Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

John blindly fumbles for his flask, eyes on the old as dirt parchment spread out on the table in front of him. 

"Will this work?" 

John freezes, flask halfway to his mouth, at Bats' gruff voice.

"Well," John says, slowly lowering his flask, "It can't make it much worse."

"Constantine-"

"The King of the Between is a pretty decent bloke, if you believe the rumors," John says, interrupting him. See how he likes it, John thinks, stuffing his flask back in his pocket. "Worst case, he just declines the Call and we have to find a backup backup plan."

The frosty silence coming from Tall, Dark, and Spooky very clearly communicates how much he doesn't like that—but, well, there's exactly shit that John can do about it. This entire bloody situation can be summed up with that, he thinks. 

There's exactly jack shit anyone can do about it, which is why they're cooped up in one of the tiny, warded-to-hell-and-back JL Dark rooms in the Watchtower trying to summon the King of the Infinite Realms.

Even with the combined might of every Green Lantern they can pull from Oa, Superman, Wonder Woman, and several other assorted heroes that can survive in the vacuum of space, the Justice League is still losing.

To be fair, though, battling against an incomprehensible, malevolent life form from the far reaches of space isn't in the usual job description.

So-called outer gods were supposed to be works of fiction—cautionary tales for magic users, warning them not to work above their means.

Not reality.

If that thing reached the Earth—hell, if it reached the solar system, it was over. Everything was done for. The League's normal coterie of rogues couldn't compare, not even Supes'. 

Hence sitting in a heavily warded room trying to scrape together a summoning ritual for one of the most powerful beings in existence.

Bats clears his throat. "Do you have everything that you need?"

John grunts, looking back over the parchment. "Basically. The offering could be of better quality, but I think given the circumstances, whatever I can find in the kitchen'll be good enough." John glances up; Bats looks almost constipated. "It ain't blood or carcasses. Just food."

"Hn."

"It's fairly standard, actually," John says, rifling through his pockets. He spares a mournful thought when he nudges his flask, but continues to dig around. "Lots of cultures give offerings of food to dead relatives, y'know?"

"Dead?"

A-hah. He brings the pouch up to his nose. Thyme, lavender, and allspice, as well as an ozone zing of something more and Other. "Did I not explain all this earlier? Jesus."

"You did not."

"Pretty sure I did," John replies distractedly, pawing through his coat again. Where the hell is his chalk? He glances up. "Ah, what the hell," he mutters, caving in the face of Bats' glare. "The Infinite Realms is basically the glue that holds reality together, connecting all the different universes there are. It also contains every afterlife that ever existed and will exist from every selfsame civilization."

Fuckin' finally, John thinks, finding his damn chalk. It goes on the table next to the pouch. What's left? At least one candle, but he doesn't have any on him. And…

"They're self-contained within the Realms," John continues. "It's not easy to, say, get out of Hell and into the Realms, though you technically could. The Realms itself… well. Do you believe in ghosts?"

Bats' eyebrow shoots up. It's more emotion than he usually shows; John pats himself on the back, mentally, for throwing the man off so severely.

"Ghosts. Like Deadman?"

John tips his free hand back and forth. "Eh. Not so much. Boston is… more of a shade than a ghost—though you wouldn't know the difference. Honestly, you don't need to. You don't see true ghosts out 'n about much. Our world isn't like the Realms, so it's… eh, uncomfortable, let's say, for most ghosts to be on the mortal plane for long."

There's his bloody switchblade. Really, he should have the thing more accessible. It goes on the table next to the pouch and the chalk. All he needs to do now is raid the kitchen… well, and draw the summoning circle.

"The King is a ghost," Bats deduces. 

"Yep," John says, standing. "Now, unless you want to help me pick out a treat for the King…?"

Batman leaves him to it.

The bounty from the kitchens is… not the best, but it's not the worst either. He even finds some alcohol that's a shout better than his own—if only barely—and includes that as well. Better to cover all his bases, he thought.

John takes a few to snag a cup of coffee and load it with far too much sugar for his taste. It's awful, but it gets the job done for now.

He stands up, hands on his hips, and cracks his back with a groan. He's getting too damn old to be hunched over the floor like this. Still, though, the summoning circle is done, the chalk already faintly glowing on the floor. 

John hadn't found a candle. He should've expected it, honestly, being on a spaceship and all that. He wasn't entirely screwed, but he'd have to give up a hand to hold his lighter the entire time.

Alright. That's… about everything.

At the very last second, though, just before he gets started with the rest of the ritual, Dr. Fate sweeps into the room. John's eyebrow rises. 

"Thought you were out 'n about on the 'front lines.'"

"Batman requested my aid in the summoning," Dr. Fate says curtly. It's always a toss-up if they're going to get more or less of Nabu's annoying arse every time the helmet gets put on. Evidently, it's more today.

Damn numpty.

"Here," John says brusquely, knocking on the table where the parchment lays. "Read it."

It takes another five minutes that they probably don't really have, but Dr. Fate eventually lifts his head.

John finally fishes out his flask again, deftly unscrews it, and takes a large gulp. The whiskey burns worse than the Doctor's glare. 

"Alright, I'm ready," Constantine says. "Let's do this thing, yeah?"

John stands next to Dr. Fate—not exactly shoulder to shoulder, but close enough.

Together, they start to chant.

The words are difficult, but John's well-versed enough in Mycenaean Greek (the oldest dead language that he knows) to not make any mistakes with it. Dr. Fate doesn't make any mistakes either, but John rather thinks that's unfair given the influence of bloody Nabu.

As their chanting reaches a peak, the temperature in the room starts to drop. The Watchtower is kept climate controlled, untouched by the sub-zero temperatures of space—it has to be from the accumulating power in the air.

Despite himself, John relaxes slightly.

He wasn't completely expecting this to work. There just simply weren't summoning rituals for the King of the Infinite Realms. John had to make something that maybe would work.

The chalk starts to glow more brightly, the bright white starting to limn with green. The scent of ozone and salt and rot starts to rise, along with a dampness that makes John think of thunderstorms over the winter sea back home.

Light pools within the writ circle. It's the same green, emanating from the very center and ringing outwards.

The air seems to thicken. 

When John exhales, he can see his breath.

Despite the raising of the little hairs on the back of his neck and the gooseflesh erupting up and down his arms, John soldiers on. The slightly lilting words in the old, dead language spills out of him, each word linking together and building the energy crackling through the air. Dr. Fate's voice rises along his own, their words twisting together.

The light within the circle seems to bend, almost, visually distorting the floor. It curves inwards, like a rock dropped on a sheet.

Space itself continues to distort as their chanting reaches a pitch, directly calling the King of Ghosts to the circle. Between one blink and the next, the food set around the circle vanishes.

The center of the circle, where the worst of the distortion is, darkens from that bright green to black.

And then, between one blink and the next, the temperature in the room plummets, as sudden as a the snap of a rubber band, and-

John takes a breath. At least the cold is bracing.

Floating there in thin air above the now not glowing circle is a figure. They look young, if only because of their smooth face, unmarred by any scars or wrinkles or even facial hair, though the sort of medieval, sort of Norse thing they've got going on with their dress makes up for that, giving them an imposing figure. Behind them, a large, black cape flutters through the air, the inside of it looking like they'd just ripped it from the sky themself. Their hair floats as well, like they're in a pool—no, like he's in a pool. Or outer space.

Atop his head is an icy crown, a black, metal rim transitioning to glinting blue ice spikes.

That's the King.

It bloody worked. Thank fuck.

John blows out a relieved breath. That's the first hurdle passed. All they need to do now is not insult the King and get him to help them. According to the information he'd dug up on the being, it wouldn't be overly hard—the King's a protection spirit. He flicks his lighter closed, avoiding touching the hot metal as he tucks it back into his pocket.

Just as John goes to open his mouth, though, Dr. Fate steps forward.

"The Ring of Peace—the Crown of Ice! Vestments of the High King of the Infinite Realms! Only the king themself, a being of such great power so as to be called a god could wield them!" 

Bloody hell.

The King levels a droll stare at the helmeted idiot, lounging atop thin air.

"Oh, really? Who would have thought?" The King says, sarcasm so biting it would put King Shark to shame. "What gave it away—the whole dead thing or the whole 'I'm actively wearing both' thing?"

"You are but a child," Dr. Fate sneers.

Mentally, John starts to write his eulogy. The chap had a good run, really, but antagonizing the God-King of an infinitely vast dimension linking all others together was not a great idea, even when one was a powerful, ancient being himself.

Plus, he keeps digging.

"Constantine, you must have bungled the ritual somehow. There is no way that this child is the King of All Ghosts!"

John raises his brows as Dr. Fate rounds on him next. Asshat. Don't bring me into this!

"I know not what reproductions this child uses, but-!"

A sigh cuts him off, cold and rattling like the winter wind through dead branches.

"I'm tired of this."

The King snaps his fingers; a spark, closer to star than ember, leaps from his ring. It zips around the summoning circle once, twice, thrice—before the circle enclosing him shatters in a wave of ice and death.

"Apologies for 'im, your Highness," John says, voice not shaking only due to a mixture of the tenth of whiskey he'd downed before coming into this godforsaken situation and the delirium of sleep deprivation. "He's a bit... uptight."

"Uptight?!" Dr. Fate rounds on him, faint crackling at his fingertips. He reaches up and—then... he's gone. Poofed away.

John keeps his mouth shut about it, though, unlike Dr. Fate, because, unlike Dr. Fate, he has two goddamn brain cells to rub together.

"Now that that one is out of the way," the Ghost King says, directing his unearthly attention directly onto John himself, "What did you summon me here for, mortal?"

Bright glowing green eyes peer out at him from under almost translucent long white eyelashes.

Down, boy, he scolds himself. Appreciate his aesthetics later.

"I want to petition for aid on behalf of my organization, Your Highness," John says as polite as anything, seeing as the King's circle is now broken and if he pisses the King off he can kiss his life, afterlife, and any potential reincarnation for the next millennia goodbye, even with owing his soul to altogether too many entities. "The Justice League."

"The Justice League," the King repeats. "For a moment there, I was worried it was another cult again."

John can't help the way that his eyebrows shoot upwards. "D'you get summoned by a lot of cults? Uh, Your Highness," he tacks on at the end.

The King waves one gloved hand, ring glinting in his starlight. "Drop the titles. Just call me Phantom. It's easier that way." He—Phantom—shifts midair again, draping one long leg over the other, crossed at the knee. Whatever material that is underneath the leather clings tightly to his skin, showing the definition of his legs quite well.

Hellfire. Damnation. Nuns in bathing suits. Shit—evil nuns in bathing suits. SHIT. Keep your mind out of the gutter, John!

"But to answer your question, yes," Phantom nods. "Not so much in this universe, thankfully. Now, your petition, magician?"

"I would beg your aid—Phantom." Nearly slipped up there. He needs to keep it together. "A powerful force is approaching Earth at this moment and it's out of our league."

Phantom snorts slightly, the corner of his mouth lifting up. "Apologies. Continue, Hellblazer."

"The enemy's more magic than man, and us in the League that deals with magic can't stack up. Its arrival to Earth will be disastrous."

Alright, so far, so good. He's not sure what Phantom found funny about what he'd said, but he'd bloody well take it. Better to make the God-King of an entire dimension laugh than to piss him off, right?

"So, Phantom, King of Ghosts and the Hereafter—I'll ask you formally. Will you lend your aid to the Justice League in order to defeat the entity heading towards our solar system?"

"Well, John Constantine, Hellblazer, Laughing Magician... I will, in return for one favor." Phantom preemptively holds a finger up. "One, singular. It will not usurp your consciousness or will, nor will it harm your person, mind, or soul. It will not go against your morals, and it will not go against the laws in the land that you live in. Do you accept?"

Well, shit. For a deal—a Deal, capital D and with emphasis—it's... almost tame. Phantom set so many conditions for it already and while there's probably a shit ton of loopholes that John's not thinking about, whatever favor that he calls... shouldn't honestly be too bad.

John straightens up. "I accept."

Phantom reaches out one gloved hand. Stifling a sigh, John steps forward, crossing into the circle, and takes the King's hand to shake.

Between one blink and the next, John's somewhere else.

Stars stretch across the horizon, tinted with green. He's standing on solid ground, but—he looks down and vertigo nails him, seeing nothing but blackness speckled with more green-tinted stars.

