#b x reader

He can’t stop himself from thinking about that night, not so long ago, when the two of you headed off an early Apocalypse by the skin of your teeth. He remembers how in the end, somehow he found the strength to stumble to your side, and how whatever small grain of hope he’d allowed himself vanished at the sight of you, the Spear piercing your heart to the hilt, your body deathly still. He’d collapsed to his knees beside you, clutching your cold little hand in his. The knowledge that your eternal soul was saved was hardly a consolation at the moment–he was the one who was supposed to die, not you. 

He’d tried to budge the spear–but couldn't. 

And so he’d clutched at your hand, pressing his lips to your knuckles as silent tears slid down his cheeks. 

“She saved me,” Angela had said, making her way on shaky legs over to press his shoulder. 

You saved him too, he realized. If not with anything but the determination of your love, you’d saved him, and he was finally able to save you in turn. That should count for something, but at the moment it was all so raw that he still wanted to curse God for taking you from him in the mortal realm, if not the next. 

If he ever wanted to see you again, he was really going to have to walk the line. 

He and Angela had both jumped as a bedraggled Gabriel surfaced from the bottom of the pool–their wings naught but bloody stubbs protruding from their shoulders. They had looked upon your lifeless body with zero remorse. They dared to say with their usual blind righteousness, “You should rejoice, John. She’s gone home.”  

John had narrowed his eyes, but his scathing tirade died on his tongue as a hulking figure had emerged from the water behind the ex-angel, his eyes glowing that deadly blue. Constantine had felt nothing but the most un-Christian gratification, as Wick seized Gabriel’s head in his massive hands and twisted.

The angel sank back to the bottom of the pool, and Wick stepped over their body to pull himself out of the water, a horrific wound barely knit together over his abdomen. Paying it no heed, he’d collapsed to his knees beside your body, tearing out the Spear and throwing it to clang against the far wall before sinking down to weep upon your shoulder. It had been unsettling for Constantine, not to see a man cry, but the utter despair with which Wick expressed himself. In a way, he found that he envied him. 

“My little bird,” Wick whispered desperately against your lifeless flesh. “I will find you again. I swear, I will find you again.” 

In a strange twist…Constantine found that he actually felt sorry for the dhampir.

Whatever his sins…his love for you had certainly been real, and true. 

But then…you had that effect on people. 

♰♰♰

Constantine continues to stand vigil on the roof, and there is something about the warm desert breeze that night, like a breath of heaven on his skin, that reminds him of you. 

Then something silken soft brushes against his face–and in his mouth. He spits, making a show of expelling something from between his lips. 

“Really? I gotta use the tattoos on you?” 

Laughing, you assume your most corporeal form, appearing in front of him. Your raven-black wings enclose the two of you like a privacy curtain, a cozy little space just for the two of you. Steadying yourself with hands on his chest, you incline your head for a kiss. 

He grants it, his soft lips lingering on yours, his big hands on your waist pulling you closer. “You’re back early.”

“Hmm.”

“I was afraid he might not let you go.” 

You reach up to brush dark hair out of his eyes; he softens for your touch, a small sigh betraying his enjoyment. “He’s happy with our deal.”

“Yeah?”

“Uh huh.” 

He has trouble hiding how relieved he is to hear this. Fighting John Wick wasn’t something high on his list of suicidal things he wanted to try out, but he might have had to, had the vampire hunter not been in such a seemingly generous mood. 

He had to admit, he’d never envisioned himself in a polyamorous relationship with a dhampir and an angel. 

At least, that's what they think you are, or some derivative anyway. The black wings are a little wildcard–but then, you had been carrying around a baggie of blood taken from the other Antichrist, which was pierced perfectly by the Spear. Beeman theorizes that it counteracted the blood of Christ in a way that somehow saved your life. And after Constantine’s little deal with Satan…supposedly, you were home free.

Or at least…no longer damned by default.

You liked being an angel, so far. You still had the immense power to help people, but didn't have to get your hands quite so dirty to do it. 

And, he won't admit it, but you're pretty sure John Constantine has a wing fetish.

You think about the first time you'd appeared to him, about a week after your supposed death. He'd broken into your apartment, and was just sitting amongst your things. You'd been trailing him invisibly, not having quite gotten the hang of your corporeal form yet. You didn't even really know what you were, yet. You kind of fancied yourself a sort of guardian ghost for John, your heart breaking all over again as you watched him mourn you. 

You didn't think that he could sense you–but when you couldn't stop yourself from reaching out to touch his face he’d straightened like you'd slapped him. You'd watched as he’d rolled up his sleeves, admiring those corded forearms even as he chanted the words and joined those archaic tattoos. The magic in them felt like being tugged hard by a rope, and suddenly–he could see you. 

You're not sure who was more shocked: him, or you. 

“Y/n?” 

You swear his hands shook as he reached for you. And then his eyes went wide, as his gaze fixed behind you, on what you would soon find were oil-black wings, your feathers shimmering with green and violet highlights in the low light. 

With no concept yet of what you'd become, you’d flung yourself into his arms, and he'd welcomed you gladly. Finally, when you could come up for air again between heated kisses, he demanded, “Have you been here the whole time?”

You nod. “Mostly.” You'd gone to check on Wick for a little while, trying to comfort him in the manic depths of his grief, but he’d been untouchable. 

Then, he’d disappeared. 

You will admit, that you’d been more worried about Constantine, if for anything because you knew Wick was a survivor to the bone.

“I thought…I was a ghost,” you'd admitted. 

Constantine actually laughed, a short, disbelieving burst of mirth. “Oh, honey.” He’d cupped your face in his large hands and kissed you deeply, filling your heart with something like sunshine. Then, his attention had turned to your wings again. He ran an experimental hand down your silky flight feathers, and a delicious shudder ripped down your spine. “They’re sensitive,” you admitted, and the look John Constantine paid you could have melted granite, one angular black brow lifted high.

“Are they now?”

Suddenly you could barely speak past your libido lodged in your throat. “Yes,” you whispered, and his fingers found their way into your hair, drawing you to him again. The new addition of the wings made things interesting between you, but somehow you managed to come together with only one casualty of a lamp you never really liked much anyway. 

It reminded you of the first night you made love in this bed, riding his beautiful cock while he teased your needy little clit with his thumb. Desperate for each other, hardly able to believe that this was real, that you were even allowed to have this blessing after everything you went through…you came together as you held on for dear life, your eyes locked with his as you found bliss with his body joined with yours. 

“There's a Touched By An Angel joke here somewhere,” he’d teased in the aftermath, as you curled up in his arms. 

“I always thought that show sounded like something you'd have to report door to door,” you mused, winning the coveted prize of his mirth, and his lips on your forehead. 

Much later, while you were cooking for him [and you, because God you missed solid food] he told you, “I never thought I’d say this…but we better go find Wick. He's gone on a rampage killing vampires, but I don't know what he'll do when he runs out of fangfaces to mangle.”

You looked back over your shoulder from the stove, your eyebrows raised high. “Where?”

“Last I heard, he was tearing Portland apart.”

“Fuck.”

Constantine offered you a commiserating ghost of a smile. 

“The High Table…are not going to be amused by that?”

“Ah…probably not.”

Your heart fell like a stone. “Will they go after him for it?”

“I would feel sorry for anyone they sent his way, but…”

You sigh. “Can we go tomorrow?”

“I suppose.” He looked down at the table. “Well. I had you to myself for all of 24 hours.”

“John…do you want me to yourself?”

He’d looked up at you through his dark hair, those eyes filled with a mix of heart-crushing sorrow and longing, his long fingers clenching then unclenching upon the table. The bond between you was different, after your transformation, but you still could tell in a rare instance this man was nervous. 

“I’m not saying I think I’m…husband material or that I’d even make a good boyfriend, and I know you deserve better…but…I love you, y/n.”

How far you'd come, that he could say that last part aloud. 

All you had to do was die. 

You’d nodded in earnest, your knees weak. “We can work with that.” 

Suddenly he was on his feet, and you gravitated towards him until you were in his arms again. He kissed you like you were the air he needed to breathe, for so long that you almost burned the chicken, and you found out that when you're that happy your wings flutter, the same way your toes curl. 

♰♰♰

In the end you’d convinced Constantine that you should probably go on your own, not knowing Wick’s state of mind, and you caught up with your dhampir at a cabin deep in the Snoqualmie Forest. It seemed he’d retreated there to heal after tearing through the vampire population of Seattle, almost like he was daring the High Table to come after him. 

It was a beautiful setting, the fir trees towering all around. The cabin was small, rustic, and you wondered if Wick did not build it with his bare hands. The air smelled fresh, and clean, and reminded you of a different time, long ago. Something that came to you as fact, in the fever dream of your resurrection, and somehow you were allowed to retain the long buried memory. 

When you were a young woman, in another life, 300 years ago, vampires ravaged your village, killing and pillaging as they pleased, the dead including your own parents and young sister. A dhampir named Jardani Jovanovich came to hunt them. Tall and true, dark as the devil himself, and from the moment you laid eyes on his tall, terrible form, you’d felt as though you had a fever burning inside you. He’d looked your way from astride his beautiful black horse, as though you’d said his name, and when your eyes met you knew he’d stolen your soul. After he delivered the heads of the strigoi to your village starosta he took you as his wife, and the two of you never looked back, and never separated, until the day you died.

Despite the fearsome man he’d been, Jardani Jovanovich had always been good to you. 

