Chapter Text
John Constantine was having a bad day.
His hair was singed, curled and black at the edges. His knees hurt and his mouth was dryer then freeway pavement at high noon. No clouds, no water. Hot, dry, miserable.
He felt miserable. He’d just had a run in with a demon. (which wasn’t that surprising, he’d had a lot of unfortunate meet ups with tons of demons.) He couldn’t remember the name nor did he care about its name anyway.
He was just tired. His fingers twitched and his coat was full of carbon, smoke riddled holes. He’d smoke but the pocket that was supposed to hold them didn’t exist anymore. He’d drink but the tin of whiskey he kept turned red hot, the whiskey boiled and by the time he’d prepared his voice to try and save his poor, moderately expensive alcohol. It was too late and he had to throw his coat off because the tin fractured and the now steam whizzed out like one of those geysers you saw on television. Point is, he had no drink and he was very sad about it. (He got his coat back but it was less of a trench coat and more of a scrape of bad smelling, hole riddled fabric now. He’d have to throw it out.)
So John Constantine waddled back to the cheap, urban hotel he was using for the time being. (One of the nicer ones, that’s for sure. The provided breakfast might’ve even had real eggs.) He trudged in, feeling like a mound of dog turd and the attendee at the front desk gave him a weird look. He barely spared her a glance.
“Uh sir?”
John wanted to die.
He turned and raised an eyebrow.
“Are…” She faltered. “Do you…need to go to the hospital?”
John thought about it but then stopped because the idea was stupid first and hilariously dull second. And third, well, he wasn’t exactly in North Carolina, America legally.
“No,” John's voice tickled painfully and he again felt terrible.
“Uhh…” The attendee didn’t know what to say.
John waved her off with a mumbled, ‘I’ll be fine’ and trudged with equal amounts of enthusiasm as he trudged into the hotel with. Which is to say, none at all.
He fumbled with the keycard, not that he’d tell anyone that and stopped.
As the door swung open he heard the unmistakable sound of….cartoons. Obnoxiously loud and cheerful. He blinked. The tely was off when he left, in fact he’d never touched the remote even once for all the time he’d been staying in the hotel. Only a day, but the point still stands.
He carefully and as quietly as he could closed the door and wished again the hole that used to be his smoke pocket still existed. He took measured steps and as he neared he saw the distinct, saturated blurs on the television. Cartoon characters. And on the bed was a…
John squinted and rubbed his eyes. Huh. There was…
A child. There was a child in his hotel room. His hotel room, which was locked. With a key card he somehow managed not to lose in the giant fireball that just transpired thirty minutes ago.
He couldn’t sense any malice and the kid didn’t appear to be some evil overlord in some poor kiddo’s skin suit or a messed up disguise.
Whatever, it's not like he hasn’t escaped death before. What’s one more time?
“Oi, kid,”
The child turned, his absolute mess of black hair sticking up in every direction possible. The kid blinked, his eyes were blue. Way to blue to normal. Great. Just wonderful, either it was another demon or a meta baby had popped into his apartment and had turned on the cartoons. Excellent.
The kid looked at him for another second before his attention was captured again by the TV.
“Kid,”
The kid didn’t turn this time, enraptured by the…talking dogs. (Were they Australian? Australian talking dogs. Crazy what corporate comes up for kids these days. That was a lie, John didn’t pay attention to kids’ media.)
John heaved a sigh so big he should’ve won an award for it and walked in front of the TV.
“Kid? How’d you get here? Where are your parents? What’s your name? Are you lost or something?” He rattled off. John didn’t really care, he just needed to know if he could nap without something trying to kill him in his sleep again.
The kid still didn’t look at him. He just continued to look at the talking dog show, looking vaguely happy about something.
John sighed again and for that one he should’ve gotten a second award. He scooped up the remote and clicked the black box off.
The kid blinked and looked at the probably warm to the touch TV screen. He then turned to John. His eyes scrunched up and John only had a second to panic because the wail that came outta that kid’s mouth was the loudest, soul shattering, world bending, definitely not normal wail he’d ever heard.
It took twenty minutes, some magic, more talking dog cartoons and some head pats to get the kid to stop screaming. At this point John didn’t care if he died. Because the room was destroyed (Somehow the bed and TV were spared. Magical. Somehow.) and what little energy he had left had been strangled, smashed into pieces and shoved down the garbage disposal with enough knives to chop a man in chunks of sliced bacon.
