"I'm sorry I didn't tell you but we weren't exactly exclusive."
He almost wanted to ask if she'd been sleeping with other people, but she did have a point, so he bit his tongue. Hard. He tended not to trust people and this was exactly why. Well not exactly. It wasn't every day that his lovers turned out to be the niece of Satan, but it definitely contributed to his trust issues when it did happen. He tried to be disgusted, to hate her for what she was, and a part of him did, but he couldn't hate her entirely.
Most of the time, he met half-breeds that were just evil, hurt people and seemed to know nothing of the human side they possessed and now here she was. A half-breed who knew only a little about the side of her that was supposed to be "evil" and so much about her human side. He couldn't bring himself to hate her, not with how human she was.
"So, what? You're the niece of Satan. What does that have to do with what happened last night?" He moves to sit up in the bed, reaching for his pack of cigarettes and lighter. He'd only been awake a little while and he already wanted to go back to being unconscious. A nice punch to the face would do.
"I guess you could say I have the ability to kill other half-breeds. I don't know. That's the way I've come to describe it." She waves her hands around, a clear sign of frustration and confusion. She stands from where she'd been sitting in the chair beside his bed, and crosses the room, beginning to pace at the end of his bed. "And it attacked you and nearly fuckin' killed you, so yeah, I killed it."
Was that the sound of…concern? God, John didn't even know anymore. He felt an odd sense of betrayal: almost like he didn't know her anymore, but surely nothing had changed about her. Surely, she had to be the same person. His logical mind was dominant then, arguing this with his emotional one, which wanted to tell her to leave and never come back.
"What else have you been lying about?" He couldn't help the question. It just slipped out before he could even stop it. He watched her stop pacing and a look come over her face almost like he'd literally hit her in the face with the question. Slowly, she ruffled her dark hair and sighed, turning away from him.
"Glad you think about it that way, but nothing." She'll come towards him, only for her coat, which she reaches into and pulls out her own pack of cigarettes and lighter, pinching one between her lips, and lighting it. There's silence for a moment as the two respectively smoke their own cigarette and then she sighs, pulling her cigarette from her pale pink lips. He glanced up at her and a small smile came to see his lips, seeing the smoke rise in front of her face. It reminded him of when they first met…
|||| A YEAR AGO |||
It was raining in Los Angeles, seemed a little more common these days than one might think. California wasn't always rays of sunshine, especially at night, and especially lately. It was depressing for her line of work, mostly because she spent most of the night getting wet and not getting paid. It was truly annoying. She'd given up on working tonight for this reason and was taking shelter beneath an overhang, clothes sopping wet and sticking to her pale skin. She'll glance up and down the road briefly before reaching into her pocket and removing her pack of cigarettes. She removed one before placing it between her lips, giving a sigh as she realized she didn't have a light.
"Need a light?"
She'll pause almost immediately and look up, soft brown eyes aglow as she drank in the sight of her savior at that moment. He had short dark hair with pieces of it sticking to his forehead from the rain, and his eyes were just as dark, if not darker. Looking into his eyes, she could feel something about him: those eyes belonged to people who had been through some shit and she could definitely identify with that. He had a bit of a long nose, but it certainly didn't offput his looks at all. Angular cheekbones lead to pensive pink lips with a cigarette pinched between them, the end of it burning steadily unlike her own. He was dressed in a suit, but didn't seem like a businessman at all (most businessmen weren't really smokers, she knew this). She watched as he gathered his dark coat about him and offered up a metallic flip-top lighter, flicking it in the process. She quickly leaned in and brought the tip of the cancer stick over the open flame, breathing in at the same time. The end lit quickly and he pulled away, pocketing the lighter as he too stepped underneath the overhang for shelter.
"Thanks." She mumbled, grabbing the cigarette and releasing the smoke into the wet air. He gave a nod in her direction in acknowledgement.
His eyes fell upon her in the corner of his eye, watching as she smoked the cigarette in peace, taking a drag every few minutes and breathing it out. Her face was white as a sheet and he couldn't help but wonder if she was one of those cartoon ghosts with a complexion like that (he'd never met someone so pale!). Brown eyes remained on the burning end of her cigarette, watching as it slowly grew shorter and shorter with every moment and every drag. A small nose led to full, plump lips covered in bright red lipstick; her face was curtained by wet, jet black hair that stuck to her cheeks, neck, and shoulders. She was dressed in a corset-style black shirt with it tying around her neck, a black tartan short-skirt, and long legs were covered in black fishnets and knee-high buckle boots.
She was certainly not like any person, or woman for that matter, he'd ever met.
"Yeah, no problem." He quickly decided to quit ogling her, feeling rude all of a sudden. Of all the things he'd done in his lifetime and he felt rude for checking a girl out. God help him.
"So...what are you doing out here in the rain, hm?" The question is posed to him as leans her back against the wall across from him beneath the safety and shelter of the overhang, eyes now lit with something he couldn't quite put his finger on. Mischievousness? Curiosity? He decided he'd try to find out in speaking to her. After all, it couldn't hurt.
"Just wandering, really." The answer is simple and doesn't reveal anything: just like he always was. He always kept people out. Not that he liked to, of course, but it wasn't about him. It was about their safety. "What about you? What's a pretty girl like you doing out in the rain, getting cancer?"
She looked quite young, maybe eighteen...or at least just too young to be smoking. Regardless, he wasn't one to tell people what to do, especially strangers. They could fuck up their own lives however they chose. He only stepped in when it became a balance problem.
She laughs and it's rather...beautiful? He can tell she's one of those people that doesn't laugh often and it gives him a victorious feeling to know that he had made her laugh. He watched as she composed herself, black eyebrows raised and she set herself back against the wall again, staring over at him through a veil of cigarette smoke.
"You think I'm pretty?"
He'll scoff and look away from her, noticing how he was almost to the end of his cigarette.
Damn these things went fast.
"No. Don't think you should be smoking." He states rather flatly, not even bothering to look at her as he said so.
"Well, alright, Dad." The sarcasm is evident in her voice and he resists the urge to laugh, finding it refreshing to have someone fire back at him.
"Oh, I'm not your dad. Just a good Samaritan looking out for you."
"Says the one who lit my cigarette."
He doesn't say anything, unable to argue.
"I'm Amelia, by the way, handsome stranger."
Another scoff.
"Constantine. John Constantine."
||| PRESENT |||
"This doesn't change anything. I'm not, like, I don't fucking know, in league with him. I don't even…I've never met him. I just know my dad." She sighs again and walks over, sitting beside him. "And most of the archangels are trying to kill me so that's cool."
His face wrinkles in confusion, but she offers an answer before he can question it.
"I'm a Nephilim, John, my very existence is against the law." She used her best sheriff voice. "Hence, they try to erase it."