Archive of Our Own ^beta

“You know Manny won’t like this.” Zed says it as he’s already packing.

“When does Manny like anything I do?” John hopes to whatever deity (or demon, he’s not picky) that’ll listen that Manny won’t be able to contact him within a fucking timeship.

He runs out before the winged bastard has time to fly down and say anything about it, but not before Chas gives him a withering look on the way out, which is fair. He’s leaving them on short notice, but having a time traveling assassin owe you a favor isn’t something one passes up.

-

“John Constantine,” Sara smiles when she sees him, which is nice. Good to see her soul is still fitting inside her body. They’re in what he assumes is the cargo bay for the ship, all spacious and metallic. He assumes the rest of the team is who they’re surrounded by. “Good to have you on board.” She gives him a strong clap on the shoulder, going off to do, whatever it is resurrected assassins turned time travel captains do. 

Some big pretty guy with brown puppy eyes mutters something to her along the lines of, “You sure we can trust this guy?”

“If you’d like me to show you how eager I am to help, I’d be happy to,” it’s said with a sleazy grin, making the guy blush. John counts it as a win when he has to rush out, still flustered. Sara, lingering in the doorway, rolls her eyes at him, and he just smiles. Still got it.

“Has he never met a bisexual dabbler in the dark arts before?”

“Bisexual?” The woman he heard Sara called Amaya is the one who asks it. She just sounds like she's never heard the word before, which is fair. Sara mentioned they're running with someone from the 40s.

“Dark arts?” Some old dude asks that question, and John rolls his eyes.

“Did your dear captain not tell you why I’m coming along? Apparently you lot have a demon to deal with back in, when was it?” 

“1936,” the shorter and decidedly less charming looking brunette guy finishes the sentence. “And we don’t know what it is.”

“If it’s demonic or unearthly, then I can handle it.” Is John peacocking? Abso-fucking-lutely.

“Well, it’s good to have you on the team Mr. Constantine,” the old dude says again, and that level of formality is just weird. 

Casually, he reaches into his pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes, taking out a cig and his lighter.

“Smoking on the Waverider is strictly forbidden,” comes a soft voice from seemingly all directions, making John drop his pack.

“What the bloody hell was that?” It’s said as he picks the pack up, stuffing it into his pocket and tucking the cigarette behind his ear.

“Gideon, our artificial intelligence. They help pilot the ship,” it’s said by a guy just walking in, coming forward to shake John’s hand. “I’m Jax, by the way, sorry I wasn’t here for introductions. Busy fixing the engine core, again. Turns out destroying the time masters also destroyed all their auto parts shops.”

John pauses, not knowing what the fuck to say to that. “Right,” he says, after a long pause. “I’m John Constantine.” Looking around, he ends up gesturing at the ceiling. “No smoking?”

“Or setting fires,” the less attractive brunette says, and John has really gotta learn these names. The guy gives a dirty look to the man in the corner, who’s bald and angry and big . John likes him.

-

“And you’ll be staying in a room with Mick, sorry, ship’s not that big,” Sara is showing him around the metal death trap he’s currently stuck in.

“Doesn’t matter to me,” he says, getting into the room and putting his things down where there seems to be space. She leaves him to it.

The room isn’t empty, which is unsettling since his body is the only one around. Groaning under his breath, he mutters a basic incantation to reveal any unsettled spirits. And, what his fucking luck, there’s one lounging on the bed he’s meant to sleep in.

“Fucking hell,” he says, scrubbing hands over his face. “Didn’t know I’d have to deal with a territorial spirit.”

The spirit turns to him, his eyebrows narrowed. “You can see me?”

“Well I’m not bloody talking to myself, am I?”

“Nobody can see me.”

“Sorry to burst your bubble pal, but I can. Now what are you doing here?”

“What makes you think I know?”

Holy shit John hates ambivalent spirits. “Alright,” he sighs, sitting down cross legged on the floor. “Let’s start easy. What’s your name?”

“Leonard Snart.”

“Well, that’s unfortunate.”

“Watch it.”

“Right, right,” he says, leaning back on his arms. “You know you’re dead?”

“I put myself at the heart of an explosion to destroy the time masters, so I kinda figured that.”

