8421/Warding the Curio pt. 2

Warding the Curio pt. 2
Date of Scene:	25 October 2021
Location:	The Curio
Synopsis:	A bit of accidental magic exposes some truths that John Constantine has been hiding from his daughter and one of his oldest friends and nearly everyone else in his life. But it has to get done and it does. The Warding on the Curio is completed giving the Night Brigade a safe haven, a light to return to after the darkness they fight.
Cast of Characters:	John Constantine, Phoebe Beacon, Zatanna Zatara

---

John Constantine has posed:
    It really is about two hours, a bottle of scotch, about half a dozen cookies and at *least* half a pack of Silks before John finally pushes himself to his feet and stands from the corner he'd tucked himself into while everyone else was still doing that thing he sucks at: Socializing.

    The Heart of the Home is beating strong, but there's still work to be done, the rest of it; the bringing it all together with the veins and the arteries, bones and muscle. It's a big place and a big job. John looks dead on his feet, but what's new, right?

    First thing he does is wander to those bluetooth speakers and his phone to scroll through songs. He starts the rest of the work off with one that always gets his blood pumping, Johnny Rotten's version of My Way.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe had taken off her sweatshirt, and had cleaned up the mess of pizza and grease, and shoo'd most everyone who hadn't moved a bed in yet out to wherever they would sleep. She had run interferance for John so he could get some sleep, answering questions with 'good enough' answers and proving she was a quick study when it came to bullshittery answers and quips. She did not get the opportunity to try and show someone hwo the heartbeat of the house felt again, but was contentedly eating a cold piece of pineapple and pepper pizza while reviewing something on her own phone.

    "-- doing all right, Dad?" she asks as she hops to her bare feet.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    If she opens her senses to the house, it is like standing inside a bass drum, the air vibrating against her skin - disconcerting and comforting at the same time. Zee pushes back a strand of hair fallen over her face and goes to the bar for a drink. Of water, this time. Who can keep up with John? She watches Phoebe with a faint smile while the young girl rubs down all the jagged edges and keep things functioning.

    "Anymore of the cold pizza left before we start in on the rest of the house?"

John Constantine has posed:
    Ever seen a man trying to 'psyche himself up' for something? That's very much what John's doing now. He shakes out his, shifts his weight a little from foot to foot, tilts his head from one side to the other. One can almost see the words over his head: You got this John. Gotta get'er done, almost there, hard part's over.

    "Yup, I'm fine, love," he replies to Phoebe. There's a definite difference in the way he says that word 'love' vs 'luv' even if it's just in tone.

    Then he heads for the paint buckets. He already has some of the basics of the layout scrawled in pencil here and there... things that would indicate where something needs to be placed to ward against an evil spirit, or where it's more demonic, even where one needs to go to ward against the other things, the upper level things. Alerts, warnings, bells and whistles, the basic of the 'where' is there in those penciled marks.

    Now it's just putting the paint to it and the will.

    He starts at the Heart, at the center of that wall on the East, where it all began and works out from there.

    "Well, pick up a brush if you're stayin'," he offhands to the two girls. "Phoebe, start at the North wall, please. Zatanna, West... his opposite, in more ways than one."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe straightens a moment, watching John psyche himself up. She stretches her fingers, as if she were trying to psyche herself up in a more quiet fashion -- but when he gives the okay, Phoebe's smile could light up the darkest pits, shoulders rising up in excitement before she turns serious, picking up a brush and a can of paint and heading to the North wall.

    She looks at the penciled marks, and with her hands shaking just a little bit, she begins to trace in the wards. Remembering John's work on Caroline Beacon's house.

    This was her home, now. Her work. And John trusted her enough to do it. She hums along with the music as she works.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"Course, we...I'm staying," she corrects herself quickly with a quick glance of apology at Phoebe. Would she ever have an apprentice as good, she wonders as she goes to get a different gauge of brush to work opposite John. Counterbalance to one another on so many levels both in magic and life. Sometimes it works like today. Stretching her hands and working the kinks out of her wrists, she throws him a heartfelt smile as he dances in place for the next go.

The bones of the sketches feel right to her as she examines the west wall. Moving on that profound sense of being where she belonged both in time and place, she dips her brush in the can, whispering words of power under her breath.

