Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Los Angeles didn’t bother to hide its rot.

The city bloomed with neon and festered underneath - billboards peeling like sunburnt skin, concrete split open by tree roots that no one remembered planting. Strip malls bled into liquor stores, into churches with names like Gloryhouse and The Way , their windows blacked out and glowing from within.

Constantine had seen worse cities. But not many that lied about it so brazenly.

He stood on a street corner with a cigarette and a plan. Or at least the beginning of one. Across the street: a chapel wedged between a vape shop and a smoothie bar, dressed in white stone and fake gold leaf. The Way , the sign said. Nothing else. No cross. No saints. Just a serif font and the kind of glow that made people stop asking questions.

The place reeked of magic. Not brimstone - something slicker. Oil over water. You couldn’t smell it unless you knew how. John had known how since he was sixteen.

He took one last drag, ground the butt beneath his shoe, and pulled out his phone. His contact list was a graveyard of burnt bridges and reluctant favours. Most names were dead. A few were worse.

Eventually he found what he was looking for - not a number, but a note, wedged between half-remembered summoners and old debtors.

elise. touch-sensitive. reclusive. says no to everything.

A friend of a friend - a psychic who kept her head down. He’d heard her name twice in passing: once from a medium who swore she’d refused to sit at a séance, and once from Miles, who'd only said, “She’s good, but she doesn’t want to be.”

That was enough.

Someone who didn’t advertise, didn’t take clients, didn’t want attention. But he’d heard enough: a quiet reputation, a few whispered stories, and a warning from Miles that she’d rather bite her own tongue than talk shop.

He scrolled back up. Found Miles. Hit dial.

The line clicked on.

“Miles,” he said. “I’m calling in one of the favours.”

A pause. Then a tired sigh.

“Jesus, John-”

“Nope. Just me. I need an address.”

“I’m not your damn psychic Rolodex…”

“One favour, that’s all.”

There came a long sigh. “What do you need? Clairvoyant? Psychokinesis? Spirit Medium?”

“Someone clean,” John said. “Sensitive to emotions. Discreet. Off the grid. Ring any bells?”

There was another pause followed by a faint curse, muffled as though the phone was moved away from his mouth for a moment.

“You’re looking for Elise, aren’t you?”

“You just volunteered that awfully fast.”

“She’ll tell you to fuck off.”

John huffed, half amused, “I’m used to that.”

“She’s not interested in this kind of thing, John. It’s a waste of a favour.”

“Still counts.”

Miles grunted. A rustle of paper on the other end of the line. “You didn’t get this from me.”

“You’re practically handing her to me on a plate.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

John jotted down the address, thanked him like he didn’t mean it, and hung up before Miles could change his mind.

That was enough.

He slid the phone back into his coat and started walking.

The apartment above the laundromat didn’t have a number. Just a scratched green door and a single working buzzer that gave a mean little buzz when he pressed it.

No response.

He tried again, leaning his weight into the doorframe like he belonged there. He didn’t, but that had never stopped him.

Another silence followed interrupted by the faint sound of footsteps over the tinny intercom. Then the outside door clicked open.

He took the stairs slowly, boots on worn carpet, pausing at the top.

She opened the door before he could knock.

Elise was smaller than he expected. Barefoot. Long sleeves pulled below her wrists. She looked like someone who didn’t want to be looked at. There was a tension to her posture - not fear, exactly. Containment. Like every inch of her was being held inside on purpose.

“John Constantine,” she said. “I was told you don’t call unless it’s already gone wrong.”

“Good to see I’ve got a reputation.”

“You want something.” It wasn’t a question.

“Of course I do.”

She didn’t move or gesture for him to come in, but after a beat, she turned and walked back into the flat, leaving the door open behind her. That, he took as permission.

The place was small. Dim. Blackout curtains sealed the windows, and the lamps were warm but weak. A bookshelf stood against the far wall, weighed down by old psychology texts and a few battered paperbacks. The air smelled like books and peppermint tea. A grey cat blinked at him from the top of the fridge.

“You’re a hard woman to find,” he said.

“I don’t want to be found.”

He closed the door quietly. Didn’t sit, just stood with his hands in his coat pockets and watched her move.

She made tea but didn’t ask if he wanted any. Filled the kettle, turned it on, and leaned against the counter like the water would take its time no matter what he said.

“You’ve got a reputation too,” she said, without looking at him. “Mostly for leaving wreckage.”

He smiled faintly. “Well. That’s accurate.”

“Who gave you my name?”

“Miles.”

“That figures.”

“He said you don’t do this sort of thing anymore. That you’re retired.”

“I never even started.”

Now she looked at him - head tilted, expression flat. But there was sharpness behind her stillness. A wariness that felt like muscle memory.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“I need help. And I don’t trust many people who still believe they can give it.”

“That’s not an answer.”

He stepped a little closer. Slowly. Careful not to spook the cat or the woman.