John snorts, “I guess you could say you blew yourself.” 

“It would be my luck I spend months without anybody being able to see me, and now I’ve got you.”

“Hey mate, I'm just on board to help out a friend. I can leave you to being a spirit if you like, but I will be needing to use that bed at some point.” John sighs, going to start unpacking his things again. He would offer an exorcism, but he has no clue how it works in a different temporal setting. “I'll keep the incantation open just so I can see you. Make sure you aren't doing anything weird to my things.”

The spirit takes a moment to think, then moves off of the bed to lounge on the floor. “Fine.”

Another roommate. This one somehow undead. Great. 

-

“How fucking dare they?” The spirit is pacing around the room, John lying back on his bed with his zippo in his hands.

“You mean they talk about him like that all the time?” It’s a shocker to Constantine, that a group of so-called heroes could be so totally awful to a member of their own crew. Sure, Mick may not be the most open and welcoming guy, but he’s not a bad dude, minus the penchant for killing people.

“All the fucking time,” Len hisses, pacing around so much if he weren’t a spirit a rut would be forming on the floor. “They did it when I was on the crew too, but never like this, because they knew I would fucking kill them.” He’s pissed off, so John lets him continue the rant. “Even fucking Sara? She knows Mick, knows the kind of man he is, I fucking told her.”

“What’d you tell her?”

“My first day in juvie Mick saved my punk ass, and what have I done to repay him? I went and fucking died and left him with a group of abusive scumbags who don’t see him as a person.” At this the spirit settles, John can feel the energy of the room go from red hot to a lower simmer. “He deserves better, John.”

“You don’t gotta tell me,” the blonde says, flicking his lighter open and closed. “He’s a good roommate, and he protects us all when we’re out there, even when he doesn’t have to. And he’s pretty easy on the eyes.” It’s said with a flirtatious grin that makes Len glare.

“Watch it.”

“Watch what? His ass when he comes out the shower in nothing but a towel? Oh, believe me, I do.”

“You’re such a fucking pain,” Len says, the end of their conversation abruptly interrupted as the door opens, Mick coming in quietly, stripping off his ash-covered henley for, you guessed it, another henley.

The spirit just watches Mick with this look in his eyes. One that’s so full of sadness and love and melancholy that it makes John feel like he’s intruding. Technically it’s Len who’s intruding, but whatever. The spell works so he’s only visible to John, the caster. Mick doesn’t know he’s there, and Len has said they should keep it that way, for reasons far beyond John’s understanding.

Len’s spirit is bound to the Waverider, which is currently parked in New York in the 1930s. Constantine needs a fucking smoke.

“Hey Mick,” he says, making the other man grunt in reply. “You wanna go outside for a smoke break?”

Shrugging, Mick pulls on his jacket. “Don’t see why not. There’s nothing better for me to do on this hulking piece of metal.” He doesn’t smoke, though. John found this out the first time he had asked. They’d left the ship, and when the blonde lit his cigarette Mick just stared at the flame. John likes the way he looks at the fire.

So John pulls on his coat, walking into the chilly autumn air as he pulls out a pack and flicks his lighter open. Soon as the cigarette is lit, the box goes back in his pocket, and he hands the lighter to Mick, who flicks it open and stares at the flame.

“So why do you let them treat you like that?” Constantine’s never been one for subtlety or general tact ever. “I mean, you could pretty easily kick all of them to pieces, but they all just shit on you.” 

Mick lets out a laugh that sounds more self-deprecating than anything else. “I got no reason to fight it. I’m used to people treating me like meat. Our dear old captain told me I had the IQ of it one time, but he had the decency to apologize. After the comment turned me into a bounty hunter.”

“Sounds like a real winner,” John says, sarcasm dripping from his voice and floating through the air like the smoke from his cigarette.

“He was a better captain than Sara,” Mick says. “At least Rip could admit when he was being a selfish prick, and he acted like a leader. Sara’s still blood thirsty, but she pretends she’s better than the rest of us anyways.” Looking around, he turns to John after being sure they’re alone. “Between you and me, I think she’s killed more people than I’ve even burned. And she didn’t even have a reason. I like the fire. Don't know what the fuck her excuse was.”

