InsaneJournal

When the weeks had come and gone without another word from Ms. Watson in regards to the family ‘exorcism’ it was assumed that the good Mr. Carter had just been a cheating sonofabitch and life was normal as whatever could be usual. John eased back into his regular schedule of teaching and with a helpful shot of gin every night, just enough sleep to keep going.

Talking with Zatanna had helped. She was ready with an arsenal of logical thinking, pep talk, and no nonsense point of thought despite him not exactly sharing much.

The acceptance was lovely, truly, but nothing he deserved. In a weak state of mind and wanting nothing more than to forget about the bullshit it would have been easy to just listen to her. John considered it, because she had several points. Whatever this hellish life meant be it the real one or the fake one or which was true, it was what it was, and he was still bloody breathing. May as well keep moving whilst trying not to fuck up again.

It gave him the conviction to answer Joan's abrupt, less than enthusiastic phone call about their not so ordinary Mr. Carter. He hadn't much prep time or many things to work with, but Constantine his way to the given address as quickly as he could. Hopefully the demon hadn't wrought hell on the family yet or this would be a god awful mess. “Any word on the wife and kids?” He asked a little breathlessly, meeting the detective on the porch of the house that reeked negative energy.

Joan had hoped for a quiet resolution. She’d thought maybe it was just an off week, maybe Mr Carter was just distracted, maybe Mrs Carter was just high. But no. Having passed along Constantine’s information, the tips on how to approach things, Joan had been met with the newest conundrum.

The wife was convinced this was not her husband; he didn’t know any important dates, accepted when she’d told him false information and Joan had been introduced as if they were old friends and he’d just gone along with it. And Joan spent the next several hours packing up the kid and wife while constantly checking she still had John’s card.

As far as cases went, this was her weirdest. And that was including the one with the mannequin and the latex suit. With her coat tugged around her, as if it were her own armor, Joan met Constantine on the steps outside the house, not convinced that Mr Carter didn’t know what was going on already. “They’re out, I sent them away for the night.” Hopefully it would be all it took, just one night. Hopefully he was capable of fixing whatever this was.

“I told them I knew an expert,” at least she hoped she did, “I do know an expert, right?”

At least he wouldn't have to worry about the demon trying to harm the wife and children or use them to his advantage. With an amused huff, Constantine did nothing more than twist his lips into a smirk. “That's what my mate from the other world says, anyway.” Zatanna said he was powerful enough to open pockets in the world and send demons through time and space.

Given she was the only bit of familiarity (or sanity) he had here, he was compelled to trust her. Despite recent misfortune in his memories.

“If you must come Joan you'll have to keep your wits about you. The demon may try to goad or mock but it's all bollocks, yes?” Poor girl was still probably trying to wrap her head around the fact that this was real. Truth was, so was he, but it gave him an indescribable rush of adrenaline that felt like home. “Mr. Carter?” He called as he entered the house, waiting for Joan to fall in after him before closing and locking the door behind him. “It's likely not going to like this at all. Pay it no mind, stay calm.”

Joan prided herself on staying calm under pressure. It was important; it had been in medical school, as a surgeon, working with addicts, working with Sherlock. Keeping her composure in the worst of situations was something Joan had achieved throughout her life in numerous situations.

Apparently, she could add demonic possessions to that now too.

Mr Carter didn’t make them go looking for him. As John turned the lock on the door, Mr Carter exited the kitchen. He was a tall man, taller than Joan, about level with Constantine, unimposing except for his broad shoulders, square jaw and sharp eyes. He looked a little worn out right then though, dark circles under his eyes, bloodshot around the rims, that sickly look to his skin, like he was working too much and not sleeping enough. It stood to reason that maybe creatures that wore people like a well used suit didn’t bother with sleep. “Who’s this then?”

Keeping her wits about her was one thing, figuring out how to introduce an occult specialist to a demon wearing a client was something else. “John Constantine, Mr Carter.” Why not just go with it for now?

In his other life John had begun to collect quite the gaggle of magical artifacts. While traveling about the occults in London and the rest of the world he picked up languages, rites, and other forms of magic used on demons or just in general. He didn't have any of that here so he'd have to think on his feet. Nothing out of the ordinary.

