10377/The Duello

The Duello
Date of Scene:	07 March 2022
Location:	Hat and Hare
Synopsis:	Signing away one's word has power... when the bargain spans time and space with the Penitent.
Cast of Characters:	Meggan Puceanu, John Constantine, Zatanna Zatara

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Meggan Puceanu has posed:
What treacherous skies simmer over Gotham, a harsh wind from the west driving the ashen clouds to the seagirt horizon. March may be temperate when the sunlight peers down, but the temperature plunges after dark. Hoarfrost glitters in black diamond splendour in the gutters and breath steams from nostrils and lips into silver cobweb patterns. Anyone departing from a theatrical performance or the symphony might clutch their coat a little tighter and fumble around for their gloves in a hasty reminder winter's reign hasn't ended. Unless you're a silver-blonde completely oblivious to the cold, but no matter. Her hands radiate enough warmth to prevent a clever, quick con-man from being cold either as long as he stays nearby.

Colour scores the interior of the Hat and Hare where a few of the pit orchestras or stagehands take their drinks, though the clientele favours more a mix of performers than patrons. Guests inclined to slip inside can find a good pint, surrounded by messy memorabilia of icons and legends past that makes a dive bar look IKEA-styled. Dark, low, and a bit gloomy; no putting on airs here, since everyone knows it's the other side of the curtain. The faces aren't all familiar, a couple middling university kids on stools trying to butt in on conversations and one furtively doomscrolling, checking the door anxiously.

The feel of the place is waiting. The collective exhale of a curtain come down hasn't passed. The drinks are quick, pickles on cups and breaded mozzarella sticks in baskets being chivvied up in the kitchen.

John Constantine has posed:
"Tell me why, exactly, I need to be out at some fuckin' bar? As long as I've got this cunt living in my head, I'm beholden to keep my focus on the bigger picture. This isn't like the old times. I can't just go about pretendin' I'm some eighteen-year-old prat with a hard-on and a credit car."

John looks decidedly displeased, coat drawn tight about him, and face drawn in a sneering frown. He squints around him before lighting up, a smouldering Silk Cut seeming to come from nowhere before being planted between his lips.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Two exquisitely gold manicured fingers are spotlighted at the bar, toying with three olives barbarously speared on a toothpick and drowned in a good martini. It's not Zee's usual manner of combatting the cold that scurried in under the backstage doors or prolonging the euphoria of having put on a good show.

She straightens from her bartop slouch and looks behind her, feeling an influx of familiar magic along with the sea-tinged cold air that eddies through the door. The plaintive voice confirms the tingle of magic that had brushed her backbone and she half-smiles to herself then frowns at the words.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
John may look completely displeased, and his nose out of joint may not be unreasonable. Synchronicity and the angry white chap in green knickers might not be entirely out of accord, tangled purposes hang around. "Long as I am caught in your wake, trust em to know the flotsam you churn up behind you," Meggan chimes in cheerfully. For the evening she looks marginally normal, all sunshine and English roses, her ears rounded and palm slid into her back pocket. She may have compared John to a ferry, and considering the anniversary for the sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise was literally yesterday, that could be ominous.

"I'm tasting rotten fruit. Right stop," she adds in a whisper that might not be reaching out. She puts her hand to the small of his back, a gesture he's done to her more often than not, friendly wave cast into the void where it would be so much cooler just to nod at people. Cool is not her forte, unless it means staring down a line of jackbooted police coming to break up a riot or that business with a Sentinel in front of Congress when she demonstrated wiring and reinforced steel is no match for good old British gumption. Right-o. "Ooh, should we be cool and pretend we're not acquainted? I'm used to getting the weird look, myself."

The university kids keep eagerly eavesdropping and point at Zatanna's drink. "Can we get one of those? Is it named the Fishnet--"

"That's such a stupid name," complains another. "The Trawler is way better for a martini."

The doomscroller shoves two pickles whole into his mouth and chews. Swallows. Mechanically grabs another, staring at the text on the screen from some benighted social media sight. "More, please. I'll take two," he says flat to the bartender, ignoring the other order to cut it off.

John Constantine has posed:
John doesn't respond, only lets out a grunt of dissatisfaction. The cigarette comes to his lips once again, and regardless of any 'No Smoking' signs he presses on without concern.

"Couple of petty thieves," he announces, pointing at a pair of youths laughing it up at the bar, "Would-be murderer if he could get the guts up for it. The Spectre judges intent over action, helps it be in the right place at the right time."

As he announces all this, his eyes practically glow from within. When he spots Zatanna, they stop and he tilts his head in her direction.

"Acquainted to who? Her? Nah."