Constantine just nods, figures it’s all he can do. He can’t exactly make the rest of the crew stop treating Mick like absolute shit. “What about the selfish tall one? What’s his deal?”

“Haircut?” Mick outright laughs this time. “Bastard thinks he can smile at something and fix it. Or throw money at it. He’s one of those rich boys who’s had everything he ever wanted. He doesn’t know how to think about anyone but himself.”

“I had a friend like that once.” John has to keep himself from wallowing at the thought of Gary. Gary was good. Gary was fucking better than Ray. “Wish I could kill this one with a hunger demon instead.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Just, I get what you mean, about privileged priss boys. My friend, he, uh, I manipulated him into taking a hunger demon into his body to defeat it. It killed him.” 

“Oh,” Mick says it with another grunt, but he doesn’t apologize. Good. Neither of them can do anything about the past, which is fairly ironic considering their current line of work.

“Worst part is, he did it because he was in love with me, and I knew it and I used that.” John can’t help but be disgusted with himself for it, even after all this time, and even after all the shit that Gary brought with him. For a moment he flashes back to holding Gary’s hand as he’s strapped to a bed seizing, Manny watching on in that bullshit passive angel way he does.

“I get that,” Mick says quietly, turning his eyes back to the flame he holds, the fire shaking in the chill of the air. “It was almost me in the Oculus.” He lets out a scoff, the breath making the flame quiver. “Fucking Lenny, the bastard had to take that. Had to fucking save me.”

“I heard about that,” he says, immediately realizing it was a mistake. Nobody really talked about Snart, so there’s no way that he could know that. Luckily, Mick shrugs it off, evidently not giving a fuck.

“Well, the dumb bastard’s dead now,” Mick says, and it is so obviously a front.

“You don’t have to do that with me,” John easily slips out, sucking on his cigarette as ash falls off the end. “Pretend he was less to you. I see the ring you keep on you, it’s too small to have been yours.” 

“He was my partner,” Mick says it slowly, testing the waters.

John nods, “I’ve got a partner like that. Chas. Big bear type, great dad, has a huge cock, dies constantly.” 

Mick lifts an eyebrow but doesn’t seem all that surprised, which makes Constantine smile. His reputation for vulgarity and bisexuality has not diminished.

“We got married in Vegas,” Mick says. “After a heist, before it was legal, we held the place up and got Elvis to marry us.”

“Romantic,” John snorts, but can’t help the smile. “Really though, that’s sweet. Chas and me, we never,” he waves his hand in the air noncommittally.

“Got married?” Mick says it with half a smile and the edge of a laugh in his voice.

“Yeah. I’m not big on churches, and he’s already been married once. Plus, we aren’t exclusive necessarily.” Necessarily meaning John is a huge slut and Chas is cool with it because that’s just who Constantine is. “Plus, he’s got a daughter, and I don’t trust myself with kids, even if only on the weekends.” A flash of Astra makes his eyes go wide for a second, but he shakes his head and sucks down more smoke.

“Lenny has a baby sister, Lisa. We sort of adopted her,” he smiles, but it’s sad. “When I told her what happened to him, she,” he takes a deep breath, but it doesn’t shake, “she cried. I haven’t seen Lisa cry since she was a little kid.”

“Losing people isn’t easy,” John says, and by fuck, he should know. He’s lost so many people, but he keeps fucking going. A thought of only God knowing why crosses his mind, making him snort quietly. “But I guess there’s some ridiculous bullshit we just get used to after a while.”

His cigarette is burnt all the way down to the filter, so he tosses it down, crushing it under his shoe. Pulling out the pack again, he takes another cigarette, putting it between his lips and looking to Mick. “Gimme a light?” 

Mick nods, leaning in and cupping his hand around the flame to light the cigarette. There's something oddly intimate about it, but John can't bring himself to mind. He's cold in this weather and Mick is all large warmth, so he leans in closer.

The thought of kissing Mick crosses his mind, and he's not ashamed for a second, would even maybe act on it if his mouth wasn't so full of smoke at the moment. Instead, he leans back, breathing out a quiet, “Thanks.”

“No problem,” it’s said with a lingering look that definitely leaves a Mick Rory brand fire burning in the pit of John’s stomach.

He sucks down the smoke.