Work Text:
The nightmares start slowly, and then, once they’ve bubbled up onto the surface, they’re inescapable.
He hates watching her suffer like this. John has always been partial to the tortured type, but he never even considered that by taking Gemma’s most awful thoughts and memories and putting them in her own mind that she would have to pay the price instead. If he’d had any inclination, he never would’ve let her do it. He never would’ve let her sacrifice her own sanity like that. But the magic she can do with memories, the gentle way she can coax them out of someone’s mind and into her own, or destroy them with enough concentration and leave no trace behind, is beyond anything he’d ever seen anyone do. He’s seen wicked fiends and godly celestials alike who can’t alter mortal minds without dire, catastrophic consequences. Zatanna’s magic seems beautiful and miraculous in comparison, even though he doesn’t understand it at all.
Sometimes, the terrors are so intense that she wakes without waking, semi-lucid and afraid, sweating and shaking and crying out for help. He can never wake her up these nights, nor can he stop her from thrashing about without weighing her down with the force of his own body. The worst part, however, might just be how she doesn’t remember what happens in her dreams, but she still wakes up tired and scared and joyless.
He calls everyone he knows, anyone he can think of. Somebody, somewhere has got to have an answer, he thinks—but unless Zatanna can remove the memories from her own mind, they have no other suggestions. And they’ve tried—oh, God, how they’ve tried—but the thoughts are like slippery fish, and instead of casting a net, they’re reaching into the water with their hands.
After a particularly brutal night, a gray morning sets in over San Francisco, and John watches sleepily as Zatanna slowly wakes up. There are circles under both of their eyes, and when she meets his gaze, she immediately turns away and buries her face in the pillow, and he’s not exactly sure what’s going on until her body shakes, and he realizes that it’s wracking with sobs.
He starts to rub small circles on her back between her shoulder blades in a feeble attempt to soothe her. “I can’t do it anymore,” cries her muffled voice.
His heart breaks in two. He knows exactly how she feels, not because relates in the moment, but because he’s hit his rock bottom more than once. It always feels like it’ll never get easier, but John has always found that once you’ve gone through it, you learn to live with the pain until you forget what life was like before it. And maybe it’s not the healthiest approach, but he figures it’s better than dying.
“We could travel,” he offers as a weak suggestion, already knowing she won’t approve. “Look for answers somewhere else.”
Her reluctance is proven true without hesitation. “I can barely deal with the nightmares here, John. I don’t even want to think about leaving.”
Her protests are fair, and he doesn’t press that issue further until an idea gets stuck in his head that makes him want to vomit. To keep them both from overreacting, his nexts words come in a whisper. “We could go to Gotham.”
She turns her head from the pillow and looks at him like he’s just lost his damn mind. “No. I can’t go back there. I can’t—just no.”
“There’s no greater magician, love.”
“I haven’t spoken to him since I was eighteen years old.”
“Don’t see why that can’t change.”
“I don’t see why it has to.”
“Because I can’t keep watching you suffer like this, Zee!” he nearly shouts, his heart racing. “You’re all I’ve got in this whole damn world, and I’ll be damned twice over if I lose you like I’ve lost everything else. Your father is the only one who knows your magic anywhere near as well as you do. If anyone will know something, it’s him.”
It’s not an argument he’s ever wanted to make, but he can tell he’s won it regardless by the vacant look in her eyes. He can’t say that her discomfort is unwarranted; the last time she saw her father, he all but cut her from his heart. John doesn’t know how anyone could ever do such a thing to a girl like Zee, but Giovanni Zatara made his choice. If it were up to John, her dad would’ve gotten a swift and solid right hook to the jaw a long time ago.
But it’s not up to him—it’s up to her. Even if the idea comes from him, she’s the one who has to follow through with it. Without any other recourse, they end up on a plane across the country, spending more money than they probably should on a non-stop flight. She uses the bathroom at least once an hour, a small price to pay for the coffee she’s been drinking to keep herself awake. He’s grateful that she’s kind enough to let him doze off for a while, loves him enough to tamp down her jealousy at knowing even a small semblance of peaceful sleep. He wakes for the last time when the plane lands at Gotham International with his leg asleep and a crick in his neck.
