simple twist of fate

by red-starshine

part fourteen: i walk away

Ditching Chas and sticking him with the keys to the House of Mystery is a bastardly thing to do, but I can tell he wouldn't exactly approve of what I'm going to do – namely, get Astra's soul back and then burn that holy winged arse 'til there's nothing left of him except cold grey ashes. But omnipotent angel vs. squishy human mage isn't exactly a fair fight. Even if I leveled the playing field using the House's collection, Manny could still kill me easily. I shouldn't try to kid myself: this is little more than a suicide run, one final 'fuck you' before it all fades out.

But fuck it, if I die, I'm going to die trying to do something right for a change instead of bolloxing it all up like I usually do.

I'm not furious just because the angel had me dancing to his tune like a puppet on a string for over ten years, although that is a large, large factor behind me wanting to rip the bastard's bloody wings out with my bare hands. Astra hasn't been right since Newcastle, and she's had to grow up with part of her soul missing, the part of her that can be happy and enjoy life. If that angel had the missing piece of her soul the entire time, I am going to do my damned best to make sure that bastard regrets answering my call that night in Newcastle. He played with her life like it meant less than nothing – just a bargaining chip to keep the little blond monkey in line. He can fuck right off.

Of course, I've gambled with people's lives too, but at the very least I'm aware of the value of a human life. Manny couldn't give a toss - human are amusing little insects to him. Put them in a jar and watch them kill each other. Gaz, Emma, Frank; each time one of my friends died because of me or what I'd done, a little bit more of me died with them, until my connection to this world is almost as thin as the angel's.

And then there's Chas, who died less than an hour after I met him. That's probably a record: quickest death after befriending John Constantine.

I'm not sure what possessed me to try the spell on him after the fire – he was friendly, yes, handsome, very much so and compassionate to the point where his first instinct when the fire started was to try to help others instead of running for an exit. I'd tried to send him off with the others (too many, Jesus, so many bodies), but he didn't go where he was supposed to. He stayed in-between while all the other souls who'd already died crossed over. I'd followed his soul to the Crossroads and instead of the half-aware shadow repeating the same thing over and over I'd been expecting, he looked and acted just the same as he had before the fire.

God, I hadn't wanted him to cross over. Understandably, he didn't want to cross over either, and the spell came to my mind without thinking.

I've tried that spell multiple times out of desperation before, like the night I tried to get the demon out of Astra. It's never worked for me before – then again, it hasn't worked for anyone since the Dark Ages. I was more surprised than Chas was when his heart began to beat again.

Maybe I should've just left him there in the morgue, let him try to slot himself back into his real life. Maybe I shouldn't have shown him how the world I lived in worked, but he wanted to know. He's got a raw talent for magic, buried deep down. Not a large talent, but just enough to really see. He'll be a good caretaker for the House - better than I was, at any rate.

And he wanted to stay with me. That by itself is so unbelievable that I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around it. Eventually he would've realized how much of a bastard I really am and punched me in the face, but still.

Chas had wanted to stay with me.

And now I'm going to die, killed by an angel.

Fuck me.