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Date: October 11, 2000
Status: Private - Zatanna and Crowley
Setting: Zee's apartment in NYC
Summary: Early-morning conversation and unexpected revelations.

John was sleeping, finally. Zatanna had no idea how the man functioned on so little sleep, especially plagued by nightmares as he seemed to be. Not that that was anything new--it had been the same in the old days. Maybe worse; it was tough to say after all this time. It didn't seem to faze him, but it didn't make him a particularly restful bedmate, either.

It just figured, she thought with a sigh, that her own occasional insomnia would kick in about the time he finally settled down. Occupational hazard in the biz, she supposed. Dad had had the same problem.

Wrapped in a slinky nightgown resurrected from the back of her closet this past week or so and a much more pragmatic, fluffy blue robe and slippers, she made herself some hot cocoa and sat down at the dining room table, glancing at the clock across the room. Nearly 4 am. If he kept to the pattern he'd been following so far, Crowley would be back soon. She wondered what exactly John's slick, sharp-witted friend got up to on his nightly jaunts in the big city, and she knew much better than to ask. He behaved himself when he was around the apartment, and that was enough.

Although she thought she'd have forgiven him quite a bit more demonic behavior than what he'd exhibited, now that she'd had a chance to watch them together. John and Crowley. A weirder, more unlikely friendship she couldn't imagine. But then again, most everything about John was weird and unlikely, and God knew he was rough on his human acquaintances. It didn't have to make sense, as long as it worked. And it did, that much was obvious.

Trust was not a thing that came easily to John Constantine. Zatanna couldn't help but envy the demon the easy camaraderie he shared with the man. She wondered if he had any idea what it meant. She wasn't entirely certain she did, but it had given her an idea.

The boys would be leaving soon, so if she meant to go through with it, it was probably just as well she was awake right now. It'd be easier to catch Crowley alone at this hour.

Dad would have said she was insane. He might be right, too. But crazy was already sleeping in her bed, and coming in from a hard night's mischief any minute; no sense worrying about it now.

---

Correction: The unexplained events mentioned in this comment occurred in Newcastle, not Liverpool.

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"You're from San Francisco?" Crowley asked. "Thought you were a native girl."

He took his mug and smiled. "Oh, I don't know. I impressed the hell out of a West African taxi driver the other night by speaking Yoruba." His grin widened. "After he'd cursed me out in it. But it's true. An English accent adds a certain air of class somehow. Even if it's as bad as John's."

"Nah, I moved out here a while ago. I grew up there, but I've got relatives in this area," Zatanna said, truthfully but evasively. She wasn't ready to get into that just yet; there was something else she wanted cleared up first.

"I like John's accent," she said quietly. "Cockney is fun like that. Even when I have no idea what he's actually saying, I still get it. Most times." She gave Crowley a measuring look over her mug. "He's been pretty quiet lately, though. And when he does talk, he's--struggling. Faking his way through conversations that should come easily." And you know all about it; you've been running interference for him. "Something happened to him recently, didn't it? Something major."

"It's all about the suggestive hand gestures," teased Crowley before growing sober again. He rubbed the back of his neck, unconsciously imitating John's habitual gesture. After a long, silent moment, he said, "Yeah, something happened to him. But I don't know that it's my story to tell. If he'd wanted you to know, he would have already told you."

Zatanna sighed. "Well, can you at least throw me a hint? It's been weirding me out since he called a couple months back. He's still John, but it's like there's...little pieces missing." She sat back in her chair, making a frustrated gesture. "And he's about as communicative about anything that makes him uncomfortable as your average teenager. I can tell it bothers him, but I don't know how to help or even how not to make it worse."

Crowley eyed her over his mug, thinking. He wasn't going to betray the man's trust. John was all he had left. But he felt he owed Zatanna something for her understanding over the previous week. Not many people could handle living with a grieving demon with such tact.

"What has he told you?" he finally asked.

