Fandom Into the fire (1x1 MzHyde/Gallifrog)

[_gallifrog_]

He grabbed her hand and pulled her back up onto the couch. He looked at the blanket and gave it a mock dirty look before forcefully telling it to "behave or I'll use you as demon bait."

He passed her back the blanket. "Okay, I won't. And besides, you'll probably see me do something stupid that I won't want anyone to know about at some point in the future."

 

[MzHyde]

She chuckled seeing him be so jokey around her. After seeing him so locked in his own negative and bad memories during the morning, it really wanted her heart to see such a change of character to him.

She sat on the couch and took the blanket back. "Good because I can't be the only comedic relief around here!" She laughed. "My snarky sassy reputation and attitude will be tarnished and a sassy reputation is all a girl has!" She said smirking. She was paraphrasing Flynn Rider from Tangled but she had a feeling he wouldn't get the reference and that didn't bother her in the slightest.

 

[_gallifrog_]

John sat back into the sofa "well, we can't have you losing your reputation, now can we?" and ran his hand through his blond (and browny red) hair, dislodging more flakes. The blood had completly dried in by now, and was starting to flake off his face. During the fight, he himself had only sustained one injury, a gash on his arm, which he had been bandaged up on the way back to the apartment.

The stain of his blood on the shirt sleeve was almost perfectly indentical in colour to the demons blood. The demon blood was more black red, than bright red.

 

[MzHyde]

"no we can not Blondie" she joked. She figured calling him that was better than Rapunzel. She watched as he pulled out more dried blood out of his hair and every part of her wanted to do what she did that time in the car and help him but she didn't want to risk making things awkward yet again, especially now he knows she cares about him.

Thoughts in her head went to all those cliche film scenes she'd seen over the years. Girl likes boy, girl helps boy in some matter and it draws them so close it creates that inevitable kiss scene which turns to sex. Mentally she shook them off. She always hated those scenes, she found them so pathetic and cheesy, thinking that kind of crap never happens in real life. Now here she was wishing it would happen with John.

She had noticed the gash on his arm and she tried so hard to not check him over. "Kay, I've never seen you like this before" she heard Fee speak up. "Because normally I think romance is stupid" she thought back.

 

[_gallifrog_]

He groaned at that "don't go all Matilda Webber on me" he told her, referencing the nickname given to Mac by his boss in the rebooted MacGyver series. He and Elliott had watched both the classic and the rebooted series, immensely enjoying them.

John ran his hand through his hair again, realising that there was no way to get out the blood without washing it. Demon blood was corrosive, but didn't affect him as much as it would a normal person. "I'm going to go wash this stuff out, I don't need anymore demons blood than I already have." He told her

 

[MzHyde]

She laughed, understanding the reference. She wasn't completely uncultured after all. She nodded when he said about going to the bathroom. "Sure" she replied.

Him saying about having demon blood just didn't bother her anymore. Inside she was actually thinking "sure but if that was anything other than demon blood....aaaand that's where I'll leave my thought process" . She really needed to get her head out the gutter sometimes. For someone so anti romance, she still couldn't figure out why she was so drawn to John.

 

[_gallifrog_]

John's thought process wasn't in the best place either. His mind was a strange cauldron of emotions, all bubbling, boiling and threatening to spill over. Smiting all the demons had made him feel better, but there was alos a sense of innate futility to it, they'd be back...eventually.

Added to that was the general anger that was an undercurrnet to everything he did. The sadness at the loss of so many friends, family and even strangers that had died because of his selfish actions or inability to save them. The worry about Elliott, John kept secrets, but Elliott it seemed kept far more than he had ever thought. He was worried, no two ways around it.

And then the self hate. The fact that it was he - the arrogant arsehole who always lived, while all the others, the true good people died. The fact that Elliott didn't seem to trust him. The fact that he couldn't save anybody, no matter how hard he tried. The fact that the universe kept forcing him into situations he didn't want to be in. Synchronity was one of the rarest abilities, and he had no control over it at all, very few even knew he possessed it.