“Pleasure,” he smirked, giving a small nod as they all came full circle to stand about the waiting room, letting his hands fall casually into his pockets as if to appear non threatening at all. Since this was a rather large fellow without the demon under his skin the last thing John wanted to do was get flung about like a rag doll.

Steady as she goes, he'd take this nice and easy, all but explaining his intentions to Joan all the while speaking to ‘Mr. Carter’. “They’ve told me you haven't been feeling too well, mate. I'm a Doctor of a sorts, specialize in this sort of thing, if you'd like to take a seat? I think we can get to the bottom of this sleeping problem. Amongst other things.” Since he couldn't exorcise the bastard standing up with the power to run away or toss things about in their general direction. He had a rotten feeling in his gut about that.

Thankfully the sitting room had a fairly open space; family houses seemed to enjoy that sort of feel, and while Mr Carter most definitely didn’t seem too suspicious, wandering through the couch with a small grumble of ‘hippy, dippy’ muttered under his breath, it seemed to be moving mostly smoothly for the moment.

Joan was absolutely preparing herself for the worst, even if she wasn’t even entirely sure what the ‘worst’ was at this point. It could really be anything from ‘Exorcist’ type wall shaking to ‘Insidious’ style demon hovering and she really needed to not take her cues for this stuff from the horror movies that Hollywood spat out.

“I’m sure Melanie mentioned I had a friend that worked in this field?” Because Joan was supposed to be an old friend, she had to use first names, even if that had been a bit of a struggle the first few times, and getting the kids to act like Joan was mommy’s close friend. Still, best not to rouse too many questions before the big show.

Which Joan was still apprehensive about.

Oh, if only Joan knew. John could only hope this wasn’t a particularly nasty bastard per his ‘first’ exorcism in this world, but given his string of luck, it was probably wishful thinking. It didn’t dissuade him as he began to roll the sleeves of his shirt while making his way around to the man reluctantly working over to the couch.

He took it as a good sign. A more powerful demon wouldn’t be following suit to strangers, this could very well have been a spirit or a follower. That didn’t mean they weren’t in danger.

John gave his detective comrade one last look of warning before hovering over ‘Mr. Carter’, and reciting what could only bring out the best in their friend, hands warding over the body. “Et separabunt traductionem alicuius, et omnes Satanae in votis pacta. Spiritualia, et animam vinculo, et opera Satanae.” Just a little something from the breastplate of St. Patrick. A spirit would pay no mind...but a demon would surely not take to the vow of severing Satan and all of his righteous ways. Another clever way not to sound an ass if Carter was a human having issues.

But of course he wasn’t, and as things mostly went with demons the tides changed quickly. John found that with the right sheer force he was able to be catapulted over the couch with a hearty smack against the wall, a few sparse picture frames falling and cracking beside him. Groaning momentarily, he cradled a now throbbing head, reaching up to flail about for Joan to take her cover if she hadn’t.

So yes. They would definitely be needing an exorcism. He just needed the bastard to hold still long enough to stop throwing glass.

Joan had been paying close attention, watching John as he started to work on the demon, the incantations or whatever weren’t familiar to her at all, but she could catch the odd word -she knew what Satan was after all. Of course when Mr Carter took exception to the attempt, launching John backwards in a display that was definitely telling of some kind of supernatural something.

As John had gone over the couch, Joan had taken cover behind the single sofa while Mr Carter had launched to his feet. “Oh….shit.” It looked like ‘simple’ just went out the window. Joan was not above crawling along the floor to find better cover -she was adept at self defence, she could hold her own. But John had just been thrown across the room with a smack, that was not the sort of thing Joan was going to go toe to toe with.

“You have a backup plan, right? Please tell me there is a plan B!”

“Sure love, just working on it,” he grunted, pushing onto his knees and looking about them. He hadn’t the artifacts or resources of his memories. Usually there was more prep. More to work with instead of jumping in and hoping for the best.

But John was used to working quick on his feet. Least outsmarting the bastard wouldn't work or a trap, he did have his magic.

