Fic: Need A Smoke 1/1 Constantine
Need a Smoke? By: Lopaka Tanu Disclaimer: I do not own Constantine or any of the affiliations. This is a work of Fanfiction. Words: 1340 Rating: Adult Warning: Violence, Language, Dark Thoughts, and Graphic Discriptions. Summary: John suffers from with draw symptoms. Timeline: Post Movie - Post 'Little Johnny' _________________________________________________
"Oh god, I need a cigarette." His fingers twitched as he sat near the back of the city bus. There were some things in L.A. that weren't human, and every fucking one of them had decided to ride the bus today. Why he had to be one of them was beyond him. Then it hit him. "Oh yeah, because your chauffeur got himself killed by a psychotic angel and you are being black mailed by a psychic cop."
"Hey, weirdo, you wanna keep it down?" A skin headed kid covered from head to toe in tattoos rolled his eyes at John. "The freaks that live in this place, I swear!"
John thought about making, at the very least, a come back, but the effort to be witty was too much for his already frayed nerves. Plus, that and he would probably just explode over the bus seats and beat the moron to a pulp. He had to think about the welfare of the people. That and the fact beating some ass hole up would expose him to a world he wasn't quite ready to deal with yet.
It wasn't his fault that his main resource of holy objects was turned in to bug food. The skin under his eye twitched in suppressed anger. His psychic friends network had been cut off by the same demon. A slow burn started in his gut. Constantine forced himself to look on the bright side.
He still had Angela.
Angela.
He grit his teeth.
Angela, who snipped at everything in his life. How his apartment was too depressing. His clothes gave the wrong impression if he wanted to appear a good man who was there to help. His choice in food was going to make him die young from a heart attack. The very fucking air he breathed was not good enough to pass between her flat assed cheeks.
Leaning forward, John clutched his head. "God, I need a cigarette!"
"Got a light?" Leaning forward, the man who smelled like the inside of a chimney offered John his cigarette, tip first, to be lit.
John looked up, eyes blood shot, skin pale. He considered just giving up his hard won soul just to rip the face of this walking pain in the ass. "Do I look like I smoke?"
"Not recently. You should try, it helps." Shrugging, the man sat back in his seat. His leather coat had yellow-brown stains from old nicotine clouds.
This was a test. It had to be. John could think of no other reason this particular man was sitting in front of him. Fingers clenching in a desperate search for that ever comforting presence of a filter made him feel vulnerable.
Reaching in to his pocket, John grabbed the pack of gum. It was a set of sticks in perky colored tin foil. The very idea of it set his mind in to black thoughts of killing the designer for being so god damned cheerful. He quickly jerked one out of the paper slips in the back and unwrapped the piece of gum from the foil. He was about to drop the foil when the man across from him cleared his throat.
The man in the leather coat pointed to the no littering sign above John's head.
John pointed at the no smoking sign above the man's head. Seeing the man get angry, he started to feel better. He didn't understand what upset the man so badly. What was wrong with pointing out the no smoking sign?
"Think you're cute, you smug bastard? Well fuck you too!" Flipping John off, the man turned around to face the front of the bus.
Okay, so he had used his middle finger to point at the sign, big deal. The man just didn't have a sense of humor. Few people could appreciate his jokes.
Someone behind John began to whistle. The bus bounced from hitting a pot hole. The ass hole across the isle lit up. The skin head started thumping his legs against the floor in tune with the beat coming over his screeching earphones. The old lady two seats up began whispering to her grocery bag about the coming apocalypse while it purred at her.
Hand clenching the seat so hard it shook, John sat back against his window. His stop was only three blocks away. He could do three blocks. Three blocks. Three blocks.
That did it! "Stop the fucking bus or I swear to god someone is going to die!" The bus lurched to a halt, throwing John in to the skin head kid. Pushing the kid away, John rushed towards the front of the bus. Ignoring the looks of the other people inside, he stepped off in to the cold evening air and took a deep breath.
He regretted it immediately when his lungs burned from the toxic fumes. "I hate this fucking city." Scowling, John chewed his gum bitterly and headed down the block towards the building. He quickly dodged through the traffic towards his goal. So close he could almost smell the newness of it. So close, so close.
Just as he was about to reach the door of the newly built stone structure, the door exploded outwards. John ignored the fleeing person in favor of heading inside. So the man had smelled of Calvin Klein and Sulfur, he was beyond that kind of stuff. He just had to reach his destination and everything would be okay.
Coming up the front office corridor, he smiled at where the receptionist usually sat. The vapid ditz was gone to her three hour dinner break, which left it just him and the therapist, the way he liked it. If he had to deal with that much ignorance in one package, he would have snapped. There was a tall door to the right which led to the doctors' rooms.
The reason John had chosen even to come here was that Angela had black mailed him. She had taken several of his holy items while he slept one day after a grueling exorcism under the guise of him taking a break. Every successful visit to this head shrinker landed him another of his artifacts. After threatening her life and seduction had failed to convince her, bargaining had been the only resort. Had he been still damned to hell, he would be ignorant of the horrors of what she considered 'a good time'.
Shaking off the feelings of revulsion, John opened the door. Inside was a short hall that lead off in to various offices. The one he wanted was at the very end. Moving quickly, he figured the sooner he got in there, the sooner he could get out.
His fingers were shaking so badly from need by the time he reached the office door, his hand slipped off the knob completely. "Shit!" Grabbing the knob with both hands, he forced himself to steady. "This is insane. You are not a junky, you are not going to die without your fix. I am strong, I can beat this!" Opening his eyes, he took a cleansing breath just as the shrink had taught him.
It was supposed to help.
It was a crock of shit.
Growling, he turned the door handle and flung open the heavy door. He was about to charge inside with his usual attack pattern when he caught sight of the sheer destruction that had been the expensive office. He took a step inside the room. John glanced over at the therapist's chair. Beside it was something brown the size of a bowling ball.
Swallowing, John backed out of this office. No use waiting around for the cops to show up, it would only serve to set Angela off on another of her fucking tirades. His earlier anger returning full force, John swept from the therapy office for the street. Today was just not his day.