"Sorry," John muttered, sighing inwardly. Not sorry that he'd said it, exactly, but that his friend had taken it badly. He couldn't help it; he reserved the right to be just a wee bit paranoid about these things. Crowley and Zatanna both occupied prominent places on a very short list of people he would go far out of his way to look out for, and that included protecting them from each other, if it came to it.

He was taking a certain risk by introducing these two. He thought they'd get along pretty well, but that wasn't the issue. The moment they became connected, however tenuously, it doubled both their pools of potential enemies and left them each with another possible vulnerability. He only hoped the remainder of the trip would prove worth it.

"Hope you're hungry," he added with a slight smile as the cab pulled up to the curb, "ten quid says she'll be trying to stuff us to the gills before introductions are over."