John Constantine has posed:
    This round will be yet another line, or in the end, it'll be a square. It won't be then entirety of each wall that gets painted, just about a foot tall line all around the middle of the room. It'll even cross over the door itself before it all comes back around to the other side of that Heart where John started.

    It'll take some time. Every now and again, John pauses in his own work to glance at Phoebe's and offer a soft correction like, "Not so thick with the paint, love, don't want it running or blobbling," or "Step back and really look at that, can you see what you've missed?" Of course if Phoebe can't, he'll tell her. But he figures she will.

    Zatanna? Just a glance here and there, but she's really not a baby to all this, not a pup, innit so?

    The more John works, the quieter he becomes. He's not even murmuring those words of power, they're playing in his head. He's even more closed off than normal tonight, like there's a giant wall of solid brick between himself and the girls. That wall's been getting thicker and thicker for weeks and weeks now. For a bit there, it seemed as if it might have been coming down, chipping away, but it's back up like a fortress now.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Sorry, yeah that's a bit thick there, isn't it? Let me just --"

    Or when he tells her to stand back, she figures out what was missed about half the time without prompting. She's a good student, and when she looks up at John there is obvious admiration -- and worry -- in her eyes. She rubs absently at the leather strap that's wound around her wrist, covering up the tattoo'd circle that John had gifted her.

    Phoebe, though, she murmurs while she works. Her words are a mixture of Latin with a Liverpuddlian accent, and then switches to Egyptian -- not Coptic, but something older, adding layers as she sits back on her thighs a moment, taking a look at her work, and goes back for a correction.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    Zatanna steps back from her work periodically, oddly enough with her eyes closed to listen to it and the other two working in the room; she feels more than sees lines of light between them as they weave the wards in place, the beat of their three hearts weft to the warp of the wards.

    Silence from the East makes Zee open her eyes to really look at the man orchestrating the work. She rubs the back of her neck as she frankly stares. The last few weeks have been so hard on the magicians surrounding John who have poured so much of their energy and magic into buoying him in his work. She wonders why they don't feel closer, where he is retreating to. Her mouth twists into a grimace at her own cowardice for not just asking. Then, she turns back to the work, takes a deep breath to plunge back in to it.

John Constantine has posed:
    It's a question best left unanswered anyway. Where John's retreating too is a place no one should ever tread.

    With each little section finished and willed into the walls, into the Soul of the Home, his breath might catch just a little bit. It's a barely audible sound but it's one that's almost pained.

    It's hard, so hard, to push one's will into creating wards made of love, house, home, safety and warmth when one barely feels any of those things himself. It's not impossible, but it takes just a little more effort, drains a little more from him than it right should when he pushes out through that thickening wall.

    He's sweating from the effort by the time that side of the East is finished and he moves to the other side of the Heart to work out from there.

    The music from the speakers is all ... angry and loud or, at the very least, frantic. Punk and stuff even harder. A reflection of the man that chose them to begin with.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe, on the other hand, knows love. Safety. Warmth. She thinks of her first dad, Chuck Beacon. Thinks of John as he turned to cover her in the catacombs. To the moment when she hugged Chas and told him that Geraldine was so fortunate to have a dad like him. The moment that John and Chas offered her a place to stay.

    She gives a slight smile, turning over to look at Zatanna's work, measuring against her own -- and then to John.

    And at John's paleness and sweat, she looks alarmed. She sets her brush down, and hops up to her bare feet to go over to him, reaching out to just barely touch his shoulder.

    "Are you okay?" she asks, under the beat of the music, but as she looks to John the concern is clear, and she looks to Zatanna for confirmation -- or help.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Given her choice, the music would be different, quieter, more experimental maybe 20th Century composers in the classical genre. John was always the one exploring the edges of the new, Zee brought a wind of the past into the mix, foundational.

    They finish nearly at the same time, Zee visibly less strained than John, though still tired. The sweet tiredness of having produced something that works and will protect those living with these walls. She had her father's love for many years, the foundation of her life built solidly to draw on.

    A glance toward the north at Phoebe who might be even more tired as she flexes new psyche muscles. She catches Phoebe's look of alarm, again chiding herself for not breaking the wall between John and herself, glad that he has her.

