Hii, Soo I don't know if you're open to writing constantine? But if you are I'm thinking of something like, a night after some exhaustive exorcism constantine takes a cab too tired to even take the train, he's about to light a cig not caring for the driver when something catches his eyes, a journal, and he just grabs it and starts reading it, it starts from a while back and it talks about the owners life, goals, etc. But when he's about to close it he sees a drawing, a drawing he's very familiar with and it's not just one but many and he starts reading again from there and it's the owner talking about how they feel haunted and observed describing nights where they wake up at night with things that are not theirs by the nightside and bruises that weren't there the day before, so exploring more he founds a polaroid photo of them and he puts it away on his coat, later that night realizing he run out of cigarettes he goes to the convenience store, and while walking down the street happy with his fresh new box he stumbles with someone, the same person from the polaroid picture they apologize and keep walking and him being him starts following them curious if he could catch something about this "stalker" and too deep in thought he realizes too late that he just stepped into his apartment building and that person is his very own neighbor that has been being haunted by his very practices, he starts re-reading the journal in denial and realizes that the dates and drawings match his works, July 6th he had an exorcism of a violent demon and uses a pentagram to keep it away, July 7th reader woke up with bruises and draws pentagrams, August 12th he had an exorcism of a greedy demon who kept stealing, August 13th reader wakes up with missing things and draws the same things the demon kept stealing. The demons who he has been exorcising wanted to found ways to make him pay from the underworld but since he had protection spells all over his apartment they chose to torment his neighbor.
I am so sorry for the length of it 😭
The cab smelled like stale air freshener and regret, but John Constantine was too knackered to care. The exorcism had taken six hours—six fucking hours of chanting, blood, and one particularly aggressive demonic entity that had tried to wear his intestines as a fashion statement.
He collapsed into the backseat, every muscle screaming.
"Where to?" the driver asked.
John rattled off his address in North London, already reaching for his cigarettes. His hands were still shaking slightly from the adrenaline comedown.
"No smoking in the cab, mate," the driver said, eyeing him in the rearview mirror.
"Right. Course not." John pocketed the Silk Cuts with a grunt, leaning his head back against the seat.
A journal, wedged between the seat and the door. Black leather, worn at the edges, the kind of thing someone would be gutted to lose.
John picked it up, intending to hand it to the driver. Really, he did.
New Year's resolution: actually finish a project this year. Maybe finally paint the bedroom. Maybe learn to cook something that isn't pasta. Maybe figure out why I always feel like someone's watching me.
John flipped a few pages. Standard diary fare—work complaints, grocery lists, musings about whether to adopt a cat. The handwriting was neat, careful, the kind that suggested someone who actually gave a shit about things like presentation.
He should close it. Should hand it over. Respect people's privacy and all that.
But something made him keep reading.
Woke up at 3 AM again. That feeling of being watched is getting worse. I know it's probably just anxiety, but I swear I heard something in the flat. Checked everywhere—windows locked, door locked, nothing out of place. But there was this smell. Like sulfur? Or burning metal? I don't know. I'm probably losing it.
John's fingers stilled on the page.
Found something weird by my bed this morning. Some kind of symbol drawn in what looked like ash on my nightstand. I took a photo, but I'm almost afraid to look up what it means. I cleaned it off immediately. Probably just fell asleep with the window open and some dirt blew in? That's normal, right?
There was a drawing in the margin. Crude, shaky, but unmistakable.
One John had used two months ago for a particularly nasty possession case in Islington.
He flipped forward, faster now.
I'm not crazy. I know I'm not. There are marks on my arms—bruises, scratches. I didn't have them when I went to bed. I KNOW I didn't. And this morning, I found more symbols. Different ones this time. I drew them here because I need to keep track. I need proof that I'm not imagining this.
The drawings covered the page. Binding circles, warding lines, summoning triangles.
All of them were sigils John had used in the past three months.
Something took my grandmother's ring. It was on my dresser, and now it's gone. I've torn the flat apart looking for it. I know I didn't misplace it. I KNOW. There was this... presence last night. I could feel it. Cold, angry, watching me. I tried to tell my friend about it, but they think I'm stressed. Maybe I am. But stressed people don't wake up with symbols burned into their floorboards.
Another drawing. This one was a demon trap.
John had used it three weeks ago in Brixton.
His hands were shaking now, and not from exhaustion.
He flipped to the back of the journal, looking for a name, an address, anything.
