"It wasn't for her that I wanted it. I wanted to see if my influence could grow further and last longer."
He huffs over his drink as he brings it back to his mouth. Kilgrave would never admit to love or something as stupid as that. He could inspire love with a few words, could make anyone love him.
"I can get any woman I want. What's one man or woman among all of those in the world?"
Those words are as casually said as John puts out his cigarette. A hiss like an angry dragon and nothing more. Out and done.
"I've never killed anyone. But no, you didn't. What exactly is it that you do other than turn people who could hurt you onto you?"
There's a small attraction there, better than roaming the world and watching out for Jessica or one of her people. She wouldn't, he was sure, but in the late night when paranoia set in, who knew?
Staring morosely into his glass, Kilgrave is uncharacteristically silent. John has made him realize more than anyone that she was a dividing line in his life. Before, he could have kept moving, never been heard of. After, there is always that chance that he might be found out. Be captured. Or worse.
"Everybody wants what they can't have, luv. Even if they've got everything else." In a sense, anyway. John's problem is that he gets what he wants, generally, but the longer he keeps it, the more he loves it, the better the chances are that he'll find some horrible way to ruin it, twist it or kill it. Things come easy to John, people are drawn to him, to the magic he has, but they never stay (or they never stay whole), and that's what burns him. For a man with Kilgrave's skillset, he's hazarding a guess that the shock of being denied anything is what gets under his skin.
Or at least, it interests him enough to waste time in the kind of shit bar he hates with a man that annoys him, instead of trying to kill him first and enjoying a scotch over his dead body in blissful silence. John will take that.
"So there's a time limit too, then?"
He'd figured out that there was a distance limit, given their cave adventure and the things Kilgrave admitted to there, but the rest of it he's just guessing at. Maybe the time limit is why he continued to feel dodgy for a day after the cave: he thought it'd been the threat of frozen death barely past, maybe the amulet's proximity, but it would make a sort of sense for it to have been the ward still at work in his system. He hopes idly that he'll still have a grasp on this info when he wakes up in the morning with the raging headache, and gropes around his pockets for one of his cards.
"What it says, mate," he slurs, sliding it over across the bar countertop. "Bit of runnin' around, poking my nose into trouble. Collecting the sort of bits that'd make your toes curl in those expensive shoes." A terribly thoughtful look crosses his face. "Or sick up on them, I don't know your fortitude."
At his shout, everyone in the dive falls into silence. The people at the pool table continue their shots. The bartender takes his orders in the same quiet, getting what people pointed out to him. Kilgrave's dark eyes stay on John Constantine as quiet suffocates them. In no way, shape or form should any dive be this been so utterly silent. Yet to everyone within, this is normal. None run out in panic or act upset.
"I couldn't hear you over all of them," he offers in way of an explanation, one of the few he bothers to give as he draws John's card to himself to look over. Kilgrave isn't familiar with magic, that much is clear as he picks up the rectangle of paper to look at. Had John put a spell on it, he could have rendered Kilgrave mute for a few critical minutes. Enough to have killed or neutralized him. Maybe.
"Master of the Dark Arts," he says with clear amusement despite him edging towards being drunk himself. "Exorcist and Demonologist. Let me guess. You want to see if your 'demons' will listen to me or not."
While his tone is dismissive (and he didn't answer John's question on time limits to his power) Kilgrave tucked John's card into his suit pocket.
"My fortitude is better than yours," he insists with injured pride or a show of it. "You're more drunk than I am."
John laughs in the sudden haunting, omnipresent silence. There's literally nothing stopping Kilgrave from turning them all on him as he'd threatened: John walked in here knowing that, but seeing a little demonstration like this is still eye-opening. So he laughs, because if he stopped to use his pickled brain for half a second instead, he'd have to confront the very real mess he's so enthusiastically throwing himself into. This is all going to backfire horribly, that much is painfully obvious now (though it's not like it hadn't been before.) If not tonight, then sometime in the future.
