"You shouldn't be doing that, John."
John Constantine blinked, his eyes clearing away the nothingness he'd been staring at to focus on a familiar shape perched atop the pew in front of him. As per usual, it was dressed in classy but distinctly asexual clothing to fit the androgynous wearer. Gabriel smiled a predictably angelic smile at him, causing John to sigh heavily and take yet another long drag of his cigarette.
"What do you want?"
Gabriel tilted his (her? Its? Bloody genderless angels…) head to one side, an expression of mock pain painted across his face. A loose tendril of gold hair slipped from behind his ear, mirroring the miniscule head movement as if to add more meaning to it.
"John, I'm hurt. I'm only looking out for your well-being."
Another sigh, another drag. This time John made a point to exhale the smoke towards Gabriel's face.
"The damage's done, so why should I stop now? These things are one of the few unchangeables in my life. Never let me down. After a hard day, I honestly couldn't think of anything better to come home to, cancer or not."
A clump of ash fell from the tip of his smoking cigarette, falling onto the polished wood beside where John was sitting.
"I wasn't talking about your health, John."
Turning his head, Gabriel gestured to a sign by the front door of the church that simply read "no smoking please."
"You shouldn't be smoking in here, John."
Constantine's eyes narrowed as his lips again surrounded the end of his cigarette, this time sighing in a deep breath of smoke before letting it out again.
"I hardly think that smoking in a church is the sort of sin I should be worried about."
Gabriel clucked his tongue like a scolding nanny. "Every little bit counts, you know. Besides, start disobeying simple church etiquette and who knows what sort of slippery slope you could find yourself on. Next thing you know you may be fucking a prostitute in the confessional while swearing a blue streak. That's not the sort of thing He'd consider a high point on your moral record."
"No, but it's what I'd consider a high point of my night."
He inhaled another mouth full of smoke, holding it a moment before exhaling. This time there was that familiar tickle in his lungs and throat, but he fought back the urge to cough. He'd prefer not to see the angel gloat.
"Now John, that sort of thing won't be helping matters."
"See above, as before. Damage. Done. I don't have much time left, and if I haven't redeemed myself by now then why not take some time to enjoy the finer things in life?"
"Prostitutes in confessionals constitute as the 'finer things' these days?"
"Compared to where I'm going? Fuck yes. Unless of course you've come to tell me my destination's changed. Should I be exchanging my ticket yet?"
Gabriel slipped off the pew, landing gracefully on his feet a moment before sliding into the seat beside John.
"Not yet, John."
"Fan-fucking-tastic. More cancer sticks to me, then."
This time he inhaled so deeply that he couldn't hold back the shuddering coughs that followed, the muscle contractions doubling him over where he sat. Gabriel looked on passively, like someone watching a movie they'd already seen the end of. What happened now didn't twist any emotions in him one way or the other, because he knew how things turned out in the end. As John's coughing subsided into small gasps, Gabriel reached a hand out to run the back of his fingers along the man's somewhat sunken cheek.
"John, don't be in such a hurry. Things aren't so bad here, are they?"
Turning his head, John stared at Gabriel in disbelief as if he'd just claimed that it had been written that Lamb Chop would one day inherit the earth. Eyebrows raised, he scoffed and turned back to his smoke.
"I think you've been tuning in to the wrong channel."
He felt them again, those soft fingers brushing at the skin just below his ear. Fingers that were larger in a masculine sort of way, but with the silken feel of a woman who favored floral-scented hand creams. They ghosted over his skin like a child carefully stroking the fur of a strange kitten, unsure of whether it would bite or shy away.
"I was speaking in general, not just to your experiences. But to be honest, even someone such as yourself doesn't have everything wrong happen to him. There's the occasional good thing in your life."
"Name one."
"Chas?"
There was a long pause; a silence filled only with the sound of lips pulling away from the paper of the nearly finished cigarette.
"Name two."
Gabriel laughed in one quick burst, the sound childlike but not quite so innocent.
"Please, John. Do stop wallowing in it, will you?"
"I'm not wallowing. I'm thinking. Or rather, I was thinking until you showed up…"
"And am I not trying to make you think now?"
"No, what you're trying is my fucking patience. Leave me the hell alone, will you? I'm not in the mood…"
Gabriel's lower lip stuck outwards in a pout, but John didn't bother to placate him by even turning his head to see. His eyes grew unfocused again, staring off at nothing in particular to signify that the discussion had ended. Shaking his head, Gabriel leaned forward and back to his feet again, arms crossing over his chest as he took one last moment to regard John.
"Even if things are bad, that's where you do best, John. You shine in the dark. If you'd only stop to see that instead of staring off into the void, then maybe you'd find yourself smiling once or twice in your life."
Stooping forward, the angel's lips brushed John's forehead, lingering long enough for the warmth to be passed from the kiss into the skin to ease the headache that had been pounding inside the man's skull. It was enough for his eyes to snap back into focus again, but by the time he looked up Gabriel was gone. With the last embers of his cigarette flickering out, John Constantine pulled the cooling stub from his mouth, flicking it across the stone floor of the church. He watched as it slid across the cold stone, dying out when it finally came to rest, not even noticing the right side of his mouth turning upwards, halfway to something that might have been a smile.