The fact that Kay cared so much about him, and he was too much of an iron hearted bastard to show any kind of care back. The fact that he always took Chas, his oldest mate away from his family and put him in danger, even letting him die to save his own skin.

He was damned and he knew it. There was no getting out, no last minute manipulation tha would let him walk away unscathed. When he died he was going straight to hell, and would be tortured for eternity, and he would always know that he deserved every moment of that pain.

There were tears mixed with the blood and water, but there were other signs he was crying. Like everything else he did, he did it in silence and alone. When he walked back out, there was no hint that he'd been crying. He had changed into a clean shirt, but kept the same trousers. He didn't bother with shoes

 

[MzHyde]

Whilst John was in the bathroom, she had got gotten up to change into her pyjamas. Not that her baggy old shirt and those shorts could really be called pyjamas. By the time John came back she was still on the couch in her favourite corner. If it wasn't for her change of clothes, someone would think she was glued to that spot.

"There he is! Could have forgotten who was under all that dried blood and grime!" She smiled. "Kay shut up! You don't have to try and be so cheery all the time around him" She thought to herself. She just liked putting a smile on his face. In the time he was in the bathroom she did make a vow to herself to read more in the phoenix lore book. She had to know if there's any reasons why not just her heart but her soul was so completely drawn to John. She just told herself she'd do it when she goes to bed.

 

[_gallifrog_]

"Oh please, that's not the dirtiest I've ever been." To which his extremly dirty mind mentally facepalmed. "really John, really? Are you that stupid? You know how she feels about you, and you go say something like that! Have a Nobel prize!"

He pulled out his phone and sat down again, looking for a particluar photo. He found it and passed it over to Kay. The photo showed John, covered almost head to toe in dark, thick mud, with some grass bits stuck here and there. His hair was the only reasonably clean part of him. "Mud run challenge, in this place in the west of Ireland. Basically we paid to go through a literal liquid bog for fun"

 

[MzHyde]

Kay was about to drink the last bit of her beer when he said and almost choked on it. She put her beer down now it was empty, and looked at him. She took his phone from him when he passed it to her and laughed.

"Holy Hell haha! Oh that's priceless!" She giggled. Seeing him like that was quite the sight. She had to admit, she didn't take him for someone who would do those things, as she always heard alot of them were for various charities. But she's so glad she was problem wrong with this one photo.

She handed back the phone to him when she was done. She knew if she didn't she would send herself that photo to her phone. "That's awesome though. Always wondered what it'd be like to do those things." She said. If she still had her old phone with her photos on it, she'd be sure to find some kind of embarrassing picture on there but sadly she didn't. Then she remembered something, "be right back!" She said, jumping off the couch and jogging to her room.

She rummaged through her bag and found what she was looking for. She came out with a shoebox and sat on the couch again. Taking the lid off, she flicked through various papers and photos. The box contained everything she could have grabbed the night she went on the run from her old life. "Come on..where are you?" She spoke to her photos, as most people do when they're looking for something.

"Ah-ha! Found ya!" She exclaimed. Pulling out a Polaroid shot that Sam had taken of them when they were in their early twenties. They were at a university party and like most of things it was fancy dress. Sam did the cliche thing and went as a sexy cat because in her mind that's how she got all the women. Sam was brunette, the tiniest bit shorter than Kay and had the brightest green eyes ever. Kay was next to her looking less than happy as Sam made her wear a police crime scene tape pencil dress that barely covered anything. Her hair was partly done up and partly down. Her makeup was made to make her look partly dead, yet still alluringly hot. She looked very different to how she was now, but it was a look that made her have to punch a few guys to get off of her.

She handed the photo to John. "A Polaroid my mate Sam took of us one Halloween party at university." She said.