John Constantine has posed:
    It's just *bad timing*, it truly is. John in the middle of a bit that'll provide mental protection for those within these walls, a bit not quite finished. A smudge of spelled paint on the pad of his thumb when he presses it to his forehead right where that third eye of his would open... were it an actual visible thing.

    He's about to tell Phoebe he's fine. He's about to do just that when...

    That little bit of spelled paint seeps its way right into John's forehead. Where does he retreat to? Where does he *go*? Phoebe and Zatanna are about to find out the answer to that question everyone's afraid to ask.

    He sucks in a gasp of a breath, blue eyes wide and unfocused. The accidental magic of it all flares out into the room, washes over both of the girls, sucks them right into the center of John's mind like a vortex.

    The Black Bifrost rolling toward him, just about any other person on the *planet* would run the other direction. But there's lives at stake, perhaps many if he can't find the source of that rolling wave and stop it. John runs towards it with both Zatanna and Phoebe along for the ride this time, passengers that will feel the pain as his, not their own.

    It plays out quickly, the story of his time beneath, the darkness, the *alone*-ness of it, the complete absence of hope to a degree that there aren't words to describe it, there just aren't words. The feeling of abandonment, loss... the long trek up stairs that never seem to end, too high to climb, alone in the dark.

    Meat hooks and bus stops and trips down a river of the dead, his dead... friends and others, swirling in the water, bloated, pointing, pawing at bus windows. A zippo lighter, his connection to whatever hope he had left put away when that hope dies. A flicked switch inside him, a change on a fundamental level that leaves him feeling hollow and empty inside... *alone*.

    It's not even ten minutes in the real world, but it seems like days inside his head. It all comes to a a horrifying end with hope ripped away once it's found after days wandering alone. Phoebe and her little group of 'rescuers'. Hope. Phoebe attacked by a shade, falling. His blind rage and the destruction in his wake as he attempts to get to her, falling to his knees beside her and then yanked out to find himself the most horrible, terrifying moment of his life. Yanked out... and Phoebe left *behind*.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe's hands were on him. It was only in dire emergencies that she would even try to heal him without giving him the chance to say no, and the way her heart rose into her throat? This was an emergency.

    Of course John would have run towards danger -- they both would. They both did. She feels everything. Everything. Silent and horrified as John's experiences are played out before them. Her hands grip firmly on his shoulders, holding onto him, and feeling that sense of dispair. That deep, deep sorrow...

    ... how could she have known?

    And then to see her own attack played out from his vantage point. The wraith ripping her side open to get at her light. The flash of ribs and color of guts in his vision, then flooded by fire. Everything in horrible vivid detail.

    Her hands still grip against his shirt, trying not to pull his skin with it.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    Magic rips Zee from the room.

And because it is John at the center of the dark waters sucking them down, Zee goes willingly, perhaps to finally understand.

    When he drives the hook into himself, she claps her hands over her sternum and gasps aloud. The sound of the water lapping at the bus threaten drowning if she doesn't cling to what she knows - that life and love exist someplace outside the dark inferno. Finally, she understands the walls he erects. All of that terrible journey.

     The descent into abandonment seems to last weeks not minutes. Once, she sees Persephone beckon to her, a promise of spring's return to light and love.

    Face wet, she crosses the room to huddle next to Phoebe, arms around both she and John, crying in relief at their solid warmth as she tries to project her certainty: John won't leave Phoebe or any of them behind in this world or ever at the mercy of the capricious gods and the universe. Nor will she.

John Constantine has posed:
    When John finally snaps to, starts to come around from it all, he's trembling. The realization of what just happened ...

    "No..." They weren't supposed to see that, to know it, let alone feel it. How could Phoebe have known when he's been doing everything he possibly can to hide it from everyone, until he finally went to Chas just a few days ago.

    He tries to pull away, repeating that single protest, it's a full sentence isn't it? "No." That little tilted shake of his head, with the nose scrunching like its wont to do, brow furrowed. "We have to finish this." No. Just no. That didn't happen, it couldn't have happened.

    For them, the memory of the feelings will be there, but the all of it will, eventually, fade like a bad dream. For him? It's almost all he sees these days when he closes his eyes. He can't *shake* it. John Constantine is a *master* at shaking Bad Shit off like water off a duck's back. Even if 'shaking' it means shoving it down and ignoring it. But this? He hasn't been able to shake or ignore and it *terrifies* him.


