Fic: Too Close A Call

[csi_sanders1129]

Title: Too Close A Call
Chapters: 1/1
Author: csi_sanders1129
Genre: Drama. Romance.
Ratings: M
Word Count: 4518
Pairings/Characters: John Constantine/Chas Kramer
Synopsis: In which Chas encounters a demon, John encounters the reality of nearly losing his apprentice and important things are discussed.
Comments: Written in response to angst_bingo prompt: possession. The events of the movie aren't really mentioned, but Chas is seventeen and the guys took things a little further than intended, so consider this your warning. Might have a sequel. Characters not mine, please enjoy! Comments are awesome.

Chas has definitely had better days, he thinks, as he finds himself pinned to a dirty brick wall in a decidedly sketchy alley in an even sketchier part of town. But then he isn't thinking of anything other than pain. The demon John had come here to exorcise had apparently not been alone in its endeavors to cause chaos, panic, and disorder in the streets of Los Angeles. It's comrade has Chas effectively restrained, twisting an arm behind his back until an audible crack is heard.

"Constantine!" He screams, his voice breaking with the pain. His vision blurs out of focus and his head swims, but he can't stop fighting. "John! Damn it, need some- Ow, holy fuck!" He can hear the commotion from inside the house his car is parked outside of, it doesn't sound like things are going smoothly. All he can hope is that John finishes up soon.

The demon presses against him hard, making it nearly impossible to breathe, let alone yell for help. "Constantine, you say?" The green-faced creature hums in giddy excitement and then sniffs at him, which isn't creepy at all. "Oh, this will be fun." And what the hell does that mean? Chas renews his struggling even as it levels the seventeen year old with its beady black eyes and then, suddenly, it's gone.

Chas, however, is far from out of trouble.

He's no longer in control of his own movements, because he did not make a conscious decision to start walking toward the front door, and yet he is headed that way. Inside, down a long hallway that leads to a big central room.

Which is where he finds John. He is working in the living room of the house, with a half-exorcised demon struggling valiantly even though it's securely tied to a reclining chair. "In nomine patris et fil- Chas, I fucking told you to stay in the car!" He interrupts himself when the younger man knocks over a shelf of DVDs by the entrance to the room.

Chas says nothing, but takes another unplanned step forward.

It's then that Constantine notices his arm, set at an odd angle that should be producing nothing by insane amounts of pain, even though it doesn't seem to be bothering Chas in the slightest. "What happened to your..." he doesn't finish the sentence because suddenly he knows the answer. He takes his focus from the restrained demon and turns to face his protégé. "Fuck, Chas."

He's possessed.

"Constantine," Chas - only it isn't Chas, just some disgusting thing using him - says, the name sounds rough and garbled as it comes out, like Chas is fighting with everything he has not to let it use his voice for this. "Nice little pet you have."

John feigns indifference, and manages to come off looking completely unconcerned by his apprentice's present situation. He pulls a knife, forged with Holy Water, and nears his own captive, an icy stare leveled at the not-Chas.

"Do it and I'll kill your boy."

"You do and you kill yourself," John challenges, but he stops his progress toward the demon he's already half gotten rid of as a precaution. He watches, startled, when Chas grips the arm that is clearly broken and twists it more. John feels his stomach roll at the unnatural movement it makes and the choked off, agonized noise that tears out of Chas' throat tells him that the demon's not kidding around.

"Had enough?"

"Get out of him."

"Ah," the demon grins Chas' grin at him, "you do care. He'll be pleased to know, your little pet didn't think you did."

John ignores these comments, he's learned never to believe the lies that these half-breeds always try to spew at him. "Chas," he says, "just hold on."

"You'll let my brother go now," the demon demands, nodding toward the restrained one.

When he hesitates, the demon wastes no time in motivating him. It forgoes the arm this time and settles for using its control over Chas to shatter a picture frame on the wall beside him. It makes Chas pick up a piece of the broken glass and hold it to his arm. "It'll count as a suicide," the demon warns, the words sounding wrong in Chas' voice. "I'll leave at the last second and it'll be too late."

"No way," Constantine counters. He refuses to believe that all of the good Chas has done would be cancelled out because of something a demon did to him, made him do. If Constantine knows anyone who deserves Heaven, it's Chas.

