Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

But we're not friends and we're not lovers; we're just trouble.

The first shock of the cool floor against the soles of her bare feet makes Sara’s toes curl in. A shiver works its way up her spine, but the hot-and-cold contrast between her skin and the steel of the ship feels good and so she takes her time navigating the darkened corridors of the Waverider, stepping heel-to-toe, heel-to-toe. She forgoes asking for the lights, preferring instead to move in the shadows.

The specifics of the dream that pulled her from slumber are nearly gone from her perception now, lost in the fog of wakefulness, but the effects linger. Her pulse taps strong and insistent against the vein of her neck and knocks under her ribs in a way that has her still sweating in her cotton pajamas. Her nerves sting with a known and enticing energy and she shivers again—her skin turned gooseflesh—despite the ardor seeping from inside.

She licks her dry lips, craving the bite of good scotch on her tongue.

“Gideon, lights at 50% please,” she says as she ascends the steps to the parlor.

The lights slowly fade on as Sara crosses the room, heading straight for the bar. She picks up an empty glass and moves to unstopper the decanter when she feels keen eyes on her. She knows she’s not alone. She puts the glass down and turns slowly, the stopper grasped tightly in her fist, all senses on full alert.

In the half-light she can make out the figure of a man lounging on the armchair, one leg bent, the other stretched out, sipping at her good whiskey. 

He happens to be completely naked.

“Jesus, John, put it away,” she says, raising a trembling hand to hide the sight of John’s nudity, voice shaky from the sudden adrenaline rush.

“What, you getting shy on me now? It’s nothing you haven’t seen—or enjoyed—before,” he taunts, but still makes a show of folding the smallest corner of the towel under him over his lap. “Didn’t want me arse getting stuck to the leather,” he adds, gesturing to the towel and her nose twitches in mild disgust.

His efforts at covering up do almost nothing to preserve his modesty and Sara instinctively sweeps her eyes up the cocksure silhouette until she meets his knowing stare.

“I thought I told you my good liquor was off limits,” she says, turning away from John’s probing gaze, focusing instead on the chipped borders of her toenail polish.

“So you did,” he says, bringing the glass up to his lips, sucking on his teeth once he’s sipped at the whiskey. “But you, uh, you say a lot of things, luv.”

She locks eyes with him for a tense moment, trying to decrypt the message, but he gives nothing away.

Trust John to make something meaningless sound so ominous. That’s his real power, and the danger of having him around; he can turn any situation in his favor. Like right now, when he’s the one who’s naked and yet she’s the one feeling uncomfortably exposed.

Sara turns her back to him and finally pours herself a drink. She practically gulps at it, feeling the whiskey carve a burning path all the way from throat to belly, blooming soothingly in her chest. She closes her eyes and exhales a silent breath as the frantic energy inside her begins to quiet.

She doesn’t take her scotch on the rocks, but she’d kill for some ice right now, she's still so hot. Lacking the ice, she makes do with dabbing at the back of her sweaty neck with a hand.

“Nightmares?” John asks, pulling her out of her moment of tranquility.

“No,” she says and doesn’t offer any further explanation. He’s the last person she wants to talk about her dreams with. Still, her curt answer proves to be too much information nonetheless.

“Ah, I see. The other kind of dream that has one squirmin’ in the sheets, then.”

A hot flush spreads anew all over Sara’s face and chest, making her ears burn and just like that she’s once again hyper aware of her lasting arousal. She wraps an arm around her middle and the slight pressure makes her want to squirm.

Damn him.

See, John is not wrong.

She’d awoken with a hand down her panties, her sex swollen and slick, need pressing so hard she’d had no other choice but to give into the lust and rub at herself until her thighs parted involuntary and she was contracting around nothing in that way that makes her crave and yearn.

It’s not the first time it’s happened either. 

Lately, she’s traded nightmares for fevered dreams. There are no real, discernible images to these dreams, just impressions: adrenaline, danger and the rush of being forcefully and furtively fucked. She wakes up from these dreams needy and desperate, reaching for the warm body next to her. Except, there is no body, because she’s not at Ava’s—at home . She’s alone on the Waverider. Tonight, though, had been the first time she’d finished herself off after one of them. She’d felt oddly guilty about it before,she still does, because those dreams, well, they are everything her life used to be.

“Good to know I’m not the only one with a metaphorical case of blue balls,” John says. “This playing hero gig with you lot has really done a number on me sex life, y’know. No fun for Johnny on this tin can, but you’re all shacked up with the lady boss an’ all. So what? Is she holdin’ out on ya? I hear it’s the curse of woman-on-woman domesticity.”

“Excuse me?” Sara’s fingers twitch and tighten around her glass, arousal tempering down just enough to make room for another darker, primal emotion.

“Oh, you know, lesbian bed death,” John says, tipping his head back to swallow the last of the scotch in his glass, completely cool, like he hasn’t just said something terribly offensive and inappropriate. “Wouldn’t have guessed it from you but I reckon that broad of yours is lez enough for the both of ya.”

Sara’s every muscle becomes stone as she readies for attack. She takes a deep breath and just like that, she feels herself deflate as the self-righteous indignation leaves her.

“Don’t, okay? Just… don’t.”

It’s moments like this that make her miss the days before John moved into the ship. What was she thinking when she'd decided to make him her pet project? He takes up so much space, his energy is inescapable. It’s exhausting. Having him bear witness to her middle of the night existential crisis is probably more than she can handle right now.

He raises his hands, palms out, but the conciliatory gesture is at odds with the mocking curl of his mouth. She really wants to punch it and it takes all her effort not to reach out and do just that.

“We have a perfectly good sex life,” she says and she hates herself for rising to his bait but she’s tired of him acting like he knows her, like her new life is just a whimsy that he can shake his head at.  

“Sure, and that’s why you’ve been staring at my bits for the past three minutes. Face it, luv, you’re wound tighter than a bloody girdle.”

“Hmm, and yet, unlike you, I can go home to get laid any time I want,” she says, refusing to cower to him, even as that pearl of doubt settles in her gut.

“Then why don’t you?” he challenges.

Touché.

Why doesn’t she?

Things have cooled down between her and Ava, she’ll give him that. When they started, when they’d pledged to making it work, they hadn’t anticipated it’d be difficult to make time for their relationship. They are time travelers, for fuck’s sake, with the ability to travel anywhere at the speed of thought. But then work got harder and the pressure mounted and it got easier and easier to hide in their jobs, whether hunting down magical fugitives across the timestream or running the Time Bureau. And when they’d been backed into a corner and forced to make a choice, Ava had run to her rules and order, Sara to her chaos and now they are two extraordinary people stuck in a perfectly ordinary rut.

John pushes himself off the chair and holds his towel in a messy bundle over this crotch. He steps up to her, just shy of really invading her personal space, forcing her to look up to maintain eye contact.

“I’ll tell you why you’re here getting hot 'n bothered arguing with me instead of messing up the sheets back in DC,” he says and Sara’s heart pounds in her ears as cold dread settles in her stomach. “It’s the same reason you haven’t gone home in a week. It’s not really a sex thing. It never is. Oh, I’m sure you and the missus are having all the sweet love makin’, soul connecting, looking into each other’s eyes shite. It’s great, innit? While you have it. But it doesn’t scratch your real itch. The itch that was there before her, and will be there after her.”

“There’s more to life than just chasing adrenaline highs,” she sighs, wondering who exactly she’s trying to convince. 

“I really wish that were true, but for folks like us, the itch always makes itself known, eventually. And when it does, it brings nothing but hurt.”

The wisdom in his voice is genuine enough that she forgets to be mad at him and something like pity comes forth instead.

“What happened to you, John?” she asks, and she’s lost count of the times she’s asked the question, of the times she’s tried to reach out and do for him what he’d done for her back in the asylum. Look at me John, she wants to say. I made it out. Did she, though?

But just like all the times before, John hides behind a smirk and says, “I happened.”   

He clicks his tongue and puts his empty glass back on its spot in the bar, even though it’s dirty.

“Well, this has been fun an’ all, but I’ve got places to be tonight.”

“Oh? Really?” She says, momentarily taken aback by the abrupt change of subject. “And how exactly do you think you’re getting anywhere? You’re not allowed on the jumpship without supervision.”

“Don’t need it,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “Got me own courier. Nicked it off’a Gary a while back.”

Sara just sighs and shakes her head in exasperated disbelief. She can feel a headache forming behind her right eye. “Well, I’m gonna need you to hand it over. That’s stolen government property and, technically it’s a punishable offense. We’re on thin ice as it is. The last thing I need is you going off and making things worse.”

John just laughs, an unfeigned straight-from-the-belly laugh that makes Sara’s cheeks flush with shame; he’s laughing at her. She’s surprised by how much it smarts.

“Well look at you, all domesticated and law abiding. The wild child’s all grown up. What? You gonna run and tell on me? Maybe what you should do is come with me, make sure I don’t step on any butterflies.” He takes a purposeful step forward, close enough now that she can smell the remnants of his shampoo and feel his whisky breath on her face. “Tell me something, luv, when’s the last time you said bugger all and did something spontaneous and fun just cause you wanted to?” he says, his voice dripping with challenge. It makes Sara’s blood sing and her heart pound.

She knows the answer to that: when she’d fucked him in the laundry room of Sumner Asylum in the year 1969.

But she stands her ground and forces herself to keep the eye contact, refusing to show him how much he’s rattled her. Eventually, he smiles and takes a step back and she squares her shoulders and crosses her arms over her chest.

“Suit yourself, sweetheart,” he says, throwing his towel over his shoulder as he walks away, bare-assed, down the hall into the dark.

She watches him go and after making sure he’s really gone, Sara sinks down into the chair John vacated. She sips at the scotch but it doesn’t taste as satisfying now and she puts the glass down on the floor because what she really wants to do is throw it against the wall to see it shatter.  

Fuck John Constantine and fuck the way he can always knock the feet from under her with such ease. And fuck the way she just lets him.

She does care about him. He’s one of hers now and she’ll never forget how safe he’d made her feel when Mallus was hunting her, or how he’s helped saved her soul what feels like too many times now. But she hates that she needs him here by her side because John is a mirror of could-be’s and possibilities. A cautionary tale made flesh and blood. He’s everything that could happen to her, if she lets it. And she hates that his words echo everything she tells herself in the quiet moments:

This isn’t you, Sara.

How does she say, I love you but this life we’re reaching for feels like it’s someone else's ? 

A year ago she’d nearly driven herself mad with the mundanity of normal life and yet she’s spent the past 6 months trying to build just that. In the morning, she wakes next to her beautiful girlfriend, they go to work, they come home. And then they do it again. And again.

Where had it gone wrong? It hadn’t, of course. It’s just her, always her and her restless soul and her bad adrenaline habit.

See, no one ever told her being happy would take so much effort. Or that being happy and staying happy were two different monsters. Fighting her darkness everyday, that had been exhausting, but she’d done it so long it’d become as effortless as sleep.

But it’s like he’d said: the itch always makes itself known and it’s prickling like pins and needles under her skin. 

There's a selfish wish taking shape inside her heart and it manifests in those quiet moments on the days when she slips away from the Waverider, and she’s home between missions, sitting across from Ava at their dinner table, or when they’re cuddled together watching a movie and she's got her fingers threaded through Ava's soft hair, and she’s thinking of how complicated their simple life really is. And she wants to say: quit your job, come with me, let's say fuck you to the rules and make our own adventures. But who is she to ask that Ava give up the only sense of self she’s ever known?

Sara knows this much: being captain of a time traveling ship, swashbuckling through history, is her purpose. It’s where she feels most alive.

She stares ahead at the spot where she and Ava had shared their first kiss.

I'm not normal, I'm never gonna be normal, is what she’d screamed.

“Fuck,” she grunts, throwing her head back over the edge of the chair.

She pushes herself off the chair and all but runs down the steps to the bridge. She should stop and think about why she’s not opening up a time portal back to DC right now instead of chasing the stale smell of tobacco down the hall. But she doesn’t and instead lets the part of her she’d kept buried inside awaken.

She stands in front of the library doors, palms sweaty and heart pounding in her ears. She knocks and the door slides open a moment later. He’s there, still half-undressed, balancing a cigarette between his lips, looking like he already knows why she’s come calling.

“So, where are we going?”

Chapter Text

Walk my way, I'll share the things that you want.

The time portal opens to a dark and foggy Manhattan alley in their present day, 2018, near the turn of the year. They step through and the portal closes, taking with it the bright lights of the Waverider, leaving them exposed in the sudden and chilly penumbra. John lights a cigarette straightaway. The tension he’s been carrying in his shoulders instantly loosens at that first hit of tobacco, much like hers had at the first taste of the whiskey earlier. Sara fits her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket and idles beside him, waiting for him to make a move. 

John had been cagey with the details of his plans for the night, only promising her a distraction from her existential frustrations. No time travel to eras unknown, no magical fugitives or ethical debates, no protocols or approval ratings or expense reports, no rules, regulations or routines; just him and her and a good ol’ fashioned night out on the town. 

Of course, when John Constantine is involved, it’s anyone’s guess as to what exactly that could entail. Sara would be lying if she said that wasn’t exactly what made the night’s prospects so enticing because these days even the chaos of the Waverider feels mired in predictability.

John seems to be waiting for something specific to happen, Sara thinks, as she watches him shift his weight from foot to foot and peek at his wristwatch between puffs of his cigarette. The glow of the faint ember catches in the hollows of his face, and the play of light and dark makes him look an impressionist painting. 

Just then a car pulls up to the mouth of the alley and they both turn their attention to it. It’s a taxi, Sara notes. The fluorescent light of its yellow sign casts long and ghastly shadows on the pavement. 

A very tall man exits the car, a black bag in hand. He circles the car and Sara automatically moves to stand in front of John, mentally running through the score of weapons hidden on her body. 

“Keep your knickers on, he’s a friend,” John mumbles, his cigarette bobbing precariously between his lips.

Sara allows her muscles to relax, even if she keeps her senses sharp as she follows him down the path to where the car is parked. She tries to adjust her eyes in the dark to figure out who the new person could be but his face remains hidden under the cap he’s wearing. 

“You bring the stuff?” John asks the stranger and Sara fights the urge to roll her eyes at how stupidly cliche it sounds. Sometimes she thinks John buys into his ‘man of mystery’ actt a little too much.

The stranger, though, doesn’t hold back his exasperation and huffs a breath as he drops the bag into John’s clumsy arms.

“Hello to you, too, John,” the man says in a flat tone. He then turns to her and extends a large hand. “Forgive his manners, the name’s Chas.”

“Sara,” she says, meeting him halfway and he lights up with recognition when he hears her name. Up close, he doesn’t look as scary, despite his impressive height. He’s got a soft, friendly face that immediately puts her at ease. He looks like someone’s dad.

“It’s nice to finally put a face to the name. I’ve heard a lot about you,” Chas says.

She’s taken aback for a moment, as this is the first time she’s heard of him, but she can’t pass up the opportunity to push John’s buttons just a little.

“Aw, sweetie, you told him about me?” she says in a saccharine voice that grates even her ears.

“Well, he had to know who to blame if I never came back from our magical mystery tour, didn’t he?”

Sara punches John on his shoulder and he stumbles back slightly, causing his cigarette to fall to the ground.

“Oi, watch it, all right. Me coat’s new.” 

John makes a show of brushing invisible ashes from the front of his trench coat and Chas shares a look with her, a certain resigned fondness she understands so well her lips curl up in a sympathetic smile of her own.

“I gotta go, John. I’m on the clock and I have actual fares to pick up,” Chas says. He points to the black bag. “It’s all in there, what you asked for. Though, I couldn’t find a… whatever-it-was dagger anywhere at your place so I brought you a kitchen knife with a fancy marble handle. I’d appreciate it if I could get it back after. Renee’s gonna go crazy when she realizes it’s missing.”

“Yeah. Sure, mate,” John says with a dramatic sigh. “We wouldn't wanna upset Renee.”

“Look, John, whatever you have planned, just be careful.”

“Whatever you say, mum.”

“I mean it, John. Call me if you guys need a ride later. It was nice to meet you, Sara.”

“Yeah, same,” she says, and she means it. 

Chas hugs John goodbye and whispers something in his ear that Sara can't make out. He waves at her then walks around the cab to the driver’s side again. 

She watches John watch his friend and feels the ice built between them begin to thaw, at least on her end. Meeting Chas, however briefly, has endeared her to John in ways she’s struggled with over the past few months they’ve been working together. 

Last year, when he’d helped her with Mallus, she’d felt a connection to him the likes of which she’d rarely felt in her life. For that brief moment she’d felt comforted by the feeling you can only experience when someone sees and understands you deep to the marrow of your bones, unqualified, for better or worse. A perfect moment of stillness amidst the chaos. It was neither sexual nor romantic, just human, and, god, how she’d needed it.

She’d thought that connection lost. They’ve struggled to see eye to eye so much that at times she’s wondered what she ever saw in him. She thought it was her, that she’d moved on, become a different person. And maybe it is that, a little, but he’s responsible for his share of the blame, too. He’s stubbornly kept himself so cloaked in mystery, so deliberately and infuriatingly cultivating the image of the impenetrable man. He buries himself deeper and deeper the more she probes. She’s stopped asking. No use banging her head against a wall. It’s part of what frustrates her so much about him. He knows so much about her (sometimes she worries too much) yet he’s still all secrets and misdirection to her. Hardly seems fair.

But after witnessing him so at ease with someone he calls a friend, someone who clearly cares about him, she knows the man who shared his own demons in her moment of vulnerability is still somewhere in there. 

If only she could figure out what happened to him.

“Hey, do give my best to Renee, will ya?” John yells and Chas just raises his middle finger in the air as he gets inside his cab. John descends into a wheezy laughing fit that ends in a hacking cough. Those stupid cigarettes will kill him one day. If the Devil doesn’t catch him first.

“The missus hates me,” he rasps as he regains his breath.

“Can’t imagine why.”

Sara’s mind naturally drifts toward Ava for a second as it draws the obvious parallels. She’d put on a brave face but Sara knows Ava would be so upset if she knew what Sara was up to right now, forgoing a trip home to abscond on unknown adventures with John Constantine, in the middle of the night, no less. The carefree mood slowly turns into something entirely different as the dark thoughts take hold. The guilt wriggles inside her like a thing that’s alive. 

There’s another feeling creeping behind the guilt, though. A little voice whispering that she’s got nothing to feel guilty for. John is her friend and if her girlfriend doesn’t like him, then that’s Ava’s problem, not hers.

Sara shakes all thoughts away. She’s here to have fun and escape for just a little while, not dwell on the things that keep her up at night. 

“Ok, let’s see how the knob head did, eh? Hold this open for me, would ya?” John says as he hands her the bag.  

Aside from the big butcher knife, she spies a collection of bowls, cloth, candles and what looks like dried herbs in plastic baggies inside the bag.

Probably drugs.

“John, what the hell is all this? Where are you taking me? A night out on the town doesn’t mean let’s perform ritual sacrifice, you know.” 

He ignores her as he continues to rummage through the contents of the bag, muttering to himself. Seemingly content with the search, he stuffs his hands inside his coat pockets and rocks back on his heels, filling his lungs with a deep breath.

“Nice night for an orgy, innit, luv?”

“Excuse me?!”