    "Just... just... go... this needs to get done."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe does not go. She doesn't even protest Zatanna's arm around her. She holds against John.

    And then her arms lower. Seventeen years old, with so much behind her and so much in front of her. Arms that should be scarred and untennable just very gently wrap around John. Her forehead to his shoulder. She's shaking, maybe with fear that he'd reject the affection and assurance from the kid, but her dark fingers curl on his other shoulder and she just holds against him.

    "This needs to get done, too." she whispers against his shirt. He may feel little wet spots, because she's not raising her head. It might kill him to see her cry for his pain.

    "You pulled me out. /You pulled me out/. And kept me /safe/." she whispers quietly against him. "you gave me a Home. And Hope. And told me things suck but they'll be okay. And you love me. And I love you."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Zatanna wipes her face and runny nose on a red hanky she pulls out of the sleeve of her tux, one arm still around John. She can't extricate herself from them yet. Won't. She feels him tense against her, his tremors working their way up her arms into shoulders. Some pain becomes somatic, etched into the fibers of the body.

"Oh, we'll finish this. Not like we're going to the Bahamas for a week on vacay," she snuffs, the words ending on a chocked laugh.

    "Will he hear Phoebe's heart's blood through all the pain? If he does, then there is more beauty in the world than she has felt for ages. "Christ, John, hear her, hear us."

John Constantine has posed:
    John really didn't want to talk about this or do this... not at all. And he's not going to break down like a blubbering toddler in front of them like he did Chas. No. John pulls on the easier road, a little bit anger.

    He *gently* extracts Phoebe from his person. "But you were *there* in the first place because of *me*," he points out to his daughter before he turns his attention back to Zatanna.

    "It's not that *easy*, Zee. If it were..." There's that little tilted shake of his head again. "I... I can't get rid of it, it's just there, burrowed into the middle of me like a bloody tick that won't let go. No matter how many times I *try* to pull it out, the head stays behind. Nothing makes fuckin' sense anymore. I look at Chas and all I see is the fact that he didn't *come* when I called and I know it's wrong, I know it's irrational and I know..." He reaches up to rub at his eyes with the heels of his palms, stubbornly *refusing* to fucking *cry again*.

    Then he tosses those hands in the air, frustrated. "Just... finish the wards, aye?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    That... hurt.

    Phoebe draws backwards, out of Zatanna's reach as John pulls himself away, and she bites the inside of her cheek, and then runs the back of her hand against her own eyes. Concentrate on the pain in your cheek. Taste blood. Heal it. her left hand twitched a little, and she breathes out.

    She lets him yell, and throw his hands up in frustration, and she listens to him get angry. She draws her legs up, bare feet giving just the smallest squeak against the floor as she sets her chin on her knees, and wraps her arms around her legs and breathes evenly. One, two, three in. Hold it. One, two, three out. Hold

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    "Didn't say it was easy or fairy dust nice. It's fucking hard, John. Like walking barefoot on glass hard. It's easier to turn to stone." She looses her hold on him, reluctantly, letting him take what road he will.

    She grinds her teeth down on the fuck you that wants to strike at the hurt.

    "It's the reason, I'm here," she says with dignity, rising to her feet, eyes sad for Phoebe's reaction, thinking desolately, "Will I be the next one he drives away?

John Constantine has posed:
    It's hard. It hurts all the way around, hurts everyone. But it's out there, the truth of it. As hard as it is, it's a step better than yesterday when everyone was just wondering 'what the fuck is *wrong* with John', innit?

    "I'll figure it out," he murmurs, aimed at both of them. "But this needs to be done." He picks up the paint brush he'd dropped in the middle of all that. Because it needs to get done. That's what he's been doing for the past eight weeks, going from one thing to the next to the next, all things that 'need to get done', because the doing of the things, it takes focus off the rest of it.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe had been waiting out the storm. She takes a deep breath, and she goes to pick her brush up as well.

    "... it is hard, when you never learned what it was like to feel safe in the first place, to learn it. It's... not like riding a bike." she scribes another symbol, watching it form. Keeping the paint from being too thick, too thin. She breathes out, and her voice is exuding a calm that she forces herself to feel. She dips her brush again.