“There’s a group calling themselves The Way . Downtown. Looks like a church, smells like a cult. I think they’re using sacred intimacy as a conduit. Not worship… magic. Possibly old. Definitely invasive.”

“And you think I can do what, exactly? Walk in and feel the vibes?”

“I think you’ll know if something’s wrong.”

She laughed, once. Not kindly.

“You think that’s a gift.”

“I think it’s inconvenient,” he said. “But useful.”

The kettle clicked off. She didn’t move to pour it. Just wrapped her fingers around the counter’s edge and let the silence stretch.

“I’m not an anchor, John,” she said. “I don’t fix people. I don’t chase shadows. I don’t want to be part of whatever mess you’re dragging in.”

“I’m not asking you to be.”

“Then what are you asking?”

He looked at her. Really looked.

“Just be near me when I go in,” he said. “If things go sideways, I might need someone who knows what sideways feels like.”

“And what do I get?”

“A clear conscience.”

Her gaze sharpened. “You think I care about that?”

“I think you haven’t looked away yet.”

That held. Long enough that he thought maybe she’d tell him to leave. But she didn’t.

She poured herself a mug of tea. Steeped it. No sugar. Then walked to the window and stared out at nothing.

“Tomorrow,” she said. “You get one hour.”

He nodded. “That’s all I need.”

She didn’t answer, didn’t even turn around as he let himself out. 

She was already starting to wonder just how much she'd regret this.

Chapter Text

Elise had barely spoken since getting into the cab.

She sat with her arms folded and her eyes fixed on the world outside the window, chin tilted slightly like she was cataloguing details she had no intention of remembering. Her shoulders were too still. The kind of still that said: don’t ask . John didn’t.

The city around them pulsed with its usual filth and shine - a long wash of half-hearted glamour, rusted metal, jacaranda blossoms caught in storm drains. Downtown shimmered in the heat ahead of them, strip-malls and billboards stacking into towers of noise. It was a gaudy kind of decay. He’d always found it honest.

He watched Elise’s reflection in the glass. Not directly. Just enough to clock the tension in her jaw, the twitch of her fingers where they rested against her sleeve. She wasn’t nervous in the usual sense - not fidgeting - just dialled high. Coiled.

“You’ve got twenty minutes,” she said, eyes still on the window.

“I thought I had an hour.”

“You burned most of it.”

“Very efficient of me.”

“I’m not here for your charm.”

That got the faintest twitch of his mouth - not a smile, but the ghost of one. Not at her. Just at the familiarity of it all.

The cab slowed to a stop. The Way loomed ahead of them, unnaturally pristine against the cracked sidewalk and sun-faded shopfronts. Someone had gone to the trouble of polishing the brass handle on the church door. The sign above it gleamed in soft gold: THE WAY . No symbols. No denomination. Just a font, warm light, and the vague scent of something burning sweet.

Elise didn’t move.

“You alright?” he asked.

She nodded, but didn’t speak. Then, a beat later, “It’s quiet.”

“There’s street noise.”

“That’s just it. The building’s muting it. Like it doesn’t want to be heard.”

John tilted his head. Listened. She was right - everything just outside the frame of the building felt dull, like someone had pressed cotton to his ears. The hum of traffic, the bark of a street vendor half a block away - all flattened. Compressed.

“Mmm,” he muttered. “Charming.”

Elise was already out of the cab.

He caught up as she climbed the steps. She moved carefully, like the ground might shift beneath her if she wasn’t deliberate. At the door, she paused. He caught the way her breath hitched - not fear, exactly. More like she was bracing for a wave no one else could see.

Then she pushed it open.

The temperature inside dropped by several degrees.

Not enough to be obvious. Just enough to trigger the wrong kind of goosebumps.

The lobby was all minimalism and gold-toned calm - sleek tile, soft lighting, polished stone. A woman at the front desk greeted them with a smile that felt too wide. Her name tag read Leigh , and her voice was as warm as the walls. Classic recruitment front. 

“Welcome to The Way,” she said. “Are you joining us for the midday service?”

“Yes,” Constantine said, before Elise could. “First time.”

“Wonderful,” Leigh beamed. “Just follow the hallway - the doors will open when the time is right.”

There was a practiced cadence to it. The smile didn’t touch her eyes. 

John nodded and moved on and Elise followed a beat behind him.

The hallway was too long.

At first it seemed normal, but then John saw it: the same potted plant repeated on the left. A framed quote on the right - Let Light In - identical to the one they’d passed twenty steps ago. The air was still, but heavy. Overcurated.

Elise stopped walking.

“This place is… bent,” she murmured. “Spatially. It’s curling in on itself.”

“I thought you didn’t do rituals.”

“I don’t.”

“Could’ve fooled me. You’re holding your breath like it’s about to start.”

She gave him a look. No heat, just dry disdain, and then she kept walking. 

At the end of the corridor, the double doors opened inward without a sound. Inside was… not a church. Not really. The space resembled a meditation studio more than anything else - low benches, soft cushions, river stones arranged in a circle at the centre of the floor. 