“I thought you said you wanted some adventure,” he says without a trace of irony in his voice. “Of the non ritual sacrifice variety of course. A nonorthogenital fertility ritual, on the other hand, sounds like just the thing to get your juices flowing and deal with your, uh, dream problem. Oh, don’t look at me like that. It’s all a load of bollocks. We’re going to someone else's orgy, alright?”

She’s struck dumb for the moment, holding on to the bag like it’s the only thing keeping her from kicking his ass. 

“Is that supposed to make it less weird? Oh, as long as it’s someone else’s orgy and not ours. You’re not really helping your case, John.”

He makes an impatient sound at the back of his throat and leans into her like he’s sharing a secret, a playful smile lighting up his face. 

“Do you know how much money some New York politicians will pay just to feel freaky once a month? And all we have to do is show up, light a few candles and spit out a few nonsense words for those privileged yankee cunts to get their rocks off to the thought that they’ve knocked on the gates of hell and lived to tell the tale.”

“So, what you’re saying is that you brought me out here to help you run one of your cons. Nice, John, real nice.”

“Oh, come on. Those bloodsucking wankers are practically begging to be robbed. And who am I to deny them, right? Plus, it always pays to know who’s knobbing who in those circles. Good blackmail material, you see. And one never knows when such information could come in handy.”

All she wanted was to get drunk with someone who wouldn’t push back when she complained about her life. Despite all her posturing about adventure she’d figured they’d find a seedy hole in the wall somewhere, get drunk on cheap scotch and point out the people they’d hypothetically go home with if circumstances were different. And at one point it’d stop being hypothetical, for John anyway, and he would throw a sly wink her way and slither off with whatever conquest he’d made on his arm, leaving her alone to finish off the last of the whiskey, at which point she’d portal back to the ship, count her blessings and pass out in a drunken stupor. But of course that is too pedestrian for John Constantine.

“‘Course, if you really don’t want to I suppose you could just go back to the ship.”

What are you so afraid of, mum? A voice taunts insider her head. It sounds like Charlie.

“And no one gets hurt?” she asks John.

“Nothing but their pockets. Now, stop being a bleeding killjoy and let’s go before the lot of them blows their wad, yeah?”

She can’t help but bristle at the word killjoy, just like she secretly hates it when they call her ‘ mom’ in that tone that’s really saying ‘why are you sucking the fun out of everything, you used to be cool ’. She’s not sure exactly when ‘responsible’ and ‘fun’ became such fraught and diametric concepts inside her, but she hates it.

Killjoy. She’ll fucking show him.

She thrusts the bag toward John’s chest and steps through the portal he’s just opened, squashing the voice inside her head that says that maybe she is doing something terribly stupid.

After all, it is a nice night for an orgy.

It starts at the pit of her stomach, a little bubble of an impulse that grows harder and harder to hold back with every second as they hastily walk down the sidewalk, shoulder to shoulder, away from the lavish Upper East Side mansion where they've just left a crowd of 20 yuppies worshiping a sex deity that technically does not exist.

Memories of the crowd of middle aged, flabby WASPs theatrically moaning and thrashing as she and John performed their bullshit ritual play in Sara's mind again and she collapses on the steps of the nearest home as the laughter finally explodes. John chuckles along until they're both cackling like drunks and tears are leaking out of the corners of their eyes.

“So, is that what you do between exorcisms when you’re not traveling on a timeship with me?”

“Sometimes I do seances,” he shrugs.

That sets her off again, though more subdued this time. When the giggles peter out, she leans back on the steps, supporting herself with one hand flat on the concrete and legs stretched out toward him.

“I can’t believe they fell for that,” she says, catching a stray tear with a knuckle, still amazed their stupid, crazy transparent act worked, even if she’s sort of become an expert on making crazy work during her tenure as Captain.

“You’d be surprised what people can convince themselves of when they really want to.”

She raises an eyebrow and throws him a flat look.

“You were chanting riboflavin sexualis over and over.”

“Heh, caught that, didn’t you?”

He plops down next to her, mimicking her posture. 

“Lucky for us, their ears are not as sharp as yours. Though I’m sure if any doubts arose, your grand finale took care of them. You, sweetheart, might just be a natural at this, Lady Lazarus.”

She puffs out a tiny laugh at the mention of the name she’d impulsively given herself.

“What can I say? I was overwhelmed by your impressive display of power,” she teases. 

It had been a spectacular ritual, if she says so herself, complete with dripping candles and strange sigils drawn in chalk, a ‘fertility potion’—watered down warm cranberry juice, star anise and lavender—flickering lights and a stunningly convincing seizure courtesy of the Lady Lazarus herself. Or the grand finale, as John had called it.

The host had initially balked at her unexpected presence when they’d arrived, wary of her and fearing for his privacy. She’d had half the mind to tell him not to worry because she had no fucking clue who he was, but that would’ve probably only succeeded in offending him (men have such fragile egos), so she’d come up with the story of being John’s magical partner, claiming the ritual required the perfect balance of feminine and masculine energy for it to work properly. It’d been so easy to slip into the lie, just like slipping into one of their period costumes, and then it was just like any other mission. Except better, because tonight she’s not a timekeeping Captain and thus not at all responsible for the potential mess left behind by their adventure.   

“Admit, pet, you had fun.”

Sara reaches into the inside pocket of her jacket and pulls out a fat roll of cash: four grand in crisp hundred dollar bills.

“Yeah, I did,” she says, tossing the money from hand to hand.

John pats his own coat pockets, then narrows his eyes at her, suspicious yet impressed. 

“You’re not the only one with talented fingers,” Sara says, holding the money between her middle and index fingers, prompting John to reach forward and snatch it. She lets him have the victory for now, satisfied she’s already scored against him.

“There is something that doesn’t quite add up about tonight, though,” Sara goes on and waits until she’s sure she has John’s full attention before continuing. “I thought you said you weren’t into ‘little role playing games,’” she says, making air quotes, recalling what he’d said to her during his first team mission.

“Well, you know me, I’ll try anything once as long as I’m provided with the right incentive.” 

He sticks a hand out, palm up, right in her line of vision. The roll of cash rests in the middle. He closes his fist around it, then turns his wrist and opens his fist to show her the money has disappeared. “And always with a proper safeword, of course,” he says, his face suddenly only inches away from hers. “It’s amen, by the way.”

The heat in his eyes brings her back to the moment as she remembers the full events of the night, and how exactly they came to end up here. She leans away from him and pushes herself off the steps, standing over him. 

“So, what’s next on the night’s schedule for Lady Lazarus and The Hellblazer?” she says, her voice just a hair over too casual.

“Hellblazer? What the bloody hell are you on about?”

“You’re a Legend now, John. You need a codename. And I’m thinking maybe a cape? A red one.”

His face goes through a hilarious display of emotions: confusion, horror, back to confusion before settling on irritation.

“Fine. We can split the pay 40-60.”

She raises an eyebrow and crosses her arms over her chest.

“I did do most of the work, luv. My, uh, partner passed out on the job. But if your fingers are still feeling sticky, I know a bingo night we can hit, but we’d have to go back a few hours.”

“Bingo, wooow. How exciting. And here I thought I was supposed to be the boring one and you were going to show me—”

“Four grand not fun enough for you?”

“It would be if I got to keep it all.” 

“What do you suggest then?”

She takes pleasure in the note of annoyance in his voice. Let him have a taste of his own poison for a moment.

“I don’t know, you tell me. What does John Constantine, Master of the Dark Arts, do after pulling off a successful con?”

“What? You wanna be me for the night?” he mumbles around an unlit cigarette.

Sara shrugs and John studies her for a long moment, deliberation written on his face.

“You sure about that, luv?”

Sara does roll her eyes now.

“Cut it out, dumbass. I’m not one of your suckers, your act doesn’t work on me.”

“Fine.” He slides the smoke back into the pack a little too forcefully. “But first let’s get out of this bloody neighborhood. We’re as welcome here as a fart in a spacesuit.”

He stretches an arm out toward her, offering his hand to her. It feels like a challenge. She grabs his hand in hers and pulls him up from the steps, and when their hands meet it feels like finality.

The Upper East Side is sleepy and calm at this time of night. The stillness is unlike every memory Sara has of New York City. It’s almost eerie. The temperature has also dropped and the air approaches too chilly for her leather jacket. She narrows the distance between her and John until her arm brushes up against his. It’s as close to huddling for warmth as she’s willing to allow.

John had opened a portal to his apartment in the city long enough to toss his bag inside before turning to walk in the opposite direction, prompting her to follow him. And so she had.

The end of the year draws near and the buildings and homes are decorated for the Holidays with a level of lavishness that feels obscene. It’s all monochrome lights and blood red poinsettias and opulent garlands perfectly staged and not at all like the campy mish-mash of decorations Sara remembers from her childhood festivities in the suburbs of Starling City. 

She wonders in passing about John’s Christmases, if he even had any. She knows the scant details of his home life: dead mother, abusive father and a sister he loves fiercely but rarely sees. She keeps her mouth shut, though, and tucks her hands under her armpits, as if she could make her body fold into itself and disappear. John’s right; this neighborhood feels strange, inappropriate for the both of them. It’s too clean and quiet, too put together. She feels oddly self-conscious as they hurry down the sidewalk in complete quiet, like they are trying to sneak through, like if they make too much noise someone will materialize just to expel them. 

‘You are where you do not belong,’ her brain supplies in a raspy, scary whisper, as the latest episode of The Walking Dead plays in her head. The world falls away and she’s there again, at home in Ava’s bed on a rare day off, a Sunday marathon on TV and her yelling at the screen that they can’t kill Jesus right before Christmas and then turning to a bemused Ava to recall the time that Stein had found the zombie cure.

She snorts at the memory just as they stop at the crosswalk at Park Avenue. The sudden sound makes John turn to look at her.

“You still have the…” John points to her head and Sara brings a hand up to her forehead. Laurel’s necklace. She’d put it around her head like a circlet, the gem resting in the middle of her forehead, as part of her costume, along with the ‘ceremonial robes’ John had pulled out his supply bag. 

In their hasty retreat she’d forgotten about it. 

She reaches for the clasp at the back of her head but finds that the chain has tangled in her curls. She tugs at it, wincing when she pulls her hair in the process.

“Here, let me,” John says as he moves to stand behind her. He carefully untangles the delicate chain from her curls, moving her hair to the side to fasten the chain around her neck when he’s done. His fingers brush against the soft down at the base of her neck and Sara suppresses a shiver.

“Thanks,” she whispers, turning around to face him again.

John touches the gem pendant, a small forlorn smile on his face, and for a second the full weight of grief bears down on her chest and she feels as if she might stop breathing. It still surprises her, how even after all this time the pain can slice through her, stinging like a knife wound. He doesn’t say anything but his eyes communicate his sympathy and understanding all the same.

The light has changed in their favor and they hurry across Park Avenue, continuing their journey in comfortable silence. She doesn’t question why they don’t use the courier to get to where they’re going. For the moment, she’s willing to surrender the reigns and let someone else take control. To just be another body ambling through the streets of the City That Never Sleeps.  

“How are you not freezing in that trench coat?”she says a block later, finally breaking the quiet.

“Magic.”

She’s annoyed at the non-answer but it’s presented her with the perfect segue into asking something she’s been meaning to for months and just hadn’t known how to broach. She always has to be careful in how much power she gives him. She doesn’t like the idea of him thinking she needs him. 

“Speaking of. You think you could teach me real magic?” 

“Who says that wasn’t real magic?” he responds and points back toward the direction they’d come from with his thumb.

“I’m serious,” she sighs and moves to stand in front of him. 

He doesn’t stop walking, forcing her to walk backwards. She glances over her shoulder every few seconds. She doesn’t trust John to warn her of an obstacle in time.

“Let me let you in you in on a little secret about magic. Magic is planting the seedling of an idea into the brain of the universe, so that it eventually becomes a reality. Is that not what we just did?”

“So, you’re saying it’s a con.”

“It always is. A mage isn’t born. That’s a crock of elitist shite. Any bollocking cunt can do magic. All you really need is conviction. Perception is reality, yeah?”

Colorful language aside, Sara can understand that. Magic—and its power—exists because people believe it does. It’s not unconditional, it doesn’t work without belief. She also understands the appeal it must have had to the young boy growing up in Liverpool who dreamed of getting away. John has made his mark on the world by the sheer power of his conviction alone. They’re not that different in that sense. Don’t you think we have the power to change our own fate? She’d said that once.

“I dunno. All the cons and the tricks, some might say all of it is a waste of your power. Think of all you can do, John. Don’t you want more out of life? More than just the darkest part of you?”

“What for? I’ve never had a real job, I hate 9 out of 10 people I meet. I can’t do normal.”

“Yeah, I used to say that, too.”

“And how’s it workin’ out for ya?”

She doesn’t answer, knowing he’s backed her into a corner she can’t really debate her way out of without feeling like a hypocrite. 

She tires of her shaky walking and stands beside him again, synchronizing her steps with his. They’ve moved away from the quieter residential streets and into a more transited Park Avenue. She’s grateful for the background noise of fellow night owls and cars.

“A few years ago I met a fellow occultist in LA,” he starts, after a few moments of silence between them. “Nice bloke if a bit too self important. He was gifted with The Sight. The poor squire grows up seeing things no child should have to see. Until at 16 he decides to make the visions stop. He’s officially dead for two minutes before the paramedics bring him back and now his soul is consigned to Hell because the berk upstairs decided so. It won’t matter what he does with the rest of his life, his fate’s already sealed. There is no power, Sara. No higher calling. Life’s just a trick question, a trap and we’re all just pieces in the game between Heaven and Hell.”

“How can you say that, when you literally devote your life to ridding the world of actual demons?”

“I’m trying to buy my way out of Hell, luv. That’s what I’m doing. So you can keep your gifts and your greater than yourself missions. I’ll stay right here...” He produces a card from somewhere under his sleeve, “... where magic’s just what happens…” he holds the card up between two fingers, the six of diamonds “... when you trick the world into believing one incredibly outrageous lie.” He spins the card around and it’s now a MetroCard. “What’s more powerful than that?”

She stares at him for a second and makes a humming sound deep in her throat. She plucks the card from his hands.

“One trick magician,” she says as she gives him a slow and deliberate once over, voice dropped a whole octave. “Should’ve known, the loudest braggarts always are.”

John gapes at her, mouth round like an indignant fish, making offended grunts and huffs while she laughs at him. 

“Worked on you once,” is his eventual response. 

“It’s real cute you still think that’s true.”

He chuckles, like he doesn’t believe a word she’s saying. “Ok, let’s test it out, then, see how you feel after.”

He lifts his chin, pointing at something. Sara looks up and behind and sees they are standing in front of a Marriott Hotel.

For a second, she thinks he’s propositioning her and her blood turns to ice, and then she notices the casino. Her face flushes with embarrassment and relief.

“What do you say we go in there and double our earnings?” John says as he buttons his coat closed and ties the belt around his hips, instantly looking put together. “Rule number one, perception is reality. You gotta look the part,” he says, finally adjusting the collar on his trench coat.

She takes a step back and raises an eyebrow at his patronizing tone.

“I’m League of Assassins, John. We practically invented blending in.”

She opens the glass door to the hotel lobby and gestures for him to go in before her. He walks in ahead of her, looking over his shoulder, an enigmatic look on his face, like he’s trying to figure her out.

Who the hell does he think he’s dealing with? She’s Sara Fucking Lance and he better fucking remember it.

Chapter Text

the only thing I want is to not know where I’m going

Sara eyes travel back and forth around the casino floor as she takes stock of the security. There are four guards in total. One stationed at the exit, and three wandering around the floor, all in black suits, radios behind their ears. The security cameras are fixed, at least the ones she can see, which makes it harder to identify, and thus exploit, potential blind spots. There’s only one way in or out of the room. That could complicate things in the event the night goes wrong.

The hotel might be located in the rich part of town but it’s still just a Marriott and the casino is not much larger than an ordinary gambling den, if sparklier. At least there are enough gamblers on the floor that Sara feels less uneasy about the whole scheme. Easier to blend in a crowd than in an empty room. Thank God for the Holiday season.

Pun intended.

John had traded a portion of their ill obtained earnings for chips and then headed straight for the roulette table. He’s good at the card games, but the roulette is the easiest game to manipulate, or so he claims. There are three other people at the table with them. Two men and a woman, liberally liquored up. Good . 

The confidence she felt when they’d walked in has dimmed in the light of practical skepticism. She doesn’t know why she’s so antsy, except, well, she’s so used to things going wrong all the time. It’s a simple enough trick with only two possible outcomes. It’ll either work, or it won’t. If it doesn’t, they’ll be out $100 and no one will even know what they attempted. And if it does…

She doesn’t want to admit to it out loud, but the curiosity has butterflies forming in the pit of her stomach.

Sara takes in a deep breath as their fellow companions place their bets. And then it’s John’s turn. $100 on six to win. Straight up. 

“Feeling lucky?” the dealer says and John gives him a toothy smile.

“We make our own luck, mate,” he says and Sara gives a him harsh look she hopes says, what the fuck are you doing?

The croupier closes the bets and then the ball is in play. Sara doesn’t look at it, she watches John instead. He doesn’t watch the table, either. Just stares ahead as the ball journeys around and around until the wheel stops.

She’s seen him run a con before, like the ritual barely an hour ago, and she knows he’s damn good at it, but this is different. Normal cons play into your mark’s emotions. This is a game of pure chance, with so many other external variables he can’t possibly control. So she scans the room again, cataloguing the exit, the security guards, running through her escape route. 

It’s not that she doesn’t trust John… 

Well, she doesn’t, actually. 

“Six! It’s a win!” 

What the fuck.

The dealer’s sudden yell breaks her out of her thoughts and she looks down at the table. The ball has landed on thirty-four. She jerks her head up to look at John. He smiles and winks at her.

Twice more he does it, and no one comes for them. Each time the dealer declares John a winner, the tension in Sara’s chest loosens until she’s throwing her arms around John’s shoulders, celebrating right along with everyone else as she does the math in her head and realizes exactly how much money they’re making. How much more they could make.

When they’re down to their last $100, John moves to stand behind her, breath hot at the back of her neck. 

“Your turn, love,” he whispers. There’s a dare in his tone and Sara shakes her head slightly, cursing him and herself because she knows she can’t back down. 

“John…” 

“Come on now, call a number, and remember, perception is reality. What matters is what you want them to see. Forget about everything else, just focus on that.”

Sure. Piece of cake, right? 

Still, just thinking about it is giving her the headiest rush. Her palms itch and the fine hair on her arms is standing on end.

She can do this. After all, any bollocking cunt can do magic. All you need is conviction.

First step is looking the part, so she takes her chips and puts them down on the table with an air of faint disinterest, like this is something she does everyday. She follows John’s lead and bets straight up, too. Five to win. Five had been Laurel’s favorite number. 

She concentrates on the number and what it means to her. She calls on her love for her sister and lets it settle over every part of her until she’s brimming with it, and wills it out into the world. Then she recalls the unaffected way John had spoken about the yuppies they’d conned earlier, how they were bloodsucking wankers, and they’d deserved it. She thinks maybe these people deserve it, too. Enablers. Cheaters. Greedy predators. Thiefs. Why shouldn’t they take the money? They’re not doing anything the owners aren’t doing themselves already. The spite fills her mouth, pinching at the corners of her mouth like sour candy, but just as satisfying.

