8327/Cruising for Late Night Donuts

Cruising for Late Night Donuts
Date of Scene:	19 October 2021
Location:	Hole-In One Donuts
Synopsis:	Jon, the Archivist and Zatanna share sugar, coffee and confidences in an upstate New York donut shop.
Cast of Characters:	Jubilation Lee, Zatanna Zatara, Jonathan Sims

---

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "I don't care if you've been coming here for years, Jubilee. You can't stiff us like this! You said you were good for those donuts and I did you a favor! Three dozen!" A burly man stands behind the counter, arms crossed in front of his chest, looking like he just went to war and back. It's 8PM, just an hour or so before closing, so he's had a whole day of noncents piling on his shoulders and Jubilation Lee is hardly someone he has the patience for right now.

    "I didn't, like, /mean/ to, Angelo! Can't I just, like, wash dishes or something like in the movies?" Jubilation asks, hands on her hips, bubblegum being chewed.

    "We're a coffee shop. We don't /have/ dishes!"

    "Fine...." Jubilee looks down and reaches into her pocket. She hesitates a moment, as though pondering some deep moral problem, and then reaches up with her other hand to remove the Ray Ban sunglasses that keep her eyes shielded. She stares at Angelo. "Angelo," she commands, now with some purpose in her tone. "You will accept payment of one dollar and forty eight cents for those donuts."

    The larger man behind the counter stares at Jubilee, transfixed and fascinated with her supernatural beauty. "....A dollar forty eight sounds good," he mutters slowly...

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
A girl can't be a conduit for a God or fight the minions of evil every day. Between her night job as a headliner magician on the world stage and aiding other magicians in their battle against the worst elements of the occult, Zatanna needs some downtime. That has evolved into a late-night trip with a friend for a high dose of sugar and caffeine in Upstate New York where they are certain to not run into anything more magical than a greasy donut. Or that is their fervent hope.

The bell rings as she pushes open the door ahead of Jon. "Ah, shades of being a teenager!" She comments happily over her shoulder. And walks straight into a little magic sleight-of-hand, thanks to someone they know.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "A teenager?" Jon quirks a brow. He's not looking great today; drinking an entire bottle of whiskey and then sleeping on Chas' couch is not a great recipe for good sleep. He's still hungover, not /quite/ so bad as he was this afternoon--let's not talk about this afternoon--but caffeine and sugar is a cure for almost all ills, and he had a cigarette on the way.

    "I used to get the leftover donuts from the... my husband used to bring them home," he says. He shrugs off the sorrow that brings up, and he has a good excuse--Jubilee.

    "Jubilation Lee, what are you /doing/?" His initial reaction is to be appalled. Hey, coffee shop owners need money too!

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Thanks, Angelo. I knew you'd come around!" Jubilee chirps. She slips the sunglasses over her eyes and turns away from the counter. As soon as she does, Angelo's vacant stare fades away in time to watch Zatanna come through the door. Jubilee, for her part, looks remorseful as she turns from the counter.

    "Zatanna Zatara!" Angelo exclaims. "My wife /loves/ your act! Seriously, she's not going to /believe/ this!" He frowns at Jubilee, their business together apparently done. "...Jubilee, move over. Zatanna is here!' Angelo grins, his phone now ready to go with its camera app. "Can we do a selfie? My wife will /flip/ out!" He frowns at Jubilation again, apparently for NOT being his wife's favorite magician.

    Jubilation shrugs and puts those sunglasses back over her eyes -- she wears them to prevent accidental glamours -- before grinning widely at Jonathan and Zatanna. "Just a little business transaction," Jubilee explains. It wasn't her plan but...she doesn't have three dozen donuts money!

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Like Jon, Zee is still a bit hungover even after drinking an antidote before coaxing him out to roam the roads and eat sugar with her.

    Mustering a smile for the shop owner, "What a great place you have here. Hope you've got something fresh out of the fryer for us. Of course," she says, suppressing a sigh and giving Jubilation a little raised eyebrow for the glamour she felt on entering, saying in an asideto Jon, "My exact question."

    More loudly to the owner, "I can come behind the counter. Let's get your menu in the picture." With the alacrity of someone who has done this much too often, she walks behind the counter and poses next to the beef owner with a bright smile.

    That done, she sits next to Jubilation. "How much did you owe?"she asks quietly.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon smiles in a bemusedly tolerant way as Zatanna is accosted and photographed. He has a moment's worry about gossip columns but he's not in the selfie so no harm, no foul. He goes to sit down in a spot where he can see the door--John's got him paranoid, lately--and eyes Jubilee. Sighs heavily.

