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[dangeroushabits.livejournal.com]

Date: April 15th, 2001
Status: Private (Kit and John)
Setting: Garden, evening
Summary: Damn cryptic Englishman...

John had grown quite fond of the Manor gardens. They were a good place to let his feet roam unattended while his brain sorted out whatever knotty problem it was dealing with at the moment. And even with a number of non-sleepers occupying the Manor (among whom he sometimes counted himself,) the best time to find solitude out there was generally at night.

He wasn't exactly overwhelmed with company in any case. He and Kit had gone right back to arm's length by a sort of unspoken agreement after that night with Crowley. Not that it hadn't changed anything; there was almost a sense of relief that they'd finally got that out of the way, and yeah, the sex was still great and they were still the same pair of dirty-minded perverts they'd always been (and it was both of them--John would never have issued that kind of challenge if he'd thought Kit was at all likely to regret accepting it.) But that was all pretty much secondary to the main issue, when you came right down to it; sex had never been the problem.

He'd realized a day or two afterward (and after the expected awkward morning scramble, and a sharp elbow in Crowley's ribs to remind him to hide his eyes before Kit opened hers) that there had been a certain symbolism to the whole business, though it hadn't been conscious on his part: those two mismatched halves of his life were pretty much embodied in two people at this point, and putting either one of them ahead of the other was just not an option.

Only thing was, bringing them together like that, however well it seemed to have worked out in the short term, had to be one of his masterstrokes of self-destructive dishonesty to date. Kit still didn't know what he'd prodded her into taking to bed, and when she found out...

Well, Hell hath no fury and all that. And indeed, given a choice between Kit's outrage and Lucifer's malice, he'd already proven he dealt far better with the Morningstar.

And then there was Aziraphale, who'd been making himself scarce for some time, and who represented an entirely different sort of problem (only not really.) The one thing John had left out of his spur-of-the-moment confession to the angel was probably the one thing he absolutely should have told him. And would have to, eventually, he suspected, to head off any future complications it was liable to cause.

He knew Crowley wasn't intentionally using him as a substitute for the angel, but in some ways that was exactly what he'd been doing, and John was doing nobody any favors by allowing it to happen. Crowley needed not only a drinking partner and an occasional security blanket (not that John minded playing those roles,) but the equal and opposite counterpart that had kept him in balance for millennia. John could never be those things, even if he'd cared to try. That particular pair of shoes was too big and much, much too clean for him to fill. He had no idea how that whole situation could be set straight, and it really wasn't his business to try, but things just weren't going to be right until Crowley and Aziraphale were back on friendly terms again.

At least he'd managed to negotiate some kind of cease-fire between the demon and Loki. That was a load off his mind. Now if the cursebreaking coming up in a few days could just be managed without anything blowing up (like Loki, for example...) Oddly enough, though, that struck him as the least complicated of his current problems. Magic was nowhere near as tricky to handle as relationships, even a botched god-level job like the one Czernobog had cooked up.

Lost in thought, he wandered the well-worn path on autopilot, oblivious to his surroundings.

Comments

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"Heh, yeah," John said, reminding himself to breathe. "It was our Christmas tree year before last. Dunno which one of 'em lit it up. Quite a few people around here could've done." He cast Kit a sidelong glance, and quietly confirmed what she must almost certainly have guessed long before now, but he had never confirmed and she perhaps hadn't quite believed. "Brendan and me, we weren't kidding when we used to talk about sorcery, you know."

[no-npc-here.livejournal.com]

Kit nodded slowly. She'd never really paid much attention to their words of the supernatural; what powers Brendan may have had lived on in her memory as simple tricks, usually involving keeping up the supply of whiskey. In the end, it had seem little more to her than one more stop on his road toward self-destruction.

Perhaps that's why she'd resented any reference to magic John might have made. She'd seen little more than the messes it made: the injuries she'd had to tend, the sleepless nights it caused, and yes, the bloody thugs it brought around. It had never seemed worth any of that, but maybe... maybe in all her efforts to stay as far from it as possible, she'd missed out on the upside, as well.

"Aye, but you're a wee bit deeper in than Brendan ever was, right?" she asked. She knew the answer was yes - this place told her that much - but she was curious to hear what he would say.

[dangeroushabits.livejournal.com]

Ohh, now there was a question...John lit a fresh cigarette and took his time answering. A completely honest response would lead into things he really, really didn't want to talk about. Kit had a habit of leaving broken men in her wake, and Brendan had been a prime example, though he'd been well on his way to some form of self-destruction before she'd gone.

"Yeah," he said finally. "I won't lie to you, luv, he'd dug himself a pretty deep hole after--well, before the end. But he got out in time." Just barely in time--well past the proverbial and literal eleventh hour--and it had taken all of John's help, and was one of several reasons he now found himself in the mess he was. "And he kept mostly to himself. Didn't mix it up much with the occult crowd, other than me."