The wheel spins. Spins. Spins. Stops. 

The ball lands on 17. 

She holds her breath waiting, waiting, two seconds that feel like two minutes.

“Five! It’s a win for the lady!” the croupier finally says and Sara whoops and screams in laughter, soul full of a joy that feels a lot like schadenfreude. 

Holy fuck, she thinks, bringing her hands up to her head. Holy fucking fuck.

John grabs her by the shoulders and leans in to whisper in her ear, “Told ya. We make our own luck. And we should consider cashing out before CCTV catches us, like.”

Fourteen thousand dollars. Just like that. They hadn’t even broken a sweat.

For any other person, a payout would involve paperwork and tax deductions, the casino taking a cut so they could walk away with their winnings. 

Not them.

John just smiles at the girl behind the counter, slides their chips over and says, “We’ll take in cash, love,” and she goes pink cheeked and shy, stammering through the transaction, and they get to walk out the front door with their pockets considerably richer than before.

The speed of Sara’s walk grows brisker and brisker the farther they get from the hotel until, when they turn the corner at the end of the block, she breaks out into a trot that soon enough turns into a full on jog, cold wind hitting her face, drying her eyes and mouth. It’s not that she’s fleeing, there’s just so much pent up adrenaline coursing through her she feels as if her atoms will burst if she stays still. She can feel the power pulsing hot through her nervous system, and they hadn’t even done anything real.

She stops at the end of the block and catches her reflection on a storefront window. There’s an elated smile on her face, stretching from ear to ear. She looks tall and confident, shoulders strong and sharp. She’s fucking preening.

She looks invincible. Fearless.

She can’t for the life of her remember the last time she actually felt like that, like the entire universe could crash around her and she’d still remain standing. She stays there, staring at her tingling hands until John finally catches up to her.

“I always knew you couldn’t keep up with me,” she teases, poking him on the side.

“Don’t flatter yourself, pet. All you did was flee from the scene of the crime like a bloody amateur. Me? I like to follow the sage words of Sir Sting. A gentleman will walk but never run.”

“Pfft. I’ll let you know if I see any gentlemen around here, then.”

There’s no snappy comeback from him, which throws her off for a second. He gives her a weirdly blank look instead and continues walking, hands in the pockets of his trench coat. She watches him go for a moment. There’s something uniquely timeless about his silhouette, like a frame taken from an old noir movie. She has to give it to him, no one does dramatic quite like John Constantine. 

She catches up to him effortlessly and once again they stomp in sync through the New York streets.

Sara goes to slide her hands into her jacket pockets when she remembers the money. She feels its shape, its heft, and laughter bubbles up inside her. It’s a rush akin to what she’d felt the day she’d stolen the Waverider from under the Bureau.

“Jesus Christ,” she says.

“Let’s not go giving him any undue credit.”

He’s right. They’d done that.

There is a specific kind of empowerment that comes from knowing what you’re capable of doing. She feels it every time she fights against a foe she doesn’t have to hold back from out of fear of causing real harm, or when she sits in that Captain’s chair and considers, for just a moment, all she could do, if she wanted to. John’s magic, she’s coming to realize, is its own unique rush of power, no less tantalizing, if equally dangerous. It’s sneaky and seductive, like a mistress.

“I can see how one might become addicted to this,” she concedes.

“No better high, innit? Worthy of a celebration or two. Though, we really out to hurry and get out of this neighborhood, before we’re tempted to cause more trouble, I mean. I can just about see the headlines. Two blond, bisexual menaces terrorize the Upper East Side.”

“Guard your wallets, ladies and gents, cause the Chaos Twins are in town.” Sara snaps her fingers and then folds them into finger guns. “God, it’s a good thing we didn’t know each other when I was 19, cause 19 year old Sara would’ve run with that trick and blown this all on booze and girls. Ugh, please don’t tell anyone I told you that. I’d like to think I’ve grown as a person—as a woman—since then, but when I was 19 me and my fake ID took a spring break trip to Vegas and bought so many lap dances. It’s how I figured out that yep, I am definitely very much into boobs.”

“Booze and boobs, eh. Who says we can’t do that right now?”

His leer is purposely comical but it’s like a bucket of cold water has been dumped over her head. 

“You know why we can’t,” she says, a curt bite to her words.

“Ain’t no harm in looking, luv,” he responds, equally serious.

She wishes he hadn’t said that, because now he’s gone and conjured a third person in with them, a presence that hovers behind and between them like a ghost, infusing seriousness into their carefree and meaningless banter.

She continues a pace or two ahead of him, even though she doesn’t know where they’re going and soon enough he taps two fingers against her elbow to lead her in the correct direction.

It’s started to mist and tiny beads of moisture have begun to settle over their clothes. They hasten their pace, eager to beat the coming rain.

Up ahead, the Second Avenue entrance to the 72nd St. Subway finally appears in their line of sight and Sara breathes a small sigh of relief, ready to leave the Upper East Side behind. At the crosswalk, they rush across the road just before traffic reaches them.

“You know, I’ve never really thought of meself as a tits or an arse man,” John says, and for a moment Sara can’t make sense of his words before she remembers what they’d been talking about when she went moody and mum. “I like to think I can appreciate the whole package, you know, not just the arousing bits,” John concludes. 

The twinkle in his eye tells her this is his unconventional way of apologizing for upsetting her. 

“Jackass,” she says and checks him on the shoulder, playing along and happy to let it go if it can get them back to where they were.

The station is mostly desolate at this late hour, except for a couple of stragglers, the agent at the booth and the colorful mosaic murals that decorate the tiled walls. The portraits look like the specters of real people who perhaps once passed through and are now trapped in some else world. They’re objectively beautiful, but Sara finds them haunting. Maybe it’s just the way everything else looks so white and bright, like a void.

A shiver works through her spine as that sense of intrusion comes back again.

“You alright?” John asks, and she nods, dismissing the feeling.

She stops between the ticket vending machines and the turnstiles, considering each one. An idea sparks and she reaches into the back pocket of her jeans and pulls out the card she’d taken from John earlier. It still looks like a MetroCard.

“So, this MetroCard. Is it for show, or does it work?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugs. “Why don’t we find out?”

And so the game starts again.  

She fiddles with the card for a second and concentrates all her will on making the card work. She swipes it, grinning when the turnstile clicks and unlocks. She passes the card back to John, who theatrically pockets it when he's done.

They reach the platform just as the Q train to Downtown is pulling into the station and John motions with a jerk of his head that this is their train.

The train car is empty except for the two of them and a man in tattered clothing sat all the way at the end, head lolling against his chest. Sara takes a seat near the middle of the car, and John plops down across the aisle from her. As the train lurches forward, she stretches a leg out across the aisle toward him, urging him to mimic the move. She lines the heel of her boot against his own, and they stay like that, foot pressed against foot as the train marches on.

“You wanna tell me why you wanna learn real magic?” he says after a few moments of silence.

The question takes her by surprise, though she should’ve known he’d bring it up at some point. She wouldn’t expect any less from him, the perceptive motherfucker. It’s no use trying to play it off either. Might as well just be honest with him.

She takes a deep breath and stares ahead. She avoids John’s direct gaze and instead looks at him through his reflection on the dark glass of the windows. A reflection of a reflection, like he’s twice removed.

“I’m used to being the best weapon in my arsenal,” she starts. “Maybe I’m just being cocky but human bad guys don’t scare me anymore. I know I can deal with that. But an enemy that doesn’t even have to be in the same plane of existence as you to hurt you? I don’t know how to fight that, or how to protect the people that I love from that. And that does scare me. Last year, with Mallus… We got lucky. Or so I thought, before you came around to tell me I’d ripped the world open,” she finishes with a self-deprecating laugh.

Feeling like something other than a screw-up for once had been heady in its own way and she’d soaked in its warm light contently. Even learning of the magical creatures hadn’t been enough to dim that. She’d accepted the challenge and adapted, like she always does. But a hero’s path is like a trek across a tightrope and she’s seeing things clearer now. She’s plagued with the foreboding thought that it can’t possibly be this simple, not for them. There’s a curveball coming around that she can’t see yet. 

“I guess I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop all this time,” she confesses. “I just wanna be ready for the big boss fight at the end, you know?”

“I thought that’s why you had me.”

“Hmm. Why are you here?”

He’d never really divulged the reason behind his change of heart. His refusal to her offer to join the team had been deliberately cruel. He meant to hurt and push her away, only for him to turn around and change his mind not a day later. She’s not naive enough to believe that altruism motivated it.

“Thought it’d be easy money. Joke’s on me, yeah? Speaking of, you should really talk to the missus about fitting in a salary in that massive budget of hers. Seems pretty dodgy to me, answer to the Bureau, but don’t reap any real benefits. But what do I know about American bureaucracy, right? I’m just a working class bloke from Liverpool.”

There’s just enough smugness in the lines of his face to piss Sara off again. She bends her knee just enough to gather momentum and pushes forcefully on John’s foot until he’s forced to drop it.

“Watch it John, that gigantic budget pays for the fancy containment system.”

“Oh, we would’ve figured something out on our own. It’s what we do. In fact, I’d say we do our best work when forced to improvise. Certainly keeps it more interesting.”

“We?”

“Said it yourself. I’m a Legend now.” He leans forward in his seat, resting his forearms over his thighs. A solemn look settles over his features. “Look, Sara, that fear you feel, it’s a good thing, so you hold on to that. Because you’re right, Sara, you got lucky last year. This world isn’t something you want to know better, trust me on that one. Magic takes people like you and frigs about in their spirit until you turn into me. And we wouldn’t want that, would we? I could teach you everything you wanted to know, all the spells and rituals and curses. I could, but I won’t, because…  I guess… I guess I actually care whether you live or die.”

Sara’s eyes snap back to look John directly and he lets himself be seen. She thinks he’s actually being honest with her and she doesn’t quite know what to do with that, or where to compartmentalize the emotions. Just when she thinks she has him figured out, he changes again. 

“I know everyone thinks I’m nothing more than a heartless bastard—"

“I don’t think that,” she says, voice barely above a whisper. “I know how deeply you feel. You just pretend you don’t, cause how else can you do what you do? It takes a special kind of strength to bear that, so give yourself a little credit.”

John sucks on his teeth and smiles at her, surely recognizing the very words he’d said to her once, and she answers his smile with one of her own.

“I mean, I don’t think I could do what you do,” she goes on.

“Sure you could, love. And that’s what scares you.”

John closes his eyes and leans his head back against the glass, leaving Sara with that truth bomb charging the air between them. 

She fiddles with the silver rings around her fingers and thinks about her sister, and her father. Martin. Rip. Even Amaya. How many more sacrifices would she be called to make in the name of duty? 

She’s saved from having to dwell on that thought too much when the PA system announces their arrival at Times Square and John springs from his seat and signals to her that this is their stop.

The station is swarming with passengers even this late in the night. Loud and eager tourists in too many layers carrying shopping bags and backpacks; men and women in half-removed costumes (seriously, where else can you see Shrek ride the subway if not New York); and teenage girls dressed in t-shirts printed with the likeness of a teenage idol, clearly coming from a concert of sorts.

They switch trains and end up pressed together in the middle of the raucous crowd riding the 1 out of Times Square. John keeps a steadying hand on her elbow while he holds on to the rail with the other one. Sara catches him staring at her on their reflection in the dark windows and she averts her eyes and makes faces at the toddler sat in his mother’s lap across from them instead. The car begins to empty in the following stops, but still they stay standing in the aisle, hip to hip. 

When the subway pulls into Christopher Street Station John whispers “this is us” and they walk off the train. There’s nothing remarkable about this particular station, it’s old worn, and its history shows in the grime and patina that covers all surfaces; in the grey-brown grout of the mosaic tiles; in the smell of oil, and garbage and people and marijuana that permeates the air. But Sara likes this one better because it’s honest, full of history. 

John sidesteps supporting columns and people with dramatic swishes of his coat and Sara follows him down the narrow platform and up the stairs until they’re spit out into the busyness of New York City at night. He pauses long enough to light a fresh cigarette, noting that it’s the last one in the pack before crumpling the empty box in his fist. They then make a quick stop at a cigar shop where John buys a pack of his Silk Cut and a cheap I LOVE NY fleece scarf he pulled off a rack of kitschy souvenirs that he then gives to her.

Sara wraps the cloth around her neck. It smells faintly like plastic. She refrains from asking where exactly they are headed to and continues to stride along, allowing herself to feel buoyed by the pretense of mystery and the bite of the crisp winter air on her face. Butterflies gather and flutter pleasantly in the pit of her stomach. She’s not nervous, just oddly excited, like she used to feel whenever she snuck out of her childhood home under mom and dad to go partying with Tommy and Oliver.

They stop at a tiny food truck for what John says are the best lamb kabobs he’s ever had. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until he mentioned food. The young man behind the counter greets John by name and they banter back and forth as they wait for their order. 

That’s right, John actually lives here. 

New York has always had a way of making Sara feel small, with its towering buildings and massive crowds and its impersonal attitude, but John navigates the city streets with effortlessness, like they are an extension of him. Every path they take tonight is one he’s travelled before, many times, until it’s become muscle memory.

Greenwich Village doesn’t have the grit and character of the Lower East Side, but it’s got good energy, he says. And even though Sara doesn’t really have the experience to agree with the comparison, she still understands what he means. All around them are pretty boys and pretty girls laughing beneath the awnings and spilling out from restaurants and bars. The vibe in the air is young and prismatic, like a dream out of reach: 

a group of four girls in identical outfits, walking in perfect unison, arm in arm, laughing at a private joke

two grey-haired men furiously kissing beneath the amber glow of a streetlight

a man in an Elmo suit and no mask dancing drunkenly in the middle of the road to music only his ears are privy to

a leather-clad couple passing a joint back and forth, their blond heads shining like haloes in the dark. If she lets her vision go fuzzy, the pair turn into them, John and Sara, younger, less burdened. The kids they wish they’d been. 

“I love this cursed city,” John says. “Even if Giuliani shut down all the strip bars and turned it into a bloody amusement park.”

Then he just talks and talks like he hasn’t since stepping foot on the ship and Sara eats her kabobs and listens while John tells her he moved here roughly 3 years ago, after being in Atlanta for a while, how he’d considered going back to London but then ultimately decided against it. London’s not a place that lets you forget , he says. Can’t go anywhere in London without walking on the ghosts of some past hurt. He says New York is different, it’s alive and weird on a level that no city can touch. It has a strange twisted soul, dark and black and cracked around the edges. It sings to you, it laughs at you, it whispers lies you want so badly to believe , he says. It doesn’t have rules, no structure. Perfect for “rotten bastards” like him. And as he speaks she thinks she can feel and hear it all herself, that bittersweet siren song of the City, just by the power of his word alone. 

There’s a certain looseness in his body language she hasn’t seen on him since last year, if ever, and something like fondness blooms warmly in her chest. 

She’s never really held that sort of affection for any one place, except maybe the Waverider. She couldn’t describe even Star City with that level of  eloquence either.

“For me places are about people, I guess,” she says. “My dad, my sister. The team. All these years I’ve been doing this job, we’ve been everywhere and I couldn’t describe any of those places to you. Not really. We don’t really get to experience them.”

“You wanna change that?” He takes the courier out of his pocket and waves it slightly. “We could portal off to jolly ol’ London, show you all the haunts. We got all the time in the world.”

Just like that. As if time were something one could hold and own. Hold it hostage. It’s that confidence she envies the most. That arrogant certainty that the world will do what you want it to. She’s had a taste of what that feels like and more than anything she wants to learn what it would take to keep it. 

She knows how selfish it sounds. It doesn’t stop it from being true.

She considers John’s proposal for just a second, a second long enough to build a little pearl of excitement in her gut, but it feels too much like going home with him. She hasn’t forgotten how they got here, or that every little thing they add to their adventure just adds one more untruth to the eventual tally. 

“I thought you were showing me New York,” she says and tries not to taste the regret on her tongue.

“Fair enough.” 

He puts the courier away and gathers their garbage before tossing the soiled napkins and skewers into a nearby trash can.

“So, New York, then. What’s your favorite bar?” she asks, trying to make the conversation casual again.

“Favorite bar. Let's see… Oh, there’s this speakeasy in the Bowery, smaller than me first flat. One of the last places in this bloody country they’ll let me spark a fag inside. You’d like it there.”

“Ugh, you and your stupid smokes. You do know those can kill you, right? Okay, umm… favorite place to get breakfast?” She continues, licking leftover sauce off her fingers.

“Why? You plan on being out here with me that long?”

At her annoyed look he grows quiet and takes a deep breath. He stops walking and just stands on the sidewalk, letting the rest of the city just pass him by. His body sags like a heavy cloak has been draped over his shoulders. 

“This place in Chelsea. Had the best fry up this side of the Atlantic,” he says, wistful smile on his face. “It, uh, it closed down,” he ends with a tired whisper.

He leans against the brick of the nearest wall, one leg bent, and reaches for another cigarette. He closes his eyes at the first drag and holds on to the smoke for a long time before it spills out of his mouth in an impressive plume. Sara wrinkles her nose at the smell and watches him, unsure of exactly how or why she’s upset him.

“You know, I almost looked you up once, years ago, before I was recruited to the Legends.” 

She hadn't really meant to reveal that, and she’s not sure what exactly prompted her to do it at this very moment, but now that it’s out there she’s not sorry she said it.

He pauses and looks at her, curious, inviting her to go on. 

“Not long after you gave me back my soul I discovered the side effects of the Pit. I dunno, I had the thought that I’d show up at your door and you’d know what to do. How to cure it. That was before I knew you were full of shit.”

He snorts.

“You know I wouldn’t have been able to do anything, right?” he says, getting serious again.

“Yeah. Figured that out, too.”

The bloodlust was her cross to bear, the cost of her second chance at life.

“Listen, what you said before, about me wasting my power. There's a reason why I never use magic when a simple con will do. Sure, it's noble to talk about the honor of saving the world and all that bollocks, but every spell has its price. There’s always a price, and you have to be willing to pay it. And when you're dealing with unseen forces, you never know what that means, but it’s usually an eye for an eye. Like your bloodlust, or the life the world took so you could create your champion and defeat Mallus. Magic’s Old Testament that way. In this fight we’re in together, sooner or later we’ll be called to make a sacrifice. That's why I'm here. ”

And though he doesn’t say the words, she still hears the implicit ‘so you don’t have to’. 

“When you said the life the world took, did you mean Damien Darhk? Cause I'm okay with that.”

“No, I meant your former captain.”

He punctuates the simple answer with a hit of his cigarette and Sara feels like she’s been suddenly punched in the chest. She hates thinking about Rip and avoids it as much as possible. There was so much left unresolved between them and even now the hurt and the anger and the indifference battle with the guilt. That one’s on her. But she’d never told any of that to John, wouldn’t ever want to really, and yet he knew exactly where to aim to cause hurt.

Is she imagining it, or is that satisfaction etched in the lines of his face?

He suddenly takes notice of something behind her and lets the cigarette fall to the pavement. 

“Will you look at that? Looks like Lady Luck is in tonight. Come on, let’s drop in on an old friend. Maybe she’ll have something interesting for us.”