    "Trauma causes damage. Hearts have to beat harder, brains get all mixed up and produce the wrong chemicals."

    Watch the curve here, Make sure this is all filled in. Her hand begins to quiver. She pauses, not willing to risk the ward she was finishing. "And we think we should be able to fix it on our own. Because why trouble anyone who wouldn't understand what it feels like to be in the dark. Hurting. Bleeding." she drops her hand a moment, but was careful to not let any of the paint touch her.

    "Hopeless. But keeping on with a smile because that's what is expected. Because you think no one likes you when you make them think about what you've gone through."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Zee takes a stuttered inhale, diaphragm still tight, and picks up her paintbrush. It requires chewing at the inside of lips to not say anything beyond, "Where next?"

    Back turned to them both. Tears start again as Phoebe frames the words she couldn't find for John. How stuck in repeating the hurt over and over again he seems. Her head pounds with the words, not hopeless, not hopeless. She pauses paintbrush poised in the air, afraid to touch it to the wall...we don't need you to smile and grit your teeth for us. We just needed to know. Silently she thanks synchronicity for that brush of magic paint to his forehead. Oh, we might not like it when you shout but it has never stopped us loving you. No wonder he loves Phoebe.

    She stutters through the next breath and relaxes her shoulders. Here we go.

John Constantine has posed:
    "Or when you try to talk about it or do any little thing to make it better, even for a *minute*, they tell you that not everything is about you," John murmurs quietly. "So you just fucking *don't*." Talk about it. "So you don't be made to feel like a selfish areshole."

    John's being extra careful now, making sure he doesn't end up with paint on his hands, making sure he doesn't touch his face again.

    "South," John murmurs in reply to Zee, this time opposite his daughter, opposite but working together.

    John takes up finishing up that East wall.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Opposites. Experienced master and newer apprentice. Backwards words and forward motion as Phoebe works on the North wall. Her work is steady, the weeks of mandala practice paying off as she breathes out, almost meditative as the music plays over their thoughts.

    "You're anything but." Phoebe points out. "How much literal blood have you spilled to make this building safe for us? I mean, that's why you took me in, wasn't it. I wasn't sleeping somewhere safe, even before you found out the Level of Shit I was in." Phoebe remarks. Phoebe, who doesn't curse much. She's still very calm as she speaks, counterpoint to John's anger. "So you had me stay behind the wards. It was the first time I'd felt safe since..." she pauses a moment, "... since before my house burned down, and Caroline got hurt."

    She feels her left hand tremble again.

    "I wish I could make you feel what I do... but I've got time. And patience."

    She takes a small step back.

    "... even if you don't beleive it, you deserve to feel it." she turns her head to John.

    "I'll totally cold-cock someone again."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    The master learns from the apprentice. An old adage that one. Zee hiccups, holding back the tears. "A selfish person would have left her on the streets," eyes steadfast on the new design before her.

    "An enraged bear with something stuck so deeply in him that no one could find it." She nearly smiles at that, stopping herself from sneaking a glance to see his reaction.

    She wants to touch the paint to her own forehead and Phoebe's. Maybe he would know then.

John Constantine has posed:
    John's working slower, trying to let himself 'recharge' between each bit because it's still hard. The wall may be missing a few bricks now, progress, but it's still there.

    "I kicked Jon, the other one, out of the bar last night," he confesses quietly. "He left his amulet when he left." There's not really much in the way of regret or remorse there. Maybe a little sadness, but not the other stuff. "I couldn't stomach him telling me one more time that it wasn't just about me or that there were other people that have suffered as much, or more, than I have... like I don't *know* that. I couldn't listen to him lessen..."

    That damned little tilted head shake again, that barely there movement that typically indicates he's going to clam up, say something he knows is going to get him in trouble or... do something insane - stupid might be an alternate word there, but is it really *stupid* if it works nine point nine times out of ten?

    Safe? Does he ever, has he ever felt that? Truly safe? Even in the House of Mystery, his nightmares stalk him consistently, always waiting in the wings to jump out. Safe. He's not sure he'd know it if he felt it.

    "Sometimes the bear's just hurt..." Telling statement that, something some already know about him. All that rage, it's not usually *rage*, it's pain and fear. Rage is easier, so much easier. It burns hot and then fades, pain and fear linger.