He was tired. So John Constantine, flopped down on the still somehow magically still intact bed and went to sleep almost instantly. The sound of cartoons and the weighted presence of another person lingering on the edge of his mind.
This was fine. The kid probably wasn’t real, or at least would be gone in the morning. Yeah, yeah. Something like that. That made sense.
John Constantine fell asleep.
John Constantine woke up.
To poking specifically. He groaned and an iron pike slammed into eyes. He groaned again. His mouth was dry, he could feel every bump and ridge of tongue and his nose itched terribly. Like he had a sneeze but it wasn’t going anywhere and it was just stuck in his poor face holes.
The iron pike wedged deeper.
And somebody poked his face again.
His eyebrows crinkled and he pried his eyes open. Slowly. Halfheartedly and immediately closed them because every blob of light was probably the worst thing that had ever touched him. In and out of death. He couldn’t tell if he was hungover or magically induced. Everything hurt.
And somebody poked him again.
John groaned a third time and actually committed to opening his eyes.
His brain lagged until it finally caught up with him.
The kid was still here.
He sat up the best he could, pushing the hair out of his eyes. He needed a hair cut.
The kid was looking at him.
“What?” He said, regretting it almost immediately. Because it felt almost as bad as it sounded.
“ ‘M hungry,” The kid’s eyes were impossible wide. “I want toast,”
John scoffed. “Me too kid,” He coughed. Right water. He stood shakily and went to the bath area. He drank greedily from the tap. The water felt incredible. He splashed some of it on his face for good measure. He sighed contentedly and turned around and almost leapt out of his skin. The kid was right there.
“I want toast,” The kid repeated, his watery blue eyes almost glowing.
John sighed, he rubbed his face. “Yeah, fine, whatever. Let’s get us some toast,”
There was a line. And they waited. The kid scuffed his feet against the breakfast area tile. He was pretty well behaved, from what John had seen, little kids were absolutely nightmares. The kid was nice though.
They got through the line and John piled their plates with eggs, sausage, a muffin or two and lots of toast. John grabbed some raspberry packets as well. (He gave the coffee cart a disparaging look and grabbed himself three cups of black. He had a feeling he’d need it.)
The kid ate some toast and John ate some eggs. They ate in silence for a bit before John decided he should probably learn the kid’s name at least. If he was going to be charged for kidnapping, it’d be nice to be able to say that he didn’t kidnap the kid and be able to call him by name. At least.
“Hey kid,”
The kid looked up and tactfully ate everything on his peanut butter toast. Everything but the crust.
“You got a name?” John ate some more eggs, they felt like rubber in his mouth and tasted like the water you find in mozzarella cases.
“Danny,” Danny put the crust down and picked up the muffin and only ate the top bit.
John nodded. “Danny, okay,” John paused. Then added. “My names John, you should probably know that huh,”
Danny nodded religiously and started messing with the rubber eggs. John gave him some more toast. Danny started on that.
“Do you have any parents or…?”
Danny reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it John. John took it. He flipped it over and flipped it over again.
The kid’s eyes were glowing.
“Uh sir?” It was the attendee from last night. John looked up. She glanced at Danny nervously and Danny kept eating his toast. John gave him some toast, this time with some of those raspberry jam packets without the packet part on top. Danny looked delighted.
“So sorry to bother you but…is…that your child?” She looked really freaked out about something.
“No,” John replied immediately.
She looked even more freaked out. “Uh, then—”
“He’s uh,” John glanced at Danny who was chowing down on that toast like it was the last bit of food in existence. John gave him more toast. “My nephew, I’m his uncle,” That of course, wasn’t true. He just didn’t want that girl to think he was a kidnapper. That would be annoying.
“Uncle..?” She looked at Danny and his perfectly happy disposition and she nodded reluctantly. “I…see, where are your parent’s then sweetie?”
“Dead,” Danny replied so matter of factly that John almost choked.
“O-oh! Uh–” She looked the most uncomfortable a person could be at that moment. “Ah, I see…um, so sorry to bother again. I–uh, have a great stay!” She scurried off and John had to wonder if that would be a problem or not.
John’s mind slowed. Dead parents huh?
John watched Danny eat happily for a minute and decided that yeah. He could play uncle until he found a place to drop the kid off at. Maybe Bats would take him. Didn’t he have a weird adoption fetish or something?
Yeah. He could play uncle. How hard could it be?