She follows his line of sight toward a red neon sign at street level lit with the words Village Psychic in stylized script. Sara just shrugs. At this point, the psychic feels like the most normal thing she has or will experience tonight.

John jogs across the street and descends the stairs to the basement level, while Sara follows at a calmer pace. The office or parlour or whatever it is that psychics call the place they work in is wedged into a tiny corner, its glass door a mere two feet away from the metal stairs.

When Sara reaches the bottom, she sees John squinting and frowning at the door.

 “Oh, you’ve got to be bloody frigging me,” he says.

Sara looks over his shoulder and notices that underneath a WELCOME sign there is a white sheet of paper stuck with tape. It says everyone except John Constantine.

The laugh that comes out of her is gleeful and childish. She points at him, at the sign and back to him as her chest begins to burn from the lack of air.

“Wait, hold on, I have to take a picture of this. Ava’s going to fucking flip when she sees it,” she says, taking out her phone.

“Ooh, can I be there when you tell Sharpie you snuck off the ship to go to an orgy with me?”

And just like that John once again manages to slice through her. Her hands curl into fists at her side. Her jaw tightens as her face hardens. She wishes John didn’t make it so hard to be his friend, because in the moments when he forgets to be a jackass, when he’s unguarded and honest, she finds it so easy and comfortable to be around him. Or perhaps it’s just she who forgets.

“Oh, relax, love. Tonight stays between us. We wouldn’t wanna rock the boat, right?”

She lets out a harsh breath through her nose and puts her phone away. Yet another secret in the pile. 

“I know you can read John Constantine,” a voice calls from inside before the door opens with the clang of a bell and a woman sticks out her head and torso. “Should’ve expected you’d darken my doorway tonight. Felt you in the city as soon as you dropped in. Your energy always jams the signal.”

“Come on, Esrin, you know you missed me,” John says, grinning from ear to ear.

“What do you want, Constantine?” Esrin says, still half inside. She’s a beautiful woman with strong mediterranean features and an accent that to Sara’s ears sounds Spanish.

“Can’t a bloke drop in on a friend?”

“Do I look foolish enough to be your friend? I don’t have time for your games tonight. I have to be out of this cursed city by daybreak.”

Sara’s Captain instincts kick in as she files the conversation away. There’s something more going on here.

“Why the rush?” Sara says.

Esrin turns to her, looks her up and down, measuring her up. She opens her mouth as if to speak but then doesn’t, and then shakes her head like she’s trying to clear a thought from it. Sara squares her shoulders and crosses her arms over her chest. Who the fuck does this woman think she is?

“I know why you’re here, Constantine. Something is poisoning the magic in the city. And you’d know all about it, wouldn’t you?”

“Me? No, I’ve been off saving the world from monsters. Ask her,” John says pointing at Sara with his thumb. 

“He has,” Sara confirms with a defiant jut of her jaw, even as her mind races to read through everything John and Esrin are saying and not saying. So, the city’s magic is poisoned and John is not surprised. If she knows anything about magic, it’s that there is no such thing as coincidence.

“Well, whatever the case may be,” Esrin says, looking at Sara from the corner of her eye, “Midnight is gone. And I don’t intend to be next.”

“Midnite? Something finally got that cheating, drug-dealing voodoo priest? Good riddance I say,” John says.

“Everything is always a joke to you, isn’t it?” Esrin says with a disappointed shake of her head. “Until the moment trouble comes knocking at your door, and then you decide you need us. They’ll come a day when we won’t answer.”

John and Esrin stare at each other for a long, tense moment, thunder in their faces. 

“Let’s go, Sara,” John says, not breaking his stare. “Miss Fortuna has nothing worth our time.”

He then spins on his heel and heads back up the steps to the street level.

“Hey, John,” Esrin calls out and John stops, one foot on the first step, the other still on the floor. “You want a tip? Here’s one. I hear the first circle of Hell is nice this time of year.”

John just makes a grunting noise in the back of his throat but Sara throws her the dirtiest look she can muster, offended on John’s behalf. Sure, he’s a jackass, and everything Esrin said is not exactly untrue, but telling him to go to Hell carries a different weight when you know that’s exactly what awaits him.

“What a bollocking waste of my time,” John mutters as he stomps up the metal stairs, Sara on his heels. “Bloody psychics.”

“John, you wanna tell me what’s really going on?” Sara doesn’t wait for the denial before barreling on, “You’re not out here having fun or de-stressing, or whatever, you’re working. Don’t treat me like I’m an idiot. If you’ve got some kind of side mission—”

He stalks toward her, all squared shoulders and righteous fury, and gets right in her face.

“I’m not holding you hostage here, Sara, you can go back to the ship anytime you want.”

“That’s- That’s not what I mean. John, I’m your friend and something is clearly going on with you. You’re one of mine now, just let me have your back.”

His features grow pained and desperate. There’s a world of hurt in his eyes so raw it steals her breath. He puts his hands on his hips and turns away from her. Sara just waits, afraid that if she says anything it’ll ruin whatever breakthrough they’re approaching.

“Look, that’s the past, yeah? It happened. There’s no undoing it, so let’s just… ” He takes a deep breath, and hangs his head. When he turns around again he has a bland smile on his face, like he didn’t almost bare his soul to her just a second ago. “Enough of that shite, yeah? Hey, I did promise you a good time so let’s go. Yeah? That money won’t spend itself.”

She wonders how he can do that, just slip on a new skin and move on. The emotional turnabout is giving Sara whiplash.Why is it that every one of John’s answers always brings up more questions? And why does she care so much? She should leave it alone. She knows better than to chase him down the squirrelly alleys of his secrets. But Sara can’t say no to a good mystery, even if only for the distraction. Worrying about John’s problems means she won’t have to worry about her own, and John has loosened the slack just enough for her to grab on to the end, and now it’s time for her to tug and unravel. 

Sara walks half a step behind John, purposely, studying his body language. He walks with his usual swagger and to the naked eye there’s nothing odd about the way he’s carrying on. But she thinks she’s gotten pretty good at taking him apart and she’s noticing all the cracks in his armor. 

He’s lit another cigarette that he takes short, tense puffs from. They left the boundaries of Greenwich Village a few blocks ago, crossing over into Chelsea, where the bars and restaurants are just that bit cleaner and manicured. This really doesn’t seem like a place that fits the two of them either but she knows better than to think they’re wandering.  

John stops in his tracks and turns to look up at the sign of a boarded-up storefront and Sara follows along. It looks like it used to be a restaurant of some sort. The name Oliver’s is written in loopy script on the windows.

A dark look crosses John’s face, his jaw tightens and his eyes go somewhere miles away. They stand there for several loaded seconds and Sara files the moment away, knowing it’s not the right time to ask, even if she is infinitely curious about how this fits into the narrative mystery. John exhales a last shaky plume of smoke and lets the cigarette fall to the ground, stubbing it out with the toe of his shoe a moment later.

“Come on,” he says. “You said you wanted to learn about magic, be me for the night. How about you lead us to where we wanna go? Let me teach you about thin places.”

Sara stares at the boarded up restaurant and then back at John, as if she could figure out the connection by staring hard enough and then finally nods. John relaxes the moment she nods, like he was expecting her to press the issue and ask.

His voice is still serious and clipped when starts speaking but then takes on a grander timbre as he continues, like he’s reading from an old magical text. Thin places, John says, are not just haunted, they are places that are supernaturally scarred by some atrocity or other, whether past or future, something so terrible it’s transformed the energy forever, and so now they ring with echoes of arcane power, allowing the barrier between the mundane and the extraordinary to become thin, hence the name. 

“They are lightning rods, you see,” he says. “Their magnetic power calls to people, like a compass, folks just can’t help but be pulled in. There happens to be one near here.”

He says if she concentrates hard enough, she should be able to feel its energy and follow it.

Sara just frowns at him, skeptical. All that talk about energy and synchronicity sounds an awful lot like one of his tricks. Like he wants to send her off on a nonsense wander about for the laughs, or to distract her from the restaurant-shaped elephant in the room.

Well, two can play that game, right?

She furrows her brow in concentration and starts walking, putting one foot directly in front of the other, shoulders strong, forcing her strides to affect a pronounced strut, adding a slight twist of the hips for good measure.

“What the bloody hell are you doing? You look barmy,” he says.

“I’m trying to be you, duh. Can I borrow your coat?”

“No, you bloody can’t.”

She sticks her bottom lip out in an exaggerated pout.  

“You don’t need any of that. Sara, be serious. You know what magic feels like.  Just call on the memory of it. Now, close your eyes, listen to that power under the city, let its electricity course through you. ”

He may be bullshitting now, but he’s right about one thing. She knows the magnetic charge John speaks of. She knows the shock of it speeding through her system, searing hot under her skin. How it had made her feel like she’d touched something beyond the simple mortal realm.

She really wants to feel it again. 

She closes her eyes and takes a steadying breath to orient herself. She reassures herself of John’s steady presence behind her and brings forth the memories: Mallus in her head; the zing of the totems all joining; the hair raising chill of John’s hell portals. She empties her mind of everything else. Soon enough, she feels the electricity and power surge from under the city, like static in the air. The taste of copper floods her mouth, and a faint trill rings in her ears, like a bug in the night. She hones in on that and lets her feet start moving, ignoring all habit and design. She’s not sure how long they walk when the ringing in her ears rises in pitch and she feels the urge to stop.

“Well done,” John says. 

Sara shakes herself slightly, coming back to herself. It felt like she’d left her body there for a minute. When she looks up she sees that across from them on the other side of the street is a church. Huh. Not exactly the place she thought they’d end up at.

The church is clearly abandoned. Even from here she can see the ‘seized’ notices from the county that are plastered over the main wooden doors, which are also boarded up. The small patches of grass beyond the low fences are overgrown and wild, and the windows are coated in dust.

The church is a Gothic style brownstone, too small to be called a cathedral, even if it takes up the whole corner. There’s a stained glass rose window on the main building that at one time was probably beautiful but now is obscured with decay. A tower rises on its right side. Signs of the modern world surround it but the church itself looks untouched, like it belongs to another time.

Churches have always given her the creeps, especially old ones like this one. From the outside, she can’t see what’s special about this place. Or what exactly John intends for them to do there, considering how they got here. 

Even from across the street, Sara feels its otherworldly energy and the supernatural chill that besieges it. The chill gets even more intense as they walk closer to the building but Sara finds that it’s not unsettling or scary. It’s the opposite, in fact, she feels a tug in her belly pulling her in. Her pulse rushes in her ears as the anticipation mounts. Her palms begin to sweat.

John leads them to a side entrance to the left of the main building, where there’s a set of doors painted blood red and unlike the rest of the building, these doors don’t show signs of decay and abandonment. John pushes and the doors give with no resistance. Sara looks over her shoulder, but this corner of the neighborhood is quiet and no one is paying them any attention.

They walk through the wooden doors and into pitch black darkness. Sara reaches for her cellphone with the intent of turning on the flashlight and lighting their way when a ticket booth, of all things, appears before them. Sara stops cold in her tracks, phone still in hand. She looks back at John but his face gives nothing away, except for a tinge of amusement around the corners of his mouth. 

A man sits behind the counter inside the booth, eyes focused on the clipboard in his hands. He’s wearing an expensive looking tuxedo that makes Sara take a second look at her own attire: a low cut tank top, ripped black jeans and a leather jacket. 

“Member number?” the man says without looking up.

“Member? I don’t have any—” Sara starts at the same time John interjects behind her. 

“She’s not signing anything, mate, so don’t try it. She’s with me.” 

John’s voice is commanding and final and the attendant looks up at the sound. The movement is clipped and abrupt, reptilian, almost. He blinks, and Sara notices he’s got a second pair of inner eyelids.

“Mr. Constantine. I didn’t realize the lady was your guest,” he smiles with a mouth full of small, sharp-looking teeth. There’s something deeply unnerving about him. His mannerisms are skittish, his eyes never quite focus anywhere, like he can see into many places at once. Just, creepy.

“Just let us through, yeah?” John says.

The man—or creature—nods at John after a moment and waves a hand at the empty space beside the booth. The air shimmers and blurs and a hallway appears where before there was just a wall. 

John disappears into the dark, but Sara hesitates in the lobby. She squints, trying to see through to the other side, but it’s nothing but blackness. When she finally steps forward she feels as if she’s walking into the mouth of a wolf, hot and humid and so dark it hurts her eyes. The buzz of electricity crackles and the hallway is suddenly bathed in blue light coming from creaky hanging cage lamps. John’s silhouette materializes from the darkness and she jumps, startled, causing him puff out a laugh.

A sudden gust of hot air hits her square on the chest and sweat begins to gather at the small of her back and over her top lip. The heat is sticky and humid, nearly tangible. She unfurls her scarf and pulls back and forth on her shirt, fanning her chest, as she follows John down the enclosed hallway. The temperature continues to rise as they near the end of the hallway and Sara’s pulse spikes, a sudden blade of trepidation assaulting her. The air tastes like lightning and sulfur and for a second she worries they have entered Hell itself. 

“Wait,” she says, reaching for John’s wrist. 

He just lifts a corner of his mouth in a smirk and keeps walking and she has no choice but to follow him. She hears the faint thumping of drums now, louder and louder as they walk. It’s music, she realizes when the room suddenly opens up before them.

“Holy shit,” Sara says, wondering at the vastness of the cavernous space.

It’s a fucking nightclub, in the middle an abandoned church. Her earlier fear feels silly now and she laughs at herself. Of course, it’s a fucking nightclub. 

“Would it have killed you to tell me this is where we were coming?” she yells over the music. 

John bends down to yell back, “where's the fun in that?” and then smiles toothily.

The inside of the church shows none of the dilapidation from the outside, while still feeling incredibly old. There's a primal smell to it, like the smell of caves and ruins. Light comes through the stained glass windows, casting colorful patterns on the rocky, textured wall, giving the illusion that the walls are moving. The old nave has been turned into a dance floor where hundreds of bodies move against one another. A catwalk runs along the sides of the building overlooking the dance floor and cages hang from the vaulted ceiling with scantily clad dancers writhing inside. 

The music is a strident, industrial techno rock that sounds like something from a mid 2000’s neo noir movie. It’s so loud it bounces off the walls and reverberates across their skin, capitalizing on the natural acoustics of the venue, making her pulse jump to the beat. The air is thick with the stink of sexual desire, enough to make her feel lightheaded. Her senses are so over stimulated she feels her brain turn to mush. She supposes that’s the point. This is clearly the place people come to forget, to abandon thought and lose themselves in the freedom of instinct.

At the end of the room, where the pulpit would be, a singer wearing dark sunglasses and a priest’s collar on his black shirt stands on stage, illuminated by a sole spotlight. His voice is deep and gloomy and fills the vaulted ceilings like a Gregorian chant.

He moves from trench to trench, he sings, chain smoking cigarettes and collecting everyone’s… and the lyrics feel so pointed Sara has to stop and look at him. Even this far away, she feels like he’s singing directly at them. 

The dance floor is a single squirming mass bathed in the sinister glow of red neon lights and fog. It quickly swallows them up as they move through it and Sara grabs on to the belt of John’s coat as he cuts through the crowd with that self-important swagger that makes people just part for him. She keeps her hold tight on John’s coat as she tries to assimilate their surroundings, eyes darting every which way. There is so much to look at.

A woman suddenly comes out from the foggy shadows, like she was formed from them. She’s a tall, spindly thing, frighteningly skeletal, sharp bones protruding from her ashen skin. When the strobes hit her gaunt face, Sara realizes her sloped eyes are pure red. John stops walking as the woman approaches them. She slides a finger across John’s chest and he pulls her to him by the elbow to briefly kiss her cheek. 

“Blythe, dear,” John says.

The woman—Blythe—spares a glance Sara’s way and Sara instinctively stands straighter. They study each other for a tense moment and it takes a significant effort not to recoil. There is something awfully empty about Blythe’s stare.

“A wild magician appears,” Blythe says, turning to John, “This is a surprise. I mean, given the last I heard of you.” 

“You know me. Can’t stay away from the fire too long,” he shrugs, affecting a confidence Sara can tell he doesn’t quite feel. She notices stress signals on his face and not for the first time that night, Sara grows suspicious. 

“You really are the stupidest motherfucker I’ve ever known,” Blythe says with a laugh that skirts the edge of cruel.

“Stupid in spades, that’s me,” he says and blows her a kiss and continues on his way, pulling Sara along. 

Sara cranes her neck to look back at Blythe as she moves through the crowd with such grace she looks as if she’s gliding and that’s when Sara notices the hooves.

Sara comes to a halt, pulling on John’s coat. Her sight finally adjusts to the dark and the moving shadows come into focus, fully revealing their secrets. 

Not everyone here is human.

“What the hell is this place?” she yells over the loud music as she notices horns, and fangs and extra body parts. John looks at her from under his brow, bemused.

“Welcome to Limbo,” he yells back, arms stretched at his sides. “Where the self-righteous knobs from upstairs and the scourge from down below come to partake in the base habits of our wretched humanity. Or, as the owner likes to call it, neutral ground.”

She spins where she stands, looking up into the rafters. One of the half-naked cage dancers notices her and bends down to stick her face through the bars of the cage. She sticks a forked tongue out at Sara, flicking it in the air, before she goes back to her dancing, tits bouncing to the beat. She’s wearing nothing but pleather boots, cheeky panties and nipple chains.

“If you wanna get weird...” Sara says, remembering what John had said about magical creatures on his first mission above the Waverider.

“You come to New York,” he finishes.

“Let me get this straight, a night out away from work means we end up in a room full of magical creatures.”

“Look again, sweetheart. These are no fairy godmothers or friendly wolf men with big doe eyes.”

The steel edge of his voice comes with the exciting promise of danger and the butterflies flap furiously in the pit of her stomach again. She remembers what he’d said about thin places and wonders what atrocity befell this church for it to become this playhouse of sin, because the strange energy in the air is sinister and predatory, like a pair of eyes watching over your shoulder. She’s felt that before, in the asylum. She licks her lips, mouth suddenly dry. Her grip on John’s coat grows tighter.

“It’s mostly theatrics, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Blythe there even pays her taxes.”

“I’m not afraid,” she laughs, letting go of John’s coat, and placing a hand on John's chest to force distance between them. He stares at her, clearly not believing a word she’s said and she meets his stare with all the fierceness she can muster. He realizes she’s not posturing and a slow smile creeps up his face. 

“Well alright, then, let’s get to it. Lady's choice. Will it be door number one,” he points toward the left staircase at the back of the dance floor and then points to the right, “or door number two?”

“Surprise me.”

He scrunches his face in deliberation and then lifts a shoulder in a shrug. He cups a hand around her elbow and leads them through the crowd again toward the stairs. Once up on the catwalk in the second level, Sara peers at the crowd below. From up here they look like snakes coiling around each other inside a pit. The music’s slowed to a gloomy, jazzy ballad, and a waif has joined the singer on the stage. They sing:

… don’t you see me laying in the dark? …   i’m electric can you feel my spark? … i’m the light you’ve been searching for … tonight and every night before … 

The catwalk is crowded enough that they have to squeeze through to get to where they’re going. On the way, they pass by a curtained off section where two big bouncers stand guard in front.

“What’s in there?” Sara says.

“Nothing we can afford to see.”

