InsaneJournal

WHO: Nikola Tesla, Willow Rosenberg, & John Constantine
WHAT: Willow & Constantine help Tesla get his vampire groove back.
WHEN: [backdated] May 16th
WHERE: Tesla’s lab
RATING: PG
STATUS: Log; To Be Completed In Comments

Tesla hadn’t had to make many adjustments to the lab for the second test. He hadn’t unpacked any of his equipment or unshielded anything in anticipation of a second run-through, so really, all it had been a matter of was clearing out a large enough space once more and extracting the serum from where he had been keeping it stored. Once this was done with, all he had left to do was wait.

Idly playing with a few bits of metal that were laying around from what was left of his unfinished projects, Nikola glanced up as he heard someone enter and offered them an encouraging smile, “It’s looking like a good day to bend the laws of nature.”

Constantine was mostly bemused with the whole situation. He had meant what he said to Willow. If it weren’t for Ashley Magnus, and the girl’s connection to the man in question, he wouldn’t have been here. For all he respected Nikola Tesla’s work, historically speaking, he wasn’t in the business of making vampires out of the goodness of his heart. And honestly, it probably should have relieved the other man to know he was doing this out of self-interest. It meant he was much more likely to try than if he did it out of the goodness of his heart.

He leaned against the wall, watching the scientist. He was still almost positive they were doing something very, very stupid here. That sort of genius mind, made all the more dangerous by a strain of vampirism that wasn’t held in check by the usual rules, it was pretty fucking mental to be facilitating that. But then, he was really good at being mental. “Right,” he said. “I’m just here to be a glorified battery. So...I’ll leave the pair of you to it.”

Willow was nervous. She hadn’t been all that nervous the last time but this time, she was definitely nervous. She had spent the past few days doing little more than ironing out her way to pull this off, only pausing to eat, sleep, bathe, and occasionally work on some other problem in the city that needed her attention, but for the most part her entire focus had been on helping Nikola Tesla. And while she was almost positive she was going to succeed this time, apparently no one had informed the butterflies in her stomach of that fact.

Still, there was a smile on her face despite her nervousness as she made her way into the lab. Constantine, although certainly a bit... rough around the edges, really was the best choice for what she needed so she didn’t offer any apologies about his being there. The fact of the matter was, as sweet and caring as Willow could be, she wasn’t a pushover. And Nikola Tesla wasn’t exactly the Nicest Man in all of Niceland, so he didn’t really have much room to talk about Constantine’s propensity to say the rudest thing possible at the worst possible time.

Of course, if both men started getting too big for their britches, she’d set them both straight quick and in a hurry. She was more than ready to put on her resolve face and lay the facts out for both of them, but really wasn’t wanting to turn stern, possibly even mean, without good cause. So for the time being, she simply looked to Constantine and said, “You’re not a battery. More like...” She paused, trying to come up with the best way to describe him. Battery just sounded so... wrong, somehow.

“Oh! You’re more like a big, fleshy bag of magic!” Another pause, this one with a frown. “Which just sounds worse. Way worse. And now I feel a little pervvy. And am about to start babbling, so I’m going to stop now.” Clamping her mouth shut, she tucked some of her hair behind her ear and busied herself for a few seconds with getting the items she’d brought with her ready. When she’d finished, she suddenly perked up and looked between the two men, green eyes wide as something had just occurred to her.

“You two have met before, right? Or do I need to make with the introductions?”

“Met, no,” Tesla said as he stood, a slight smile gracing his features at Willow’s fumbling for a better comparison, and approached the other man. “But I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you about on the message board. Ashley’s friend, the one that Johnny-boy doesn’t seem to care for,” Nikola said, raising a finger to gesture at Constantine, his smile widening in smug self-satisfaction. “Keep that up. He’s so amusing when he’s angry.”

