Many Happy Returns
At first, Zed had laughed. She didn't fully believe it. It wasn't like she didn't think John had a birthday, it was just that it felt weird knowing it was today. Chas had hushed her seriously as they stood outside the millhouse about to go in, on today, May 10th, John Constantine's birthday. There was that look on Chas' face, concern. He was worried. That made two of them. The more Zed got to know the magician, the more she realised that far from being the person she had seen in her visions for so long, drawn countless pictures of, John could be a complete idiot, with all the self-preservation of a suicidal mayfly. She had seen him tied up and bleeding out, electrocuting himself until he bled from his eyes, even possessed by a king of Hell, but sometimes what felt worse was this time between cases, when he might not move for days except to pour himself another drink. Those were bad days. Chas knew him best, knew what could trigger those dark episodes. If he thought there was a reason to worry, she would trust his instinct.
"What is it, Chas?" she asked cautiously, careful to keep her voice down in case John came within hearing range.
The big man sighed. "You know what happened to John's mother, right?" Zed nodded. "Then you know why his birthday is a rough time. All that guilt, all that self-loathing bubbling around, it all comes to the surface. I've seen it before. Whatever he's doing in there, you'd better prepare yourself because it's not going to be pretty."
"D'you know, it's rude to talk about people behind their back?" a familiar voice, a voice that could only belong to one person and he was supposed to be inside, out of earshot, came from immediately behind them. He'd snuck up on them. He did that a lot. Chas looked somewhat apologetic but Zed decided that you know what? Someone had to drag John out of his self-pity and if it had to be her, then so be it.
"It's also rude to eavesdrop." she replied without missing a beat. John smirked.
"Touché." he turned to Chas. "I'm out of cigs, you think you could pick me some up, birthday treat like?"
"John, you make me buy you cigarettes whatever time of year it is." his friend pointed out the flaw in his otherwise impeccable plan to do - what was the expression - 'sod all' for his birthday. To drink the day away and wait for Chas and Zed to come along and scrape him off the floor. Not likely.
"Maybe we should, I don't know, do something." she found herself suggesting.
"What, get Renée to bake us a cake and sit around singing happy birthday?" snorted John. "No offence luv but I'm not exactly the birthday type."
Zed rolled her eyes - for the first time tonight, undoubtedly not the last. "So you'd rather get drunk in the millhouse alone than spend time with your friends, is that it? Punish yourself for a crime you didn't commit, that wasn't your fault?"
John looked like he wanted to cry but he blinked the tears away, like they were never there. Zed saw them though. Chas too. They weren't idiots, and John knew this, even if he did bury it away deep down. He tried to push them away so much, 'for their own protection', he claimed, but he never once considered his own welfare in all of this. He really was impossible. Like a small child.
"I appreciate this and all but-" he began, only to be cut off by Chas.
"No, John. She's right. I don't care if we just go to a bar or something, but we are getting you out of that house, just for tonight."
"Outvoted." Zed smiled, while John pulled a face - but didn't complain either. Secretly he seemed almost pleased. He talked incessantly for the entire drive, the way that only he could, every time they passed somewhere that might sell cigarettes, pointing an insisting they had to stop. In the end, Chas relented, seeing as it was his birthday, and then they had to put up with the smell of smoke inside the taxi for the rest of the journey. Despite John rolling the window down, it still seemed to linger inside more than anywhere.
The first bar they saw looked like a shithole, but John was British and despite how well-travelled he might be, he was unbearable for drives any longer than, say, a few minutes, or maybe that was just his winning personality. And so they had to stop, deciding this was it. Chas, having the highest alcohol tolerance, accepted his natural role as designated driver without argument,stating it as fact as he got out of the taxi and walked towards the bar, followed by Zed and John.
Heading inside - yes, it was definitely a shithole - Chas made a beeline for the bathrooms while John immediately began trying to talk some chick into 'birthday sex'. Typical. Zed rolled her eyes for the second time that night, after the inevitable rejection had been and gone. Sitting down next to him, she tried not to laugh.
"You going to call your boyfriend then?" John asked, almost disdainfully, even though Zed knew full well he liked Jim, got along perfectly well with him. At first, she had thought it was just jealousy: childish, petty, trivial, but a word from Chas had cleared it all up.
John thinks you're going to leave. Yeah, he's jealous, but he's also scared you're going to abandon him too.
"I'm not going to leave, John."
"Never said you were." the exorcist shot back defensively.
"You didn't need to."
John sighed. "Chas." Zed nodded. "So much for friendship."
She chose not to rise to that, to point out Chas was the best friend he had "John, I like Jim, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop hanging around with 've shown me things, about my abilities, you've helped me so much and you and Chas are my best friends. Just because people have left you before doesn't mean I will."
John nodded, taking a sip from the beer he had mysteriously acquired from thin air, but otherwise said nothing. Then he laughed.
"You rehearse that? Practise it on the way here, did you?"
"We were in the same car, idiot." teased Zed. He laughed again, a rare, genuine laugh, not that dark sort of chuckle that he used to pretend everything was okay when really he felt like crap. And usually looked it too, not that Zed was paying attention."Happy birthday, by the way." she added, enjoying the look of real happiness on his face in place of the usual cynical smirk.
And right then things couldn't have been better. Forget about the Rising Darkness, the fact humanity could quite easily be doomed, that there was an entire cult hunting Zed and John hated birthdays because of residual issues from his messed up childhood, things were good. Unlikely to stay that way but for now she cherished his smile and let the moment last as long as it took Chas to come back from the bathroom, and even then…
Things were good.
Happy birthday, John Constantine she thought. And please, you crazy crazy bastard, please try and stay alive for the next one.