“Uh, did you forget what we just did like an hour ago? Cause, we’re loaded.”

“Different kind of currency, love.”

Oh, right. Demons.

The upstairs feels busier than the main floor, mainly because the old church colonnade creates natural divisions in the architecture. Everywhere she looks she sees tiny nooks and private rooms, lounges hidden from view by shimmery curtains that instead of creating privacy only serve to pique at her inner voyeur. She wants to pull them all back and experience for herself what goes on inside. 

Finally, John steps through one such curtain and leads them into a fairly quiet lounge with low mood lighting in a deep pink and purple glow. The architecture of the church is still visible in the stained glass windows and wooden beams that run across the steepled ceiling where two giant chandeliers hang from. It’s equal parts vintage speakeasy and sex lounge. There are two girls behind the bar, dressed in lacy corsets and faces done in heavy makeup. The music is sexy and gothy, loud enough to create ambiance without getting in the way of conversation. 

“So, what exactly does John Constantine get up to in Limbo?” Sara asks in a low voice as they sidestep around the furniture and other patrons.

“Nothing good, I can tell you that,” he smiles impishly. “But first things first. We start off the night by charming a drink out of the pretty she-demon behind the bar.”

“I thought that’s why we won all that money. Boobs and booze, right?”

He raises an eyebrow at her words. She's only half playing. She wants to get him loose enough to spill his secrets, but she also wants to have fun. That was always supposed to be the night’s purpose, and while the boobs might be off the table for her, the booze certainly isn't and she’s dying to find out if the whiskey’s supernatural, too.

“It’s not as much fun that way,” he murmurs. “We’ll make sure to leave a decent tip. Unless you think you don't have it in you anymore.”

If looks could kill, he'd drop dead on the spot.

“You're not seriously suggesting a competition right?”

Sara takes a good look at the girl that John pointed out. She doesn’t look like a demon, at least not from where Sara’s standing. She’s got dark hair styled in a severe bob with heavy square bangs, cheekbones that could cut glass and full lips. It’s not until she looks up that Sara sees her irises are split in two. Other than that, she’s an attractive woman in the conventional sense.

“Never flirted with a demon before,” Sara says, almost to herself. “Would the Heir to the Demon count?”

“Hmm, how ‘bout a bloke with some demon blood in ‘im, eh? You certainly knew your way around that.”

“No, John, seriously?! When we-?”

“Yep.”

“Ugh.”

“Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it. Burns worse than a whore’s cunt going down but the benefits are worth it, trust me on that.” 

The suggestion in his voice coaxes her interest and she raises an eyebrow, “really?”

“Get us a pint and I’ll tell you all about it.”

“Does that line ever actually work?”

“It’s working right now,” he says with a wink and then goes off in the opposite direction of the bar, before stopping, turning on his heel to add, “and get us the good stuff, yeah, none of that watered down yankee shite.”

She rolls her eyes at John’s impudence but goes to the bar nonetheless. She reaches for the money in her pocket and then pauses, dropping her hand. She looks back at where John is sitting and he makes an impatient gesture with his hand, as if saying “well, go on then.” She adjusts her breasts subtly, making sure they’re spilling out the top of her shirt and then drapes herself across the top of the counter, arms crossed.

“Hi,” she says in her best saccharine voice, giving the barkeep her best lashes and dimples and when the barkeep smiles back Sara can’t help but bask in the satisfaction. She’s still got it.

As if there was ever any doubt.

A minute later she’s making her way to the table John claimed for them, a pint in each hand. She places the drinks down on the table and removes her jacket and scarf, draping them over John’s trench coat which rests in the empty seat between them. She sinks into the soft velvet seat and finally relaxes, muscles a bit tense and sore after a long night of walking in the cold. 

“Didn’t take you for a lager bird,” John says, pointing to her drink.

“When in Limbo.”

A centerpiece of pillar candles with dripping wax decorates the table. The whole lounge has a vibe of macabre romanticism that she’s really digging because it’s clearly not taking itself so seriously.  She hovers her hands over the tiny flames between them and John gently moves her hands away.

“Careful there, you’ll disturb the magic.”

She sips at her beer, letting the foam gather on her lips, making them tingle. The alcohol slowly begins to warm her blood and she leans back in her seat, limbs pleasantly loose. Across from her, John fiddles with the cap of his lighter, flicking it on and off, on and off. For the first time, the silence between them is awkward and hollow, like he’s miles away from her.

“So, you come here often?” she says, half jokingly, and half because she really wants to know.

“Once or twice. It’s a good place for business. Plus, Blythe and I had a bit of an arrangement, if you catch my meaning.”

It should be more surprising he’s made bedfellows out of demons, but it isn’t. She idly wonders how that works exactly, if the mechanics involved differ at all. She laughs softly to herself at the image.

“What’s so funny?”

“Just thinking about hoof-shaped bruises.”

“I swear, one shag and she’d make me look like I’d gone several rounds with a bloody centaur.”

Sara raises an eyebrow suggestively and he whines out a petulant, “not like that” that provokes a full belly laugh from her. 

“Sure yeah, have a laugh at the poor bruised bloke.”

That just makes her laugh harder until her joy breaks through his melancholy mood and he laughs along with her.

“Hey John,” she whispers across the table, lifting her chin in the general direction of a man who has been looking their way for several minutes now, “you have an admirer.”

John twists his head around to take a look, giving the man a very obvious once over. “Hmm, tasty. But not really what I’m in the mood for tonight, love.”

“Then what are you in the mood for?”

“Guess we’ll find out,” he says, like he’s letting her in on a secret.

The ambiance between them relaxes enough for them to indulge in unimportant small talk and after an amusing game of smash or pass involving the other patrons in the lounge, Sara gets up to get them a refill. They talk about New York some more and all the other places he’s sure she would love, like the Chinese bakery with the laminated photo of Bill Clinton that makes the softest, sweetest bao you’ll ever taste. They talk about the team and debate for several minutes if the tension between Charlie and Zari is real or they’re just imagining it. At the end, they conclude that no, they are not imagining it. My bi-dar is impeccable , John says with no trace of irony.

They’re well into their second pint when he gets this faraway look in his eye, almost soft and she’s reminded of their walk earlier. He’s liquored up enough that she feels confident in bringing it up.

“So, that place we saw on the way here, Oliver’s , you wanna tell me about it?”

For a moment there is real surprise in his face, followed by a second of vulnerability, before he goes blank again. He’s silent long enough that she doesn’t think he will answer.

“Belonged to someone I used to know,” he finally says.

“Like someone special?” she presses, sensing she’s on the right track.

“Yeah, yeah he was.”

He looks at her firmly, stoic but for a brief yet heartbreaking flash of hurt, a subtle tightening of his jaw, a barely there flare of the nostrils. The revelation lands between them, sinking like a stone, as all the pieces finally align and Sara feels like she’s been punched in the gut. It’s perhaps the first and only honest thing he’s said all night.

“I’m—”, she swallows, mouth suddenly dry, as the words elude her. “I’m so sorry, John.”

“So am I.”

“What happened?” she whispers.

“The same bloody thing that always happens, Sara. He’s gone, ok. He’s just gone. Like the rest of them,” he ends in a self-deprecating whisper. 

“I’m sure you didn’t—I mean, it wasn’t—”

“My fault? Are you really trying to placate me with that bollocks?” He leans across the table, crowding her. His eyes are red rimmed, glassy, and cold. “Do us a favor, and drop the platitudes. We both know the truth.”

We're both survivors. Our survival comes at a terrible cost. People who care about us die.

“It happened just before Woodstock, didn’t it?” 

She can see it now, he wasn’t being an asshole for the hell of it, he was broken hearted. She remembers his harshness, his almost desperate pricklyness. She hadn’t really understood it then, but she does now.

Everything about him these past months suddenly makes sense, but instead of closing the door, the knowledge that his attitude is coming from a place of recent tragedy doesn’t do anything to anything to make her feel better. If anything, it’s poking at her own anxieties and worries that she’s tried to ignore. 

I’m just looking out for you. Take it from someone who knows.

He picks up his glass, takes a healthy sip of beer and looks at her over the rim of the glass. It’s amazing how he seems to age right before her eyes and all the arrogance and life just drain out of him, like a life vest with a leak, and Sara wonders about this Oliver, about the type of person who can make a cynic like John look like that.

“What was he like? Oliver. Was this your Friday night hangout?”

She knows she’s taking a gamble asking, and for a moment, she’s not sure John will even answer. She can see him deliberate in the way his whole face scrunches up.  He breathes out a laugh, like the notion is completely ludicrous.

“Desmond,” he says. “His name was Desmond. Oliver was his surname. And he wasn’t this. Des was chips and curry lunch specials, and jazz nights in Brooklyn, brunch on his days off, late night excursions on the subway, just cause. He was Sundays at the park with his kids, and...” John sniffs loudly, brings the glass back to his mouth.

Sara feels as if her lungs are being continuously stretched as she hears him talk, the air faltering, finally feeling it cave at the mention of kids. 

“He had kids?”

“Two little girls.” He grabs a cigarette and lights it using one of the candles on the table and she doesn’t even think about telling him to put it out. “Only thing he ever did wrong was look at me. And I should’ve known better than to try something with someone so bloody normal.” 

There’s that word again. Normal. She’s haunted by it. Lately she feels like it frames everything she does. It’s starting to feel like an inevitability the way a sentence is. Normal. Like death, taxes and growing old. She gulps greedily at own her beer hoping it’ll loosen the knot in her chest as she wonders when exactly she lost control of this conversation, when John had turned the tables on her and forced her to look through her own skeletons.

“Do you ever think about walking away?” she says, after the long silence becomes untenable.

“Tried it. Didn’t take. Maybe setting fire to the world is the only thing I’m good for anyway.”

Sara sighs, spent by the emotional burden of being the person picking everybody else up. “John, you can’t—”

“No, Sara, I can’t, you’re right. I can’t. And you know why? Cause I don’t bloody want to.” The arrogant curl to his mouth is cruel and ugly, eyes harsh and unforgiving. “Everyone I’ve ever loved winds up as collateral damage because the truth is, magic’s my one true mistress. My favorite fuck. Nothing makes my bollocks tingle more than that high. I’ll always be chasing it. That’s who I am down to my rotten core. And no amount of pretending will ever change that.”

Sara knows what’s coming before he opens his mouth again because for all his talent as a professional liar, he can be spectacularly unsubtle. She refuses to rise to the bait and instead crosses her arms and stares at him, chin up and steady.

“What, no words of wisdom from Captain Lance and her fluffy pink slippers of magical domesticity? ‘All you need is true love and will and you too can crawl out of the pit, Johnny, if only you wanted it enough.’ Guess what, sweetheart, the world doesn’t work like that. There’s a fine line between want and greed, Sara, and the universe always knows what to do when you try to take something you know isn’t meant for you. Sooner or later you pay for it. And I wanted it, Sara, I really did. But I’ve learned my lesson. So you give that a think before you get too ready to roll over, hand over the keys to your ship and become Director Sharpe’s kept woman.”

“That’s enough, John!” 

“Oh, hit a nerve, did I?” The grin on his face is as cutting as a blade. 

“God, you really are a nasty piece of work, aren’t you?”

He tips his pint glass at her and blows smoke in her face.

She tries to temper her anger. She reminds herself he doesn’t mean it. She knows better than most how grief warps you until the only thing that feels good is hurting others. Except everything he’s saying just echoes everything she tells herself when she can’t sleep at night and her brain conjures up fatalistic scenarios. Everything she’s worked so hard to dismiss as a nightmare not worth her time now laid out in front of her like a mirror from the great beyond.

A slow corrosion works between them, like widening water. 

“Listen, luv, I’m sorry,” John says eventually, breaking her out of her thoughts. “Des always did say I have a habit of projecting my issues on to other people.”

“I wish I didn’t see myself when I look at you,” she whispers through the knot in her throat.

There’s a passing stab of hurt in John’s eyes before his features soften, the earlier ire draining out of him completely and she finally admits to herself the reason why she’s kept her distance from him all these months. Happiness and the future aren’t something you arrive at, it’s a constant, never-ending, process, and the call of the past is so easy. 

John is so easy.

“You were right that night, when you came to the apartment. The truth is, I don’t have any words of wisdom. I have no idea what I'm doing. Neither of us do. We buy houseplants, and fluffy slippers and throw pillows because that's what you're supposed to do. That's what normal people do, right? They grow up, they fall in love, they have a house where they do the dishes and pay the bills and fight over whose turn it is to clean the bathroom.” 

She brings her hands to her head. She feels like a tank about to explode as the pressure builds until her body cannot contain it anymore.

“I was dead, John. Dead . And Ava, she’s a 3-D printed clone from the future. We are the furthest thing from normal. And I look around sometimes and think, what the fuck are we doing, trying to be these people? It’s been such a long, difficult, hurtful road for me, of not just accepting my weirdness, but learning to love it. And I'm terrified… terrified that Ava will never learn to love hers. That she will always live chasing normalcy, hiding behind her rules and procedures. Because we're never going to be normal, John. And God—it's so unfair and it's selfish and shitty to feel that way, cause I understand exactly why she craves it. I get it and I want to be there for her. But all of it just—”

She tells herself to shut up, swallow all the words, they are not his to listen to and own, but they continue to spill out like water over an overfilled tub.

“I love what I do, John, I never want to stop doing it.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s just—The future used to be this black, shapeless thing, right? And then some English prick shows up to tell me that yeah, I am a nobody and I said fuck that and I planted myself in that Captain’s chair, with all of time at my feet, and the future was finally mine to decide. And every time I thought about the future, I was still standing on that bridge.”

“And now?”

“Now…” She takes another sip of her beer and considers how she’s going to phrase what bothers her. She picks at the threads of the holes in her jeans. “I still want that. But Ava…  Sometimes I’m not sure that’s what she wants.” Preserving time might be Ava's job, but it's Sara's purpose. 

Sara speaks in a low voice, like the words coming out of her mouth shame her, “She clings to her job at the Bureau because it’s the one real thing she’s ever had. And I do get it, I do, but other than that... She’s got all these boxes she wants to tick off, y’know? These milestones that ‘real’ people are supposed to achieve.” She swallows, trying to contain the ugly words about to come out, “Sometimes, her idea of normalcy—”

“Feels like a cage to you.”

“I didn’t say that, John.”

“Didn’t ‘ave to, luv.”

She looks up at John, his face is soft and relaxed in understanding and in that moment she hates him. She balls up her hands into fists to keep them from shaking.  

“Have you told her any of this?” he says.

“Of course not! How can I? How do I say any of this without sounding like a complete asshole? How do I tell her that the thing she hates most about herself is what I... What I envy?” She swallows around the tightness in her throat. “I love her, John,” she says, sincerely and emphatically. 

“I know you do,” he answers, equally honest. “But you’re hoping with enough encouragement, she’ll see it your way. That’s why you invite her along sometimes, innit? Sara, you and I know it better than most. Can’t really change the way you’re wired.”

For the first time his words don’t sound at all like a taunt or a self-important warning. They are laced with raw pain and regret, a loneliness so cutting that tears prickle at the corners of her eyes. 

“I hated him sometimes, you know,” he says. “When he’d say things like he didn’t care what I’d done before, how my past didn’t matter. Felt good at first to hear that, then it got to feeling like maybe he didn’t love all of me after all. Cause it don’t really work like that, dunnit? Can’t pretend we’re not the end result of everything that came before.”

She blinks the tears away and takes a deep breath.

“No, you know what? We’re not doing this. We are not talking about this anymore.”

He leans back in his seat, crossing a leg over his knee, adopting a casual stance. “You’re the one who brought it up, luv. I wanted a night away from the existential bollocks and I thought you tagged along cause you wanted the same yet here you are dragging out your ball and chain and the ghosts of my tragic past.” 

He speaks with affected mirth, which she appreciates, because she knows what he’s trying to do. So she clears her throat, laps at the last of her beer and follows his lead.

“You’re right, you’re right, okay. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Hmm, not exactly, but it does have a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

She kicks him under the table, satisfied when her boot makes contact with his shin. He screams out bloody fucking hell, and she thinks she didn’t know his voice could go that high.

He gets up and shakes his injured leg.

“Christ. Stay here. It’s my turn to charm us a drink or two.” 

He walks off toward the bar, limping on his good leg. Then it’s like a veil has been pulled back and everything that Sara forgot comes rushing back: the music, the lighting, the people. Her cheeks flush in embarrassment at the absurdity of having had that conversation here of all places, but luckily, no one seems to have been paying them any attention. 

Magic.

John comes back a few minutes later with two more pints and she takes grateful sips of the beer, even if she’s craving something stronger. She feels flayed and exposed and she aches for the numbness that getting really drunk brings.

“So what else do you do here besides drink and shag the occasional demon?”

“Like I said before, it’s a good place for business.”

The conversation falters. Try as they might they can’t go back to the way it was before, not now that they’ve witnessed each other’s secrets in such spectacular honesty.

John plays with his zippo while Sara tries to people watch. The minutes tick on and on as she ponders the futility of trying to foster intimacy with John. The two of the are like—they’re like gemini feed, twins stuck in a loop of vice and loathing, too broken in the same ways. 

And yet… 

Suddenly, the hairs on the back of her neck prickle, and her senses come on full alert. Someone’s watching them. She only has to scan the crowd once before she spots him all the way in the catwalk: a tall man in a three piece suit, curly blond hair parted on one side, and the coldest eyes Sara’s ever seen. He seems to almost glow. He doesn’t look like a demon, but there’s an otherworldly aura to the form that Sara knows means he’s definitely not human. John begins to say something and then trails off as he follows her line of sight. 

“Oh, well, look at that, speaking of arrogant gits,” he says as he eyes the man. He nods at the man and the man nods back. With that, John’s entire demeanor changes, he sobers up in a second, a satisfied smirk takes over his face. “Looks like this night might not be a total cock up after all. Excuse me, love,” says as he stands up and grabs his coat. “I’ve gotta go see a snob about a soul broker.”

“Hey, wait, John—"

“Have fun, but not too much,” he winks at her and then disappears into the dark. He and the tall stranger walk together and Sara stretches her neck, following the two silhouettes until they disappear into the VIP Area.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

Typical. Men and their one track minds. What the hell is she supposed to do now alone in a demonic nightclub? She reaches over the table for John’s forgotten lager and drinks it, taking childish pleasure from it. She supposes there’s nothing stopping her now from getting well and truly drunk, like she’s wanted to for the past hour. But what kind of loser gets drunk alone in a place like this, that reeks of sex and desire? 

She pulls her phone out, hating that she’s that girl checking her phone because she’s all alone in the club. There’s no signal. Of course. She laughs to herself because her prediction for the night had come to fruition after all.

There’s a picture of Ava as her lock screen, hair down, no make up, like only Sara gets to see her. Sara smiles softly and a little sad. She stares at the photo until the screen goes black.

Where is she right now? Home, at peace beneath the sheets? At the Bureau buried in paperwork, avoiding the loneliness of the empty side at the other end of the bed? Running, like Sara is running?

Running. She’s always running. And no matter how much she tries to run, it always catches up.

What will happen to Director Sharpe and Captain Lance when there are no more creatures to wrangle? What if they fix time without breaking it again? What then? What do they do with the silence, the idleness? How do they fill those spaces? She's lived with a crowd in her head for so long, with a clock in her heart. How does she slow down?