He stretches a bit, but the plane isn’t quite built for maximum comfort. In an act of pure generosity, Zee massages his neck for a moment before whispering the magic word, “Laeh,” and ridding him of the pinched nerve or whatever it was that was creating the small, sharp pain in his neck. Not that she should’ve done it, but he’s thankful.
John takes her hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze. “Save your strength, sweetheart,” he whispers. “You’re gonna need it.”
The disembarking is unremarkable, and the airport is, according to Zee, as grimy and and dull as ever. She prefers Newark and JFK and even LaGuardia over GIA, but the matter seemed too urgent, too pressing to be picky about airports. They claim their luggage and then hail a cab that can take them to the outskirts of Gotham on the opposite side of the city, where her family home, Shadowcrest, currently rests. It’s a living house, she’s explained to him before, and it can be moved. It just so happens that it’s been in Gotham for over a century, and living houses like putting down roots.
The drive is long as they weave through and find paths around closed streets that plague the city. Evidently, even though there are wealthier neighborhoods and some areas are tourist traps, much of the city has been the victim of… well, John’s not entirely sure about what did this. He supposes it’s a mix of petty crime, masked villains with a penchant for destruction, and the most horrifying force of all—gentrification. Neighborhoods get bought up by corporations, houses get turned into apartment buildings and condos that the original residents can’t afford, and in the meantime, the stress of it all sets everyone on edge. It’s one thing he doesn’t miss about his years in London, even if his new home in San Francisco is starting to move in that direction as well.
The space between houses and other properties begins to expand as they near the northwestern outskirts of the city, until each property they pass has at least a quarter of a mile between driveways, and perfectly designed domesticated forests act as a natural barrier between human beings that might otherwise say hello to each other from their front porches. John realizes that he’s taken some parts of his life for granted, now that he’s in a place like this.
When they finally arrive at Shadowcrest, which John is and isn’t shocked to learn is merely two properties away from Wayne Manor—that which belongs to Bruce Wayne, of Wayne Industries, heir to the Wayne fortune and tragic orphan-turned-CEO. He’s almost surprised a man like that isn’t a member of the tights and capes crew; surely all that money must get boring sometimes.
The house looks more or less fine, if old, on the outside. The grey stone and red brick and black wrought iron all create an imposing facade. They walk up the driveway, and when they reach the front steps, the door opens for them before they even have the chance to think about knocking. There’s no staff waiting for them; the house has simply preempted their arrival and is welcoming them inside, if not entirely warmly.
She’s holding onto his hand like a vise, and he would swear that he can feel her heartbeat quicken as they venture into the house. “Do you know where he’ll be?” he asks in a low whisper.
Zatanna nods. “Library,” she manages to get out, her words nearly strangled by her own anxieties.
It occurs to John that by declining to call ahead, they may have guaranteed a level of disaster they hadn’t anticipated. After all, he wasn’t present when Zatanna and her father fell out; he doesn’t know what was said, or why, or how. He doesn’t know who instigated the estrangement, though something tells him that it was probably more mutual than either of them would admit. Either way, the tension is palpable before they even reach him, and he knows he can’t place all the blame Zee’s lack of sleep. Whatever business was left unfinished between father and daughter, its lack of resolution still lingers in the air.
She’s right in pointing them to the library, it turns out, because her father sits tall at a large wooden desk, one hand in the air maintaining a spell that John doesn’t recognize and the other tracing line after line in a dusty old tome. Giovanni Zatara doesn’t look up—it would see that he doesn’t even notice them walk in. The blaze of white in his hair, along with significant greying at the temples, makes him look older than he probably is. His brows are furrowed in concentration, and although it looks as if the room hasn’t been empty or cleaned in days, Giovanni himself looks pristine. His button-down shirt is pressed, his trousers properly pleated. The only thing amiss with regard to him would be the darkening five o’ clock shadow that accentuates his jawline. It’s a jawline he shares with his daughter, though John can’t figure out why that feels so surprising. Maybe he’s just spent all this time so singularly focused on her, he never thought of her existing in relation to anyone else.