"Bloody hell," he mutters, swallowing harshly.

The green tint... now that he's looking for it, it's under his feet too, stretching down as well. It curves up... is he encased in some sort of bubble?

Well, by the way he's not actively dying in the void of space, he'd assume yes. Which is nice of the King, he guesses, aside from the fact that he wasn't expecting to be in the literal bloody fucking void of space.

"Apologies for the… rough handling."

John whips around. The King is floating right outside of the bubble, eyes glowing that same vibrant green as the summoning circle did. 

"I figured that you'd appreciate a front row seat of me upholding my end of our deal," Phantom says, a smile on his face. It shows just a hint of fang, which, honestly, really shouldn't be as attractive as it is. "Try not to look too much, though. My power should shield you from the worst of it, but, well—you know how it is with-" 

The sentence ends with what John can reasonably assume is a word, though it sounds more like a guttural choking, hissing gurgle that no human mouth and throat could ever produce. 

"Ah, yeah," John says, trying for nonchalant. If he's got the context clues down, he's pretty sure Phantom is just referring to the Great Old One.

That's probably not the thing's real name, though. Phantom would probably know better than him the proper name for the eldritch horrors that haunt the far reaches of existence.

"Well, sit tight, then, and watch for the light show." Phantom's smile sharpens into a mischievous grin and John's left alone in his little green-tinted bubble, mouthing the words ' light show? ' to himself.

He squints, trying to pick out anything different in the stars and overwhelming black.

It takes a few moments before he sees it.

Well—he doesn't see it, really. 

His mouth is suddenly very dry as he realizes that stars are disappearing in the distance, blackness growing across the horizon like a spot of spilled ink. Stars flicker and die out with every second.

Just how big is the damn thing? John thinks, a bit hysterically. No bloody wonder they couldn't do anything to the thing. He's not the best at maths for sure, but even just sparing a few seconds to think about just how big the blank spot is versus how far away it must still be causes a reflexive cold sweat to break out on his forehead.

Despite himself, doubt starts to creep in. How in the hell is Phantom supposed to deal with something like that? He'd broken John's circle with no effort at all and was surely bloody strong being the King of the Infinite Realms, but this thing…

Off in the distance, a spark of green lights up against the blackness.

Phantom.

The edges of the blackness start to waver like the fog in the morning sun, but sharper. A headache blooms above John's right eye and he yanks his gaze down towards his feet.

Right. Fuck. Eldritch super-being outside of human comprehension, destroyer of minds and sanity.

The racist fuck at least got that one right.

It takes the throbbing a few minutes, as best he can tell, to abate. When it does, he sneaks a glance up. 

The pinprick of green has grown substantially larger, part of that void-like mass covered with a pulsing riot of colors, green and blue and white and purple and yellow and red writhing in the face of the darkness. Bursts of green speckle the void that covers the stars, almost replacing them.

The riot of color continues to grow, wisping out and undulating almost like the aurora borealis. 

It's… beautiful, actually.

The sharp, wavering edges of the Old One starts to recede, just slightly.

"Holy shit," John mutters. "He's actually doing it."

He winces again, the headache reappearing. Shit. He has to make eye contact with his shoes about three more times before it's over.

When he looks up that third time, the majority of the horizon is once again speckled with stars.

"Holy shit."

John checks his watch—it's still working, surprisingly. It also shows it's been just over an hour since he'd started the summoning. 

Phantom had handed the thing its arse in about forty five minutes flat, then. The incomprehensible and incomprehensibly large, sanity destroying, primordial force from the far reaches of existence.

Ohhh, no. He could destroy me with a twitch of his little toe. Christ, that's hot.

John's not afforded much time to think about that, however, because Phantom pops into existence in front of him. 

In the bubble.

Right in front of his face.

"There," Phantom grins. "All done."

"You sure are, mate," John manages to say. What the hell else can he say, really? It'd be disrespectful to cast doubts on the being by insinuating that John hadn't thought he could beat the damn thing. John wants to be respectful—cross his heart, really. He swears. 

"Well, then," Phantom says. "Let's get you back to that space station, then."

He extends his hand to John once more.

"The same room works, but, er…" John trails off, bringing his hand up. "The big guys are going to want to meet you. One of 'em's real paranoid, so he won't take my word for it."

"Not a problem," Phantom shrugs. "I've got nothing better to do."

That sounds like a lie, but John doesn't know enough about the Infinite Realms to dispute it. Still, though, he takes Phantom's hand.

Just like before, he's changed locations in a literal blink, all without any sensation to suggest that he actually moved anywhere.

"So, those leaders of yours that you mentioned…" Phantom trails off. 

"Ah, yeah." John grimaces, but starts to move. Bats ain't gonna be happy about him going ahead with anything without his permission, but, well—fuck 'im. He got the job done and he didn't even sell his soul (again) for it.

He holds the door for Phantom, which the King seems to find amusing; he gives John a nod as he floats through all the same.

"Only one of the big guys will still be here—the rest are off-planet, helping to monitor the threat that you just took out for us," John says. He's not sure how much of a heads up he needs to give the King about Batman. 

The King can handle himself against John's grumpy coworker, no sweat. And Batman should be polite enough to the literal interdimensional royalty, so—that's his bases covered, right?

"I know some things about this universe," Phantom says. "If I remember correctly… it's most likely Gotham's Knight waiting for me, correct?"

John blinks. "That would be correct."

Phantom hums, sounding pleased. "Also, before I leave, might I meet with your... what was it, speedsters? I've got a message for them."

That's ominous. John's very glad that he isn't affiliated with any of the Flash brood.

"Of course," John says. What's he going to say? 'No?' As if.

John very confidently walks into the madhouse that is the main meeting room, transformed into a mission control. Several of the Bat brood sit at monitors, furiously typing away. Tall, Dark, and Spooky himself is hunched over at the main computer, several probably empty coffee mugs surrounding him. 

"Hey, Bats," John calls. 

Disappointingly, very few of the people in the room actually turn to look at him. The littlest Bat does, at least, and very gratifyingly goes stock still at the sight of the King floating beside him.

"Constantine," Batman responds, sounding even more like he'd gargled a cup of gravel. Jesus, someone has to make that man go to sleep, even if it's through blunt force trauma. "Report."

John rolls his eyes. "Bats, I'd like to introduce someone to you."

That gets him to pause. Slowly, he turns around to face John, as do a few of the other assorted Bats in the room.

He's not entirely sure where the gasp comes from, but John can definitely relate. 

"Batman, assorted Batchildren, may I present to you the High King of the Infinite Realms?" That tone is probably much too self-satisfied, but John can't really bring himself to care. He made the Batman break composure.

Bats blinks several times, rapidly, before he straightens up. "Your Majesty."

Phantom sighs a little, but doesn't correct him.

"Well met, heroes of Earth," Phantom says.

"Did Constantine explain the situation to you, Your Majesty?" 

Phantom inclines his head, all properly regal. "He did indeed. And I have delivered. I understand if you need a few minutes to receive the transmissions from whomever it is that is nearer to the Anomaly. It is a long way for information to travel."

For the second time in the last few minutes, Batman looks shocked. Or, well, about as shocked as a block of stone like him can look. 

Score.

"May I-" he clears his throat, reducing the gravel by about five percent. "May I ask what your deal pertained to?"

"Of course," Phantom says. "All John Constantine owes me is one favor. It will not be something that will harm him or be something he morally objects to, nor will it be something that violates the law in the land that he lives in."

John swears that he sees Bats' eye twitch, but he's not entirely sure.

"Not his soul?"

"Hey," John protests.

Phantom just laughs a little. "What soul does he have left to sell?"

Well, okay. Ouch. Very true but still.

To add insult to injury, some of Bats' crotch goblins snicker at that.

"May I ask what you have in mind for your favor, Your Majesty?" Bats pulls the conversation back 'round with ease, very effectively cutting through his brats' mirth.

Phantom hums. It lilts into something unearthly, raising the little hairs on the back of John's neck and arms.

"I had something in mind," he hedges, a small smile on his face. He turns to John.

Well, this is it.

"I haven't had the pleasure of interacting with this dimension much at all," he says. "I would like to remedy that. I would ask for you, John Constantine, to, for one week, host me and show me around this Earth."

John blinks. That's… rather reasonable. "So you want me to play tour guide for a week? S-"

"Host?" Batman interrupts.

Christ Almighty. John has a half a mind to start praying that a second idiot doesn't stick their entire foot in their mouth. He's not even sure where the Doctor ended up.

…he should probably follow up on that one, but he doesn't really want to.

Phantom tilts his head. "Host," he repeats. Then, his expression morphs into one of understanding, a sharp smile rising on his face. "Ah. No, not in the way that you would imagine. A mundane host, Knight of Gotham. I am not so weak that I would have to reside inside of him for the duration of the favor."

Reside inside, now that sounds-

John has to resist the urge to slap himself upside the head.

Bats almost looks constipated at that, face tightening.

"But I understand," Phantom continues before he can say anything. "You were simply worried for his well-being. I take no offense."

Batman dips his head in a stiff nod. "Yes. Apologies."

"So!" Phantom claps his hands together, the sound muffled slightly by his gloves. "Would this be acceptable?"

John shrugs when all eyes turn to him. "Sure. My schedule's open."

Bats, on the other hand, looks slightly pained. Oh, John can imagine how little he likes the idea of an unknown, super-powerful being given the run of the Earth.

"I have a few conditions," Bats finally says. "I would ask that you do not come to Gotham. Gotham is difficult enough to handle without metahumans and magic added into the mix."

Phantom's lips purse into a frown, plush lower lip jutting slightly out. John's heart skips a beat.

The King is pouting.

And it's… adorable? He didn't really think that 'adorable' would ever be a descriptor for the bloody King of the Hereafter, but here he is, thinking it—and, more to the point, meaning it. 

Phantom deflates slightly. "I'll stay out of the bounds of the city for the duration of the favor," he says.

John can't see Bats' eyes narrowing underneath his cowl, but he can almost tangibly feel the disapproval at the wording of Phantom's promise.

Thankfully, he doesn't push the matter.

"Anything else?" Phantom asks.

Bats nods. "Stay with Constantine for the duration of your stay."

"Well, it seems that your famed paranoia wasn't exaggerated," Phantom says brightly. "Would you prefer it if I gave you a blanket promise that I will not do anything untoward to anyone undeserving?"

Again, Phantom leaves quite a big loophole for himself. And again, Bats doesn't seem happy, but nods. 

"I promise that I will not do anything untoward to anyone undeserving," he repeats. "I reserve the right to defend myself if need be, but I will not needlessly interfere in any situations that may arise without express permission."

Phantom cocks his head at Bats in a clear 'are you happy, now?' 

Bats finally nods. He still doesn't seem happy with it, but they all know that it's the best they're getting. And honestly, John thinks that they all got off pretty damned light. Really, John's the one getting the short end of the stick, being stuck with playing a tour guide for an entire week.

Not, of course, that he won't enjoy being in Phantom's general vicinity for so long, but a deal is a deal. John's only there to be a tour guide, no hanky-panky allowed. Unfortunately.

"Perfect!" He turns to John. "Could we start with a tour of this place?" He glances at Bats. "Anything that's not sensitive, I promise."

"Fine," Bats says, a muscle jumping in his jaw. He turns back to his computer; a clear dismissal.

Phantom follows John out of the room with a pep in his… well. Not step, since the King is floating, but he seems happy enough about the outcome of their talk.

"So…" John starts. "As far as the Watchtower goes… honestly, there's not too much to see. We've got the canteen, various training rooms, uh…" Really, he'd never think not spending a lot of time up here was ever going to be an issue. "The observation deck?"

"An observation deck?" Phantom asks.

John nods. "It's around here… somewhere."

Honestly, there were probably better people for the job of 'tour guide to the King of the Dead and Undying' but he wanted John specifically for some reason. There's no reason why Phantom couldn't have used his favor to get John to get somebody else to do it and yet, here he is.

Thankfully, it's not too difficult to find the thing. It's bloody huge, after all. The walls are mostly glass, just reinforced at key points with metal. Beyond the glass, stars sparkle in the distance, twinkling against the black void of space.

"Oh, Ancients," Phantom breathes, floating up to the glass. "This is really cool."

"Weren't you in space earlier?" John asks before he can think better of it.

