deep breath and sat down, looking from the hamster to the cross to all the videotapes. Chas had planned all this out, as if he knew all along that he was going to die before his mentor.
He finally picked up the envelope that had come with the box. Of course Chas wouldn't have put anything specific in there, just in case someone else might read it, but maybe he left some kind of clue.
John,
I guess if you've got this note I went and got myself killed, right? Hope I went out in style, fighting a demon or something. But yeah, anyway…
Here are all those books I borrowed. I tried to get my sister to read them, but she really didn't have any interest whatsoever in reading about angels and shit. Guess that's the way it goes with little sisters.
Thanks for everything. You really should skim over these books again, cause I think you forgot half the stuff in them.
John's hands tightened on the paper. The clues were right there, so obvious.
John needed to watch those videos and talk to Jodey Kramer.