A few moments pass as they wait for the man to notice them, but John tires of waiting and clears his throat to get Zatara’s attention. The old mage looks up from his desk, and then back down—and then back up, faster than a speeding bullet, his eyes locking in on the daughter he hasn’t seen in over half a decade. The silence, the stillness between them, it lasts forever, or so it seems. Empires rise and fall in the time it takes for anyone to speak.
Eventually, Giovanni relaxes back into his leather armchair, casting an appraising look over them. “You’ve changed,” he says matter-of-factly.
Well, yeah, John thinks, it’s been more than five years since you bothered to speak to your daughter. And when he thinks back to that night in New York, he sees what he imagines her father sees—not a girl, but a woman, one who stands a little straighter and holds her head up a little higher. She has a couple of shallow lines around her eyes when she laughs or smiles, something she does more often now than she did then. Her eyes no longer look at the world with innocent wonder, but with precision and focus. This is a woman, not a girl, who knows things now.
Most importantly, she is brave.
“I hope you have, too,” she replies, matching her father’s stare.
“You need something, I presume?” He doesn’t sound irritated, but perhaps a bit bored, John thinks.
“She took a little girl’s nightmares away,” John interjects, purposefully neglecting to communicate any context, “and now she’s being haunted.”
Her father raises an eyebrow at this. “You performed magic of the mind?”
Zatanna nods. “I’ve been practicing for awhile. Since my League days. This time, a little girl was possessed by a demon, and I didn’t think she should have to live with those memories. Unfortunately, now, I can’t sleep without reliving her worst nightmares, which is why we came to you. We need your help.”
“We?”
She takes John’s hand. “We.”
Giovanni takes a moment to consider her request. John doesn’t like the look of the old man, doesn’t like the way he can feel the judgment emanating throughout the room. Good ol’ Gio must be the traditional type, he figures, or else his issues with Zee’s presumed lifestyle choices don’t make much sense at all. He certainly doesn’t come across as the understanding type, at least.
“I will help you,” the older man finally concedes, “but it will be up to you to mend yourself and confront whatever it is that is keeping you bound to these demons.”
John and Zee’s psychic bond, while it’s usually a matter of choice, is suddenly overwhelmed with relief when her father agrees to assist them in returning her to her normal self—relief, and something akin to longing, or maybe even grief. He’s not attuned to her mind enough at the moment to parse the details.
Her father, to his credit, does actually seem to know what he’s doing. They stay in the library, and he sits the two lovers across from each other in front of the fireplace. He brews a tea that tastes strangely like poppy seeds and which John hopes isn’t some heroin brew, though he doubts the man would go so far as to drug his own daughter. He instructs them to magnify their bond through focus, and it occurs to John that the bond must be powerful indeed if a third party can see it without actively looking for it. Finally, he has them picture an anchoring point—the place where they first met—that will lead them home if they don’t find the answers they’re looking for. John didn’t think the catacombs beneath Oxford would ever bring him comfort, but moments later he finds himself surrounded by old, weathered grey stone, the echoing of dripping water sounding out through the tunnels.
Zatanna is suddenly there as well, looking more like her sixteen-year-old self than the woman she currently is. She’s even wearing a costume with a cape, and John has to bite his tongue to stifle a laugh. “Well,” he quips, “bit familiar, innit?”
She shoots him the most aggravated teenaged look, and her expressiveness reminds him why he was ever drawn to her in the first place. They were young and naive about the ways of the world, about what they themselves were capable of, but he likes looking back on that time. He doesn’t long for it, exactly, but he does treasure it.
A deep violet light emanates from down one of the tunnels, and they wordlessly agree to investigate further. As they descend deeper into the catacombs, the light only grows brighter, and John has to raise his arm up to shield his eyes. And yet, when they finally reach its source, it no longer hurts to look at as it floods the chamber with color. A shallow pool of water sits in the middle of the space, and as they approach it, he realizes that the images he’s watching flash by are her memories, ones that are anchored to him and the moment they met. Time passes in the water as the younger version of herself writes her letters with a furrowed brow, concentrating on getting the words just right. He watches her read his letters in return with such adoration and love in her eyes that it nearly breaks him. He looks on as she lies in bed at night, touching herself to the idea of him, and when he glances over at the real version of her, she’s blushing and smiling, embarrassed and maybe a little bit in love all over again; clearly, he was never meant to know about these particular memories.
