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Constantine had woken with headaches and hangovers before. He'd also woken in strange places and with strangers, before. He already had a feeling that this was going to be different. Worse, probably. Complicated, almost definitely.
He really fucking hoped it wasn't going to be another incubus or succubus. He was still trying to live down the last one (a reccubus of ungendered persuasion, actually).
First thing was first. He checked to make sure he both had and had awareness of all his extremities. Which he could do without dealing with the whole morning and light and sun thing, thankfully. It was already too fucking bright and he hadn't even opened his fucking eyes. Why did light have to be so light? Why couldn't it haves the decency to just fuck off when hard-working exorcists had the occasional well-earned hangovers?
He was still stewing down in his internal, sun-cursing monologue when the cat sat on his face.
John Constantine wasn’t generally a cat person. But he suddenly felt a hell of a lot less like a cat person with the giant fluff ball trying to suffocate him. “Christ fucking…” he tried to shove the thing off his face. “Jesus—Joseph—fucking Mary—get off! Hellbeast!”
The bed, on John's right, shifted. Laughter, like dangerous little silver-bells primed to lead someone astray (unless the hearer’s stockings were turned inside out), filtered through the cat. Then almost delicate hands plucked the nightmare off John’s face. John was left squinting at the ceiling, his head still thrumming and his eyes no less inconvenienced but the sun.
“Hast thee not a bed of thine own? For shame, to treat our bedfellow such. Begone with thee.”
Oh. Well. John recognized that voice.
Not an incubus, then. But, honestly? Probably harder to live down.
John studied the ceiling as his eyes grew used to the light, but refused to confirm with his eyes what his ears already told him. Maybe if he pretended hard enough, it would all just go… away.
Then there was movement on his left.
“Klare.”
“Thy eyes deceive thee not!”
A long sigh. Then the man on John's left departed the bed. John saw his dark hair for a moment, in the farthest corner of his peripheral vision. Then the whole of his vision was taken up by a blue face, black hair, wide eyes, and black lips stretched into a grin.
John sighed.
“Thee complained not, but hours ago,” Klarion teased. A blue hand lay itself against John’s chest. “Dost thou find me so poor a sight, now that thy mind be no longer clouded with libation and carnal want?”
“You asking if I find you pretty?” John smirked.
“Mayhap. Dost thou?” Klarion crossed both his arms on John's chest, then tested his chin upon them. He grinned and raised an eyebrow.
“As a picture,” John sighed. He didn't know where they impulse came from, but he settled a hand in Klarion’s hair – it was softer than he might have guessed – and watched Klarion's eyelids flutter closed. Then he purred, deep in his chest. John was surprised by that, but paradoxically pleased, regardless. “I thought the hellbeast was the cat,” he said. It was a weak joke.
The other man returned, announcing his arrival with a glass of water placed on there bedside table with a bottle of painkillers. “Familiars and witches share traits,” he said, bored. Almost uninterested. But the affected disinterest was par for the course with the Zatara cousin, wasn't it? “Klarion purrs. Naps in odd places. And otherwise lets the ebb and flow of his interest and disinterest guide the shape of his actions.”
John looked up at him.
Zachary looked back, unimpressed. Then rolled his eyes and climbed back into bed, under the covers.
John wasn’t expecting the kiss at all. Less from Zachary than the witch-boy. But he kissed Zachary back, his grip on Klarion's hair tightening minutely. Klarion made a pleased sound that went right to John’s gut, warm and pleasant.
Zachary broke away from the kiss, but only so that Klarion could move in to stake an equally enthusiastic claim.
--
“What?” Zatanna dropped her cup.
John winced at the shatter. “I said—”
“No! Don't repeat it. I don't want to hear it, Constantine.” She scrubbed her hands over her face. “I can't believe you slept with them. Both of them! Are you insane!”
John shifted uncomfortably in his seat, there knowledge of Zachary’s number in his phone heavy on his mind. Or in his pocket. Just… heavy. “Not that big of a deal, calm down,” he said.
“You're going to see them again,” Zatanna whispered, horrified.
John pinched the bridge of his nose.
“You are, oh my god!” Zatanna have a frustrated growl, then fixed the smashed cup she’d dropped, with a clipped word in Lasrever. “I'm disappointed, John.”
“Join the club, Zee.” John rolled his eyes.