15670/Spider, Meet Fly

Spider, Meet Fly
Date of Scene:	03 October 2023
Location:	Happy Heterae Bar & Girl
Synopsis:	John flatters Satana. Satana lets him live. Promises to make his life more fun.
Cast of Characters:	Satana, Constantine

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Satana has posed:
"And put your hands together for Mandy!" Because of course she's called Mandy. The oily voice of the announcer continues, "And gents, remember that Mandy is available for lap dances and private performances in the back rooms." The back rooms with paper-thin walls a 'sofa' that looks suspiciously dimensioned as if it were a bed with some cylindrical cushions pushed to the outside for plausible deniability, and a discreet 'security' camera that the staff use sometimes for entertainment purposes.

Mandy stumbles off the stage, pupils so small they rival purely theorertical particles, looking around hopefully for where her real income stems. She's not disappointed as a guy who looks like a construction worker on payday flashes some bills her way and pats his lap. One lap dance coming up.

The Happy Heterae is the kind of place that knows its target audience well: the absolute lowest on the genetic totem pole. If they were Internet-savvy they'd be in the world of inceldom. Instead they're in a run-down strip club with decor that comes from the '80s, music from the '90s, and drink prices that can only be sustained because the booze is the lowest possible grade ... and watered down after the first three hits.

The bartender counts.

And the strip club's owner sits in a booth at the back, shrouded in shadow, her legs up on the table, leaning back and watching, savouring the display of lust, metaphorical nostrils tingling at the scent of desperate losers seeking sex.

She doesn't fit in. Not in the slightest. In terms of skin showing she could be one of the strippers, but she doesn't look drugged. She doesn't look diseased. Her assets are not botched surgical enhancements. And her clothing, while revealing beyond the bounds of good taste, is very, very expensive. Which makes the fact she's not being looked at, checked out, or even noticed somewhat unusual.

Except, of course, for those who have any kind of sense of magicks. THEIR eyes can see just fine what she's doing: the SEP spell around her lighting up the aethereal realm like a marquee.

Constantine has posed:
Where the owner might not fit in, John Constantine definitely does. If there's a bottom of the barrel kind of man anywhere in this club, he's rivaling them for genetic degredation: Looking like he woke up drunk and has just been pouring more fuel on the fire throughout the course of the day. With a mop of oil blonde hair that can best be described as 'dirty dish water' dangling across his haggard, stubbled features, he makes his way inside and towards the bar with a cigarette already dangling from his lips.

An aura of smoke curling into the air behind him like some sort of bed ridden dragon on holliday.. and if he is a dragon, then all of his hoard is kept in that dirty trench coat over a half buttoned beige shirt and loosened red tie.

To be clear, an appearance like this has no business having a smile as charming as he flashes whoever is working behind the bar, "Hey mate, whatever's on tap." Scissoring his silk cut to flick ashes off the end with a tap of his pinky while searching the external wall until it falls upon the owners booth in the back. "Up there." Pointing with the fingers clutching the ciggie.

Because that's what direction he's headed. As if he's both expected and expecting to be expected. Not even trying to hide the fact, either. The only obstacles are all the eye candy meandering about... Not all of them dancers either.

There's a number of blokes in here who could get scammed out of their paycheck, afterall... Man's gotta eat.

Once close enough to where Satana is reclining, he juts his chin up in a nod, motioning at himself with both hands before putting the cigarette back between his lips. Because he can see the magicks around her every bit as easily as she sees him standing out amongst the muggles as a beacon of peddling sorcerer. There's enough magical charms on him to make Elminster a little squimish. "Oi, love. You going to invite us up?"

Satana has posed:
The woman's chuckle is John's first introduction to her thrilling contralto that slips into the ears, wraps around the hypothalamus, and purrs.

"I would think that someone as brazen as you," she says, amusement glinting in her amber eyes, "would just sit down and join before asking. It's nice to see that courtesy is still practiced."

The legs come off the table, removing one scenic view. In exchange, however, as Satana sits up, another scenic view replaces them. More mountainous terrain.

"Please, do join me."

Her eyes flick over to the bartender and a hand gesture sends a bolt of ... something ... sailing over to him. The bartender stops pouring Constantine's beer and dumps the mug. He reaches for a larger mug and switches to a barrel embedded into the wall behind the bar, filling that instead.

"Who may I say I am addressing?" she wonders aloud. "I am Satana Hellstrom of the Boston Hellstroms."

Constantine has posed:
It's only a matter of temporary courtesy that pauses, at best, Constantine climbing up to the booth and doffing his coat to lay it out across the back of the cushions before he's dropping into a seat. If there's an ashtray, he hooks it and pulls it closer to tap some ashes off into it. If not... well at least the silk cuts aren't cheap convenience store cigarettes?

