InsaneJournal

Who: John Constantine, Bonnie Bennett, and Willow Rosenberg.
What: A blonde, a brunette and a redhead...walk into a magic shop to discuss stopping an ancient vampire. Yeah, that joke fell flat.
Where: Something Wicca This Way Comes (Willow’s magic shop).
When: Backdated to yesterday afternoon.
Rating: Constantine's language is all you need to watch other for.
Status: Partial log; to be completed in comments.

Constantine didn’t know why he kept going out of his way to help Willow with her various completely batshit mental projects. Somewhere along the way, he’d developed something of a soft spot for the babbly, scarily powerful redhead. It was the only explanation he could think of for why he continued to agree to such frankly ridiculous shit as turning Nikola Tesla into a vampire, though admittedly his somewhat harder spot for a certain blonde protégé of the man had something to do with that one, and taking on an ancient vampire who had somehow possessed a human history teacher. As much as he liked to give a good ‘fuck you’ to vampires, and certainly had a history of dealing with possessions, he wasn’t sure how they were going to swing this one. Vampires didn’t possess people. It just didn’t happen. It was one giant headfuck.

Still, he’d promised his help, so he was sitting in a magic shop with two girls young enough to be his daughters, listening to them go back and forth with ideas and smoking a cigarette to clear his head. He gave a little smirk to the ‘No Smoking’ sign at the counter, glad that the soft spot thing both ways. Most people probably would have been annoyed at his smoking, but Willow seemed to like him for one reason or another. It was new, especially since he hadn’t done much to make her like him. Still, it was almost refreshing in a way, to be liked in spite of his multiple faults.

He’d been quiet since they’d arrived, puzzled by the problem they were dealing with, and finally set down his cigarette, looking at the two young women. “Remind me why we can’t just rip the bastard outta th’poor sod and toss ‘im into the void?” he asked. “I mean, it might kill that Ric bloke, but you’ll be rid of Klaus.” He fully expected to be yelled at by the younger witch, but in his defense he felt like it had to be said. They couldn’t afford to be naive about this.

Willow had almost forgotten Constantine was there. Well, no. That wasn’t right. She could hardly forget there was a snarky man who smoked like a chimney sitting in her store, making all of her magical supplies stinky with smoke and reminding her so much of Spike it was almost scary. So she definitely hadn’t forgotten as much as she hadn’t expected him to speak up when he did. Blinking at what he had to say, it took her mind a few seconds to process it before she could even think to respond.

First she glanced at Bonnie, blinking a bit owlishly, before clearing her throat and looking back to Constantine. “Well...” she began slowly, “Um, that could work. But, well, I’m pretty sure Ric’s friends don’t want him dead and, well, I sorta have this whole ‘don’t kill humans unless I really can’t help it’ thing going on, and I’m pretty sure Bonnie doesn’t want to just murder her history teacher...” She glanced to the other witch, seeking some sort of support of that particular claim, before her gaze flickered back to Constantine.

“So I think,” she added with a slight hesitation, “maybe we should look for a plan that doesn’t involve letting the victim die. But that plan would definitely work if we decide not to save the completely innocent man!”

And although most others couldn’t have said all of that without at least a touch of sarcasm, Willow truly wasn’t being rude or condescending. It was a good plan if they weren’t able to help Ric. She just really hoped it didn’t come to that.

"I want to save Ric, but I'll let him die if I have to," Bonnie said quietly. This was something she'd figured out while she was trying to come up with ideas. "And if he knows what's going on - if he's aware of what's happening while he's being Klaus's puppet - he'd probably agree with me." Hell, Ric would probably cheer her on if he could, if the choice was between putting an end to Klaus or saving himself. But the point of this meeting was to find a third way that would leave everybody happy. Except the Original.

"But if we just cast him out, would he be stuck in Colligo? What's to keep him from finding another body to walk around in and keep messing with people?" She had no idea how he'd gotten into Ric in the first place, but as far as she knew he wasn't a doppelganger or a descendant or anybody special other than his connection to the Salvatores and Elena. It was an ironic choice meant to hurt them, not a necessity. A local would probably work just as well if he wanted to stick around. "I'd rather we figure out a way to get rid of him for good."

“Good,” Constantine said, with an approving smirk in Bonnie’s direction. He liked the girl already. She was smart enough to see some truths that people twice her age often missed. “Once you decide you absolutely have to save e’ryone, that’s when people start dying. As long as you can acknowledge that sometimes you have to make sacrifices, you’re good.” He grinned. “Not that I think we’ll have to kill this teacher fella. But it’s good to know the option is there.” Thank...someone these witches weren’t self-righteous as he was used to.

“That’s why we’re not casting him out into Colligo,” he said. “Between the three of us, we could easily toss him into the space between realities, or even a sort of pocket reality that could serve as a cell. Setting him out into the city just lets him find a new body. It doesn’t relieve us of our problem.” He paused. “I suppose we just need to work out a way to stabilise your friend, so the separation doesn’t kill him...”

