Chapter Text
On December 21st, 2001, Constantine Madden wakes up.
It’s cold.
“What...”
It’s not how most stories or movies describe it, where you slowly open your eyes and find yourself on your back, staring at the ceiling, maybe in the presence of a loved one mere moments after your heart has finally stopped. There is no white light, or, on the flipside, no fiery columns and pitchforks.
It’s just...cold. Very cold.
Constantine Madden never believed in life after death. He never believed in Heaven or Hell or Purgatory. The one thing he knew for certain was the Void; the eternal darkness, where beings of chaos resided, where long-dead souls flitted in and out, just beyond his reach, too slippery to grab hold of and force to stay with him.
So what is this?
At first his eyes are closed, but then they’re open. He’s upright. Standing, but his feet aren’t touching the ground. Or maybe they are, but he just can’t feel it.
He can’t feel anything.
But he can hear. And he registers the unmistakable crying of a baby before registering anything else.
It’s an ugly little thing. Tufts of black hair and a red face scrunched up in a scream, swaddled in blankets on the icy cave floor. Its leg is bent at an awkward angle and is probably the source of the crying, but Constantine makes no move towards the child.
Because it’s at this moment that he notices the young woman leaning against the cave wall, dead, and everything suddenly comes flooding back to him.
Power, all-consuming and just within reach, and then remorse, dark and bitter, a dead brother in exchange for abilities well beyond anything he could ever imagine, but still not enough. Never enough. Not enough until he could get Jericho back, could fix things. Could make it so that no one ever had to die ever again.
To do that he had to make some choices. Terrible, but necessary choices. A few dead meant nothing in the grand scheme of things, if he could bring them back. When he brought them back. Some people didn’t understand it the way he did, like Master Rufus, Declan, Alastair.
Sarah.
But she is dead against the cave wall, her brother Declan is dead on the cave floor, the encampment of mages taking refuge in La Riconada are dead all around. Women, men, children, blown apart, smothered, faces pale and bloodless.
The baby cries.
It should have been a quick procedure. (A procedure, he calls it, to make it sound less horrible) A simple switching of the souls.
(A murder)
He thought he’d perfected it. He thought it was foolproof. He’d spent too many nights, too many, working on this for it to backfire.
(Of course it did)
Now Constantine is dead. Still here, but not in the way he’d planned.
The baby cries.
Someone enters through the mouth of the cave, covered in snow. Shivering. Constantine doesn’t even have to look to know it’s Alastair, coming to look for his wife. Only to find his injured son instead.
Constantine turns his sight inwards, like how Master Joseph taught him all those years ago back at the Magisterium, when he could still see the coruscating string of light that connected his and his brother’s souls, when it fizzled out and died like a light going off.
Now there is the same string, a different color, not connecting him to his twin, but to a tiny baby instead.
Alastair picks up the child. Shushes it. Glances at the baby’s mother.
Sarah Novak is dead against the cave wall because she would not give up the child, but the second Constantine forcibly takes it away from her, she tries to kill it instead.
She had always been the weaker link of the group.
He and Alastair both notice the sentence “kill the child” etched into the ice behind her. Both of them ignore it.
But a smaller thought, quieter, sits in the back of his mind like a reminder. A voice that sounds suspiciously like Jericho’s.
You did this.
The baby cries.
It keeps crying.
“Buh,” says the baby, watching him with keen silver eyes that painfully remind him of brown hair and a soft smile, black ink pouring out from every orifice and a pale body lying broken on the floors of the Magisterium. “Buh buh. Buh!”
A chubby hand reaches for his robes, the other opening and closing into a fist uselessly on the bed of the crib. Its binky lies forgotten on its chest and drool drips from a toothless mouth, hanging open fixedly. Dumbly. Like one of Constantine’s corpses before it receives an order.
Blank.
It’s so fragile, this child. If Constantine were alive still, his entire hand would be able to wrap around its throat. If he dropped it from where he stood, its head would smack against the linoleum. How easy it would be to murder this thing. This lump of flesh. How easy.
He doesn’t forget how he almost succeeded in doing just that, on that night. He doesn’t forget how easily he murdered countless others in order to get what he wanted, how he did the same to his own brother, because of his selfish need to know more than he already knew. He doesn’t forget how he murdered this baby’s mother, one of his best friends, in order to murder the baby in turn.
He doesn’t forget how he failed.
