Owner	Pose
Meggan Constantine	London exists outside the United Kingdom, a fiefdom unto itself. Being there brings a strange thrill to Meggan. The city that gleamed on the horizon so long remained outside a poor Romanischal girl's reach, a place broadcasting technicolour dreams. Late-night bars and clubs sparkle in party central as London knows it, terribly and defiantly alive. The point for being there at all is wrapped up in an oblong box, peppered by a lot of stamps. Not the most subtle option but carrying around the relic of the Once-and-Future King leaves few choices. Hence calling her better half and hoping John has a flipping clue. Tonight Soho shines in different ways, under a leaden sky peppered by a neon surge, traffic licking the margins of Piccadilly Circus. Sulky lines under ubiquitous black umbrellas seek shelter in Ronnie Scott's famous jazz club, the glitz Freedom Bar or The Box, or into the lively G-A-Y Late, what's exactly as it says on the tin. She looks back over her shoulder as though expecting the shadows to bite. Maybe they do. Sharp green eyes assess drivers and reflections. Slow-moving cars reflect images of the coiled urban dragon wrapped around church steeples and monuments to long-ago imperial greatness, the soaring skyscrapers of the City to the easts. "You figure this works good as any spot?" she asks, gesturing past a grand Victorian redbrick theatre up the road. "We wait too long and you run the risk of me standing on a table dancing in a disco round here. Spring and all."
John Constantine	"Control yerself, woman," John mutters, lighting a cigarette that illuminates his weathered face as he steps out of the darkness, "Plenty of time for Donna Summer later." His features are weathered. Far more so than normal. As though the youth has been drawn out of him. Despite it all, it doesn't make him look frail. He's healthy and hale, just old. Not to mention he lacks the green and silver affectations that he'd enjoyed for the last month or so. "But yeah, looks fine," he answers, taking a long drag and running a hand through platinum blonde hair, "Go for it."
Zatanna Zatara	Child of bright cities lit by the halo of street lamps and neon signs, Zatanna is at home. City child, she might be, but London still gets under her skin, jives her up, and welcomes her back to midnight walks and late night Chinese food as good as Hong Kong. Colonialism with all of its evils blesses London with the food of the once-conquered. Tonight's spread might be pure compensation for what she carries tucked under the starch of her designer shirt, perilous magic shrunk to a jewel that would tempt any thief and calls to those thirsting for power. The jewel saps all the flavor from the delicious food; better that it be stowed safely in a safe in Shadowcrest. Carrying it against her skin like this reminds her of what it can do. She rises from the table, leaves a bill too large for the food, and walks out the door, heading to Soho. Scrying for the help she needs to dispose of the jewel before it eats her mind.
Meggan Constantine	"Make me," sings the golden-haired girl, all laughter alloyed on her tongue that she briefly flicks over her lips. Meggan is all cheek, shrugging her shoulders and bouncing up onto tiptoe. She tilts her face up to the clouded sky, smile brighter than any sliver of the moon that might bleed through. "But you'd more than not like it too much." A cracking grin lifts and she blows a kiss back over her shoulder at John. His grumpiness does nothing to deflect her volatile mood. "Come, she's round here somewhere." The West End totters on spiked heels and the best threads through every facet of desire, eager to capture the fires of inspiration and escapism from the work week. Rain fills the gutters and a steady plink falls from awnings and brick buildings, a curtain muffling sound. Balmy and wet it may be, but spring still -- and with it, the battle of seasons and Great Courts reflected the Tuath de Danaan over there. She holds out her hand, tapping off options in the slew of clubs confined within Soho. "Mm, no, no, eugh. Slimy, not her. Spotting this through the grime's bloody tough, how do you See through it all?" None of that seems to be working, her Sight too broadly thrown, so caution is blown to the wind. "Let's do it the better way, have a blast and let her come to us. No need for poking our heads into every spot here. We can go have ourselves a squiffy picnic and a drink at Cahoots. Zee'll fit right in. You too, bein' all tatty noir." The shower flickers, shoved aside over them for no reason at all except she literally is a girl who can walk between the raindrops, Mum's favour and all.
