Dying sucked, when you got right down to it, when you took the concept and reduced it down to its barest, simplest skeleton-form. Not the suffering, the agony of the cellular civil war raging inside his body, nor the bitter taste of ill-gotten oblivion drawn lukewarm and stale from a glass bottle forever standing sentry on the table – but the concept of death itself. The idea that every finite second, so easily wasted, was drawing you inexorably closer to an early and ugly demise.

When you got right down to it, it was a pretty crappy state to be in.

On one of those nights where it wasn't exactly obvious he was dying but the thought, not the pain but the thought, dogged his every conscious second, Constantine decided not to bother trying to sleep. It just wasn't happening. He lit a cigarette instead, and laughed mirthlessly at it, the cause of his death, before taking a deep, deep drag, pulling the poison as far down into his lungs as he could. It tasted, as usual, not of death, but of relief, silencing the craving in a way that nothing else could. Now that was irony. He laughed again, liking the fragile, crazy sound of it.

Neither the TV or the radio could hold his interest. Fictional lives, false joy, meaningless fame and shitty music. No, thanks. He walked to the window instead, and stood there, staring out at the tawdry sprawl of buildings, cars and lights before him. It looked…almost serene, but knowing what he knew, he couldn't be fooled by that fa?ade. Everywhere you looked, there was trouble of some sort. Demons in human guise, humans masquerading as demons. Panic hidden just beneath the surface, not immediately obvious unless you were forced to face it day after fucking day.

He never asked to see it, you know. He never asked to know the truth about the world. Yet for reasons unknown, it was his cross to bear, his curse to face head-on the nightmares that lurked in the corners of everyone else's eyes. And his burden to know that all he could do at the end of it all was join them.

A lone woman slowly strode into his field of vision several stories below. Drifting as calm and easy as a feather in the mild evening air, seeming untroubled by the evil that seethed in the darkness around her, uncaring that her life had an end and she was heading closer to it every waking hour. She didn't care about those things, she didn't have to. And he despised her for it, despised her and envied her both. He watched her walk until he could no longer make her out, and smirked, finishing his cigarette and grinding it out into a nearly-full ashtray on the windowsill.

"Tell me," he said bitterly, though he knew she'd never hear him, "how does it feel?"

-end


Happy New Year, readers! (Yes, I know I'm three days late, shh.) The above oneshot was inspired by America, by Razorlight. I've had the idea in my head for a while now, but I've only just been able to sit down and write it down properly, because writer's block is the absolute worst. Hope you enjoyed reading it, feedback would be gratefully accepted.