Life Is For The Living

by viharker

Summary:

Zatanna can't help but blame Constantine for her father's death. But she can't seem to let him go, no matter how much time has passed - and the road to forgiveness is paved with pain.

Notes:

why is it that causing characters pain is so satisfactory

Magic has a sound—it’s almost imperceptible, but it buzzes through the air like static electricity, feels like cold metal on your skin, makes the blood rush to your cheeks, and your whole body shakes with kinetic anticipation and possibility. And so, it follows that the death of a magician would be felt the whole world through. At least, that’s what Zatanna thinks, now that she lives in a grand old manor house all by herself, surrounded by the memories of her father and the ghosts of the worst failures and betrayals of her life, brief as it’s been so far.

She barely feels like an adult, and yet she is, and it feels like the whole world is expecting her to carry on her father’s legacy, his heroics. But Zee doesn’t know how to be a hero. She barely knows how to be a person, especially not without her father. When she sits in his old armchair by the perpetually-burning fireplace, she feels closer to him even though she knows that he doesn’t linger. Wherever Giovanni Zatara’s soul is, it’s not here.

As she sits in that chair, staring into the white heat of the flames, she can sense him. She doesn’t bother turning her head toward the entrance to the parlor; she doesn’t bother even glancing out of the corner of her eye. She knows who’s there, and she knows he doesn’t want him to be.

“I thought I told you to leave,” she says hollowly.

“I believe you said that you never wanted to see my face again,” he replies, too smug for his own good, “but I don’t much like pedants. ‘Sides, if I left, who’d make sure you stayed?” She can hear the intoxicating combination of adoration and pity in his voice. He loves her so much he can’t even listen. Of course, he would refuse to actually leave.

Zatanna closes her eyes, tries not to clench her jaw, sinks back into the chair—not that she’s relaxed. Nothing even close to that. “You being here is not helping, John. Please, go. I won’t ask again.”

But the sound of John Constantine’s footsteps doesn’t recede, and instead he walks closer, just like she imagined he would. When he puts his hand on her shoulder, she draws away from him like it’s a snakebite. “I can’t fix it, I know. Just let me help.”

For a moment, she sees nothing. Everything is white and hot and unreal. Seconds later, she’s standing up and Constantine is on the floor surrounding by books that have fallen open around him in a scattered disarray. She’s thrown him across the room, she realizes. Serves you right, she thinks. I warned you I wouldn’t ask again.

Still, though momentarily disarmed, he doesn’t seem shaken. “I know you’re mad, love, so I won’t take it personal—”

“It is personal, John!” she cries. She can feel the spark running through her veins as she clenches her fists by her side, her vision narrowing in on him, ready to tear him to pieces if he even thinks about moving closer to her. Her voice is shaking as she speaks. “It’s your fault. You killed him.” And she knows it’s more complicated than that, but it still feels right to say right now.

He averts his eyes when he says, “Better him than you.”

Without even thinking about him, she reaches out her arm and her magic lifts him by the collar, throwing him against another shelf. It hurts him, clearly, and all she can think is, Good. Because he can never even feel a fraction of the hurt that he’s caused her to feel. He doesn’t have enough heart for it.

His chest rises and falls as he tries to catch his breath, loosens his tie. There’s a little bit of blood in his hair from a cut on the back of his head, but she doesn’t care at the moment, and besides, head wounds always look worse than they are. After all, they certainly do bleed like a stuck pig.

She wants to break him, to crush him, to scatter his very being across the multiverse and erase his existence from her memory. With a flick of her wrist, she lifts him to his feet and walks right up to him, ready to deliver the closest thing she can to a killing blow. Instead, though, she pushes him backwards, and his weight shakes the shelf built into the wall a few inches behind him. She pushes and she pushes and she pushes, and the futility of it doesn’t ever seem to register. She pushes him and she shoves him and he lets her, taking the brunt of her pain and not even bothering to defend himself because he knows. He knows why. He knows what he did.

“I hate you,” she whispers through tears as her fists make contact with his chest. She doesn’t even notice when his hands fall to her hips, when they start to snake around her waist and pull her close, when they clutch the back of her head and rub small circles on her back as she cries and cries and cries and cries. She must cry for days, weeks, months, years. She cries until she has nothing left, until he tucks her into bed, taking up his sentinel position in an armchair next to her bed to watch over her while she sleeps.