No altar. No cross. Just curated peace and polished quiet.

There were already about a dozen people inside, sitting in near-perfect stillness. No one looked up.

John led them to a bench near the back. Elise sat slowly, like every movement was a negotiation. Her posture was too stiff, hands flat on her knees.

“This is wrong,” she murmured.

“No argument from me.”

She didn’t answer him. Her eyes were fixed on the centre of the room, on the bare circle of stone. Her breathing was audible now - slow, but deliberate, like she was counting through it.

Not long after they had taken their seats, a woman entered from a side door. Young, barefoot, hair braided neatly down her back. She stepped into the circle like it was a stage.

“Breath is the first surrender,” she said, voice soft and rehearsed. “Where breath leads, truth waits.”

The lights dimmed slightly.

The air thickened. Something low-level and ancient stirred at the edge of Constantine’s senses - not demonic, not angelic. Just old. The kind of presence that doesn’t need to announce itself but moved through the room like water. Patient, steady, searching for cracks.

Next to him, Elise flinched.

“Something just reached out,” she whispered. “Not with words. With… attention.”

He turned to look at her. Her lips were bloodless. 

“It’s listening. It wants to know who’s not going under.”

“Can it see you?”

She hesitated. “Not yet.”

John reached for her wrist but thought better of it. He knew her thing about being touched, he respected it. Instead, he leaned in slightly, lowering his voice. 

“Stay blank. Don’t react. It’s always stronger if it thinks we don’t notice.”

Elise nodded. Her eyes shut tight for a second, then reopened - slower, steadier. She was bracing again.

The woman in the circle kept speaking - some guided meditation script dressed up as revelation. John had stopped listening.

Beside him, Elise shifted suddenly.

“I’m going to be sick,” she said.

“No, you’re not.”

“I can feel it in my jaw. Like it wants to come in through the mouth.”

He believed her. Psychics like her didn’t make shit up - especially not in rooms like this.

He stood up.

No one turned to look. Not the woman. Not the crowd. The room kept breathing without them.

He took hold of Elise’s sleeve, pulled her up gently, and walked her toward the doors.

They opened without a sound.

Outside, the street noise hit like a slap - sudden, chaotic, real. Traffic honked. Someone shouted. A dog barked from a third-story window. John let the door swing shut behind them.

Elise stumbled to the curb and bent double. She didn’t vomit, but something shook loose. Her shoulders trembled once, hard, and then she straightened.

He stood beside her, hands in his coat pockets, cigarette unlit between his fingers.

After a moment, she wiped her mouth with the edge of her sleeve.

“You got your hour,” she said, voice rough.

“I did.”

“I’m done.”

He nodded. “I know.”

She turned and started walking.

“Elise,” he said.

She stopped but didn’t turn around.

“Whatever’s in there,” he said, “it knew you were different. You’re the only one who noticed it was watching.”

She didn’t speak but didn’t walk away, either.

He watched her - the line of her back, the stillness in her hands. For a moment, she looked like someone trying very hard not to shatter.

Then she left.

He didn’t follow. Just stood there, lighter in one hand, smoke curling from the other, watching the doors of The Way behind him.

He hadn’t told her everything. Not yet.

But if she was this rattled - and still standing - then maybe, just maybe, she was the only one who could keep him tethered if the need arose. 

And he had a feeling that the need was coming. Soon.

Chapter Text

It was almost midnight when her phone rang.

Elise didn’t answer right away. She watched it buzz on the nightstand, screen lit up like an eye. No name. Just a number. But she knew who it was, and had anticipated the call all day for some reason. 

She picked it up without speaking.

“It’s Constantine,” came the voice, low and dry. There was background noise - traffic, maybe, or wind down a long corridor. A whoosh of static underlying the sound of him. 

“You sound rough,” she said, and regretted it the moment it left her mouth.

“Missed you too,” he muttered. “Listen. This won’t take long.”

She waited.

“I’ve been invited back. They want me at a smaller rite. Private. More intense.”

She didn’t ask how they’d chosen him. Of course they had. Something had noticed him and opened the door wider. He should never have stood up and dragged her out - the humans may not have noticed, but something else did. 

“They’re calling it a ‘sacrament’,” he continued. “No schedule. Just an address and a time. Tomorrow night.”

She was already sitting on the edge of her bed, the covers bunched behind her like she'd just woken from something she couldn't remember. The room was dark except for the fish tank in the corner - pale blue water casting soft ripples across the ceiling. Her only source of light.

“And you’re going?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Alone?”

“That’s why I’m calling.”

He let that sit.

Elise pressed her thumb hard against the edge of her fingernail. She could feel it - that familiar heat, right behind her eyes. The one that came just before she saw things that weren’t hers to see.

“Just asking if you’ll stay close,” John said. “Not in the room. Just… nearby. Give me one more hour.”

“No.” Her voice came quick. Too quick. “I told you. I’m done.”

