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Michael's Lab is small, perfectly arranged and tidy. But that was before John started spending an insufferable amount of his free time, sober or otherwise, inside said lab.
The greeting no one who is Dr. Michael Morbius, M.D. wants to hear upon entering is, "Where do you keep your sodium bisulfate? Also you're out of salt." And there might be a reason for that when one houses a wizard. There were lines of salt across all of the thresholds presently that would, invariably need to be swept up. Also there goes the flavoring for tonight's soup.
The measure of upkeep he's needed to have in order to keep his lab nice and tidy has been upgraded since John began staying with him. At first it seemed like continuously, though as john found new and interesting ways to annoy others, it may be a bit less, but no less upkeep. Not that Michael truly minded. The comments were half-hearted at best and only in times of intense stress did they seem to have any teeth at all.
Complaint is a language they both spoke fluently.
Entering his small, brick-encapsulated dwelling, Morbius' heel nearly breaks the line of salt laying in front of his threshold. To dodge it, he stumbles a bit, lifting his foot up higher the last moment and subsequently catching himself with one hand on his waiting coat rack. Michael grunts and plucks the swiftly-becoming-out-of-style hat off the top of his head, "Why, are you attempting to lower your pH, John? I promise you, you are quite acidic enough." Dropping the item onto the coat rack instead, a taloned hand scooped through his hair, comfortably breaking up the compression from being cooped up. "Do I need to know why it looks like you've become a paranoid villager from a small eastern European town in the 1700's?" Looking for the source of his seasoning spoiler.
Constantine looked up with those myopic little mole glasses pinched to his nose for magnifying close up work making his eyes look HUGE on Michael's end. He relied in Greek, "Well I didn't want you to feel all alone in that regard." Yup. His wit was in fact quite acidic enough. A rustle of paper and he commented, "Come look. You might be fond of my newest project." The Brit said offhandedly, "We're 'sciencing' today." Oh yes let's just turn the sum of Michael's life work into a cheeky verb. Oh was he borrowing a lab coat!? What fel soul gave John Constantine a lab coat?!
What fel soul, indeed.
The coat /did/ throw Michael off momentarily. Turning in his tan trench for a white one made the good doctor's inhuman eyes narrow in speculation. Recovering quickly, Michael recomposed himself and strolled in Mole-John's direction. "You're always 'sciencing'," he opined loftily. "You just normally call it adorable made-up words. Like 'magic' and 'necromancy'." diminishing the Brit's art in one breath but only sort of since he drove it upward in the same breath to level with his own degrees.
Theirs was a complicated back and forth.
Today Morbius dressed like a homeless person because he had planned on slumming around some of the lesser to-do places in the city to find out some information and he didn't want to draw attention. No button downs and ties today. Instead he slummed it in old tennis shoes, faded jeans, a faded blue tee shirt that had seen better days and a windbreaker. The hat had been out of place, but he still needed something to keep his ears tucked under and hadn't found a solution for 'not winter' attire on that one just yet.
Michael closed the distance casually and slid right into Constantine's personal space, placing one wicked hand in the center of the man's back as he peered over John's shoulder to see what he's planning on trying to blow himself up with, today.
John turned back to the piece he was working on which in this case seemed like a very old bit of parchment that was in some manner of contained chemical path that was taking place in a tin foil lined casserole dish.
And there goes dinner.
John countered with, "Necromancy is also Greek by design." He paused, with the hand to his back, not tensing, and not unwelcome to it. The Laughing Mage looked to Morbius and took his sweet time panning up and down with the magnifying lenses on meeting that suspicious ruby gaze with a wry grin. "Seems to track don't it?" At least he was getting his humor back. And he seemed to be…working?
Pointing to the page submerged, "There's a woman at a museum and some bloke's been having a hankerin to see the bird lose her job. They need this for the semester to have something for the kids to study by way of artifacts soooo, we are making them one." He paused, "My way. If it doesn't get stolen maaaaaybe with what we put in here some kid might accidentally learn something." He paused and asked curious, in all seriousness as he had a fondness for the vast and varied knowledge of the Not-Dead doctor, even (and sometimes especially because of)it being mundane in nature. Nothing was overlooked that way., "How's your ancient Sumerian?"
"Is that my good casserole dish?" Michael immediately asks, with surprisingly little ire in his tone. Turning to meet John's panning look, the doctor returns with a very flat look at the gutter mage, popping his eyebrows up once. He leans in just after and with emphatic slowness, articulates rather clearly, "/I/ am still alive. As you well know." Not making a large deal of the series of jokes or anything of the sort. The quickest way to get John to stop doing something seemed to be praising him for it, so Michael carried on per the usual, but could not help the slight twitch of a smile when he straightened back up to his full height and turned his attention toward the submerged bit of parchment.