Ah, well. That's the fun of being John Constantine. "Don't be shy, luv. I know you just like the sound of my voice." His beautiful voice, which literally no one has appreciated since the day he came (literally) screeching onto the British punk scene in his entirely misspent youth. Makes him almost yearn for America, while he's here in London: across the pond, he can always count on being able to charm a pair of pants or two off with his accent alone. Surrounded by fellow brits, such as the one in his current illustrious company, that's not so likely to happen. Kilgrave will simply have to settle with being grateful that John stomped out the very hardest edges of his native scouser accent over the years and years of travel (since repeating himself two or three times while abroad before being understood got very old, very fast.)
"Oi, I had a head start while you were napping," he fires back, scandalized and defending his alcoholic honor, but he still finds it in himself to appreciate just how damned fast Kilgrave sussed out his motives, even if he does sound a touch skeptical for a man with a mind-controlling voice. John drums his fingers against the sides of his pilfered bottle and settles for fessing up: trying to put up a front now would just be embarrassing, probably. "Clever, you are," he hums out, halfway wondering what everybody here is going to make of their very strange conversation in the morning. "What do you say, then? Want to see how those pipes of your stack up in the grand, messy scheme of things? Might be I'll reconsider letting you get your mits on that shiny trinket of ours if you do."
That laugh may be what stopped Kilgrave cold. He listened to it reverberate around the silent room and caught no intention of mockery or derision. Had he picked up on either of those, he might have told everyone in the room to kill John or something else. Who knew with a creature of chaos like him.
The lilting rise and fall of John's accent was lost on Kilgrave. The man had his secrets in his past that he kept well hidden and was grateful in his twisted way that John didn't dig for. Too many wanted to know where weaknesses might lie. John never asked. Never pushed. For all it mattered, Kilgrave could have been born back in that cave and walked in here. At least as far as Kilgrave knew.
"You think you're the first one who's wanted to use me for what I can do? Or try to?" he asked with a snort of mixed amusement and disgust. John was far from the first. As the old saying went, damaged people were dangerous because they could survive. Because they knew they could survive. The bauble interested him, bait that he bit at as willingly as a fish did a clever lure.
"Why not? Isn't as if I can go back to America yet. I help you, and you give me back that little charm I wanted. Fair enough?"
Because that was how things were done in Kilgrave's world. Thing A led to Thing B or Reaction C. Ideas such as companionship or allies were myths that he didn't understand and didn't care to. He was a hideous excuse for a human being, but Kilgrave knew he was useful to some people.
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no subject
He huffs over his drink as he brings it back to his mouth. Kilgrave would never admit to love or something as stupid as that. He could inspire love with a few words, could make anyone love him.
"I can get any woman I want. What's one man or woman among all of those in the world?"
Those words are as casually said as John puts out his cigarette. A hiss like an angry dragon and nothing more. Out and done.
"I've never killed anyone. But no, you didn't. What exactly is it that you do other than turn people who could hurt you onto you?"
There's a small attraction there, better than roaming the world and watching out for Jessica or one of her people. She wouldn't, he was sure, but in the late night when paranoia set in, who knew?
Staring morosely into his glass, Kilgrave is uncharacteristically silent. John has made him realize more than anyone that she was a dividing line in his life. Before, he could have kept moving, never been heard of. After, there is always that chance that he might be found out. Be captured. Or worse.
"What is it that you do then?"
no subject
Or at least, it interests him enough to waste time in the kind of shit bar he hates with a man that annoys him, instead of trying to kill him first and enjoying a scotch over his dead body in blissful silence. John will take that.
"So there's a time limit too, then?"
He'd figured out that there was a distance limit, given their cave adventure and the things Kilgrave admitted to there, but the rest of it he's just guessing at. Maybe the time limit is why he continued to feel dodgy for a day after the cave: he thought it'd been the threat of frozen death barely past, maybe the amulet's proximity, but it would make a sort of sense for it to have been the ward still at work in his system. He hopes idly that he'll still have a grasp on this info when he wakes up in the morning with the raging headache, and gropes around his pockets for one of his cards.