He inclines his head with a smirk, "Oh, I'm often confused for a proper gentleman, love." He is not. Ever. Pulling a pack of smokes from one of the MANY pouches lining his flanks like magical shoulder holsters. A modern day wizard in a modern day world. This fresh cigarette is laid between his lips to light with the one he'd only jsut finished smoking and puffs awake with an aromatic cloud of clove.

peering blue eyes over at her, "Satana Hellstrom, I know who you are. I'm the Hellblazer, John Constantine." That's a name that most people who've been to any of the Hells will recognize, for certain. If only because of how much trouble his double dealing is going to eventually cause for the devils.... many of them really... who lay claim to his soul.

Why, it may eventually start a blood war trying to claim it.

Which is probably why he's not dead. "Appreciations for not letting them serve me the bottom shelf, love."

Satana has posed:
"You look like the kind who'd appreciate the better quality," Satana says. Her arm gestures dismissively in the direction of the clientel. "Those I suspect could hardly tell the difference between beer and my bodily excretions. The nasty ones, I mean."

Her eyes fall on one of the customers who's looking far too intently at the new stripper who's doing a candygram routine that's ... just ... so '80s. "That one might. He'd prefer it."

Her eyes fall back on John, checking him out up to down, then the reverse route, seeming to be looking beneath his very skin to his soul.

She probably is.

"You play a dangerous game, but don't try to involve me in it. I get enough souls. I don't need yours." Her eyes stay over the place with an odd look of fondness. "What brings you to my little hobby house, Mr. Constantine?"

She notes the use of an ashtray as she speaks, adding, "The fact you're using an ashtray suggests you know more about being a gentleman than you pretend to let on. I've had to knock a few heads together over that before."

Constantine has posed:
"You're giving me way too much credit." John is absolutely not being modest in saying so, "I've drank in every dive bar in every dimension exists with dive bars in it.." He muses this with a smirk, motioning around with fingers clutching his cigarette, absently nodding at the club proper, "This is one of the nicer ones, as far as shit holes go. No offense."

Tap, ashes into ashtray.

And blue eyes on the customer she points out.

"Yeah, lad probably has a gimp in a box in the back of a pawnshop..." He leans back and lays his arms across the cushion in either direction, cigarette bobbing betwixt lips as he speaks, a sardonic grin periodically slipping onto his face. "I wouldn't dream of dragging you into my games, love... but you've a particular aura about you."

The cigarette straightens for a drag and produces a pair of smoke trails from his nostrils, "I felt it from the street outside. Fine spell you're working, of course. Not everyone would've, but I'm not everyone innit?"

What brings him here? "Same as anyone; tits and cheap beer." His grin curls, deception obvious. "I'm not the fun police, these gits aren't exactly innocent either."

Satana has posed:
"I wasn't especially trying to hide from our kind, Mr. Constantine," Satana says with a slight sarcastic twist to her voice. "Just don't want their kind..." Hand waving to the clientel again. "...plaguing me. I'm not hungry now, so I have no interest in any of ... that sort."

She shrugs.

"An SEP..." Someone Else's Problem. "...is more than enough to have them look away from me and toward the girls I hire for their gratification." Her eyes rake over John's face appraisingly. "I'm going to guess that if I offered you a 20-year single malt you would not say no. Or a single-cask bourbon. And that you could tell the difference."

She taps her fingers in a complex rhythm on the table as she regards John. "When you say 'fun police' I presume you're talking of my little curse? I've learned from past experience ... may I call you John? I don't hunt innocents. I hunt those who will be coming my way anyway."

Something cruel enters her eyes, along with little pinpricks of Hellfire.

"People like you, but without your knack of playing one against the other."

She lets that mustard seep into the wound a bit before continuing.

"If I feed my curse on those that people don't care about, or, even better, actively despise, there's less motivation to hunt me down and destroy my mortal vessel to send me back. Which means less work in re-establishing a mortal vessel and returning to the mortal plane. I am nothing if not a bit lazy."

Constantine has posed:
"Aye, I'd know the difference." Constantine confirms with a clipped nod and another drag. Expertly speaking around the cigarette as if, of all his various skillsets, this one is probably the most refined. It straightens and his cheeks hollow, then there's a plume of smoke coiling skyward to create a cloud above his head. While blue eyes watch the display of hellfire in Satana's eyes. The grin never faulters.

"You don't strike me as the sort to go tits up easily, love." Likely an understatement, "And I don't go hunting down troublemakers for free, anyways. Some of my best mates are devils." Or the Devil. Though Lucifer may have particular words to the contrary.

He's not here to go splitting hairs over their relationship, however.

"I do have a knack for coming out smelling like roses in a sea of shit.. But you grow up in Liverpool and you pick up a few tricks." No sense digging into the matter deeper, what with her giving him the ol up/down. He returns the favor, still leaning back into the cushion of the couch with one hand coming towards his stubbled face to capture the cigarette. Leaning out to tap off more ashes once he's retreived it. "But I like to know who's active. In case I ever need a favor... or visa versa." Deals with him are rarely as straight forward as that, though, are they?

