For the Hellblazer prompt thing: “Must be a day ending in y.” with John saying it and Corrigan being involved somehow. Thank you very, very much in advance!
Jim frowned down at the shorter man.
“This is dangerous, Constantine.”
Constantine snorted, not even bothering to look up from where he was rummaging in the battered leather doctor’s bag he’d produced from the back of Zed’s truck. (Jim wasn’t sure if John couldn’t drive, or if he just liked having people ferry him around, but he’d never seen him not escorted by either Zed or their tall friend Chas).
“So’s crossing the road, mate. Don’t ‘spose you’ve got any virgin’s blood lying around the place have you? I seem to have run out.”
“I’m serious! This isn’t some… some fairytale. This is the mob. They will try to kill you!”
“What, people trying to murder little old me?” John emerged from his bag and gave Jim a smile that probably worked wonders on the more niave young women. “Must be a day ending in a y.”
Jim shook his head, torn between disgust and amusement. His every instinct told him that John Constantine was not to be trusted, that he’d committed crimes which he’d never faced justice for, but at the same time, he’d seen how many people the man saved. He walked a thin line between sin and virtue and Jim didn’t doubt there were monsters waiting on both sides to catch him if he stumbled.
“It’s not only your own life you’re risking,” he pointed out. Constantine seemed to be genuinely fond of Zed, in an odd way, and Jim hoped pointing out the risk to her will allow him to appeal to Constantine’s better nature.
“She’s a big girl. I gave her the chance to leave, she didn’t take it. Anything happens to her, it’s on her head.”
He closed the bag with a decisive snap and turned to actually meet Jim’s eyes. He looked deadly serious, but the man was a con-artist down to his bones and Jim had been a policeman long enough to spot it.
“I’m not so eager to die as you seem to think, Sonny Jim. I know what’s waiting for me in the dark, and I might deserve it, but that doesn’t mean I’m anxious to face it. If I thought I wouldn’t walk out of this alive, I wouldn’t be going in in the first place.”
That was a lie, Jim could see it in his eyes, but he said nothing. Like Constantine said, he had had the option to leave and didn’t take it. Anything that happened after was on his own head.