You know that the hands that cradle your face, tilting it upwards to kiss your forehead, are soaked in unfathomable quantities of red, metallic-tasting grime that won't ever wash off.

Looking up at him, anyone could tell that all the souls lost because of him are carried on his back. The dark rings under his eyes, the tired look permanently etched onto his face and the smell of alcohol that follows him wherever he goes. But nobody else seems to care enough to look.

John Constantine. The Hellblazer. The man who makes the devil quake in his boots, and can con an angel out of their wings. The man who gets everyone around him killed or worse, and the man who the universe seems to hate personally.

Your Laughing Magician, who always managed to outsmart everyone and walk away with a smile and a wave before they even realised that he won.

The man looking down at you with the saddest and most loving eyes you've ever seen on anyone. He knows this will end badly. You know it too.

But neither of you really care. At this moment, it's just you and John and the dirt on his hands, the very same dirt that now covers your cheeks as he runs his thumbs over them, gently massaging it into your skin.

And tonight, it's a mix of the evidence of his and your sins that coats his hands.