"Well, yeah, but this is different!" Phantom turns to grin at him. His cheeks are speckled with little glowing dots—almost like freckles. But, hang on… Are those constellations on his cheeks? "It's so cool how far technology has advanced compared to other dimensions! The Watchtower is much more advanced than the ISS, not to mention the near-instantaneous travel between not only two points on the Earth, but between Earth and space."

"So… you like space?" Mentally, John smacks himself. No shit, Sherlock.

Phantom smiles, but it's slightly tinged with melancholy. "I love space. It used to be my dream to be an astronaut. I was in all the junior flight camps that I could and even learned a couple of languages common amongst astronauts. I built models, I had star charts plastered up around my room, had these huge textbooks about space and different phenomena and space related sciences…" He trails off, looking at the stars much more wistfully this time. "So being here in a permanent installation in space is… really cool."

John swallows. "...what happened?" He asks. Why didn't you become an astronaut? He can't quite guess Phantom's age just by his face, but surely the man wouldn't just give up on his ambitions out of the blue.

"Ah…" He looks at John. "I died. Couldn't pass the physical like that, y'know?"

"I'm sorry," John says quietly. It's hardly enough in the face of that, even if he did present it light-heartedly.

Phantom just waves it off, though. "It was a long time ago. Besides, I've done much cooler stuff since then. And, since I am dead, I can go out into space whenever I want."

John can't quite stop his snort. "That's one way of looking at it. Fair, though, I guess."

"But really, I've had long enough to get over it," Phantom continues, his tone more soft and a small smile on his face to match. "Anyway," he says, tone returning to something more energetic and upbeat, "Do you know where the assorted Flashes are?"

Oh, bugger. He'd half hoped that Phantom would forget about it.

"Eh, not sure," he hedges. "Those blokes can be halfway around the world in the time it takes for you to blink." He may be exaggerating just a little, but that's neither here nor there.

"Is there anyone who might know where they are, or could call one of them?"

He's really not going to drop this, is he?

"I might be able to get ahold of 'im," John says. Really, he's done all he can at this point. Flash's a grown man—he can sort out whatever bullshit he's gotten into with the Ghost King-slash-ghosts in general somehow. "One mo'," he says, rifling through his pockets.

Sure, he keeps the damn JL communicator on him, but that doesn't mean jack. He barely uses the damn thing. Most members needing his services just ring him, usually. Or pop in herself, if it's Zatanna.

"There we go," he says a bit triumphantly, yanking the thing out of his pocket. Now… how does he work the damn thing again?

With a bit of fumbling, he gets Flash on the line.

"Constantine?" Flash picks up, sounding confused. "You have a communicator?"

John snorts. "Yeah, I just never use the damn thing. Anyway, I need you up at the Watchtower. It… should be quick-" hopefully. "I'm at the observation deck."

"Sure, I guess?" Flash still sounds confused, but John can hear rustling on the line. "Oh, did you need help with something for the… whatchamacallit? Space thingie?"

"Nah—well, technically yeah, I guess," John says.

Phantom is grinning. Widely. So widely that all his teeth are on show, especially his fangs.

The fact that it's ominous as all hell only makes him more attractive, somehow.

"Huh?" The word echoes—once over the line, and the other in person as Flash skids to a stop in front of him and Phantom. John shuts the communicator. "Alright, what did you need?"

"Flash," John says, "Meet the Ghost King."

Flash's eyes just about bug out of his head. "Ghost? Ghosts aren't real."

Ah. Fuck. He'd forgotten. Flash was a skeptic. A hardcore man of science. But Phantom doesn't seem to take offense, thank God.

No. Phantom just smiles.

"I am. And we are. And you, sir," Phantom says, stepping forward, grin growing even wider as he sticks his hand into his chest, "Are being served."

Out of his chest, he pulls out a bright, neon green manila folder and hands it to a very dumbfounded looking Flash, who takes it without really seeming to realize that he has.

"Wha…?" He looks from the folder to Phantom and back again, blinking. "For what?"

"Time's Steward is very unhappy with your misuse of your powers derived from them," Phantom says, very matter of fact. "Too much meddling with the timestream, they said. You and the others have caused quite a lot of work for them and they're… aggrieved. So they're grieving you!"

John really doesn't want to get into all that.

"Anyway, please refer to the steps in the folder," Phantom continues. "I'm really just the messenger here. Have a nice day!"

With that, Phantom starts to float off. John follows quickly behind, not wanting to get drawn up into Flash's visible and audible crisis.

"Ahh, man," Phantom sighs. "You know how long I've had that folder? CW's gonna be happy that I finally dropped that thing off."

John… is starting to have a sinking feeling that 'tour guide' might not be the most applicable title for his job this week.

"D'you have any more, uh… errands like that to do?" John asks.

"Hm?" Phantom glances at him, slowing down slightly. "A few. Like I said, this dimension doesn't have a lot of contact with the Infinite Realms and Realms ghosts. There aren't too many issues that crop up that need me to handle them directly. However, too many doesn't necessarily mean none."

Phantom comes to a dead stop in the hallway, clapping his hands together.

"How about this? I knock out anything that I do need to do ASAP so that the rest of the week can be a vacation. Then both you and I don't need to worry about stuff."

John blinks. "Sure?"

"Perfect!" Phantom smiles. It lights up his face, making him look lighter and brighter than he is already, the mostly-dead constellation freckles glowing brighter for a beat. "Let's get going, then!"

What, already?

Without pause, Phantom lifts one gloved hand into the air. He watches as Phantom's hand morphs slightly, the tip of his finger lengthening and sharpening into a wickedly sharp looking claw, one that he hooks into thin air and drags downwards.

A thin, dark line follows the path of his claw, a gash ripped through the air itself. It widens as he tugs his claw further downwards, the edges starting to shimmer that violently neon green as the rip unfurls further and further from that original thin line.

The shimmering green swirls out to fill the void being carved through the air. Eventually, it's large enough for someone to step through.

"Where's this to?" John asks, quite understandably hesitant, he thinks. Sure, Phantom can hold his own and he did say that his favor wouldn't end up harming John, but still.

"This is 'to' a favor for Death," Phantom says easily. "She's not very happy that someone is cheating her with the use of a Realms by-product."

Y'know what? Sure, whatever. Fine. John nods, but lets Phantom step through first.

Chapter Text

They step out into what looks like a cavern, ominously lit from below by something that John can't quite see yet. The air is musty and dank and a touch sulfurous, but also with a slight zing of ozone.

John watches as Phantom floats up and over the edge of the overhang, the light spilling up to light him from below. It paints him with stark shadows, features and accoutrement sharpening and becoming all the more ominous. 

He walks forward, careful of the edge, to finally get a look at what's below. 

"...what is that?" John asks.

"You're familiar with the concept of ley lines, I would assume," Phantom says. John nods. Obviously. "Certain magical workings require you to tap into ley lines because the power needed is often greater than what one mage can muster. Right?"

"Right," John says. "'Specially if you're at a crossing, twice or thrice over."

"Right," Phantom nods. "Earthly power isn't the only thing that collects at these crossings."

He drifts downwards just a tad and the pool of green below him ripples, roiling slightly around the edges. Unease starts to build up in the back of John's mind. Whatever the hell this is just feels wrong.

"Ectoplasm from the Realms can accumulate, seeping through thin spots between it and certain planes," he continues. "Usually, it eventually disperses. Ectoplasm doesn't persist for long without something holding it together. You see it in ghosts," he says, waving a hand at himself, "Where emotions and desires bind power together into something tangible, crystallizing to a single point. You also see it in the Realms themselves, though the logistics of that is kinda too complicated to really get into right now. Another way is when it's meddled with somehow."

Phantom reaches a hand out, palm facing down towards the pool below him. His fingers are slightly splayed, long and almost grasping downwards.

"These have festered for far too long," he says. His eyes start to glow even more brightly. "So many corpses… so much resentment, anger, fear…"

The surface of the pit starts to roil more violently, bubbling and spitting like a pot of boiling water.

Something moves underneath the surface, a darker shadow amidst the boiling.

Droplets of the liquid start to leech upwards, almost as if Phantom is claiming the parts that dare reach for him. 

The dark shadow deepens, clarifies—and then a hand breaks the surface of the pool, large and clawed. Its skin is green, John notes faintly as more muscled arm emerges from the roiling liquid.

Phantom doesn't react at all to the thing rising from the depths of the pool.

"A neverborn, huh? Or something like them," Phantom murmurs, almost too quiet for John to hear over the bubbling liquid. "Born from this… not properly, at least."

It hauls itself further up into thin air. John sees golden horns on the thing as its head breaches the surface, followed by wordless screeching. He cringes, fighting the urge to reach up and cover his ears.

When it starts to rise into the air faster, that large hand looming below Phantom, John starts to get a little worried, despite himself. He just saw Phantom take out the massive thing in space, but he can't help it.

He really shouldn't have worried.

Before it can even rise halfway, howling all the while, green light starts to coalesce in Phantom's outstretched palm. The glow from it starts to drown out the ominous underlighting from the pool as it grows in his hand, the shadows on Phantom's body shifting.

Then, without warning, Phantom lets loose. 

The light crashes down onto the thing in a beam, the force pushing the creature back down into the pool. The liquid parts from the harsh impact, the sizzle of the pure power against its skin drowned out amidst the clap of flesh on fluid and fluid on stone as it cannonballs back from whence it came. 

The beam from his hand becomes more of a trickle as the concave surface starts to accumulate back together, the edges rushing towards each other until they meet and spray upwards like a wave at high tide.

Then, Phantom tugs his hand slightly up, fingers curling in to grasp towards the surface of the pool. He catches the spray, almost. At first, little droplets float upwards towards him, separating from the rest of the liquid in fits and starts—then it starts to come faster, the clumps larger, until there's a steady stream of liquid being hoovered up into Phantom's palm.

Not everything is being sucked up, though. Bits and pieces are being left behind, mostly darker sludge-y-er bits.

The golden horned creature is nowhere to be seen. Did Phantom kill it?

After what seems like an eternity but is probably only somewhere around ten minutes, the deluge slows, petering out, and eventually stops.

"Hmm…" Phantom peers down at the pit. It's a lot deeper than John originally thought. "Ew. That's gross."

The black sludge on the bottom is mostly collected up towards the middle, bits and pieces split off the pile. He can barely see it at this point, honestly. All of the light in the cavern is now directly coming from Phantom.

John startles at an unexpected flash of light; wincing slightly, he looks to Phantom—and then away from Phantom as the man chucks the handful of green fire down into the now-empty pit where it hits the pile of sludge.

"Oh. It's probably best that you don't breathe this in," Phantom says. With a wave of his hand, a green bubble sprouts up around John again, just like earlier. "This stuff probably puts off some nasty carcinogens."

Below him, the sludge hisses and spits as the unearthly green fire eats away at it. 

"There are other spots where this stuff has pooled, but going to each and every individual pool would take quite a while." Phantom frowns, looking down into the pit. "And I really want to be able to get my vacation."

Below, the sludge pile in the middle has mostly been burnt away. The flames start to lick outwards from the center, dancing tendrils leaping to gobble up the tainted ground.

"I wonder…" Phantom trails off as he starts to float downwards. "This is still a ley line crossing. If I…" he trails off again but John can see his mouth moving as he mumbles inaudibly to himself. "Well, no time like the present."

Phantom touches down at the bottom of the pit, fire ringing him as it continues to race outwards. John shuffles forward in his bubble to see just a bit better.

He wouldn't admit it out loud, but this is all fascinating. John's well-versed in magic and he can get shit done—if not extremely well or prettily, sometimes—but Phantom is on another level. Honestly, he's not even really sure if what Phantom's doing is magic or if it's just some intrinsic ghost thing, but John can still learn from it, he thinks.

Phantom takes a seat on the recently-scorched ground, crossing his legs tailor style.

For a few minutes, he just sits like that, shoulders slightly slumped and rounded over. Around the edges of the pit, the green fire burns itself out with nothing else to consume.

Then, the ground rumbles.

John's instantly on edge because really, what the fuck? Phantom doesn't startle, though. He just keeps sitting there as relaxed as can be. The fact that Phantom's not worried does help somewhat, though, and John relaxes.

…just in time to tense back up again because of the absolute deluge of liquid erupting from the ground all around Phantom. It surges up, quickly covering the man from John's view.

The green bubble of Phantom's power around him doesn't falter. If Phantom was actually in danger, that would probably fall.