Instead, he found a photograph tucked into the inside back cover.
A Polaroid, slightly faded. A person smiling at the camera, casual, happy, unaware that their life was being systematically destroyed by things that went bump in the night.
He studied the face. Young, maybe late twenties. Pretty eyes. The kind of face that didn't deserve the shit that was clearly happening to them.
John pocketed the photo without thinking about it.
I woke up covered in bruises. Not just a few—COVERED. My arms, my legs, my ribs. It looks like I was in a fight, but I don't remember anything. There was blood on my sheets, but it's not mine. I don't know whose it is. I don't know what's happening to me.
The symbols are everywhere now. On the walls, the floor, even on my skin sometimes. I've started drawing them myself, trying to understand. Trying to make sense of this nightmare.
There's a pentagram burned into my bathroom mirror. I can't wash it off.
John's mind raced back. July 6th, he'd exorcised a violent entity in Hackney. Used a pentagram to contain it. The thing had fought like hell, screaming about revenge, about making him pay.
Things keep disappearing. My keys, my phone, my wallet. I find them later in weird places—the freezer, inside the toilet tank, buried in the potted plant. It's like something is playing games with me. Tormenting me.
I can't sleep anymore. Every time I close my eyes, I feel it. That presence. Watching. Waiting.
I drew what I think it's taking. Maybe if I document everything, I can figure out what it wants.
The drawing showed random objects: coins, jewelry, photographs. The same things a greedy demon would hoard.
The Southwark job. A demon of avarice that had been stealing from its victims before John trapped it and sent it back to Hell.
It had sworn it would make him suffer.
"Oh, bloody hell," John breathed.
He flipped to the last entry.
I don't know how much longer I can do this. I'm exhausted. I'm scared. I'm starting to see things—shadows that move wrong, faces in the dark. I hear whispers.
If I disappear, if something happens to me, I want someone to know. I want evidence that I wasn't crazy. That this was real.
Something is hunting me.
I just don't know why.
John stared at the journal in his hands, his brilliant, fucked-up mind putting the pieces together.
The demons he'd banished. They couldn't touch him—he had wards, protections, years of magical defenses layered over his flat like armor.
But they could touch someone near him.
Someone with no protection.
Someone who lived close enough that the demonic bleed-through would reach them instead.
"Mate, you alright back there?" the driver asked.
"Yeah. Fine. Just... drive faster."
John didn't sleep that night.
He sat in his flat, surrounded by candles and spell components, the journal open in front of him like an accusation.
Someone innocent was being tortured because of him. Because the demons he'd sent back to Hell wanted revenge and couldn't reach him, so they'd found the next best thing.
He'd spent three decades in this business and never thought to check if his wards were bleeding over into neighboring flats.
Around 2 AM, he ran out of cigarettes.
"Brilliant," he muttered, grabbing his coat. "Fucking brilliant."
The corner shop was a five-minute walk. John made it in three, his mind still churning through possibilities. He needed to find this person. Needed to fix this. Needed to—
He slammed into someone coming out of the shop.
"Oh! Sorry, I wasn't—" The person looked up.
It was the face from the Polaroid.
"S'alright," John said automatically, his brain still catching up.
"Sorry," you said again, already moving past him, head down, shoulders hunched like you were trying to make yourself smaller.
John watched you go, his hand instinctively going to his pocket where the photo was tucked away.
He told himself it was professional. He needed to confirm it was you. Needed to assess the demonic presence. Needed to—
The truth was, he followed you because he needed to see. Needed to know if his fuckup had left visible marks.
You walked quickly, glancing over your shoulder twice. Nervous. Alert. The walk of someone who'd learned to be afraid of the dark.
John kept his distance, using every trick he'd learned from decades of following things that didn't want to be followed.
You turned onto his street.
That made sense. If you were close enough to be affected by the demonic blowback, you'd be nearby.
You walked into his building.
You lived here. In his building. You were his fucking neighbor.
He'd been sending demons back to Hell for months, and they'd been taking revenge on the person living one wall away from him.
"Bollocks," he whispered.
You disappeared into the building, and John waited five minutes before following. He climbed the stairs slowly, passing his own door on the third floor, and watched as you unlocked the door to 3B.
One thin wall between his flat and yours.
One wall that had probably been letting through every bit of demonic energy his protections bounced away.
John went back to his flat, closed the door, and immediately pulled out the journal.
He started from the beginning, cross-referencing dates with his own records.