She hates him a little less come morning. But come morning, he’s good as gone.

 

---

 

A year passes, and they don’t talk. As far as Zee is concerned, they exist in different worlds altogether. She thinks of him more often than she wants to, but maybe not as often as she should. Forgiveness is something she begins to think he might deserve, but it’s not something he’d ever take willingly, not from her, not even if she begged. So maybe, if she forgives him, she does it for herself.

If.

She strikes up a friendship with one of Bruce’s adoptees who moves to San Francisco to lead his own team of heroes. He’s closer in age to her than Bruce is, and they have a nice rapport going. The guy offers Zatanna a spot on the team, but the idea of heroics still feels so foreign to her, and she declines. But she doesn’t decline the first time he kisses her, or the second, or the third, or any time after that.

Dick Grayson isn’t the perfect man. He’s certainly not the perfect love interest. But he’s the most reliable part of her life in the last year, and he comes home to her and holds her when his work with the Titans is done at the end of the day.

He has his arms around her while she leans back on his chest, his knuckles bruised. She takes his hands in hers and kisses them gently, whispering little spells that weave his skin back together before he can tell her to stop. When he brings his hands close to examine the newly formed skin, he frowns. “You don’t have to do that, you know,” he tells her. It’s not mean, or disappointed. It’s worried—magic is something of a liability in Dick’s mind, and just because he trusts her doesn’t mean he trusts her world.

“Do you want me not to?” she asks. Part of her hopes he’ll say yes. Part of her wants to fight the whole world for him.

She feels him shrug behind her. “You just don’t have to,” he explains. “I know magic comes with costs. I don’t want you to overdo it, that’s all.”

In that moment, when she should be radiating with gratitude, basking in the care and love that Dick shows her, she can’t help but think of John and his inability to know when to stop. The idea of quitting while you’re ahead, that’s not something he ever took to heart. John Constantine always took things beyond their breaking point, and that used to thrill her—still thrills a part of her, even. But with the grace and care that Dick shows her, the gentleness and reverence that keeps her sane when she thinks she’s reached her breaking point, she shouldn’t even be thinking about John.

And yet, more often than not, everything that Dick does gets compared to John. Every. Little. Thing.

Exhausted from his day of galavanting with his chosen family and saving the world, Dick sleeps like a rock once they go to bed. Zatanna, on the other hand, can’t sleep for the life of her. Even though he’s everything she’s ever wanted, it’s not his body she wants next to her; it’s not his long, deep breaths she wants to hear as she loses another battle to the insomnia of grief.

As quietly as she can, she rolls out of bed and walks out to the balcony to smoke a cigarette. It’s a nasty habit, one she knows she should quit, one she picked up from John, of course. But desperate times, and all that bullshit that she tells herself.

“Goddamn you, John Constantine,” she whispers into the night air.

“And what would your father say, if he could hear you talk like that?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see him. He’s not really there, of course. But he’s astrally projecting onto her patio, and it’s just as intrusive as if he’d been there in person. He looks, unsurprisingly, the same—same stupid, loose tie, same tan trench coat, same unkempt hair. At the same time… he looks tired. Haggard, almost. Older, definitely. Like life is finally beginning to catch up with him. She can’t help but wonder what he’s been up to, but she quashes the thought.

She takes another puff of the cigarette and sighs the bitter smoke out. “What are you doing here, John?” she asks. She doesn’t exactly want to start a conversation, but she might as well ask. What else can she do?

He smiles, half-hearted and yet still sincere. “Just checking up on you, Zee.”

“Sure has been awhile.”

“Been a whole year. I’m sure you haven’t forgotten, though.”

Of course she hasn’t forgotten, as much as she’s tried to. Her mind replays her father’s death—and John’s part in it—every single day. Some days, it’s vibrant and real and terrifying. Others, it’s like a distant impression. But it hurts no matter what. “I’m surprised you remember,” she quips, even though it’s not true. John never forgets the origins of his various guilts.