The pit starts to refill and even climb higher than before, but it never overflows. Every time it threatens to, the level of liquid decreases. This cycle repeats for quite a while (John checks his watch—something like twenty minutes, actually) but eventually, the level starts to just decrease.

It falls enough to reveal Phantom in the middle of it, untouched by the liquid and surrounded by piles upon piles of sludge, a disgruntled expression on his face.

"Ewwww," he whines. "Why is there so much of this stuff? What the hell? How did nobody catch the sheer amount of ectoplasm leaking out? Someone's so getting fired. Or hired, if there isn't anyone making sure stuff like this doesn't happen."

John snorts. Phantom's disgruntled face looks like a kitten that's just abruptly been woken up from a nap.

Phantom rises into the air once more and tosses another handful of fire down, thicker and brighter to eat the sludge.

"Alright, everything should be good now and Death should get her due soon enough," Phantom says, hands going to his hips. He tilts forward slightly to peer down at the impromptu bonfire. "Honestly, I'm doing whoever it is a favor. Death would be more a mercy than life granted by this… stuff."

The way he spits out the last word makes it clear that he really wants to use stronger language to describe the stuff but doesn't.

Phantom cursing… his mind drifts a little, imagining it. Shit. I think that he'd actually kill me.

Not the time, he has to sternly remind himself. Lordy, he's got it bad, doesn't he?

"Anythin' else you've got to do?" John asks. 

Phantom rocks back in the air, humming. "Honestly… I don't think so? At least nothing that I have to do right now."

"Brill," John says. "Any idea where you want to kick off your… vacation?"

"No idea!" Phantom says brightly. "What do you recommend?"

Well, shit. 

"Well," he starts, "You've got the classics like Metropolis and such—though not Gotham, since the Big Bat's been clear about that one… er… or more, uh, exotic spots like Atlantis or Themyscira. Though I'd probably have to ring Aquaman or Wonder Woman for permission. They'd probably let you visit, though. Interdimensional dignitary and all that."

Phantom floats down towards him, looking thoughtful. In the pit, the fire still burns.

"Metropolis… that's the city that Superman protects, right?" John nods. "Let's start there, then."

Thank fuck. A softball—even more so since Big Blue won't be back for a bit, being off-planet to try to beat back the Great Old One, even nominally.

John startles slightly when the bubble disappears. The air smells slightly smoky, the sulfurous smell much more pronounced now. The underlying ozone from earlier is completely gone.

"Though I probably shouldn't go like this," Phantom says, casting a glance down at himself. "I'd probably freak out a bunch of civilians."

"A bit," John agrees. Usually, a glowing, armor-wearing stranger with white hair would spell disaster in any city overseen by a hero.

Phantom cracks a grin at him at that and touches down. His face creases in concentration and the glow coming from him dims, leaving the two of them in an almost pitch black cave. The only light comes from a much more muted glow from Phantom's eyes. 

His clothing shimmers and in a slightly blinding flash, transforms into a pair of jeans and a button down shirt. 

"Is that normal enough?" Phantom asks him, turning around to show it off. The fabric still clings to him, as best John can see. The sleeves of his black button down shirt start to roll themselves up, showing off his wiry forearms, muscles shifting and bunching under his skin as he tugs at the hem of said shirt.

John clears his throat. "I'd say so, mate." 

Considering that John's wearing something arguably more formal he doesn't have much of a leg to stand on, but even then, he wouldn't argue.

Phantom grins, obviously pleased.

What does it say about John that he can instinctively stuff down his emotions about all that? He'd never get fully used to Phantom—he bloody hopes not, at least—but he could at least control himself a bit better now.

Just a bit.

"Is the white hair too noticeable?" Phantom asks.

"Ehhh… a bit," John echoes. "You don't look old enough to have a full head of white hair."

"Why, thank you! I do try," Phantom grins. "Is it my slim figure or my youthful exuberance?" He strikes a slight pose to go along with his joking tone, tilting his head and fluttering his eyelashes down at John.

John clears his throat again. "No comment."

"Aww, you're no fun," Phantom pouts.

Is this what a heart attack feels like? Jesus fucking Christ on a cracker.

Darkness leeches through Phantom's hair, starting at the crown of his head and bleeding down to the tips. In the half-light from his eyes, John can't tell exactly how dark his hair gets, but it's a lot less noticeable than the blinding, unearthly white it was earlier.

"Shall we?" Phantom asks, raising a hand again.

John nods. If he doesn't have to whip up a portal himself, he's happy for it. They're dead useful but so bloody exhausting. 

Stepping through, John's greeted with the oh-so wonderful sights and smells of a back alley.

"The hotel's around the corner," Phantom says.

In proper lighting, John can see that his hair is more black than grey, though it looks sort of washed out. His complexion is healthier, more alive, though he's still very pale.

All in all, a passable human disguise if John's ever seen one.

"Hotel?" John questions belatedly, hardly having noticed that he'd started to follow Phantom out of the alley. 

"Well, you do need to sleep at some point, don't you?" Phantom asks. "Besides, it's a nice base of operations to be able to come back to."

John can't argue with that.

The hotel that Phantom walks them into is very nice, upscale and polished and altogether somewhere that John would never stay on his own dime.

Ah, shit. Is it his dime? Does Phantom have currency for this dimension?

"Hello, there," Phantom greets the attendant. "I have a reservation under Prince."

John's brow ticks up at that. Is it accidental or on purpose that he's sharing a pseudonym with the Amazon?

"For Prince," the attendant repeats, clicking away at their keyboard. "I see it right here, sir. If you have any luggage…" they trail off, glancing up. "Anyway, here are your keycards. You're in room 1001."

"Thank you," Phantom nods, taking the keycards. 

He hands one to John as they head for the elevators. 

"Here," he murmurs, stepping back to fall behind John. "You do it. I don't want to accidentally fry anything."

So John fumbles his way through getting the both of them up to their floor—the damn penthouse . No—the damn penthouse suite. The set of rooms that's behind the door is altogether too large and sprawling. There's a damn sitting room before they get to the bedroom, which is larger than the entire flat he had before he came into possession of the Mystery House.

He doesn't know whether to be disappointed or not that there are two perfectly good beds in the room, separated by a little half wall for the barest bit of privacy. It's probably better for his heart, at least.

When he comes out of the bedroom, he sees Phantom perched on the arm of one of the couches, flipping through a gaudily colored, shiny pamphlet.

"Find anything interesting?" John asks. 

Phantom hums. "Evidently there's a boardwalk on the bay that a lot of tourists go to. The Daily Planet does tours… oh?" Phantom perks up. "There's an extraterrestrial museum! Ooh, it's named after Jules Verne… I wonder if the guy from this dimension is similar to the one that I know from mine."

"He wrote a couple books," John offers. "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea?" That's the only one he knows off the top of his head, vaguely remembering it from his school days.

"So a little different, but not entirely," Phantom nods. "Let's go there first. Afterwards, we can get something to eat. Do you need a warmer coat?"

John blinks at the sudden change in topic. "Nah, I'm warm enough in mine," he says. "'Sides, it's hardly late enough in the year for me to be bundling up."

It's barely October at the moment, so the nights are cooler but not too cold yet.

At least the favor's only for a week, John realizes. If it was any longer, they'd be running up against Halloween with the Ghost King. John can't imagine that going over well with Bats.

The two of them end up walking over like regular tourists. It's not too far from their hotel, thankfully.

John works with a good measure of the extraterrestrials that are shown in the museum, so he ends up tuning out a lot of the guided tour. What he does do, however, is watch Phantom.

He's got the same shine to him that he did when he was on the Watchtower's observation deck, staring out over the endless void. Not literally—well, not too much literally. His eyes glow just a little in the darkness of certain exhibits, but they're in such a large group that John's pretty sure no one notices. But more to the point, his entire… everything lightens, figuratively. If John didn't know what the man looked like when he was actually floating through the air, he'd say that Phantom was about to go and bob away.

John finds himself missing the fangs in Phantom's grin, even if the man's smiling more widely than he'd ever shown before.

"I forgot that there were actual real-life aliens in the Justice League roster," Phantom leans down just slightly to murmur into John's ear. "Do you think either of them would be happy to hear about their kin in the afterlife?"

"Uh…" John decides to answer honestly. "I'm not sure. I can't really call myself close with any of 'em."

Phantom hums, straightening up.

When they finally leave the museum, the sun is low on the horizon. The red-orange glow of the sunset lights the world on fire, glass and metal catching the sun's dying rays.

"So, where'd you want to eat?" John asks as Phantom lulls into silence, his poetic waxing on aliens finally dying out.

Don't get him wrong—it was fun to watch Phantom get excited about something that John thought was normal and took for granted. He just couldn't understand half of the science-y stuff that the man's rant had devolved (evolved?) into.

"We could hit up the boardwalk," Phantom suggests. "I haven't tried a lot of seafood before."

Belatedly, John realizes that he never asked if Phantom could actually eat. He's rather glad to know that he hadn't stuck his foot in his mouth.

"That's fine with me," John says. "Just warnin' ya, though, it'll probably be a fair bit overpriced."

Phantom just shrugs. "My treasury is flourishing and the exchange rate is surprisingly good."

Yeah, John doesn't want to get into that right now.

"Alright, then."

The boardwalk is a bit of a longer walk, but John doesn't mind. The sun sets as they arrive, the last bits of light from the sun dying out and leaving only the artificial lights from the various shops and the streetlamps to light the area.

Phantom picks out the restaurant—a little hole in the wall looking place with a line out the door. The fare's pretty simple, and actually not too horrendously priced.

"So…" John says into the silence between them, voice almost drowned out by the live music just a few feet away. "You haven't had much seafood before?"

"Nope," Phantom answers. "I grew up in a pretty landlocked area. Illinois."

John blinks. The Ghost King grew up in Illinois. 

Yeah, okay. Sure.

"Isn't that near a… what d'you call it, Great Lake? The uhh…" His nearly non-existent knowledge of American geography is failing him.

"Yeah, Lake Eerie."

"Huh." American geography might not be his strong point, but- "I'm pretty sure that's not the one near Illinois in this dimension."

"Really? Well, that makes sense," he says. "I mean, there was no Metropolis or Gotham in my home dimension. Stuff is bound to be different."

The line moves incrementally. The live music is dampened by the canned stuff they're piping over the speakers inside, as well as the chatter from the crowded seating area.

"Anyway, my hometown was more down south in Illinois," Phantom continues. "We had some fish, occasionally, but not often. And not a lot of real seafood. And then, of course, I didn't really live on Earth anymore." After he died, goes unsaid.

"Well, I doubt it'll be as good as anything from up north, but clam chowder's usually a good bet." This place doesn't really have any fancy shit. Hell, John himself is eyeing the fish and chips platter. Well. Fries , for Americans.

"Even if it's not, what am I going to do? Get food poisoning?" Phantom grins. "I've got even more of an iron stomach now that I'm… y'know."

"Fair enough," John says. Which, really, it is. What's a ghost going to do? Die again? Hardly.

Phantom ends up ordering his clam chowder in a bread bowl. John gets his fish and chips. He doesn't even have to Americanize his order; the clerk hardly bats an eye.

It takes a little while, but they eventually get their food. Phantom is the one to march up and down the boardwalk looking for a place to sit and eat. It's kind of endearing, actually, watching him scope different seating arrangements out with a critical eye and dismiss this or that one for one reason or another. It makes him seem so… human, John guesses. The sheer power that he's demonstrated multiple times seems so far away with him grimacing over a splatter of bird shit on the end of one of the benches he eyeballs.

Phantom settles on a bench underneath a tree near the marina proper, close enough to look out over the ocean without being blocked by buildings but far enough away that they couldn't smell the more unfortunate scent of people on the ocean.

He easily settles down on the bench, straddling the thing and placing the bread bowl full of chowder down on a napkin.

"Are you gonna sit?" Phantom asks, looking up at him.

"Oh. Yeah, sure."

John at least sits looking straight since fish and chips is a far less complicated affair than an entire round of bread filled with soup.

He cracks open the styrofoam container with his thumb, a little surprised that it still steams on contact with the chilly air.

"Oh, wow!" John looks to the side. Phantom has an empty spoon in hand, hovering just in front of his mouth. "Man, that's actually really good. Like, what the heck?"

John grins as he goes in for another bite. "Told ya so, didn't I?"

Phantom hums appreciatively around his bite.