The reasoning behind the creation of the not-casserole in Michael's casserole dish was met with an oddity look, but the question following it was given a simple answer without fanfare. "Rusty but not abysmal. Mesopotamia was a subject I obsessed over when I was younger. Did you know that the priests controlled the irrigation systems, not the monarchy or the city-states? Their culture is overshadowed by the Egyptians on a scholarly pursuit level as well as modern awareness and it drives me absolutely mad." A rant was coming. Quick. Change the subject.
Constantine leaned forward encroaching on the personal space back when Michael defended his pulse. The smirk grew slightly more into a grin, "Well aware, luv. Continue." A nylon bristle brush was carefully moving the mixture around the parchment distressing it in the subtle.
One of the reasons they worked so well in compliment wasn't' because they reigned one another in but made use out of where the conversation landed propelling one another onward, oft at the peril of the room. "I didn't know that. Go on…" Now he was making mental notes. When he was done John looked up and offered, "All that's truth of it then?" Not a question, but thoughtful reflection. "How would you like an opportunity to reinforce that factotum?"
Venting on Michael's scholarly irritations are on the move, brewing like a good storm. John has to have been victim to these before during his stay at chez Morbius and recognize that he's on the threshold of a three hour lecture that would put Halgrim to sleep. Like he's running a symposium on the subject and we all better have packed a lunch because there are no breaks.
But the ready to launch rant is paused and the wind is taken out of Michael's sails while he looks back to Constantine curiously. "To what ends?" Intrigued.
Constantine waved his hand and gestured to the blank page, "To give voice to something that is clearly a problem of oversight. They're going to study this aged and finely preserved document to learn what was so valuable on it. Argue the point. To what ends?" John shook his head, "To make them research truth. Think of how much time to be poured into that one point that maybe they learn and you never need have this conversation again about things clearly known." He paused and looked down a the blank page. "Besides I have to fill the page, you've more than enough words on the topic and I thought clearly it'd levy you some peace of mind." He looked up t o Michael and offered him the odd gift of making people relook at history highlighting what was already there to be known. "Or I can write Cleopatra does the nasty and call it a day."
It's beautiful in its simplicity. Just re-write a little bit of history and let a few student scholars 'rediscover' whatever bit of trolling language John wants them to have. A glimmer of mischief appears in Morbius' odd eyes and reflected in the odd curl of his lips. The secondary option draws a laugh out of his chest. "Well that isn't news, everyone knows that," Michael clicks his tongue against the back of his teeth and shakes his head while they discuss the parchment as if it were the wall of a bathroom stall.
"This could be interesting, the possibilities are endless if you think about it," the wheels turning around in the doctor's head while he considers what to put down. Then considers it again with a grimace. "Then I need to consider the age old question that we /can/ but /should/ we? Wait," Michael pauses and waves his free hand, brows furrowing as he tilts his chin forward. "Wait, wait, wait. So. /Why/ exactly are you doing this? There's a woman involved, but /why/ are you creating false artifacts?"
Constantine watched that process go round and round. Really it was just nice to have his work appreciated and the subtle sentiments understood. And then he went and questioned it. The deadpan returned with a dry, "Michael, don't get jealous on me." The look, hysterically through those jeweler spectacles said the opposite and encouraged Carry on. You're doing great. John followed up instead with, "Worry about the bird tomorrow. She's a curator. Someone keeps stealing things of absolute insignificant historical important other than 'is still in tact'. And she's a friend of Halgrimm and the project piqued my interest." Now the glasses came off so he could use them to point, "So are you going to help me point people at the part of history they ought be paying attention to and really stick it to those Egyptians or you going to keep asking me questions, luv?"
"But I wear it so well," Michael defends the prospect of jealousy with a purely tongue-in-cheek comment while John encourages him on that green-lit path. He squints back at the extremely close-up pair of eyes disproportionate to John's face.
Apropos of nothing, or perhaps to just ask another question, Michael asks, "Do you know that you have little flecks of green in your left eye?"
As if that had some kind of weight on the decision, Michael sighs and looks back at his casserole dish, tilting his head to one side. "Fine. Might as well redirect some attention while we're waiting for someone to steal it." Though the pique of interest in his tone cannot be hidden while Michael hurriedly steps off to one side, looking toward a bookshelf. "I should have a book here somewhere with some really juicy parts that should bring around some interest…"
NERDS.
It was going to be a long night in. John seemed perfectly content with this. Historical trolling for a game of one upmanship played thousands of years later, Michael getting the help correct a great injustice, and cheeky commentary. Constantine found himself quite at a lack of having anyplace else he was inclined to be right now. "I wonder how many of these we can get away with. If nothing else? Well, the kids will learn something." Through the most irresponsible means ever.
NERDS.