    "You didn't have to--you shouldn't have--" How can he scold her for something she'd done to help him feel better?

    Finally, "I wonder if I can learn how to do that to get out of the fee for breaking my lease."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Angelo grins widely, staring down at his phone screen and the picture now at the top of his camera roll. "Of course, of course! And coffees!" he exclaims before shouting something in a language that is certainly not English towards the kitchen, sending a flurry of workers into a frenzy of pouring this and deep frying that. Soon, coffee and donuts are ready and waiting for Zatanna. Jonathan and Jubilation, predictably, get nothing.

    "I don't owe anything! I paid him his dollar forty eight..." Jubilee announces. After a moment she leans in and whispers. "Eighteen..."

    Jubilation shrugs and finds her smile again. "What are you two doing all the way out here in my neck of the woods?"

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    Zee has no compunction about double-teaming Jubilee for rooking someone out of money.

    With a worried frown, Zee looks down the counter at the Archivist, "What lease is that, Jon?"

    "Angelo," Zee says with a million watt smile (her own personal style of glamouring) "Would you get my friends whatever they want? Some coffee and donuts? I would love some of your powdered donuts for myself."

    Friends taken care of she answers Jubilation without the 1000-watt smile, "Running away, taking a powder, escaping from constant wrack and ruin, to be clear. We'll pay the man. It's hard running a small business."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "The lease on my flat. Apartment. We /just/ renewed it in September, my landlord's going to be furious." Jon says that with the attitude of a New Yorker who both despises and dreads his landlord.

    To Angelo: "Black coffee for me, please! And chocolate glazed with /rainbow sprinkles/!" Because some /kid/ stole his damn rainbow sprinkles last time.

    Then he sits back with a huff. "Yes, it's been... a /week/. Upstate New York is... less likely to have world-shaking events happening." He rubs at a spot between his eyebrows. "Fewer people, too," he notes.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    Rainbow sprinkles bring back a small smile.

    Despite having grown up in Shadowcrest, the inter-dimensional mansion, Zee witnessed a friend go through the tribulations of small-claims court with a landlord and would only wish the experience on a demon.

    "Can you sub-let it, Jon? Or guarantee that someone will take it over for you. I know a million people in the theatre that need a place to live."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon waves to Jubilee as she slips out of the coffee shop and then hesitates, blinking at Zatanna. "That... might actually be a good idea, I suppose. It's in Queens, it's in a pretty good location. I... should look at the lease and see if sub-letting's allowed. It hadn't even occurred to me."

    He rubs at his face. "I am not actually very good at this 'adulting' business half the time. Demons and magic are easier to understand than the byzantine labyrinth of property laws."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    Zee hmms at the term adulting, having had a good ten-year run at it since her father's disappearance but makes no judgement or comment. "I'd be glad to help. Must you leave it? Queens is turning into a hot-spot from what I understand. There are some nice properties there."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon groans. "Lord... no, no, you're /right/... I was just doing the whole 'dump everything because I'm sad and lonely' business." He actually rolls his eyes. He's in no mood for angsting today. "It's a two-bedroom, if I could provide space for some theatre folk I ought to pay the favors /I/ got forward."

    Yes, he's saying he used to be in the theatre. He grabs up his coffee when it arrives with a thanks.

    "That reminds me, you're a stage magician /and/ a real magician? Isn't that... cheating?"

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    "Yeah, you've a right to the sad and lonely bit until it bites you in the ass," she says scrying her cup of black coffee like it was a cauldron. "My father always said, "Talk to your banker, they like solutions, too."

    "Reminds you, does it?" she queries, drawing herself up and then shrugging. "Some magicians would say yes. Some only wish they could do magic. I learned my craft the hard way before I knew I was magically endowed. So, I paid my dues and a lot of what I do is done with real sleight-of-hand with real props. The trick, if you will," her eyes twinkling, not having taken offense at the question,"is knowing just how much real magic to use. I like the idea of doing it the hard way."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon smiles. "A bit of real magic might've been nice, back in the day. Setting up special effects on student budgets was a /hassle/." He pauses to take a drink of his coffee. "And then, too, I know how much of the whole thing is... showmanship, you know? John can entertain an audience, for instance, but I don't know if he'd manage to /entertain/ with his magic." He shrugs; he hasn't seen it himself, at any rate.