Perhaps it was this memory that gave you the courage to let yourself into the cabin, as though you had every right to be there. It was deathly quiet, and an empty bottle of vodka on the table, along with a pile of bloody gauze, perhaps explained why. You found him in the back bedroom, half-clothed, passed out on his side. 

You weren’t sure there was any good way to go about this that wouldn’t startle him, so you shed your shoes and lay down beside him, taking his hand in your smaller one between you on the counterpane. Now that you’d found him, you wanted to sleep. You’d flown (on the wing!) all the way from L.A., after all. Being an angel–or angel-ish–was strange. You got the sense that you didn’t need food, or drink, or sleep–but you liked to have it. The cold damp wouldn’t kill you, but you certainly felt it. Perhaps this is why you snuggled into Wick’s furnace of a body, as you dozed. 

You half-woke to the sound of him mumbling in his sleep–or rather, the vibration of it from within his broad chest. “Yelena Ivanovna, gde ty byl…”

Where have you been?

“I’m here,” you answered softly, not really awake yourself. 

“Hmmff,” he’d answered, holding you closer with a grip that would have crushed a human woman. You managed to worm loose a little, perching on his chest. 

“Jardani,” you’d said softly, brushing back his unkempt dark hair.    

That was when his eyes finally slitted open, slowly focusing on you. Then they drifted up, taking in your wings. Maybe he thought he was dreaming, for he questioned nothing at first, simply taking your face in his hands and kissing you deeply. “Milaya…my pretty little bird, what wings you have grown.”

“You like them?” 

You sit up, straddling his torso, and as his hands gravitate to your jean-clad thighs he seems to begin to realize this is not a dream or a drunken vision–you are here. 

Bolting upright, he seizes you in his arms, holding you hard against him. “Y/N?” His face is buried in the bend of your neck; your name is lost in the distortion of a sob. 

“I’m here,” you told him again, running your fingers through his tangled dark hair. 

“...How?” he asks as he pulls back to look you over again, seemingly in awe of the feathered appendages protruding from your shoulders, but most amazed by the smoothe, unbroken skin over your breastbone. 

You have a scar there, where the Spear pierced your heart. You wondered if you would have managed to heal, had Wick not wrested the blade from your body so quickly. 

You shrugged, because you really didn’t know the answers, and his calloused fingers caressing your chest so gently crossed the wires in your brain. You couldn’t help but lean into him, winning something like a growl from deep in his throat. 

“Do you remember what I told you would happen, when we finally found ourselves a bed?” He'd almost posed it like a threat, his hands ghosting over your breasts, running down the ladder of your ribs. It felt marvelous, and you giggled nervously as you undulated against him. 

“I might recall something of that nature…” 

The sound he made was nothing less than animal, as he fell on your lips and devoured you whole. You let him gladly, giddy with bliss as he seemed bent on tasting every inch of your bare skin with his seeking lips and tongue. “You are so beautiful, my love, my darling little angel, my own heaven on earth.” He whispered this like a prayer upon your skin, consecrated each word with a kiss, and you utterly melted beneath what was nothing less than an onslaught. 

You lost track of how many times you came, in that man’s mouth, on his thick fingers, and with his insatiable cock buried inside you. By the time he was done with you, for the moment, at least, your body was covered in lovebites, full of his cum, and your usually supernaturally sturdy limbs were rendered into utter jelly. You could do nothing but curl up with him under a blanket beside the fire he’d built for you, joyfully stupefied by his relentless affection.  

 Later, you ate soup together made from a freeze-dried packet, and it tasted like a gourmet meal when eaten in the warm glow of his tender gaze upon you, your legs tangled under the table. You talked of what happened after you died, and what you can’t remember but you theorize happened in the interim. You wonder if the High Table witch’s spell was another factor in your taking on a new earthbound form, rather than going on to Heaven like Constantine had bargained for.  Wick found it amusing that you thought you were a ghost. “I felt you,” he tells you regretfully. “But I was mad with grief–I thought I was hallucinating it. I am sorry…I let you down.”

Perhaps he is thinking back on how he wept on your corpse and vowed to find you again–but you were there all along.

However, you shook your head, reaching out for his big hand on the rough-hewn table. “You didn't let me down. We’re both still new to this, aren’t we? And John figured it out.” 

Wick narrowed his eyes a little at the mention of your other beau. It’s funny– you really could not have picked two more opposite sorts of men. “Yes. He is very clever, your John.”

You smiled a little, perhaps masking the bloom of warmth in your heart that flowers any time you are speaking of John Constantine. “He is.”

“He loves you?”

You can't stop your lips from curling a little more. You'd in fact heard it from that stubborn horse’s own mouth.

“Yes.”

“But he was not good to you?”

You sighed. “Things were…complicated.”

“They are not now?”

“Less so, maybe.” Somehow, you thought you were actually telling the truth. Something about the lifted weight of certain damnation brought a lightness to John that was never there before. He is more open, with you, at least. He is, in fact, damn near affectionate, when you're alone together in your own little world. Maybe the truth of this showed on your face; Wick seemed attuned to your every tell. The look he paid you next  was nothing less than wolfish, long in fang and a sharp hunger in his gaze. 

“This does not mean I am letting you out of your promise to me. You will like New York.”

“For a visit,” you answered sweetly, ready to do battle. “But I'm not uprooting from L.A.”

He smirked at this, as though he did not think the matter closed by half. “Hmm. You think I will share you, little bird?” 

“I think…it’s the only way this will work,” you answered him honestly.

“You won't give him up?”

“I can’t,” you admitted. 

“Mmm,” he grumbled, that deep sound from his chest that did not fail to make your pulse quicken. “Stubborn woman. You always were a disobedient wife.” 

There was a sparkle of mirth in his dark eyes that signaled to you that this was an inside joke between you that you just didn’t remember. 

Or so you hoped.

“Honey, we are not married,” you dared to remind him. 

He smirked at you like you said something very funny. “Maybe not yet…but I know how to make you pliant and sweet…” 

The rabbit impulse to run came too late. You barely had time to even squeal before he caught you up in his strong arms and had you on the table, his narrow hips wedged between your thighs, your hands pinned over your head. All you were wearing was your panties and his oversized flannel shirt. You felt utterly vulnerable to him, and it was so terrifyingly wonderful you feared you might burst. “Give me…an hour…between these luscious thighs,” he’d purred, kissing down your neck as you tried to struggle, giggling all the while. “And you'll see things my way.”

He bites off one of the buttons of his own shirt, clearly not caring in the least. 

“That is so not fair!”

“I am not interested in fair,” he chuckled against your skin. “Only in making you mine.”

It occurred to you that not once had that intoxicating power of his surfaced between you. Were you immune, now that you're no longer a vampire? No bewitching scents, no tantalizing magic–the desire between you is fire, but it’s just pure, good ol’ fashioned, human lust, woven through with love, and it was its own potent magic indeed. 

“Jardani…”

He sat up on elbows above you, looking down at you with a warmth that rivaled the red hot coals in the stove as you stroked the hair out of his face, tracing the ridge of his brow. His eyes closed under the lull of your touch, leaning into your hand. 

“You need him, little bird? To be happy?”

“Yes,” you'd answered in a whisper, aware that something binding was happening between you. 

“Do you need me too?” There was a vulnerability in this simple question from this fearsome man that melted you to your toes. 

“Yes,” you confirmed, going for broke. 

His answering smile was like a baring of teeth. “My little angel is greedy.” He kissed you hard, your head pressing down into the table. “Fine,” he grumbled as you gasped for air, and maybe your sanity too. “I will grant you this. I am a generous man, ptichka. You will see.”

You were so delighted that you pulled him down into another tonsil-teasing kiss, holding him closer with your bare legs around his waist. “Thank you.”

He sat up to sweep you with a considering look, your body laid out like a feast for him on the table, and he made a sound that reminded you more of a bear, than a man. “But when you’re with me, malyshka,” he warned you darkly, “you are all mine.” Suddenly too impatient to even bother with removing your panties again, he moved them to the side so that he could sink into the wet heat of your needy cunt, stretching you deliciously while he played with your clit, his voracious tongue mercilessly toying with your peaked nipples. You came on his cock with a ragged scream, the searing pleasure of another release tearing through you like a punishment as much as a blessing. You were impressed that the table held, after the way he pounded into you, finishing with a roar like a battle cry as he filled you again with his seed. 

You held him, as he collapsed on you, and you knew you were going to have your hands full.  

Deep down, a part of you knew that he only agreed to this arrangement out of pure practicality. 

You don't know if he's immortal, per se, but he certainly isn't aging fast. You suspect your own situation might be the same. But John…is mortal, and even if you hate the thought, the fact is that you and Wick have time that Constantine doesn't. 

All the dhampir has to do is be patient. 

And, not piss you off, of course.

You keep telling yourself that just because you were his wife in a past life doesn't mean things are a done deal between you. You have to keep reminding yourself that you barely know him, because when you're together? 

Everything else melts away. 

♰♰♰

Perhaps Wick is patient, but he does not waste time. A month after Snoqualmie he’s already bought a house in Los Angeles, and a cabin in Big Sur. 

Oddly enough, the arrangement suits Constantine just as well. He’d meant what he said, that he wasn't relationship oriented, and you knew it. You had zero interest in molding him into something he didn't want to be. 

Besides.

You have your own thing going. 

You don't move into Wick’s posh manse in the Hills, despite his invitation.

You keep your humble apartment next to Constantine’s. You like your little space, and frankly…you need something of your own. Splitting your time between the two of them…can be intense, truth be told. Blissfully, maddeningly so, but sometimes, you need a break. 