"Besides, I aint begrudging a few less scummy cunts in the world. Take out the trash, I say, and hold onto that girlish figure a lil longer in the process, eh?"

Satana has posed:
"Ah. Flattery. My biggest weakness. How did you know?"

Probably the outfit, given that she's showing more skin than a Vegas streetwalker, and in all the places that draw attention in hopes of a wardrobe malfunction.

"That's my thought exactly. And on top of all that, those "scummy cunts" as you term them, have the tastiest souls. Souls of the decent are like eating uncooked tofu. But our friend there with the fetish for bodily fluids? His soul has probably aged like a fine camembert." She does the Hannibal Lector thing with inhalation and tongue work. Like a cross between cunnilingus and a hissing intake of breath. She giggles, then, completely obliterating that Queen of Hell vibe she was giving off.

"I'm always up for favours, John," she says, experimenting with using his first name. "Though I'm usually the favour-seller, not the favour-buyer." Such a transactional view of life. "Do feel free to come to me for assistance if you like. I get terribly bored at times. Why at one point I was so bored I bought a road repair company in Pennsylvania just to rename it."

She pauses long enough to pique curiosity before delivering the punchline.

"It's now the Good Intentions Paving Company."

Constantine has posed:
John motions at her outfit with the fresh cigarette he'd just lit on the back of the last at her outfit indicatively of how he came to scry her weakness to flattery. Though he hardly needed to do so, it's just more flattery to point out the things she very clearly wants pointed out anyways, right? She put the clothes on, afterall.

"I never got a taste for souls, myself. A little dietary restrictive, you understand, but I can appreciate how a bit of sin might make it more filling. From a particular point of view anyways.." It's fair to say he knows enough types of predatory creatures in human suits to be, if not an expert, at least up to speed on the latest parasitic trends.

"I usually only let friends call me John." She's done so a number of times and he's not corrected her, "And I've got precious few of them. So sure..." Hand out, fingers up in her direction, "Try it on for size. A few weeks from now you'll hate me like everyone else." This is not self depricating in the SLIGHTEST. He wears that hatred like a badge of honor.

It's hard work to stab someone in the back who literally knows you're going to do it.

Why wouldn't he be proud of that kind of success?

With a grin, he leans forward to tap off ashes, "Clever." The name, "I'd have thought Detroit was more suited because that place is as close to hell as I've ever seen short of actually being in hell." Which he has. Several times. But to her bordom? He drops the cigarette off between his lips and tilts his head back with a drag.

"Feel free to call me up if you're just bored. I've a knack for finding cures for it." Drawing his thumb down his cheek, "You'll can even keep your clothes on for most of them."

Satana has posed:
"You're behind the times, John," Satana says with a laugh. "Chicago is no longer Hell. We gave up that suburb. Instead I attached Boston to my realm, so Boston is my domain of Hell and I its queen." It's unclear if she's joking or serious, though if such a huge change had been made it likely would have been noticed by several in the scene. She's probably joking.

Probably.

"And what would be the fun in keeping my clothes on?" she asks peevishly. "Why would I not flaunt what I have? This false modesty attractive humans have pisses me off sometimes. I only wear what I do to keep from being hounded. In private I don't bother."

She stares deep into John's eyes, which would probably make anybody else nervous knowing what he does about her. But not him.

"Of course if we're out in public and not outraging local mores, I'd likely have to have clothing. But I'll remember that. When I get bored, I'll call on you. Or, perhaps, just watch for you having fun and ... add some. Fun, I mean. Like a few more fiends or hounds or their ilk."

She's joking again. Right? RIGHT!?

Constantine has posed:
"Chicago hasn't been that bad since the twenties." Constantine snorts a laugh, which almost turns into an outright coughing fit except that he washes it down from the mug she'd had brought to him from the better brews than he was likely to receive ordering it himself. It does seem to help. If only for a couple minutes. Nobody chain smokes like he does and doesn't cough up some lung butter eventually.

Joking or not.

"Don't go putting on clothes for my account, love." His teeth clinch the cigarette to hold it in place when he stands and tosses his coat around his back to slip his arms back through the sleeves. When his hand pops out of the end, it's holding up a business card between two fingers, which he extends out to her. "I don't carry a phone, but if you're ever needing a petty dabbler-" He flicks his wrist and the card whirls through the air and lands on the table in front of her. "-Hold it and fate'll bring me where I need to be."

A few more quick drags and he stabs the cigarette out in the ashtray, if only to free his hands to straighten his collar. It's held out and flopped over properly. "I'm more of a Pit lord and Fiery One bloke, but the more the marrier, eh?" With a smirk, he takes a few steps backwards and turns... Then spins back, "Good we got this introduction out of the way. Easier to call on ya later." He points in her direction and makes his way through the croud, until he's outside where his cab is already pulling up. Ready to wisk him off to wherever fate deems he needs to be the rest of the night.