Waiting for an opportune moment to move, Constantine bolted for the other end of the couch, reaching for one of remaining articles on the wall--the demon hurled its power in rage, more stray photo frames and overpriced items from Hobby Lobby launching against the the wall around him, stray glass catching him in the back and side of his face. He hissed, backing up against the couch with the mirror he’d grabbed in his hand. Quickly, under his breath he spoke an incantation over the mirror, clenching his jaw as more items whirled around them.

“I need your help.” He called to Joan on the other end of the couch. “Behind me, c’mon!” Not a whole lot of time but they couldn't waste it. With the mirror used as a shield John moved down the sitting room, the spell he cast upon it reflecting the next blow of dark force energy the demon sent right back to it.

There was smashing and clattering all around, Joan sticking as close to the couch back as she could to avoid the stray shards, mostly wondering if her pants were going to make it out of this intact. “Work on it faster.” She mostly muttered under her breath, as yet more smashing happened and John moved somewhere else, Joan was close to army crawling on the carpet -which was at least soft and not scratching up her wrists.

“Help?” What the hell could she do? That was why he was there, she was just a private investigator, not a damn demonologist or whatever! It wasn’t like she had too much of a choice though, since the alternative seemed to be let more things get smashed about. “Okay, okay,” weirdest thing she’d ever done. And that included watching Sherlock strangle corpses.

Shuffling her way to John, she tried to huddle herself a little behind him -double edged sword there; she was blocking herself from spraying glass using him but if he was thrown anywhere like the ragdoll he seemed to impersonate during this stuff, she was getting flattened too. “What do you need?” Hopefully something easy and not something that would screw everything up.

After the ricochet of his own energy thrusting back onto him, the demon was temporarily a victim of a wall throw himself. Turning over his shoulder, still keeping the mirror up to protect them, John tried to explain to her as best he could. They really should have had a little natter about this but when was there ever time? “I need it still to get it out. I've enchanted the mirror to reflect it's harm, you take it, and I'm going to get that thing out of Mr. Carter.”

He was going to try. Not knowing the demon's name was not going to help him but given it wasn't tearing the hinges off if the roof, a basic exorcism should expel it.

This time John hoped he was right instead of trying to be confident as he had been in his memories, condemning Astra to hell. That thought in mind, he handed over the mirror to Joan. “Keep the cover up. I can't defend myself and cast it to hell at the same time. Think you can do that?”

That… Didn’t seem too difficult a task. Hold up the mirror, deflect the attacks, right. And if all she needed to do was aim the mirror (how in the name of whatever a mirror could be enchanted to deflect this crap was beyond her but Joan was just going with it now) then she could no doubt aim the mirror and hopefully stop anyone from dying.

“Okay,” not that she sounded as confident as she would like. “Okay, yeah, that’s… I can do that.” She got more confident towards the end, remembering trauma patients and in crisis addicts. She handled high stress situations all the time, she could be the epitome of calm and collected and wait until later to freak out.

Stealing herself, jaw tight, Joan gave another nod as she grasped on to the enchanted mirror (how was this her life), before giving John a determined look, “I’ve got this.” She really just needed to.

“Lovely,” the exorcist commented with all the feigned enthusiasm that he could muster. Honestly, when he told people about demons who came to him asking he always assumed that maybe they hadn’t held on to all of the skepticism. It was never that way, and one of many reasons why he understood things went sour or were always overly complicated in his memories.
Perhaps here he could change that. As per the encouragement of Zatanna and Max.

After Joan took the exchange of the mirror John took off around the loveseat of the sitting room furniture, trying to keep himself well hidden for cover while the demon raged in composing himself of his own strike. He in all honesty didn’t enjoy using Joan as bait--well, just a distraction, really, but if he’d used those words she probably wouldn’t be happy to help. But he had to get to the demon somehow.

It didn’t make the demon’s anger any less volatile as it roared, pulling Carter’s eyes into a more cloudy white, all but lifting the furniture in rage and hurling more objects at Joan. The mirror did the trick and ricocheted them right back upon impact, pushing Joan with the recoil.

