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[magic_by_accident]

John sits at one of the tables, smoking a cigarette and drinking whiskey as he contemplates the Observation Window.

Come take his mind off the end of all living things. It strikes a little too close to home.

Comments

[alongfallfromgrace]

Is it yet another one of those Chinese cultivator people, sitting at a table nearby?

It is.

With a positively absurdly large plate full of bao he's just been served.

Considering the expression on his face, he appears to feel that it is, actually, entirely too much and did not make this life choice for himself.

He looks up from the plate, and seeing John nearby, offers a bao with a hopeful grin.

"Hungry? Bar seems to think I'm inhumanly ravenous."

[magic_by_accident]

John looks startled, then smiles and gets up to accept the dumpling. "Ta. Looks delicious."

[alongfallfromgrace]

"Thankfully I have no fears about how delicious they might be, just about the volume." He agrees, offering the plate. "Take a couple. Take many."

[magic_by_accident]

John takes two. "This is enough to start.

"John Constantine. What's your name, lovely?"

[alongfallfromgrace]

"I am Wei Wuxian." He offers, with a grin. It's been... absolute ages since he's tried flirting with anyone besides Lan Zhan - there were years that it wouldn't have been appreciated by pretty much anyone else, and more recently it was more of an entirely failed escape attempt. So he's a bit rusty, but he remembers the way of it.

Of course, if this is anything like that fellow in Lyon, Wei Ying is in trouble.

"Your bar to loveliness is low, if all it takes is some bao."

[magic_by_accident]

"Some bao and a smile," John says, offering a friendly smile of his own.

[alongfallfromgrace]

"It seems it takes loveliness to recognize it, then." Wei Ying returns, "Unless it is only because I am a slightly better option than immense destruction."

The Observation Window is hardly cheery viewing, after all.

[magic_by_accident]

"You're a much better option," John says, and joins Wei Wuxian at the table. "Far prettier, for one thing."

[alongfallfromgrace]

"Your bar is painfully low, we should get you some standards before you chat up a couch." Wei Ying laughs, gesturing with his bao. "Unless there is a long-standing affair there, I wouldn't want to interfere."

[wayward_sun]

Oh.

The thing is, he likes this place. And part of the reason is that nobody he knows show up.

He gets to chat with people who both believe him when he says who he is and simultaneously does not lose their shit.

He likes that.

On the other hand, yay colleague? -ish?

And also, knows who he is and won't lose his shit.

He ambles over, impeccably dressed and sharp-looking as always. Always being this past of his existence anyway.

"Still cultivating the couch-surgery look, I see?" he says as a way of greeting.

[magic_by_accident]

John's eyebrows rise. "Luci," he responds. "Still competing for upperclass twit of the year, I see."

[wayward_sun]

"Ha ha. Just because some of us know how to dress."

He leans his hip against the table.
Smiling.

"So - I don't know if you're aware but this place is insane and time works - oddly. Did we talk in my doorway, say a year or so ago?"

[magic_by_accident]

"We did. You told me not to come to your Earth again, which I have obeyed." He salutes Lucifer with his glass of whiskey, and has a sip.

Lucifer actually looks good, and not twitlike at all. John would rather turn himself into a frog than admit this.

[wayward_sun]

"Good. We're on the same page and - more importantly - our debt is settled."

His smile brightens.

"How's the detective business going? Keeping busy?"

This is, of course, strictly a polite proforma question, so Lucifer can get to tell about his new gig. Don't elaborate, Constantine.

Also, the hobo look does suit him, but it's not like Lucifer is going to tell him that.

[magic_by_accident]

John shrugs. "Not especially, no. I've had to get creative to make ends meet.

"I've a new flat, though. Won it in a duel."

[wayward_sun]

Lucifer looks bewildered.

"A duel? Is the flat in the 1600s?"

[magic_by_accident]

"It is not," John says casually, "and sit y' down if you want to hear the tale. I'll even buy you a drink."

[feminine_menace]

“Hey. ‘Sup,” YT says, coming over to the table with a bottle of beer in hand. Today, she is followed by a large apricot-colored poodle.

“Stella,” she says to the poodle, “this is John. John, this is Stella.”

Stella looks at John eagerly and wags her tail, but does not approach him. YT hasn’t told her it’s okay yet.

[magic_by_accident]

"Hey, YT," John says with sincere appreciation. "Nice to see you.

"Nice to see you too, Miss Stella." He offers a hand for the poodle to sniff. "Aren't you a pretty girl."

[feminine_menace]

“He’s cool, Stella,” YT says. The dog happily approaches John’s offered hand, sniffs it, and then starts angling to get his hand in a good position for a scratch behind the ears.

“She is a pretty girl,” YT says, sitting down an an adjacent seat. “But, y’know, every dog is beautiful in their own way. Even the the teeny yippy ones.”

[magic_by_accident]

John doesn't need much encouragement to scritch.

"I've never seen a poodle this color.

"Teeny yippy ones have some sort of redeeming quality, I imagine. Perhaps they're good at cuddling or catching bugs."

[feminine_menace]

“I think red and apricot poodles are kind of unusual, or something?”

YT did a lot of reading on poodles when she and her mom first got Stella. But that was a few years ago.

“Little yippy dogs are the way they are because someone bred their ancestors to be that way for a reason. Like, every toy dog breed is some combination of exterminator, watchdog, and low-tech personal warming device.”

[magic_by_accident]

"I suspect they are."

He goes on lazily scratching Stella behind the ears, enjoying the Soft.

"Poor dogs," he tells Stella, "getting so messed up by humans."

[feminine_menace]

Stella looks up at John, knowing that he’s addressing her but mostly just enjoying having the top of her head scratched.

“There’d be no dogs in the first place without humans,” YT says. “But we made them love us and then we do shitty things to them, like breed them in ways that make them sick or chain them up outside or put them in dogfights.”

And then there’s the Rat Things, but that’s a little more complicated.

“Stella was from a poodle rescue. Her mother was a show dog and the owner was trying to breed more show dogs, but Stella didn’t make the cut because her eyes and lips are the wrong color for a show dog, or something stupid like that.”

[magic_by_accident]

John snorts. "Show dogs," he says with disdain. "You're perfect just the way you are," he tells Stella.

He says to YT, "Aside from looking after your dog, what have you been up to?"