John Constantine	"Half the fun of scourin' the pubs for a familiar face is stopping in all of 'em," John answers, as though Meggan's suggestion were an affront to everything he holds sacrosanct, "I don't want to go swing dancin' in some bougie basement where the drinks cost a month's wages. Give me whiskey in a dirty glass." But he doesn't fight it, instead following along behind Meggan with cigarette in hand. "They're gonna turn me away lookin' like this. Should be at home watchin' the telly and complainin' about migrants."
Zatanna Zatara	Zatanna looks up into the clouds mirroring the noise of lights below it and conjures herself an umbrella out of thin air. She has no desire to be wet while she searches for the magical pair. "Drat it," she mutters to herself, as prim as a grandmother. ".meht dniF" The little golden orb that bounces through the night in front of her, invisible but to other magical creatures like herself, starts to boogie to some unseen music. Intrigued, Zatanna follows until she is outside the flashing neon sign: CAHOOTS. The club pulls her in, not too many steps behind the two she seeks.
Meggan Constantine	Meggan shakes her head, as sunny as the day is long and practically fizzing with it. The cold crack of winter broke when she and Lydia invoked spring on Manhattan, but the true advent waits on no mortal but the Earth's orbit around the sun and axial tilts. Some business of faerie laws at that. "Nah, they'll turn you away at half the other places 'round cause they're full of hen and stag parties. And who wants to be there?" She points out a few tottering brides-to-be and their giggling or plastered retinues. "None of it makes any difference to me. Where you go I go, you know? 'Sides, they've a tunnel to the basement bar where they haven't even a sink. The drinks might actually be from pre-war. Though that dive bar on my phone looks fun." It even has a very put-out barman scowling at the camera, if anyone hunts the candid shots down on Google Maps. True facts. The little bouncing orb probably won't have much trouble finding a familiar signature or two, though she -does- go cross-eyed looking at it when it swirls around. "Tomi?" No, it's not a manic, slightly murderous will-o-wisp she befriended (long story) or a problematic spirit on a smoke break. All said, in they go, though she tugs John closer to her as she manoeuvres through the lobby to the hostess stand in the old Tube Station. The oblong box slung over her shoulder prooobably gets a look, stickers and tape and stamps and all. She has a ready explanation prepped to fire. "We're here for a friend's birthday. Spot for three and a bit, please?" All sunshine, all gleam, the empath's aglow. "Shove us wherever you have in a corner if it's easy." The wait isn't long.
John Constantine	"I'm the grandpa," John snarkily tells the hostess, "Meanin' I can get away with bein' a cad. Don't forget that." Then he's ushered inside, and he's already wincing. So much joy and fun and spirit - not at all the kind of watering hole he is used to or comfortable with. "Fuckin' hell, I feel like I'm gettin' an undercut just standin' here ... "
Zatanna Zatara	Of course, the little bouncing magic orb won't let either of them go until its master unleashes it and sends it back into the ether. Zee lets it bounce maniacally while she cuts around other people queuing for tables, pointing to the back of John's disreputable raincoat and Meggan's glowing hair, saying, "I'm with them." Some place between the street and her friends, Zee's black suit has become office wear from the forties, with a pinched waist, padded shoulders and wide lapels over pegged pants and a pleated waistline, made posh with a blousy jade green shirt. Her glossy black hair is in a stylish pompodor. Partly to annoy John, she sings out with a California accent, "Helloooo, you two. Thought I'd never find you."