The food stifles the conversation, but the silence isn't too awkward. The sound of waves in the distance, and closer, conversation and music, provide a rich backdrop to the entire scene. It's idyllic in a way that John would heckle a show for being. Too stereotypically perfect.

Eventually, Phantom is ripping apart his chowder-soaked bread with gusto, John rolling a now-cold chip around in his fingers until the soft potato breaks out of the fried sides as he tries to stifle yet another yawn.

He's not sure how long he's been up and going, but it's altogether too bloody long. The Great Old One was more magic than man, as he'd said, and John was unfortunately pretty damn high up on Bats' list of 'People to Call to Deal with Magic Bullshit.'

He doesn't entirely catch one of the yawns working its way out of him, jaw cracking from how wide it pulls under the force of the near-silent inhale and exhale, and Phantom looks up from the dwindling remains of his bread with a sharp eye.

"Time to head back, huh?" The fact that it's not patronizing is the only thing keeping John from bristling at the wording.

"Yeah," he admits. "Bloody fucking exhausted, actually. Dark's not got too many on the roster with a skill set comparable to mine, which makes me a hot commodity."

"I can see that," Phantom says, glancing up and down John.

He'd very much like to read into that, but he really, really shouldn't. No hanky shit here, no sir.

Carry on, John. Carry the fuck on.

"Well," John says, pushing himself up to his feet. "It's been a very long couple of days. Trash?"

Phantom blinks at him but offers over his plastic spoon and assorted crinkled napkins. John takes the lot and stuffs it into the box containing the rest of his cold chips and beelines to the nearest bin to chuck it.

He startles slightly when he turns around.

"Jesus fuck," he sputters slightly. 

Phantom just grins down at him like a cat that caught the canary, so close that their chests almost touch. "Sorry," Phantom says, not sounding sorry at all. "Just figured that you'd want to take the fast way if you're that tired."

He offers his hand to John. How much of him tearing space to make a portal was pomp and circumstance and how much of it was actually necessary? John… would honestly really like to know, if only to try and make his own teleportation and portal spells better and generally less draining, but not today. Not tomorrow either, most likely.

John takes his hand.

Just like before, they're gone and there in a blink without nary a ruffled hair.

Phantom's hand slips out of his as he rises into the air slightly, human disguise bleeding away from him until he's just as pale as he was before. Curiously, his outfit remains the same.

"Well, you can take whichever bed you like more," Phantom says, before he pauses. A little frown breaks out on his face. "Do you have any clothes to sleep in?"

And where would John be keeping that? Up his arse? "No," he says. "But-" 

Before he can get the rest of his sentence out, Phantom's frown deepens and he thrusts his hand out to the side, a tear in the air opening up. He sticks his arm in, visibly rummaging around for something.

"Really, you don't have to," John tries. "I've slept in worse."

"I just dragged you away without even thinking about the fact that you probably needed to pack a bag," Phantom argues back. He pulls his hand out and ends up sticking his entire head and torso through the rift, bending over in the air.

John averts his eyes before he can get any sorts of… thoughts.

"Found it!" Phantom's voice has a bit of an echo coming back from wherever the rift goes to. "It should be close in size… I think," he says, finally pulling himself out of the rift. "Here."

John looks back up from Phantom's shoes to see a small, beaten up backpack thrust at him. It's half zipped and he can already see clothing spilling out of it.

"Sorry about the bag," Phantom says. "It was the only one within reach."

"Nah, thank you," John says. "Really, you didn't have to."

Phantom just makes a face at him. John relents.

"I'm just going to… take a shower, then," John says, a little lamely. "'Night."

"Good night!"

Upon inspection, the bag is more like its own little pocket space. There's no way that this many clothes should be able to fit into the beaten up Jansport.

He traces over the various mended parts and stains and doodles, fingers lingering on one of the NASA patches. It looks a little different from the NASA logo he knows, but not too much.

"I love space. It used to be my dream to be an astronaut."

Surely… No, the King wouldn't just hand out an artifact from the time when he was still living. Surely not. That would be… 

Inconceivable is the only word that John can come up with, gaping down at the ratty, unassuming backpack.

John shakes his head, slack jaw snapping shut.

There's… Well. The only thing to do, really, was treat the thing with care. 

His shower is a quick affair, even though the water pressure is bloody amazing and hot water wasn't an issue. He was being serious about how tired he was—honestly, he'd probably even underplayed it a little. The longer he stood underneath the warm spray, the higher the chance of him knocking out in the shower whilst standing straight up was.

All the clothes that Phantom had put in the bag were slightly oversized, but John didn't mind. No underclothing in sight, but John minds that even less. Phantom's a good bloke, but he wouldn't want to put on pants of unidentified origin.

When he emerges from the bathroom, refilled bag in hand and his previously worn clothing tossed over his shoulder, Phantom is sitting cross-legged on the couch, telly on and remote in hand.

He gives John a little wave. "I'll keep it down, don't worry."

John just nods back at him. At this point, he'd probably sleep through a small bomb going off. He's out like a light within seconds of his head hitting the pillow.

Chapter Text

If someone had told him a week ago that the King of the Dead, Undead, and Undying was going to be serving him breakfast in bed he'd've laughed in their faces.

Yet, here he is.

Well—it wasn't so much as being served breakfast in bed as it was that Phantom had guessed at his order from room service and then plopped the tray down on his lap when he'd sat up, groggy and still half-asleep.

In all honesty, John wasn't complaining. 

"So I was thinking about where I wanted to go next," Phantom says between bites of his own. He and his plate were both floating in the air around the end of John's bed. "There's a few tourist trap places for like, Superman and stuff, but since I could probably meet actual Superman if I wanted I figured that it's kind of a waste of time."

John hums, taking a sip of his tea. It was actually pretty good stuff. Most places in America only usually had tea that tasted like leaf piss. This was properly strong and could actually handle milk and sugar without losing the tea in it.

"The only other big tourist thing to do is go visit the Daily Planet and even then that's not too great since their tours are pretty few and far between and fill up pretty quickly," Phantom rambles on. "Probably because of all the high profile journalists in residence—which, honestly? That's pretty cool. Not really my scene, but pretty cool. Free press is good press… or whatever the saying actually is."

"So we're skippin' out of Metropolis, then?" John asks. "If there ain't anything left that you want to do, I mean."

Phantom rocks back in the air, one hand coming up to cup at his chin.

"On a scale from 'I'm disappointed in you' to 'you're banned from this dimension,' how mad would Batman be if I poked around Lex Luthor's… whole thing?" He asks, the last bit accompanied by a round of jazz hands. "'Cause I wanna see how he compares to another fruitloop billionaire I used to know."

John coughs slightly, trying to dislodge the bit of egg from where it'd gotten lodged in his trachea in his shock. "Uh, probably more towards the latter one of the two."

"Aww…" Phantom deflates slightly. "Fine. Yeah, let's go to a different city. But I'm keeping the hotel room; I can just portal us back."

"Fine by me," John says, like he has a stake in this non-argument. "It'd be more of a hassle to check out and check in elsewhere. I doubt you'd want to go to many bullshit tourist traps like a regular bloke, so there's probably not much to do in just one city."

Phantom gets a thoughtful look on his face at John's words. Bugger. What'd he say?

"Does Disney Land exist in this dimension? Or Disney World?"

"I know Disney, but I don't know any Lands or Worlds," John replies. Though, that could very well just be a him problem. He can't deny the old fogey allegations much, considering he still uses a Nokia. In his defense, they can take a beating and aren't affected much by magic.

Phantom deflates further. "Man. One of these days, I'm going to find one again and I'm going to go and go full tourist, Fast Pass and all."

John raises an eyebrow. There's a story there, probably. But he lets it lie.

"So, where were you thinking of, then?"

Phantom leans back in thin air, kicking his feet around lightly. "Well… what other touristy spots are there on this Earth?"

"Eh… Paris, with the Eiffel Tower. The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco." John racks his brain. "Uh… the Grand Canyon-"

"The Grand Canyon exists in this dimension?" Phantom perks back up, rolling through the air to sit back up. "I always wanted to go and see that, but I never got the chance to. Let's go there!"

Your wish is my command.

"It's in, er…"

"Arizona?"

"That sounds 'bout right," John nods. "To Arizona, then, I guess."

Phantom beams, eyes crinkling with the force of his smile. "Are you done eating? I can take us there."

"Yup. Gotta get dressed first, though."

Phantom blushes, his head dropping sheepishly. His blush is green-blue, racing across his cheeks and even to the tips of his ears. "Oh. Yeah. Whoops…"

He'd look so pretty blushing like that as I-

John ruthlessly squashes that thought before it can bloom further. It's not the time nor the place. Absolutely no hanky shit allowed, no sir. John Constantine is a professional—a consummate bloody professional. He is not going to bugger up a real easy deal with probably the most powerful entity in the universe barring God herself just because he can't quit being a horndog for five bloody seconds.

To save them both the embarrassment, John finally heads to the bathroom to change. His clothes should be good for a bit, but worst case he could just pop over to the House for a quick change and toss these in the wash. 

In no time at all, John is out. He tugs on his tie, tied belatedly and loosely around his neck.

"Alright!"

Phantom's still in the same thing he'd been wearing yesterday that he'd—what, manifested? He's not overly inclined to dicker over the wording to himself. He'd rather just appreciate Phantom's outfit. 

In a motion that's becoming more and more second nature, John reaches out his hand to Phantom's outstretched one, clasping their hands together. Phantom briefly squeezes his hand and then the room blinks away to be replaced by trees.

"Eugh," John groans, squinting through the bright early morning sunlight. "It's October. Why is it so bloody hot?"

"That's Arizona for you!" 

John startles slightly, looking to the side. 

He watches a random jogger go past, her long ponytail swinging with every step.

Americans.

"Let's go see!" John startles as Phantom speaks—and tugs him along with him. Somehow, John hadn't realized that Phantom hadn't let go of his hand. 

His hand is cool, especially against the hot air. It was less noticeable in the air conditioned room they'd just come from, but now that the temperature has sharply risen it's all John can notice.

He's summarily dragged over to a booth emblazoned with the National Parks crest—logo? Phantom commandeers a handful of pamphlets and it's only then that he relinquishes John's hand so he can hold them with both of his and easily open them.

John's hand tingles slightly, still just a little chilled.

I wonder how his-

Nope, nope!

"Alright, come on! Let's walk around the rim!"

John follows behind Phantom as he bounces along, alternating between chattering away about geological facts and reading from the pamphlets about the history of the area.

"'When the Conquistadors came, they never were able to get to the bottom of the canyon,'" Phantom reads. "'They partially descended but were forced to come back up due to lack of water. Their Hopi guides most likely knew the way down, but were reluctant'—yeah, obviously—'to show them the way to the river where they could have gotten more water. No Europeans'— woah! That's cool! 'No Europeans visited the canyon again for more than two hundred years.'" Phantom laughs. "Serves them right."

Fair enough, honestly.

Phantom continues to talk as they approach the edge of the canyon. He'd dropped them somewhere in the campground area, he'd reckon.

"Woah," Phantom breathes.

John can relate.

Sprawling out in front of them is the Grand Canyon in all its glory. John'd seen photos of it before—on postcards and the like—but it didn't compare to the spot in person.

It's huge, for one, going so far back that the far reaches start to disappear into a slight haze. The sunlight hits the rocks, lighting up the striations in all their glory. He can see each and every layer of rock as it goes down to the bottom of the canyon, though he can't see the exact bottom of it from where they're standing.

It's more green than he was expecting, too. There are trees everywhere—pine, mostly—but also more desert looking plants, scraggly and scratchy looking but green all the same.

"It's too bad that we got here so late," Phantom says. "I bet the sunrise over this would look crazy."

"There's always sunset," John suggests.

Phantom visibly perks up at that. "You're right! Ahh, I've heard that Arizona sunsets are crazy good, too." He pauses, excitement dimming only slightly. "What are we going to do until then, though?" 

It's not like John had slept in or anything, back in Metropolis. Still, because of the time difference, it was still fairly early in the morning here.

Or so says the JL communicator, since that thing updates based on time zone. John's Nokia is a better shout when around magic and such but there were certain things that he liked about modern cell phones. 

"I'm sure that there's something here. I doubt all the vacationers who come here want to do the hike down to the bottom of the canyon, after all."

Phantom turns back to the pamphlets at that, shuffling from general information onwards.

