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Zatanna is beyond furious.
She is angry, enraged, livid , any word and every word you could ever think of that means she’s angry.
She’s so mad she can’t even think and there’s a tension in her throat and her chest and all she wants to do is scream her fucking head off but she can’t do that here in public where others can hear and she certainly can’t do that at home where her father-
She digs her nails so tightly into her palms that she knows when she uncurls her fingers, she’ll find blood. The thought of him makes her skin tingle with almost unrestrained magic and she tries to speed up because she needs to scream and break things and maybe even cry and there is only one person on Earth who has the safest place to do that in.
There is only one person in the universe who will not judge cool, calm, collected Zatanna, daughter of Zatara, for losing her shit as hard and as strongly as she’s about to.
She crests the hill and nearly weeps at the sight of the House of Mystery because it’s not always there, John’s not always right where she needs him to be when he is, but this time he’s here or at least the house is.
She wants John. She needs to see John, be with John, and she hopes he’s in the house and not off getting drunk right now because she wants him as sober as a Constantine can be and she wants him to hold her and cradle her and tell her it’s okay and it’s not her fault that her father-
She sniffles weakly, letting out a quiet sob as she hurries to the door, her fingers barely lifting to knock before the door is swinging open and the blonde scouser is standing there, worry in his eyes.
“The house warned me,” he explained softly, opening his arms. Zatanna hardly even waits for that as she collapses into his chest and begins openly sobbing into his neck, feeling him wind his arms around her back and carefully shift just enough to close the front door and allow them some privacy.
He eventually manages to prompt her over to the couch but other than that, all he doesn’t is hold her close and rub her back. He doesn’t shush her, he doesn’t ask her what’s going on, he doesn’t tell her to take a deep breath.
John Constantine knows, better than anyone in the world, how little those words actually help when you’re breaking down as hard as Zatanna is.
The thing about the House of Mystery, about being with John Constantine, is that time feels like it stands still while moving just as fast as normal and when Zee is finally able to pull her face off John’s shoulder and sit up, she can’t even guess what time it is.
John looks her over, eyes soft and gentle in a way they only ever are for her. He’s careful to move slowly, telegraph his movements, give her time to stop him as he lifts his hands and tenderly cups her cheeks, wiping away her tears.
This makes Zee laugh wetly because the only reason John does this is he’s learned from her. Because the way he’s helping her right now is how she always helps him through his bad days. It warms her heart to be on the receiving end. To know that she helps him enough that he feels like this is how he can best help her.
“What do you need?” he asks gently, just like she always asks him.
“Can I use the room?” Zee whispered.
John nods and carefully lowers his hands to her hands, giving them a squeeze and leaning in to press a kiss to her forehead - each movement the same as she gives him - before standing and prompting her to follow.
‘The room’ is fully padded. Walls, ceiling, floor, door, everything. Soundproofed in every way. Zee doesn’t know if the House already had it before John acquired it or if it added it in after seeing how dangerous John’s bad days could get, but she knows how helpful it can be for him.
Fuck, she needs to scream.
“I’ll get you some water,” John offers when they reach the door. “Okay?”
“Okay,” Zee replied quietly, not quite wanting to let go of John. Not quite wanting him to leave her yet. He seems to sense this - he’s always so perceptive of her, of everything and everyone except himself - because he gives her hands another squeeze.
“It’ll get better,” he promises quietly, knowing better than to say it’ll be okay as he gives her cheek a kiss before allowing her to release his hands, waiting until she closes herself into the room to vanish off down the hall.
Zee takes off her shoes and her coat, uses magic to stand in a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, throws her hair back in a tail, and just...stands. Slowly she moves towards the center of the room, takes a deep breath, and screams at the top of her lungs.
She pours all her anger and rage and fury into the sound and only stops when she needs a breath, only to continue all over again.
All these years. All these fucking years she’s always thought that her father hated her boyfriends because he was protective. Because - and no offense to John specifically - they weren't the most morally straight people.
But after all this time, all this fucking time, her dad never gave a shit about her! He never hated Nick Necro or John Constantine because they weren’t the most emotionally mature or tended to dabble in bad business.
He didn’t hate them because he was protective, he hated them because he felt threatened by them! He felt threatened that they had the potential to be stronger than them!
Nick is inching towards being the greatest necromancer in the world, using the Books of Magic to assist him in his skill.
John has Bloodline Magic, his family line dating to as far back as 400 AD. He is the most recent in a line of magic users who call themselves The Laughing Magician and are stronger and more powerful than Zatanna’s family could ever hope to be.