How could he? His entire existence is proof of that failure. A reminder that he can never fix what is broken.
He stares at the baby. The baby stares back. The string connecting their souls beats in tandem with a heartbeat he no longer has.
Constantine Madden has made a lot of mistakes in his life.
This one might be the worst.
The baby reaches out for him, drooling. Its fingers barely graze the incorporeal robes. “Buh.”
There isn’t a single moment when the Hunt brat isn’t watching him. It’s almost unnerving how intense that gray-eyed gaze is when it’s being directed at him, framed by Alastair’s eyebrows and Sarah’s eyelashes. The eye-shape itself is all Jericho’s, though. Or, all Constantine’s depending on how you look at it.
He doesn’t know what to make of that.
“Aph! Uh, buh duh. Buh buh.” It pulls itself up into a standing position when he appears by the side of the crib, only to shriek and fall back down again. An ear-splitting wailing is quick to follow, something Constantine has grown used to by now.
Alastair never healed the baby’s leg. He swore off using magic on that night, deciding to take the baby to a non-magical hospital instead, where they used bandages and medicine instead of earth magic and mud.
Constantine doesn’t understand how a person can be so consumed by grief that they damn their own son to a life of hardship. Now the child is crippled, may not ever be able to walk, just because of Alastair’s selfishness. He can’t understand.
Or maybe he can. It’s not much different than what he did, is it?
Alastair then enters the room, exhausted, ragged, pajama clad. It must be sometime past midnight going by how dark it is outside. Constantine wouldn’t know. Time is something of an enigma to him now that he’s dead.
“What’s the matter, little guy? Hungry?” Alastair walks clear through his shimmering body to reach the crib and Constantine shudders, still not used to the warm sensation. The baby continues to fuss even when it’s picked up and rocked, so Alastair sets it on the floor next to its toys.
The baby makes a straight beeline for Constantine.
“No,” Constantine finds himself saying, even though he’s sure none of them can hear him, but surprisingly the baby freezes altogether, gazing up at him with a head too big for its body. It stares uncomprehendingly for ten long seconds, then breaks into a toothless grin.
“Buh. Buh!” It starts crawling over to him with a newfound fervor. Each smack of its hands eliciting another “buh!” until it’s right at his feet.
Heavy disgust and hatred builds up in him at that moment. If he had his body, his proper body, he could be over and done with this straight away. He could remove the boy’s soul, properly this time, and replace it with his own, grow until he was old enough to attend the Magisterium and continue his life’s work, meet up with Joseph and resurrect all those who died at his hand--
Alastair sweeps the child up in one fluid motion, breaking the impromptu staring contest. “And where are you wandering off to?,” he jokes, then brings the baby into the kitchen.
Constantine has no choice but to follow.
“Up!,” says the baby, making grabbing motions with its chubby fingers. “Up, up!”
Constantine doesn’t know where the child learned this word, nor how it seems to be able to talk already (how long has he been like this? A year? More?), but he finds he does not like it at all. He has a feeling his not-life will be getting a lot more irritating from this point forward.
Especially since the little monster won’t leave him alone.
“Up!,” it screeches again. A phantom of a migraine is beginning to form behind Constantine’s eyes. “Up! Up! Up!”
“No,” he tells it again, voice scathing. “No. Go away.”
Either the child has no understanding of the word “no” or it is dutifully ignoring him, because it continues to reach for him even as Alastair re-enters the room.
His eyebrows scrunch together momentarily at the scene, gaze sweeping over Constantine’s rigid form against the wall, but then he chuckles.
“You can’t go up there, silly,” he says, then takes the child away, which Constantine appreciates. “If you want something off the top shelf, then come and ask me, okay?”
“Okay!,” yells the baby. “Okay okay okay!”
“Oh wonderful. You’ve taught it a new word,” Constantine groans, but of course Alastair doesn’t hear him. He never does. Sometimes he gets a little crease in his brow, though, like he’s trying to figure something out, but he never looks at Constantine.
No. Only the child can see Constantine. And it’s terrible.
The toddler has also been walking a bit, which is surprising, since he’s overheard conversations with doctors that it might not be able to, but therapy and a toy walker have been helping things. By the time another year has passed, the baby is escaping from its crib in the middle of the night and causing trouble.
Tonight is another one of those nights.