"Hmm…" He flips through the shiny cardstock. "Most of the stuff to do is actually hiking, but there's a couple places… oh, that's cool."

He lifts the pamphlet up to show John a picture of a house that looks like it's been made out of logs sat in front of a set of train tracks.

"There's a train ride that takes people from the South Rim to this town that's nearby. It's like, two hours long and there's food."

John hums. He can appreciate getting to eat a meal, but… "Maybe for later? We just finished eating breakfast."

Phantom hums, eyes already back on the pamphlet.

"There's also this little village over there where the station is," Phantom says. "This thing says it's like a half a day thing to walk around and check it out."

"Sure," John says easily to the unasked question.

They take the shuttle to get there like a regular tourist would. Even if he doesn't appreciate the crush of people, he appreciates the air conditioning.

And also having to press up to Phantom's side in the crush, but that's neither here nor there.

Phantom's almost like a walking air conditioner, John thinks. The sun's risen a fair bit at this point, beaming down onto his neck and making him sweat, but standing close enough to Phantom offsets it somewhat. A pleasant area of chill surrounds him like an aura and John has to consciously put enough distance to remain professional several times. In his defense, it's bloody hot. John's used to freezing his arse off, not whatever unholy curse Arizona has on it that makes it be this bloody hot.

Thankfully, Phantom never seems to notice. He's too entranced with all the shops in all the quaint little buildings, flitting around like a hummingbird and bouncing around like the Energizer Bunny.

He gets dragged in and out of at least four stores, all selling little tchotchkes and souvenirs and other little bullshit items that tourists could waste their money on. The market that's set up between the more modern looking area and the historic area is at least more interesting in comparison. Several booths are set up with actual handmade crafts and such, instead of the mass produced junk in most of the other shops.

"Ooh, look at this!" 

John looks.

"Really?" John frowns up at the sign.

☆ GRAND CANYON PSYCHIC ☆

PALM READINGS ☆ TAROT CARDS ☆ CRYSTALS

At least there aren't any shitty racist decorations on the outside of the place. They were scamming people straight on, then, instead of dressing it up in a thin veil of 'savage mysticism.' John'd dealt with far too much of that particular brand of bullcrap more than enough even back in England.

"I think it'd be fun, at least," Phantom grins. "Don't you want to hear what they'd have to say about my life line or whatever?"

…that… that actually might be funny. Reluctantly, John finds himself agreeing to go inside.

The place isn't swimming with incense, at least. That gives him at least some hope that it's not just some asshat taking the mickey out of the masses of tourists that pass through this place and raking in cash with a bit of cold reading and a smoke machine.

More realistically, though, some tiny psychic shop in a historic village near a tourist hotspot isn't going to be staffed by anyone with real talent for the occult.

Behind John, the door clatters shut, the bell overtop the door adding to the clamor.

The curtain behind the counter twitches, the fabric rustling, before it's swept to the side. A short woman walks out from behind the curtain. For some reason, John was expecting a wrinkled old hag, but this woman's young. Startlingly so. She almost looks young enough that John's questioning whether or not she should be in school.

She blinks at them from behind her thick glasses. They make her eyes look like a bug's, they're so thick.

"Hello," she says politely. "Are you here for a reading, or just to browse?"

"I'm interested in a reading," Phantom says, stepping forward with a smile.

"Palm or tarot?" The woman asks, stepping forwards towards the counter.

"A palm reading." Phantom steps forward as well, laying his hand out on the countertop.

The woman bops along in a sort of exaggerated nod. "That'll be fifteen dollars."

"Alright. If I could have your left hand instead, please?"

She pushes her glasses up her nose and steps forward to squint down at Phantom's hand as he switches it out. One bangle-clad arm comes up, a finger extending from a curled fist, to trace across Phantom's palm.

"You're most in tune with water," she says, dragging a finger down Phantom's index finger. "You like to help others, don't you? You give a lot. You take responsibilities on yourself, sometimes wrongly." She lifts her finger to tap at the base of his index and middle fingers. "Your Mounts of Saturn and Jupiter are almost combined, with your head and heart lines wisping out to cover both. You have a position of leadership and authority, and a deep connection to the spiritual world."

John's eyebrow shoots up.

"You have scars on your palm," she says. "Intersecting with all the lines on your palm. Some would say that it makes a reading more difficult, but I see it as tangible proof from an event that changed your life."

Phantom smiles wryly. "You could say that."

"Your fate was decided early, wasn't it?" She traces through the middle of Phantom's palm.

The air of the little shop turns. It's not… sour, or anything, but it hangs heavy over John's shoulders.

Maybe, he thinks, hardly daring to breathe, This woman has a bit of talent.

"This scar…" she trails off. "It's deepest over your life line. But your life line is rather long, and deep. Your life will be long, filled with an abundance of experiences. It curls around your Mount of Venus, almost protectively…"

The woman looks up. Her thick glasses catches a flash of green across them, he thinks, but it's too quick to really tell. It could just be a figment of his imagination.

"You know," Phantom says casually, "I think I'd be interested in a tarot reading as well, if you don't mind."

He glances behind himself at John.

"Sorry," he says, sounding genuinely apologetic. "You don't have to wait for me. I'll find you if you want to go walk around."

"...sure." John nods. "I'll, uh, head out then."

His eyes linger on the woman's hand on Phantom's, but he tears his eyes away as she takes her hand back, heading to the back portion of the shop that's separated by the curtain.

Phantom follows her, leaving John standing alone in the tchotchke-filled shop.

The bell clamors again as he swings the door open. He grimaces as the afternoon sun and the air hits him. He'd almost gotten used to it before he'd gone inside the bloody shop. As mildly air conditioned as it was, it was still a nice respite from the heat.

He sweeps a glance over the rest of the street, teeming with tourists. 

Well, Phantom said that he would find John wherever.

He makes his way out of the main thoroughfare, heading towards the trees. He finds a decent patch of them to post up under, relishing in the shade even if the air itself was still too hot for his taste.

So… that was weird. And he's seen weird shit before.

Scars… John hadn't seen any, but he'd been very pointedly looking elsewhere when Phantom was in close proximity to him for obvious reasons. There was no need to tempt and torture himself needlessly. He already knew that he couldn't try anything before the end of the deal at the very soonest.

John grumbles, leaning back further into the shade. 

God, he needs a smoke. He's starting to get that itchy feeling of nicotine withdrawal and he doesn't like it one bit.

Fuck it. He's already outside and away from any buildings, so he should be in the clear for whatever laws this state had about smoking.

He winds away from the main run a bit further, heading away from the buildings and more populated areas to find a decent tree and a good bit of shade to hole up in.

Tree found—and double checked to make sure he wouldn't get any sap on the back of his coat when he leaned up against it because it was a bitch and a half to get clean—he takes his pack of cigarettes out of his breast pocket, tapping one out. He holds it between his lips as he rummages through his pockets for his lighter.

He'd taken it out to use in the ritual and then put it… where? Bloody hell, not this again.

"Need a light?"

John startles just a bit as the temperature drops a few degrees, Phantom's voice coming out of nowhere.

He smiles down at John, the edges curling just a little mischievous.

"I should put a bell on you, bloody hell," John grumbles around the cigarette. "Sure."

It would save him from fumbling through his coat, at least. 

Phantom steps closer and John grasps the cigarette, getting a better hold on it. Phantom brings his hand up, bare, and John only has a few seconds to question what he's planning on doing before a small green flame erupts from the tip of his finger.

You know what? Sure, what the hell. If Phantom's offering, there's probably no repercussions from lighting up with the ghostly flame. 

John leans forward to put the tip of the cigarette into the flame, inhaling as the fire catches. He leans back as the first puff of smoke hits his lungs.

"Those things will kill you, you know," Phantom remarks, the flame on his finger going out. "Cancer sticks."

John holds his breath, the lungful of smoke percolating. When he exhales, only a thin cloud of smoke escapes his lips, curling up to the tree branches above them.

"I think I've got other things to worry about, but thanks for the sentiment." John takes another drag, the tip of his cigarette lighting up cherry red. He doesn't hold it for so long this time, and the cloud is more robust as he exhales, the smoke climbing all the way to the branches and twining through the needles. "What's it that the youth are saying these days? Live fast, die young? Nah, that's too old."

"You're plenty old already, though, aren't you?" Phantom asks, cocking his head.

John mimes being stabbed in the chest, a faux-wounded noise escaping from his lips. "Hit me where it hurts, why don't ya?"

Phantom snorts. "You'd know if I was being mean."

Now that John would pay to see. Respectfully.

God above, he really has it bad, doesn't he?

But self reflection is pretty thoroughly out of his pay grade, so he punts the thought and takes another drag off his cigarette.

"So, what were you thinking about doing now?" John asks. "Still on the train idea?"

Phantom hums. "I was thinking of camping for the night, actually. We could take the train tomorrow, since it would take us out of the park."

"Do we need to buy supplies for that?" Even as John's asking, he realizes that it's a stupid question. Phantom had pulled a reservation for an upscale hotel in Metropolis out of his arse. He could easily get a tent.

"I've got stuff already," Phantom says, waving his hand and confirming John's thoughts. "The camping spot might actually be a little more difficult, though. This is one of the busiest times of the year for the Grand Canyon, actually."

John cocks an eyebrow and Phantom hooks a thumb over his shoulder, gesturing back to the village.

"I heard it from someone."

Fair enough.

After John finishes his cigarette, they take the shuttle back to the area they were at before. Somehow, Phantom manages to finagle a spot. It's a little secluded, set a little ways off the loop containing a few campsites.

Wasting no time and seemingly not caring if anyone sees, Phantom rips another hole into thin air, leaning through it and coming back out with a beat up bag with a logo of a tent on it.

Unsurprisingly, it has a tent in it.

Ten out of ten, great detective work, John.

When he tries to help set the tent up, though, he just gets waved away.

"Ah, I can do it. Don't worry about it."

So, feeling a little useless, John settles down at the little picnic table on their lot to watch Phantom put together the tent.

He does it by hand, which surprises John a little, but it still goes by faster than John would've been able to do it.

At this point, the sun is starting to meander down towards the horizon.

"You mentioned that you wanted to watch the sunset over the canyon, yeah?" John asks as Phantom ducks back out of their tent.

Phantom's eyes widen. "Right! I almost forgot! Let's go!"

At this point, John doesn't startle when Phantom's cool hand closes around his wrist, the man gently tugging him along towards the edge of the canyon.

As they backtrack out of the camping area, the shadows continue to lengthen.

"Oh man, I really hope that we aren't too late," Phantom babbles. "I mean, we have tomorrow morning as well, but, well-"

His words come to an abrupt stop as they pass the treeline, the Grand Canyon spreading out before them once more.

The sky looks like it's on fire. That's the best descriptor that John can come up with.

The light of the setting sun catches the clouds, lighting them up in orange and red and pink that blankets the sky, standing stark against the slowly darkening blue.

Other people stand around the rim, watching the sun set.

"Whoa…"

Phantom looks entranced. His eyes glow just slightly, the green glowing enough to cast the faintest shadows underneath the swell of his cheeks. His still-pale eyelashes catch the color, seeming to glow as well. 

The dying sunlight paints Phantom with a soft, warm glow, the color brightening him even more in his alive guise.

He's beautiful.

Intimidating and handsome, sure. John'd already thought that when he'd seen him lounging in the air, his crown atop his head and his massive, starry cape billowing behind him in a nonexistent wind. The man had the physique of a Greek god, from what John could see under the armor and all that.

Adorable… he guesses, though he'd never articulated the thought. It was endearing to see Phantom get excited over stuff.

Beautiful didn't not fit, so he decides to shelve the thought process behind the wording for another day.

They stand there until the sun fully sets, wisps of pink and red and orange dying out every minute until darkness falls completely, blanketing the surrounding area.

There's a little lighting, but not enough to cover up the fact that Phantom's eyes are still glowing.

He sways to the side, bumping shoulders with the man.

"Eyes, mate."

"Huh? Oh. Shoot."

Phantom squints his eyes shut for a few seconds. When he opens his eyes, the glow is gone.

"Better?"

John nods.

It would be more difficult to get back to their campground if Phantom wasn't there, John's sure. He can see approximately fuck all outside of the little bubbles of light around occupied campgrounds, but Phantom moves forward with no problems at all.

Night vision, probably. 

I wonder if he's got eyeshine like a cat.