 

[_gallifrog_]

John remebered the day quite well. He'd been in Ireland visisting a mate, when Trish and Elliott had got it into their heads to do a mud run, dragging John with them. Somehow Chas managed to escape the cruel and unusual punishment. It turned out to be completly hilarious and undignified. Not to mention it was cold and the wetsuits they wore underneath were old and had holes.

He watched with interest when Kay came back with her box of photos. He was quite intrigued to see what she would show him. And she didn't disappoint, "well damn" he raised an eyebrow at her choice of attire, knowing that if he'd met her on that night he definitly would have made a move. She looked pretty good actually.

"I can beat that" he smirked, walking over to his room and coming back with a large stack of envelopes. He pulled out a set of five photos and passed them over. "Chas took all these. The first is normal, but the others got a little crazy"

The first showed a laughing twenty two year old John wearing serious amounts of eyeliner and chunky combat boots, with his hair gelled up in the punk spikes, and his ears were pierced. Standing beside him (laughing too) was a woman only a year or two older, with the same blond hair and icy eyes as John. Her t-shirt bore the words "Birthday bitch." Behind them were a series of (empty) shot glasses.

The next showed John in an extremly short leather mini skirt, striking a pose on the bar top. He looked ridculous, but with the comabt boots and his general attitude, it somehow worked. In the next photo he waa singing karaoke (still in the mini). The last two were him pole dancing, one shot shirtless, the other in some random person's crop top. The people in the background were more and more drunk with each picture.

 

[MzHyde]

Seeing his reaction to her photo she couldn't help but smile and chuckle. "Yeah..Sam whose next to me insisted on me wearing it. She actually made it out of actual tape. I had to punch a few guys to stop them hitting on me that night. At the time I coulda killed her for making me wear something so short." She chuckled, remembering the night as if it was yesterday.

She was so ready to see how he would top her photo and low and behold he did. She looked through the photos as he gave them to her and was almost crying with laughter. "Oh my god! Damn John! You almost pull off a mini better than I do!" She laughed. She handed him her box of photos feeling like she could show him her past if he was so willing to do the same.

"Feel free to look through. I haven't looked through for a long time myself actually. There's plenty of photos of stupid shit I got up to with Sam. I swear it's hard to tell she's my adoptive sister" she chuckled.
The photos consisted of normal ones when she was a kid and they were in their shared room, pratting about on their beds to when they were adults still messing around but Kay was photographed singing into her hairbrush to when she was an adult at either a party or bar in short dresses sitting at a stool or on the dance floor dancing away, hair flying around. There was even one she'd forgotten about. It had Sam in the forefront where she took it as a selfie and giving the thumbs up, but Kay was in the background not even noticing the camera on her. She was sitting on a table grabbing a random bloke by his tie pulling him in toward her. Through these photos John would see a totally different Kay to what he's seen in person. There were even photos of her in her underwear because Sam had no chill.

 

[_gallifrog_]

"It was my sister's mini skirt and her birthday piss-up just to make things worse than they already were. Luckily we got totally smashed on tequilla that night, so she forgave me for that." He smiled at the memory. He'd had far too much fun embarrassing his sister in that skirt and both the men and women were eying him up in it.

Since she handed him a bunch of photos from her past, he did the same. A lot of them consisted of him in some sort of punk attire, accompanied by a younger looking Chas playing onstage, Chas on drums. There was a few of the whole band (who Kay would recognise from the CD covers), including one of the whole band and a selection of others in front of the Casablanca Club with the word "Newcastle" and the year writen across the back in John's scrawl.

There were few of teenage John and Chas pulling sexy poses across the bonnet of Chas's cab. There were some artistic shots of teenage John smoking on a wall, unaware he was being photographed. There was even one of John as a ten/eleven year old with a black eye, split lip and a scowl. None of the photos showed John older than twenty four, and for the most part he looked happy and carefree in them.

He could tell that Kay was different in the photos, but then again so was he. Life had changed and hardened him, and he had no doubt that it had done the same to her.