You are having one of those, when you hear a knock on your door. John had been away on an exorcism, clearing out an infestation of aswangs in the Bay Area, and you were afraid you might not get to see him before your upcoming trip to Paris with Wick, to officially receive his release from Service to the High Table.

You missed him.

Eagerly you open the door.

“Hello, handsome.”

John Constantine looks down at you with that half smile that still quickens your heart, leaning on the door jamb. He could push you over with a feather when you see he is not only holding a bottle of delicious red wine, but a bouquet of flowers. 

Who is this man, and where is your surly demon hunter?

You can tell that they came from the gas station around the corner, but they are pretty, and that he even thought to bring them to you fills you with a fluttery glee. 

Amused by your stupefied expression, he lifts one angular eyebrow at you. “Hello, angel.”

You feel the warmth in his eyes to the marrow of your bones–and if you’re being honest, right between your thighs. 

You've really missed him. 

You express your enthusiasm by tugging him inside by his tie, pressing your lips to his. John puts down the wine and the flowers as you breeze by the table–en route to the couch, where you direct him to sit in no uncertain terms. 

The wings complicate things–you've discovered you can glamor them away to mingle with the public at large, but it doesn't actually make their volume disappear. It’s just easier to be on top–good thing you both like it. 

But you notice he flinches a little, and immediately you hold your weight off of him. “Are you hurt?”

“Just a scratch.”

“Let me see.” Frowning, you undo his tie and unbutton his shirt. He lets you do what you want, having long learned it's no good to fight you. 

And, you suspect, he secretly likes being coddled a little. 

What he calls just a scratch is in fact angry claw marks that rake across his entire abdomen. “Oh, John. Why didn't you call me?”

“I just…wanted to come home to you,” he admits, looking up at you with those soulful dark eyes in a way that makes your wings quiver, your most visible of tells these days. 

“Okay, baby. I’ve got you.”

You hold up your hands, and they begin to glow. 

Something else you've discovered? 

You can heal with your touch. 

You found this out when visiting Chas in the hospital, when he was trussed in traction, and the doctors weren't sure he'd ever walk again. Heartbroken, filled with guilt and the wish that it could have been different for him, you'd taken his hand and something poured out of you. 

His recovery within weeks was considered nothing less than a miracle, utterly boggling the medical community. Bless his heart, but Chas kept your secret. It was an ability certain clandestine government agencies, not to mention unscrupulous billionaires, would certainly have snatched you for. 

It also comes in pretty handy with a boyfriend like John Constantine. And others, too. You spend a lot of time in the children’s wards of various hospitals (in invisible form). You've discovered the ability is not infinite, nor without its price. You can run out of juice, and you have to take time to recharge. You will feel like shit tomorrow, but it's a price you'll gladly pay. You've downplayed that particular effect–John doesn't quite know the toll it takes on you, but you prefer to keep it that way. 

It still does not cease to impress you, watching John's skin knit back to its previous milky pale perfection, only the faintest hint of pink scars left behind in your wake. He sighs, his eyes closed, head tilted back in bliss.

“I warned it that my liver wasn’t exactly grade A, but it was determined.”

You narrow your eyes at him playfully. You know he drinks a lot less now, but the bottles still appear with regularity. You lean down, catching his lips with yours. “You taste pretty good to me.”

He chuckles, holding your face in his hands. “Mmm, so do you, Girl Next Door. My favorite vintage.”

“Am I?”

You can't hide your surprise. You'd kind of assumed that he might start seeing Angela on the side eventually. They liked each other, and you weren't exactly in an exclusive arrangement, considering. But he looks at you the way he does when he's afraid he's said something that only belatedly he realizes is hurtful. 

“Yeah.” He cups your face in his big hands, and you feel your wings quivering again. “I know I don't tell you enough, y/n, but I love you. So much.”

You know you were always ridiculous, and becoming an angelic being of some sort has not changed that. Your eyes brim with tears, and your lip quivers. “Oh John. I love you too.”

He sits up to pull you into an embrace, holding you close against his heart. “Jesus Christ. I still don't know what I did to deserve you.”

You think about the journey that brought the two of you to this moment, and the transformations you’ve both undergone. It’s nothing less than incredible, really, and yet that is the miracle of the human spirit. The ability to endure, and to change. The power of love truly is an awesome thing. 

“Hmm. I think…you were just yourself.” He huffs at that, holding you harder. He’s getting better, at not hating himself all the time, but for a man like him it’s still a daily battle. So you tell him, and you will keep telling him, until someday maybe he sees the light that you saw in him all along. 

You stay like that for a long time, just holding each other. 

It's moments like these that you savor to the last second, knowing how very precious they are. Maybe you've never exactly received any direct marching orders from the Big Guy Above, but you can't really refute the existence of some sort of Divine entity after what you’ve been through, and you can’t help but feel like your time with either of your Johns is something sacred. You've learned, if anything, that He or She or The Universe, whatever you choose, works in mysterious ways, and maybe, just maybe, things have worked out exactly the way they should. 

the end.  for now.  until, it all begins again. but that’s another story…

__________________

*starosta - the village elder/mayor figure *strigoi - evil spirits risen from the dead, vampires *aswang - evil, bloodthirsty, sometimes organ-eating spirit from Filipino folklore

__________________

You just had to make a little stop at the Four Seasons to collect some blood from the Antichrist; a criminal defense lawyer named Kevin Lomax, unwittingly on retainer as don Juan’s little failsafe. 

Truth be told, you’d expected more of a fight from one of Satan’s offspring–but then he was the other Son of Satan, an earthbound half-breed who possibly didn’t even know who he truly was. 

More’s the better, and you keep the double Ziploc-bagged portion of his profane plasma in the inside pocket of your jacket, close to your heart. 

According to don Juan…it just might be the key to saving the world. 

He’d told you other things too. 

Such as, this ritual was to take place at the old mental hospital, where supposedly two ley lines meet and the veil is fortuitously thin for such things, forming a sort of gate where it’s easier for the constituents of Hell to pass through. 

 “What sort of ritual?” you’d demanded, wanting to know what you were walking into. 

Somehow, Juan managed to shrug with what remained of his trunk of a body. “Oh, the usual chanting and sacrifice I suppose. But that wasn’t my part of the deal.” 

“What was your part of the deal?” 

“Keeping Constantine out of it all. He was the only real threat left,” Juan grumbled, then glared at you. “You didn’t prove quite the distraction we’d hoped, you useless wench.” 

You realized that he didn’t mean kidnapping you tonight, but earlier, when your whole ordeal as a creature of the night began. He’d ordered for this to happen to you. He’d been watching you all along. The weight of this truth dawned on you, and it hurt. Jesus, how it hurt, but rather than cry about it you’d bared your fangs at him, picking up his sword from the ground. It was nearly as long as you are tall, and Juan’s eyes went wide. 

“What do you think you're doing with that?”

“It doesn’t feel good, does it, when you’re treated like your life is worth nothing?”

He bared his own fangs at you, jumping to the correct conclusion in the span of a second. 

“We had a deal!”

“You had a deal with him,” you’d said, nodding at Wick, who stood by with his arms crossed and a stony expression. “Not me.” 

“¡Espera! No, wait! You can’t–” 

You’re not exactly proud of how quick you were, to cut off his head–but in the heat of the moment, the bite of the blade through flesh and bone–God it felt good. 

Bloody, violated, but avenged, you stood over his decapitated corpse, shaking like a leaf but the sword still gripped hard in your hand. Lifeless eyes stared up at you, his mouth gaping as though he would still try to bargain with you from beyond the true grave. You thought of the way he touched you, the way he laughed at your pain–and you kicked his head as hard as you could like a soccer ball with a scream, bombing it into the dark depths of the cave. 

The ringing in your ears returned; Wick spoke gently to you again, taking the sword from your hand. You weren’t exactly numb, but the world seemed to have narrowed to a tunnel, where there was only you, and Wick, and his strong hands upon you leading you away. 

You never found Chas in the cave, and you hope he is with John, and not dead in an alley somewhere. You had to hand it to them, for baiting you just with a hat…but it seems safe to say the joke was on don Juan in the end. 

♰♰♰

“You can stay here,” says Wick as you pull up to the hospital, cupping your cheek in his hand. It seems eerily abandoned, for a medical facility, the windows all dark. “You have done enough, milaya. Let me finish this fight for you.” 

But you shake your head, unwilling to sit out from the fray. You can feel that John is in there, and he is afraid, although he is controlling it well enough to function. You sense the fighting hasn’t started quite yet. So brave, your demon hunter. He deserves better, than dying in this place a second time. 

“No. I’m going with you.” 

You like him even more, for not arguing with you. He simply nods, and he is ready to get down to business. “I hate demons,” he grumbles, rifling through his saddlebags for vials and a pair of brass cross-emblazoned knuckles. “They are too complicated.” 

“Are they really harder to kill than vampires?” you ask, watching him with a fascination you’re not sure is healthy. 

“Yes and no. Their powers…vary. You must be smart on your feet to find their weakness, before they kill you. It is impressive…your Constantine has lived so long.”

You are so surprised to hear him compliment John that he could have pushed you over with a feather. He looks up at you with a rueful smile you do not understand. “Let’s hope his luck holds, eh? Come on.” 

Armed to the teeth with Juan’s broadsword, knives, guns, holy water, and what you think may have been a grenade slipped into his pocket, you follow your dhampir beau into the dark maw of the place some people would swear is already Hell on Earth.