…where did that come from?

As John puzzles that over, busying himself with lighting a fire—his lighter had somehow migrated to a different pocket entirely—Phantom rips another hole in thin air, reaching through to fish out an entire cooler.

As John gets the fire going, Phantom squats down by the fire, fishing in yet another bag. It's more of a duffle this time, and just about as beat up as the backpack was.

John raises an eyebrow as a grate and several poker-looking things come out.

"You're surprisingly well-prepared for a spontaneous camping trip," John remarks.

Phantom chuckles, bringing a hand up to rub the back of his neck. "Well… sort of? Some of this stuff I had lying around, but I may or may not have asked for some of it to be gathered up for me. Want a sausage?"

"I wouldn't say no." They'd had a late and large breakfast—or, what was the word? Brunch? Whatever it was—so lunch hadn't been of much concern.

So John parks his arse in one of the camp chairs that Phantom had brought, accepting a speared sausage on one of the pokers.

The only sound for a bit is ambient forest noises, the crackling of the fire, and the spitting of their sausages roasting over the fire.

Shit, that smells good.

Just as he pulls it from the fire, though, he pauses, sausage halfway to his mouth.

"This ain't like the food in the Underworld in the myths, right? Or food from the Fair Folk?" John asks, warily eyeing the lightly charred sausage. It smells alright, at least. "I'm not going to be trapped for a month for each bit I eat?"

Phantom cracks a grin at him, the flickering light of the campfire throwing dramatic shadows over his face. "I'm not Hades—he rules over the Greek underworld—but you wouldn't make a bad Persephone."

John chokes, bringing the hot dog away from his mouth.

Phantom's grin intensifies, but he passes over a bottle of water. It's perfectly chilled.

Bloody fucking… John lets the curse peter out, bringing the sausage up to his mouth again. Get it together, Constantine!

The sausage is delicious, at least.

Chapter Text

For some reason, John thought that the tent would be bigger on the inside. But no—it's just a normal tent, or as normal as John would assume a tent looked. Even though he hadn't seen Phantom put it all in there, there's a big air mattress and two separate sleeping bags. The ratty backpack Phantom gave him sits to the side.

Phantom gives him a few minutes to get changed before he heads in as well.

John doesn't even realize what's happening until he's laying on the air mattress, trying to worm his way into his sleeping bag.

He very abruptly becomes aware, though, when Phantom lays on top of the second sleeping bag, bumping against John.

"Man, I forgot how small this thing is," Phantom complains, wiggling around.

His arm is cold where it presses up against John's shoulder. 

Jesus Christ.

He swallows as Phantom settles, the line of his body where it presses up against Phantom tingling slightly even through the sleeping bag.

"This used to be mine and my sister's tent when we went camping," Phantom continues, bringing his arms over his head to stretch slightly. It pushes his thigh more firmly against John's. 

"Yeah?" John croaks out. "You went camping with your family a lot?"

Phantom hums, settling back down again. "When I was younger, yeah. Every summer, at least once. I was a lot shorter, then. Barely over five feet, though my dad was six foot something. It was easy to fit in here with my sister. Did you ever go camping when you were young?"

John shakes his head even though the inside of the tent is pitch black. "No," he adds on belatedly. "Never been. Well, technically I've camped a couple times for work."

"Well, I'm glad I busted out the s'mores, then," Phantom says. John can hear the smile in his voice, even if he can't see it. "It wouldn't be a proper camping trip without them."

Their conversation peters out there, silence filling the tent. It's not stifling, though.

He doesn't notice himself falling asleep. Between one blink and the next, it's morning.

He wakes slowly.

He's warm in his sleeping bag, but cool air brushes his face. A yawn cracks John's jaw, tears beading at the corners of his eyes. The thin plastic cloth of the tent is dappled with the shadows of the trees, the soft, early morning light diffusing through.

John turns his head.

Phantom's face is close to his, slack in sleep. 

John's breath catches in his throat.

He'd reverted back to his more dead appearance overnight, making his face pale and bluish again, but the sunlight through the orange tent gives him a rosy glow.

He stares at Phantom's sleeping face, entranced. Then he sees bright, bright green as Phantom's eyes open, meeting his dead on.

"I wasn't aware you had to sleep," John blurts out. 

"Eh." Phantom's shrug turns into something more like a stretch, right before his arms go up above his head in a proper one. His t-shirt—when did he change? John sure as shit didn't realize that the man had last night—shifts up a little, revealing a thin strip of pale flesh between the bottom of it and the top of a pair of sweatpants. "I don't need to, technically, but it's nice."

"Do you dream?" He's not quite sure what possessed him to ask, but the question hangs in the air anyway. 

Phantom blinks up at him, slow like a cat. "Sometimes, if Nocturne's being particularly nice… or petty."

Nocturne… John hadn't heard that name before, but he did know Dream.

Interesting, that; though, he didn't really know what he could say in response. So he doesn't say anything, just watches silently as Phantom rolls himself up and out of the side of the tent, passing through the plastic cloth like it wasn't even there.

John busies himself with changing. Outside, he can hear faint clattering.

When he finally finishes, he ducks outside of the tent just in time to see Phantom hauling the last of his stuff back through a rip in the air.

"Oh, good!" Phantom smiles at him. "Are you ready to leave?"

"Yup," he says, picking at his tie to get it to sit nicely.

Phantom glances around, ducking forward and back slightly before he snaps his fingers. The air chills just slightly, and John gets a whiff of ozone before the entire tent sinks into the ground through a swirling green portal.

"Handy, that," John says, adjusting his coat to sit properly. "Makes cleanup a breeze, eh?"

"Like you wouldn't believe."

They walk again, trekking back to the shuttle area. It's fairly empty at this time of day. John can't quite say whether he's disappointed or not about that, but he might just still be riding the high of sleeping next to Phantom the entire night in a confined space on the same (albeit kinda shitty) air mattress.

It's easy enough to buy two train tickets and file on into the nearly empty train. 

(John's not entirely sure where Phantom pulled the wallet from—there hadn't been any rips in the air, and he definitely didn't have it in his pocket. Not that John was looking at his arse or anything, no sir.)

Not many people took the train from the park to the town at this time, evidently, but there were some people.

As it stands, though, they're the only two in their particular car. No one else joins them before the train starts to roll out of the station.

"I'm heading to the snack bar," Phantom declares. "Want anything?"

"I'll come with you."

They each load up a plate of snacks, though Phantom's towers higher than John's.

For a bit, they just eat their way through their plates as they watch the terrain fly by outside. 

"Oh, whoa! That's cool," Phantom says suddenly, pointing out the window.

John barely catches it. In the distance, a dark shape is flying off into the sky, a smaller blob carried in its claws.

"That hawk just came out of nowhere," Phantom says. "I didn't even see the animal it grabbed until it did it."

John smiles, shaking his head. "I'm sure you've seen cooler shit than that."

"Well, yeah, but still."

"What're you ranking lower than the hawk?" John asks, curious.

Phantom hums, laying back in his seat. "I mean, you get used to stuff over time, and I've had a while. Like, the Realms were the craziest thing that I'd ever seen way back when, but the area that I was in was one of the most tame overall. The Barrens," he elaborates. "Just like the name says, the area was mostly deserted and—well, barren." He chuckles. "There was a big battle there in the past and it basically made the area uninhabitable for a long while. Only a few people had really taken up residence there."

"What's the craziest thing you've ever seen?" 

This is kind of turning into an interview more than anything, but sue him. It's interesting as hell. The Infinite Realms aren't really well described by any text that John's ever gotten his hands on.

"Ah, man. Where to start?" Phantom brings a hand up to cup his jaw, leaning forward again and planting that elbow on the table. "The first time that I visited a city was crazy. Like I said, I basically came from the Barrens and even though I'd been to a couple different places with a bunch of people, it couldn't compare to that city."

Phantom smiles.

"There were just so many people! They were just… living there. Living… well, living out their afterlives. They had houses and neighborhoods and stuff like shops. There was even one kind of modern movie theater, though they only showed silent movies there. They had a mayor, too, and really weren't too happy with me coming in as King until I managed to explain that no, I wasn't taking their government away from them."

His expression gets a little pinched, though he still looks amused and fond.

"The thing you have to know about ghosts is that we, as a species, generally like to fight for fun. There's different social components to fights, too. Like, fighting is part of several different social… things. So you can imagine that when they feel threatened, anyone can basically become part of an army. Ancients, I nearly died a second time just looking at how many ghosts rose up to come fight me."

John whistles. "Wow."

From there, conversation flows freely. They don't just talk about Phantom and the Infinite Realms and ghosts, either. He manages to pry information about John out of himself, though John never says any of the real shitty stuff.

He gets the feeling that it's the same for Phantom anyway.

They're in the middle of an impassioned debate about the language of the dead—something that John had evidently known existed but definitely not by that name—and if and how alive human magicians could use it when the train whistle startles the shit out of him.

The train starts to slow seconds after; outside, he can see the station.

"Wow, it's been two hours already!" Phantom shakes his head. "Time flies, and all that."

John snorts, collecting up their myriad plates. They'd both gotten up and gotten more at one point or the other, but the load isn't too bad. "Sounds about right."

He deposits the plates and takes a second to snag a couple individually wrapped candies, sticking them in one of his coat's pockets. Might as well.

"So," he starts as Phantom joins him near the door, the train continuing to slow underneath their feet, "Got any ideas for what you want to do next?"

"Let's look around the town first," Phantom says. "Maybe there's something to do here."

"Man, there's really not anything to do here, is there?" Phantom frowns.

All they'd gotten from looking around was a fistful of tourism booklets and pamphlets for the surrounding area. Most of them were on the Grand Canyon, so those weren't too helpful. John flips through his booklet.

Oh, now that's promising.

"There's a bigger town a little ways down," John says. "Flagstaff. It's got an observatory. It's famous," he continues, looking up from the booklet to look at Phantom and see his reaction. "Evidently, it's the observatory where they discovered Pluto."

His reaction does not disappoint.

Phantom gasps , eyes widening. "Really?!"

Those star freckles of his make a reappearance, though they're much dimmer than before, probably due to his human disguise.

"Oh, we have to go!" He makes grabby hands at John, and he obligingly hands the booklet over. "Tours—looks like they have one for the observatory as a whole, and then one for the story of Pluto. Oooh, they have a bunch of different shows and talks and stuff! And they're all pretty short, so we could do multiple of them!"

John grins as Phantom bounces in place, eyes almost literally shining, even in the bright light. He knew it would be a hit.

"And there's stargazing when it gets darker," Phantom continues, grinning from ear to ear. "With the tours and the shows, we should be able to kill enough time! And if not, we could go look around Flagstaff, I guess."

"Never heard of the town before, so I'd have no idea," John shrugs. "But if they've got famous stuff there, it should be pretty decent."

Phantom ends up teleporting the two of them into the town. Once again, he puts them in some back alley. 

At least this one smells better than the last one.

The observatory's the edge of the town, up on top of a hill. It's not a bad walk from where Phantom had teleported them in. Evidently Flagstaff's a college town, from what he could gather walking through it.

The closer they get to the observatory, the more Phantom bounces. It starts to become a little superhuman as they walk up the hill, so John reaches out and tugs on his sleeve.

"Boutta fly off there, mate," John says.

Phantom gives him a sheepish smile. "Sorry. I'm just excited."

"Not tryin' to squash that, don't worry," John says, tucking his hand back into his pocket. His fingers are a little chilly from where he skimmed Phantom's elbow. "Even though there are metas around the country, most places'll still look at you funny if you're not visibly a baseline human. 'Sides, Bats would kill me if we started an incident way out in the middle of nowhere."

Phantom snorts. Good, throwing Bats under the bus hit the way he wanted it to, then. "Right. Sorry, I'll keep a lid on it."

And he stays true to his words as they go through the tours that the observatory—Lowell—offers, as well as their shows. By the time they do literally every single thing that the place offers, the sun is starting to set.

Phantom bounces around, but keeps any light shows locked down.

"Come on, let's get a good spot!" His cool hand wraps around John's wrist as people start to file out to the deck area, tugging John along with them.

John lets himself get tugged along. Really, Phantom's gentle for someone who can go head to head with horrors beyond human comprehension.

Maybe he should introduce him to Supes before Phantom goes back to the Infinite Realms. As funny as it usually is, listening to Bats ream the man out for destroying yet another thing, it might decrease the likelihood of Bats snapping from the stress eventually and murdering them all in their sleep.