She shook her head slightly. "Not a lot. It's more observation. He called, oh, about six months ago now, flipping out because he'd lost track of something and wanting to know if he'd left it here. I could tell something was wrong then because he acted like he wasn't even sure he'd been here a few weeks earlier.

"And since you two have been here I've been getting blank stares and sudden changes of subject at the weirdest times. He never used to get migraines, either." She frowned worriedly, biting her lip. "If it were anybody but John I'd say he must have hit his head or something and got amnesia, but it's never anything that simple with him. Did he botch a spell? Or tangle with something he couldn't handle?"

Shit, thought Crowley. There weren't that many things that John would flip out about losing, but the demon could think of one big one. Bugger.

"Did he tell you what it was?" he asked, none too hopefully. John wouldn't have said outright, but he might have described it. But if it was the gem he'd misplaced, Bloody hell..., and he thought he might have brought it to the States, Fuck, then where was it now? And what would happen to John if he couldn't find it? Or to Crowley if the wrong person found it? But maybe he was panicking unnecessarily. Zatanna said this had been six months ago. The man would be a wreck if he hadn't recovered it by now, wouldn't he? Why the buggering hell hadn't he said anything at the time? And where was it now? Crowley needed to talk to John soon...

He shook his head. "It wasn't his fault," said Crowley fiercely, "so don't you dare go thinking that he did anything wrong. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. By sacrificing himself, he saved my life and probably the whole bloody world, all right?" The demon hadn't expected to be so vehement on the subject, but then he'd never examined his feelings regarding it, either.

"He described it. A piece of jewelry, of all things. He didn't say so, but it must have been some kind of talisman or something or he wouldn't have been so upset." Zee noted how Crowley tensed at that and added, "Whatever it was, he did find it--said when you arrived that it was safe all along and he felt stupid for getting bent out of shape about it."

She blinked in surprise a moment later, taken aback at his sudden ferocity. Leaning forward, she rested a hand on his arm and said quietly but firmly, "Hey, all right, I believe you. It wouldn't be the first time he's done something like that. What happened?"

All right, so John had misplaced the soul gem, but he knew where it was now. Crowley hadn't wanted to pry, thinking that if only John knew where it was it'd be safe, but he clearly couldn't count on that now. He'd have to ask.

Looking at her hand on his arm - it was easier than looking her in the face - the demon sighed. She'd already figured out most of it. And if he didn't explain, she'd get the wrong impression. Telling himself it was for the best, Crowley spoke flatly, reciting the story as briefly and emotionlessly as possible.

"Back in March, a very close," there was barely a pause, "friend of mine was killed by accident when two angels got into a fight. I wanted to go after the angels that did it and John held me back. We got into a towering row and he left when he'd found out that he'd been palling around with the Serpent of Eden. He was gone a month or so, but I was too wrapped up in my grief to notice. However, I learned in April that he was in trouble and went to find him. He was in Ireland where a fiend had found him. I'm not sure if you know what a fiend is, but it's a lesser demon, generally good at possessions. This one had seen John just walking down the street and jumped into his head. It must have thought it had hit the motherlode."

Crowley was quiet a moment, trying to decide what to say before going on. "John knows a lot about me. Things that my bosses don't know. If the fiend took that information with it back to Hell, I would be likely be killed." It was said matter-of-factly with no hint of how much horror would probably be inflicted prior to his actual death. "John also knows things about the Manor, Adam, the archangels, all kinds of information that Hell would be glad to get their grubby claws on. So to prevent that, John staggered into a churchyard, essentially trapping the fiend inside his head. By the time I got there, he'd been fighting the thing for an entire day. It was physically torturing him, controlling him, and finally started ripping his memories out in desperation. I got there, jumped into John's head, and pulled the thing out while an angel killed it for us. Then I got him back to the Manor to heal. He was in bad shape for a while. A lot of those memories are gone for good. But he's still John. So go easy on him. And don't let on that you know, all right? You know how he hates to look vulnerable."