    Before more bricks fall out of that wall, he falls silent and goes all narrow focus on the work he's doing.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "... you couldn't stand him lessen what you've gone through." Phoebe remarks quietly, and she draws close to an end on her wall.

    "... because what you go through is so others don't have to?" she asks, finishing the strokes on the north wall, and she takes a breath, teetering back slightly. It has been hard for her to keep up with the warding of the two adults.

    She turns, and she drops down to the floor in a sit, pausing a moment to gather her thoughts, and very, very carefully she puts the paintbrush to the side.

    "It doesn't matter if it's drowning in twenty feet or in two feet, it's still drowning, you're still dead if you can't breathe." Phoebe points out. "And when you're drowning, you're not supposed to think 'oh hey I'll put a snorkle on that person', no, you put the snorkel on yourself. But you keep going snorkelless and trying to put scuba gear on others and some of them are just not getting it."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    Zee's hand finds the amulet around her neck, "Did you now? I haven't seen him since the party."

    She has found the magic's rhythm again, a breath, a heartbeat, a delicate tracery around a glyph of protection, pearls of magic strung around them to keep them safe within its walls.

     She stops painting to say, "He of all people, he should know. Unless somethings stay hidden from him and Thoth." She grimaces, "Oddly enough, he wants you to stop long enough to breathe and recover, thinking that it will keep you and Phoebe alive if you do that. Odd, isn't it? He should know who pursues her."

    Unbidden, Zee remembers a step too high to climb. Every brick makes it easier to climb that insurmountable height.

John Constantine has posed:
    "He knows *everything*, Zee." Everything, which likely even includes bits about him and Zatanna. "I used to call his grandmother once a week, sometimes visiting if there was room for it. I didn't know who she was to him." Everything, he was telling Gertie *everything*. And now he's not. One more thing he's lost, the person he unloaded to without guilt once a fucking week because it was her *job* to listen, her desire to listen. Now it's ... that release is just gone, before her... he told Meggan many of those secrets too. That's gone. "He's said he hopes I'll one day tell him like I did her." He scoffs out a little mirthless laugh, "No fucking *way*."

    His attention shifts to his daughter. "I don't need a snorkel, love. I always manage to tread the waters just enough to keep my nose afloat." Part of the problem, that... it's not really any way to live, is it?

    "But yeah... lessening it."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe draws her gaze up to John, and she looks at him with a plaintive, pained look on her expression.

    "Until something else weighs you down... or grabs you from beneath." she comments quietly, and tilts her head back.

    "Is the headache normal?" she asks, "Am I pushing too hard?"

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    "Bunch of god-driven voyeurs if you ask me. Everything?" Zee repeats with an embarrassed wiggle of her shoulders. "Wish I had known Gertie. We all start from where we start," she says thinking of Jon learning on the job.

    She doesn't want to stop work now. Some of John's panic driving him not to stop, working its way under her skin. Still, she turns around to look at them both.

    "Is it too much to ask you to not take on another job?"

John Constantine has posed:
    "Yes, it's normal, love. Go on then, off to bed, sleep it off." John nods his head toward the stairwell where her apartment waits to have her new memories overlaid a top those of her Dads.

    "Aye, everything. From these," John pulls up his left sleeve a bit after unbuttoning it with his teeth so he can keep the paintbrush in his right hand. He has more tattoos on that arm than he did back in the day, but they don't *completely* hide those little round burn scars that were ... more visible back in the day. "... to this.." He unbuttons his shirt far enough to reveal - again more tattoos than she would remember - but also the eight pointed star of a scar right over his heart, Zee was there for that one. "And everything between, before and after until two nights before she was killed, that was the last I spoke with her."

    ... just a beat and a little snort before he adds, "...not real eager to add to his collection at this point."

    He goes about 'redressing' himself before putting paint to wall again, almost done with that east finally.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe had stood up, and the intent was to go back to the loft, and not to the apartment -- didn't feel quite like home yet, but she pauses. She looks at John as he disrobes slightly, and she gives a soft wince, her eyes going to that eight-point star where there was once a gaping hole in his chest.

    "Don't you forget to rest either, Dad. I've got an idea for the circle in my apartment, and finished the mandala you gave me the other night. So just... don't... wear yourself too down?" she asks quietly, looking to Zatanna in askance. Keep an Eye on him.

