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[winged-healer.livejournal.com]

Date: March 5, 2000
Setting: The manor infirmary
Status: Raphael and John (Private)
Summary: Raph acknowledges just how badly he screwed things up.



Raphael polished and disinfected his materials obsessively, using it as a distraction from what he could have been doing. He'd already cleaned the place twenty-seven times over but he figured that a twenty-eighth couldn't hurt, just to be sure that all of the germs were gone.

He could have miracled them away but that would have been too quick.

The cleaning absorbed him so deeply and people so rarely came up anyway that he wasn't even paying attention to the knock.

Comments

[dangeroushabits.livejournal.com]

John was no stranger to insomnia. His day-to-day life furnished more raw material for nightmares than most horror movie franchises, and at any given time he had more than enough to worry about to keep him up and his mental gears grinding away from dusk til dawn. It was entirely possible that some of the more asinine mistakes he'd made over the years were at least partly a result of chronic sleep deprivation.

Ordinarily he just shrugged it off and soldiered on, or failing that, drank himself unconscious. What with one thing and another, though, tonight he was feeling the lack of genuine, unliquored sleep badly enough that it had driven him down here in search of a less crude remedy. Finding the place seemingly unattended, he'd almost given up and headed for the bar instead, until the sound of rattling instruments led him back to a doorway with light spilling out into the sterile hall.

It was Raphael, of course, apparently trying to scrub a pile of already-spotless instruments down to so many surgical steel toothpicks. Apparently, he wasn't the only one who was finding the night less than restful.

He rapped softly on the doorframe, and when the archangel didn't look up from his single-minded scrubbing, cleared his throat quietly. "Oi, Raphael..."

[winged-healer.livejournal.com]

When he heard his name, Raphael dropped the instruments, startled. They clattered on the floor and he spun around, flustered.

"Oh," he exhaled. "Constantine. It's you." He bent to pick up the instruments. At least now they really would need to be sanitized. "Was there something I could help you with?"

[dangeroushabits.livejournal.com]

John winced as the instruments went flying. "Shit. Yeah, sorry...didn't really want to, I'm just all Shaun of the fucking Dead tonight for some reason..." He rubbed fitfully at his eyes, realized he wasn't making much sense, and tried again. "Can't sleep. Don't feel like drinking. You got anything that'd knock my arse out for a while?"

[winged-healer.livejournal.com]

Dumping the instruments on to the counter, he nodded.

"Of course, of course," he said, fumbling clumsily with a key to a cabinet of medications. "I know I don't have to warn you about the addictive nature of sleeping aids I presume, correct?" He asked withdrawing a small bottle. "Two with a glass of water should do the trick but don't expect to get up for a full eight to ten hours if you take one."

[dangeroushabits.livejournal.com]

John blinked at Raphael's somewhat disjointed question, sorting it out carefully in his head before he answered, "Yeah, I know the drill. Ta." He took the bottle and pocketed it, glancing around the scrupulously clean storage room, noting the evidence of a massive cleaning in progress and a rubbish bin that already held several empty cleaning supply bottles. "You, too?"

[winged-healer.livejournal.com]

The healer noticed what John was looking at then smiled wanly.

"Well, you know hospitals. Never can be too clean," he said with a nervous laugh. "And I really don't need to sleep, it was just a bad habit I got into, so I figured I would do better to spend my time cleaning up in here."

With that he retrieved a container of disinfectant wipes and began rubbing down the counter behind him.

"You don't suppose I ought to clean up elsewhere? I don't want to seem too forward or anything but as long as I'm up, I might as well."

[dangeroushabits.livejournal.com]

"Dunno. Think they've got people to handle that." John leaned in the doorway, wishing he were feeling a bit more alert and better able to judge the archangel's state of mind. It had only been a fortnight or so since Michael's Fall, and if his own experiences with bad breakups and guilt were any indication, there was probably a lot more to this late-night cleaning frenzy than boredom or a desire to be useful.