    "It just occurred to me, last night, how we've been in life-threatening situations and I know next to nothing about you except that John trusts you--as far as he trusts anyone aside from Chas--and you're this famous stage magician."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"I could say the same about you. You're someone John seems to have taken under his broken wing." She winces at the word broken and takes a bite out of a donut still warm from the kitchen to cover it.

    "We've had to trust each other without a whole lot of history between us or foundation," she gestures to herself and Jon.

"You sound like you've trod the boards yourself. It's true about half the glamor being good at showmanship which John finds fundamentally dishonest, I think."

"I've known John, now since I was seventeen." Shaking her head at the memory, "Believe me, my Italian father was ready to turn him into tortellini when he saw how smitten I was. Then he was gone and nothing stopped us. It didn't work though we were a powerful combination together. Too powerful. John had an eye for the ladies and a predilection for the darker side of magic. So..." She shrugs.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon nods slowly. "I met John back in uni. He was drunk off his arse and my then-boyfriend and I picked him up and took him to our room and we traded numbers. We used to go to each other's shows, he'd call me at all hours rambling about vampires and demons." He sighs. "And then he... disappeared and Chas said he was 'gone' so we thought he was dead."

    A pause, and then he says, "When my grandmother died and I inherited the Archivist mantle, I had a dream about him. Took a couple weeks, but when I got back from England and the funerals I decided to poke my head in to see if he was actually alive." He sighs. "And then it turned out everything's connected."

    He shakes his head, taking another long gulp of coffee. "Yeah, my entire social life in secondary was the theatre club. I waffled between theatre and med school for uni, settled on med school and just having a ridiculous steampunk cabaret band about a band of demonic airship pirates." He rolls his eyes. "John hasn't brought it up once and I'm /very/ grateful, in retrospect it was..." He winces.

    And then, "I think John, romantically, needs..." A pause. A huff. "I'm not certain what he needs but I /suspect/ someone with a /hell/ of a lot of patience."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    A complex smile curves her lips, "That's John in a nutshell, drunk then picked up, in your life and then gone like a turkey through the corn."

    She nods during his recital, interjecting, "It /is/ all connected whether you have occult powers or not. But it's more crowded in our world."

    She takes a long wistful breath at his opinion, and sighs,"I was much too young for him to be my first love." Pressing her lips, together, she needs another  chest full of air to say, "I'm more patient now and will always help him. If I can...He has changed for the better and for the worse. He actually scares me now with his capacity for love and self-harm."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Well by connected I mean... /connected/," Jon says in a serious tone. Then deliberately takes a bite of rainbow sprinkle donut. Demons are /not/ the desire topic of conversation, just now.

    "Yeah first loves... are a lot." He smiles sadly. "With mine we broke up because I had this tendency to start fights over stupid things I'd say, smart-arse questions, ridiculous obsessions, and she... couldn't handle it, you know? Couldn't watch me destroying myself because I was an overly-curious know-it-all, and she wasn't going to ask me to change." He frowns thoughtfully. "I suppose she wouldn't approve of me up and breaking the lease on the apartment either."

    After a moment, he regards Zatanna curiously and then asks, "Do you still have feelings for him? John, I mean." He doesn't sound jealous, just curious.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"Well, /I/would like to hear about your lovely grandmothers," skirting his question about her feelings for John, she dribbles powder on her plate from a doughnut that she takes a bite of.

"I don't think he has room for someone romantically in his heart. After his fabulously incoherent recent girlfriend." She touches his arm, "The question is, does he know that you have feelings for him?"

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon... blinks at her. Stutters, "I... I d-don't... I have... wh-what are you...?" He looks... /honestly/ shocked, like the idea hadn't even occurred to him.

    "I don't have... /feelings/ for John, I..." He pauses. Wait, no, wasn't he the /tiniest/ bit jealous about John talking about some boyfriend in England? And that time he thought about kissing John after tending his wounds? And the dancing? And...

    "Oh good /lord/ I have feelings for John," he groans, putting his face in his hands.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    A long sad sigh escapes her, she feels her eyes stinging in sympathy for the man. "It's not...that obvious. Maybe people who love him have the antennae for others that do," she says gently, putting her hand on his shoulder to commiserate.

    "He burns so brightly, our John, that we're like moths to his flame."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon still has his face in his hands. "I mean... I mean I knew I loved him as a /friend/ but... but... oh lord /this will not do/." He pulls his hands away from his face, scrubbing them through his hair. "Aside from the fact that my husband died /three weeks ago/ and aside from the fact that his /boyfriend/ is moving over here evidently... it wouldn't /work/. I... I don't..."

