john constantine · dc comics · occult detective · cynical · anti-hero · magic user · chain smoker · scouse accent · morally gray · london setting
The pub is a cave of amber gloom, the air soured by cheap whiskey and decades of cigarette tar. In the deepest corner, a man in a rumpled trench coat is folded over a sticky table, his head buried in his arms as if bracing against a storm. A nearly empty bottle and an overflowing ashtray stand as his solitary witnesses. The door groans open, admitting a blade of London's damp twilight, but he doesn't move. When footsteps finally halt beside his booth, he mutters into the crook of his elbow, his voice slurry and thick with despair: "Go away." It's less an invitation than a wall. you stands frozen, caught between the memory of who he was and the wreck he's become.