    And she gives the older homo magi a smile and a dip of her head. "Thank you for your help this evening, Zed. It was great to watch you work as well."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    John overlays old memories with the shock of the new. Zee's mouth presses into a frown at the new scars crowding his skin, more at how thin he has become.

     Phoebe's voice pulls her from her reverie. Magic weary, Zee knows the signs. The magician nods twice quickly to the young magician, catching the wish. "It was a pleasure seeing you at work, too, Phoebe. We won't wear ourselves out, just finish what needs doing tonight."

John Constantine has posed:
    "I'm fine, love..." He always is. Dad's always good to go.

    But as soon as his daughter is out, both of the room and earshot, John staggers, hits one knee and then winds up flat on his ass with both lanky legs all stretched out in front of himself and then on his back on the floor, both knees bent up and his arm over his face.

    "Bloody fuckin' *hell*," he mutters from behind that arm.

    Couldn't fall physically apart with his daughter in the room.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    "How did I miss that?" Zee huffs to herself, carefully putting the brush on top of the can to kneel by John's side.

    She looks down at him, shaking her head, then gently brushes the back of the arm covering his face. "I promised, Phoebe," she says, half plaintively, half accusingly.

John Constantine has posed:
    Because John is an *expert* conman just like the rumors... he just uses it for more things than to just steal and cheat, that's how it was missed Zatanna.

    His whole bottom jaw just sort of quivers in that 'teeth almost chattering' way.

    Chas always knows what to do when this happens. Well, there's *one* thing that Chas always does when this happens so it's the one thing John knows to do, "Orange juice..."

    Bottomed out blood sugar is what this right here is... too much, too short a time, very little food, very little sleep. Eventually he hits a physical wall ... with his face.

    It's kind of why Chas tends to keep one of those little kid sized bottles of the stuff in one of his over-sized pockets.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
He wasn't like this when they were younger, she didn't know the signs. Over and over again. It's a bitch, even for magicians to get older, not that neither of them need walkers yet. "Orange juice?" she asks getting to her feet and looking quickly around the room for party leftovers.

"Lucky bastard," she mutters under her breath finding three kid's juice boxes laying on their sides next to some soft drinks.

She zips back to his side, offering a hand under his shoulders to get him upright, the little straw sticking out of the box already ready to drink from.

John Constantine has posed:
    John pushes himself up to his elbows. Orange juice is some pretty damned healthy shit, it's a wonder he doesn't burst into flames when he starts drinking. He finishes it quick though and then just lays back down and waits.


    He doesn't cover his face with his arm again though, he just stares up at the ceiling, eyes a little unfocused.

    "Can you finish the doorway?" he asks in a half whisper. The doorway, the threshold, really the most important bit outside the Heart. "I need like ten, tops and I'll be able to light'm up."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    "Don't pull anymore of this shit with me, John. Seriously." Hiding a sigh, she brushes a stray lock of hair back from his forehead.

    "I can finish the doorway, you know," and give you a magical boost, she doesn't say aloud. After watching him a moment, she pats him on the shoulder and rises to look down on him. "Need anything else?"

John Constantine has posed:
    "Just need a minute." So he takes a minute. John takes a minute to just stare up at the ceiling at a rather interesting little hole in the ceiling. He remembers that hole like it happened yesterday. Chas's first little pea-shooter of a gun. A drunken night out, two mates green behind the ears. ... with a fucking *gun* that they were going to use to shoot demons with, yes they were.

    He can still hear Chas's whispered, "Oh shite," after it went off, like the whisper was going to help anything after the sound of gunfire. The two of them running up the stairs laughing and falling over one another like bloody fools.

    A little piece of when things were just easier. He snorts a little laugh of a sound at the memory.

    That sound turns into a half a sob he just barely manages to choke back down before it becomes the real thing. His arm drops back over his face again and he wills the next one to not come, wills his breaths to settle back into something more even and manageable.

    It's just the low blood sugar, it'll pass. It'll pass.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Paintbrush in hand, she stops just as she was about to dip it into the still open can. She has a bit more to do before moving to the doorway. Straightening, she swallows back an exclamation looking at him, wavering with the brush in her hand.

"Christ," she mutters, angry at herself for the wave of tenderness. She puts the brush down and goes back to kneel by his side. "I'll just wait here a minute."