The piece of glass catches on skin, though, dragging lightly along the wrist of the broken arm. It's cut into Chas' palm, too, and blood drips slowly to the floor.

That's when he gets the idea.

It's not ideal, but it'll work for now. Buy them the time to deal with this later, once he has Chas back.

"Do whatever," he shrugs, again mashing down the part of him that's screaming for Chas, to make sure his loyal protégé is safe. It's things like this that make him leave Chas waiting in the car, but apparently that isn't safe, either. "I don't care what you do to him. Just some needy brat who follows me around."

"Hah," the demon laughs at him, seems a little more in control of Chas' voice than it had at the start. Maybe Chas is using his energy to fight it another way, to keep it out of his head, or keep it from digging the glass in any further. "You should hear him."

The glass bites deeper, but Constantine forces himself to turn around and put his back to the demon Chas. He uses his own blade to slice into his own palm and then moves quickly.

"You're the only person he has and you're writing him off. He wants to be surprised, but he's not," the demon narrates for him. "Who could want him? Why would you? The things he thinks about you - He's nothing. He's just some damaged little bitch, following you around like the little lovesick puppy he is, just begging for your attention, knowing he'll never get it the way he wants it. We don't take too well to puppies downstairs, you know?"

Ignore, ignore, ignore.

Deeper and deeper and deeper.

Constantine works faster, struggling to recall the complex sigils he needs for this with Chas' life hanging in the balance. He gets the last few lines drawn in - hopefully correctly - and turns around. "Well, then I guess it's a good thing he's staying with me," he says, before he mumbles a few words in Latin and slams his open palm against the hastily-drawn blood sigil on the wall and suddenly there's a bright light that knocks the demons right out of their bodies.

The light clears and Chas is standing in front of him, shaking. The other one, the one he's been working over, slumps over in the chair, unconscious.

"Chas," he says, and he takes a single step towards his injured protégé, but that's as far as he gets. Chas turns and runs away from him before he can get any closer, back down the hall and out the front door, leaving a dripping blood trail behind him.

But that blood spell has only banished the demons temporarily. John has no doubt they'll be back to finish what they started and like hell if he's letting anything like this happen again.

So, he follows.

But Chas hasn't gone far. He's leaning against the wall of the alley by the car, eyes closed as he battles a fresh wave of pain. He sways alarmingly, but Constantine slides up next to him and steadies him with a hand on his shoulder.

"I shouldn't have let it get me," Chas says, forcing out words through teeth clenched tight. He's got his arm curled in against his chest and he cringes when Constantine pulls it away to look it over - probably needs a hospital, he thinks - and then the boy tries to squirm away when he puts pressure on the free-flowing wounds there. "I should've-"

"Not your fault," Constantine tells him, quick to quash any building levels of blame. "Should've listened to you."

Chas stares at him in confusion. "About what?"

"Training you," he answers. "Definitely gonna start doing that now."

Chas blinks up at him with wide eyed, clearly not quite believing that Constantine is just going to give him what he's been asking him for just like that. Only it isn't just like that because faced with the reality of losing his untrained accomplice, Constantine knew he couldn't let it happen again. "Really?"

"Really," he says. "Now, come on. Let's go get you fixed up."

Later, after the hospital - after the casts and questions and the trip back to Constantine's place, after he's called Beeman to deal with the mess they left at the house - Constantine finally starts to relax again. He's been wound tight ever since he realized what was wrong with Chas and now, now that he's got Chas here safe with him in his demon-proof apartment, he's coming down.

He crosses the room, shedding his coat and tie, intent on the half-empty bottle of whiskey he left on the table late last night. He stops mid-way, though, when his eyes land on Chas. The boy is sprawled across the dilapidated, old couch he's obtained, teetering on the edges of a drug-induced sleep thanks to the pain killers the doctors sent him off with. He's got his bandaged, casted arm curled tight against his chest, and every once in a while his eyes flick around the room like he's waiting for the inevitable return of the demon half-breeds who'd done this.

"They can't get you, not in here," Constantine reminds him. He moves, not for the alcohol, but to perch instead on the rickety corpse of a coffee table that's beside the couch. "You okay?"

"Tired," he mumbles, the word sleep-slurred and quiet.