Zatanna shut her eyes as Crowley talked, squeezing his arm silently in empathy. She hadn't expected his explanation to be so involved, but she'd heard part of the beginning of this story already, from John's side. If she had the timing right, he must have run into the fiend shortly after he'd left. How distracted had he been to let a lesser demon get the jump on him? She tried hard not to imagine what a horrifying experience it must have been.

"It wasn't a coincidence," she murmured when he had finished. "He hasn't got a lot of power, but things notice him the same way he notices them. Runs in his family. Thanks for telling me. I won't say anything."

She no longer doubted her decision; if Crowley had literally been inside John's head, and he and John were still good friends, she couldn't ask for a better endorsement of his character. But what she wanted to tell him in return wasn't something she could just dump on him all at once. "He came here right after the fight, y'know, and he must have gone straight on to Ireland--" Oh who am I kidding, he went looking for Kit. I wonder if he found her. "--afterward.

"He was just sick over the whole thing," she went on, guessing that Crowley probably hadn't heard that part. "I think the only reason he didn't turn right around and go back once he'd cooled down was because he thought..." She smiled wanly. "Well, he's a little too quick to see bridges as burned, sometimes. I told him he was being foolish, assuming too much. I'm really glad to see I was right."

Crowley just shrugged. He didn't want to know what 'sick over the whole thing' meant and tried not to dwell on the idea. John had made it back, they were friends again and that was all that mattered. Especially now. But the next time the magician got a bug up his arse, Crowley would send him to New York to let Zatanna bring him down and then send him back home. The demon wasn't going to spend what few years he had with pretty much the only person who was talking to him in serious arguments.

"I was... not happy (http://community.livejournal.com/neutral_omens/66019.html?thread=1009891#t1009891) when I'd learned he'd gone," he finally said. "But I wasn't able to do much about it at the time. Even if I had talked to him, I doubt it would have helped. Stubborn bastard had to leave Adam's protection and get attacked before he'd speak to me again. I had to have Ellie explain (http://community.livejournal.com/neutral_omens/68935.html?thread=1074503#t1074503) to me what he was even upset about."

He drank his cocoa in three scalding swallows and put the empty mug down, not realizing that he had a chocolate mustache.

"At any rate, that's why he's been having trouble. Just pretend you don't notice and he's fine."

Zatanna nodded, hiding a smile as she discreetly slid a napkin across the table. "Well, I can keep a secret." She studied her cocoa intently. It was one thing to decide to share something she'd guarded so closely all these years, but something else entirely to actually nerve herself up to do it. "And now I think maybe I owe you one. Hang on a minute."

She got up and went into the guest room to dig to the very bottom of a cedar chest that sat in the corner. Underneath a hodgepodge of mementos--her tux-and-tails stage costume with the fishnet stockings, still only a little snug in places; some more of Dad's old things, and the few belongings she had of her mother's; assorted photos, post cards, gifts from old beaus and old friends, some now dead--lay a thick, battered scrapbook dating back decades. She lifted it out carefully, shut the lid, and carried it back to the table, pausing by her bedroom door until she heard John's faint snores and fighting to still the slight tremor in her hands.

With an odd look at the napkin, Crowley wiped his mouth.

He wasn't going to tell her not to tell him a secret, no matter how bad an idea it might be - it was the currency of demons, after all - but he was intensely curious. It had to relate to John somehow or she wouldn't bother telling him.

Waiting patiently, Crowley said nothing when she returned carrying a book and looking faintly apprehensive. He'd learned through long practice that when people wanted to confess something, you had to let them do it in their own time and in their own way. The slightest pressure and they'd clam up, but faced with polite silence, most people started to talk just to fill it.

Zatanna sat down in the chair next to Crowley's and put the book on the table. She didn't break the silence right away, though. She'd been going over and over in her head how to start; there were so many things she could say that would help explain the circumstances, her reasons for what she'd done and what she was doing now. It wasn't enough for Crowley to know, she wanted him to understand. But she didn't want to get sidetracked or bogged down with too many details.