“I know.”

She closed her eyes, but it didn’t help.

She was fifteen when it first started. A school hallway. Fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like flies. A boy named Daniel brushed past her shoulder too quickly - and just like that, her body wasn’t her own anymore.

Rope. A stool. A practiced knot. Cold air on the back of his neck.

She'd told him to go home early. Sleep. Had tried to smile while saying it, like she wasn’t terrified. He’d laughed, confused, and asked if she was psychic.

That night he was dead.

Everyone said he hid it so well . But she had seen it, and still couldn't stop it. She just somehow made it worse.

After that, the pills came. The diagnosis. Sensory processing disorder , emotional dysregulation , suggestibility , hysteria, psychosomatic recall, faking it for attention . 

Anything but the truth.

She’d flunked school, started working low paid night shifts. Small jobs. Places where no one wanted to talk. Always wearing gloves. No touching. Never touching.

Eventually, the noise went quiet. The visions stopped and she managed to stay clean and steady for almost six years… until Constantine showed up on her doorstep. Until that thing looked at her. 

“What do you think they’re going to give you, John?”

“Insight. Illumination. Complimentary fruit bowl?”

Elise sighed down the phone. “You’re not funny.”

“I’m hilarious, actually.”

She didn’t laugh and he let the silence stretch between them.

He wasn’t going back for power. Not even for leverage. He wanted to get a good look at what someone had dragged into existence in the middle of Los Angeles - and why.

People had started turning up hollowed out. Alive, but not whole. Something was feeding, and he wanted a look at its teeth.

So he could work out the most efficient way to send it packing. Or at least, that was the excuse he gave himself.

“You in or out?” he asked.

“Out.”

“Didn’t think you’d say yes.”

“Then why ask?”

“Because you said yes once,” he said.

“It looked back at me,” she said without further context.

“I know,” he replied, voice barely above a whisper. 

“And now it’s got your name.”

“Maybe.”

“I’m not going near it again, John. You shouldn’t either.”

“Didn’t think you would.”

Silence stretched between them, soft and taut.

“I don’t want this,” she said, quieter now. “Whatever’s waking up - I want no part of it. I really think you should stay away from that place.”

“I get it.”

She believed he did, but she also knew he’d go anyway.

“Goodnight, Constantine.”

“Yeah...”

She hung up. Let the phone drop beside her.

In the tank, the fish drifted behind a plastic ruin, slow and unbothered.

She sat still for a long time, staring at her own hands. Wondering what it would cost her, next time, to reach for someone.

Chapter Text

The invitation hadn’t come with an address - just a set of coordinates, printed on ivory cardstock that smelled faintly of smoke and jasmine. After dark , it said. No time. No sender.

After he’d walked in with Elise, he’d gone back a couple of times. Smiled like a fool at the woman on the recruitment desk, lapped up what she was trying to sell. And wouldn’t you know it, one filled in form on a fancy clipboard later, and the pretty card fluttered through his door early one morning. 

Easy. 

Too easy, maybe… 

John walked the last stretch alone, boots crunching across uneven ground where the city thinned out into dust and electric silence. The air was dry, still clinging to the heat of the day. Behind him, LA buzzed faintly - a dying radio signal in the distance. Ahead, the building emerged from the hillside like a wound that had never healed.

A brutalist shell. Grey concrete, stained with weather and time. No windows, just narrow slits along the topmost walls, flickering faint gold from within. It could have been a forgotten power station or a bunker for the devout. Nothing marked it but the light. That, and the way the night seemed to hesitate around it.

He reached the door and raised a hand to knock, but it opened before he touched it, sighing inward like it had been waiting.

Warm air spilled out. Heavy with resin and something sweet underneath - not flowers, but something older. A scent like burnt amber and honey left too long in the sun.

The corridor beyond was low-lit and soft underfoot. There was no furniture or clutter. Just rows of shallow alcoves filled with candles, each resting in a shallow dish of pure white salt. The light danced against plaster walls, fractured and gold-veined. Figures moved through the glow - women in pale linen, barefoot and silent, their faces calm, almost glassy.

One of them, tall with hollowed cheekbones and eyes like cooled metal, stepped forward and nodded once. She did not speak, she only turned and walked, trusting him to follow.

He did.

They passed beneath archways strung with dried herbs and black cord. The corridor gave way to a wider chamber - circular, domed, with walls that curved up into darkness like the inside of a shell. The floor was black stone, smooth and seamless, polished to a dull mirror. Candles burned in recessed bowls along the perimeter. Their flames bent inward, drawn toward the centre as though caught in a draught.

A ring had been etched into the stone in fine lines of powder - not chalk. Something more granular, iridescent when the light caught it. It shimmered like crushed bone and ash.

There were six others in the room already. Men and women of varying ages, all dressed in the same soft white - robes, loose sleeves, bare arms. Each one stood within the ring, eyes cast downward, hands open at their sides. Three to his left, three to his right. 