“You know I never would’ve asked if I thought it would get that far. You know that, right? Because, believe me, sweetheart, I never—”

“Can you not?” she pleads with a petty hand wave, interrupting him. “I don’t want your apologies, and I don’t need your self-flagellation. The only thing I want is my dad back and for you to leave me alone, though it doesn’t seem like I’m getting either of those things. Certainly not tonight.”

Her words hang in the silence between them until his smug self decides enough time has passed. “I’ve always been shite when it comes to apologies, haven’t I?”

A dry laugh escapes her throat. “Uh, yeah. You have. Nice of you to finally realize it.”

“What can I say? Guess I’m just slow to catch on. Sorry about that, then. And everything else, while we’re at it.”

Zee shakes her head, her laughter continuing even though she’s not really in a humorous mood. “You just don’t quit, do you? Why are you really here, John? If you’re trying to appease your guilt, just… I don’t know if I forgive you, if that’s what you’re looking for. But right now, I have a life that I’m trying to live. I finally have something halfway to normal, and you being here…”

“You’re a tough bird to quit, Zee.”

“Oh, John—are you trying to fuck with me right now?”

He steps back, affronted. “I wouldn’t do that. Don’t appreciate the implication, either.”

She lets out a long sigh, exasperated. “Look, I just want to move forward. I can’t do that if you’re here. So take whatever you need—forgiveness, absolution, permission. I don’t care anymore. You know I have someone who loves me now?”

“Zee…”

Suddenly the words are flying out of her mouth and she can’t stop them. She looks him right in the eye as she makes her final stand. “And he would never use me. He would never hurt me. He couldn’t ever come close. But you fucking killed my dad, John, and there’s some things even you can’t charm your way into fixing. So I wish you well and everything, but God, I am so, so sick of you being… here. Always here. Just leave me be, okay?”

Her heart sinks when she sees the hurt he’s trying so hard not to show on his face. She doesn’t want to cause him any pain, and she doesn’t even really blame him for her father’s death, not anymore. But there’s no extricating her feelings about her father’s death with her feelings for him. If hurting him and forcing him to walk away is the only way for either of them to start to move on, then that’s what has to happen.

He shoves his hands in his pockets and looks past her, and she can practically hear both of their hearts breaking. “I won’t take up anymore of your time,” he says right before he disappears, his apparition blinking out of existence.

When she wakes up the next morning, her eyes aching because of how much she’s cried, she doesn’t say a thing, and Dick, for all his attentiveness and care, doesn’t either.

 

---

 

All that glitters stops shining eventually, and what Zatanna has with Dick Grayson fizzles out slowly and then all at once. They’re not all that different, and once she joins the Titans part-time, they have even more in common. But it starts to feel less like romance and more like friendly, occasionally flirty coworkers, and then Dick joins the League, and she can’t bring herself to leave San Francisco. After all, it’s her home.

There’s frustration in their ending, but not bitterness, and she’s thankful for that. After a few months, they have a friendship that reminds her of being a teenager again, and it’s better than their romantic relationship ever could have been. And just like that, the years pass, and she feels herself growing up, growing into herself. All of a sudden, it’s been six years since her father died, and she’s about to be thirty, and she knows that as old as she feels, there’s still a million miles of life to go. For the first time, it only scares her a little bit.

Her father’s gravesite—a gorgeous, intricately sculpted, magically protected mausoleum—is less sad than it used to be, or maybe it’s just that she’s less sad. Time doesn’t heal all wounds, but it makes the excruciation a little easier to bear. Instead of bringing flowers, she lines little pebbles up at the top of the doorframe of the stone structure. An old tradition, but one she understands, that she likes. One that has the permanence she needs.

For once, she sees him before he notices her. This year, before she even makes it deep enough into the cemetery to get to her father, she sees John walking far ahead of her but headed in the same direction. That he would come to pay his respects both does and does not surprise her, but her mind is now overloaded with questions. Instead of asking, though, she watches from a distance, trying to listen the best she can without being seen.

“… I wish things could’ve been different, mate. But I tell you, it was worth it. Wherever you are, I hope to God and the Devil and everything in between that you can see her from there, because she’s just bloody incredible. Joined up with the cape brigade for a while, but doing her own thing now. Local shows and whatnot. And she runs a shop, y’know—a magical bookstore. With all the hippies and wannabe Wiccans in this town, it’s no wonder she’s such a wonder. You’d be proud, Zatara. I mean, you know that better than I do. But still, it feels right to make sure someone’s keeping you in the know. Just in case we’ve all got the afterlife wrong, and there’s no eternal rest. Just in case you’re lingering around somewhere nearby. She takes good care of herself. Doesn’t need me, not by half.”

