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Constantine had been a phantom to the surface. Cass has seen him but really the magus has gone, literally, to ground. One of very few persons that passed for an ordinary human were not if ever common here. Here he was. One might assume hiding from reality, but the truth was far less impressive: He was simply taking refuge from the truth for a while. The upshot was he was getting a lot of information about his next target from here and that was helpful when one didn't want to be found.
John had, in his usual manner, started to just impose on whatever space he was in and today it was taking up Michael's lab table to borrow the real-estate.
Where better to hide than literally underground when one needs some time apart from the world? It doesn't stop the world from spinning, but it makes it easier to ignore. Michael has been understanding—he knows that inclination to hide, intimately. To run and flee and find a rock to lay under a while, and quite honestly he prefers that if John is going to do that, that he does it somewhere fortified. Somewhere protected. Somewhere, well, somewhere where Michael can watch over him like John recently watched over him.
His lab table is always meticulous because when one lives in a small space, they need to keep things neat, or bad things happen. So when he comes home and shuts the heavy door behind him, noticing his work space taken over by the necromancer, he slows. Paper bag cradled in his arm, grease spots soaking through it and smelling strongly of something fried, Morbius' lips twitch mildly, hidden with a dip of his head and turn away. John was working again. Good.
Apparently Michael was not neat enough because John happened. That's teh way of it sometimes. He put on a good face but anyone finding out that 20 years and the only person they are aware tehy actually loved was a total lie? Bad things happen. He put on a good face but really one could drown themself in work and liquor for so long. At leaast these little projects have been productive. There was a book out he'd traded for and there was something sitting in an enclosed petri dish that was now part of some expierement. At the sound, more the crinkle of the bag, and only after the chicken smell drifted in was his attention puled. "Didn't think you back for an hour." It'd been three. Time was not keeping good company with him, but when did that ever stop him?
Not certain if that was a jab at taking too long or not long enough, Michael erred on the side of general brush off commentary with a hum while his hard-soled shoes tapped their way to the small kitchen area. "I should really get a clock down here, but I'm not sure if the ticking would become a problem." Dropping the bag to the table, he started pulling things apart neatly. Containers stacked inside the bag spread out all over the table in some discernible order that made sense to him. "Did I have a dinner date that I wasn't aware of? Do we have tickets to the opera or something?"
Constantine looked up and almost looks apologetic which in John's worls usually translated to: Sucks to be you, mate. Bad lot that. The words were nothing of the sort offering pragmatic answer, "If by problem being you'd slip on the battery after you'd thrown it across the room so it's not droning on? Eh, likely." Way to be helpful. He was tired, but they were nothing if not driven. Hands a bit sooty, he wiped them and answered, "Well I could sing for my supper but that usually only invokes one to try and choke me with a dinner roll."
The unpacking of the bag ceases momentarily as the pale man with the long black hair looks up, turning his attention on his current stow away. A little bit of an affronted expression written into his features. "I don't have any dinner rolls, and I would never choke you with a spring roll." Containers displayed, he looks back down and begins to fold the paper bag up, mentioning casually in addition, "That would be a waste of a perfectly good spring roll."
Smart ass.
"Come away from there. I'll serve you meals in bed when you're being pathetic, but the work table is a food-free zone." A wave of lengthy fingers at john to beckon him away from the carved out niche he had housed himself in. "Eat with me." A gentler plea.
Constantine paused torn on a number of thoughts. In the end he swiveled and stood up agreeing matching dry wit with dry wit, "Point is valid. We summon anthing up I'm sure as shite not sharing my spring roll with it." He stood and stretched pulling his sleeves down from where they were folded above his elbow to rest just below again. It seemed the request was met and he slid the chair of the dinette out with some care and relented, "Would be a waste. How you holdin up?" Freeloader or not, at least he could acknowledge he wasn't teh only one in the room sorting their personal trainwrecks out.
"Oh, and neither am I!" Michael immediately agrees, with great conviction in his tone. Eyebrows lofting upwards with an imperiousness to it. "Bring on the demons, but rude dinner guests I refuse to tolerate."