John still wasn't sure why he should care, frankly; his feelings about the seemingly unstable archangel were as ambiguous as ever. But hell...he'd been awake something like twenty-seven hours now; a few more minutes wouldn't hurt anything. "You, uh...you been getting along all right?" he asked cautiously, not wanting to set Raphael off of one of his tirades by saying the wrong thing. He didn't have the energy to deal with a tantrum right now. (A flak jacket, he thought wryly, would also have been comforting.)

[winged-healer.livejournal.com]

"Oh, you know. Keeping busy. Getting things back on track. Trying to stay occupied, not think about things too much." He scrubbed harder. "It's really been much better now that I've stopped sleeping, much better for my peace of mind.

It's easy so long as I'm not thinking about things too..." His voice grew thicker and he eventually stopped. With his back still towards John, he turned on a nearby faucet and splashed cold water on his face. He gasped and then dried it off.

When he was done, he cleared his throat but didn't turn around.

"Well, I guess. Well as it can. Considering."

[dangeroushabits.livejournal.com]

John nodded slightly to himself. It was an all-too-familiar story, and unfortunately, he had a pretty good idea how it was liable to end. "Well, take it from me, don't try so hard you get obsessed with not thinking about it. That way be dragons." He shook his head wearily. "Or a padded room."

[winged-healer.livejournal.com]

"Damn it," Raphael muttered. "Damn it, I didn't ask for this.

I told him to step aside, you know that? I begged him to. He didn't listen, not even when I tried, but all I feel is guilt and the sense that I got off and another went in my place.

Add dreams on top of that..." He sighed.

"Have I told you I hate this house?" He said wryly, turning around and facing John with a glassy-eyed expression.

[dangeroushabits.livejournal.com]

"You may have mentioned it," John said dryly, but he couldn't quite bring himself to smile. Something Raphael had just said struck too painfully familiar a chord.

...guilt and the sense that I got off and another went in my place...

He cleared his throat, eyes on the floor at Raphael's feet. "Years ago," he began tentatively, "I came across this little girl, Astra. She'd been abused, in the worst ways you can imagine, and she must have had some innate talent, because she accidentally summoned a fear elemental that was killing people in the cellar of her father's club.

"I was a cocky little bastard back in the day, thought I could get away with damn near anything. And I decided to get rid of it by summoning a bigger badder demon to take it away."

He glanced up, his eyes shadowed by more than mere fatigue. "I bollocksed it up. Misnamed the demon and lost control. I wasn't the one who paid for it, though. The bastard took Astra to Hell." He swallowed. "I followed them, tried to lead her out...but when I got home again, all I'd brought back with me was her arm."

Shutting his eyes, he leaned his head against the doorway, old memories festooned with remembered pain like cobwebs coming back to him in a half-dozing reverie. "Took me a long time and a long stay in Ravenscar to get my head straightened out after that. I finally figured out, though, that I couldn't take all the blame any more than I could refuse to accept any at all. Astra's dad was an unbelievable cocksucker, none of it could have happened if not for him. The crew I ran with had the bad judgement to go along with my stupid idea. And Michael had his own choices to make, too.

"Sometimes we fuck up on an epic scale, Raphael, and we deserve to feel guilty and to lose sleep over it. Trying to make things right and failing doesn't excuse us from that." He shoved away from the door frame, thrusting his hands into his pockets. "But nobody's big enough to cause something that awful to happen without a lot of help, either. So go on and stay up and bleach the shit out of everything in sight if it makes you feel better, but don't let it eat you up til there's nothing left. All right?"

[winged-healer.livejournal.com]

The angel listened and nodded.

"It's not just that though, you know? Michael didn't deserve it but it's not just that. I mean...

I was an ass to him. And I think, looking back - well it wasn't so bad, you know? He wasn't bad to me.

I miss him."

With a sigh, he threw away the cleaning cloth. "And it's not just that either.

I keep dreaming about leaving the manor and coming back to find everybody dead. They're all laid out in a line, except Michael is missing and when I follow the line the house bursts into fire. Or maybe it's already on fire. It's hard to tell.

So I follow it to the end and find Mic there with Lucifer and he says he could make him kill me but he doesn't. Instead..." Raphael's eyes grew wide. "Instead he makes him cut his own throat, and when I go to help he dives for me and then...