Not the nicest man in all of niceland was perhaps a bit of an understatement as far as Tesla was concerned especially as he was someone that seemed so eager to indulge in the agony of his friends, but as Helen had once said, Nikola really was an acquired tasted. Nikola might have been anxious about this situation, but he wasn’t about to rush Willow’s work. He might not have understood a single thing that she was doing, but he knew that it was all important somehow, and he wasn’t going to risk any of it going wrong this time.

Constantine raised his eyebrow at the ‘big, fleshy bag of magic’ comment, his lips quirking into an amused smirk, but he didn’t say anything. The girl was awkward, that was for sure, but in a decidedly endearing way. He definitely felt less inclined to hit her than he did with most people. Like the man on the other side of the room. Him he definitely felt like hitting now and then. But Ashley liked the twat, for some strange reason that probably wasn’t all that far from why she put up with Constantine himself, and so he wouldn’t. “Fine,” he said. “Magical flesh sack it is.”

“Met’s a strong word,” he said with an idle shrug. “But I’ve seen him around. He helps Ash out, which means he can’t be all that awful, whatever appearances may imply.” He smirked. “Well, the lass promised me a date if I helped you out and didn’t fuck you over, so there’s that.” Something in the way he said date made it seem like a simple night out might not be what he meant. “So I get the sense ol’ Jack’ll like me even less after that. Blokes never like the men who date their daughters.” Or their nieces, he thought, his mind going to his own reaction to Gemma’s boyfriend. He sometimes wished she would show up, but he knew it would probably just make her life worse, however nice it might be to see her.

“But I don’t relish the idea of getting skewered by Jack the bloody fucking Ripper,” he said, lighting a cigarette and taking a long drag. “So I’m not gonna go poking that particular serial killin’ bear. Minus the tiny part about dating his little girl.”

Okay. So they hadn’t met officially but they at least knew of one another courtesy of their mutual connection between Ashley and her father. Not that Willow knew much of the story, really, nor did she care. She knew who Ashley Magnus’ father was. She’d watched the messages boards enough to know that much at least. However why anyone would think it was a good idea to mess with the man, especially date his daughter or encourage others to poke at him until he was agree, was beyond Willow’s comprehension. Maybe it was her own determination not to die in a painful, bloody way that kept her from thinking it was at humorous as the two men, but whatever the case she did have to admit she was at least grateful they seemed to have a common thread to work together.

About the time Constantine had announced he didn’t want to go poking at Jack the Ripper too much, Willow was finished going over a last-minute check of her notes. She had three different spells she could try. She hoped the first one would work as it had worked before, minus her running out of juice, but if Constantine’s own abilities hindered that particular line of magic, she had two more for backups.

In short, she was bound and determined to make good on her promise to Nikola to help him and today was the day it was going to happen. She was not leaving this lab until it had. She’d even thought ahead and had asked Buffy to cover her shift at the magic shop just in case she wasn’t finished here or was simply too tired to consider dealing with the public. Which she hoped wouldn’t be the case but was always a possibility in unknown situations like this one. She had napped for nearly four hours following her last attempt, after all, and hadn’t even gotten halfway through the process.

Re-focusing her thoughts back on the present rather than toward what might happen, she looked to both men with a smile that was as reassuring as she could be without any real proof that this was going to work. “Okay!” she announced, clapping her hands together once. “Let’s get started.”

She looked to Constantine. “I’m going to need you to sit beside me,” she instructed, motioning to the area on the floor that she had set up. It wasn’t going to be the most comfortable of places to perform a spell but it was safer than standing around. “Once we get started, I need to be able to grab your hand so.... cigarette in the other one?” Because getting burnt was not part of the plan and she was pretty sure Buffy would not let her continue to help people do questionable things if she came home with a giant cigarette burn on her palm.

Next, she looked to Nikola. “And... I guess we’re ready to do this whenever you are. We’ll run through it just like last time.” She paused. “Except the part where we ran a bunch of tests then didn’t actually succeed.” Which was a given, really, but she was still nervous and, well, if that was the worst of her babble that these men got they should really consider themselves lucky.