#hellship

Gideon is an A.I. that will, theoretically, live forever.Constantine is a man damned to hell, but who won’t die until heaven is through with him.

From my CotJ rewrite.

“Mara?”

She can hear the tap of his staff and the uneven cadence of his hurried steps as he limped toward her. Mara squeezed her eyes shut with a grimace, trying to steady herself. Then she spat in the sani one more time.

Luke’s footsteps stopped directly behind her. “Sweetheart?”

Gripping the sides of the sani, Mara pushed herself to her feet. Her head swam and she put a hand out against the wall to get her balance. Pulling the stall door open she preemptively said, “I’m fine.”

---

“You know, we could always kiss and run off, so they think we’re shagging.”

At that comment, John nearly spit out his drink. He swallowed it before it ended up on the floor and turned to look at Gideon, who had a completely stoic face compared to the sentence she just uttered out.

“Are you... are you serious, love?”

At that she smiled a little. “Dead serious. We need a diversion if we’re ever going to get out of here. Not to mention we already got all the information we need.”

When Gideon had called him and said they were going to get some incriminating stuff on her family, John had been ready to go for it. He hated the Druce family just as much as she did. He had heard the story of Gideon’s ‘family’ many times before. She was the only biological child, and lived in a big house with her parents Zaman and Priscilla, uncle Declan (who was just her father’s business partner), her adopted sister, Eve, and later on in her teens, her adopted brother Mick Rory. He had agreed to be a witness in the potential court case but didn’t want anything to do with this operation. Eve couldn’t exactly be trusted with the task, so Gideon took it upon herself to get this done. And John tagged along as her date to this incredibly fancy charity gala. For the booze and satisfaction of taking down the Druce crime family and not because Gideon was in an incredibly attractive dress. Obviously.

If this had been when they first met, he would’ve gladly kissed Gideon. But over the years he knew for a fact he wouldn’t be able to casually give her a kiss anymore. Because of... reasons. 

“Not sure about doing that, love. It’d be strange to kiss one of my mates.”

A quick flash of disappointment was in her eyes (did he imagine that?), but her smile grew into a smirk, she lowered her lashes, and her voice got to the octave it always did when she was trying (and succeeding) to sound sexy. “Come on, Johnny. It’s just an innocent kiss. Unless... you don’t want it to be?”

John Constantine doesn’t blush. His face was just... really warm. That’s what it was. Probably nothing. “Look, Gideon, I-”

“Gideon!” Eve was walking over, dragging her husband Gilbert behind her as he looked at something on his phone. Gideon didn’t turn to look. She glanced up at his eyes, some foreign look in her own, and in half a second kissed him.

They both froze, waiting for the other person to do something. But then he was curving his arms around her waist and she was cradling his jaw and if they weren’t in a ballroom right now it’d be bloody hot as hell. Their eyes closed, and for ten seconds flat the entire world disappeared. They weren’t in a ballroom getting evidence to take down a powerful crime family. They weren’t being approached by Gideon’s sister and brother-in-law. They were in some make believe space kissing like their lives depended on it. 

Eve slowed down her walking, and when Gideon felt she was close enough, she opened her eyes and pulled back from John, as confident as ever and acting like she hadn’t just kissed one of her best friends. “Yes, dear?”

“I was coming over to ask if we can get lunch sometimes. But I’ll just text you about it since you’re... busy.”

“Sounds great, Evie. You go on and have a good night.” She then grabbed John’s arm and he more or less was in a trance as she pulled him out to the car in the garage. She took the flash drive from out of her hidden dress pocket and pulled her hair out of its way too fancy bun.

“Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Let’s get this to the police.”

John nodded as she started up the car (he didn’t even have his license), silent and still comprehending what had just happened. She had kissed him. He had kissed her. He wanted to kiss her again. He wanted to see that look in her eyes every time she saw him, the one that would probably make him nearly faint with how strong and yet gentle it was. His heart kept beating so fast and he felt ten times lighter than he did before the evening started and his mind was running through fantasies in which they went out on dates-