[no-npc-here.livejournal.com]

Kit nodded, wordless for a time, as she took in what he was saying. She knew he'd been about to say that she left Brendan; a fair enough statement, as that had been about the long and short of it. She'd spotted a sinking ship and escaped. She wondered, though, just how much John worried about that. Did he see her as heartless for leaving Brendan when someone weaker would have stayed and coddled him while he pickled himself? Was he constantly worried that he was going to do the same and drive her away?

Aye, but he had, hadn't he? It seemed years ago now, but he'd stirred her up, got her scared. And she, Kit Ryan, she wouldn't take the blame, but she'd left him when things got rough just the same.

Don't go back on it now, she reminded herself. Let's just see what he's got to say.

After all, she hadn't gotten any less stubborn since that day, and she was ready to wager John hadn't suddenly changed professions. So what was there to it this time around but to know exactly what she'd never wanted to bring up before?

"You've made yourself a right career of it, I'd say," she remarked; to her knowledge, John had never had what one might call a normal job. Not that she could imagine him working the average nine-to-five. "And Crowley to? But I'm guessin' the pair of you don't work a lot of kids' parties. What is it you actually... do?"

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John rubbed at the back of his neck and gazed around the gardens as though an acceptable answer might drop out of a tree or turn up wedged under a stone. "Well...Crowley works for this...organization. Goes around persuading people to see things their way, basically." He paused, and added as it occurred to him how that could sound, "Shit--I mean, not like mob-style 'persuasion.' He doesn't hurt people. It's none too pleasant though, honestly, but he's more or less stuck with it, so I think he just tries to make the best of it." If that wasn't the biggest understatement he'd ever made, fuck if he knew what was. "First time I ever met him, we got into a bit of a row 'cause of his job, and he pretty proved he could hand me my arse and then let me off easy. Lot of his 'colleagues' wouldn't have. That's how we got to be mates.

"Me, I, uh...I do a bit of gambling, and swindle the odd rich arsehole out of his wallet." He knew that would actually sound less damnng to Kit than it would to many women; she had always tolerated his vices, and had no more love for the privileged upper class than he did. But it was hard to be proud of what he did when he had to say it out loud like that. The next part, though, verged on the unbelievable, and he couldn't think of a way to put it that made it sound any less ridiculous. He wound up staring at his feet, trying not to shuffle them nervously. "But mainly though, I guess...and I know you're gonna laugh at this bit...I s'pose in a way I'm...kind of a crusader?"

[no-npc-here.livejournal.com]

While she did manage not to laugh, Kit smiled broadly at the statement, as much at the unconvinced tone as at the word itself. "Oh, aye, a crusader? And what's your mission, Constantine? Steal from the rich and go for a pint?"

But she was listening to what he said, absorbing what she could a little at a time, and piecing it together with all the other bits she's amassed during her time here. So John and Crowley were meant to be working against each other? That was hard to imagine. Although...

"Crowley reckons you tried to kill him just before you got your arse handed to you. Is he...? I mean, do I want to know what he does, or is that subject for another walk in the garden?"

[dangeroushabits.livejournal.com]

"Something like that," John muttered, glad that it was nighttime so the blush creeping up his face wouldn't show. "It's just--well, anybody in this world who's got any power's usually gonna wind up taking sides against somebody else who does, yeah? A lot of people get caught in the middle, and most times the big dogs just don't give a shit. Even the ones calling themselves the good guys. I see it happen a lot, and it hacks me right off, so when I get the chance I try to...throw a wrench in the works. Keep 'em off the little guy's back. Or just make their lives the same kind of hell they do for everybody else." He sighed. "Blows up in my face more often than not, but I can't help it. It's just what I do."

He smiled lopsidedly at her question. "Yeah, well, I'm glad he stopped me. I'm not sure what I was gonna do to him would've been fatal, but he wouldn't have liked it much." He bit his lip. "It might better wait, if that's okay, though. That's probably something to go into sitting down over a drink." Or two, or three...

[no-npc-here.livejournal.com]

"Aye, I've seen it blow up in your face a couple of times," Kit murmured, and sighed. She'd heard about as much as one person could process at once, and if John kept talking around things, he'd make them both dizzy. Her hand found his again, almost absently - perhaps for reassurance, but for whom she didn't know.

"Fair enough. That enough interrogation for one night?"

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Yes, please! "Reckon so," he said, squeezing her hand in silent gratitude. She'd handled things well as far as they'd gone. Maybe when he finally worked up the nerve to tell her the rest, she really would be all right with that too. He could hope. "Nightcap?"

[no-npc-here.livejournal.com]

"Most sensible thing you've said this evening, love," Kit replied. She wasn't even sure what she'd really understood so far, not to mention what more she could handle. She did know, though, that she wasn't ready to take the next train out of Tadfield. Aye, already an improvement there, she thought dryly.

Hand in hand, she followed John back inside to the bar.