While the meat sack was distracted Constantine had been able to scoot along the outer rims of the room until he was at a close enough angle, resting on his knees and reaching out with a hand to send this miserable sod back where he belonged. “Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanic potestas--” A larger piece of furniture at his head now of which he had to duck, and a more powerful release of energy that even gave Joan some recoil on her mirror far more than before.

“Keep it up!” John commanded, cover be fucked, he needed to finish the rest of this without getting a piece of glass down his throat. “--omnis infernalis adversarii, in nomine et virtute Domini Nostri Jesu!”

Had she known she was ‘bait’ it was entirely possible the mirror would be colliding with John’s head. As it were she instead took what she assumed to be her job fairly seriously. Her observation skills at least lent her the added assistance in anticipating Carter’s lash-outs, she managed to side step the thrown furniture by shifting positions behind another couch, and she really hoped Mrs Carter was just grateful that this mess was taken care of rather than the mess her living room was going to be.

She was trying to keep her eyes on John while it all unfolded too, just so that if she needed to, she could call out a warning. Of course the closer John likely got to getting this finished, the more the demon or spirit or whatever was lashing out.

The recoil force had Joan pushed back a little, her arms buckling a little at the mirror and really, this was just starting to feel real? Keeping it up was starting to be a small issue, but Joan could fix that, it just meant stepping over the downed piece of furniture to remove her own cover to duck behind. Of course, Joan found some kind of burst of arrogant confidence or something and opted to also kick a piece of debris from some ornament or another. Getting it up and lobbed at Mr Carter’s head to add another distraction.

“Hurry up!” Could he not recite this stuff faster? And has she just turned herself into bait anyway?

Ugh, it wasn’t enough to have a bloody stubborn demon but to be rushed on about the exorcism. John ignored Joan as he knew the small fractions of time he had to move were precious--contending that he had set her up as bait, unregrettably. Things needed to happen and Constantine did what needed to be done to make them happen.

Call it selfish, call it cruel, he didn’t see anyone else stepping up to the plate to pull demons from the working class hero daddies.

Joan having used her quick improv to knock Carter’s head to the side gave John just enough time to rush him, using the force of his shoulder to bring him to the ground, pinning the writhing body under his knee. The skin was rotting and putrid, spit sputtering in globs as it withered, grasping at straws to stay on this plane. Now without interruption John drove his palm down onto Carter’s head, “Per júdicem vivórum et mortuórum! Qui habet potestatem mittere in infernum! Ut abire ex regno protinus!”

Like draining air from lungs the darkness expelled from every orifice of the man’s body, pooling into the air above them within a tremor strong enough to make the house quake. In a flash it was gone, like a bright light of thunder colliding with the earth, done and over with. The air cleared into a settled environment leaving Carter’s eyes unclouded and mildly conscious, John sighed in relief, pulling himself up onto his feet with the nearest piece of furniture that was still in one piece. A quick glance around the room the surveyed that Watson was still intact, thankfully.

Dabbing at the blood running down his head, he shrugged in amusement. “That could’ve been worse.” No one died or was sent to hell other than those who belonged there. John considered this a win in his book.

Of all the things that Joan was expecting (and she’d watched a few movies since she’d first spoken to John, and some youtube videos and some internet pages) that wasn’t really it. It wasn’t that it was anti-climactic, oh no. She had a feeling that demon expulsion was never going to be an anticlimax in the least. She’d probably just expected more of the whole ‘exorcist’ spiel if she were being honest.

“I don’t think I want to be there if there is worse.” The debris around the living room, dents in the wall that were John Constantine shaped, Mr Carter on the floor barely conscious, glass shards everywhere and… was the ceiling light stuck into the ceiling?

Although really, no one was dead, and save for the blood smear on John’s head it seemed like there were no major injuries. Putting the mirror down against the fallen side of the sofa, Joan gave John a cursory glance over -the head wound didn’t seem serious at least- before crossing to Mr Carter to do the rudimentary checks for pulse and pupil dilation. What sort of symptoms followed ‘demon possession’ anyway? His breathing was labored, but more like man having run a marathon than help I’m dying. Which was something positive at least.

“Do you need that stitched?” Because hey, she was no exorcist, but she could stitch up wounds.

