"Chas-"
"You bastard! I'll eat your children!"
"Hey, now, that's-"
"And you know what else? I'll take that Mercedes and shove it right up your-"
John quickly silenced Chas by clamping a hand over the boy's mouth. Chas promptly licked John's hand, and John yanked his hand away with a grimace of disgust.
"What?" Chas snapped, glaring out the windshield at the guy who'd cut him off in a maneuver far too risky for such an expensive car.
"Chas, you're out of LA. People out here actually care if you threaten to eat their children."
"We're still in California, John! I'm allowed to threaten!"
"Not when you're not in your taxi."
Chas muttered for a few moments, something about an old Volkswagen Beetle being close enough to a cab. Hennessey didn't use the old hunk of rust very often, so he wasn't too objective to the idea of John borrowing it- until he'd been told who'd be driving it. After that, it was an hour of arguing about Chas's ability to drive without swapping paint. Despite the fact that the car was an abused 1973 Beetle with 42, 000 miles on it (and an inch of rust covering the formerly red paint), Hennessey treated it like a child at times.
"M'hot, John. Can we turn on the air conditioning, just for a minute?"
"The car will overheat if you do that. Then you'll be really hot."
"Why'd you have to borrow Hennessey's car, anyway? The guy down the street from you has a real sweet Jaguar, I could've hotwired that…"
"Because I need to go to prison for five years for auto theft."
"Hey, you only go to prison if you get caught."
John chuckled, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it as Chas passed five more people.
"How fast are you going, Chas?"
"Don't know. Speedometer's broke."
"…And it doesn't give you a hint that you're going too past when you're passing everyone like this?"
Chas glanced into another car as he passed it. "They're old. They can't be going the speed limit."
John took a drag off his cigarette, his mind already fried by the boy's logic and driving- and they'd only been in the car four hours.
It would take four days to get to Chicago.
Chas glanced over at John, surprised to find that the man was finally asleep. They were just reaching the desert on the edge of California, almost to Nevada, and the sun was just beginning, leaving strange designs of pink and yellow over the normally brown mountains in front of them.
He kept his foot on the gas, glad that the traffic had finally let up and the cars were few and far between on the road they were taking. His gaze drifted to John again, and he stole glances between checking the road.
John's hair was tousled by the wind from the open window, a wind that was just beginning to cool down with the start of evening. The sun highlighted John's features, his pale skin given an unnatural glow and his five o'clock shadow more evident than usual.
He's kinda…pretty.
Chas shook his head fervently, snapping out of it just in time to see that he was about to rear-end a car that'd pulled onto the interstate from a side road. He yelped out a few choice curse words and jerked the wheel, and the car skidded off onto the shoulder of the road and slid sideways to a stop.
That certainly woke John up.
Moments later John was yelling at him, a mix of 'you're fucking dead' and 'what the hell happened'. Chas sat there, shell-shocked, gripping to wheel with a white knuckled grip.
"John…John…John," Chas snapped, breathless and still holding tight to the wheel. "Calm down, would you? Gimme a second here…"
John muttered and cursed, and then got out of the car and slammed the door behind him, walking a few feet away and lighting up a cigarette. Chas took a few deep breaths, trying to coax his heart to stop pumping like a rabbit trapped in the jaws of a wolf.
Right…note to self…never ever EVER look at John while driving.
He finally got out of the car and walked over to where John stood, smoking furiously away at a cigarette.
"John…John, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to…"
"Kid, if you were that tired, you should've told me before you fell asleep at the wheel," John snapped harshly. Chas was about to object, but then he realized how convenient this was- if John thought he'd fallen asleep at the wheel, he wouldn't have to explain what he'd really been doing.
"I didn't think I was that tired…"
John took another drag off his cigarette, and then turned around. "Next exit that has a motel, we're stopping."
"A motel?"
John gave Chas an incredulous look. "What, you think we're gonna sleep in the damn car?"
"Well, no, but-"
"Just fuckin' drive, Chas."
