Red drips from John's hands, crimson and sparkling like rubies, and it takes a disturbingly long minute to realise that it's blood.

Blood on the walls, on the ceiling, all over the floor, the furniture, John himself and your legs feel like they're going to buckle and collapse under your weight and he looks up at you with those yellow eyes that you've come to recognise as a demon's gaze, his pupils slit like a cat or perhaps a serpent before returning to the blue you know so well, sans the warmth that's always in his eyes.

You don't recognise the bodies on the floor, mangled as they are, but you barely glance at them, terrified of seeing them when you close your eyes.

John straightens, slowly, like a coil being wound up before lunging at you as your knees give way beneath you, catching you in his arms.

"Hey, hey, I know, this looks really bad, but it's okay, everything's going to be okay." John says softly, but you don't hear him.

Your head is spinning, and you feel like you're going to throw up, and John says something else, in Latin, you think, and it all goes black.

When you wake up again, you're on a couch with a big fluffy blanket wrapped around you and for a moment, you think it was all a bad dream, but then John walks in with a blood-stained trenchcoat and red splotches in his blonde hair.

"Hey, I was worried I put too much into the spell you feeling okay?" he asks, setting a bag of Chinese takeout in front of you. John's voice is still soft, as if you'll break if he raises his voice. "Not still tired or nauseous?"

You don't reply, and John sighs, sitting next to you at a small distance. "We're two cities over, in Gotham. I faked your death, and got you a new ID and called in a few favours. For all intents and purposes, you're dead. Your... Ex and their family are really dead. Some psycho came in and killed them all."

John is the psycho, you know it, he knows it.

"I know, it's probably a shock, but... You don't know how hard it was, seeing you cry about what they did to you, and I just. You don't deserve that." John clasps your hand in both of his, his blue eyes slitting and turning yellow and staring at you with an intensity that you've never seen before. "You can tell me you never want to see me again, and I'll respect that. But you have to understand that I only did this because we're friends."

That makes you pause. The last time you saw John before venting to him about your partner, you had a falling out, with him telling you he never wanted to see you again. That, coupled with the fact that when you vented, John didn't seem to have any recollection of the event, and his eyes...

This isn't John. Not the real John, it's the demon made up of all of John's worst traits.

"You don't owe me anything, and I just want to reiterate that I didn't do this because... I don't know, I'm secretly in love with you or whatever you're probably thinking." he pauses before breaking out into a grin, "this isn't one of those dark romance novels you're obsessed with. Are you still obsessed with those? Either way, you know what I mean."