♰♰♰

The moment you set foot inside the hospital you sense the demonic presence, like a seething nest of poisonous snakes in the heart of the building. Wick feels it too, and you follow the winding hallways towards the therapeutic recreation area of the facility; ie, the pool. 

“Water is a vehicle; it lubricates the transition between worlds,” Wick explains hushedly, when you speculate as to why. 

You are scared, but you shove it down, and follow a step behind at Wick’s side. Worry for Constantine knots in your gut; maybe it’s stupid, but you just want to see him again. You don’t allow yourself to think one last time–even if in the very back of your brain, you feel the impending doom all too well. 

“...are all in violation of the balance,” you hear a familiar voice say, and your heart soars. “Leave now, or you will be deported.” 

You arrive in time to find John standing on a chair with a crowd of demons looking upon him curiously, that golden shotgun at his side. He should look ridiculous like that, but somehow, he is so tall and resolute that he cuts nothing less than a striking figure. 

“Go to Hell,” he tells the room, holding his lighter up to a sprinkler head–then he seems to sense you behind him–he whirls with terror in his eyes. “No!” he shouts desperately, throwing out his hand as though he could physically push you from across the room. 

Wick seems to understand something you do not, for just as the sprinkler heads begin to spew water he grabs you around the waist and runs for the hall. 

A few drops splash your hands and your face–and you scream. 

It feels like battery acid, something horribly caustic that could eat the flesh from your bones. The pain is excruciating, and you can hardly think as Wick bundles you along, not stopping until you find a dry place in the building, far away from the sprinklers. 

“What the fuck!” you hiss, looking at the sizzling droplets that landed on your hands. 

“Holy water,” Wick answers, licking your skin. 

Somehow, that works, and you sit back against the painted cinder block wall so hard your head cracks. 

“Jesus fucking Christ, that’s diabolical.”

Wick pays you a commiserating half smile. “I fear you are the one who is diabolical, my love.” 

You realize a beat later he is playing word games with you, and you hiss. “What about John? There were fifty demons in that room!” 

Wick nods, and you cannot fathom how this man, who you’d witnessed literally tearing vampires apart with his bare hands, can give such effective puppy eyes. It’s really not fair. “Stay here, milaya.” 

You grip Wick’s hands in yours, knowing it contradicts everything this man wants in the world, but pleading with him anyway, “Please look after him?” 

With a growl the dhampir nods, electric blue flashing in his midnight dark irises. He makes to stand, but you aren’t done with him yet, pulling him back to you. You can tell he’s annoyed as he looks to you, and even with the looming doom and vestiges of the sting of holy water upon your skin, you can’t help but smile a little. “Promise you’ll come back to me?” 

Immediately he softens, pressing his mouth to yours in a hard kiss that curls your toes and claims your heart all over again. He pulls away while you are too starstruck to function, disentangling himself from your hands curled in his jacket. 

“Be seeing you, vampling. Ya obeshchayu.” You don’t know how you know that means, ‘I promise’.

And then he is gone, charging back down the hall towards the fray. You watch your warrior go with an ache in your chest; it moves you, just watching the way he moves with such deadly purpose. You find you are not half as worried about him, as you are Constantine. 

Feeling utterly useless, you pace in the hall, hating being left to wait while the–you have to admit it–two men you care about are battling the unclean horde. You know you cannot go near that holy sprinkler water, and you pause to study a map of the hospital on the wall. It is black and white and grainy, state of the art printing from 1968. But it looks like you can access the pool area from another corridor on the other side, and you wonder if that section of the hospital received the same blessed deluge. 

You know that John Wick asked you to stay put–for his sake, as much as yours. But the stakes are too high, and you just can’t stand by. It’s probably a bad idea, but you make your way down the hall. 

♰♰♰

As you burst through the pool room doors via the men’s locker rooms you hear the cacophony of the battle taking place in the other room. There is also something thrashing around in the pool, the water churning like a feeding frenzy of sharks. Juan had made it sound like the pool itself was the gate, and fear spikes through you from head to toe. 

Is it Him? 

A figure emerges for a mere second, gasping for breath–you realize it’s Angela struggling with something trying to drown her, and you jump in without another thought. The thing is strong, as strong as you, and you grapple with it under the water, trying to get its hands off the detective so she can have a chance to breathe. It’s impossible to get a foothold in the water against this thrashing thing. In a desperate ditch attempt to stop it, you grab its head and wrench as hard as you can, breaking its neck, twisting it around all the way backwards.

By some luck or finally some divine interference, it goes still. 

You waste no time in picking Angela up, hoisting her out of the pool. She is so tiny, for such a fierce thing. She’s gone still, and you plead or pray again through bloody tears, “Please don’t be dead.” 

Perhaps you are technically dead, but you still attempt to breathe life back into her, blowing air into her mouth and you thank all the deities when she violently coughs up water and gasps for breath, clutching your arms for dear life. You turn her onto her side and pat her back, trying to help her expel the water from her lungs. 

“Thank fuck,” you hiss under your breath, holding her. She looks up at you, her eyes widening when she sees your fangs and glowing orange eyes.

“It’s ok, it’s ok,” you tell her, trying to make yourself look more human and failing spectacularly in the heightened stress of the moment. “I’m a friend of John’s.”

She relaxes back against the concrete, nodding, maybe needing to believe you. 

You laugh a little out of pure disbelief. There are still flashes of blue lightning and gunfire in the other room, Wick and Constantine working together. Who knew? But it sounds like the fight is winding down.  

Is this it? Did you do it? 

Is it going to be ok??

You are able to enjoy the lightness of this sliver of hope for a mere second, before suddenly you sense that you are not alone in the room. Something invisible picks you up roughly, and throws you back into the pool.

--------------

He tears them limb from limb, using teeth and hands and the very chains he'd been bound with, the manacles still encircling his wrists. He uses them like flails, whipping his opponents with all the force of a hurricane. 

All this practically happens in the blink of an eye. Don Juan barely has time to react before the maelstrom descends upon him. Wick hits him hard enough to knock him across the room, blood spouting like a fountain. There is no reprieve before the dhampir has pounced on him again, and the two powerful monsters tumble and brawl like mad dogs. It seems Juan has the upper hand until Wick coils from his back and kicks him away, sending the vampire soaring into the black depths of the cave.

The battle rages and the hive continues to swarm, Juan’s vampires foolishly daring to challenge the dhampir in the throes of this berzerker rage. One of them has Wick’s sword, and when Wick takes it from him the tables turn even more ridiculously in the slayer’s favor. He severs limbs and lops heads, leaving blood and gore in his wake. You think you see him extract a heart with his bare hand, gripping it in his fist before crushing it into a pulp. 

That is when don Juan appears again from the shadows, his face a bloody mask, with a broadsword in hand and the fires of Hell shining in his eyes. “Dhampir!” he seethes. “I will END you for this!” 

Wick bellows back wordlessly, the power of his rage filling the enclosed space with crackling energy. You watch wide-eyed as a good chunk of the cave ceiling breaks free above you, crashing at your feet. 

Jesus Christ. They’ll bring the whole place down around you all, you fear, even as you cannot look away from the impending battle. 

Maybe he gives the impression of the soft-handed gentleman of leisure, but it quickly becomes apparent that don Juan knows how to use a sword as he and Wick clash. Toledo steel meets Japanese Tamahagane, and sparks fly, blades flashing too fast for the eye to see. Juan is the only vampire yet who could actually match Wick for strength and speed, and you watch with dread as Wick barely dodges losing his head. In turn Juan keeps ahead of Wick’s every slash and thrust, moving with a speed and grace that is as mesmerizing as it is infuriating. 

You scream as the vampire breaks the steel of Wick’s sword in half with a mighty blow, and hits the dhampir with some kind of power that knocks him flat on his back. Juan makes a fist, and Wick writhes on the floor as though his guts are in Juan’s clawed hand. Straining against your chains, you gather what little psychic power is left to you, imagining it formed into a sharp needle as you fling it at Juan. 

It does not really damage him, but he pauses to look at you with a snarl–it’s the only window Wick needs to swipe with what remains of his razor sharp blade, right through don Juan’s legs at the knees. 

With a horrified expression Juan falls to the cave floor. Wick gets to his feet, picking Juan up by his throat with a fearsome snarl, and hurls him again towards the back of the cave. More vampires are appearing from the depths–holy fuck how many can there be?--and with a single, feral look back at you Wick picks up Juan’s broadsword, and charges back into the fray.    

The enraged dhampir disappears further into the shadows of the cave. The din of the battle echoes back to you–until the cacophony finally fades, and then, there is just eerie, heavy, silence.

Your heart lodges in your throat, and does not budge until you see the outline of Wick’s imposing form again at the edge of the torch light. His chains are gone. He is hurt, clearly limping. He makes his way to you, and only belatedly do you realize he is dragging don Juan by his one remaining limb. 

The vampire is unconscious, and Wick drops him unceremoniously before you like an offering, and the sword clatters to the floor soon after. You should be horrified, but it smacks of a hunter laying a kill at his woman’s feet in a time when man lived in caves, and you are not unmoved. But that blue light has not receded from his eyes, and he stalks towards you like a predator. 

I kill vampires. It’s what I am.

Could he kill you?

“John?”

He only grumbles in response, stalking towards you, and you are afraid.

“Jardani?”