Is that why she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop? Because she’s subconsciously yearning for a deferment on the future? Because she’s afraid of learning that maybe two disparate pieces cannot be made to fit together? 

When had she become so steeped in fear?

The more you have, the more you have to lose.

Sara finishes the last of John’s beer and is debating whether to say fuck it and get really roaring drunk or just leave John to whatever he's doing and go back to the ship when she feels eyes on her. She lifts her head enough to see that a woman is leaning against the bar, unabashedly staring at her. She's wearing the skimpiest black dress that shows off her mile long legs, and other assets. She's got thick dark hair that comes down to the middle of her back and cold blue eyes that shine in the low light. Sara squints in the dark, trying to place where she’s seen the woman before, she looks so familiar. When the woman notices that she's caught Sara's attention, she approaches Sara’s table, her steps steady with intention. She places a tumbler full of rich amber liquid on the table and then crosses her arms over her chest, leaning against the table.

“Forgive me for being forward, but you looked like you could do with a drink.” Her voice is deep and raspy and has a slight hint of an accent that Sara can’t quite place.

She's got to admire her gumption, though. It's a move Sara herself has used many times, and another time, another life, Sara would be all over that. But now…

“Mind if I sit?” the woman says and Sara shrugs, her curiosity and duty at war with each other, still she can’t give this woman any hint that this is going anywhere.

The woman settles into the seat John vacated and rests her arms on top of the table. The discarded ashes from John’s last cigarette stick to her forearms. She hasn’t noticed, but Sara can’t stop staring at the specks of grey on her otherwise pristine skin. Sara sits on her hands and sinks her fingers into the plush velvet of the seat cushion beneath her.

The chatter around them grows louder as the seconds tick on. The woman doesn’t say anything and neither does Sara. The glass of whiskey stays untouched between them.

“Well, if you’re not drinking it I will. No use letting fine liquor go to waste. No funny business, I promise,” the stranger says, a hand over her heart and God help her, but Sara believes her.

Sara reaches for the tumbler and brings it up to her nose, making a show of sniffing the alcohol. She finally takes a modest sip and she moans at the rich, expensive taste.

“Shit, that is good.”

“I thought you looked like a woman who appreciates a good scotch.”

“And what does that look like?” Sara says, leaning back in her seat.

The stranger leans forward over her folded arms, narrowing the space between them. 

“Like a woman who’s just my type.”

A traitorous blush suffuses Sara’s face and she ducks her head, a dimpled smile forming naturally. She’s used to being the instigator, and doesn’t know what to do with the reverse.

“I’m with someone,” she says a moment later, but the stranger isn’t dettered in the least. If anything, her smile grows brighter.

“Not right now you’re not,” she says.

Sara picks up her glass, intent on buying herself some time to figure out how to respond, when she realizes the glass is heavier than she remembers it. She brings it up to the light to inspect it and finds the scotch has replenished itself.

“Magic,” the woman says with a smile and Sara narrows her eyes. “The glasses! I mean, the glasses are charmed, not the whiskey. Sorry, didn’t mean to sound like I was drugging you. This is going well, isn’t it.”

Her cheeks go so pink it’s noticeable even in this light. She tucks a lock of her dark hair behind her ear, eyes not quite meeting Sara’s and the momentary embarrassment is much more endearing than it should be.

“Well, in that case,” Sara says and takes another drink. God, it tastes exactly like the real thing. So much better than the ship’s replicators. 

“I really love magic,” Sara says with a wistful sigh.

“So,” the woman starts, “what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”

Sara laughs, choking on her drink. “Oh, I think that’s the first time someone’s ever called me a nice girl. I came here with a friend but it looks like he ditched me to go get laid.”

“Men are pigs.”

“Tell me about it. What’d you say your name was again?”

“Ellie.”

“Hi, Ellie. I’m Sara.”

Sara offers her hand and Ellie takes it into one of her own, her skin soft and manicured against her own rough and calloused. There’s something about Ellie that puts Sara at ease and Sara allows her defenses to lower. If she were a different person she’d call it her aura.

Except… isn’t she supposed to be walking around in John Constantine’s shoes tonight? What would John say?

“You have a nice aura, love,” Sara says and Ellie’s face twists as she tries to fight a laugh. Then it’s Sara the one who can’t hold back and they giggle together.

“Okay, now that we've both made asses of ourselves, how about I get you a drink.”

Sara makes sure she actually pays for the whiskey this time and leaves a sizeable tip to make up for the ones they essentially stole earlier. From her place at the bar, Sara looks back into the corner where their table is, at Ellie waiting for her. For a moment, Sara lets herself pretend that this is normal. That Ellie is someone from the past, someone she lost contact with along the way. A classmate, maybe, from her single year of college. Someone not privy to the decade of hardship she’s lived through, who knew the girl who laughed and partied easily and dreamed about the future without fear and she gives herself permission to pretend she is that girl, even if for just tonight.

She plasters a smile on her face and walks back to the table.

“A toast to making new friends and leaving men behind,” she says, meeting Ellie’s glass in the air.

Thanks to the magical tumblers, the whiskey keeps flowing and so does the conversation and soon enough her blood is drink warm, her head just the right amount of buzzy, limbs pleasantly languid. There’s a certain freedom in their rapport, easy and uncomplicated, because they know it’s not leading anywhere and Sara’s suddenly so thankful for this woman who doesn’t know anything about her, and will not learn anything except the banal, impersonal details Sara allows. It’s the opposite of having John sit across from her like a prophecy of doom.

“Come on! I just want a dance. That’s all,” Ellie says.

Sara scrunches up her face, mostly for theatrics, cause she’s already decided she’s going.

“One dance,” Sara answers, holding up her index finger for extra emphasis.

Ellie claps her hands once in triumph and jumps from her seat. She slinks away toward the main catwalk, Sara following on her heels, all thoughts of John and Ava pushed away for the moment. They walk all the way down the catwalk to the other end of the church. Ellie stops in front of one of the curtained off sections and looks over her shoulder back at Sara, eyes alight with mischief and makes a come hither motion with her pointer finger.

Crossing the curtain feels very much like stepping into another realm. The music suddenly attacks them, loud and overbearing. It’s something very 80’s: sexy, electronic, yet gloomy. The room is not as packed as the downstairs, but it’s still filled almost to capacity, and they struggle to get through the crowd. The air smells like sweat and something much more primal. Power. Sex.

Ellie leads them straight to the middle of the dance floor, right beneath the giant disco ball that’s casting rainbows all over the room and immediately starts swaying. It takes Sara a moment to get into it. She can’t remember when she last went dancing for the hell of it and even then, this music isn’t exactly the soundtrack of her misspent youth. She starts with a simple two-step, oddly self-conscious, then she’s adding a swing of the arms, until her hips join in. Ellie’s enthusiasm is infectious as she mouths the words: “And I still find it so hard … To say what I need to say … But I'm quite sure that you'll tell me … just how I should feel today…” and then Sara’s off, like a switch has been flipped inside her and she dances and dances until she’s sweating and panting in the best way, giggling with abandon with Ellie. 

The beat pounds in her ears like the beating of a heart, silencing the echoes that inhabit her mind. The taste of lightning fills her mouth as the charge zings across her body. Sara surrenders to the current without fear of consequence and lets herself fall.

Chapter Text

Let's embrace the point of no return

Cherry sugar and soda pop. Bright and fizzy in her mouth. That’s what the air tastes like. Like 2007. Burnside Music Festival. Kool-Aid gin and tonics in the back of Tommy’s truck. Youth and impunity. Sara licks her lips, chasing the phantom taste of decade old summer days, prolonging her stay within the oasis of memory. A smile stretches her face, lips peeled back so far her cheeks ache. She can feel her dimples and the deepening of every crease around the contours of her eyes. A pleasing tingle ebbs through her body as she dances, hands up in the air and hips rolling from side to side. Her mind and soul are full with the pulsing hum of the music. The thrum expands inside her until it pushes out all things but one: pure unbridled joy. 

Across from her, her companion matches her euphoria and abandon. A shake of her shoulders. A swing of her hips. Ellie. Bringer of light. The name fits her well. She's bright, like a firefly in the unlit night, or a lighthouse in the open sea, and Sara can’t stop staring at her. They’ve kept their respectful distance as they dance, even if that distance has narrowed with every song, but still, they haven’t dared touch. The frantic pounding of the music stops for a second and the beat drops. The melody turns slow and seductive. Sara floats down from the cloud she’s been riding and finally ventures to bridge the distance. She curves a tentative hand over one of Ellie’s shoulders. Ellie’s eyes drift down to where Sara’s fingers barely make contact with her warm skin and by unspoken mutual accord, they slow the tempo of their dancing. 

The room narrows down to just the two of them as they dance and Sara then lets herself look, really look. Fuck, but if Ellie isn’t the most gorgeous woman Sara’s ever seen. Dark hair, dark sultry eyes— wait, weren’t they blue before? —oh, and her freckles. This close, Sara can count every single spot speckled across the tops of Ellie’s cheeks. And then there’s her smile. There’s something so familiar about Ellie’s smile. It’s not open and free, like the one on her own face right now, but reserved, like a gift bestowed, like…  She looks like… Who? Who does she look like?

Like Nyssa .

Something skittish and cold slithers in Sara’s belly. Like the scary, weightless moment before the big drop in a roller coaster. A stab of suspicion and confusion pricks at the back of her mind. There is something she’s missing. Something important, even, but her brain, still coasting the waves of euphoria, can’t seem to connect the dots. 

Come on, Sara, think .  

Ellie gifts her with another smile. Dark eyes sparkle in the shadows. A soft sigh escapes Sara’s lips. The world melts away in a wash of fog and neon and Sara’a floating up and away until a pair of masculine arms around her waist anchor her again. She freezes immediately, elbows locked and ready to strike. The familiar scent of Silk Cut cigarettes and day old cologne hits her nose. The tension releases as quick as it came and she wordlessly sinks into John’s embrace as he props his chin on her shoulder. He feels warm and strong. Unsettling, because it’s also comforting.

“Chantinelle,” John says over Sara’s shoulder. His voice is low and raspy, like it’s tired of making words all the time. His hot breath skims the curve of Sara’s ear. She tries, and fails, to suppress an all body shiver. It warms her deep to her core.

“Hello, John,” Ellie says, completely unsurprised by John’s presence, like she’d been expecting him all along.

And oh, of course. They know each other.

The charge in the air shifts, swiftly, like the strike of a match. Ellie rakes her eyes over Sara’s lax form as if she’s seeing her for the first time all over again, like she’s an object she’s appraising. It makes Sara feel naked. Ellie takes one step forward, brushing her hips against Sara’s and Sara instinctively leans back into John, suddenly and inexplicably fearful. 

“So this is where you’ve been all these months. I thought I smelled you on her,” Ellie says, the smile on her face no longer warm, but smug and defiant and Sara doesn’t even think to correct the assumption. It’s like her tongue has become lead in her mouth.

“That’s right,” John says. “So do us a favor, would ya? Keep your slaggy hands off, find another sorry soul to feast on.”

The unmistakable threat in John’s voice turns Sara’s skin to gooseflesh, even in the oppressive heat of the crowded dance floor. The air is thin and she struggles to fill her lungs. 

“Don’t tempt me like that, babe,” Ellie says, hands sliding around Sara to grab on to John’s waist, “Not unless you want to find out what it’s like to really get fucked by a pro.” She then pushes her hips into Sara’s, knocking her back into John’s and Sara can do nothing but wiggle to the side. She’s caught between two hunters in unfamiliar ground and no way out.

“Don’t flatter yourself, sweetheart,” John says. “The scraps weren’t good enough to go back for seconds.”

Ellie’s beautiful face twists in anger and Sara swears her features actually change into something truly bestial. Just a flash, then it’s gone. It makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

“Are you sure that’s how you want to play it?” Ellie says as she gets even closer, close enough that her breasts brush up against Sara’s own. The smell of sulfur and mercury invades Sara’s senses, stealing the breath from her. 

“You’re running out of allies, Johnny. Then again, that’s what you do best, right? Run. I’ll see you around then,” Ellie whispers in a tone so sinister even Sara recoils.

John, what the hell did you do?

Ellie pulls away and Sara’s fear disintegrates as quickly as it came, leaving behind the kinetic rush of adrenaline powering through her. A laugh of relief escapes Sara’s dry mouth.

“Wow. You sure know how to leave ‘em, don’t you?” Sara says, angling her head back toward John.

“Be careful with this one,” Ellie tells her. “He’ll take what he needs from you and then run away like a demon at the gates of Heaven.”

John’s body goes rigid behind Sara’s, righteous anger radiating from him. He releases her waist and curls a hand around her forearm instead.  

“Come on,” he grunts as he pulls her away from the dance floor and Ellie a little too forcefully. 

John bulldozes his way through the crowd with little regard to her until they finally step around the curtain and onto the packed catwalk. Sara pulls her arm away from John’s hold too quickly and she sways a bit where she stands, the sudden shift in temperature making her even woozier.  

“What the hell was that all about?” she drawls and he snarls at her, gesturing vaguely to the room behind them.

“Can’t bloody leave you alone for two minutes.”

“Wha—Ok, first of all, you were gone a lot longer than two minutes, and second…” her words come out slow and slurred, her whiskey soaked tongue heavy and awkward in her mouth, “second… you ditched me , and third—thirdly, you were the one who told me to have fun.” 

“And you did. Look at you, you’re in a right state.” His eyes are judgmental and mocking as they roam over her.

“Seriously? You of all people trying to judge me for… what exactly? I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

“And what was that, then, eh?” he says and points in the direction of the dance floor. 

“Dancing, John, it’s called dancing. And it wasn't a big deal.” 

“Not a big deal.”

“Uh, yeah,” she answers, her eyes wide and mouth stretched open. “I don’t unders—Why are you mad?” Of course he’d do this, bully her into insecurity all night, whittle her down to feeling like a boring domesticated buzzkill and then come around and try to make her feel bad for doing exactly what he’d goaded her into doing. “You know what, I don’t care. I am so over you.”

She spins around and stalks down the narrow balcony as best she can, heading straight for the bar at the very end, desperate for another drink, or silence or anything that will get her back to that euphoric state that's just been wrenched from her.

“Oh, look at me, I’m John Constantine,” Sara mumbles mockingly, “moody little bitch out to ruin everyone’s night just ‘cause something’s got my balls in a twist.”

John grabs her arm and pulls hard, causing her to stumble again. She snatches it back and then pushes hard on John’s chest. Nothing happens. He’s effortlessly circled both hands around her wrists. 

“Hey, hey, hey, listen!” he says and Sara rolls her eyes and obliges him by staring at him in exaggerated intent. “Don’t let yourself be fooled by the shy smile and the perky tits, sweetheart. That woman you were ‘just dancing’ with is as nasty as they come, trust me on that one.”

Sara huffs impatiently and peers back through the gap in the curtains to the spot where she’d just been dancing, but Ellie is nowhere to be seen.

“Hmmm. You wanna know what I think? I think you’re jealous.” She spreads her fingers over John’s chest, her wrists still in his grasp. John scoffs but she barrels on, “I think it’s just eating you up inside that you’re not the one she obviously wanted to fuck—”

“Fuck? Is that what- Sara, she’s a beast from Hell itself, a shapeshifter who draws on your darkest desires so she can trap you and suck the life force right out of ya. She’s not some nice bird for you to gossip and giggle with, she’s a succubus.”

The witty comeback dies on her tongue as she sucks in a breath.

A sex demon. The friendly stranger was a sex demon. Of fucking course she ended up dancing her worries away with a freaking sex demon, because how else was the night supposed to end? Maybe she’s meant to be scared by that, John’s reaction certainly suggests it, but the only thing that comes out of her is a laugh that borders on hysterical, and the longer she laughs, the more incensed John gets. 

“I guess you’re not the only one who can pull a demon, eh?” she says, feeling herself sink back into John Constantine’s skin, chest puffing out and shoulders squared in affected confidence.

“Hey! You can’t let your guard down in a place like this. Do you know what would’ve happened if I hadn’t come along when I did?”

“Aww, were you worried about me? Well, I guess it’s a good thing you came to my rescue then, right? Saving me from the nasty, sexy hell beast.” She laughs again. “Seriously, John, is there anything you wouldn’t fuck? How many demons have you slept with?!”

The people milling around them all simultaneously turn to look at them, amused by her outburst. In the distance, she hears an impressed, right on, man .

“Yeah, man, right on,” Sara says with a wink.

For once, John is clearly not enjoying the attention. His jaw clicks under the tension he’s carrying there. Harsh breaths pass through his nose. “Well, you know me. I’m certainly not above slumming it with the likes of her when I have something to gain from it.”

John’s answer lacks his usual level of arrogance, dripping with sarcasm and impatience instead. His eyes scan restlessly over Sara’s head. It’s just enough for Sara to smell blood in the water.

“You really fucked a succubus, huh.”

“Well, truth be told, she was doing most of the fucking.”

“Yeah? You into that?”

“Thought we’d established earlier I’m the sort of bloke who’ll try anything once.” He pauses for a second, looks at her pointedly while smiling and adds, “Or twice.”

She smiles back because she knows what he’s doing, she’s caught on to his game now. She narrows the space between them and stands on her tiptoes to be nose to nose with him. “So, what’d she taste like?” she whispers, a full on grin on her face.

“Like hell,” he says, voice a husky growl. He probably thinks he’s being so clever.

Satisfaction lights up her face as she comes back down to her own height so she can duck her head and look up at him from underneath heavy lashes. A finger slides ever so slightly against the side seam of his tie.

“What about me?” she says and lets the pause linger long enough for him to become uneasy. He looks down at her wandering finger and then back up at her face. He has that look again, like she’s a riddle he’s trying to solve and the gratification of being the one throwing him off balance for once feels too fucking good to stop fueling the fire now. “What’d you gain from me, I mean,” she adds and he meets her halfway, the cockiness making itself known again.

“You mean besides a good time?” he murmurs, “I dunno, what’d you get out of it, luv?”

What happened between them had been a moment, something best left behind in the past where it’d existed. They’ve never brought it up, or talked about it, or allowed their tryst to determine what they are to each other now. So why does the memory of it feel inescapable and defining now? Why does it underscore every action they take to try to push each other’s buttons? What had she gotten out of it? What had it all been about? Was it comfort? An escape? A game? Or nothing more than… 

“One last ride?” her drunk mouth supplies and her eyes stray down for a second before shifting up again. There are a million thoughts running through his mind and each one is reflected in the lines of his face. The ensuing silence vacillates between awkward and loaded, and for a second, Sara second guesses herself, until he lets out a choked laugh, breaking the strange tension that had been building between them and she can’t help but laugh, too, resting her forehead against his shoulder.

“Cheers to that, then,” he says. “And on that note, I think that’s enough fun for one night. You ready to go?”

“Oh come on, what’s the rush? We just got here.”

“Sara, we’ve been here near three hours.”

“No we haven’t. We just—I mean, we-”

She looks around and feels the world shift again. Her surroundings are not exactly as she remembers them. The club is significantly busier than it had been when they’d first arrived. The catwalk itself is packed three bodies deep with clientele decidedly less human. There’s a veritable rainbow of flesh tones and appendages, creatures straight out of the yellowed grimoires that now take residence in the ship’s library. Up in the cages, the dancers from earlier have been replaced by two flame-headed, purple-skinned creatures. 