Laying two plates to rest on the table to dish up on and taking his seat when John finally relents, Morbius starts opening up containers and automatically sorting them out, passing choice ones off in John's direction that he predicts the man is going to want first while he takes his own. "I'm okay. Really, I'm becoming so accustomed to the constant stress and disappointment of the situation that I'm becoming numb to it." Michael forks out a mess of noodles onto his plate, stabbing a mushroom in particular and setting the carton down again. He swirls his fork in the air lightly in illustration. "Like recalibrating an instrument. Just more…terrible." Michael looks up and squints speculatively with that wry edge of humor to it. "What about you?"
Constantine nodded as that dinner formality was agreedupon. THere. Sorted. One of life's great problems resolved. His eyes followed the mushroom circling ambiguously in the air before looking back to Michael listening. his lips pursed thoughtfully and answered, "Well if by recalibrate we mean collapsed the roof of the opera house over the orchestra pit to put out the fire? Sure. Recalibrating works." He'd said fine so many times the lie lost its charm. At least he could be honest in this space and trust Michael not to make it worse by fussing, though really, spring rolls were fussing. Confort foods were a level of fussing he could at least abide. He didn't bite in until Michael was done sorting and seated. He dragged a napkin across his lap and offered, "You want to say grace?" Oh, sure, now he had a sense of humor. At least the man had table manners.
"I like my simile better," Michael returns after a moment of contemplation on John's comparison. "It suggests a normalcy, even if that normalcy is properly fucked." The good doctor curses casually with that delicate tongue of his and nearly pulls the mushroom off his fork with his teeth, chewing it thoughtfully. "They must put cocaine in this garlic sauce. It's too sinful."
The mushroom still rolling over his molars, sickeningly red eyes flicked upward over John's ask over grace. An eyebrow raised. Fork still held in mid-air. Tines down. Michael stared blankly at his companion, actually taken aback by the suggestion.
The vampire then began to laugh.
And laugh.
And laugh.
Until his eyes watered at the corners. Suddenly bitten by how downright /preposterous/ the suggestion was. How /silly/ it was, and how /weird/ things had become by comparison. Sure, it was a little bit of a manic sound, and in the same right, that was pretty, well, sad, but at least it felt good for the moment.
Constantine sat with that perfectly composed deadpan as was his genetic birthright and stared back. Slowly after a moment when Michael's composure started to dissolve at the absurd did John's follow with a smirk, which grew slowly into a grin, and chuckle, until he just had to put his own silverware down and covered his face cracking up into his hands, "Oooooh! Oh, mate, that was…heheheh that was way funnier than it should have been. Bloody hell." Fingers curled against his lips and he just sat back in his chair until he could compose himself which he put very little effort into. "Christ on a cracker it's been far too long since We've done that that my face actually hurts."
Michael follows suit, setting his silverware down with a light clink, one hand covering his eyes while he leans forward. Propped up on his elbow on the table top. Elbows on the table! Really! Waiting for that laugh to fade back into a hoarse-sounding chuckle, he's grinning outright by the end. Cheeks aching, elongated teeth exposed for once, shoulders shaking. He only manages to whisper the words, "Gra-grace. Dear lord. Bless this meal—" Michael falls apart again with softly rolling chuckles, wiping the corners of his eyes with his fingers.
Sniffing once, he tries to get out all at once in a barely composed rush, "Bless this meal of chinese take out a couple to damned eat in a sewer, because that's where we're at right now." Helplessly, he falls into another roll of chuckles and shakes his head, leaning back into his chair as well. Looking back over to John, lips still curved upwards. Residual chuckles making his shoulders shake. Michael shakes his head slowly. "My cheeks are aching. That felt good. Very good."
Constantine managed to fold his hands ; less for the praying and more for something to rest his forehead on while he was trying his damnedest (both literal and figurative) not to laugh. "Aaaaah, Michael look at it this way. We're too damned to die and if we do? Weeeeell at least there's no real surprises. Here's to being in good company either way." He lifted his glass and shook his head with a wry grin and drank. "Don' mention it. I think, in truth, we both needed that.
Yup. Absolutely needed.
The sight of John Constantine with his hands folded, even just to rest against, cracks Michael up again. He comes back down quicker that time, wiping the corners of his eyes once again, he's quick to lift his glass and casually clink it against John's when raised. "I think you're very right, John. Still. The company is good, I know that for certain. And right now, certainty is something rare to come by, so I will take it." Another damn compliment for Constantine. He had better watch himself. Smiling over the table at the necromancer, Michael takes his fork up again and digs in once more, shaking his head slowly. His mood lighter.