He makes his way towards the bar, kicking a stool out from beneath one of the students with a muttered 'fuck off' and sitting down in it alongside Zatanna.

"Alright?"

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
The same manicured hand pushes back shining dark hair over a slender shoulder garbed in a perfectly tailored tux, Zee eyes the boys dubiously and then smiles revealing perfect white teeth behind blood red lips. To the bartender, "Give them the dirty treatment."

Perhaps to her detriment she ignores the pickle gobbler to turn her attention on the two beings she would travel to the ends of the earth to see. Her stomach does a funny little flip when she catches sight of John.

"I am acquainted with you two. For some reason, I heard related. Nope. Not related through blood just...other things."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Intent over action scales a confused grey swarm of coils and moths around the uni-aged young man gobbling up a basket of pickles and then another. Some things are absolute: the evil birthed of Hell, the unbending slant to a Lord of Order. His is a stripe of potential harmlessness, happy to go along, and laying waste to everyone in his vicinity, all stained by an incessant hunger. Dark but not explicitly evil, a bit like dining with a Trident sub.

He wipes his hands clean on a paper napkin that gets folded square and square again, then another pulled. Another furtive stare around draws out an assessment, and he sits up. Black hair, dull brown eyes, and medium-tone skin all give an anonymity in Gotham, indeed in half the world. He might just be rolling off the stool to mosey out without paying - small sins - before pointing a square, callused finger past John's direction for the black-haired woman. His mouth tugs down. "I must, with regrets, interrupt your evening, good lady." A swagger in the syllables; Nigerian? "It seems this will be my only chance to lean on your kindness. Can you spare me a word?" He plucks up the unused drink mat and slides it over her way, far from fast or aggressive. "I seem to have gotten all turned around with a bit of bad luck, and maybe you could get me past it. The place I am staying at does not think highly of travelers. Or men such as me."

John Constantine has posed:
John frowns at the man approaching Zatanna, that otherworldly glint still in his eyes. He sees the sins writ large upon him, but none worthy of retribution. At least not retribution on the scale he would offer it. He instead glances at Meggan, still frowning through the smoke, and then back at Zatanna.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
How many men have regretted hitting on the homo magi under the low lights of a bar equating low lights with low life and an easy mark? Unprepared for anything but the most mundane attempt on her good graces, Zatanna cocks a skeptical eyebrow in the man's direction.

Besides what could go wrong with John and Meggan at her side she reasons, certain of her own powers, too. She catches the washed out blue of John's gaze, a query forming in her sapphire eyes before turning back to the man hitting on her.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Meg, on her part, can much rather be bothered by standing on her toes in search of a menu. Of course no menu boards frequent a place like this, but it hardly matters. The row of bottles gives her a proper sight of what she wants, merrily painted in clear English tones: "White Lady, please. Be nice to have the time to down it." Forgetfulness could be amounted for letting her feet leave the ground, dropping her right back a second later, for this city forgives little sign of the strange. She fishes out a couple crumpled bills from said back pocket, and nods to John, though his attention be elsewhere and so too hers.

For just a moment, her pupils become crescent-shaped, and her nostrils flare to the fellow coming by for aid from Zee.

Far be it from him to impose, but the man will follow the mat along with her pace at a time. He is shorter than John, not much around 5'7", with that gauntness a poor diet and youth's last growth spurt gives. In another twenty years, he might be rounder-bellied and softer in spaces that hold laughter well. "I was told I would not be welcome even though they let me in. I am traveling. On holiday, yes? But they told me anyone could claim it. I purchased a ticket to see the show. They said I might have stolen it. Some proof I have been to see your work would help deal with the guards. Do you sign things here? A..." Language fails. What /is/ it in English, he can't say. "Gift? To take home to say 'I met them?'" He frowns, his mischance a heavy weight on his shoulders. "This place is nothing like home, nothing at all."

John Constantine has posed:
"Sign the poor fucker's autograph book, Zee, or tell him to jog on. Fuckin' hell."

John stands up from his stool, rolling his shoulders and slapping Meggan on the backside as he steps past her.

"I've gotta piss like a monsoon."

He steps away from the stool, striding off through the place towards the restroom. As he goes, he pauses to look at a young couple making eyes over a table.

"I'll be seein' you if you don't start thinkin' right, mate."

Then he's off again.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Oh, not some idiot hoping egged on with an inflated ego and too much to drink but a fan. She holds up a slender well-made hand and then in an aside to the bartender. "These two," she nods gravely to John and Meggan,"drink on my tab. Whatever they want, when ever they want."

Something the young man says makes her turn back, alarm beginning to sound making her curt, "Sign? What?"