John stepped into the circle without hesitation as the door behind him closed with a quiet click.

From the far side of the chamber, a woman entered.

Taller than the others. Her hair was bound in gold thread, coiled into a knot at the nape of her neck. She wore no shoes, no jewelry - only a linen shift and the weight of something unseen. Authority, maybe. Or the practiced stillness of someone who’d forgotten how to flinch.

She moved with unhurried grace, tracing the inner edge of the circle without touching it. Her bare feet left no mark on the stone.

When she spoke, her voice was low - low enough that it shouldn’t have carried. But it did.

“This is a rite of memory,” she said. “Of surrender and sanctification.”

She passed in front of John. Her gaze touched his for a moment. Not with curiosity, but recognition. As if she already knew the shape of him beneath the skin.

“You will not be touched,” she said. “You will not be harmed. What enters you is what you choose to let go.”

She stopped walking and the people in the circle seemed to breathe as one around her.

“Do you consent?” she asked.

John looked at her for a moment and then nodded once. “I do.”

She nodded once in return and then glanced sideways at the congregation. 

“Then begin.”

The chanting began soft – not words, exactly. Just breath turned into sound.

Long, open vowels drawn out with practiced rhythm. Some human, some not. The kind of cadence that bypassed the mind and went straight for the bones. John didn’t close his eyes, but the room narrowed anyway. 

The edges of it softened. Light from the candles pulsed behind his eyelids, even open. As if they’d been lit inside him. Around the circle, the other participants had already begun to sway, subtle as leaves on still water. One or two exhaled with small shudders. No one spoke.

He let his hands fall open at his sides, palms up. Let the air in.

Something shifted. It was subtle, at first. A warmth, deep in the chest. Not comfort - not that. But heat. Rising. Like a fever coming on slow. The kind that didn’t break but that you sank into.

His breathing changed. Became shallow, then deeper. His body responded before his mind could parse the shift. A tingling at the base of his spine. The weight of his own skin.

It wasn’t arousal, not fully, but it was close - that same dislocation between self and sense. Something pulling gently at the threads of him. Loosening the weave.

A voice - maybe the same woman, maybe something older - murmured from nowhere and everywhere at once:

“Let the vessel open. Let the blood remember.”

He tried to anchor himself. Shook his head slightly then recited Latin in his mind. Sigils. A whisper of something sacred and sharp. But the words unraveled in his mouth. Became nothing, just breath.

There was a sudden flicker behind his eyes. An image, out of sequence.

Rain on a rooftop, a hand in his hair. Someone whispering - no, begging.

“Don’t go. Don’t go.”

Another pulse of heat. It rolled through his gut, his thighs, up into his jaw and his lips parted. He couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t pull back.

The circle glowed faintly beneath his feet, a low amber shimmer like the last flicker before something burns out.

He tasted copper. Heard laughter in the walls.

Then-

A voice, inside him.

Let me help. Let me hold you.

It was soft. Gentle, even. A lover’s whisper. Not cruel, just… intimate.

He swayed. Didn’t realise it until he felt himself lurch forward a half step, like the floor had shifted under him.

Someone in the circle gasped, someone else moaned.

His knees gave just slightly. He gritted his teeth, but the heat wouldn’t stop - his blood sang with it now, a vibration that blurred the edges of every thought. His pulse roared in his ears.

The voice came again.

You’re so tired. Let go. Just let me take the weight.

He staggered back a step, eyes fluttering. Vision smeared with gold. 

Something was very wrong.

Something was pressing inward. Not clawing but coaxing. Tender, even. That was the danger of it. He’d underestimated this.

John’s head tilted back. Mouth open. There was a tremor in his fingers.

One more breath and it would take him.

And then-

The air changed.

Not in temperature but something subtler. A pressure, a presence, like the room had drawn breath and paused - listening.

The circle’s glow dimmed as though interrupted.

John felt it like a wire snapped taut - the moment before everything broke. There was a whisper of sound at the door. Fabric against stone.

Then she was there.

Elise.

She wasn’t dressed for ritual - leggings, worn boots, a slate-grey hoodie. No makeup, hair scraped back. She looked out of place, utterly out of place.

But the moment she stepped into the chamber, something in the circle flinched.

She didn’t ask permission or wait to be stopped. When one of the linen-robed women reached for her, Elise moved past her like smoke.

The others watched - but did nothing.

Whatever lived in that circle had already noticed her and it didn’t know what to do.

John, half-kneeling now, eyes glassed and sweat-damp, barely registered her approach. He heard her voice before he felt her touch.

“John.”

No answer.

His lips moved, but no sound came. The circle pulsed beneath him, and his body responded - hips shifting forward, chest arching like he was caught mid-prayer.

“John.” Closer now. He shuddered, then her hand was flat against the centre of his chest.

He gasped - sharp, guttural. His spine bowed. The golden shimmer in the resin flared like breath drawn in too fast.

Her voice dropped to a whisper, but it cut through everything.