John nods, and he's thinking he should just shut up and let the kid sleep. He deserves it after the day he's had. But the demon's words are still nagging at his brain and he figures a tired Chas might be more apt to answer honestly. "Is it true?"

"S'what true?"

"What it said when it had you."

And suddenly Chas looks a little less sleepy. "What? No."

And John should know better, does know better, than to believe anything a demon claims is true. But he also knows his apprentice well enough to know when he's lying, too. His eyes narrow, a terse, "Chas," escapes him, and he waits.

"Maybe a little," the boy admits, eyes on the floor.

Constantine sighs, a long, world-weary sound that makes him long for that bottle of whiskey. "A little," he echoes. "How much is a little?" How little does Chas thinks he means to Constantine? How little does the kid think of him to think he'd be able to turn his back on him for real so easily?

"Um," and the comes a long pause, "Look, I don't know. It was pulling things from everywhere, and I was trying to stop from getting to anything that-"

"And you thought I'd let it have you," he interrupts. "Because you're nothing, because you're just my, what'd it call you, my pet?"

Chas rolls his eyes at that, "okay, that part was all the demon. But what was I supposed to think when you were all distant about what was happening? No one else has ever bothered to stick around for me - not my parents, not my brother, not my friends. So, when you acted like you didn't care, I..."

"I had to," he counters, because he only did what he did because he cares, probably more than he should. "I had to, okay? If the demon knew what it was doing was working, that it was getting to me, it would've done something worse to you. It could've used you against me, told the other half-breeds to go after you, too. You think it was easy to do? To try to ignore what it was making you do? Because it wasn't, Chas."

Chas stays silent in the wake of that ranted speech, so very un-Constantine-like.

"I care," he says, which is blurted out a little more directly than he intended to ever, ever admit aloud. Too late now. And he doesn't dare take it back. "If I didn't care about you, I wouldn't have stopped just because it threatened you. You wouldn't have even been there in the first place if I didn't want you around."

"But I wasn't there," Chas manages to argue, "I wasn't supposed to be, at least. I was supposed to be in the car."

"Yeah, no more of that. Cars are clearly not as safe as I'd thought they were," he says, mostly to himself, with another heavy sigh. "If I didn't care," he amends, "you wouldn't be anywhere near me. You wouldn't know what I do or where this place is or anything else. Got it?"

He gets a nod from Chas, which suggests understanding, but Constantine isn't sure he's really gotten through to the kid.

He pulls out the pack of smokes he's got in his pocket and taps one out, and a flick of his lighter gives him the nicotine rush he's needed all day, sucking the smoke deep into his lungs. "I'm not going anywhere."

Chas frowns at him, then. At the cigarette, rather, but that's hardly a new development. Chas hates the cigarettes almost as much as he hates the bottles of whiskey. "You sure about that?"

A second, longer drag and he smothers out the flame on the crappy coffee table. Just this once, for Chas' benefit, since he isn't letting the kid leave anytime soon. "Fine," John concedes, and that alone should be a hint as to how much he cares, because he doesn't give up his vices for just anyone. "You're not going anywhere."

"Thanks," Chas says, a half-smile on his face. John suspects he means for more than just snuffing out the cigarette. "Mind if I get some sleep?"

John shrugs and gets to his feet, even more eager for the familiar burn of his alcohol if he's being deprived of his smokes. "Knock yourself out, kid," he says.

Chas slumps back down gratefully, even though the couch is far from comfortable (unless you're too drunk to care where you pass out, in which case it makes a fine bed), and lets out a relieved sigh that their awkward conversation has come to an end. But tonight is the night that the old sofa, which has been on its last legs for some time, finally gives. Something underneath the thing pops loudly, and the thing drops sideways when one of the legs give out.

"Ugh," Chas manages, looking a little jolted. "Sorry?"

"S'okay," Constantine assures him, waving a dismissive hand. "Take the bed. I'll steal a better couch next time."

"Thanks," the kid says, shrugging out of his jacket when he gets to his feet, awkwardly maneuvering the material past the bulk of the fiberglass cast. He turns toward the part of the loft that's mostly John's room, to the mattress that's tossed on the floor and randomly covered in blankets. John watches him go, watches him kick off his shoes and flop down on the thing, careful of his arm, and that's when John remembers something else the demon said when it had all of Chas' mind to play with.