As the memories pass and creep closer and closer to that day and night in New York, the scenery around them begins to change, and they’re in Central Park once more. Now, Zee is wearing the clothes she came to her father’s wearing, jeans and a white t-shirt and a robin’s egg blue suede jacket that John thinks brings out her eyes. The golden hour light of the city shines on her, and he can’t stop staring.
Zatanna looks up at the park around them and sighs with frustration. “I don’t know why we’re here,” she says, almost whining. “It’s not like—oh, shit—”
Without warning, the setting shifts again, equally as jarring at the first time, and they’re sitting in the diner where they ate that day. John spots their younger selves at a booth on the other side of the restaurant, and suddenly, he thinks he knows exactly why they’re here. She says something to him, and he laughs, and her fingers are crossed under the table—she’s just told a lie, and while he vaguely remembers all the things they did that day, he doesn’t remember the specifics.
“What did you say to me, to make me laugh?” he probes, gesturing to the couple in the booth. “Was it a lie?”
Zee shakes her head. “I don’t remember. I was so nervous, I think I would’ve said anything to please you.”
Anything? John picks his brain, combing through his own memories in hopes of finding answers there. And then he remembers.
“Your dad’s not gonna come barging in here and beat the living shite out of me, is he?”
“It’s not gonna be an issue, I promise.”
He looks up at her, meeting her confused gaze with one of his own. “You told me that your dad was gonna be a non-issue.”
She blushes and looks away. “I wanted you to stay,” she admits quietly. “I wanted to—well, you know what I wanted.”
And it’s true, he does, because he had wanted it to. The memory starts to change again, only this time, instead of watching, they’re participating, and it’s the strangest sensation to go from sitting in a ratty old booth to being balls deep inside of your long-distance kind-of-sort-of girlfriend, though it must be even more strange for her. He can’t stop himself from letting out a moan as his hips sink into hers.
She gasps and grasps at his shoulders, already out of breath. “What the hell?”
He bites his lip to stifle another moan. “I think we—Jesus Christ, this is—”
She grabs his head in her hands and forces him to look her in the eye. It’s almost as if she’s searching for the answer on his face, and then there’s some realization, and she lets go. “Move, John.”
He’s still in a sort of daze. “What?”
“Move. Fuck me.”
“Zee, I—”
“Just play through the scene,” she says, her voice rough, heady. “Our night in New York. I got tired, and you flipped us over. Now finish what you started.”
His most primal instincts overwhelm him, and he no longer needs to be told twice. He begins to thrust into her, and it’s been so long since they made love, on account of her nightmares and exhaustion, that he’s approaching his peak more quickly than he’d like to admit. When he comes, he comes inside her, and it’s simply lovely to be surrounded by her warmth alongside his own. He reaches down and thumbs her clit until she comes, too, remembering that detail of their night together, if nothing else.
This time, she doesn’t wince as he rolls off of her, though there’s still a spot of blood on the sheets that neither of them can stop staring at. “You were my first,” she says.
He nods. “I know. You told me so.”
“I wanted you so much.” She looks up at him. “This was when I got pregnant.”
“I know. I wanted you, too. But I should have had more control over myself. I’m sorry.”
She shakes her head. “I should have told you the truth a long time before I did.”
“It’s alright that you didn’t,” he says, but she holds up a hand to cut him off.
“It hurt,” she tells him. “When we had sex that first time, it hurt more than I thought it would. And it was wonderful, too, but I was so overwhelmed, and I was sore, and I never told you.”
“I was the one who was too selfish to ask, Zee.”
“No,” she argues. “You asked if I was alright. You tried to make it good for me, and it was. It got more complicated once I found out I was pregnant because I was just a kid, and I had no idea what I was doing, even though I spent every hour of every day pretending that I did. And I cut you out of something that you should’ve been a part of, and I’m sorry for that.”
John shrugs. “I would’ve gone along with whatever you decided,” he says, fairly sure that it isn’t a lie. “Surely you know that now.”