March 22nd - You woke up at 3 AM feeling watched.
March 22nd - John had performed a tracking ritual on a stalker demon. The bastard had tried to attach itself to him, but his wards had deflected it.
April 8th - You found containment sigils in ash.
April 8th - John had trapped a possession entity. It had fought the binding, throwing power everywhere.
Power that had nowhere to go but sideways.
July 6th - You woke up covered in bruises.
July 6th - The violent demon in Hackney. John had barely contained it. The thing had lashed out physically, trying to hurt him.
His protections had held.
But the energy had to go somewhere.
August 12th - Things started disappearing from your flat.
August 12th - The greed demon in Southwark. John had trapped it, and it had screamed about taking everything he loved.
It couldn't take anything from him.
Every incident corresponded perfectly with John's work.
He'd been poisoning you with his own protections.
The demons couldn't hurt him, so they hurt you.
And you didn't even know why.
John sat back, lit a cigarette despite the hour, and stared at the journal.
And now he had to fix it.
The next morning, John stood outside your door at 7 AM, holding two cups of coffee and trying to figure out how to explain this without sounding completely insane.
Hi, I'm your neighbor. I'm also a magician who fights demons, and I've been accidentally using you as a psychic lightning rod for months. Sorry about the possession attempts and the nightmares. Coffee?
Yeah, that'd go over well.
He raised his hand to knock, then hesitated.
Through the door, he could hear you moving around. Morning routine. Oblivious to the fact that a very tired, very guilty exorcist was standing in your hallway having a crisis of conscience.
John had done a lot of terrible things in his life. Damned souls, broken promises, let people die because it was easier than saving them.
You were innocent. Completely, utterly innocent.
And he'd made your life hell without even knowing you existed.
Footsteps. Then your voice, cautious: "Who is it?"
"Your neighbor. From 3A. I brought coffee. And, uh... I think we need to talk."
A pause. Then: "About what?"
"About why you've been having nightmares. And finding weird symbols. And—look, I know how this sounds, but I promise I can explain. Sort of. Mostly."
Another pause, longer this time.
Then the door opened a crack, the chain still on. Your eye appeared in the gap, suspicious and exhausted.
Up close, you looked worse than the photo. Dark circles under your eyes. A haunted look that John recognized because he saw it in his own mirror.
"I don't know you," you said.
"Right. I'm John. Constantine. I live next door. And I'm the reason your life's been hell for the past six months."
Your expression shifted from suspicious to confused. "What?"
"The symbols. The presences. The things disappearing. The bruises." He held up the journal. "I found this in a cab yesterday. Didn't realize it was yours until I ran into you last night. And then I put two and two together and realized I've been the worst neighbor in the history of neighbors."
You stared at the journal. Then at him.
"In my defense, I thought it was lost property. Then I realized it was a record of demonic harassment, and I got professionally curious." He took a drag from his cigarette. "Can I come in? This is going to sound barmy, but I swear I can explain everything."
"I don't let strangers into my flat."
"Fair. But I'm not a stranger. I'm the git who's been accidentally siccing demons on you for half a year."
"Probably. But I'm also right." John pulled out his phone, showed you a photo of one of his protection circles. "Recognize this?"
Your eye widened. "That's—I've seen that. On my floor. How did you—"
"Because I drew it. Well, not in your flat. In mine. But the energy bled through." He gestured at the wall. "Thin walls. Lots of demonic activity. Bad combination."
You stared at him for a long moment.
Then you closed the door.
John heard the chain slide off.
"You have five minutes," you said. "Then I'm calling the police."
Your flat was smaller than his, but neater. No occult paraphernalia, no candles or chalk or dried herbs. Just normal furniture and normal decorations and a very normal person who'd been dealing with very abnormal shit.
The symbols were there, though. Faint marks on the walls, scratches on the floor. Evidence of demonic presence that had bled through from John's magical work.
"Right," John said, setting down the coffee. "So. I'm a magician. An exorcist, technically. I deal with demons, spirits, all manner of nasty supernatural bollocks. I've been doing this for thirty-odd years, and I'm quite good at it."
You sat on the couch, arms crossed, looking at him like he'd escaped from somewhere with padded walls.
"I have protections on my flat," John continued. "Wards, barriers, the works. They keep the demons I banish from coming back to have a go at me." He gestured at the wall. "Problem is, I never thought about what happens to the energy when it bounces off my protections. Turns out, it goes sideways. Right into your flat."