"What it says, mate," he slurs, sliding it over across the bar countertop. "Bit of runnin' around, poking my nose into trouble. Collecting the sort of bits that'd make your toes curl in those expensive shoes." A terribly thoughtful look crosses his face. "Or sick up on them, I don't know your fortitude."
no subject
At his shout, everyone in the dive falls into silence. The people at the pool table continue their shots. The bartender takes his orders in the same quiet, getting what people pointed out to him. Kilgrave's dark eyes stay on John Constantine as quiet suffocates them. In no way, shape or form should any dive be this been so utterly silent. Yet to everyone within, this is normal. None run out in panic or act upset.
"I couldn't hear you over all of them," he offers in way of an explanation, one of the few he bothers to give as he draws John's card to himself to look over. Kilgrave isn't familiar with magic, that much is clear as he picks up the rectangle of paper to look at. Had John put a spell on it, he could have rendered Kilgrave mute for a few critical minutes. Enough to have killed or neutralized him. Maybe.
"Master of the Dark Arts," he says with clear amusement despite him edging towards being drunk himself. "Exorcist and Demonologist. Let me guess. You want to see if your 'demons' will listen to me or not."
While his tone is dismissive (and he didn't answer John's question on time limits to his power) Kilgrave tucked John's card into his suit pocket.
"My fortitude is better than yours," he insists with injured pride or a show of it. "You're more drunk than I am."
So. Huff. There.
no subject
Ah, well. That's the fun of being John Constantine. "Don't be shy, luv. I know you just like the sound of my voice." His beautiful voice, which literally no one has appreciated since the day he came (literally) screeching onto the British punk scene in his entirely misspent youth. Makes him almost yearn for America, while he's here in London: across the pond, he can always count on being able to charm a pair of pants or two off with his accent alone. Surrounded by fellow brits, such as the one in his current illustrious company, that's not so likely to happen. Kilgrave will simply have to settle with being grateful that John stomped out the very hardest edges of his native scouser accent over the years and years of travel (since repeating himself two or three times while abroad before being understood got very old, very fast.)
"Oi, I had a head start while you were napping," he fires back, scandalized and defending his alcoholic honor, but he still finds it in himself to appreciate just how damned fast Kilgrave sussed out his motives, even if he does sound a touch skeptical for a man with a mind-controlling voice. John drums his fingers against the sides of his pilfered bottle and settles for fessing up: trying to put up a front now would just be embarrassing, probably. "Clever, you are," he hums out, halfway wondering what everybody here is going to make of their very strange conversation in the morning. "What do you say, then? Want to see how those pipes of your stack up in the grand, messy scheme of things? Might be I'll reconsider letting you get your mits on that shiny trinket of ours if you do."
Not likely, but hey, John never says never.
no subject
The lilting rise and fall of John's accent was lost on Kilgrave. The man had his secrets in his past that he kept well hidden and was grateful in his twisted way that John didn't dig for. Too many wanted to know where weaknesses might lie. John never asked. Never pushed. For all it mattered, Kilgrave could have been born back in that cave and walked in here. At least as far as Kilgrave knew.
"You think you're the first one who's wanted to use me for what I can do? Or try to?" he asked with a snort of mixed amusement and disgust. John was far from the first. As the old saying went, damaged people were dangerous because they could survive. Because they knew they could survive. The bauble interested him, bait that he bit at as willingly as a fish did a clever lure.
"Why not? Isn't as if I can go back to America yet. I help you, and you give me back that little charm I wanted. Fair enough?"
Because that was how things were done in Kilgrave's world. Thing A led to Thing B or Reaction C. Ideas such as companionship or allies were myths that he didn't understand and didn't care to. He was a hideous excuse for a human being, but Kilgrave knew he was useful to some people.
Always had been.
"Deal then?"