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charlotte-sloane-writes · 4 years

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Part 2 - A Wicked Little Thing

Here’s Chapter 2 of my Zatanna/John Constantine fic. Get ready for some quality feels and worldbuilding. The story is after the cut, the tags are at the very bottom.

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The flesh on Anna’s hands had turned a bright angry red fifteen minutes ago; fifteen minutes before the end of her shift. Though the color had abated by the time she got to the cleaning cart lock-up, they still itched and burned from the overexposure to cleaning chemicals. Despite the smell of bleach and cheap latex gloves permeating every digit, Anna abstained from washing her hands in fear of rubbing off the last layer of skin she had left on her palms.

“Shit, and I thought we were busy in the summer.” Freddie leaned back, popping her spine.

“You’re working a second shift too?” Anna smiled at her friend, unbuckling the utility belt from around her waist.

“Yeah.” Freddie scoffed, removing the little, fuzzy, red hat that had leaned crookedly off the side of her ginger crown. “The second it starts pourin’ and all the tourists get stranded, Buddy gets big ideas about a Michelin star for the Hotel California.”

“Talk about overflow.” Anna closed up her locker, spinning the dial on her combination lock for good measure.

The bellhop sat back on the wooden bench in the middle of the locker room, stretching her arms above her head. “When do you get out?”

“Oh, you haven’t heard? We can never leave.”

“Oh, very funny, Anna. It was also really funny the last thirty times I heard that joke.”

“What? If you’re gonna have a shitty job might as well have it at the Hotel California.”

“That should be the new tagline. Come to the Hotel California, if you’re gonna have a shitty vacation, you might as well have it set in a mediocre rock song.”

Anna threw her towel at Freddie’s head “That’s a great song.”

“I’m more of an Aerosmith kinda gal.” Freddie winked, the freckled skin around her eyes wrinkling with a shit-eating grin she gave her friend.

“Blasphemy. Absolute blasphemy.” Anna laughed, the ends of her black hair tickling the bottoms of her shoulder blades when she leaned her head back.

“You’re one to talk.” Freddie threw the offending towel back towards Anna’s face. The cleaning maid caught it and jolted it back towards her chest, dragging Freddie off of the bench in a series of uncontrollable giggles.

The two collapsed in a heap on the linoleum floor, panting between the ghosts of their laughter. “Fuck, I’m gonna be late. George’ll kill me.”

Anna leaned up “If he kills you, who’s gonna bail him out from laundry duty?”

“Fair enough.” Freddie heaved herself up, getting a sturdy landing on her feet and tugging Anna back up with her. “You off on lunch?” Freddie’s breath tickled Anna’s cheek and left a ghostly disturbance against her eyelashes. This was too close.

“Yeah, about to. Why?”

“I’ll tell George you’re there when I see him. He’ll be glad to have a cards partner.”

“And to think he was getting so good at solitaire.” Anna smiled crookedly and nodded “Okay, you tell that brother of yours I’ll be waiting to serve his ass up on a round of Go Fish.”

“Make him regret it. I need something to feel like the superior twin.” Freddie winked, getting to her locker and changing into her brother’s spare laundry uniform. Tightening the white pants around her hips, Freddie spread her arms, shaking her head and making her short hair messier, somehow wilder “How do I look?”

Anna was leaned back against the locker, a bite of her apple making the rounds to her molars “Sexy in a ‘1950s sanitorium worker’ kind of way.”

Freddie laughed freely, hands gripping her shuttering belly “What’s your damage, Arataz?”

Anna swallowed the chunk of fruit in her mouth, wiping her chapped lips roughly with the back of her hand “You haven’t even scratched the surface, honeybuns.”

Freddie scoffed, rolled her eyes, and nudged her friend in the ribs playfully “See you tonight for a nightcap?”

“You got the…?” Anna made a signal with her hand– two fingers to her lips and outward.

“Only if the back patio is dry by then. I don’t want to have to share with Buddy again.”

“Fair. See you then.”

“Yeah.” Freddie waved over her shoulder and walked out to bail her twin brother out.

Anna wouldn’t see such a familiar face until thirty minutes later, lunching on a cheese and bologna sandwich and nibbles of saltines she’d kept lying around her locker in case she ever wanted to treat herself.

“You’re a sorry sight.” George announced his presence, changed into his sister’s bellhop uniform. The first few times they’d done the switcheroo around her, Anna got whiplash.

“Ever so charming.” She shrugged out the earbud and laid the pair off to the side, looking up at the man settling into the chair across from her.

“Freddie tells me you’re gonna kick my ass at Go Fish?”

“Yeah, so long as your cards aren’t rigged.”

“Me? Cheating at cards? When there’s no money to be won? I’m wounded.” George leaned over and stole a cracker from its sleeve.