And then her cheeks are wet, and Zatanna realizes she’s crying at John’s kind, overly generous words. She wants to throw her arms around him, cry into the crook of his neck, forgive him for all past, present, and future offenses. Even more, she realizes, she wants him to know that she knows. That she appreciates it. That she sees him.

But she isn’t brave. She isn’t all the beautiful things he says about her. If he puts her on a pedestal, all she can do is disappoint him every time she falls. Every time that she lashes out in anger, every time that her supposed grace should take precedence and forgive, every time that he sees some magical mystery girl when she’s really just a person who can’t deal with her own demons, much less his, is a moment that disproves his point of view. It would be nice to be Her, but she isn’t. She’s just Zatanna.

And that’s just not really worth it, if you ask her.

She waits for John to leave before she approaches her father’s mausoleum and sits down on the steps leading up to the entrance. It’s funny, she thinks, how cemeteries don’t really give off the air of death people like to pretend they do. There’s no stale, acrid odor or fearsome gore. Sometimes, she thinks that this very spot is where she feels most at peace.

“I miss you, Daddy,” she whispers into the gentle wind with a never-ending sigh. And I wish it didn’t hurt so much to look at him and think of you.

She can practically see his worried brow, the way his semi-permanent frown would deepen. Now, piccola, he would say, I may not have any particular fondness for him, but you know that it was not his fault. We all went into it knowing the risks. If I am what is stopping you from forgiving him, then you must let me go.

And even though she’s not talking to anyone in particular, she asks the question anyway. “What if I’m not ready?”

The feeling of his hand on her shoulder is so close to real that she wants to start crying again. My incredible daughter, he would answer, life is for the living. Don’t waste the time you have caring more for my memory than you do for your own self.

 

---

 

In the end, to possibly everyone’s surprise, it’s Bruce who convinces her to reach out to John. When she asks how he’s so sure it’s what she should do, he just shrugs. “You wouldn’t be talking about it if you didn’t already want to. If you’re waiting for permission from someone, then take it. You’re a grown woman, Zanna. The only thing stopping you is yourself.”

It’s not the typical bat-fare a girl expects on a mission with the caped crusader, but it’s what she gets. And what’s worse, he’s right. She’s her only obstacle, and the old insecure song-and-dance routine isn’t really cutting it anymore.

Normally, John’s not an easy man to find, and he likes it that way. But Zee knows his secrets—that if she shows up at the House of Mystery, it will only be a matter of time before he stumbles in, too. The prospect of seeing him again thrills and frightens her, because she doesn’t know how to be when it comes to him anymore. It used to be so easy, but it hasn’t been for a while now, and they both know it. What’ll happen now, if she shows up with her open heart bleeding from the wounds she put there herself? Will he press his hand to her chest to stop the bleeding? Will he leave her there to die? Knowing is just as scary as not knowing.

The House lets her in without question, and it helps ease her mind to know that its spirits still see her as a friend and not a foe. John isn’t home, but again, it’s only a matter of time. She tries not to think about what he’s up to, whether that’s exorcising demons or chatting up a handsome stranger in a bar. If she thinks too long about that, she’ll take the coward’s way out and leave without ever having even tried to speak to him.

She takes it on herself to light a fire in the hearth, watching it slowly grow as the minutes pass. As often as he fiddles with that lighter of his, does he ever even use his fireplace? She doubts it. Or at least, she doubts he ever tends to the House himself, given that he’s not prone to solving problems that can solve themselves. Tending to the small fire, she can feel its warmth, and she can feel the House’s gratitude—it’s been a long time since someone cared about it the way that it cares for its inhabitants.

Looking around the room, she feels the urge to wax nostalgic about the times they were together. A stolen kiss here, a wild romp there. When she walks away from the fire and relaxes onto the chaise lounge, she closes her eyes and can remember vividly being young and free and the way they worshipped each other. It wasn’t healthy, but it was exhilarating and everything she could have dreamed of, at the time.