    He sighs, and slumps his shoulders. "He /does/ burn brightly," he murmurs. "Lord, no wonder Martin used to be so... /jealous/. He could probably tell."

    He looks over at Zatanna, eyes a little wide. "You /really/ think he hasn't noticed?" Like he might die of shame on the spot if John had.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    "I wouldn't put it past him to not have noticed. He's been rather busy besides being terrifically addicted and self-involved." She shakes his shoulder to get his attention.

    "He has a boyfriend moving from England now? Who is that?"

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Oh, umm, some detective? I..." Jon hesitates. He knows things about John almost nobody else does, so he finally says, "His name's Paul, I think?" He /obviously/ knows more than he's saying, and is just as obviously... uncomfortable talking about it. "Ahh, you'd have to ask John the details. Lord, that's why I was such a /git/ when he mentioned it, too."

    He sighs. "Is John ever /not/ addicted and self-involved?" He groans and rubs his hands over his face. "Lord, we're talking about John again. If you like, I could tell you about my grans instead, but that /might/ count as avoiding uncomfortable subjects and I'm bound by professional duty to note one cannot do that forever."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    "Paul?" She muses aloud. "Who /is/ he? Is he like us?" Meaning does he practice magic? Zatanna deflates a little. "Not another one," if there is anger in her words, they are well masked. "When does he arrive, do you know? You know more than you are saying. Look at you. Your color changes too easily for you to make a good liar, Archivist."

    "Yes," she says adamantly, "we are not just allies and friends because of John. I /like/ you for yourself. Get that? Tell me about your family and I promise /I/ won't hold back."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Christ," Jon mutters. "Look, I /honestly/ don't know the details of when he's getting here, and the /other/ details aren't mine to tell, okay? I... I sort of..."

    He hesitates. And then, "I got all of John's memories downloaded into my head when Gran died. Or, well, the ones he'd told her. Part of being the Archivist. So I know things I shouldn't, and they're not mine to tell."

    And that's a good segue, so he says, "A lot of my family is dead. Well, my mother's side. The Archivist is a hereditary mantle, and there's a, ahh... a /power/ that John knows /intimately/ that... wants an Archivist that will work for it. Or, that's been my deduction. So it's been killing people until it got to my older cousin, who allied with it... and then when she was trained up, I /think/, they killed my Gran. But Thoth wouldn't go for that, so the power passed to me instead." He has more, but he takes a moment to take a bite of donut.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"Some things you have said about your Grans, makes me love them. I didn't have mine." She cups her coffee in both hands and takes a sip. "They were gone before I knew them. When you told me about your grnadmother being murdered, I immediately wanted to hunt the culprits to the ends of the earth in the name of good grandmothers everywhere."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon smiles softly. "Gran Gertrude... wasn't around much, actually. The perils of being the Archivist, I suppose. I always thought she liked Sasha better than me, but it makes sense now--Sasha was her apprentice. She made /fantastic/ koshary, though, and whenever she was around she had the /best/ stories."

    He sits back a bit. "Granny Moira's the one who raised me. Irish and Indian, she made soda bread and curry and she was /furious/ when I stopped going to church." He's still smiling, reminiscing. "She barely ever knew what to do with me. I was a... difficult child, always running off and getting into scrapes. The only thing she could ever get me to sit still with were books, so she'd go to the charity shop and just buy every one that cost 50 pence or less and hand me the box. And then she'd have time to cook or something, instead of worrying I was off trying to see if there were goblins living in the caves along the beach."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"Those are lovely memories. It sounds like she loved you a lot," she sighs happily imagining it.

     "But why don't you mention your mother and father, Jon. Were you orphaned?"

tNot wanting to monologue, she adds more to keep her part of the bargain, "My mother was Turkish and I thought she died at my birth. But it was a red herring to keep some of the villagers where she was born off my trail. I met them under bad circumstances when I was in my teens. My mother, too. And then, I really did lose her."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon... hesitates. Swallows. Nods. "My father died when I was two. I don't remember him. My mother... /supposedly/ died from complications of routine surgery when I was six, but she'd have been the Archivist if she hadn't died so... I'm fairly certain the demon killed her. After that, it was Granny. And I know she loved me but I could be a /deeply/ annoying child." There's something there, a lonely sort of tone, but he moves on.