Meggan Constantine	Is anything more exhilarating than taking a gamble? Risk brings the highest level of fortune for those who would risk Lady Luck's favour. Just so, a jaunty tip of her chin marks acknowledgment to Zatanna, because the woman knows how to make an entrance. Portals or greetings. A finger-wiggle becomes a proper hello. "Smashing, now we're all together. Cracking drinks, unwashed glasses, as you wish." Indifference holds no hope of withstanding Meggan, though she manages not to float down the narrow hall flanked in cushioned seats to a dingier corner of history. Peeling advertisements and framed, yellowed newspapers dated decades before their collective or apparent births tease at moving back in time, shedding decades under flickering Edison bulbs. The spit and shine chrome polish common in Soho turns dingier, rough weathered brick and sooted beams switchbacking underground to find a spot hewn out of medieval London to make way for progress. If progress is a train that won't come. Booths under snaking wires and stools shimmying to the heaving sway of the sleeping London dragon give a spot far less glamorous than... intact, really. Roof not caved in, walls standing, that counts. She stops to stare at a confection of vacuum tubes and chipped paint disguising whatever it was, other than a purveyor of 'LETHAL VOLTAGE'. "It's live," she adds to no one but probably John. "Things go pear-shaped, let's not play over here, right?" A surreptitious brush of her fingers over the wall is purely to feel what's impressed there, and she has to fight that damn long container while the hostess drops them off at a far enough booth. Maybe John's displeasure has left a mark. Maybe not. All said and done, they have a barrier of another booth, so that's something. "Aren't we wonderfully sneaky? Him, though, I'm absolutely shite at it." Well. Compared to John, yes. The correction settles for a side chat. "Other than pulling it over Eclipsy-prat's eyes."
John Constantine	"Here she is," John announces, having begrudgingly extinguished his cigarette in accordance with the no smoking policy and turning to look at Zatanna. She hasn't seen him since he excised the Spectre and paid the price by being forced to accept his 'true' age. So while he looks like John Constantine still, he's a John Constantine approaching his seventies.
Zatanna Zatara	"Hello, dears," she repeats, closer up. Before she lets them settle in the booth, she gives them both a kiss, stopping the bouncing orb between softly proffered smooches, for one cheek softened with age, for another electric with magic. Eyeing the package, Zee taps her chest with a hollow thump and widens her eyes in question to them both. "Well? Drinks and then?"
Meggan Constantine	Waiting quite until John chooses to sit down to pounce or eye up the menu to see if truly it matches his dismal expectations, Meggan smiles. The incandescent crackle through buried lines and people entombed in festive venues adds to the sparkle of a returned brush of her lips to Zatanna's cheek; emotive and elemental, those lines cross in ways she can't entirely suppress. Some days, a wonder she remembers to stay cohesive at all. "And then?" A rising note, question and possibilities both. "Sounds lovely to me. Maybe some bottle they can scrounge from the deepest cellars, right next to the amontillado." Gruesome turns being so bright could be mildly disturbing. All said, she props her chin up on her palm and runs her fingers down John's arm, a brief measure of hello with the very questionable trenchcoat in the way. "You want to lay out what's happened, 'cos I'm rubbish at summaries."
John Constantine	"So," John announces, picking up the drinks menu and looking it over thoroughly, "What do you both need to get soused and rent a cheap hotel room with me so I can die of a heart attack with a smile on my face?" But then he's asked to provide a summary of recent events and he begrudgingly puts the menu down to speak. "The Spectre - that is, God or part of God or whatever you want to call it - took up temporary residence in my body. I used it to do what I needed to do, and then he decided he ought to say. I disagreed. Eventually we came to a compromise, and part of that compromise is I need to come clean about myself." He gestures down at his much older body: "Truth is, I was born in 1953. Got a second go of life in the 80s and kept it mum. This is the real me."
Zatanna Zatara	"Oh, I'm all for the drinking and an upscale hotel," the attempt at gaiety quenched as she looks closer at the changes wrought on John. She had walked away from New York with the intention of never returning, wanting nothing to do with the likes of Chas or Jon. When she sees the results, she second guesses herself, bitten deeply by remorse. Under her fingertips straying to her neck is the answer. She could change it all. "Doesn't mean we don't love you," said with a quick glance at Meggan. She doesn't need the confirmation. "You are 68 years young, love."