Then I usually wake up and wander around sleepless for a while. Between that and... missing him, so to speak... I decided maybe sleeping wasn't the best thing.

It's not like I need it after all. And honestly, I don't know what else to do."

[dangeroushabits.livejournal.com]

John was silent for a long while, absorbing this information.

"Y'know, Raphael," he said at last, rubbing the back of his neck, "I keep thinking I've got every good reason to hate your guts, but somehow I just can't seem to do it. I think mebbe it's because you remind me a little too much of myself." He smiled wanly. The parts I don't like, mostly, but there you have it. "I know exactly how you feel, but if I knew what to do about it I wouldn't be down here right now, I expect. Just, please tell me you're not given to prophetic dreams?"

[winged-healer.livejournal.com]

"Prophetic? No. Never before and I doubt I'm likely to start. There are those who specialize in that sort of thing but not me. It's not a dream that's likely or practical, if you like. It's... egocentric. In a way. Do you know what I'm saying? Like the whole dream is centered around me, which it ought, I suppose since I'm the dreamer..."

He sat down in a nearby chair and looked at the floor. The dream made him feel familiar things, and he loathed that.

"It's like my unconscious mind is reminding me that I'm still no good in a fight, won't be any good when the time comes. Adam can only keep things under control for so long, everyone else will go off and even if I am there to heal I can't do that forever. And then they will be dead and I will be unable to do anything except wait to die.

I mean - you've seen him, haven't you? Lucifer? What do you think I could do against him? He's not Crowley, if you'll pardon the reference. I can't defend myself just by getting all shiny. He'll just cut me down.

And with clouds on the horizon, I really don't know how to handle that. It feels like all I have left is to run but I don't want to do that either; the consequences are rather worse than staying here and having to face what comes.

But really, I don't want to stay either, not to fight a losing battle." He shivered. "If I think about it, when I do - I know I'm terrified. And I can't do anything about it."

He gave John another weak smile.

"I'm sorry. Even if I remind you of you, I'm sure you don't find yourself nearly this boring or petulant."

[dangeroushabits.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, I've seen him," John said grimly. "You're in good company there, for what it's worth. I can think of maybe three people in existence who could stand toe-to-toe with Lucifer. I think the phrase you're looking for is 'between a rock and a hard place.'"

He scratched unconsciously at his slightly stubbly jaw, thinking. "You know, though...what I was saying before, about how size isn't everything, it's true. You might not be able to take on the really big boys, but you don't have to play punching bag to any clod who comes along, either." He smiled crookedly. "Look, I've got this mate, Chas, who's pretty good in a fight. I could probably talk him into coming up here to show you how not to stand there and get hit, if you want a break from this," he gestured at the painfully clean surroundings.

The offer wasn't made entirely out of altruism. A lot of Raphael's attitude problem seemed to stem from his basic insecurity about his own ability to defend himself. If the cause could be remedied somewhat, maybe the effect would follow suit.

[winged-healer.livejournal.com]

The archangel hesitated at the offer.

"Well... I don't know. I guess. You sure this Chas won't just get annoyed by me? There's enough tension around here already without adding another person to the mix. And is there even a place in the manor where I could learn something like that?" He paused for a moment. "I mean, I wouldn't have to leave the mansion would I? Not that I couldn't.

So - yes? It might be nice," he said, thinking of the feeling of the gun and wondering if Chas knew how to handle one properly.

[dangeroushabits.livejournal.com]

"Nah, Chas is pretty patient. He has to be. Hangs around with me." John grinned. "I'll ring him in the morning and ask him if he can come on out in the next day or two. Probably better if we don't tell him you're an angel, though, I try not to let him get mixed up directly in the supernatural shit if I can help it. The Sister would probably let you use that workout room down the basement, or you could just practice in the garden."

He pushed away from the door frame, covering an enormous yawn. "Right. I'm gonna go try to get some shuteye. I'll get back with you in a couple days..."

[winged-healer.livejournal.com]

"I'll look forward to meeting him - and I won't tell him," he promised with a nod. "And you had better get to bed. May your sleep be deep and dreamless," he said, turning back to his work.

Perhaps, he thought, he should take a couple of them himself.