Chapter Text
Chased
Day One
John Constantine
As human beings we have the most extraordinary capacity for evil. We can perpetrate some of the most horrendous atrocities.
~Desmond Tutu
Danny wasn’t sure how long he’d been running, but he knew that he wasn’t in America anymore. He’d jumped from portal to portal trying to get away from everyone.
He had eventually gotten sick and nearly crashed into the waves below as he tried to outrun the hunters.
They wouldn’t stop. His parents hadn’t stopped even when Sam and Tucker were asking where he was. They had been trying to buy him time.
But the cuts and the pain. He couldn’t handle it anymore, and he had to leave. Leave everyone and everything behind.
He was running on his reserves and he wasn’t entirely sure he couldn’t still drown out here.
He didn’t know where he was, but it was land finally. He crashed into the sand and just laid on his back as he took a breath. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been running, but he knew it’d been hours.
He wondered how far he’d gotten.
“Where’d the bloody hell you come from?” He heard asked as footsteps approached him. Danny took in a breath as he slowly rolled over and kneeled up. The dude sounded British and Danny vaguely wondered if he’d managed to fly across the ocean.
He wondered if that’d even be enough to hide from them. Danny slowly stood and readied himself for a fight when the man stopped. Danny took in a breath cause he could feel death around the man.
“Where am I?” Danny asked seeing that the man just kept one hand in his pocket while the other held a cigarette. The man took a drag on it as he studied the teenager.
“You’re outside Liverpool, Mate. Had too many to drink?” the man asked as the smoke seemed to surround him. Danny took a step back wary. Too many adults had been after him.
“And where is that exactly?” Danny asked unsure of where that was.
“It’s about five minutes that way,” the man pointed, and Danny got the feeling that the man actually pointed in the wrong direction.
“Not really what I was asking,” Danny mumbled taking another step back only to nearly scream in pain as his knee gave out.
They took one of the kneecaps for testing. He couldn’t hold it.
“Oh my gosh, it has bones, and they’re black.” His mother.
“That’s so neat, where do…”
“You okay?” the man asked again, and Danny stumbled away from him and put his hand out as he called forward his power. Green fire lit up and the man raised both his hands. “Alright, I’m not getting closer. Who are you?”
“No,” Danny said with a glare. “No.”
“Alright, No it is,” the man jested seeing the terrified look in the teen’s eyes. “Name’s John.”
Danny didn’t care what his name was; he just wanted to rest. Danny tried to get up again, but he couldn’t ignore the pain anymore.
“Looks like you need some help there,” John said as he slowly walked closer careful of the flames licking around the teen’s hand. “I know some magic, but I gotta see the damage first.”
The green fire died, and Danny felt a wave of sleepiness. He didn’t notice the careful words the man was speaking until his eyes closed.
“Sleep tight, Kiddo.”
John hadn’t been planning on helping when he seen a teenager passed out on the shoreline. It wasn’t until he got closer did he feel it.
Something was calling him to help. He wasn’t sure what, but he knew he had to help. He got closer and spoke some words. The kid looked in pain and fell back to Earth when he took a step. John watched as it seemed like his knee wouldn’t hold his weight.
Not that it looked like there was much there the longer John looked the kid over. Something was definitely wrong, and the kid had managed to conjure fire even in his clearly fragile state. It didn’t look like normal fire either, but he didn’t really care.
He quietly muttered a sleep spell as the kid seemed to spiral some more before he passed out.
John knew he couldn’t quite fight the spell, but he did expect some resistance. He carefully laid the teen out and accessed what he could.
There was only so much his magic could tell him, but the kid had a lot of internal injuries, and there was something else there too.
Something under the surface. John carefully lifted the shirt up to see if there was any bruising and nearly lost his lunch.
Precision cuts littered the boy’s bodies of what he could see. John quickly covered the boy as he went to the leg that gave on him. John gently felt and noted that something was missing.
“Christ Kid, who did this to you?” John asked himself as he carefully picked the kid up bridal style and summoned the House of Mystery.
He had answers he wanted, and to do that, he wanted to make sure the kid was at least somewhere safe, and he could control somewhat.