Willow had listened, gaze flickering between the two and the wheels in her mind turning as she tried to come up with anything that would both save Ric as well as oust Klaus. “The problem is,” she said slowly, with a small, thoughtful frown, “we need a way to protect his subconscious while still keeping it in his noggin and most spells I know either won’t or can’t get that deep without... idea!” Stopping suddenly, the redhead’s eyes grew wide as she jumped to her feet and all but dashed to the bookshelves that covered one wall of the store. With a quick glance at a handful of titles, she pulled one of the tomes down and began looking through it. A heartbeat later she gave a triumphant crow and dropped the book on the table, open to the page she’d found.

“Coma!” she exclaimed, looking from Constantine to Bonnie to gage their reactions. “A mystically induced coma, typically performed by healers in ancient times to ease the suffering of nobles and warriors alike as they died.” She paused, then added quickly, “Which isn’t what we’re using it for, of course, but a coma puts a big old wall around the subconscious and this wall,” she motioned toward the incantation, “even protects against outside magical and supernatural attacks.”

It wasn’t the best idea in the world and it wasn’t without risks, but it was an idea and one that she was sure the three of them could pull off. And now that she’d made the suggestion she simply fell silent, waiting for the others to offer their opinions.

Willow's extreme bubbliness made Bonnie a little uneasy. Maybe when they were talking about evicting a murderous ancient vampire from her friend's head they shouldn't be quite so excitable? But Constantine's sardonic nature was somehow more grounding, and she watched Willow run back and forth with avid eyes. Bonnie was definitely out of her depth here - for all the power she had, she was largely untrained and didn't really know what to do without her grimoire - and was glad to have the assistance.

She leaned forward over the table to look at the spell Willow had found. "Why not? Doctors put people in medically induced comas when they need them to stay inert so they can heal. If we can spring that on Klaus..." And then she sank back into her chair. "That's going to be the hard part. Getting the drop on him won't be easy." Of course, if she asked her friends they'd probably help. But she didn't want to put anyone else in danger. "I mean, we can do it, it's just going to be tricky."

“But we won’t need to spring it on Klaus,” Constantine interjected. He liked this idea. It had merit and, more importantly, it was just a bit insane. His favourite kind of idea. “Because we won’t be putting Klaus in a coma. We’ll be putting Ric into it. As far as Klaus will know, he’ll just have more complete control. Ric won’t be putting up any sort of fight. His body will still work, and Klaus will still be in charge, but Ric will be kept safe and tight in a magical bubble. It’ll work like a charm if we can get it right.”

“Only problem I see,” he said finally, “is we don’t have any real way to test it. We’ll have to do this first try on the bloke. If we mess it up, he might not come out of it after.” He paused, taking a drag of his cigarette. “But it’ll probably be fine. Worst case, we kill the guy. Best, we’ve found a very simple fix-it to this little problem.”

Willow listened as Bonnie and Constantine each shared their opinion. Her own attention had dropped back to the book, green-eyed gaze flickering over the spell on the off chance something dangerous had slipped her first read-through. Seeing nothing that put Ric in any more danger than he was already facing, she cut her attention back to the others. She wasn't aware of Bonnie's uncertainty about her but she would have almost been grateful if she had known. It wasn't very often that Willow met someone who both knew who she was and still acknowledged that maybe she wasn't as totally awesome as they seemed through a fictional television show. If she had known that was the case, she probably would have been thrilled to meet someone who didn't look at her with star-struck eyes just because she was the Willow Rosenberg. Whatever that was supposed to mean.

"He'll come out of it." Willow’s assurance was offered with little more than her own determination to see Ric pull through this whole ordeal. She had no proof he'd wake up from the coma, nothing at all to ensure anything would go as they had planned. However she had faced worse odds than what they were facing and had come out just as fine after the fact, so she had little worry that this would work much the same.

Looking from Constantine to Bonnie and back again, she asked, "And do we really have any other choices? I don't want to be the little witch that cries uncle but... other than this, I'm slap out of ideas, folks."

"And the worst-case scenario is one we've already addressed." Bonnie didn't like the idea of Ric dying, but a chance that he might was far better than the certainty that they'd have to kill him to achieve their plans. She had already accepted that fact and was glad to have any chance at an alternative outcome. Besides, it would be better to say that they'd tried than to have to face Jenna - and Caroline, and Damon, and everyone else - and tell them flat out that she'd killed Ric to get rid of Klaus. Any chance was worth taking.

She looked from Willow to Constantine, then back at the book, venturing to touch the page lightly with the tip of her finger. "So how does this work? Do we do it all together, or are you going to channel our power?" Normally she would have followed that up with a warning about how she was currently carrying around the power of a hundred or so dead witches. But this was Willow, who had practically turned into a goddess. Of course, that had also almost turned her into an evil force of nature. But she could probably handle it.