“Time flies when you’re having fun, eh? And you’ve certainly had yours. I think it’s time to call it a night.” 

His tone is still short and frustrated and Sara’s too drunk right now to try to parse out why. She stares right into the flames and thinks about stepping out of the fantasy of New York and back into the chill of her ship quarters, to the queasy uncertainty of the future and she knows that she’s not yet ready to go home.

“Well, now who’s all uptight.” She grabs John’s shoulders and shakes them back and forth. “Loosen up, love,” she says in a bad approximation of his accent that makes him wince and roll his eyes. “What’s wrong? Did the pretty man from earlier reject you? I know this might come as a shock to you, John, but not everyone wants in your pants,” she finishes in a mock whisper.

“Is that so?” 

She ignores the warning in his voice and grabs the end of his tie, twisting it around her pointer finger.

“Just because you struck out doesn’t mean all of us have to pack it in. You promised me a distraction, and I haven’t been sufficiently distracted.” 

A dark look falls over John’s face and he swiftly pushes her back against the catwalk rail, keeping her trapped between the weight of his body and the hard edge of the balcony. Her hand automatically comes up to grab his shoulder to brace herself. His face hovers just a few inches over hers. 

“Careful what you wish for, sweetheart,” he rasps. “You just might get it.”

He smells like whiskey, like stale cigarettes and warm beer, like the back of the skeevy bar she slung drinks at when barely 19 years old. Her breath catches in her chest and…

  oh …  

Time slows and stretches like sticky taffy as they stare at each other; two islands floating in infinite darkness with nothing but one another surrounding them. The noise around them dampens, as if coming from flooded speakers, low and far away. She looks up at him and he looks down at her and oh, they’ve been here before, haven’t they: him and her and the crackle of supernatural energy in the air. There’s an emerging thrilling pull in her belly, a heat down below that has her squirming against him, the seam of her jeans rubbing against her sensitive sex. Her hand falls from his shoulder and skims over his chest until it drops to her side, where it balls up into a fist. Her restless fingers pick at the frayed fabric of her holey jeans, twisting and pulling until the threads snap.

His lip curls, eyes brimming with her secrets, and she finds herself again in the honesty of their darkness. Like her sight finally adjusting to the dark after waking up in the middle of the night.

Clarity. 

It brings a stark awareness of her body: the sweat cooling at the small of her back and between her breasts; the traitorous heat blooming in her ears; the way her chest rises and falls in harsh movements; the quickening pounding of her heart. The prickling sensation of pins and needles spreads all the way from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes as her awareness hones in on John’s body and all the places where it meets hers. Specifically his thigh, dangerously close to the aching spot between her legs. She’s suffocated by the desire to pull his hips to her hips and grind down, right here in front of everyone, feel for herself if he’s feeling what she’s feeling. 

He lifts his chin and she subconsciously follows the movement, as if pulled by invisible strings. She holds her breath and waits, but John just pulls away from her and Sara lets out a deep, calming exhale. She shakes her head, trying to dissipate the fog and all at once bedlam resumes. She pushes past him, clipping his shoulder with her own, and bolts straight to the busy bar at the end. She cuts through the queue of thirsty patrons by the power of her glare alone and finally orders a shot of tequila. When the bartender hands her the drink, Sara grabs her shot glass and tips it quickly over her mouth, tongue out to catch every stray drop, praying for the heady rush. 

She’s suddenly too fucking sober.

The electric charge she’s been feeding off all night turns violent, like if she were to stretch out her arms they would shake uncontrollably. Her hands do tremble as she puts the shot glass down on the bar’s surface. She curls her hands into fists, tight as she can. John is just right behind her. She can feel him, the shape of him, taking up so much room and leaving her with nothing but a swath of space to exist in. She catches a flash of white and red on the mirror behind the bar. She doesn’t turn around. She doesn’t want to look at him. She can’t. Because life with John is an endless game of chicken. And right now, she’s losing.

The tequila has warmed her blood but her thoughts are still too clear. She orders another shot and swallows it down with the same urgency as the first one. John is still right behind her, the devil on her shoulder whose voice gets louder and more beguiling as the night goes on. She steels herself and looks up to meet his eyes in the mirror behind the bar. He looks like a dark whisper in the shadows, like something coiling out of sight. Terrifying. Insidious. Beckoning. Sara’s instinct has always been to run towards the fire, feed the flame, but even in her current state she understands this is a burn there’d be no coming back from. 

She holds his gaze in the mirror until the intimacy becomes too cutting and she turns around and pushes past him and everyone else standing in her way, rushes across the balcony and down the stairs to the main level, where she lets the crowd of dancers take and engulf her. 

She allows the flow of the multitude to push her around until she’s standing in the middle of the room, completely still. She gazes up at the massive stained glass window. There is Christ, glorified and crowned, arms open to receive this sinful flock into His grace. A shadow crosses in front, and for a second, a crown of horns sits atop His head. The image is chilling, in the purest sense of the word. 

This place used to be a holy sanctuary. Desecrated into—what was it that John said?—a temple of scars, borne from atrocity. And to think that the shamelessness of doing all this below God’s watchful eyes staring down at them is probably what gets most of these people off. And her? She suspires as she wades further into the crowd and sends up a prayer to a God she’s never bothered with before.  

From the snares of the Devil, free us Lord.

There is no cherry flavored sugar or fizzy soda pop in the atmosphere now, only fire and whiskey and ash. It coats her tongue, her throat, her lungs, and she breathes so deep it’s as if she’s drowning. Bodies crash against her like waves breaking on a rocky shore but she remains stalwart. Uneroded. The lights change from blood red to a rich indigo blue and the fog thickens until the bodies dancing around her become spectral shadows blinking in and out of reality.

Oh, to join them in momentary nonexistence.

She closes her eyes and loses herself to the mindless escape. The seconds, minutes, hours turn and loop and she keeps moving until she’s empty, hollow as the air. Her body is not her own. It is their collective body. She is them and they are her and they are here, there, everywhere, nameless and faceless. She floats directionless in the current right into the state of being that they call desire.

The music is not melodious or harmonic but instead a sludgy kind of electronica, too shrill in any other context, but here the overbearing sonic tide carries them, urges them further into the pit of their base instincts. The vocals don’t fill the room like the man she’d heard earlier. This song is not a boom but a ubiquitous whisper materializing from the air itself, tickling behind her ear:

“... You’re an animal now … a wolf on the prowl …  you can be anything you want if you let go...”

The heat is overbearing, suffocating, dizzying. Infernal. She’s soaked from head to knee. Her hair sticks to her neck, her shirt is plastered to her body. Her nipples are hard and sensitive under her thin top. Leathery skin brushes against her arms, her waist, her back and she wriggles when feathered wings tickle the nape of her neck.

Sara opens her eyes. Fog still blankets the room. The strobes continue to flicker on and off, on and off, making the landscape shift with every turn. A flash of yellow hair moves near the corner of her eye, catching Sara’s attention. She stops dancing and waits for the world to stand still again. Her eyes focus and she recognizes the silhouette standing at the fringes of the crowd. It’s John. His slack body is trapped between two pale willowy figures, nearly identical in their red hair and near nudity, except one of them has an impressive set of boobs. Sara catches sight of the nipple chain and recognizes the pair as the cage dancers. 

John’s coat is gone again, his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows as usual, but the collar of his shirt lies completely open across the top of his chest. His hair sticks up in every direction. His limbs seem pliant. He looks like a painting. A bastardized modern day Saint Sebastian, wounded and tied.

Who? Who made you look like that?

The twins’ hands roam over John’s body as he stands there, open and submissive, like they could do whatever they want to him and he’d let them. Sara can’t take her eyes away from the scene. The she-demon fits the curves of her body against John’s and drives her pelvis right into his crotch. Her movements are sinuous, so graceful and sensual, leaving no question as to what exactly she wants from him. Her twin reaches over John’s shoulder for John’s tie, wraps the end of it around a fist and pulls forcefully until the lines of John’s neck are taut as a wire and Sara swears she can see his Adam’s apple bob from all the way over here. Her own neck tilts back and she swallows hard. The she-demon takes the opening and licks the column of John’s neck, flicking her forked tongue at the top. John shivers and Sara’s body responds in kind. Sara licks her lips and imagines the taste of sweat salty skin, feels the prickle of stubble on her tongue. When the demoness presses her naked tits against John’s chest Sara feels the flush spread across her own breasts. That pull in her belly grows needier and the memory of her own voice echoes inside her head: John’s fun…  

John is…  staring at her. Vision startlingly clear. Sara’s rooted in place. An entire room separates them, but don’t dare look away. Not now. 

The twins continue to paw at him. They’re going to eat him alive , she thinks. Another man obscures her view. Something distracts John. She can’t see what. Her ears feel hot. Her hands are restless. And she’s alone with the afterimage of rapture on John’s face playing inside her head.

A treacherous and familiar emotion enkindles inside her. It takes her just a second to name it: jealousy. She wants to claim her ownership even though it’s ludicrous and wrong—so very wrong—because John is not hers and she is not John’s. 

It tastes sour in her mouth.

That is the truth about her life that she doesn’t like to think about. She’d known how to be selfish and destructive long before the Gambit and Anthony Ivo and Ra’s al Ghul. Those impulses had always lived inside her.

They still do.

So she peels herself away from the anonymous embrace of the crowd and follows the beacon of pale flesh and yellow hair. When she reaches the trio, Sara insinuates herself between John and the demoness with a distinct lack of apology. To her credit, the she-demon doesn’t falter as she twirls and casually plasters herself to Sara’s back, pushing her closer still. Chest to chest. Hip to hip. John finally opens his eyes. Pupils so blown they look bottomless take a moment to focus. He doesn’t say anything, just watches her in that loaded, calculating way of his. Like he’s biding his time, waiting to see what she does.

Sara keeps her hands at her sides but rocks her hips against his experimentally. Much to her surprise, John knows how to move with her. It’s not an artful dance by any means, but that suits her just fine.

They do that for a minute or so. Just move. This is still a game, though, and one of them has to show their cards if they want to get anywhere.

“So, that whole wounded waif thing you got going on right now?” she says. “I hate to admit it, but it’s kinda hot.”

What the fuck are you doing, Sara?

“And you with that hero complex of yours,” he says, “Lucky me.”

“You wish.”

The ghost of a laugh escapes from him. Then, like this is completely normal, like they do it everyday, she spins on her heels and fits her back to John’s chest.

“I make my own luck, remember?” His lips brush against her ear and she curls into the wriggly feeling in her gut. “Speaking of, I took the liberty of securing our earnings while you were off distracting yourself.” There’s a hint of mockery in the lilt of his voice. “Think you had enough yet, or do we have to call our succubus friend back?”

“She was fun, but…” John’s fun , but … “we can make do without her.”

“Oh?”

“Shut up and dance with me.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Face to face with the demoness and her perfect tits. A cutting look from Sara and the she-demon smirks knowingly, admitting defeat. She slips away, her twin following behind and then it’s just the two of them together beneath the undertow. 

The songs fade one into another until she can’t tell them apart anymore. She moves and twists to her heart’s content and John mostly just keeps a loose hold on her. His breath puffs hotly in the crook of her neck. She times her own breathing to his, to the hypnotic drone of the music, lulling her until she feels the world tilt. 

Sara turns in John’s arms and in his whiskey bright eyes she sees that sick kind of empathy that connects them. Fuck . She’s too drunk or maybe not drunk enough. Her breathing quickens, her heart flutters madly in her chest. Her hands itch with the want to touch, to take and consume and destroy, even. What are you doing to me? she wants to ask. But he’s not doing anything. It’s not him.

She’d never admit to it beyond the privacy of her thoughts but John scares her sometimes. This bastard with his head full of mysteries and secret things who so easily peels back her layers to expose the truth about her soul. 

There’s nothing scary about him now, though. He’s all languid and soft-limbed and open. Surrendered. To her. Right now, he looks like someone she could take apart and hurt. And she wants to, wants to strip him of his arrogance, take him to that place between reverence and wrath.

He whispers her name; a taunt and a plea. The duplicitous bastard. He’s still playing a game. She knows this. She doesn’t care.

She raises her hand, palm open. It lingers in the divide. Her fingers twitch in the charged air. Tentatively, she lays the hand flat on his stomach and sneaks two fingertips through the gap between two buttons until they touch skin. She waits a beat. Then two. Slowly, so slowly, John brushes two of his fingers across the strip of bare hip between her shirt and her jeans. 

The simple touch ignites her synapses and strengthens her resolve. She brings her other hand to the back of his head and twists her fingers into his hair. It’s getting long, long enough for her to really sink her grip into. His eyes flutter closed at the touch. The fingers on her hip travel up her spine until they settle at the base of her neck. The sensation goes straight to where she’s most sensitive and wanting, and she grinds into his leg, sure he can feel the heat of her cunt straight through two layers of fabric. His face remains blank, not giving anything away, but he plants his leg firm on the ground and pulls her flush against him by her thigh.

It’s like throwing water at an active current to force a spark. The shock awakens the vicious part of her that sleeps beneath her ribs. The dark scribbly thing slips through the cracks, takes over and sets her ablaze. Her pulse thumps in her ears, it’s so loud she can almost ignore the music.

Fuck, she’d missed this. 

It’s not about the actual sex, but the windup, the game, the buildup to the ultimate release. There’s nothing quite like the rush of a quick and dirty fuck, except maybe the aftermath of a good fight. And isn’t this the same thing? A back and forth exchange of blows all the way to that finish line. System flooded with endorphins, feeling like you could break the world and nothing would hurt. Nothing reciprocal about it, just a selfish, primordial drive. Fearless, careless, infinite. Why does she want him? It’s simple. Because she can have him. Because it’s not enough to hold everything she ever wanted, everything she thought she didn’t deserve. She’s got to suck on the poison, too, until it stings so bad it feels good.

What would the girl from the skeevy bar do? What would John Constantine do?

John is not so tall that he towers over her and her heeled boots make it so there’s little space between his face and hers. He only has to lean down just so to touch his forehead to hers, nose smushed up against the side of her own nose. The scratchy feel of his stubble on her smooth skin makes her shiver and pant. She drags her lips across the line of his jaw, eyes open in a dare. She doesn’t know if she’s hoping he’ll stop her, or if she wants him to egg her on. Still he stands, rooted in place. She half hates him for it.

Sara pulls back just enough to rest her fingers under his jaw, her thumb over his bottom lip. She remembers the stale, blackened taste of his mouth: equal parts disgusting and exciting, precisely because of how wrong it feels. It speaks to that duality that lives and fights inside her. 

She always forgets how dark his eyes really are until she’s gazing right into their depths, and doing so now reminds her of why she avoids it; there is a Hell inside him, a blazing and tempting playspace just right for her demons to settle in and revel. 

The strobes flash and bounce off of him, drawing her attention to the splayed collar of his shirt. A medallion peeks out from the gap. He doesn’t have to say anything. She knows exactly who it belonged to. She runs her pointer finger along the edges, like he’d done earlier with her own necklace. And then, in that moment, she has to know.

“John, what happened to Desmond?” she whispers.

He swallows harshly and even through their arousal and their mutual liquor haze she sees the world of grief and self-loathing on his face.

“A soul broker demon dragged him to Hell. Cause I wouldn’t give him what he wanted.”

A sacrifice. Beloved one day, collateral damage in the name of duty the next. She thinks she’d known it already, in the marrow of her bones.

I wanted it, Sara…  The world always knows…  Sure you could, love… A fine line between want and greed…  People who care about us die…We’re survivors… feels like a cage… you and I… can’t change… 

She is a war story. A black space delimited by Before and After, bounded by death. John, too, is a war story. 

Perhaps it was always inevitable that they’d end up here.

She’d allowed herself to gaze too long at the light and it’d just dazzled and obscured the truth; a wolf will never be a pet and if cornered, eventually, she’ll bare her teeth. So she fits her contours around the inevitability of her self-destruction, feels it settle over her like a second skin and she shields herself with one more lie, one she knows won’t hold up in the light of day, but in the midnight umbra of this moment, it’ll suffice. 

… what happens in limbo…

She lingers on the tempting curve of John's mouth as the seconds tick on. Finally, she leans in but bypasses his lips at the last second and instead buries her face in the crook of his jaw, nose pressed up against his prickly skin. The smell of black magic that clings to him makes her body catch up to the memories: a demon, a laundry room in ‘69, and are we really this damaged , her soul at siege, and later even, with whiskey burning on their tongues and she’s looking up at him, again, as he proclaims, you’re not alone , are you, Sara?

No, they are not. 

She slides her lips across his cheek and finally catches his mouth in a kiss. He goes slack for a moment before returning the kiss with the same violent fervor she remembers from the one time they’d done this before. His mouth on hers aches like an open wound. 

She breaks the kiss wish a harsh gasp. Her lips tingle. Her body shakes. Nerves or desire? Who cares. Same thing.

She stands up on her tiptoes, puts her mouth to his ear and pitches her voice low, as if she’s praying for the noise to drown her words, “you in the mood to get up to no good?” 

Heavy dark eyes look at her mouth, at the low neckline of her shirt, before tracking up again to meet her eyes. John licks his lips.

“You’re the boss, love. I go where you go.”

The battering of heavy boots against stone beats a syncopated melody in the narrow corridor as Sara pulls John up the spiral stairs in the old church tower. The sounds of furtive fucking coming from the hidden alcoves follow them. She pauses in the top landing and waits for John to catch up. He stops just in front of her and hooks his fingers through her belt loops, pulling her towards him.

“We don’t have to do this here,” he says, eyes settled on her mouth, “I’ve a perfectly decent—”

“Shut up, John,” she cuts him off with a dry laugh and pushes him into the empty bathroom before her. 

His balance falters momentarily and he laughs, already breathless. She stands in the threshold for a second to delight in John’s disheveled silhouette before she joins him in the pink neon haze. Her eager fingers fumble with the fly of her jeans as a predatory grin stretches her mouth. She twists her arms behind her back to unhook her bra, pulling it out from under her shirt seconds later. 

“Girl magic,” she says, throwing the garment carelessly in the direction of the bathroom sink. His eyes follow her every action, growing darker every second. There’s something wild and dangerous in his countenance. Something that has her blood singing with its promise. 

She kicks the door shut behind them and when the tumblers click the chaos outside dials down to white noise. Peripheral. Inconsequential. The only thing that matters is the hiss of their breathing echoing in the small bathroom as they eye each other like rivals readying for a fight, dissecting body language in search of a weak spot.

The memories surface again: a musty basement, fresh laundry, cold rough stone and the heat of John’s body. That night in the asylum they’d come together without restraint, pulled by a manic sense of urgency. It doesn’t feel that way now, despite the audible rush of their breath. They are partners caught in a dance between chaos and control. Their eyes meet and they share a knowing smile, as if they’ve done this dozens of times before. And they have, Sara realizes. They’ve been doing it all night and every other night since their reunion in DC. 

This is what they are. Unstoppable force. Immovable object.

Sara bites her bottom lip and tilts her chin up in a taunt and John takes the bait. He takes two resolute steps forward, backing her right into the door. She arches her back away from the painful door knob, hips knocking into John's where she confirms that yes, he's already hard. She shoves a knee between his legs and he lets out a shaky laugh.