“Don’t say it unless you mean it, ptichka,” he growls, his huge hands encircling your waist, pulling you against him. You are practically naked, and he is covered in blood from the massacre he just unleashed; that is not what frightens you. His eyes still glow that eerie blue, and you wonder if it is not like the warning glow of a fuse on a bomb. Maybe he’s injured, but you would be a fool to think him wrung out yet.  

“You’re scaring me,” you tell him honestly, and you feel him deflate against you, burying his face in the curve of your neck as his arms wrap around your torso, breathing you in. You feel it as that crackling energy recedes back inside him, leaving him as close to human as he can ever be. 

“I would never hurt you.” He whispers it with the vehemence of a vow against your skin, and you want to believe him. God, do you want to believe him. You fold yourself against him with your hands still bound above your head, letting him engulf you with his larger form. 

You don’t want to cry; it’s embarrassing, and you don’t have time for it, but after what don Juan did to you it comes out anyway in hiccupping sobs and he holds you like something precious in his hands that could just as easily tear you in two. You don’t understand the soft things he says to you, hushed murmurs in Russian or some long dead dialect of it, but they calm you anyway. That intoxicating aroma of flowers and spice envelops you again like an opium haze, and you melt into the shelter of this man.  

When at last you quiet he draws back to look at you with those ageless dark eyes, though he does not let you go. When he brushes his lips against yours in an achingly gentle kiss it feels as though nothing could be more right in the world. 

You are so fucked.

You look up at your wrists encircled in iron, jangling your chains. “Can you find the key for me?” you ask quietly, as if you speak too loud you might break this spell of precious calm between you.

The low sound that rumbles from his chest echoes straight to your womb. He runs blunt fingers up the underside of your arm lightly, a maddening touch that makes your good sense go fuzzy at the edges. “Jardani…”

His grip upon you tightens; he leans in to kiss you again, claiming your mouth as his weight presses you back into the wall. 

The warmth of his blood-slicked skin upon yours is bliss, though a trill of hesitance surfaces in the very back of your mind. As though he senses it he speaks. “I want to be a better man for you,” he tells you roughly, his voice hoarse from battle and desire. “But I would be a liar, if I claimed this is not exactly how I want you.” 

Where don Juan’s hands on you made you want to scream, Wick’s rough paw tracing your curves is maddening in a completely opposite way. It is hard to tell what is that intoxicating dhampir magic upon you, consuming you, and what is just…your own rampant desire. You forget that you are not lovers, that you have not done this before. Maybe you are in love with John Constantine, and he was inside you not hours ago…but it is so easy to forget everything, in Wick’s arms. Deep down, you know that you want him in a way that feels as though his name was always written upon your soul. 

He nuzzles the bend of your neck, grazing your pulse with his fangs. You know he must be hungry, after such an expenditure of energy and taking such damage. You fight a war with yourself, aching to feel his fangs in you again, but you're not sure he'll stop, once he starts, and you don't have much to spare. Logic wars with lust, the eternal battle of wits versus hormones.

Usually, the latter wins. 

“Jardani…” you coax, hoping sanity will prevail. “You have to set me free.”

He groans in response, kissing your pulse. “I don't have to,” he protests, and though there's a hint of his usual insouciance, mostly you're afraid he's absolutely serious. You open your mouth to protest again, but he swallows whatever you intended to say with his lips on yours, like a starving man who intends to eat you whole, starting with your mouth. 

You're not sure who escalates this already torrid exchange with a fang piercing your tongue–all you know is that what was already a bonfire escalates into a full on inferno. He eats at your mouth, lapping at your tongue as that agonizingly wonderful wave of desire fills your every cell. As you strain against your chains to be closer to him, to have more, he takes mercy on you with one of those muscle-strapped thighs between yours. You grind on him desperately, too far gone for anything resembling restraint, your pride totally forgotten. 

He migrates from your mouth to your neck, piercing your flesh and drinking you down, grabbing handfuls of your curves to hold you close. That scintillating, excruciating pleasure pulses and purrs inside you. It is him, but also, it is the two of you together, and when that magic reaches its shining peak in your loins you think you might implode for the exquisite rapture of it, release like a chain explosion sparking and spreading from your greedy cunt up your spine. Through the ringing in your ears it takes you a few moments to realize he is talking you through it, whispering low words in your ear that you do not understand, but you feel all too well. 

He kisses you again with your blood in his mouth, a slow and sensual thing that manages to curl your toes all over again, his tongue swiping the seam of your lips. “My pretty little bird,” he whispers. “The things I am going to do you, when we have time and a soft bed…” 

The sound you make in answer is barely human–but then, neither are you. 

When he produces the key you don’t know if you want to smack him, or laugh. He had it all along? Did he take it from Juan, or one of the other vampires? With a knowing little smile he reaches up to unlock your manacles, smirking down at you with a warmth in his eyes that could start a forest fire. 

If you had any sense left to your name, you would be furious for this little bit of trickery. However, that is not what you need. When you throw your arms around his neck he embraces you hard, enveloping you in those strong arms and lifting you off your feet. You feel your heart glowing like a hot ember in your chest, and you have no fucking idea how all this is going to work out in the end, but at the moment it doesn’t matter. 

A flash of an image surfaces in your mind: tangled under warm blankets with this man’s powerful body curled around yours while the winter winds and the hungry wolves howl outside, and you are unfalteringly certain that nothing bad can ever touch you again. 

You feel that way now, pulling back to look at him, searching his handsome, blood-flecked face. You say nothing, and neither does he, but you know he senses some shift in you. Whether in the widening of your eyes, or the hitch of your breath–but he makes no life-altering demands. All he asks of you, is for another toe-curling kiss with the tilt of his head. His soft lips on yours feel like a promise, and for the umteenth time this night you think to yourself: you are so fucked. 

“We have to go find Constantine,” you say as you pull away from him. “I know he’s in danger.” You feel it tugging on you at the distant end of your metaphysical cord. Trepidation. Fear. Resolve. You’re not sure if taking you from him was meant as a trap, or a distraction, but it can’t be good. 

“You’re too late.” The thing at your feet that only vaguely now resembles don Juan grins a bloody grin. “They have the psychic, that woman detective, and they’re doing the ritual tonight. Mamon will rise, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” 

“Where?” demands Wick with a growl that raises the hair on the back of your neck. 

Don Juan, however, just spits blood at the dhampir’s feet. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“You can heal this eventually,” says Wick with a dismissive wave at the vampire’s missing limbs. “Tell me, or I will take your head too.”

“You won’t leave me alive,” scoffs Juan. “I was not born yesterday.”

“My word.” 

“As a gentleman?” The laughter that grates from Juan’s lips is bitter as the betrayal of a friend. He is not biting–and you are running out of time.  

Wick casts a look at you before returning to the vampire. “As a husband,” he answers. “It is the only vow that I ever held truly sacred.”

“John Wick, murderer and romantic…how sweet,” taunts Juan, rolling his eyes. Even in this state, he cannot be anything but that what he truly is: an asshole of the purest grade. 

 “Tell me,” says Wick darkly, brandishing a knife produced from somewhere. “Or I will keep you like this for centuries more. I will take pieces from you until you are nothing but the talking head you are, but you won’t die. Trust me, I know.” 

Juan just glares, until Wick begins advancing on him with the knife, seemingly going for an ear. “Fine!” shouts the vampire, desperately leaning away just before the blade touches his skin. “Fine, fine, hijo de puta.” Lower, under his breath he continues to grumble, “Chinga su madre, pinche pendejo...”

“You were saying?” 

Mad as a rattlesnake, but realizing he has no other alternative, Juan spills the beans. 

—-----------

The thing whose neck you broke–a demon, you reckon–has resurrected as well, its fiery stare boring into you under the water as its hands clasp your face, and its mouth nearing inevitably towards yours. It doesn’t kiss you; it suctions upon you like a fish, and you try to struggle but it’s a losing battle. 

Something passes from it to you. Something horrible, and cold, and you feel it slide down your throat and into your belly like a frozen eel writhing and coiling inside you. You gag, trying to expel it, but to no avail. Inexplicably he and the other set of hands let you go, allowing you to surface. You spit water, retching and gasping, trying to cough up the thing in your belly. But you feel it spreading through you, into your veins, into your womb. 

What the fuck??

That is when Constantine and WIck–and Chas, sans hat, you are so glad to see, burst through the double doors. Constantine’s gaze sweeps from Angela laying prone on the side of the pool to you looking panicked in the water. “What’s wrong?” he asks immediately, striding to offer you a hand out. 

“It’s inside me,” is all you manage to say, before painful convulsions rack your body, and you double over in the water. 

It takes Wick and Constantine both to drag you out, thrashing in their grasp. “Get it out, get it out, get it out,” you hiss, your clawed hands scrambling to render your own flesh, anything to rid you of this seething, growing thing inside your body.

Wick holds your hands, preventing you from hurting yourself. Constantine crouches over you, pressing down on the writhing parasite inside your belly. He says a prayer over you, which only makes it worse, searing pain rocketing through your body. 

“Do something!” Wick snarls. 

“I can’t use holy objects on her or she’ll burn!” Constantine snaps back. 

“Please?” you sob desperately. “Just make it stop?” 

“Baby, I don’t know what to do!” he shouts, at the thing stretching your abdominal skin more than you. How do you exorcize someone who’s already essentially demonic?

That is when the invisible force strikes Wick, knocking him across the room so hard into the cinderblock wall it cracks. There is no time to even react before it seizes Chas, throwing him up into the ceiling, and smashing him down onto the hard concrete floor. Constantine wrenches up his sleeves, joining the occult tattoos upon his arms, fighting the ancient magic itself to bring them together. “Into the light I command thee!”