 

[MzHyde]

She gladly took the photos and looked through them. She always loved seeing memories of people she came into contact with. It showed her who they were deep down. To her, John was no different. She saw such a fun side to him and she hoped she'd see that side for herself one day.

She chuckled at the photo of him as a ten year old because quite frankly the way he was scowling just made her think how bloody adorable he was. Of course, she wouldn't tell him he was adorable. Looking through the photos of his band days, the smile never left her mouth. "Dayum!" She said. She wondered what was going through his mind looking at her photos. Were the thoughts similar to her own over his photos? Did he think of her any differently? She wondered if she wanted to know at all.

 

[_gallifrog_]

John found himself strangely enjoying sharing the times of his past. He was surprised she didn't comment on what a ten-year old could have done to get such injuries, but he guessed she put it down to John being John. As John went to hand back some of Kay's photos, he dislodged a pile of his own from the coffee table. They spilled onto the floor and John felt his heart sink right down through the floor, en route to the centre of the earth. It was of course the one set of photos he didn't want to show. The photos that showed just how bad things had gotten.

The photos fanned out clearly. The first were of young child/teen John, sporting various facial injuries, and in one case a broken arm, but the first one of real significance was John in a straightjacket. This was a real, proper straight jacket, as issued by an asylum. His hair was shorn short only emphasising the legitimacy of the situation. He looked haunted. The second showed him in a hospital gown, thinner than he was now, with large, dark circles rimming his eyes. Another showed him in a similar gown with various electrodes stuck to his skin. And the final one was him sprawled on the ground, blood pooling around him.

 

[MzHyde]

Kay went to take back her photos when the accident happened. She noticed the horrors he went through in the photos and her heart broke in two. "No wonder he's so closed off" she thought to herself. She just scooped them up and handed them to him.

She made sure not to look at them anymore than she already had spotted and looked at him in the eye. "Here. You don't have to tell me anything" she told him as she handed them back. It wasn't her place to know about this side of him if he didn't want her to know.

She didn't even have to put herself in his shoes to know she'd want that side of her closed off if she was him. She'd have been too terrified to have people think of her differently for it. "All I care about is the man you are now" she added, her hand on his knee.

 

[_gallifrog_]

He took the photos back wordlessly, his eyes conflicted with a churning sea of emotion as he looked back on his past self. It had been partially his decision to seek professional help after Newcastle. Ravenscar only made things worse. Way, way worse. Turns out it was less pschiatric facility more experimental torture asylum.

And of course Kay didn't force him to talk, but he knew that the story was easy enough to figure out from just the pictires and his general attitude alone. "You were going to find out anyway." He told her, his voice completly flat and emotionless, due to the sheer volume of emotion he was supressing.

He took the envelope marked "Ravenscar" in thick black lettering and pulled out a photo, handing it over to Kay. It wasn't in black and white, bt the building was so devoid of any features that it might as well have been. It looked like a Victorian workhouse, and there were thick bars on the window. "That is Ravenscar psychiatric asylum and I was a "patient" there for one year, seven months and twenty-five days" It was clear from the way he spoke that the word "patient" was closer in meaning to 'subject' or even "lab rat."

 

[MzHyde]

It surprised Kay that he replied with what he did and handed her a photo of the institute. She looked from the photo to John and back again. When he spoke once more she looked at him.

At first she was utterly speechless. These places made her sick. The way they treated people was unbelievably wrong on so many levels. "Oh John..." She just said almost breathlessly. She truly didn't know what else she could possibly say. She knew platitudes of the cliche apologies wouldn't cut it and she just knew that's not what he'd want to hear. It's not something anyone would ever want to hear.

But seeing and hearing this made her see so much of why he was the way he was. Instead of saying anything more she just hugged him tightly.