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Yes, that is exactly what Meggan signed up for. She even sports the terminal marks of matrimony in a long-suffering sigh -- oh, who are we kidding? It's a lie. The makings of trouble skimming over her lips turn that smile sweet and devilish all in a kind, which begs the question why oh so briefly she needs slightly pointed teeth. Only the four that count, pointedly sharp.

"Just the one," she sing-songs, overcoming the sibilance that dealing with pointed canines will do, though she tongues over the enamel for a moment.

The man who asked Zatanna for her signature points at the coaster. He pulls out a ticket from his pocket, stub torn off, proof of payment for admitting one individual to ye old show in the past bit. "Is this better? Yes, ah, he knows it. Your autograph?"

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"Sign?" She asks stupidly like she isn't sure of her English. It has become a universal word, thrown at her by eager fans in Korea And Japan, embedded in their own languages, across Europe and Africa when she has gone on whirlwind tours. J

John bickering at her in his familiar cadence almost makes her take the ticket without examining it. A pen appears in her hand. She bends her head to study the stub, said pen poised in the air to add her flourish and make the piece of torn paper into something valuable.

Magic or luck pushes Zee to look at Meggan before setting pen to paper.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Meggan tilts her head to the wayside. "I'm a digital girl," she says with a shrug. "Retweets matter more for my set, luv." No help to be found there, though her tangible impression is something shifting to the curious university lot realizing they're getting nowhere fun and prepared to bail for something more exciting. A pile of bills and credit card slips later, they slither out to find somewhere a little more downmarket for their wicked ways. If making passes and loitering is truly that bad.

And yet, the pause remains, as the woman receives her White Lady and dips it back.

The man waits hopefully with the ticket plucked up, and a pen coming out from somewhere; he can say neither where or how she has it except that she does. Anticipation stretches and teases, and he holds up a finger. "Soon I can rest. They must understand this."

John Constantine has posed:
John is suddenly back at the bar. He didn't amble up, he didn't appear in a puff of magic. No, he simply wasn't there one second and was the next. He takes his seat again, looking towards Meggan and then back at Zatanna.

"This bloke still here? How hard is it to get a bloody autograph ... "

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"Who must understand, what?" Zee likes a sad story, especially if she can lighten the burden of the teller in some way or another. The stylus of the pen touches paper but before she presses the tip to impress her initials on it she looks the young man straight in the eyes, waiting on his answer.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
John's return takes another beat, two, the tangled threads that jerk and jolt around the incipient prospect of something that's mid-bloom and not fully flowered.

Meggan knocks back a sip of the White Lady, practically a straight swallow without preamble about the flavour. She shakes her head a little to clear the fog.

The man asking for the autograph just looks patently confused by this point. "The guards for the place I am staying will not let me back in. I want to show them where I was to prove I am a traveller and not a bad man." Racism, it is what it is. He shrugs and then shuffles back a few steps. "I will go, if it is a problem."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
She won't torture the poor man a moment longer. Her martini awaits. Zee signs the man's ticket, vaguely aware of having let John's impatience push the pen. "No, no problem. Here. I hope whoever has been on your case, lightens up! But guards? What needs guards? You sleeping at a bank?"

John Constantine has posed:
"Guards?" John asks, eyebrow raised, "Right, this is fuckin' stupid."

He stands up, placing a hand on the man's shoulder and locking eyes with him.

"C'mon, mate, we're payin' a visit to these guards of yours."

He offers Meggan and Zee a sympathetic look and an apologetic shrug.

"Alright ... "

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
He takes the ticket back. "It is a strange country. They take my money but do not live up to the exchange," says the man grumpily. His pocket is patted. "This will be enough, by grace of the high. You have been most helpful to see me back to my place for now." That might be the end of it as far as he expects anyone to do something for him, but Gotham's partitioned neighbourhoods into have and have nots aren't so surprising, are they?

He falls back when John drops a hand on him. Mostly because random hands falling are startling things. He shakes his head. "She is enough. You... you are throwing a fire into an oil well. Too much, friend."

He's happy to wheel past Meggan and John to reach the door out and pursuit of him, if sought, is the tricky part. A coin tossed over his shoulder might be for the many, many pickles or for Zee. Or something to catch in a swift hand between Constantine, Zatanna or -- it's not Meggan, who flinches back from the metal bobbin out of habit. Yes, she's used to things being thrown /at/ her. Angry northerners labelling her a gypsy or worse are a fact.

The door is otherwise being opened and he steps out into the night. A night.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Prestidigitation drilled into her from early childhood has given the dark-haired beauty hands too quick for the eye to follow. Zee snatches the coin out of the air. It glints, held up between two gold lacquered fingers for Meggan and John to behold.

"Drink up, my darlings," she says triumphantly. "We have the place to ourselves for the nonce."