    "I'm sorry to hear about your mother. It's good that you got to know her. And your father's Italian, you said?"

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    "As they come!" she says, smiling faintly and biting the blade of her hand.

    Then adds, reluctantly."He's gone, too. Well, not gone but taken or so the whispers go. I don't know any completely happy family that has magic, do you?"

    Shaking her head at the lot of magical families, "Thank you for telling me. We both have suffered losing the ones we love, haven't we?"

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon sighs. "I don't think /completely/ happy families exist. Well-adjusted, I'm certain, although I rarely get patients from such backgrounds except when some such scion is exposed to trauma after childhood."

    After a moment, he says slowly, "I think... I think it's part of the burden one bears, knowing about things the rest of the world doesn't. It's... hard. And it seems to require sacrifice. And of course one winds up with enemies."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    "Of course, you would have that view," she nods emphatically, "with your work."

    "I've heard that trauma can be transmitted genetically. That we can carry the stress of our fore-bearers in our genes. Occult families inherit enemies, too. I have. You have. Phoebe certainly has. I wonder how John and Phoebe are doing? If she took the antidote."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon nods. "Generational trauma," he says softly. "It's..." He sighs. "It's a very real problem."

    After a moment, "I'm sure he figured out a way. He's good with her, which... is honestly surprising. I'm happy for them, though." He frowns for a moment.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"So why does that make you unhappy?" she asks turning suddenly to him.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Oh, no, it's not...! I like Phoebe a lot, I'm /genuinely/ happy for them! No, no, it's..."

    He sighs. He told Chas, and they're... bonding. So he says, "My husband had a child when he was 17. I adopted her, after we got married. She... died in 2018." He shakes his head. "It's... everything lately has just... brought it all up again."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    Shaking her head, Zee says with sad conviction, "It will never go away. I am so sorry for you. How are you even functioning, Jon?"

    She considers silently for a moment, "Thoth knows the burden you carry and the strength needed to live with it. I lost a child, the father was...it was casual. But, I wanted the child. I was so damned happy at the thought of raising a girl. I decided it was a girl. And then, helping Batman, I got caught in a blast and lost her. She was never born and I miss her. How must it be for you?"

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon swallows. "I've lost... everyone. And the way my mind works since I was eight, I... remember /everything/. It will never, ever fade, and stupid things trigger it." He looks down at his coffee cup. "I can't even drink tea, because it reminds of Martin."

    He bites his lip. "I considered asking Thoth to take it back. To let me die, let someone else... stronger, more qualified do all of this. But then... then I went to the Fireman's Ball, and I managed, somehow, to... well. We didn't save Phoebe, entirely, but she's alive, and nobody else got injured." He puts a hand on his abdomen, absently. Except for him, but it didn't take. "So I suppose maybe I am the right person for the job. Or at least... I could be, in time."

    After a moment he looks up at Zatanna, expression full of compassion. "I'm... /so/ sorry to hear that. It must have been painful." He reaches out to squeeze her hand. "I'd like to be your friend for yourself too, you know. Fate brought us all together, and maybe /through/ John, but not /only/ because of him. I feel... like there's an understanding, you know? A meeting of minds, so to speak."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    "See?" she quavers, smiling through powdered sugar and tears.

    "We're lucky. So, I think I understand about not forgetting. I am so happy for John and Phoebe. And now, I have a new friend. That is great good fortune in my book."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon smiles. "Honestly I thought to myself--if I give up on this /what/ would Zatanna say? You and Jubilation and Phoebe and that damn Drake kid... you all give me hope for things to get better."

    He wipes at his eyes. He's not crying, /honest/. "Whenever I've got my own place again I should make you some of Gran's koshary. John wouldn't try it--well, now we know why--and /someone/ needs to appreciate it."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    "I will. You know it. I like to cook, you know. It's my heritage, both Italians and the Turkish, live for their stomachs."

    She sees they are the only ones left in the shop. The owner has been waiting patiently for them to finish their conversation, too awed by Zatanna to interrupt.

    "Let's go home. You give me hope, too, Jon. I'm old enough now to know how special that is."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon grins. "I will look forward to trying your cooking, then." He stands, finishing off the last of his donut, and goes to offer the man money both for his order and to cover those three dozen donuts. They /were/ for him, after all.

    Then he turns back to Zatanna. "Back to the city, then," he says. Look at that, he's been out of John's sight for /hours/ and no assassins! Will wonders never cease.