 

[_gallifrog_]

Her reaction started out like he would have expected it to. The shock, the realisation, the pity, the anger. All the emotions that John himself felt whenever he thought back to Ravenscar. He knew enough to know that Kay wouldn't dispense some clichéd bullshit about how she was "so sorry about everything he'd been through" and that she "understood the pain he had been through and how he feels about it." This was the kind of thing you couldn't understand without having gone through it for yourself.

At first when she hugged him, he didn't do anything. But after a few moments, he wrapped his arams around her too.

 

[MzHyde]

Even though initially he didn't react to her hugging him, she kept ahold of him. She refused to let him go. He was there for her, so she was going to be there for him. When he did hug her back she held onto him tighter. But not so tight she'd be strangling him. It was that protective comforting hug.

She placed one hand on the back of his head to bring home the comfort even more. She was going to stay completely silent to him if it meant he felt he could be like this with her. She knew he probably thought she was too empathetically towards him and she shouldn't be like this toward him but she didn't care. She couldn't just switch her heart off in a moment such as this because he could. She let her fingers wrap themselves in his hair at the back of his head, even kissing the side of his head at one point.

 

[_gallifrog_]

John had to admit, what Kay was doing was working, he did feel a lot better than he had before. Kay's presence and actions had more of an effect on him than he would care to admit. She didn't say anything and he appreciated that. Kay's fingers would brush over the scar line on the back of his head, not a scar from the asylum, but from his father.

He knew he should probably let her go, and pull himself out of his pity party and stop showing how much of a victim he was. But for the first timw in a long time he felt vaguely normal, so he didn't pull away just yet.

 

[MzHyde]

Kay was aware of the scar but like with ravenscar she wasn't going to bring it up. She could feel in his body language he needed this and that's all she was going to focus on.

"We can stay like this for as long as you need John..you know I hold no judgement" she whispered to him soothingly. She knew they'd be alone tonight so she wasn't going to rush him. She'd go at his pace of getting how he was feeling out of his system.

The hand she had on his back, her thumb rubbed up and down soothingly and reassuringly. Everything she did, she took it slowly so not overwhelm him or make him flinch away. She knew she couldn't even begin to understand what he went through, but she would damn we'll be a shoulder or a comforting hug to him.

 

[_gallifrog_]

Maybe he should have just stayed there all night until he inevitably fell asleep. But since he'd already spent the majority of that day already throwing a pity party for himself, he decided that he should drag himself out of his head and stop wallowing in self pity.

"I'll be fine now, and what doesn't break me makes me stronger, eh?" He said, neglecting the part that Ravenscar had indeed broken him diwn so vbadly he had barely clawed his way out. John removed his arms from around her. Almost unconsciouly he ran his hand along the vertical line of the tattoos on his forearm. He jadn't just got them for cosmeric or magical reasons. Like most things in his life, they hid something beneath.

 

[MzHyde]

She smirked at his reply. Sam's parents would always say that to her when she went through her tantrum stages growing up. "I guess that's what they say huh?" She replied.

She slowly let go of him and noticed him running his hand over his arm tattoos. She instinctively placed her hand on his. "Allow me one corny piece of shit remark tonight because I'll say it anyway... But you are the strongest person I've ever met. An asshole, but someone I'm glad I met. I don't think I'd ever be standing, sitting whatever here right now if I went through an ounce of what you did." She told him. "I admire that" she finished. She didn't let go of him the entire time. She wanted him to know she was true, and not saying because it's just something you said.

She was honestly so thankful he actually let her in.

 

[_gallifrog_]

He rolled his eyes when she mentioned corny stuff, a typical, but honest John Constantine reaction. It was inevitable, he supposed. But for some reason, he humoured her. And yes, it was corny. Yes, he wanted to bang his head through a wall upon hearing it. But there was truth in it too. Maybe things would turn out different, now that he'd let her see some of his darker bits.

"I suppose this is the bit where I am supposed to either deny it and say that somebody else is stronger than me, or say that I very nearly didn't make it or turn bright red with embarassment and hope you don't notice?" He said, with a half grin.