"You're telling me that demons have been attacking me because of you?"
"Not attacking, exactly. More like... taking revenge by proxy. They can't hurt me, so they hurt the person closest to me. Which happens to be you, because you live one wall away from my magical fortress."
You stared at him. "This is insane."
"I should call the police."
"Probably." John pulled out the journal, opened it to one of the drawings. "But explain this first. July 6th. You woke up covered in bruises, found a pentagram burned into your mirror. I used that exact pentagram that same day to trap a violent demon in Hackney. August 12th, things started disappearing from your flat. I banished a greed demon that day in Southwark." He showed you page after page. "Every incident in your diary corresponds with a job I did. Every symbol you've drawn is one I've used. This isn't coincidence."
You took the journal, flipping through it, comparing the dates.
John watched you piece it together.
"The demons are real," you said slowly.
"And you've been... what? Accidentally cursing me?"
"More or less. Though 'cursing' implies intent. This was just spectacular incompetence on my part."
"I thought I was going insane."
"I haven't slept properly in months."
"I know." John ran a hand through his hair. "Look, I can't undo what's happened. But I can fix it. I can ward your flat, properly. Make sure nothing gets through again. And I can track down anything that's already attached itself to you and deal with it."
"Why should I trust you?"
"Because I'm the only one who knows what's happening. Because I'm the only one who can stop it. And because—" He stopped, choosing his words carefully. "Because I'm genuinely sorry. I've done a lot of terrible shit in my life, but hurting innocent people by accident is a new low, even for me."
You studied him for a long moment.
"Prove it," you finally said.
"Prove you can stop it. Prove magic is real. Prove you're not just a crazy person who read my diary and is now gaslighting me."
John smiled, the first genuine smile he'd cracked in days.
He started with something simple.
A containment circle in the middle of your living room, drawn in salt and chalk. Then a summoning ritual, calling forth a minor entity—nothing dangerous, just a sprite, really. A wisp of supernatural energy that manifested as a small, glowing orb.
You watched, frozen, as the orb appeared, hovering in the center of the circle.
"Holy shit," you whispered.
"That's a low-level spirit. Harmless. I'll send it back in a second." John spoke a word of command, and the orb vanished. "The things that have been bothering you are significantly less friendly."
You sat down heavily on the couch. "Magic is real."
"And I've been haunted because you live next door and didn't know how to insulate your magic properly."
"That's the gist of it, yeah."
You put your head in your hands. "I need a drink."
John got up, found your liquor cabinet, and poured two fingers of whiskey into a mug. He handed it to you.
"Right," you said. "Fix it. Do whatever you need to do. I want this to stop."
"It'll take a few hours. I need to set up proper wards, cleanse the space, make sure nothing's lurking in the corners." John looked around your flat. "And I'll need to do some diagnostics. Figure out if anything's actually attached to you versus just passing through."
"Sometimes demonic energy clings. Like a residue. If that's happened, I'll need to cleanse you too."
"Bath salts, mostly. Holy water if it's really bad. Nothing invasive."
You laughed, slightly hysterical. "This is the weirdest morning of my life."
"You're handling it better than most."
John worked through the morning and into the afternoon.
He drew wards on your walls, your doors, your windows. He cleansed every corner with blessed salt and burning sage. He spoke incantations in languages you didn't recognize, and slowly, gradually, the oppressive feeling that had hung over your flat for months began to lift.
You watched him work, asking questions occasionally, trying to understand this new reality you'd been dragged into.
"How long have you been doing this?" you asked.
"Since I was a kid. Comes naturally to some people. I'm one of the unlucky ones."
"Magic's not a gift. It's a curse. Everything comes with a price, and the price is usually steep." He drew another sigil on your wall. "I've lost more people than I can count. Friends, lovers, family. They get caught in the crossfire. Like you did."
"What else am I going to do? The demons don't stop just because I retire. Someone has to deal with this shit." He glanced at you. "Though I'm starting to think I need to be more careful about where I live."
"I could. Or I could actually learn from my mistakes and insulate properly this time." He finished the last ward. "There. That should hold. Nothing's getting through these unless it's monumentally powerful, and if something that strong is after me, we've got bigger problems."
"What about what's already here?"
"I'll do a sweep. Make sure nothing's hiding." John pulled out a small mirror, muttered something, and held it up. The reflection showed your flat, but overlaid with a faint shimmer of purple light. "You've got residue, but nothing's actively present. I'll cleanse you, just to be safe."