“You’re not going to leave your body while I’m still in mine.”

Another ragged breath ripped from him.

“Breathe with me,” she instructed. Her hand didn’t press, just rested warm and steady on his chest. 

He responded before he understood. A shallow inhale, then another, chest rising into her palm. Her body was close now, kneeling before him, anchoring him in the simplest way she could - with presence .

Their foreheads almost touched.

His breath shook. Hers didn’t.

“Come back,” she whispered.

The voice inside him hissed. A flare of pressure bloomed behind his sternum - not pain, but hunger denied. A warning.

Elise closed her eyes and pressed her other hand to his ribs. He flinched at the contact. 

“With me, John. In, out.”

John exhaled like a man surfacing from deep water. His arms buckled under him, and he slumped forward, sweat tracking along the lines of his throat. The circle was quiet now - the light gone - but his body was still humming.

Not with life but with residue.

The entity had stepped back, retreated into the space around him, but it had left its fingerprints behind - a kind of psychic oil slick, clinging under his skin. Elise could feel it too now. Her hand was still on his chest, and through it, she felt the vibration of something unfinished . A hunger unspent.

Her mouth went dry.

“John,” she said, breathless. “It’s not over.”

He looked at her - pupils blown wide, lips parted. “I know.”

His voice was low. Frayed. Every part of him shook, not from coldness, but from the effort it took to stay in his own body .

“It left something behind,” she whispered, brow furrowing slightly.

“Then help me burn it out,” he said, and then he kissed her. 

It wasn’t gentle. There was no time for gentle .

Their mouths crashed together with the weight of everything they couldn’t name - magic, memory, survival. Her teeth caught on his lip. His fingers fisted in her sweater like he didn’t know whether to push her away or pull her closer.

She made the decision for him.

Her hoodie came off in one sharp movement. His shirt was already hanging open, damp with sweat. Their skin met, chest to chest, and the shock of contact was electric - not metaphorical. Electric. A snap of residual charge arcing between them like a closing circuit.

He gasped into her mouth. “It’s still in me-”

“I know,” she breathed, and pushed him down.

They ended up half-reclining in the centre of the circle, the powdered sigils smudged around them, dust clinging to sweat-slicked skin. Elise straddled his hips, dragging his pants down just enough. She didn’t fully disrobe - didn’t need to. This wasn’t about seduction. It was about completion of the ritual on different terms. 

She shifted over him, reached down, aligned their bodies with practiced urgency. She was soaked. Not from desire alone, but because the magic had opened something in her, too - the moment her hands met his skin.

Their bodies met like puzzle pieces with no name. He entered her with a sound caught between a moan and a groan - deep and pained and grateful all at once.

Her breath hitched.

“Still you?” she asked after a moment.

His eyes locked on hers. “Still me.”

“Then come back to me, John.”

The rhythm wasn’t smooth. It was raw instead .

Every thrust felt like stripping out threads of whatever had been trying to crawl its way in. He clutched her hips hard enough to bruise. She dug her nails into his chest, tracing the burn of a sigil she couldn’t see but knew was there.

She felt the residue moving through him - coiling, biting, resisting, but she rode it out.

Grounded him with breath. With skin. With the surety that she was real, and he was real, and this wasn’t a taking - it was a taking back. A reclamation. 

“ In… ” she gasped, rocking against him.

“ Out… ”

Their breath synchronised, fractured, recombined.

Every time their bodies met, she felt something pull loose - some last tether, some final hook the entity had tried to leave in his bones.

Elise bent forward and kissed him with every ounce of feeling she could muster. His mouth opened under hers, greedy, matching her pace. She shifted her angle, seeking and finding that precise place that makes his breath catch.

And again.

  And again…

John’s fingers flexed against her ribs until she arched into him. “ Fuck, Elise -” he breathed. 

He came undone with a sharp cry - not just from release, but from relief. His entire body bowed up beneath her, shuddering, his mouth open against her throat as her hand remained clenched in the hair at the nape of his neck. 

The circle pulsed around them, golden and bright, then dimmed, but Elise wasn’t done.

Her body crested over his - not for pleasure alone, but to seal it . To finish what she’d started. Her climax took her like a wave breaking - harsh, sudden, overwhelming. Breath pushed from her lungs. 

She pressed her forehead to his, both of them gasping.

The light in the room flickered, and then it was gone. No one moved. The others remained within their stillness, breath deep, eyes unfocused - as if what had happened in the circle belonged to the rite, not to them.

They didn’t speak.

But something between them - bond, seal, tether - held steady in the silence.

And the thing that had tried to claim him?

It was gone. 

The silence after was heavier than the ritual itself.

Elise shifted first, lifting herself off him with a quiet exhale, steadying her hands on his chest before rising to her feet. She didn’t look at him right away - just reached for her clothes, pulling them on in the same deliberate order she’d taken them off.

John sat up slowly. His hands braced on the stone floor, slick with sweat. He was still catching his breath. The tremor had stopped and his heartbeat, sped up as it was, belonged to him again.