He picks up the bottle, takes a long swig, and brings it with him (suspects he'll need it) when he heads for the bed himself, sitting on the edge of it where he can hopefully drag the last of these answers out of the boy. "Chas."

Chas groans, drops his good arm over his eyes to block out the meager light, and mumbles a tired "what now?" at him.

But now that he's about to ask, he's not sure how. It could be just another demon mind-game that had merely been meant to throw him off in the moment. But what if it wasn't? "What'd it mean by the whole 'never the way you want' part?" A pause, and then "that have anything to do with the 'lovesick puppy' bit?"

And John is thinking it wasn't a demon's desperate lie after all, given the look of panic that flashes on his protégé's face, the way his eyes have blown wide when he quickly drops his arm away. "Ugh," Chas starts, and John can see him flounder for an answer, an excuse that he knows he won't believe because he always knows when Chas is lying to him. "I, um, I don't..." he stutters on, face going red as he looks away.

"Chas," he says again, as another healthy shot of whiskey burns down his throat. "Look at me."

He does, reluctantly, raise his head to meet John's eyes. He looks resigned, like everything they just talked about - about John caring, wanting him around - is null and void now that he's been found out. "I can go, if... if you want," he says.

But he isn't letting Chas go anywhere until those demons are gone, sent back to the hellfire they came from, so John opts for a less demanding approach and counters with, "or you could stay."

And Chas is surprised, but still suspicious. "You sure?" He asks, hesitantly, like he's ready to bolt.

John's not sure what Chas wants - hell, he's not even sure what he wants, honestly - but all he's been able to think about since he realized what was wrong with Chas was that he can't lose the kid like he's lost everybody else, that he doesn't want to lose him because he likes having him around, likes having him be a part of his life. Enough to realize that he needs to let Chas in closer to keep from losing him to something he can't defend himself from. And he finds that he doesn't mind that idea at all.

"I'm sure," he says, "You're not going anywhere, remember?"

And John has no idea why that, of all the reassurances he's offered, is the thing that makes Chas finally relax, but it works, and the boy's shoulders slump in relief. "Okay," he says, but then the anxious stiffness comes back and he totally catches Constantine off guard when he leans up and kisses him.

Which is surprising, if nothing else, because while he'd been prodding Chas for an answer, he hadn't actually been anticipating such a bold move on the kid's part.

Startled, he pulls back, but he finds himself looking down at a most distressed apprentice in the wake of his apparent rejection. Which, well, no. Not what he was doing. He leans down himself, and claims a kiss of his own even though he never thought this was something he'd be doing, something he'd want to do at all.

He's sure of it now, though.

Chas sits up a little more, following after Constantine when he pulls back. "You... you're not messing with me, right?" He asks, and the uncertainty in his voice makes the older man pause. He's got his better hand fisted tightly into the material of his shirt, like he's trying to keep John there, afraid that he'll disappear if he doesn't have a hold on him. "'Cause if you are, I swear..."

"I'm not," He assures the kid, the words mumbled against Chas' lips.

"Okay, okay," Chas answers, and John takes advantage of the words to deepen the kiss, using tongue and teeth to render Chas completely incomprehensible. He moves slowly down Chas' jaw and neck, eyes flicking up to meet Chas' when he sucks a mark into the skin at the juncture of his shoulder. It might not be the best idea ever, leaving marks, he thinks, because if the demons reappear anytime soon then they'll know. But at the moment, he likes the way it stands out on Chas' pale skin, likes knowing he put it there.

He slides a hand under Chas' worn thin t-shirt, fingers grazing over the hints of muscle and the points of defined ribs where Chas is too skinny. He'll fix that, he thinks, even if it means buying Chas some decent food and buying less alcohol and less cigarettes for himself.

There are fingers working at the buttons on Constantine's shirt, but with one hand bandaged and the other casted, it's proving difficult, so he takes over, shrugging the thing off his shoulders when he gets it unbuttoned at a much faster speed than Chas would have managed. He pulls the undershirt beneath it over his head, too, and then strips Chas of his own.

"Better?" He asks, looking down at the kid, eyes flicking over a mottling of old scars and those pointy ribs.