“Quite the little adventurer, aren’t you?,” he sneers, making a move to kick it away, but of course his foot phases through the little monster. “Not unlike your mother. Always making these schemes and getting into trouble. I pray for your father if you’ve managed to inherit her spirit.”
The toddler just watches him, eyes wide.
“Well? You’re free now. What are you going to do?”
The baby continues to stare silently, and then, miraculously, it reaches out a hand towards him, makes a grabbing motion, and states with all the clarity a two year old can muster, “Dada.”
Constantine flinches backwards like he’s been physically slapped. “What?”
A wide grin. Two little teeth on the bottom row make themselves present. “Dada! Dada! Up, up!”
“No,” he says a little desperately, moving out of reach. “Constantine. My name is Constantine . I am not your father, nor will I ever be your father you little demon.”
The toddler opens and closes its mouth a few times. Then: “Tina.”
“Tina?,” he repeats, outraged, but then Alastair chooses that moment to enter and makes an incredulous noise when he discovers his son out of the crib and babbling incoherently at the wall.
“This is the second time tonight,” he grumbles, mostly to himself, placing the child back in the crib. Constantine hovers agitatedly by his shoulder. “What has gotten you so interested about that wall?”
“Maybe you should invest in some cages,” Constantine suggests to deaf ears. “And a padlock.” Alastair pays him no mind. “A guard dog?”
“Tina, Tina,” the brat cooes. “Tina, play?”
“Not another word out of you,” Constantine threatens. “When I get my body back I’m taking your soul and crushing it under my feet so no one can ever hope to bring you back.”
He just giggles. The nerve.
“Tina!,” the little demon screeches in that high-pitched voice of his. “Cookie!”
He points up at the top of the refrigerator. Constantine looks at it boredly.
“I can’t get it for you,” he tells him irritably. “I can’t touch anything.”
A pout. One that is completely ineffective on him. “Please?”
“No.” Then, for good measure, “It’ll ruin your dinner anyway.”
Clearly this is not what he wants to hear. Two red splotches begin to form on his cheeks, proceeding a tantrum of epic proportions.
“Oh, alright. If it’ll shut you up,” Constantine spits, then reaches up, only for his fingers to phase through the little vase on the fridge. “There, you see? Nothing can be done--”
The child lurches forward in an instant, grabbing onto Constantine’s robes, which are suddenly very much tangible . He jerks in surprise.
The vase tumbles down. Shatters on the floor.
“Uh oh,” says the child mournfully.
“Uh oh,” Constantine agrees solemnly. For a brief moment he finds himself worried, but then brushes it off not even a second later. Alastair, while somewhat of a loose cannon in terms of moods, didn’t seem like the type to fly off the handle over something like this. Not like Constantine’s own father, who taught his boys with fists and screams behind locked doors.
The sound of footsteps in the next room has the boy panicking. “Hide!,” he squeaks. “Tina! Help hide!”
“Oh no,” Constantine tells him without remorse. “It's your fault. Own up to your mistakes.”
“Tina!,” he wails, betrayed, as Alastair enters the room and immediately throws his hands up in the air as if he's asking for forgiveness.
“How do you even do these things? And who is Tina?”
In the end, Callum is sentenced to a time-out and Constantine is strangely pleased by this turn of events. Any form of anguish he can cause to the child fills him with unmistakable glee. And the dark look the toddler is sending him right now might actually be worth an eternity of damnation.
“Mean Tina. Mean,” he grouches, arms crossed and facing the wall. He doesn't have the vocabulary to say it, but Constantine is able to piece together the underlying “You did this to me, traitor. Coward.”
“I'm not the one who knocked it over,” he points out, and when that doesn't gain enough of a reaction, he tacks on, “Whiny Baby.”
Callum whips around, infuriated. “M’not a baby!”
“Pretty sure you are a baby,” he muses. “Baby.”
He clenches his little fists. “Poophead.”
“Doo-Doo Face.”
“Butt Pants.”
“Baby Diaper.”
The lights flicker ominously overhead. Constantine’s rare smile slowly dwindles down to nothing.
“Please tell me you didn’t just do that,” he half-begs the child, already dreading the worst. “Please tell me your father just forgot to pay the electricity bill again.”
Obviously Callum does not know what he means by this, so he settles for sticking his tongue out at him. The lights go back to normal, but Constantine’s non-existent pulse doesn’t.