The metal surface behind her is cool against her heated skin, bringing to mind how the night started: she’s barefoot walking around the Waverider, John naked in her office and she thinks about them doing this there, against the cold walls of the ship; or trying to be quiet on the couch in the library, the leather squeaking beneath them; or down in the brig where the sound doesn’t carry and she could make him scream. 

He grabs her by the hips and his thumbs slot perfectly into the grooves beneath her hip bones. He presses down into the muscle and the touch sends a jolt straight between her legs. Her pulse drums ever faster all over her body. She feels it in her ears, in her head, her chest. Her cunt. That satisfied smile still splits her face. 

John dips his head into the crook of her neck and Sara closes her eyes, angling her head to better accommodate him as he sucks wet kisses along the column of her neck. Light on the pressure. Wouldn’t want to leave a mark. She holds his head there, her thumb against the throbbing vein of his neck. A warm hand sneaks under her shirt. Calloused fingers caress a ladder over her ribcage, stopping just under the curve of her breasts, as if asking for permission.

She wants him to do it, just get on with it, touch her, take her apart, hurry up and fuck her brains out right here against this door, silence the too loud voices in her head, numb her too raw feelings. She wants to stop thinking, stop feeling anything beyond what his body can make her body feel.

She takes his wrist and guides his hand up toward where she craves it, letting out a pleased sigh when his thumb brushes against her nipple. And then, finally, finally he slots his mouth over hers. She answers his kiss instantly, opening her mouth to his tongue. And it’s so easy, then, to get lost in the mechanics and surrender to her desires. 

Their making out grows sloppy and frantic and his touches become more earnest. He stops fondling her tits only to slide his hand down her front toward her crotch. He cups her through her jeans and Sara bends her knees and bucks forward into his hand. Her arms go around his shoulders as she pulls him closer to her, furiously kissing him as if in doing so they could merge into a puddle of nothing. Their hips rub together—fuck, she can feel him. Her thighs part and he slips between them. He pushes her against the door again, pins her arms at her sides, and she just lets him. The heat rises inside her, the rush of her blood roars in her ears. She opens her eyes and her vision tunnels. Nothing but neon haze. She’s climbing. Breathless, sweaty and wet. Beer and cigarettes on her tongue.

She wants to—she just … wants.

His palms cover hers and without warning he laces their fingers together. Her rhythm falters and her lips slip awkwardly over John’s. He doesn’t miss a beat, though, and effortlessly takes over. He keeps a hand behind her neck, the other still entwined with hers. A hot-n-cold feeling creeps up inside her. The tart taste of fear smarts in the back of her mouth. 

This isn’t—it’s too much.

John breaks their kiss and pulls away, putting some distance between them. Sara raises her eyes to the ceiling, away from the loaded intensity of his stare. Her breath stutters and she feels like she’s coming apart. Like there’s no pressure to hold her together. And then, he tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. 

The simple touch is a shock to her system. Sara squirms away from the tender caress. Why would he do that? Touch her like that. Softly. Like a lover. It’s not supposed to be this way. This is not what they do. They are a bad idea, a filthy fuck in an equally filthy bathroom. 

Why does he have to be this way all the time? 

Why can’t he just, for once, give her what she wants from him?

The hand near the small of her back takes her by surprise, she hadn’t even seen him move. Her hips twitch when John’s forearm brushes against her skin as he reaches around her. He pulls the knife she keeps sheathed and hidden until it’s free and then places it on the small counter top beside them. She’s still staring at the knife when he slides a hand into the back pocket of her jeans where she’s got two throwing stars wrapped in leather. Tension builds inside her body, something like a question, though it doesn’t temper her need. Her eyes follow him as he drops to his knees in front of her. He looks up at her through hooded eyes from between her legs, and her hands flex at her sides to stop herself from pulling on his hair. Just seeing him there has her squirming like it’s the first time she’s doing this. Her chest aches, her head spins and her cunt pulses in want. He never breaks eye contact as he reaches inside her boot for her last knife, a thumb pressed into the spot where her thigh meets her pelvis. 

Outside, the music stops for a second as the blade hits the floor. She feels naked and dispossessed. John’s mouth curls and her giddiness turns into a quick simmering rage that swarms her. How fucking dare he? This is not the way it’s supposed to go. 

This is not a fucking love story.

In one seamless move she twists her fingers into the fabric of his shirt, grip tight, hauls him up and pushes until he’s up against the opposite wall. Her fists rest over his chest and he makes a noise somewhere between a wince and a laugh, like this is all just a joke to him, like nothing can fucking touch him and all she wants to do is wrap her hands around his throat and squeeze until he’s nervous. Still he looks at her like he knows exactly what she’s thinking, and he likes it. He likes it very much. His pupils are blown, eyes so dark they look demonic. There’s a need radiating from him, something that feels a lot like surrender. 

I could hurt you right now. I could rip you apart and you’d just let me.

That thought goes straight through her and she rubs her thighs together, giving into her own need for just one second. Her hands flat on his chest, she feels the heat of him beneath his sweat damp shirt, the mad flutter of his pulse. Sara’s hands slither down his waist until they catch on his belt and John’s breath stutters. 

That’s more like it.

Sara pins John’s wrists against the wall and he squirms against her and she can feel exactly how much he’s enjoying it.

“Let’s play a game, yeah?” she whispers into the space between their mouths. 

He lifts his chin toward her mouth and she backs away. 

“Uh uh,” she says, a thumb pressing hard on his chin even as her own eyes linger on the tense line of John’s neck, his stubbled jaw, and that dangerous smart mouth that can cut deeper than any blade.

John laughs dryly and raises the corner of his mouth into that half-smile, half-snarl she often wants to punch. He’s accepting the challenge and promising to answer in kind.

He pushes himself off the wall and stalks forward again. This time he backs her against the door of the single stall in the room and she goes willingly and curious. He keeps his arms at his sides, palms open to show he doesn’t mean any harm. 

He stands at full height, taking advantage of the few inches he has over her. For a few seconds he doesn’t do anything but hover over her, just sharing heated breath, his eyes so intensely fixed on hers she doesn’t dare look away. He’s not touching her, yet she’s still pinned. He hooks a finger through the loose knot of his tie and pulls until it hangs loose around his neck. 

He tugs on his shirt tails and undoes the buttons with frustrating deliberation, one by one, from the bottom up. Sara watches, feigning a vague disinterest. She keeps a hand pressing against her lower belly, not yet daring to go lower. 

His shirt hangs from his shoulders, sleeves still rolled up. John unbuckles his belt, and the click of the metal makes her breath hitch. He shoves his pants and underwear down his thighs, just enough to be out of the way, much the same way he’d done in the asylum.

“Like this? Is this what you want?” he says.

She stares, swallows around the dry knot in her throat and keeps her hands to herself, fighting through the urge to touch and take.

She’s no stranger to the sight of his naked body as he often parades around the ship with no clothes on with a level of confidence and shamelessness she can’t help but admire. But this is the first time she’s looking at it like this, that’s he’s inviting her to look.

There’s not even anything remarkable about it. His body bears the marks of his vices, and yet it feels more familiar than anything has in a while. There’s a whole lifetime marking his body. He has scars, like she used to, before the Pit had wiped the slate clean. 

The medallion hanging from his neck looks even more conspicuous by his state of undress. Sara can’t take her eyes off it. He takes it off with heartbreaking tenderness and puts it next to her knife on the counter, divesting himself from the ties of what exists beyond this moment and then he’s as disarmed as she is.

John doesn’t allow the moment of vulnerability to grow though, and she almost regrets it, even if she’d been the one to draw the line in the sand, cutting off all guise of intimacy. He turns his full attention on her again as he crowds her against the stall door. 

“Come on then, luv, give us a peek.” He slides a careful finger across the top of her shoulder and the strap of her tank top slides down, exposing her naked breast to the heated air. “Tat for tit, like.”

“Shut up,” she hisses.

He keeps his eyes locked with hers as he spits into the palm of his right hand and when he finally takes himself in hand, he lets out a sound somewhere between a sigh and a groan that she feels down in her core. That’s one thing she remembers; John is loud in a way most other men aren’t. Not a trace of self consciousness in him. The bastard actually gets off on broadcasting his pleasure. She watches for several long seconds, still struggling to catch her breath.

John’s eyes flutter closed as he continues to stroke himself and she looks over his shoulder at the mirror behind him where the word L I M B O glows on the surface. She sees herself inside and the mirror reflects back every version of herself she’s ever inhabited until they all converge into one. Who would she be tonight? 

I am what I need to be.

“Go on then, sweetheart, touch yourself,” John says.

“Do you ever stop talking?” she whines. Nonetheless, she finally slides her hand down into her open jeans to cup the mound of her sex through her underwear. She rocks into her own hand for a second, relishing in the relief.  

John’s forehead is inches away from hers, his stare heavy and steady. Yet another game of chicken and she’ll be damned if she loses this time. 

Sara sucks two of her fingers into her own mouth, making a show of it, even if she knows she doesn’t need the extra help. She can feel her wetness hot and sticky against the fabric of her panties. She’s been that way since he pinned her against the rail earlier. John’s pupils dilate just that bit more, his pace picks up and she looks down to take in the picture of John’s hard dick in his fist. 

This is so fucking adolescent she almost laughs. It’d been that way the first time, too. 

Speaking of, now she purposefully recalls the satisfying shock of him penetrating her as she plunges two fingers into herself, shuddering at the sudden pressure. She whines deep from her belly as her fingers finally make contact where she’s craved it most all night, just like she’d done that night. There'd been no time for slow foreplay then either.

The relief is so good she forgets where she is for a moment as she yields to the sensations. She closes her eyes. Within the veil of her shuttered eyelids the word LIMBO flashes, flashes, flashes lightning white. It's not long until she’s three fingers deep into her own cunt, craving the girth of John’s cock inside her, hitting places she cannot reach. 

Lost in their own selfish pleasure, they don’t speak. Speaking would be too much like reciprocation, too approximate to intimacy. The cacophony of their fucking sounds even more lewd in the otherwise silence: heavy breathing, the slick sounds, the unmistakable slap of flesh on flesh. 

Sara invokes her traitorous dreams: the faceless body, the rush of adrenaline, the burning need.

It’s not enough, though. 

She opens her eyes and watches John instead, tries to focus on the details. Like the heaviness of his eyes, the slackness of his mouth and the strain of his arm muscles as he strokes himself. She speeds up her own ministrations, and then slows down. She presses harder on herself, rocking her hips back and forth against the palm of her hand in a slow torturous rhythm. The pleasure builds and builds, her breath grows shorter, then it coasts again. 

Fuck.

She withdraws her fingers from her cunt this time, and tries sliding them up and down her outer lips instead, until she settles on her swollen clit, rolling it between her slick fingers. It still isn’t enough. 

Almost involuntarily, she rolls her hips toward his. John shudders and makes a pitiful noise, something like half a whimper. He slams a flat palm against the solid door behind her, crowding her personal space. The smell of cigarettes and masculine sweat invades her senses, and her hips cant forward again. Her busy forearm brushes against his and the subtle touch is magnified, provoking a shiver, her knees bend and her hips push forward, driving the joint of her wrist right against her sensitive clit. Her hand aches, cramped in the tight space and she hastily tugs her jeans down her thighs till they settle over her knees. She feels the pressure build again. She gives into the fantasies, let’s the faint drone of the music infuse her as she tries to bring herself closer to orgasm.

On her knees, her hands around his hips, his fingers twisting in her hair as she swallows

Sara shakes herself out of the fantasy, spreads her legs and offers up her thigh for him to rut against. It only takes him a second to move. He holds on to the top of the stall door, keeping her trapped beneath him as he rocks against the join of her thigh. The stall door rattles rhythmically in tune with their artless rutting. He grunts and gasps, and Sara just stares at his mouth. She wants to steal the sounds right from his slack mouth, straight into her lungs.  

Fuck, he’s right there, solid and warm and present, and she’s itching to reach around and dig her nails into the slope of his hip, or sink her teeth into the sensitive skin of his shoulder until he’s bloodied and bruised. She hates him, she hates him so much, she wants him on and inside her—his mouth, his hands, his cock. She wants to sink herself into the inky blackness of his soul until she’s coated with the scum of it. She wants to hurt. To feel used. This is not a fucking love story. So she squeezes her own thigh until she feels herself bruise, nails break skin and she thrusts her head back, pressing hard against the door, bordering on painful. The line in the sand blurs even further and she grabs the hair at the back of his head and pulls, pulls hard, until he lets out a stuttery whine and grinds even harder against her upper thigh. His knee knocks against her knuckles and she’s on fire. 

The words are right there of the tip of her tongue, barely contained, her lips threaten to shape her dark desires. Sara licks her bottom lip and tries to swallow the words down. Her throat bobs with the effort it takes. But it’s like she and John are connecting on a whole other level, he’s translating her frustrated silence, reading her like one of his spell books, and he moves to close the gap between their bodies, leaning his forehead against the stall door behind her, the hand not holding on to the door next to her hip. 

He’s getting close. She can tell by his breathy grunts and the sticky dampness of his cock slipping against her groin. She spreads her legs further and arches her back. She stops fingering herself and allows his bare thigh to do the work. She reaches around his hip, her fingertips feather over the leather of his belt, almost shy. His nicotine breath fans hot on her neck and she tilts her head up and to the side just enough to make contact and feel the scratch of days old stubble on her soft cheek, back and forth, back and forth on her

thighs as he eats her out , her hands fisted in his hair this time, to pull him closer and

she whimpers. Her nipples brush lightly against John’s chest hair. It makes her shiver so she reaches up to grab and squeeze her own tits. 

Sara opens her eyes and makes eye contact with John’s intense stare, and all the tension, all the desire, all of it converges. She’s tottering on the ledge of a dangerous precipice, looking down into the tempting abyss. She swallows the shame and guilt, leans out of the top floor window of her demise as the words finally take shape:

“Come on, asshole. Do it. Touch me. Fuck me,” she grunts and he

pushes her flush against the wall, wraps her right leg around his waist to bury himself to the hilt in a single hard thrust, she cries out enraptured, clenching around

her fingers, because the real John—beautiful, terrifying, infuriating John—is spilling into his own hand and her hip with a shameless groan, body shivering from his release and Sara both hates and loves him for his restraint, even when her own need is still driving her to delirium. Desperately, she blindly gropes around for his other hand, clumsily slapping it over her own still furiously working to get herself off, until he gets the idea and slips it inside her underwear. He fits his hand around hers and pushes and kneads, forcing her fingers further, faster, harder, to the rhythm of her fevered panting. Electric pulses rush up her thighs as they begin to shake. She grips John’s belt, white knuckled, leather biting at her palm. Her breath rises in pitch and the contractions start. John rests his head against her cheek and she can only just make out the reverent susurration of her name, Sara , and with that she squeezes her legs together around their joined hands and falls over the edge.

For a moment the world stops and she’s floating in a void as empty as death. Nothing but a faint ringing in her ears, like the kind you hear when silence is so loud it screams. The pieces of her self still hold together, suspended in blissful stasis, before the first fissure spiders across the surface and the world sneaks in through the cracks. She comes back to herself, to feel the sticky sweat and other bodily fluids cooling on their bodies. The pleasant ache between her legs, the tension in her muscles. The muffled beat of the music pounds like the beating of their hearts.

Sara opens her eyes. John looks utterly ruined, hair matted and damp, heavy lidded eyes, chest still heaving, dick still half hard and wet with the aftermath of what she made him feel. 

She takes his face in her hands and touches their foreheads together. He stays there for a second before twisting around just enough to take her slick fingers into his mouth, eyes firmly fixed on hers, still full of heat. She reaches for his unfastened belt, using it to pull him into the cradle of her pelvis and tilts her chin up to touch her tongue to his, at last stepping over the last line drawn in the invisible sand. She closes the gap and, with a kiss, she seals their fates. They share the taste of her sex between them as their bodies come flush together, bare chest against bare chest. John kisses like he lives the rest of his life, imposing, bordering on violent, like he has something to prove. She indulges in her own violence and digs her blunt fingernails into his sweaty back until she’s sure it stings. 

When they part, she waits for the inevitable crash after the high. It doesn’t quite come.  She stares at their reflection in the mirror, takes in her own messy sweat-soaked hair and smeared makeup, the hazed wild look in her eyes she hasn’t seen for what feels like years.

“Well, that hit the spot, I’d say,” he says with a laugh and the triumphant curl of his lip coupled with the self-satisfied glint in his eye tells her perhaps this is what he’d planned on all along. Had he given her the illusion of power just for her to walk right into his trap?

All it is is planting the seedling of an idea into the brain of the universe.

“You’re a fucking bastard, you know,” she gasps into the narrow space between them, a dry laugh on its heels. 

“That’d make two of us, wouldn’t it?” he answers. There’s an edge of cruelty in his voice.

“You told me not to hurt her,” she whispers and she hates the way it sounds like a reproach, like his forewarning from so long ago is the reprehensible thing here. 

He clicks his tongue twice. “Now, now. Don’t go rewriting the story to turn me into the villain. I’m a right selfish tosser, but I didn’t make you do anything you didn’t wanna do, love.” He uses his thigh, still nestled between her legs, to remind her.

He’s right. 

For a second she hates herself, not what she’s done, but for having brought her into the room. For having banished all pretense of unaccountability. 

It’s easy and tempting to blame him, to cast herself in the role of the victim in his game of deception, but in the end, she’ll always be the author of her own undoing. He’d warned her of that, too.

… end it before it’s too late … 

There’s a meanness inside her, as real as any organ or bone. A better version of herself exists somewhere in there, fighting behind her ribs, trying to burst from her blood vessels. But the meanness eventually wins. 

Even now as they tread water in the aftermath, she can’t stop herself from pulling them both under, further into the dark water. She’d been made from drowning. 

“I really hate you,” she growls and pulls him forward by the ears to take his mouth in a dirty, violent kiss. She bites his lip until he hisses and skin breaks. The taste of copper fills her mouth. She wants him to hurt, like she hurts. He breaks their kiss, looking every bit like the demon he is. 

“Sure you do, love,” he says, licking the blood from his bruised lips. His hand brushes up her rib cage and comes to rest over her breast, no longer hesitant. He holds her neck in his other hand and guides her head back and steps even closer so that she has no choice but to look up into his face. “Tell me something, Sara. What do you really want?”

She wants to be undone, taken apart until her pieces are unrecognizable and they can’t put themselves back together again. She wants to be made new—wholly new, this time. To never drown again. Sublimate instead. 

I wish I’d met — wish I’d  — you earlier — never met you —

“For fuck’s sake, just stop talking.”

Manhattan aches toward dawn. Soon they’ll have to contend with the treason they’ve committed. But it’s not light yet and the wreckage they lie in feels like home. Like a place for two damaged souls to come together, taste the bitter seeping of the world’s sickness, and for a moment make each other feel not whole, but validated.  

Her eyes flutter closed, plunging her into the refuge of darkness. It doesn’t make the true darkness go away. The world is still out there, and day lies in wait to break. Sara reaches for that wave of magic in the air, tunes her ears to the song of will of New York City. 

It’s all right, he whispers. I’m here, she says. Then, a lie: It’s okay. We’re okay.