He gets a shy nod in response and he lets Chas do with him what he will for a moment before his hand settles on Chas' belt. The boy stills beneath him, and his eyes are blown wide when Constantine looks to him for permission. "This okay?"

"Y-yeah," Chas mumbles, braces himself up on his elbows as he watches John undo the belt and jeans, and he lifts up obediently when he tugs at them to get them off. "Um. I've never..." He manages to say, but Constantine has already kind of guessed that and he hasn't done this either, not in a very long time, not since before his first trip to hell. Constantine nods to assure the kid that he gets it, it's fine. But, like always, Chas is of the diving right in approach, and Constantine is a little surprised when Chas swallows hard and reaches out to work at undoing his slacks. That proves tricky, too, but this he manages, despite his clumsy hands.

John stops him before he can do anything else, though, because Chas has two injured hands and they don't need him messing either of them up any further for this. "Not this time," he says, pinning Chas' hands over his head with his own bandaged one, from where he'd had to cut to draw the blood for the sigils.

"Next time?" Chas asks, looking surprisingly okay with being stopped so long as it does mean a next time.

"Yeah," he agrees. "Next time, and any time you want after that."

"You've got a deal," he agrees, a lazy smile on his face.

John nods, glad to hear that the kid is listening to him about something. "Alright," he laughs, leaning down to steal another kiss while he shifts over a bit, half-straddling one of Chas' legs. The kid jumps when John finally curls a hand around him, once he's shoved Chas' boxers down a little. He groans and bucks his hips up for more contact, desperate moves that would have told John that the he'd never done this before even if Chas hadn't told him so already.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," he's mumbling, eyes locked on what Constantine is doing to him.

He fumbles with his own boxers, shoving them out of the way and then he leans in a little closer and lines them up, curls his hand around both of them and that alone almost sends the kid over the edge.

He holds on a little longer, though, long enough for John to find a rhythm and get close himself. He leaves more marks, too, to make up for the half-moon impressions Chas' blunt fingernails are digging into his bicep, doesn't stop until Chas' neck and chest are dotted with suction bruises and light bites that will stand out just as much as the first one.

"Come on, come on," Chas is pleading now, his eyes are closed, and his hips move of their own volition to match Constantine's movements. "John," he whines, "come on."

John laughs and leans down again, catches all of Chas' mumblings in his own mouth and lets his fingers tangle in the kid's hair. He twists his other hand a little for a different angle and backs off of himself to get Chas taken care of. It only takes a couple of quick moves to do it, before the kid is shaking under him, boneless and blissed out.

"Fuck," John curses, moves back a little bit so he can finish himself off because watching Chas lose it had quite an effect on him. He can just imagine 'next time,' what that will be like when Chas isn't half-drugged up on pain meds and when they're both not bone-tired. He feels eyes on him, though, and looks up to see Chas watching him intently, studying him like he studies his books and yeah, he's done. He's so done. John spills all over his own hand and rides it out, waits for the world to stop spinning and for his eyes to focus again before he even tries to move. "Fuck," he says again, and drops down beside the kid.

Chas laughs at him this time. "Don't have anything else to say?"

John reaches out for something to clean up with, comes up with the plain t-shirt he had on under his dress shirt and tosses it to Chas first. "Here," he says, cause that's something else, and reclaims it once Chas is done with it, tosses it aside once he's as cleaned up as he's going to be without a shower - and hm, there's an idea for 'next time,' he thinks.

But for now, he grabs for his forgotten bottle of whiskey and downs a long swallow - closest he can get to a smoke after that - and sinks back into the mattress with a sated sigh. "Still think I don't want you around?"

"No," Chas answers, drifting on the edges of unconsciousness once again. "No, I'm pretty convinced."

"Good," John says, and he does genuinely mean that. "Now go to sleep."

"Mm," Chas agrees, groping around the foot of the bed for a stray blanket, rolling to face Constantine. "You, too."

"In a minute," he promises, and forces himself to get to his feet once again. Chas is too out of it to argue with him. John always checks his place before he crashes and tonight will be no different - it's even more important now. It's only after a thorough check of the wide array of things meant to keep the demons out that he goes back to the bed.

Comments

[eve_n_furter]

Thanks, good stuff! It's nicely in tune with canon and I'd like to know how it goes after. :)