Neither of them spoke.

The circle around them was broken - the fine powder scattered, smeared under bare knees and boot soles. Whatever spell had been laid here was finished now. Not destroyed. Just… resolved.

He found his coat nearby, pulled it on over his shirt, not bothering to button it.

Elise turned, finally, and met his eyes.

Something passed between them - not heat this time, just recognition . A kind of mutual, unspoken: you saw me. I let you.

John’s mouth parted, like he might say something but nothing came. He just watched as she stepped past him toward the door, watched as she paused when she reached it and looked back over her shoulder at him.

“You need water,” she said, quietly.

His brow twitched upward. “You offering?”

She shook her head. Not dismissively, just honestly. 

“No,” she said, and then she was gone.

He sat there a moment longer, alone in the darkening chamber, the scent of candlewax and sweat still thick in the air.

Eventually, he stood, pulled his trousers back into place, and followed her out.

Night hit hard when he stepped outside - colder than before, the silence too wide. The sky above was ink-thick and starless, LA’s light-polluted haze rising behind them like a bruise. They stood outside the building’s concrete shell, backs turned to it, not speaking.

Elise’s arms were folded tight across her chest. Not defensive, as such. Just trying to keep something in.

John lit a cigarette with a hand that wasn’t quite steady. The first drag didn’t help, neither did the second. The taste of her was still on his tongue - not her skin, not her mouth, but something deeper. The part of her that had pressed through the magic and found whatever was left of him underneath.

He held out the cigarette.

She took it.

Their fingers brushed for half a second. Both flinched. Her hands were shaking, but then so were his. 

Elise looked down at the cigarette, then back up. Her eyes were sharp, but unfocused - like her thoughts were still catching up to her body. She drew in smoke like she was trying to burn something out of her lungs.

They didn’t look at each other again. Just stood there, smoke curling into the night, letting the silence carry what they couldn’t yet say.

They stood there long enough for the cigarette to burn low between them. Eventually, John flicked the end away, the ember arcing out into the dark. He didn’t speak, just ran a hand through his hair and stared out toward nothing.

Elise shifted her weight next to him. She still hadn’t unfolded her arms.

He didn’t ask if she was all right, she didn’t ask what the hell that had been. The quiet between them wasn’t comfortable, but it was honest.

Eventually, she said, “You were nearly gone.”

It wasn’t an accusation. Just fact.

He nodded once. “I know.”

Another long stretch of silence fell between them. The kind that presses up against the skin like a bruise.

“It was like it loved you,” she said finally. “Or wanted to. I don’t know which is worse.”

“They usually do,” he muttered. “It’s part of the trick.”

“Wasn’t much of a trick.”

“No.” He paused. “It wasn’t.”

He looked at her then - not with heat or apology. Just bone-deep tiredness.

“You grounded me,” he said after a moment. 

She gave a small, dry shake of her head. “I didn’t do it for you.”

His brow lifted slightly. He didn’t call her on the lie.

“You feel it now?” she asked. “The absence?”

He blinked. Considered her words, then nodded. “Yeah.”

She let out a breath that sounded almost like relief. 

“Good,” she said. “Then I didn’t mess it up.”

He almost smiled. Almost.

“No,” he said. “You didn’t.”

They didn’t say more, didn’t need to. Instead, he dug into his pocket and pulled out a motel key - a backup plan he hadn’t expected to use. He held it between two fingers, let it catch the streetlight.

Elise raised an eyebrow. “You planned ahead?”

He shrugged, pulling the key out properly. It had a plastic fob attached to it, cracked at the corner.

“Didn’t know what I’d be like after,” he said. “Figured I’d need somewhere no one would ask questions.”

He paused. Slid the key between his fingers.

“I don’t want something to follow either of us home. We can wait it out together instead,” he added, almost sheepishly.

Chapter Text

Inside, the motel room smelled like old AC and artificial pine. The walls were a sickly shade of beige. There was one double bed, mismatched lamps either side, and a television older than God.

Elise lay on the bed, half-covered, eyes fixed on the ceiling. She hadn’t moved much at all other than her fingers which traced a seam in the bedspread - not picking at it, just… moving.

John had claimed the armchair by the window, angled towards the television that neither of them had switched on. His coat was on the back of the door, his shirtsleeves were rolled up, shoes unlaced. A cigarette hung between two fingers, mostly burned down. He wasn’t smoking it. Just holding it, like he hadn’t decided whether the ritual was over.

The smoke slowly floated out of the window next to him. He’d cracked it open by an inch when he first lit up. 

Neither of them had spoken in a while. The silence wasn’t awkward, it was too heavy for that. It was the kind that settled into the corners of your lungs and refused to leave. Not for lack of things to say - but because there was so much to be said that would’ve been the wrong thing to say. 

She looked over, eventually. Her voice was soft. “You’re still here.”

He didn’t look at her. “Would’ve felt cheap to walk out.”