Somewhere along the way, though, their dreams diverged. She grew up, and he grew distant—until he needed something. And then she was just a little bit too in love with him still to ever say no.

“Fancy meeting you here, sweetheart.”

Her eyes flutter open, the light from the windows is gone, and John is kneeling next to her, his face above hers, his hand pushing strands of hair back from her face. I must have fallen asleep, she realizes. The expression on his face is… tired. A little bit startled, a little bit smug. Concerned, even. But mostly tired.

He leans back, gives her room to sit up. “Sorry,” she says as she pushes herself up, making room for him next to her on the sofa. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

John takes the spot next to her, and his arm falls along the back of the chaise, ghosting around her shoulders, just like old times. “It’s never an intrusion if it’s you, Zee. But I can’t say I’m not curious as to why you’re here. Should also mention, the House couldn’t care less—it’s just glad to see you.”

The corners of Zatanna’s mouth turn up in the whisper of a smile. Though she knows he’s just being honest, she also knows that he’s glad to see her, too. “I guess I—well, to be honest, I just… I missed you.”

His smile turns into one of his classic shit-eating grins in fractions of a second. “Oh, did you now?”

She rolls her eyes, but playfully. “Shut up.”

“Come on now, love, you were the one to bring it up.”

“Yeah, well, you could show a little humility, at least.”

John shakes his head and laughs like he’s entirely unsurprised. “You always did try to reign me in. But really, Zee. What are you doing here? It’s always great to see you, but it’s been years, and the last time I saw you, well, let’s just say I left that balcony a bit more bruised than I care to admit.”

Zatanna tries to gather the courage to be honest and braces herself for his response. “I saw you at my father’s grave, John.”

For once, he looks taken aback. It’s in that moment that the glow of the firelight reveals just how much he’s aged, casting shadows that emphasize the lines on his face. He almost looks older than he should, and she wonders what he’s been through these past several years, and if he wouldn’t look so pained if she’d been there to shoulder the burden with him.

This feeling, this guilt, is maybe how she justifies bringing a hand up to his face, how she excuses the way that her heart flutters when he leans into her touch. Their faces are so close now that if either one of them leans forward, surely there will be a kiss.

But then John turns away. “I couldn’t make it up to you,” he whispers, his voice strained. “So I tried to make it up to him.”

She brushes away invisible tears with her thumb, knowing that he’d cry if he could let himself. “What do you mean?” she asks, her voice gentle but firm, reassuring, even supportive.

“It’s because of me that he had to miss out on the rest of your life,” he whispers. “Least I could do, playing the messenger. Can’t say I didn’t have the thought that it might make you hate me less. Now I just—just tell me, love, that it doesn’t make you hate me more.”

She takes his head in both of her hands and forces him to face her. “I don’t hate you, John Constantine,” she tells him. “Even when you make me want to set the whole world on fire, I could never truly hate you.”

“Even when you said it?”

She nods. “Even when I thought I meant it.” She isn’t lying, either. She may have felt anger and betrayal, and she may have even felt hatred, but it wasn’t toward him. Her ire and her pain lacked direction, and he was there, so she hurled it at him simply because she could. Because he let her, and he didn’t stop loving her for it.

“I heard what you told him,” she continues. “You were so kind, and I was so… I was so heinous toward you, and I don’t have an excuse. I’m so, so sorry.”

It’s his turn to bring a hand up, clutching at the back of her head through her hair. “You were grieving. You needed someone to blame. You had every excuse in the world, Zee. Don’t you ever, ever apologize for that.”

Her vision blurs, and she starts crying, and then she starts laughing, and he’s laughing, too. “I missed this,” she whispers. “I missed you. I can’t believe how much time I wasted on pretending not to love you.”

He kisses her, but it’s brief and gentle and there’s no great force behind it, no white-hot passion. Just comfort and adoration. “We’ve got time to make up for it, yeah? Unless you have somewhere else to be.”

She shakes her head. “This is the only place I wanna be. Right here, right now. With you.”

And then he kisses her again, and she kisses him back, and there’s a little more fire this time—especially after, when she looks into his eyes and she sees the wanting. “Then we’ve got time, love.”

They’ve got all the time left in the world.