"Bear with me, please; I've never tried to explain this to anyone before," she began tentatively, idly tracing the word "Scrapbook" embossed on the book's pasteboard cover. "There were a lot of reasons John and I didn't work. My dad didn't like him, he didn't take my work seriously, we just...wanted different things out of life." She opened the scrapbook as she spoke, to reveal a collage of fading photographs: Giovanni Zatara, a handsome moustachio'd man wearing a more dated, masculine version her own stage costume; herself as a young woman, little more than a girl, really.

And turning the page, herself again, laughing alongside a very young, smiling, and very self-assured John. These were the warmer, less unsettling photos he'd been wondering about (http://community.livejournal.com/outside_omens/11961.html?thread=99257#t99257) earlier. She actually kept her least favorite picture of him on display, preferring that these stay private.

"There were other things, though. We were too dangerous together, for one thing." She glanced up from the scrapbook, eyes somber. "I'm sure you know there's more than one form of human magic. Mine is innate, and if it has an absolute ceiling I haven't hit it yet, but it's constrained by my own psychological limitations. I can't cast an old-school ritual to save my life. The paraphernilia just gets in my way.

"John, though--like I said, he hasn't got much inherent power. What he does have is this ability to grab onto an outside source, bend it to his will--I don't have to tell you how much of that he has--and focus and amplify it. And he hasn't got those psychological barriers. He'll do crazy things I wouldn't dare try in a hundred lifetimes, just to see if he can pull it off.

She was talking too much and too fast, but now that she'd started, it was just pouring out and she didn't think she could stop if she wanted to. "Needless to say, that's a great way to attract unfriendly attention. And you usually don't find out what your limits are until you've already blown way past them.

"The worst thing, though, is that it's addictive. You can learn from your mistakes but go right back and do it again anyway, because it's such an unbelievable rush. And that's what started to happen. I was the source, he was the amplifier, and when we were fully attuned to one another, the things we could do--"

She swallowed. "The last time we cast together, we pushed it way too far, and summoned up this--thing--I still don't know what it was, but John couldn't control it, and it took everything he had to send it away. He didn't wake up for days. I've never been so scared in my life; I was sure he'd burned himself out.

"But after he recovered, he wanted to carry on like nothing had happened. There was no permanent damage, and I guess to him that was good enough, but I wasn't willing to keep taking those kinds of risks. We broke up not too long after I refused to work any more magic with him. And I was right about that, too."

She turned another page, this time to a collection of yellowing newspaper articles dated 1977. They dealt with a series of "unexplained events" in Liverpool that had resulted in the deaths of several people, including a small girl, and the arrest and incarceration of an unidentified man in Ravenscar mental institution.

"Do you know what they did to the so-called criminally insane in places like that, back in those days? And he still beats himself up over Astra. Sometimes I wonder," Zatanna said, her voice thick, "if it was just John being John, or if he felt like he had to prove something. Never had the guts to ask. ...Crap. Sorry..."

The story wasn't finished, but she had to pause to find a Kleenex.

Crowley listened intently to Zatanna's story, giving her his complete attention. He looked almost wistfully at the photos of the younger John; the one who sometimes let the smile reach his eyes.

Nodding all his newfound understanding at how two people can care deeply for one another and have it still not be enough, the demon stared blankly at the newspaper articles.

When he spoke, his voice sounded far away. "I- don't really. Those people have no free will. I can't... but I remember... I was there. No, I was him but I wasn't there." Crowley sighed. "English is no good for this kind of thing. I could tell you in ancient Mayan. Those people knew something about the flexibility of the soul. They had the vocabulary for these kinds of things. I guess you could say that I didn't see his actual memories of the place but how he felt about them entwined with everything else. It's all very subjective." He knew he'd never be able to explain what he'd seen, nor did he have the right to do so; the aching black pit of guilt twisted up in colours of the mind, and the crushing fear spiking in reds and yellows and disinfectant.

Wondering if Zatanna shared this oddly warm, protective feeling for the battered man, Crowley just said, "Never mind. I'd like to hear the rest."

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