"Yeah. It's not weird, I promise. You just soak for twenty minutes, I'll say some words, and Bob's your uncle."
"Figure of speech. Means it's sorted."
You looked at him—this strange, rumpled man who'd accidentally ruined your life and was now trying to fix it—and made a decision.
The cleansing ritual was surprisingly mundane.
You sat in a bath of warm water mixed with salt, herbs, and something John called "blessed water" that looked suspiciously like tap water. John sat outside the bathroom, speaking in Latin, occasionally asking you to dip under the water.
"How long does this take?" you called.
"Almost done. You feel anything? Tingling, pressure, weird sensations?"
"I feel like I'm in a very weird spa."
After twenty minutes, John declared you cleansed. You got out, got dressed, and found him in your kitchen making tea.
"So," you said. "What now?"
"Now you're protected. The wards will keep anything from getting through. You should be able to sleep properly again."
"And if something else comes after you?"
"It'll bounce off my protections and dissipate into the ether instead of into your flat. I've reinforced the barriers between our spaces."
"This specific problem? Yeah. But—" John hesitated. "You're going to be aware of things now. Magic, the supernatural. Once you've seen it, you can't unsee it."
"Could be worse. You could be me."
You laughed despite yourself. "True."
John handed you a cup of tea. "Look, I know this has been complete shit for you. And I know an apology doesn't really cover months of supernatural harassment. But I am sorry. Genuinely."
"You didn't mean to do it."
"Doesn't make it better."
"No. But it makes it less... I don't know. Evil?" You sipped the tea. "You could have just ignored the journal. Could have let me keep suffering and never said anything."
"I'm an arsehole, but I'm not that much of an arsehole."
"Good to know there are limits."
You both sat in silence for a moment.
"Can I ask you something?" you said.
"Why do you do this? The demon fighting. If it's so dangerous, if people keep getting hurt... why keep doing it?"
John was quiet for a long time.
"Because someone has to," he finally said. "And because I'm good at it. And because—" He stopped. "Because I've done terrible things. Hurt people. Made mistakes that cost lives. This is my penance, I suppose. Doing what I can to balance the scales."
"Do you think you ever will? Balance them?"
"No." He looked at you directly. "But I keep trying anyway."
You nodded slowly. "That's... sad."
"That's life in the magical community. We're all tragic figures stumbling toward inevitable doom. It's very poetic."
"You're kind of a disaster, aren't you?"
"The worst kind. But I'm your disaster now, apparently. Seeing as we're neighbors and all."
"Could be worse. At least I know what I'm doing now. Mostly." John stood up. "Right. I should go. You need rest, and I need to reinforce my own wards so this doesn't happen again."
"Thank you," you said. "For fixing it. For being honest. For... not being as terrible as you could have been."
"Setting the bar pretty low there."
He smiled, small and tired and genuine. "Get some sleep. Properly this time. No demons to wake you up."
"What if I have questions? About all this?"
"Knock on my door. I'm usually in. Or out fighting demons. But I'll answer eventually."
That night, for the first time in six months, you slept through till morning.
No presences. No symbols. No bruises or missing objects or feelings of being watched.
Just sleep. Proper, deep, restorative sleep.
You woke up feeling almost human again.
And through the wall, very faintly, you could hear John Constantine moving around his flat, probably preparing for whatever supernatural disaster awaited him that night.
Your disaster of a neighbor.
Your accidentally cursed life.
Your introduction to a world of magic and demons and things that went bump in the night.
You should probably move.
Find a new flat far away from Constantine and his demon-attracting lifestyle.
But instead, you got up, made coffee, and knocked on his door.
He answered in a bathrobe, cigarette already lit, looking like he'd been awake for hours.
"Morning." You held up the coffee. "Thought you might want some. Since you brought me some yesterday."
"Cheers." He took the cup. "Sleep alright?"
"Best sleep I've had in months."
"Good. That's good." He leaned against the doorframe. "Come to ask more questions about the supernatural?"
"Maybe. Or maybe I just wanted to make sure my disaster neighbor was still alive."
"I'm flattered you care."
"Don't be. I just don't want to deal with whatever demon comes looking for revenge if you die."
John laughed. "Fair enough."
You stood there for a moment, two neighbors who'd been through something bizarre and traumatic together, connected now by shared knowledge of things most people never saw.
"Try not to accidentally curse me again."