Meggan Constantine	That speech about heart attack for a moment arrests any response out of Meggan, at least verbally. Game of high-speed ping pong between the Taiwanese Olympic team on one side and the South Koreans on the other, and here she is like a 15-week old cat trying to follow the conversation. A line sloughs over her brow incapable of wrinkling short of artificial or temporary means as time rolls round. "You're still you. Doesn't change a whit," she finally says. A light shrug shakes off whatever confused dregs might remain. "You know all my odds and ends, and accept them. Who can ask for more?" Trust is a balm to soothe over any stinging wounds a surprise might inflict, and truly, this surprise comes as plenty less than some. "Zee, you want to get into it before I start conjuring drinks? That bar is a stone's throw away and ought not to take so long to... oh, you never ordered." Bright girl, right? She glances at the oblong 'birthday present.'
John Constantine	"Settled, then," John answers with a wave of his hand, "Give something for this old man to live for after the drinking." He leans back now, mostly extricating himself from the conversation for the moment. Eyes half-closed, as though absorbing something from the mere presence of the pair.
Zatanna Zatara	Pinching the jewel under her shirt, Zee's sapphire eyes linger on John now become older. Age despite the drinking and cigarettes has been kind to him. Good bones will out. He is still handsome to her, still has that bad boy something that is never far from inviting her into good times or what others might deem as trouble. "Deal," she seals the bargain, knowing the full weight of pacts as he well as he does, all too well. "If we are truth-tellers this evening, then I have to tell you." Her voice trails away, the sapphire of her eyes darken like the sky at sunset. "We have to move fast. It is invading my head." She drags the next word out from under the weight the magic jewel is becoming. "Faerie?"
John Constantine	"Faerie's always a good solution," John says with a nod, "Infinite space, or near enough as to make no difference. Plenty of folk there willing to guard a trinket in exchange for the right to put it in their horde where no one can ever touch it or look at it again. Dragon, maybe? Or somethin' like that?" He glances sideways at Meggan.
Meggan Constantine	Good bones, or a legacy of hard living established through a long line of survivors. Some traits win in the end, regardless of magical forebears or occasional draughts at the well of eternity. Or Rock. One mustn't disregard the old telltales. Meggan tips her left hand, finger dancing left to right, the eternity knot woven into her skin a faint white ribbon imposed on the warmer complexion around it. "We'd be travelling deep to put them back, supposing we don't toss them to the old coot." She shakes her head to the notion. Only one person gets that bittersweet, smirked tone out of her most days and it's not Constantine. "Best to keep Merlin out of this. John, we've two Treasures of Britain at the table. We need to put them back where they belong." She draws out a sigh, sitting back and patting the box. "My people were tasked to keep the sword safe. Not sure this is divine providence signifying that I was to carry it, and that makes me all your queen." A pause for dramatic intensity follows, and she adds, "Putting it back in its pond is important. You don't need to tell me that supreme executive power doesn't derive from some farcical aquatic ceremony and 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you, John."
John Constantine	"Well, then it's settled," John answers simply, clapping his hands together and looking to Zatanna, "Tomorrow, we go traipsing into the countryside and throw these things away so Megs can finally free herself from having to make Monty Python references every five minutes. I swear, it's like being married to a computer science major in the 90s."
Zatanna Zatara	"The take-away boxes would be the death of me," Zee replies dead pan. Again, that wide-eyed query, her gaze roving between them both with a quick take at the bar. "There is far better liquor in Faerie. Shall we go there and discuss just who will take this," she taps her shirt front. "I agree, not him, not him. But who?"
Meggan Constantine	"He asked I might once," Meggan replies, cutting in without so much sting whatsoever. All creamy orange blossoms and paper-fair cherry blooms. "After the favour he did, I obliged. Don't be jealous." Because when a magic sword asks for a name drop, why deny Excalibur? With a laugh ringing like bells -- fair warning to them all from the Kindly One there -- she looks all about the buried control room, so unlike matters fae. Not that it quite matters. The artifice and the denial of a present time will do as a basis, Soho seething in its manifold expressions of excitement and entertainment. "I've not tried opening a gateway in a pub before. A club, yes. We'd be better slouching out into the alley." Her eyes narrow, pupils vanishing, just a fragmentary reminder of the human guise being skin deep, no more. "Unless..." And so the journey begins.