“Reckon you’ve done worse.”

He offered a half-smile, dry. “Trying something new.”

She didn’t smile. But she didn’t look away either.

“I won’t follow you,” she said after a beat. “So don’t expect me to.”

“I know.”

Her voice was thinner now, eyes back on the ceiling. “And you don’t owe me a damn thing.”

He exhaled through his nose. Leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. The cigarette crackled as it bent between his fingers.

“I know that too,” he said. But something in his tone made it sound less like agreement, more like a quiet apology.

Elise sat up a little, back resting against the headboard. Something in her face cracked - not visibly, just a shift, like tension giving way to something softer.

She watched him now - really watched him. Not the way she had in the circle. Not through some psychic lens. Just him. Human. Haunted. Leaning slightly forward like the room was too small for what he wanted to say.

“You were supposed to be a one-time thing,” she said.

He glanced up.

“You were supposed to walk away,” he answered.

She laughed once - breathless and tired. “That wasn’t sex.”

“No.” His voice caught. “It was something worse. It meant something.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she scoffed, but her voice had changed.

He didn’t speak right away. Just crossed to the window and nudged it open further, letting the smoky air escape into the dim spill of morning. The street beyond the parking lot was still half asleep - just the distant rattle of a bus, the hiss of traffic, like the world hadn’t noticed what had happened here.

“I thought it was a succubus,” he said, finally.

Elise’s eyebrows rose slightly at that. “You did?”

“Fits the symptoms. Pleasure as control. Weakening through lust. Feeding on obsession. But it was too old. Too… fed. And too fucking collaborative.”

Her fingers stopped tracing the bedspread.

“That wasn’t a demon,” she said quietly. “It was some sort of egregore.”

He turned just enough to glance at her over his shoulder.

“I’ve felt one before. Long time ago.”

He moved back to the armchair, dropped into it without ceremony. “Tell me.”

She shook her head once. “They’re not summoned. Not in the usual way. They’re made. A collective projection given shape. You feed it by believing in it - by participating. The more people believe, the stronger it gets. They don’t even have to believe the same thing. Just need to agree it’s real.”

“And the ritual?”

“Wasn’t about you,” she said. “Not really. It was about them. Reaffirming it. Letting it inside themselves. Letting it in you .”

John exhaled, dragged a hand through his hair.

She added, voice low but certain, “That’s why, when I got there… you were almost gone.”

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees again, hands clasped like a man in confession. The burned-out cigarette was still between his fingers, forgotten.

“So how do you kill something like that?” he asked. “Can’t punch belief in the face. Can’t exorcise an idea.”

She didn’t answer right away. The bed creaked as she pulled the thin motel sheet up over her lap further, more shield than comfort.

“You can’t kill it,” she said finally. “Not directly. You have to cut off what feeds it. Stop people believing. Stop the rituals. Stop the need .”

“And how do you do that?”

“Tell me when you figure it out.”

A silence passed between them. Not cold - just full. The kind of silence you sit with because you both know there’s nothing better to say. Not yet.

John stood again. This time slower. He crossed to the window and dragged in the morning air. His shirt was still half-undone, collar slack, skin marked faintly where her hands had been.

“I’ll think of something,” he muttered.

Behind him, Elise stood from the bed.  “I need to go home,” she said, quietly.

He nodded as she moved past him, paused by the door. Her hand hovered over the knob for a second too long. Then she opened it.

She stepped halfway through before she said, without turning, “Thanks for not making it worse.”

He didn’t answer. Just watched her walk away.

When the door clicked shut, he stood there for a moment longer, staring at nothing. Then he turned, dropped the cigarette into the ash tray on the arm of the chair, and pulled off his shirt.

The bathroom light was buzzing and the mirror was cracked, but the water ran hot, and that was enough. He shed the rest of his clothing there on the bathroom floor then stepped under the spray, letting the heat soak into his spine, his shoulders, the bruises blooming across his hips.

The powder from the circle still clung to his skin in places, smeared into his pores. It washed away in pale rivulets down the drain.

He didn’t mean to think of her.

Didn’t mean to remember the way her breath had caught just before she moved against him. The rasp of her voice in his ear. Her palm on his chest, warm and anchoring. The way she’d kissed him like it cost her something.

His hand braced on the tile. Jaw tight.

“You’re not going to leave your body while I’m still in mine.”

The memory landed like a blow.

It hadn’t just been the magic. He knew that now.

And he’d fucked her. The one person in his orbit who didn’t - couldn’t - touch people. Fucked her in front of a circle of robed mystics while something malevolent clawed its way up his spine. 

He let out a sharp, humourless sound. Might’ve been a laugh.

“Real piece of work,” he muttered to himself, scrubbing a hand through his hair. He tilted his head back under the water. Let it run down his face, hot enough to sting.

He didn’t love people. Not anymore. He was a real piece of shit, yet something in her had seen him - and worse, stayed.

That was the problem.