It was foolish of him to assume that the child of Alastair Hunt and Sarah Novak wouldn’t have magic ability, sure. Or maybe just hopeful thinking. He just didn’t expect the child to show so much magical potential, and so early too. Not even he showed signs of magic at this stage, and he’s one of the most powerful mages of the century!
Well, was.
“How did you touch me earlier?,” he asks the child curiously. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I am quite see-through. Did you do something you didn’t do before?”
Callum blinks. Then simply pads over to him and touches his exposed hand with his littlest finger. It doesn’t go through him.
“Cold,” the child notes, almost wondrous. He peeks up at him shyly. “Pick up, now?”
Constantine is saved from responding in that instant when Alastair’s annoyed voice floats in from the living room: “You better not be out of that chair, Callum Hunt!” and Callum races to place his bottom back where it belongs.
“If I keep this vessel out of harm’s reach,” he mutters to himself while Callum draws a rather horrific rendition of him on a piece of printer paper with a red crayon, “And I can use objects with his touch...then I might be able to continue my work at the magisterium...”
“Mhm,” Callum hums indulgently. He squints and holds up a thumb, twisting it each and every way until he is satisfied with the placement of his composition. “Tina, here please?”
“Who are you talking to?,” Alastair asks, laughing a little, and sweeps up the child into a tickling attack. Constantine continues to plot even with shrieking laughter filling the room.
Maybe...this will work out. Yes. If executed properly, and if he gains the child’s affection...
“Tina!,” Callum yells suddenly. “Tina! Tickle!”
His face morphs into disgust. “I’d rather not, thanks.” Who knows what kind of diseases he could be carrying. He once watched the boy put an entire hand in the toilet after using it. And didn’t even wash his hands afterwards.
Call just laughs and laughs.
“Tina,” Callum says mournfully one night, voice shaking “Tina.”
“What,” he hisses. He almost feels tired, if that were possible. Tired in the mind, that is, not the body. He’d have to have one of those to feel that way. “What could you possibly want now you little disease.”
“I’m a’scared. Of the monster,” he tells him. He has his blankets pulled all the way up over his head and the Callum-shaped lump underneath is trembling like a leaf.
“It is not “a’scared”, it’s just scared,” he grumps, but the evil little look Callum shoots him in response makes him fully aware that the child does not appreciate having a grammar lesson at this time.
He sighs. Deeply. Marches over to the closet and gestures wildly under the watchful gray-eyed gaze from the car-shaped bed. “There’s nothing in there. See? Empty.”
Callum disappears once more under the covers. “Dark.”
“Of course it’s dark. It’s night-time.” The lump doesn’t move. He sighs again, this time with a slightly hysterical edge to it. “Since when are you afraid of the dark? You’ve never been afraid of the dark before.”
He shakes his head. Lets out a sob. “It’s dark.”
Constantine is, safe to say, perplexed.
He never minded the dark as a child. Nothing could be scarier to him, at the time, than his father, so the unknown never bothered him.
It used to scare Jericho, though.
That much he remembers.
Constantine watches the lump for a few more seconds. Debates on doing what he’s about to do. Sends a prayer up to whatever deity is still listening to him nowadays (he doubts the existence of any at all).
Then he summons every bit of his willpower and spits out, “Move over, brat.”
Callum has the audacity to blink at him. “Tina?”
“If you call me that again...” He leaves the threat hanging and scooches in next to the stupid child, who grabs his arm to keep him from completely phasing through the bed to the other side.
Constantine finds that his hand is warm. Not unpleasantly so.
He does not ask the child to remove it.
The boy makes a squealing noise and kicks his feet in excitement. It’s almost endearing, Constantine thinks, right up until the moment the little bastard attempts to snuggle into him and Constantine pushes him to the other end of the bed with one arm. He draws the line at cuddling. None of that is permitted.
“Please sleep,” he commands, glaring down at the child that is staring up at him with sickening adoration. “I don’t think I can take any more of your useless blathering today.”
“Okay.” He does not close his eyes. Just continues to stare up at him with gray eyes so much like his own. “You’re cold.”
“That’s not exactly my fault, is it?,” he hisses, but it lacks the venom. He, with as much caution as he can permit, pats the boy’s black curls. “Sleep.”
This time his eyes fall shut. Constantine lets out a soft breath of relief. The night is quiet once again.
“Tina, bed time story?”
“Ugh.”