Zatanna reaches down and takes his hand. “I know that now. I promise.”
The walls turn to dust and the world turns again into something else, this time propelling them back to the catacombs to watch her memories through the pool of water again. Her relationship with Dick plays out in front of them, from their reunion to their breakup, and then they’re transported into the water, and they’re surrounded by it, though they don’t seem to have any trouble breathing or speaking.
A slithering voice echoes throughout. Worthless thing, it whispers, worthless whore.
Zee puts her hands over her ears as panic sets in on her face. “No. No, no, please. Don’t do this.”
John reaches for her, but some invisible force holds him back. “Let me go, you bastard,” he growls through gritted teeth, straining against whatever’s keeping him away from her.
He doesn’t love you, the voice continues. He’ll use your body and throw you away, just like he did before.
She collapses to her knees and shuts her eyes, rocking back and forth. “That’s not what happened,” she cries.
How could anyone love a liar like you? Your mother left you, your father hates you. You weren’t powerful enough to destroy us, or skilled enough to leave that little girl’s mind intact. Do you want us to take you again? Take you, tear you apart, consume you like we did the girl? Like we always do to you in your dreams? Your writhing body feels so good beneath us. Your screams sound like heaven. Let us take you. Let us own you.
John wants to throw up. Just getting a small taste of what it is she goes through every night, he’s reminded of what it feels like to want to die. But it’s not real, it’s not true, none of it. He loves her, and she knows it, and he’d protect her from any threat that any universe sent to hurt her. He would die for her. In fact, the only reason he can’t die for her is because she’d bring him back and kill him herself. She’s more powerful and brilliant and skillful than any sorcerer he’s ever met, himself included, and if her father can’t bring himself to forgive her or to acknowledge just how incredible he is, then he’s not worth the time and effort. If her mother left her, then it’s her mother’s loss. She’s lovely. She’s amazing. She’s perfect. He loves her so, so much.
Zatanna is the only person in the world who ever makes John feel like he’s someone worth fighting for.
With a battle cry, he breaks free of the forces holding him back and runs to Zatanna, launching himself down to the ground and throwing his arms around her, whispering in her ear all the while, I love you, I love you, I love you.
The howling echo of the liminal space fades away. The wicked voice of the demonic memories that she took from Gemma returns to the void having said its piece, and having been thoroughly ignored—or at least, that’s what he hopes. When she finally pushes against him, urging him to let go of her, they’re standing in a garden beneath an arched trellis with vines and flowers woven through. The grass grows up to their ankles, but it’s soft as down. She’s wearing a white dress and veil that makes her look like an angel, the sun forming a halo around her beautiful curls. He’s wearing a suit and tie, and some religious officiant that he doesn’t know stands next to them with a familiar book in his hands.
“Do you, John Alan Constantine, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
John looks between the officiant and Zee, and while she looks stunning, she also looks stunned. They’ve never discussed anything like this, nothing close to this level of commitment. They are two people ruled by forces beyond comprehension, people who hope for the best and expect the worst, who love so wholly and fully because they know the end could come at any time. Fate shall surely keep them in each other’s lives in one way or another, but he would never be so presumptuous as to ask for this.
And yet, she’s standing in front of him all dressed in white, and he can’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, fate is giving them the chance to seize their unconditional happiness, just this once. Even if it’s just the spell, or a memory, or a vision, that doesn’t mean it’s not still real.
He clears his throat and takes a deep breath, and what comes out is more than he initially intends to say, but he’s not sorry about it. “Yes. Yes, I do. Every day for the rest of my life, I want to be by your side. I don’t deserve you, love, but you make me want to be better than I am. You make me better. If you don’t want this, I understand. I’ll still be at your side until the day you finally get sick of me and kick me out onto the streets. I’d marry you if we were stuck in this place forever. I’d marry you if your soul were damned to hell. I’d marry you if the only time we’d ever spent together was in Oxford and nothing else. So, I do, Zatanna Zatara, and I love you. I really do.”
Zee’s eyes go wide as she processes his promise, and the officiant continues, oddly oblivious to either of them. “And do you, Zatanna Celinde Zatara, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
The way she stares at John, he doesn’t know what she’ll say. But then she begins to speak.