He gets what he asks for in the form of an angel materializing from the air, pinning him to the hard ground with their bare feet, their magnificent wings spread wide. 

“Gabriel…” he snarls, struggling to breathe with their foot on his neck. “Are you kidding me?”

The angel simply smiles beatifically, their blond ringlets bouncing as Constantine struggles beneath them. “I don’t appreciate you meddling in my plans, John.” 

“Why…the fuck…are you working with Mamon?”

“It’s very simple,” they say sweetly. “You are given this amazing gift as humans. God’s love. And all you do is squander it. I think it’s high time someone reminds you that it should be earned. I am going to give you all a world in which you must be at your best to escape it.”

Constantine just shakes his head at this logic, his eyes wide. It just goes to show how actually unfeeling the powers above are, he thinks. The idea of man suffering is much more important than what all that pain actually entails. Not for the first time, he just feels like a puppet on a string. 

“Gabriel…you’re…such…a bitch.”

Narrowing their eyes, they haul Constantine up by his collar. Throughout the excruciating pain that is pulsing through your body, the fucking Son of the Devil trying to burst through your womb into this plane, you are scared for John. All you can do is reach out with clawed fingers, digging your dagger-like nails into their calf. They glance down at you like you are only so bothersome as a fly, before blowing gently at the demon hunter in their grasp. They breathe out a divine wind that carries him with such force that he knocks through the first set of doors, and lands so hard that he breaks the glass of more in the far room. 

You can see him crumpled in the distance like a broken ragdoll on the ground, and in what you feel is a hopeless gesture you reach out for him. 

He’s not dead. 

You feel the spark of him through your bond, and perhaps with equal parts love and resignation you decide to send what little energy you have left down the line to him. His body is so fragile, compared to yours, and yet somehow, you doubt you are making it out of this alive. 

I love you. 

You see his eyes fly open at that moment, as though he heard you say it aloud. 

You don’t know what he does next, because there is a flash of electric blue light, and suddenly Wick is on Gabriel like an enraged bear. You think that only he would dare take on an angel in hand to hand combat, don Juan’s terrible sword in hand. He gives her hell too, until a shining bronze blade appears in her grip, and you scream as you watch her shove it into his guts and jerk upwards, digging for his heart. 

When she pushes him back into the pool the water blooms poppy red–and he does not resurface. 

No no no no no. 

You are shaking your head, writhing with the pain, pressing on your abdomen as this seething horrible thing inside you is trying to escape. Gabriel stands over you with that Roman spear tip clutched like a dagger, seemingly none the worse for wear, excepting a smear of blood that bisects her face like war paint. 

You are finally beginning to understand Constantine’s animosity for God and His Servants, as you see the indifferent way the Archangel Gabriel looks down upon you. Aren’t they supposed to be The Good Guys™? Aren’t you all supposed to be on the same side?

Not so much, you reckon, as she kneels down beside you, pinning you with a hand on your forehead, winding up to drive The Spear of Destiny into the creature squirming in your womb. 

♰♰♰

What John does, when he manages to drag himself into a sitting position, in no small part because of the energy you lent him, is a last ditch attempt to salvage the situation with the only divine entity he knows is interested in him. 

He slits his wrists with the broken glass, and he waits. 

And he waits. 

Time slows down to a crawl, his lifeblood slowly painting the floor crimson.

The relief he feels when Lucifer appears is a bittersweet balm. 

“John Constantine,” hisses Beelzebub himself, practically vibrating with excitement. “Who knew you would make the same mistake twice?”

John smirks up at him, and Lucifer already knows there must be some catch. 

“That son of yours is a chip off the old block,” says the demon hunter, his body slowly going cold with blood loss. 

“One does what one can.” Lucifer’s forked tongue slips out, licking his lips with anticipation as he looks down at this coveted morsel, already planning what delicious tortures he’ll put Constantine through.

“He’s plotting a little overthrow, with Gabriel in the other room.” This catches The Devil’s attention. His head swivels unnaturally towards the pool, slitted eyes narrowing. 

“What a naughty boy.” He rushes Constantine, just for the pleasure of seeing the tough man flinch. “So what do you want for dropping the dime? An extension?” He looks down hungrily at John’s bleeding wrists like the blood is a fine wine going to waste on the floor. 

The certainty of what John wants settles on him like a weighted blanket. If he can ask anything of a being with such awesome power, what he wants is for something to finally go right. “The girl in there. The vampire. She doesn’t deserve to be damned. She didn’t deserve any of this.” 

“You want her soul to go to Heaven?”

Closing his eyes, John nods. It is the most everlasting gift he can offer you–maybe the only good thing he’s ever done for you, the way he sees it. He wishes it could have been different. He wishes…a lot of things. 

“Who knew? John Constantine learns to love at the eleventh hour…”

John just stares defiantly up at The Beast, the strength of that feeling for you the only warmth left now in his body. It’s the purest thing he’s known in a long time. 

For some reason this brings the Fallen Angel a vicious delight, and he snaps his fingers. 

“Consider it done.” 

He stands to go inspect the frozen tableau at the poolside, time stood still in his terrible presence, Gabriel like a marble statue mid-thrust with the spear pointed at you. What a pretty little thing you are, Satan thinks to himself. How unfortunate, that you got yourself mixed up with a reprobate like John Constantine. 

Ah well. A deal’s a deal…

He tugs on your foot, arranging you just so, ensuring that the trajectory of the spear should pierce right through your undead heart.

♰♰♰

The sound of the bronze blade embedding in concrete is like a meteor strike. The whole building seems to shake, and Gabriel blinks as they look down on you, their aim not having struck true. Did you move? There is only a moment in which your mouth gapes with shock, breath you do not need exiting your body, before you go completely still. The Spear is a holy object, anointed with the blood of Christ–pierced through the heart, a creature such as you cannot stand against it. 

A moment later Gabriel senses the presence of their eternal enemy, their Fallen brother, the most Unclean. Their wings vibrating with fear, they retreat a step, glaring up at him. He is holding his son by the throat, the demon spawn struggling against the impossible strength of his unholy father.

“Lucifer,” Gabriel hisses. “Little Horn. The Wicked Beast.”  

Enjoying these accolades thoroughly, Lucifer shivers with pleasure. “I do enjoy the old names.”

“I will smite thee in my Father’s honor!”

Gabriel makes to strike The Devil–with something so ordinary as a fist. Usually, it is a formidable weapon for the angel–yet inexplicably, her blow cannot connect, blocked by an invisible wall. 

Chuckling with delight, Lucifer lifts his eyebrows at the angel, singsonging, “Looks like somebody’s in trou-ble!”

He delights in knocking her back with a breath of Hellfire, and tosses Mamon back to the fiery pit. “I’ll deal with you later, Spawn.” 

What a triumph this night has been! He practically dances on tiptoes back to John Constantine, a soul he has salivated for oh! so many years. But when he goes to drag the boy off, he hits his own impossible barrier. 

No!

He watches inexplicably as the demon hunter’s soul floats towards Heaven, cleansed by the execution of a selfless act. He should have known! 

The Sacrifice. 

As though in a last act of defiance, Constantine is even so cheeky as to extend Satan a middle fingered salute. 

But if anything, Lucifer is quick on his sometimes-cloven feet. 

“Not so fast,” he seethes, plunging his fists into Constantine’s lungs. “How about a second chance, John? I just know you’ll screw it up eventually.”

He rips the deadly cancer out, leaving John on the brink of death, but somehow, alive.

“Surely.” He smirks at you, laughing at you, deep down.

Asshole. 

One extremely fine, extremely dangerous, asshole. 

Glaring at the two of you eye-fucking eachother, Constantine clears his throat. “Are we trying to find don Juan or not? Otherwise, I should get to Midnite’s.” 

You look to John. Despite the energy you’d shared with him, he still has dark circles under his eyes, still seems just this side of fragile. You remember how much blood you had to take from him last time, to call up that much excess power, that it just felt like you were floating above your corporeal body. You’re not sure he can spare it, now. If you sent him to an early grave with blood loss you know you would walk yourself right out into the sun. 

On the other hand, there is Wick, robust, full of blood, and who you wouldn’t feel guilty at all about taking down a peg or two. His smile widens as he notices you assessing him like a piece of meat, his powerful body sprawled in the rickety old chair–maybe he wouldn’t be so smug, however, if he knew exactly what you were thinking. 

“Depends,” you answer John. “Will you let me in, or are you going to keep stonewalling me?”

“I’m not exactly in the habit of leaving my aura hanging wide open. It leads to bad things in my business,” he grumbles. 

You suppose, considering his occupation, that’s understandable. But you also think he’s making excuses to shut you out.  

“Uh huh.” 

You cross the cracked linoleum floor to him. He’s so tall that you’re nearly eye to eye, even with him sitting, and even though you already fed once tonight, just looking at him like this kindles that insatiable hunger in your belly, a lick of desire that curls in you like smoke from an opium pipe. Heady. Wonderful. Addictive. Shields up or not, you know he feels it too in the bond between you, his lips parting with a gasp, his pupils dilating to turn his dark irises purest black.  

He takes your hand, and the energy that ignites between you as his long fingers slide into yours fills the dilapidated room with something bright and charged. It even makes Wick sit up straighter in his chair. It feels like sunshine on your face, when you were still human, and you cannot suppress a sigh of enjoyment. 