John wasn’t a doctor, but he really didn’t want to go see one either. He just wanted to collapse onto a hot bath, devour several cigarettes along with some heavy liquor. He had a bloody fucking class to teach tomorrow. Ugh. Couldn’t call in sick anymore.

Fetching the box of silk cuts from his back pocket, since the house wasn’t getting any cleaner, he struck a light and inhaled deeply as he considered her question. While it may have seemed anti-climatic, that was exactly the outcome he wanted. On the inside Constantine struggled with just preventing himself from doing the whole magic bit in this life altogether. It was the route of his problems, wasn’t it? But he was too curious and keen on knowing what was what. All that power and knowledge, what was it good for if he ignored it. Maybe he’d feel less like a shit if he put it to some use.

“Does it look like it?” He asked over the cigarette in his lips, stretching out his back that would undoubtedly be aching for a few days. The gash stung and made the side of his head itchy but John ignored it for now. Exhaling over the semi-conscious man, John nudged his leg lightly, spare hand drifting to rest into his pockets. “I don’t fancy a trip to the hospital. But I can’t go into the school looking a bloody mess either.”

Smirking, John nodded to Mr. Carter. “He’ll feel as though he’s been playing soccer for a bit. Should probably make sure he’s hydrated, eaten, bedrest and all that. And when he’s come to do a right job of asking what he was up to before that mess crawled it’s way inside--and tell him to stop it. No repeat exorcisms.”

It didn’t really seem like she’d be able to do anything about the living room before Mrs Carter got home, but she could see about Mr Carter when we woke up and deal with Constantine bleeding everywhere. “Let me get something to look at it with.” Head wounds were iffy like that. It was best to just tend them and see rather than risk it.

The kitchen, thankfully, was unharmed for the most part, and Joan was able to poke through enough cupboards and drawers to find Mrs Carter’s first aid kit, the typical soccer mom collection of treatments, which thankfully included paper stitches and some disinfectant. Carrying the box into the ransacked room again, Joan automatically pulled on a pair of the latex gloves that were there. “Paper stitches should be enough, since it’s already clotting, it’ll help it heal faster too.” And he did have a point about not taking a class looking like he’d just been jumped.

“I’ll stay and take care of him,” at least until Mrs Carter was home and they could discuss the damage in the living room in regards to what happened here tonight and Mr Carter’s potential trauma from it all. “And follow up on just how this happened.” Since there would need to be a starting point for it all, right? “C’mere and let me fix that.”

Really, John wanted to leave. But he was pretty knackered so taking a seat to wait sounded better than walking to the bus stop at the moment, so he grabbed a chair from the dining table to take a seat, nursing the cigarette and watching Mr. Carter.

He moved closer to Joan so she could get to his leaky head when she returned. His shoulder was starting to ache too. Though being tossed like a rag doll wasn't the worst that could've happened to him. “You sure, love?” His eyes shifted to glance about the tarnished room and the sputtering man on the floor beside them. The flake of humanity nagged at the back of his skull. At the very least he should be here to help Joan explain. Maybe put a protection spell on the home in case Mr. Carter was a source of negative emotions or triggers.

Sighing, he rested his head in the palm of his hand, eyes turning back to his detective friend. She's taken this fairly well given the newness. It was easy to see it was pure adrenaline. “I'll stay and wait it out, not with the cleanup, but in case she'd like to give you trouble. Or our friend here needs more tending.” He could sleep when he was dead.

She was glad to see the gash on his head wasn’t too bad; not very deep, just messy like most head wounds, fairly simple to clean and tend. She’d dealt with worse and bigger before, sure. Mostly from skateboarding injuries and not demon vanquishing adventures. “Well, that makes it easier to keep an eye on you too,” concussions, she wanted to be sure that wasn’t an issue.

With the demon business over with and just the carnage to sort through, Joan was finding her stride again at least. She’d dealt with aftermath before, it was her job for a long time, cleaning up lives after they’d been wrecked. A slightly different symptom, sure, but she at least had a working understanding of things. “You can sit there and pollute your lungs,” only a little bit judgemental, “while I get him straightened out.” Hydrated, sitting upright, some food. Potentially sending him to shower and Joan could attempt to clean some things up in this place.