A/N: Because a guest asked and I can't answer anywhere else this is probably to be the last of this story. But I said that last time. So technically it's complete but you know me, I might end up writing more from Chas or Zed's POV. I doubt it though. Can't see where I'd take it. If I do get an idea in like three months time, you might end up with more but I really, really don't think so. Thank you for your patience with this anyway

He woke up in an unfamiliar place, lying on someone's couch with an itchy tartan blanket over him. His head was throbbing, a low, steady beat, drums going off inside his head, the inescapable rhythm of those Membrane days. Every part of his body ached. Oh fuck. Garbled memories from the night before reminded him where he was; in stupidity or blind panic, he had sought refuge at Chas'. Renee. He had told her too much. He'd opened up. Bad fucking move, like everything else in his joke of a life. Well. No doubt he'd overstayed his welcome, time to be off, see if he couldn't, see if he couldn't get his cigs back from Renee first. A smoke, a shave, and maybe a shower, then he'd scrounge a lift back to the millhouse to 'recuperate' (read: drink until the pain in his head stopped being a result of his injuries and became alcohol related, til his body went numb and he stopped feeling). The smoking was non-negotiable. God, how did Chas survive living with Renee?

Groaning and clutching his badly bruised side, John hauled himself to his feet, stumbling clumsily into an exorcist-shaped heap on the floor.

"Oh bugger!" he hissed loudly, through strained teeth. A sound from the other room, remarkably like Chas dropping whatever he was doing (it sounded ceramic, the smashing noise of something connecting with the floor) and barging straight into the living room, as John tried to get himself back onto the sofa, to no avail.

Chas knelt down beside him and took him by the arm, aiding him over to the pile of cushions that had served as his bed for the night. Behind the big man, Renee stood with arms folded, her normally hostile face betraying concern. Wasted on him, for sure.

"John," Chas said, for possibly the third time – the exorcist's head was hazy, he wasn't really sure. That and he was too busy wallowing in endless fucking piles of angst and self-pity like the twat he was to actually listen, ha bloody ha! "How're you feeling?"

"Like a dead pig that's just been skullfucked by the Prime Minister," John muttered, his face completely expressionless. He smirked "Honestly mate, it's nothing, I've had worse days." A thought. "Where's my coat?"

"In the wash," snapped Renee. "Along with your other clothes." She looked exhausted. Dimly, John recalled a few loud, screaming nightmares that had woken the whole house, and inwardly cringed. Chas was going to mother him now. Chas was going to be worried about his mental health or some shit. Chas always fucking was, wasn't he?

"Not true," John retorted. "Still got me boxers on, haven't I? Although that could easily change..." he trailed off into coughing, cursing his shit sense of humour at times like this. Time for a topic change. "Where's Geraldine?" Possibly not the greatest topic to discuss after mentioning a strip-tease, well done me. His tone was as apologetic as he was comfortable being.

"At school. It's two in the afternoon."

Still early then. Probably better to leave now, before the child got home. Didn't want to further expand her vocabulary, did he now? Again, he tried to get up, only to be almost forcibly held down by his so-called best friend. "John. What happened?" His face was worried and compassionate, and John had to look away, staring up at the mottled off-white ceiling.

He shrugged. "Just the usual, Chas, you know me. Pissed off a couple of narrow-minded redneck arseholes who were gobbing off about the rampant tide of the gays. Told 'em what I thought of their views on 'sexual deviancy'."

"What did you say, John?" Chas growled in frustration, and John laughed, immediately regretting it because his ribs ached. Felt like bloody Nergal had done a neat little tap dance number on his chest. Shit. There was no way Chas'd let him smoke now.

"I said 'don't knock it 'til you've tried it', and winked at one of them. Absolutely didn't call him a pretty-boy." Chas glared. "What? Can't blame a man for trying." Shifting on the sofa awkwardly, the blond Scouser continued. "I also may have, you know, done the thing." At this, Chas swore.

"What thing?" Renee asked curiously.

"Oh, nothing, just told one of them a story all about how he secretly liked dressing in women's clothes and his dad used to beat him 'til he pissed himself. Usual shit. Deadpan it, make your eyes go lifeless like, address some cunt you never met by name. Nine times out of ten, they leg it before you even finish."

"And the other 10% of the time you get the shit kicked out of you." Chas finished. "Why do you always do this? Was it worth it?"

It was always worth it, John wanted to tell Chas, and it was never worth it at the same time. Part of him knew he deserved it, and so pushed his luck at the worst possible moments, looked for opportunities to pick fights. And the other part of himelf hated the part that always had to rear its ugly head when most uncalled for. Like now When he really should have thanked them for their help, apologised for the intrusion and all the eldritch noises in the night.

Instead; "Oh, piss off Chas, I'll be right. Anyway, it would've gone worse if I hadn't put my cigarette out in someone's eye – not the closeted transvestite's, someone else's – cast a basic amnesia spell and got out of there. Took an hour or so to walk here."