They both seem surprised when you hold out your other hand to Wick. “Come here.” The vampire hunter obeys, his footsteps heavy and deliberate as he approaches, his presence a solid line of warmth at your back.  

With an almost quizzical look, Wick takes your hand. His fingers are calloused, and strong, and his touch feels like a live wire gripped in your hands. Reincarnated sweethearts or not–your magic likes him, and you think you can work with that. 

Constantine’s frown as he watches this exchange is thunderously contemptuous.  “We gonna sing kumbaya now, baby?” he gripes at you. 

“No. We’re going to find don Juan, and Mr. Wick here is going to cut off his fucking head. Got a problem with that?”

You see the corner of his mouth tick for the barest second, his only indication of mirth before he throws himself wide open to you, and the mingled energies of these two powerful men rips through you like an electric shock. 

♰♰♰

Maybe John Constantine is ill, but you were a fool to think him weak. One mouthful of blood taken carefully from his wrist is so power-charged you practically see stars. It’s possible that adding Wick’s rich blood to the cocktail nearly renders you drunk, so giddy you think you might hover physically off the ground. But the two men on either side of you keep you anchored, vying even now in their holds upon you. 

It’s funny, maybe, that you thought it would keep things tame, drinking from the wrist. But there is an agonizing tension amidst the three of you, unsatisfied lust and painful longing. It all adds a particular spice to this conjuring you work as the focus between them, and you are able to rise with barely a thought this time.

It’s more familiar, this second time you wander through the minds of the city, and you are more careful as you sift through them like grains of rice, in search of that one poisoned seed. You think you are successful more than once, before realizing they are just don Juan’s awful progeny, but not the original root of that particular brand of evil. 

You are surprised, when in your wandering you encounter Angela, the detective John Constantine so secretly fancied. She is in her apartment, working at her laptop. There is a glow of such goodness about her that is rare to find in humans. Her aura is practically a halo, it shines so bright. She is warm, and smart, and strong, and it’s no wonder John likes her, you think to yourself sadly. 

You probe a little deeper, finding that at this moment she is thinking about John. She likes him too, though she’s puzzled as to why. That is a feeling you understand all too well. She must feel your presence, looking up as though there is something in the room with her, reaching out to put a hand on her service issue Glock on the desk next to her. She’s already had quite a scare after her first encounter with real demons, and guiltily you back off, not wanting to upset her.  

You are about to give up your search, feeling that you have stretched yourself to the limit, when at last you sense him. That seething, cloying dark energy that follows don Juan like a cloud. You are more cautious in your approach this time, keeping your distance as you observe him. It seems he retreated north into the mountains, to a chic but almost quaint little house tucked into the hillside. He sits beside a glittering swimming pool, smoking and brooding. The moment you sense him turning your way you retreat, returning to your body, too quickly perhaps. 

It’s disorienting, after being weightless, to wrangle with your flesh and bones, like it’s hard to get all the pieces of you to mesh back again. You would have fallen, if not for two pairs of strong hands steadying you. You lean back on a broad chest. Constantine is before you, you recognize, which makes the imposing wall behind you still Wick. You are either the luckiest girl in the world, or you are cursed. You still haven’t decided which yet. 

“Back off,” snarls Constantine to the dhampir, pulling you into his arms. 

Wick growls, and you can't help but feel like the bone between two cranky dogs. You really shouldn't be enjoying it so much.

“Are you alright?” 

You think you’re fine, but you’re tired. You didn’t travel that far, last time, or search with such purpose in mind. It took a lot more energy than you thought it would.

“He’s in Laurel Canyon,” you whisper against Constantine’s chest. “North end. A little cottage with stone facing, clay tile roof. There’s a bronze statue of horses out front.” You think back, and realize you even remember the house number. You manage to say it out loud before the room starts to spin. Are you going to be sick? “I don’t feel good.” 

“I warned you,” grouses Constantine, even while his hand sits protectively on the back of your head. 

“She did well,” defends Wick. “This will save me time.” 

Sitting back down, Constantine pulls you into his lap, away from the dhampir. You hate to admit how good it feels to curl into him like a child who’s had a nightmare, his arms around you.   

“Great,” he snarks to Wick. “Feel free to go.”

Wick snorts in answer, still looking down at you. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

Reluctantly you nod against Constantine’s collarbone, closing your eyes. “I’ll be fine. Will you be fine by yourself?”

Wick laughs lowly at this, but not unkindly. “No worries, ptichka, no more flying around for you. I will give don Juan your regards.” 

“Please, kick him in the nuts for me,” you grumble. The thought of that awful vampire finally getting his comeuppance is darkly satisfying. 

“Would you like me to bring you his head?” 

“Ew.” 

Wick laughs, and you hear his footfalls as he crosses the kitchen to the crumpled vampire in the corner. You’d almost forgotten about the poor bastard. “I will see you soon,” says the dhampir, winking at you before dragging the informant out by his ankles. 

A strange quiet settles over the apartment, without the ominous dark energy of John Wick filling the room. 

You should be scared of him–but you kind of miss him.

“Alone at last,” grouses Constantine, his hold on you tightening. 

You laugh a little, snuggling into the bend of his neck. You start to feel better, sitting like this with him. His hand drifts to your thigh, tracing the hem of his shirt absently. “Was this really the only thing you could come up with to wear?” 

“You don’t like it, John?” you tease sleepily. 

“I like it a lot. For my eyes only.”

“Hmm. I think that’s something only a boyfriend gets to say,” you dare ripost.

He snorts in answer. “If I was your boyfriend, would I get to tell you what to do?” 

“No.” 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He coughs, and only a beat later do you realize it was a laugh. 

 But then he can’t help but ruin the moment: 

“I thought the dhampir was your new boyfriend, Miss I’ll come visit you in New York,” he complains in an insulting falsetto.  

You, in turn, just roll your eyes. “Excuse you, but I saved you from getting your head lopped off. You’re welcome, by the way.” 

Then, he has to go and turn serious on you. “Baby, when I’m gone–” You whine, hating hearing him say it aloud, but he talks over you. “It’s going to happen, y/n. You’ve got to accept that. And when it does, you cannot take up with him. He is bad news. Call it…my dying wish.” 

You’re smart enough to bite down on your first response, which is, ‘he doesn’t seem so bad.’  

It turns out you don’t have any reply at all, and he watches you with an intensity that makes you fear he can read your mind. You’re not sure why he takes mercy on you, saying more gently, “You can’t save him, sweetheart. Any more than you can save me.” 

You look down, because his laser-like gaze is too much, even for you. 

Part of the reason you want to get this thing solved so badly is because you hope you can save him. Maybe with the help of modern medicine, and your own combined magic…something might work out. Buy him some time, at least. He already seems better, after finally letting you into your bond earlier that night. 

Maybe he’s resigned, but you haven’t completely given up hope. 

“I just…want to get this thing resolved,” you admit. “So you can rest.”  

He lifts one of those angular dark brows, clearly thinking that the only rest waiting for him is the permanent kind. But he doesn’t insist again that you accept the inevitable truth of his demise. Sometimes, when you care about someone, you let them get away with those little lies that keep them sane through the day to day grind of life. Maybe he realizes that you need this, so that you don’t run down the street screaming at God and anyone else unfortunate enough to get in your path.  

“Sure, honey.” He surprises you again, when he presses a tender kiss to your forehead. “I’m going to put you to bed, and I have to go to Midnite’s.”

You know the kittenish sound that escapes your lips sounds ridiculous. “Let me go with you.”

“You’re wiped out. Stay here and rest.” 

“No.” You sit up, feeling a little better. Tired, but better. 

“Yes,” he insists, narrowing his eyes at you. 

“I’m just going to follow you, if you try to leave me here.” 

“For once, can you not be so stubborn when I’m trying to protect you?” 

Your lips dance as you try to suppress a smile, lifting an eyebrow. “I could ask the same thing of you?” 

Another exasperated growl escapes him, and your heart sings when he pulls you into another kiss, that golden rope between you pulsing with energy, singing with light. He pulls back to look at you, his pupils blown wide. You wonder if it occurs to him, that this could be his last chance to be with a woman, if things outside this crumbling apartment do not go well. Or maybe, just maybe, he finds you as irresistible as you find him. Either way, when he tangles his long fingers in your hair and kisses you again, you are all too ready to lean in. 

You’re not sure how it’s possible, that this man simultaneously breaks your heart, and puts you back together again. 

When he stands with you in his arms you give a sound of protest, worried about the extra exertion.

“I’m fine, y/n,” he tells you with a rare gentleness that to you is precious as any gemstone. “I’ve got you.”     

He carries you to the bed in the next room, and you are more than happy to let him have his way with you. 

______

He started out by setting you down on the bed, guiding you onto your back with his mouth on yours. His hands find their way down your thighs, under the oversized shirt, grabbing appreciative handfuls of your curves and squeezing until you moan. Soon his hooked fingers are pulling your panties down your thighs, and his mouth is between your legs, kneeling before you at the edge of the bed like he is taking communion.

“Oh god, John…”

You are warm all over, glowing, scintillating, the bond flung open between you, and you are not sure where you end and he begins. Is this overwhelming sense of love yours, or his? Or have you made it together? Is it possible, for two such people damned to darkness to manufacture so much light? 

You think it might be. 

You feel like anything is possible, in his arms. 

“Please? I need you?”

It is a race, who can undo buttons the fastest. You his belt, he his shirt. You have his fly down and his cock in your mouth before he is even half done. For a long few moments he abandons his task, his head thrown back in ecstasy.