They got into the car without another word, and Chas shoved the car back into gear and pulled out onto the road. This time, John stayed wide awake, occasionally glancing at Chas to make sure he hadn't started to 'drift off' again.
Chas was quite certain that wouldn't happen, considering he'd been wide awake the whole time- but he wasn't about to tell John that he'd almost caused a car crash because he'd been having strange, unsettling thoughts about his mentor's looks.
True to his word, John made Chas pull off on the first exit that had a sign for a motel. It was a run-down, one-floor place that no doubt had only cold water and was bug-ridden, but Chas was beginning to get tired and confused, so he could care less.
He waited by the cab as John checked in at the desk, and then the exorcist came back to the cab, grabbing his bag from the sidewalk.
"We're in room 14."
Chas blinked. "What? Hey, wait a second…we? As in…one room? You and me? In the same room? Are you sure?"
John chuckled, starting to walk and forcing Chas to stumble in his attempt to catch up.
"Quit your whining. There are two beds. What do you think I am, a fuckin' pedophile?"
Chas cringed. "I'm not a kid, you know."
"Was that a hint?"
"You know what I fuckin' meant, John…"
John smirked, unlocking the door and pushing it open. The room was small, the bathroom barely big enough to turn around in- but at least here the bathroom was private. For Chas, that was a luxury.
He dropped his bag on the nearest bed, and then collapsed down onto it with a sigh, ignoring the cloud of dust that erupted from the sheets when he hit.
"Get to sleep, kid. We leave when the sun comes up."
Chas had never had so much trouble falling asleep in his life.
He tossed and turned for a half hour, but the steady breathing from the other side of the room was keeping him awake, torturing his mind at the thought that John Constantine was sleeping ten feet away.
It was just hero worship, really. Not anything sexual. Or at least, that's what Chas told himself every moment that the thought came into his mind.
You like girls, Chas, you know this. Not exorcists twice your age. Certainly not male exorcists twice your age.
Of course, all the thoughts of this nature led to a completely unintended problem- and quite suddenly, Chas couldn't sleep for a whole different reason. In his apartment, it wouldn't have been a problem, far from it in fact. But with someone else sleeping in the same room…
Chas snuck a glance at John. The older man was facing away from him, his breathing slow and deep. Most definitely asleep.
You'll never sleep if you don't deal with this. Besides, what could it hurt?
With justification said and done with, Chas's hand slipped down inside his boxers, and he commenced dealing with his slight 'problem'.
It ended up not being quite as easy as he'd hoped.
He'd meant to make things fast, especially since it was such a difficult thing to keep himself quiet (normally he was pretty loud, since it really didn't matter in his apartment building), but it just wouldn't happen. Not that this wasn't normal for him- he always started out with the normal 'teenage boy fantasies'- busty blondes and slutty brunettes- but it never worked. Never had.
With a frustrated sigh (and taking no notice that the breathing of the person in the bed beside him had ceased to become sleep-breathing), he shifted his mind to a completely different 'angle', so to speak. His hand worked almost frantically, his breathing shortened, and he tried desperately to keep the light moans and gasps from escaping him.
Moments later his hips jerked, and with a groan that sounded suspiciously like a name that started with "j" and ended with "n", he climaxed hard.
He lay in the bed, breathing hard but trying to stifle it, and he listened for a moment to John's breathing. Slow and deep, just like it had been. He'd gotten away with it, thank God- he'd hate to have that embarrassment on his shoulders.
With a sigh, he rolled over and was almost immediately asleep.
Across the room, John didn't bother to fake asleep anymore. Now he was the one that couldn't sleep- after all, he'd just been pulled from sleep by his teenage apprentice moaning his name in the throes of orgasm.
Maybe this trip hadn't been such a good idea after all.
John sighed heavily, and then took a quick glance at the slumbering teen, his soft curls tousled on the pillow.
Damn you, Chas, he thought, his own hand slipping downward.