“Every hour of every day, as many years as there are stars in the sky, I want to spend them with you. I’ve been afraid and naive and reckless, and you never gave up on me. Every mistake, every misstep, you’re there. Maybe that’s why we’re here—because I need to admit that I’ve lied and I’ve cheated and I’ve made things harder than they need to be. If I make you want to be better, it’s only because you’ve made me better, and stronger, and you, John Constantine, have given me the world without even knowing it. And if you still want all of this… this chaos, all of the sleepless nights and nightmares—”
John takes her hands in his. “I want it all,” he insists. “And I want it with you.”
Tears fill her eyes, and she smiles. “If you’ll have me, then of course, I do.”
The officiant nods, smiles, and closes his book. “You may now kiss the bride.”
John pulls her to him and kisses her like his life depends on it. Whether or not this is real, whether or not this is binding, he doesn’t care. He loves her, he loves her, he loves her so much. She may not know it, but she holds his heart in her hands and it’s hers to do with what she likes; he hopes she knows that he would always do the same.
Zatanna’s arms wrap around his neck as she pulls him in deeper, and he can feel the tears spilling out of her eyes and down her cheeks, and he revels in them, because it means that she means it. She means it all. He pulls back and kisses the tears away, the taste of saltwater like an aphrodisiac that spurs him on to kiss her again, his hands roaming and grasping at any part of her he can use to get closer. It may not be the time or place, but he doesn’t know when the dream will end, and he won’t stop until it does.
When the potion wears off, when the dream is done, Zatanna feels a sense of peace that’s so unfamiliar to her, she wonders if this, too, is a part of the spell. John comes out of it a little groggy still, but she’s galvanized with revelation. She gets up off the floor and launches herself toward her father, throwing her arms around him and burying her face in chest, inhaling the familiar childhood scent of his aftershave. “I love you, Dad,” she whispers. “I’m sorry that I left. I’m sorry I disappointed you. I’ve missed you so much."
Giovanni stiffens at first, unsure of what to make of her affection, but he soon relaxes and embraces her in return. Zatanna is surprised to hear the choked back sob in his voice when he speaks. “You—you have never been a disappointment, piccola,” he manages to croak out.
She pulls back and furrows her brow as she looks up at him. “But I thought—”
He places his hand on her shoulder. “I was a fool. I did not know what to do, so I did nothing. I said nothing. And that was my first mistake—not telling you that I would always love you. You are all that I have in this life, and nothing you could do could ever change that, my daughter.”
All these years, all the time she spent in agony over losing the last of her family to what she thought was an ultimate violation of his trust in her… all of it was wasted. And she can’t even bring herself to be angry about it, not even at him, because the relief of knowing that she never really lost him overwhelms any sense of righteous indignation that she may want to feel.
Footsteps pad the carpeted floor behind her, and John appears by her side. Giovanni looks at him with an expression that she can’t quite parse, and both men look humbled. “You took care of her when I could not,” he tells John. “And now you have brought her back to me. I am in your debt.”
John shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it,” he says, probably uncomfortable with the whole thing, if she had to bet. Then, he looks over at her, and a shadow of a smile plays on his lips. “I owe her more than this, and that’s just to start. She’s saved my ass—erm, sorry, my life more times than I can count.”
Her father offers an inscrutable smile at the young couple, and Zatanna can only wish to begin to understand him. He puts a hand on each of their shoulders. “Come,” he says warmly. “We have much to learn about each other. We can talk over dinner.”
And for the first time in a long time, Zatanna thinks that maybe, just maybe, everything will be alright.
DCULover314 Sun 26 May 2024 02:47AM UTC
Comment Actions
viharker Sun 26 May 2024 03:35AM UTC
Comment Actions
DCULover314 Sun 26 May 2024 04:58AM UTC
Comment Actions
Milalovesdc22 Sun 26 May 2024 02:53AM UTC
Comment Actions
viharker Sun 26 May 2024 03:33AM UTC
Comment Actions
milliemoo301 Sun 26 May 2024 07:23AM UTC
Comment Actions
viharker Sun 26 May 2024 12:00PM UTC
Comment Actions