“Fuck. Baby…” He guides you with a hand on the back of your head, and you would have sucked him to completion had he not tugged gently on your hair, laying you back again. His narrow hips fit between your thighs like he was made for you, and as his tip kisses your entrance you have never wanted anything more in your life, than his manhood inside you. 

He hovers, and you look to him through hooded eyes, expecting to find that trademark smirk, the evidence of him teasing you. But the expression on his face is almost pained, the look of a man drowning, and as your eyes meet his your heart somehow breaks, and fills to bursting. 

He’ll never say it out loud, but it doesn’t matter. You’ll never forget the way he looked at you tonight, and you are certain to the bottom of your soul that John Constantine cares about you, in the only way that this broken man can. 

“Please?”

In the end you cannot hold the eye contact, your head rocking back in ecstasy as he grants your wish and fills you slowly to the brim, the beautiful ache of his cock inside you the closest you think you’ll ever get to heaven.   

You know he is feeling his mortality keenly as he makes love to you, tasting every part of your skin he can reach like you are a delicacy he’ll never be able to eat again. He looks down at you with flashes of that vulnerability and tenderness, and you dare think that maybe he doesn’t regret that it’s you, doesn’t wish you were Angela instead. 

It’s all so beautiful and tragic and steeped with magic–you cum while he stares into your very soul, his manhood filing you like he was made for you and his heart pressed to yours. It’s not long before he follows, his body locking against yours, and you hold him with a desperation you know borders on madness.

Lazing together in the afterglow, you brush his hair from his sweat-dewed brow, your head in the divot of his shoulder that feels as though it was made for you.. You imagine what it would be like, if you had the courage to actually say what you’re thinking: John… I know…you don’t love yourself. I hope that changes someday, because you deserve it, but until then…I want you to know that I love you. You’re a grouchy asshole but you’re brave and funny and deep down I know you actually care about people. Well…some people. Maybe even me. Sometimes.

But you are a coward, and so you just lay with him, the connection between you thrumming contentedly. Maybe he can feel it.

Maybe that’s enough, between you.

 He surprises you, when suddenly he looks down like you had said something, turning to pull you closer into the shelter of his chest. “What the hell did I do to deserve you, baby vamp?” he marvels, his big hand on your head like a shield from the world. You snuggle into him with a contented sigh, tucking yourself beneath his chin, and the truth is that you could lay like this with him for days, even in this crumbling bolthole of a safe house, content.

Jesus, you are going to miss him.  

The thought of him not being in this world at all sends you spiraling into a tailspin of despair again, and you cling to him. Stranger yet, in his way, he clings right back, holding you tightly in his arms. It’s so precious, this place of vulnerability you’ve both finally arrived at, and you think to yourself that there is nothing you would not trade, would not pay, just to have him a little longer.

There has to be a way. 

♰♰♰

Back in your blood-flecked black dress, you watch John appoint himself with a fondness that makes you feel like your poor dead little heart might explode. It’s amusing to you, that it takes him longer to get ready than it does you. 

“This place is filled with half breeds. Angelic and demonic. They’re supposed to stick to the truce, no fighting, so in theory you should be safe. Stick close and follow my lead. There’s a test to get in. I’m sure you won’t have any problem passing, after what you pulled off tonight.” 

“Gee John, I hardly know what to do with myself, hearing you share all this crucial information,” you tease, twirling your hair around your finger, kicking your feet exaggeratedly. 

You really did mean to keep it light, but he pays you a serious look from across the room. “I should have told you more, before.” He could have pushed you over with a feather. You think it’s the closest he’s ever come to an apology. “I think…I was hoping if I didn’t tell you…you would stay innocent. You would stay…my girl next door.” 

You blink at this admission, floored. 

“That’s…actually kind of sweet. Stupid, but sweet.” 

He gives a deep sigh, adjusting the collar of his black coat with a bit more force than what is necessary. “Yeah. That’s me.”

“John,” you say gently, calling his attention back to you. 

He says nothing, just looks up at you like a kicked dog from beneath his dark hair, and it twists your heart up in knots. 

“I’ll always be your Girl Next Door.” 

The corner of his mouth twitches, his own version of a rueful smile. “Sure, y/n. Ready?”

As you’ll ever be. 

Chas is waiting for you both with the taxi outside. 

♰♰♰

“So…what exactly did you do to get your license revoked, John?” you ask coyly, sitting with him in the back seat. 

“Ohhhhhh,” chortles Chas up front. “Can I tell it?”

“No,” grumbles John. 

“Aw, come on, John. It’s funny. At least…it’s funny now.” 

“No it’s not.” 

You and Chas both have a laugh at John’s expense. Glaring at the both of you, he pulls you closer with an arm around your shoulders in the back of the cab. A warmth blooms inside you for it, and you rest your head on his shoulder, savoring this moment of relative peace before the two of you wade into what you suspect might become a fray. 

It usually does, when John is involved…although come to think of it, you’re no slouch lately either. 

You can’t stop yourself from thinking about Wick, wondering how his hunt is going. 

You hope he kills them all. 

You pull up in front of Midnite’s, an unassuming building but for the ornate Deco brass doors. As usual, John slams the door on Chas trying to communicate something. The way the boy clamors for his mentor’s attention is sweet–and heartbreaking. You feel a kinship with Chas in that. “You’ve got to start being kinder to that boy,” you admonish John as you walk towards the entrance. 

“What? I’m not mean to him.” 

You give him a look that wins you a begrudging sigh. “Ok fine. Later, I promise.” 

You hadn’t expected to get that far with him, that quickly. He really is feeling the sting of mortality and his shortcomings, you reckon, especially when he offers you his arm on the sidewalk. You think your poor black heart might burst as you loop your arm with his, giving his bicep a loving squeeze. 

Immediately through the doors, you head down, down, down to the subterranean club. True to John’s word, the doorman presents an entrance test in the form of a card. “Rat in a dress,” says Constantine, sounding bored. He tries to walk through with you, but the troll of a doorman growls for you to wait. 

He presents you with your card, and for a moment you’re at a loss. You can’t see through the paper, you’re not fucking Superwoman. But then it occurs to you that you don’t have to. You read the doorman’s mind, sifting through the boulder field of his shields to look through his eyes. “Death holding a flower,” you say, trying not to read into it too hard. Doorman nods you both through, and the real fun begins. 

You see the corner of John’s mouth tick with amusement, when you hold his hand just this side of too hard, as the two of you make your way through the dimly lit space below. Maybe he secretly likes it when you cling to him, or maybe he finds it amusing that the monsters down here scare you, when you clearly are one. 

But the weight of the magic emanating from these beings is staggering. Some feels intrinsically evil, and some so pure that it burns. Angels, demons, and everything in between, he’d told you. 

You have arrived in the big leagues. 

He makes his way to the back, where another guard stands casually before a well-hidden door. When Constantine makes to push past him he holds up a paw of a hand. “You can go. But no vampires allowed.” 

“What?” scoffs Constantine. 

“Midnite don’t allow them, after the incident.” 

“She’s cool,” the demon hunter attempts to vouch for you. “She’s with me.” 

“No matter, John. She waits out here.” 

Your heart feels like an icicle in your chest, plummeting fast for the ground. Maybe out on the street you feel pretty tough, but in here? You’re pretty sure you’re in way over your head, and you can’t help but marvel at the way John just walks in like he owns the place when probably more than half of the inhabitants of the room would like to see him dead. 

Gritting his teeth, John sighs. “Fine.” Lower, to you, he says, “I’ll be right back. Just have a seat, keep your head down. Think you can manage that?” 

You roll your eyes, even though your stomach has decided to embark on a new career as a tilt-a-whirl. “Fine. Make it quick, ok?”

He smiles, almost wide enough to flash teeth. “Sure thing, sweetheart.” There’s a long moment of eye contact between you, and you wish he’d kiss you, even if it would probably be a terrible idea here. But he just nods, and with a whirl of his black coat he ducks through the door. 

You sigh. He would deny it up and down, of course, but that man has a flair for dramatics. 

You have no idea, of course, that Midnite only barely tolerates John, and the thing your lover is about to ask for access to might spark a heated exchange. Oblivious, you go sit on a stool at the bar, and scan the room without settling too long on any one patron. The demons are gorgeous, of course, all of them resembling fashion models or A-list actors, the very stuff of temptation. But out the corner of your eye, you swear you can see horns, and tails, and maybe even detect a hint of sulfur as they pass by. 

It is the angels that fascinate you most. What are they doing here, you wonder, amidst these terrible creatures of the pit? They seem to be mingling genially, their magnificent wings folded neatly behind them on special low-backed chairs crafted with their unique anatomy in mind. As one passes by you practically have to sit on your hands, to prevent yourself from reaching out and touching one. The feathers look downy soft, like they were made of wisps of clouds. 

While you are scanning the crowd with your chin in your hand you happen upon something that makes you sit upright on your stool. There’s a vampire standing amidst the crowd, staring you down. You can feel his stare like someone poking you between the eyes. He’s nattily dressed–excepting a rather shabby newsboy’s cap. He tips it to you, flashing a fangy grin, before disappearing into the crowd. 

Chas’s cap, you realize. 

Oh no. 

Without thinking you rocket off your stool, searching for the vampire with inhuman speed. When you find no sign of him you race outside, flying up the stairs faster than the eye can see. You hope you can catch his spore from the taxi–and that’s your big mistake, of course.