Her father never cared about her protection and he certainly didn’t care about John or Nick’s pedigree. He cared because they had the potential to be so much stronger than him and he hated that.
Zee doesn’t know how long she screams out her rage, lets her magic bounce around the room and slam into the walls before exhaustion finally makes her sink to her knees and sob into the floor.
Her father treated them like threats but the truth was, they were as far from that as they could be.
Sure, Nick had...gone a little far off the deep end at the end of their relationship and...yeah, by now he probably was a legitimate threat, but John?
John Constantine could not take magic seriously if it bit him in the ass.
Did John know about how powerful he could be due to his Bloodline magic?
Yes.
Did he give a shit?
Absolutely not.
GIving a shit enough to try and become as powerful as he could be would require him to apply himself and as rude as this is, John was...lazy.
Magic came to him easily because of his bloodline but outside of that, he didn’t really care enough to put in the effort to try and become more powerful. He was at a level of magic that he was comfortable with and had no intentions of going further.
(Except for the one time when Zatanna was threatened and nearly killed, but that’s another story)
Her father saw threats where there wasn’t one and used that to trick and manipulate Zee into hating her boyfriends for no reason.
But the truth was out now and as the anger faded from her, all Zee felt was...tired.
She stood slowly, legs shaking, and shuffled towards the door, pulling it open and lifting tired eyes to find John leaning against the wall on the other side, waiting patiently.
He’d changed his clothes into a pair of loose sweats and a ripped long sleeved shirt that Zee thinks might have originally belonged to Nick, back when the three of them were together.
Something more comfortable for Zee to lay on, she figured (and hoped). When she opened the door he straightened up and stepped forward offering her the bottle of water before stepping around her to carefully close the door to the room.
After gulping down a good portion of it - her throat still aching from ehr screams - Zee softly murmured,
“Thank you.” Referring both to the water and to the room. John merely nodded, wrapping a gentle arm around her shoulder and allowing her to lean into his side.
“You’re welcome, luv,” he murmured softly, guiding her down the hallway into one of the house’s many sitting rooms where the two of them promptly curled up on the couch together. “Any time.”
They sat together quietly, for a while. John gently rubbed a hand over Zee’s arm, his own around her shoulders, while she sipped slowly on her water. Zee knew John would ask eventually so she wasn’t surprised in the slightest when he shifted and murmured,
“D’you wanna talk about it?”
Zee sighed because yes and no. After a few more moments, she finally replied,
“Turns out, dad never hated you or Nick for the reasons I always thought.”
“But he did hate us.”
Zee chuckled lightly. “Yeah, he did hate you,” she replied quietly, though her smile fell off her face pretty quickly. “Turns out, he was never trying to protect me. He just felt threatened. He hated you because you have the potential to be stronger than he could ever hope to be.”
John scoffed. “Has he met me?” he asked.
Zee laughed brightly. “Apparently not,” she replied, turning to smile at John. “He’s just threatened by your Bloodline Magic.”
“Luv, I could give less of a shit about any of that,” John reminded her.
“Doesn’t matter to dad,” Zee told him. “You have the potential.”
“No, Nick has the potential to be stronger than your da’,” John corrected her. “ I have the potential for liver failure or lung cancer.”
Zee couldn’t help the snort that slipped out but judging by the crooked smile John shot her, she supposed that was probably what he had been aiming for.
After leaning up to press a quick kiss to his jaw, Zee leaned back and asked the question that had been on her mind since she’d stormed out of her father’s house after finding out the true reason he’d hated her past relationships.
“What do you think I should do?”
“What do you want to do?” John asked in lieu of giving her a straight answer.
“I want to never talk to him ever again,” Zee replied honestly. “But I also want to know what you think I should do.”
John was quiet for a moment. “Personally?” he replied. “I would give anything to have a good parental relationship.”
Well, that certainly drained any remaining hatred Zee had for her father.
“I’m not ready to forgive him,” she declared.
“No, I can’t imagine you would be,” John replied. “You asked for my opinion and I gave it.”
“Yeah, I did,” Zatanna agreed. “And I think it’s a good point.” She was quiet for a moment. “I might still ignore dad for a while though.”
“Stay with me,” John offered, just like Zee knew he would. “Stay here. He can’t find the House if we don’t want it found.”
Zee smiled. “Thank you, John,” she murmured. “For listening and letting me use your room and just...for everything.”
John pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Any time, luv,” he murmured. “Any time.”