"You did what?" Chas sounded outraged, Renee merely looked disapproving, as if she was all holier-than-thou now, as if she didn't smoke too, when no-one was around, and sneak occasional moments with one of the delivery guys when Chas used to go away on jobs with John. If he wanted to, John could really drop a bombshell, but no, there were limits even for him. He couldn't do that to Chas, not now the couple were 'making things right' (whatever the fuck that meant; judging by the array of flowers on the mantelpiece it involved delivering ornamental bouquets until your significant other was smothered to death in lilies, leaving you to slit your wrists with a romantic red rose).

"Okay, but in my defence, he was about to glass me at the time," John insisted.

"That wasn't what I meant," Chas admitted. "I was more surprised at the fact you walked here." The bigger man smiled and touched his friend's shoulder gently. "Soon as your clothes are clean, and you've eaten, and taken a sho- a bath, I'll give you a ride back to the millhouse. I've already called Zed, she says she'll be there.

"Great. Just bloody great." muttered John fucking Constantine, bastard extraordinaire "All I need's Zed fussin' over me, making that bloody awful tea – with honey in it, for God's sake! What kind of idiot puts honey in tea?"

Secretly though, he was pleased, and Chas knew it, shaking his his head in exasperation and smiling. "I'll go get you a beer. Just the one, though."

He always said that. Never mind thought John, I'll just have to bat my pretty little lashes and say something nice. Though actually, with the two sizeable black eyes he was sporting that might prove hard than usual.

After Chas had gone, Renee lingered. The injured con-man and habitual down-and-out met her gaze and shrugged, wincing a little.

"'spose I should say thanks," he said after a while. "Renee. Thank you. And I'm sorry about- well, I'm sorry anyway. Please, do me a favour, don't tell Chas I said any of this, alright?"

"Sure," Renee nodded. "You have your reputation as asshole-in-chief to maintain. Can't be too forthcoming, can we now?"

Smirking, John sat up, gradually, uneasily leaning heavily onto the arm of the sofa, gripping it tightly until his knuckles turned white. "Exactly, luv. Exactly." He raised his voice "Oi, Chas, mate, hurry up with that beer, would you?"

"Only if you promise to keep your mouth shut around drunk rednecks in future." Chas replied from the other room, and John sniggered.

"I'll try," he lied, knowing full well he would do no such thing. Renee knew it too.

"Next time, take some sleeping pills will you? Your subconscious has serious issues, and I don't want to hear you screaming."

"Oh, don't worry, my conscious has issues too. In fact, my issues have issues of their own, copulating off and producing little bastard baby issues."

Renee shook her head in wonder. "How do you do it? How do you keep on going, cracking shitty jokes and pretending everything's okay."

"You've got to laugh, haven't you?" said the Laughing Magician "Otherwise you've got nothing, absolutely sod all. See, that's the trick, that's how you keep on going. Laugh in the face of Hell, toss a couple of cheap one-liners out and go wherever the synchronicity takes you. That's how."

At that moment, Chas came back in and John decided it was time to switch topics, reeling off some tired (but hilarious) succubus anecdotes, the usual bullshit. And he saw Renee smile, curled up next to Chas on the other settee, and he understood.

They were in love. Things were going so well. They didn't need him fucking it all up for them. It would be time to let Chas go soon, slowly weaning him off, eventually breaking off contact altogether. For the best really. As soon as the Rising Darkness was dealt with, he wouldn't need Chas (despite last night's evidence to the contrary). He wouldn't need to keep manipulating his friend, to keep using him. They would be done.

And so John smiled, cracked a few shitty jokes, pretended everything was okay and kept on going. Because what else was there to do?

Sod all he thought bitterly, or, rather, sod it all.

He couldn't let Chas know the decision he had come to. Chas wouldn't get it, he wouldn't understand. He'd go all protective and worry. So he didn't need to know this was it, he didn't need to know John Constantine, John fucking Constantine, was discarding him, casting him aside. It wasn't like it didn't hurt John too. It hurt. It really fucking hurt.

But it was the way things had to be. You allowed yourself the luxury of friends, they'd get hurt, when you stumbled into their house after having the seven bells knocked out of you, when you got possessed by a demon-king, when you put them and their family at risk, making them look guilty by association. Chas didn't need this shit. And so that was that.

Decision made.

"John, hey, he looks even worse than you told me," Zed said, when they arrived at the millhouse later. "I made you some tea." Her smile was the wicked grin of a woman who knew full well what she had done. "With honey."

Why me? John thought, as he collapsed on the second sofa of the day Why is it always me? What did he do to deserve friends like these, who wouldn't let him smoke and who made undrinkable tea?

What did he do to deserve friends?

Ah, life's great mysteries. Laying back on the couch, he smiled, his swollen face stinging. He sipped the tea. It wasn't as bad as he remembered.

Still. He complained on principle, because if there was one thing he needed, it was something to complain about. Zed laughed, then launched into a lecture about common sense and not getting himself killed, having some self-preservation (a nice concept, but very unrealistic in the real world) and John, well, John drifted off again, falling into troubled dreams of Astra Logue and the incident at Newcastle.

Bloody Newcastle – bloody in both senses of the word. Bloody Nergal, bloody Rising Darkness, Manny, and bloody Hell on Earth. None of them would let him sleep. There was no way out of it. And so he laughed, cracked a few shitty jokes and pretended everything was okay. Because that was all he knew how to do.

That was everything he was.

The Laughing Magician.

John Constantine.