johnny-conjob:
[[ I’m a thaumaturgist not a miracle worker || john & zatanna ]]
In the greater scheme of things, John knew, without any shadow of a doubt that he was an asshole. It wasn’t news, it wasn’t under any circumstances shocking to him. But seeing it reflected back at him in her posture was … aggravating. That, now that set his teeth on edge. His jaw tightening on something like rage between his teeth. Skin flush and hot with something like shame.
He took a moment to let her words sink into the cage of his ribs and grab hold in the general vicinity of his pride. He could feel them coursing around his organs, pride and pain grappling with his bones to decide a winner. In the end they both reared there heads in the roll of his shoulders, the cant of his hip, the gnarled growl of a snarl on his lips, the taste of sarcasm and bite.
“Oh, fuckin’ really?” He snapped, the carton of eggs shoved haphazardly back onto the chilled shelf with little regard for their very recent reformation. Hit bit back the rest of the statement, hissing it out and in between his teeth as a shallow breath. He couldn’t quite… make the words form. They tasted too much like bile. Like fear and regret and sorry. Sorry. I’m sorry.
“I’m not entirely sure wha’ the hell you expected from me, Z. You can’ fuckin’ tell me that anything good was ever gonna come of us. Of me.”
John wasn’t really sure what else to do with himself. He’d tried to make it quick, tried to cauterize the wound on his way out but, as with everything he touched, it had been left gaping, bleeding. In pieces. He reached out, grabbing the eggs again in self defence, in need of something to do with his hands again. He gestured with the carton in short, abortive motions, voice clipped and low. “You know I did the both of us a damn favour when I left. You’d be on the wrong side of hell if I’d stuck around and you know it.”
Zatanna froze, in one perfect moment of stillness, when a prey animal gets cornered by a larger predator and their whole body goes into overdrive, brain deciding between one breath and the next fight or flight. Zatanna chose fight. She chose fight because no one, not John, not her father, no one get’s too speak to her like that. And it’s not arrogance, it’s pride, it’s knowing how she’s meant to be treated because, John? John had used up his strikes, used his first up when he left, his second when he didn’t come back, and his third when he couldn’t even give her the dignity of a reason.
“John.” Her voice was quiet, steady, not the whipcrack of anger his had been, and maybe that was because he was pushing back, anger in the stead of hurt but Zatanna was done being hurt over John Constantine. Anger, anger was something she could do, something she could live with, so she looked at him, dead on, still, and poised and incandescent with a slow burning rage.
Zatanna swallowed, throat closing with a dry click, held tight to her emotions with an iron fisted control, or she tried to. “Oh you self-righteous asshole, don’t try to sell me that snake oil bullshit John. Don’t you show up after all this time and lie to my face. This was never about me, this was always about you. Everything is always about you, about you and your damnable pride, about you and your selfishness, your survivors guilt.” She sighed, looked at him, under bright lights, tired and older and in some ways vulnerable and she heaved another sigh, unused to seeing him without his layer of charm and arrogance, it feels wrong some how.
“Whatever happened, it wasn’t your choice to make...why can’t you just admit you were scared?” She offered a small smile, suddenly exhausted, “still are.”