“What’s for lunch?” Anna swiped back the cracker, leaving more crumbs on the table between them than in either of their hands.

“Some fried rice and chopped SPAM.” George shrugged and wiped off the debris of the saltine battle.

“Seriously?”

“Some of us need variance, Arataz.” George nudged his chin towards the cleaning lady’s meal. “We can’t all survive on bologna sandwiches every day.”

______________________

John Constantine is laying across his bed, unmade and wrinkled like his dress shirt. A loose cigarette hangs from his bottom lip and his heavy eyelids drift closed to the heavy smoke drifting through the industrially recycled air of the Waverider. A final moment of peace, a stillness in his heart, permits his mind to now wander with eyes shut tight. He wonders on passed loves and good times, beers with Chas and drinks with King Arthur’s proginey, shots with Dez and wine with Bruce. Come to think of it, his bonding moments seem to circle around alcohol a bit too frequently. When was the last time he had a deep conversation without booze to lubricate his thoughts to slip past that hard wall he’s built? “Zatanna, must’ve been with Zatanna” He thought aloud, remembering her Painted Lady-esque mansion on an off-shoot road in San Francisco. The silk sheets, the aroma of floral soy candles, the Korean face masks:

“How do you know how to use these things?” John flicked the plastic pack with Korean print all over it. No amount of squinting or divining was making the words any more English.

She laughed, flicking her dark hair behind her shoulder and leaning down onto the mattress behind him. “There...I think.” Her manicured finger pointed down at the one discernable thing on the silver pack, the number 15 “I think that means you leave it on for 15 minutes.”

“Fuck it, sure.” He shrugged and laughed, leaning back and letting his head rest on her thigh “Will you open it for me?”

“Sure. You sure you want this one?” She plucked it from his hands and looked at the picture on it “Pearl? I have others if you want.”

He turned on to his side, one finger tracing an ancient Nordic rune on her knee “Which one are you doing?”

“The snake one.” Zatanna leaned onto one hand, the mattress dipping with her weight.

“Snake oil? Isn’t that like...clearly not real?” John mumbled

“Hm?” Zatanna laughed, her fingertips pushing back his hair “What are you talking about, John?”

“Nothing, love.” He sighed “Just talking for the sake of hearing m’self.”

“You do that often?” She teased him, leaning forward to lay on her side across from him.

“I think so. Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Why do I like to hear myself talk so much?”

“Yeah.”

John leaned on to his back and sighed, letting his back ache in relief. He scratched over his belly button absent-mindedly “Not sure. Maybe it’s to figure out whether I know what I’m talking about.”

The stage magician crawled over to him, sitting up on his chest and pulling his hands away from himself “You don’t think you know what you’re talking about?”

“I don’t know. Who knows? Maybe it’s an act...all of it. But if I sound like I know what I mean, maybe what I’m saying and what I’m doing is right, true, correct. Just got to convince myself as much as those around me.”

Zatanna nodded “I think I know what you mean.” She opened the pearl essence face mask, pressing the cold and slimy sheet onto his face. John jumped at it, surprised at the feeling. “I sometimes wonder where I’d be if I couldn’t just make shit happen with a few backwards phrases.”

“Still rich.” John laughed, watching with one eye open as Zatanna dismounted from his chest and laid down next to him, placing her own sheet mask on her face.

“I don’t know. My father’s money didn’t stretch that far, and I’d be lying if I said my stage magic would be just as good without my real magic. And my name does a lot of the legwork for me…”

“I think you’re brilliant.” John admitted

“Oh, well thank you, all my problems are solved now.” Zatanna rolled her eyes

John laughed and nudged her with his elbow “You wanker.” He scoffed.

“I know, I know, I shouldn’t question the very rarest of Constantine compliments. Thank you, honeybuns.” She kissed the underside of his chin and leaned back to play with the ends of her hair.

“Yeah, yeah, alright.” John rolled his eyes and pretended he wasn’t feeling the closest to home he’d ever felt in his life.

That Zatanna Zatara didn’t exist anymore. All that’s left of her now is a scorned lover, just like the rest of them, as far as John was concerned. She did just fine without him, and he didn’t need her.

An alarm blared, breaking his reverie. John groaned as he leaned up and ashed his cigarette. “Calling all Legends to the Bridge. Calling all Legends to the Bridge.” Sara Lance’s voice echoed through the time travelling ship. “That means you too, John.”

The mage rolled his eyes and stood, stretching out his spine, twisting his arms around to his hips. He slipped his trenchcoat on, feeling the small fizzle of arcane energy as his arms fit through the conduit. “Alright, Johnny. Time to wake up.” He murmured to himself, rolling his shoulders. He pushed the button and the doors to his room slid open.

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