Constantine considered the question, debating the merits of various divisions of labor. As sensible as Bonnie seemed to be, he wasn’t sure she needed to be doing anything on her own. She was young and he had no idea how much control she had. Meanwhile, Willow would almost certainly need to focus on actually removing Klaus. The answer seemed fairly obvious to him, but he took the time to finish his cigarette before saying anything. No need to rush things, since they were hardly going to be running straight out of the shop to find this Klaus fellow.

“Way I see it,” he said, once he’d stubbed out the remnants of his cigarette in the ashtray Willow kept around for him, moving to look at the spell over her shoulder, “I can focus on keeping Ric stable with the whole mystic coma thing. Red, you can channel little witch and the both of you rip the scary ancient vampire out of Mr. History Teacher, tear a bit of a hole in reality to toss him through and seal it back up right good. You know, the easy bits.” He grinned. “Go team!”

Willow considered Constantine’s plan, brow furrowed as she stared absently down at the book on the table. His idea seemed the best way to do it, definitely, but she was still a little worried. Bonnie wasn’t your average witch by any stretch of the imagination. She had a lot of power, albeit most of it untapped at the moment, and there was a real chance that drawing that into herself could send her teetering right off that slippery slope that leads to lots of veins and trying to end the world.

On the other hand, they really didn’t have many other options. Constantine was experienced enough to pull off the coma spell on his own and, as long as she kept her power away from it, there was a better chance of Ric waking up if he was the only one involved in the casting of the spell. So with a slow exhale to steel her nerves, Willow nodded once and glanced over to each of them in turn.

“I think that’ll work,” she said, her uncertainty obvious but slowly fading as she went over the plan once more in her mind. “Yeah, it’ll work. I just...” She stopped once more, swallowed, then just said what was on her mind.

“Okay. So this is a lot of mojo, which is fine, I can handle it. Except maybe I can’t. So if I start acting, y’know, evil... just one of you promise me you’ll stop me before I start making with the flaying and world ending? Pretty please?”

"I promise," Bonnie said without hesitation. "And that's a good plan. So let's go with it." She could certainly maintain control while she was being channeled, couldn't she? After all, she'd been aware of what Luka had done, and she'd managed to work her other spells without losing control. It was just the backlash that was the hard part and left her with bloody noses. "You'll only have to worry if I start to pass out or my nose starts bleeding or something. And that's much less of a problem now, really." That sounded a lot more confident than she felt - but if she had to sacrifice herself to get rid of Klaus, well, that was just an unfortunate side effect. It was for the greater good. That was what was important.

"Besides, we probably need more power on that side anyway," she continued. "He's an Original. I don't know if just one witch can take him. Or warlock. What do you go by?" she asked John, holding back a smile. "Anyway, if you can hold Ric then we should be all set."

“And I’ll help her if she needs it to ease you back down,” John said simply, because he wasn’t about to let Willow go power-mad and evil if he could help it. He liked her and he wasn’t particularly interested in having to kill her. Though it would go along with the way most of his friendships went, so it wouldn’t be all that surprising if it ended terribly. He also got the sense Bonnie wasn’t telling them something, but he brushed that aside. The girl was old enough to think for herself and he wasn’t her father. He wasn’t going to go policing the way she used her magic. “I think ‘watch out for passing out and nosebleeds’ really goes without saying, kitten,” he said with a bemused smile. “If that happens, we’ll compensate.” He didn’t need all his strength to hold Ric in the coma. If Willow needed to ease off Bonnie, she could draw from him too.

“What do I go by?” John asked with a wry smirk. “I go by John Constantine. And usually just Constantine. If you’re asking what other people call me...that’s a long list, and most of it’s not exactly suitable for polite company. It’s a lot of ridiculous titles. I’m an occultist, a magician. Simple as that. Nothing fancy.”

And with their plan decided, Willow felt as though a load had been lifted. Yes it was tricky and dangerous and there was a very good chance it could blow up in their faces in some spectacular way, but they had a plan. That was good.

Snorting when Constantine began to introduce himself, she couldn’t let his own downplay of his abilities go unchecked. She might not have fangirled over him the way some people acted toward her, but she knew who he was and had spent many a night hanging out with Xander over the years, listening to him bemoan how awesome it would be to be the very man sitting across from her now.

“Simple as that, huh?” she remarked with a grin. “Right. A-and I’m just your average every day computer geek with a touch of mojo on the side.” Her attention then flickered to Bonnie and her expression went from a teasing smile to an authentic grin. “Constantine here pretty much has ‘how to downplay what you can actually do’ down to a fine art. Don’t mind him. And don’t worry about the nosebleeds and the whole passing out thing. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Because it had to be fine. If anyone was going to risk being injured from this, it was Willow. She refused to allow anyone else to get hurt, especially these two. She’d lost enough over the years. Asking for one complicated, dangerous spell not to go awry and kill her new friends wasn’t too much to ask, right?

“So... when do we want to do this?”