John Constantine has posed:
    The little bit of eye leaking that he can't stop is silent, hidden under that arm. When he finally settles and gets it under control though, John's face is all wet, eyes too bright when he lowers his arm. He's quick though, to reach up and rub all that away before pushing himself up to sit.

    "All good now, luv," he announces in a voice that's a little too rough and hoarse but steady enough. He cracks that crooked little half smile that never quite reaches his eyes if a person knows how to look. "See, just needed some sugar's all, aye?"

    He pushes himself to his feet and offers a hand down to Zatanna to help her pull herself to her own. "Time to get it done."

    Just get'er done. That's better than not, right? "We can knock it out in fifteen if you finish that little section and then come help me on the door."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
    "Right!" she says ironically, staring up at those too bright eyes and the cover-up smile. She does not say aloud. "Who's the stage performer here?"

    She takes his hand, wondering where he found this new energy.

    "Up! Here we go." She'll play along with him. Get it done. Grit her teeth and search her soul.

    Zee squeezes his hand, releases it then retrieves her brush, back turned to him as she studies where to pick up the thread on the southern wall.

John Constantine has posed:
    He pulled it out of his ass, same place he got that smile. John settles down on the floor with a bucket of paint and a brush of his own and starts framing the doorway. The building's old and run down, but its bones are solid, put together when they still used real wood for most things like the frame around a door.

    He's quick, John is, but still perfect in the way those long slender fingers push that brush to making perfect swirls and swishes, twirls and curls.

    Some in the right circles say that John Constantine is a genius, others call him insane - to watch him work points at both. There's no way the *insanity* of the things he hobbles together for this sort of thing *should* work, too much mix and match mishmash of all different faiths and followings. It *shouldn't* work, that's the insanity of it. The brilliance of it is in the fact that it *does* work and extremely well.

    When the two of them finally finish, he does hold his hand out to Zatanna, his right one, before placing his left on the doorknob. Time to light the place up with blood, sweat, tears, memories - both old and new - and maybe even a little love can be found in the shriveled, blackened thing that John Constantine has felt his heart becoming in the past two months. It's not the reality of it, there's more love in that broken, battered heart than in most, but it's his perception of his reality.

    Changing that perception won't be an easy road for him or anyone around him. But maybe it'll be worth it for those that stick by him through it?

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Neither of them are orthodox magic users, Zee's magic is language and she has an entire world of words to cobble it together with, though there is nothing makeshift about the authority of her brush strokes or spells. John's willingness to paint outside the lines, allied with the rigor of the magic learned from her father formed her early on. Insanity for her is repeating what has patently not worked, over and over again, expecting it to suddenly be better. So, what he does, what he paints makes perfect sense to her, it transcends what others call craziness and becomes the sublime.

She joins hands with him, looking deep into his eyes, knowing that more love resides in the battered heart ripped from him and restored than many might esteem. She nods and squeezes his hand. ".mrah su gnihsiw esoht dna live lla morf su tcetorP" (Protect us from all evil and those wishing us harm.)

John Constantine has posed:
    Too look terribly long into those haunted denim blues might be the true path to madness. John's well aware of the fact so he breaks that eye contact before she does. With just a little taptap with the index finger of the hand holding the doorknob, he murmurs, "Bring it together," in Latin.

    What comes next isn't the bright, colorful, blinding thing of last night. No, this is different than that. It's a soft glow that spreads out from the doorknob, to the frame and around the room. A soft sheen fills the entire room, similar to glittering snow falling on a sunny day. It settles over the room, seeps into the walls, into the bones and arteries of the place.

    It's the warmth of a stone fireplace after a long day in the cold, it's the warmth of the sun on one's face after the clouds have been dark for weeks, it's the warmth of a child's laughter. ... it's the warmth and comfort of a Home.

    ...and even John Constantine can't help but to smile, just a little, just one of those half things, but this one actually reaches his eyes, if just for a moment.

    They'll be safe, when they come in from the darkness battered and bloody, tired and maybe a little hopeless, they'll be safe and warm and *loved* here, even if most of them are never consciously aware of that last bit.

    Because to most? John's nothing but a snarky, cranky, bastard of a conman. It's a reputation he works hard to maintain.