Phantom claims a free patch of space near one of the telescopes that ring the deck, bouncing on his toes and beaming.

"Have you ever gone stargazing before? I know you-" he falters and stops bouncing on his toes to get closer to John, so close that his cool breath tickles his ear when he whispers in it. "I know you've been to outer space before, with the Justice League, but it's not the same."

John swallows, attempting to rein in his out of control heart rate. "I, uh-" he clears his throat. "Never went stargazing on purpose before."

Phantom's smile is blinding. 

He guides John through finding things through the telescope and always sounds so in awe every time John steps back and lets him look.

Cute.

"Y'know, it's interesting…" Phantom trails off. They'd moved away to let other guests look through the telescope they'd been using, instead posting up on a patch of ground, leaning against the building and looking up at the sky. "The sky is always just a little bit different in most worlds. I've never, ever seen two skies that are the same."

"Yeah?" John asks. "How's our sky stack up against what you've seen?"

"Hmm… this world has more stars than average," Phantom says decisively, though John's not entirely sure how Phantom would know such a thing. "It's pretty. I've seen worlds where the stars are much sparser… those always make me sad."

He shifts, getting comfortable against the wall, head knocking back against it. 

"Where did they go? Why did they burn out? On the other hand, it might just be because the universe is older. But even then, that means that universe's clock is ticking."

John freezes as Phantom's head tilts towards him, those big, bright green eyes locking with his own.

"I've seen entire galaxies end. Dimensions. Universes. It's never nice. But still, all things die, even if it takes a long, long time."

God, it's easy to forget just who Phantom is, isn't it?

Phantom's eyes crinkle as he smiles sheepishly, gaze falling off of John's. "Sorry. I really killed the mood there, didn't I?"

"...eh," John shrugs. "Bats is worse."

Phantom snorts. "Yeah? I've heard stories about him—about all of you, actually, from various residents of the Realms."

"Including me?" John asks before his brain can shut his mouth down. Oh, Lordy.

Phantom grins—smirks, really, though the bloke was too nice to do so properly—at him, head rolling back around to fix him with a stare.

"Pretty much everyone not on the mortal plane knows who you are, John Constantine."

John clears his throat. "Comes with the territory."

Mentally, he gives himself a pat on the back. That didn't sound too bad.

"Hmm… yeah, I suppose. Your lineage always wreaks havoc," Phantom says. "But you really take the cake, don't you?"

Now, usually, this is the part of the conversation where John would be gearing up to book it like a bat outta hell. From anyone else, that kind of talk would be more than a bit menacing. But from Phantom… it's probably just his own brain that's giving it a thin veneer of flirtatiousness.

Wishful thinking and all that.

Chapter Text

He's woken up again in the same way that he was the day before yesterday—by Phantom bearing breakfast.

It's not the same as it was last time, though. Phantom had picked out a plate of eggs benedict for him this time.

Fun.

He tucks in, and Phantom does the same.

"So," he says a while later. "What's on the docket for today?"

Phantom grimaces. "About that… I have no idea. I was thinking about it for a while and I couldn't settle on anything. I don't want to go to tourist traps or anything like that, and going to, like, Atlantis wouldn't be good for you, since you can't breathe underwater—and we're both dudes, even if I'm dead, so I doubt Wonder Woman would let us on Themyscira."

Well, shit. When he'd offered those two as suggestions, he really didn't think 'em through, did he?

"Any interest in something like Titans Tower?" John asks. "There's also other cities like Fawcett, or any of the other major cities like New York or Los Angeles. Or, hell, any other city in the world. London, Paris, Berlin, and so on."

Phantom hums. "Maybe. Let me think about it."

As Phantom drifts off to think, John settles himself on his bed and pulls a book out of his coat to read in the meantime.

He'd picked it up a while ago, but he hadn't gotten an opportunity to really read it yet. It was fascinating, really, though he didn't know enough Hindi to be able to properly use the sigils described in the book. 

"Hey."

John fumbles his book, the open face crashing down directly on his nose.

"Jesus fuck!"

"...sorry." 

Drawing the book away from his face, John can see Phantom's sheepish expression. He hangs in the air right next to John's head, cradling a globe of all things.

John breaks their silent, unintentional stare-off. "Whatcha got there?"

"Oh! Well, since I couldn't figure out where I wanted to go next, I figured we could figure it out in an easier way, albeit a cheesier one." Phantom sets the globe down on the nightstand. "Care to do the honors?"

He sighs as he sits up. "Spinning or poking?"

"I knew you'd catch on quick," Phantom grins.

Phantom holds the top of the globe and spins the thing, so John shuffles forward to stick his finger out and stop it.

"So, I know there's no way you could've done that on purpose, but that's really funny," Phantom snickers.

John just blinks down at his finger, sat firmly on the UK.

"Looks like London it is!" Phantom smiles.

"Looks like it," John echoes. 

London. He'd not been back to his homeland in… a while. Months, if not a year. Most of his business with the Justice League kept him in America for long stretches, even if he traveled around the world pretty frequently, not to mention the House's various capers.

John dresses quickly, tucking his book back away in his coat.

He's getting too used to teleporting everywhere Phantom's way, he thinks. It's going to be bloody hard to go back to his own rough and draining teleportation spells. 

He ambles out of yet another back alley, taking a deep breath.

Ah, piss, exhaust, and the faint smell of cigarette smoke. Classic London.

"So, where to?" John asks Phantom. "Fancy the tourist spots? Big Ben, the Tower, Buckingham Palace? Er…" Where else had he laughed at bumbling American idiots back when he'd haunted London with Chas? "Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Soho?"

Phantom wrinkles his nose. "I've got a bad history with circuses," he says rather ominously.

"It ain't an actual circus," John snorts.

"Then why's it called one?"

"Circus, as in circle. It's Latin."

Phantom pouts, and John has to hold back another snort. "Yeah, okay," he relents. "I still think it's stupid. Wait, is it literally a circle?" Phantom flips topics in an instant. "The streets? Like one big roundabout with everything in the center?"

"Nah, it's more like a lumpy, fucked up triangle."

"Then why call it a circle?"

He sounds so indignant that John cracks, snorting first, and then devolving into a bout of chuckles. He shoves his fist at his mouth as Phantom turns his pout on him directly.

"I still don't get why they call it a circle," Phantom complains a few minutes later, and John almost loses it again, right there in the middle of the sidewalk surrounded by people.

"Christ," John gasps, trying to get his laughter under control. "You're not letting that one go, are you?"

"No."

They end up going to Piccadilly Circus first.

Phantom stands in the center with his hands on his hips, right on the steps in front of the fountain, looking around with a disapproving frown. John has the urge to devolve into mad giggles again.

"There's a circle in the middle," he says to John, almost accusing.

John wheezes, bending slightly at the waist.

It takes a while for both of them to collect themselves, but eventually they do manage to get it together and start to walk around. 

John very fondly remembers Soho, mostly for the abundance of nightclubs and pubs that dot the streets. Other than that, there's restaurants and shopping and… naught else, really. Phantom seems to be enjoying the walk and the sights at least. He can't imagine that Phantom much wants to pop into the Puma store or any of the other upscale boutiques that dot the area. 

Their walk takes them through the streets. John starts up a running commentary as they go, for lack of any better entertainment for Phantom. 

"-and that one, there, see? I'm banned from that one as well."

"Why?" Phantom asks. There's a touch of indulgence in his voice but a smile on his face. 

"Guess."

"Destruction of property, again? Like the last one?"

"Nope."

"Hm…" Phantom brings a hand to his chin as he hums. He sways around a pedestrian passing them, walking in the other direction. "Did you drink all the alcohol in the bar?"

John barks out a laugh. "I'd be dead if I drank the whole lot. They've got an impressive stock."

"What, then? Did you flirt with the owner's wife? Seduce her away from her man with your roguish charm?" Phantom's got a roguish grin of his own on his face that makes John's heart skip a beat as he catches sight of it.

He clears his throat, looking away. "Nah. It was the husband. His wife threatened to cut my balls off if I ever came back 'round."

"Ooh, how scandalous," Phantom titters, perfectly imitating every old biddy that John's ever heard. "I assume you're still safely intact?"

"That I am. I know better than to come 'round after a threat like that from a woman like that."

It's a while later, walking mostly in the direction of the river, through Trafalgar Square, when Phantom stops stock still in the middle of the street.

John doesn't realize that he's stopped for a few seconds, but he does eventually notice that Phantom's not following behind him.

When he turns to see what happened, he can see Phantom staring at two young men across the way.

"One moment," Phantom says.

He weaves his way through the crowd towards the two boys. John squints. Ah. They're spirits, the both of them. They've got that sort of shimmer to them the same as Boston.

John watches as Phantom finally reaches the boys, who both startle. They seem to talk for a few minutes—John's not entirely sure because some random pedestrian slams into his side, their nose firmly in their damn phone.

He lays on the Scouse real thick after they start cursing him out and he replies in kind.

Eventually the wanker buggers off and leaves John alone. He looks up just in time to see Phantom giving each of the boys a handshake, his smile shining from even across the street. Phantom then reaches into his pocket and pulls out something small enough that John can't make it out from this far away, handing it to the boy in the formal clothing.

"Shades?" It slips out of his mouth as Phantom comes to his side again.

Phantom blinks at him. "You can see them?"

"Most people who use magic can, yeah," John says, falling back into step with Phantom. "Witches, mages, warlocks and the like."

"I keep forgetting, somehow, what all magic can do," Phantom murmurs. "I'm most used to people only being able to see true ghosts. Magic is just so… rare, across all the worlds out there, even among other methods of being able to interact and see ghosts and shades." He shakes his head.

John has to squint against the sun as they step out from the shade of a building and into the Embankment Gardens. 

Truth be told, John would love to follow that line of thinking and ask just how magic was rare—and what exactly he meant by rare, since he'd call it such in this world as well—but he didn't want to make Phantom a bloody professor in the middle of his quote unquote 'vacation.' No more than he already had, at least. 

"Anyway, are those two anybody I gotta keep an eye on?" John asks. "Or keep an eye out for?"

Phantom hums. "I don't think so. But they might be able to help you at some point."

John raises an eyebrow, but lets it lie. 

They explore the gardens for a little bit until Phantom complains about the noontime sun, prompting them to figure out an indoor attraction or activity. 

Phantom pulls them both through into an alley near Tate Modern and the Globe. 

By the time they get out of the various galleries, the sun's lowered in the sky.

"Hey, did you know that Shakespeare became a ghost?"

"You're pullin' my leg, mate."

"No, seriously," Phantom says as they weave through the milling crowd. It's thick around here, thanks to all the attractions. "He's got a whole troupe again. He makes new plays, too. The effects are pretty cool, thanks to the whole ghost powers thing."

Any pedestrian that overhears them probably thinks that they're bloody bonkers, clinically. 

"You ever been to see a show?"

"Yeah! It's really cool—and I can understand the actual live plays a lot better than when I tried to read any of his work back in high school." Phantom grins. "My favorite right now is one of his new ones set in the American south. It's really interesting hearing all the actors putting on Southern accents, but it kinda works."

"Huh."

They walk along the Thames—or as much as they can, when the roads allow, meandering in no particular direction. John knows the Tower is in this direction, though. He's feeling like a proper tour guide now.

The one thing he forgot, however…

"Ah, man," Phantom sighs. "It's closed."

The two of them look up at the Tower of London. The moon hangs in the sky, the sun having gone down during their walk over. It's not too late yet; the night is still young. But it is, unfortunately, too late to go into the place as regular tourists.

"Might be for the best," Phantom remarks. "This place is haunted as fuck."

John barks out a laugh, then pauses. "Really?"

He'd been to the Tower before, but when he was younger. Maybe he'd missed things—or, more likely, the spirits were hiding from him.

"Yup," Phantom says, popping the 'p.' "And I don't think they'd take too kindly to me walking into their territory. The shades, I mean. And…" he trails off, squinting up at the building. His eyes glow very slightly. If John didn't know that his eyes could actually glow, he could write it off as a trick of the light. "The neverborns. It's… kinda concerning, actually, how many neverborns are in there." He shakes his head. "Well, whatever. Dinner?" he asks, flipping to bright and smiling in an instant, his former seriousness melting away like frost in the sun.

John blinks. "Sure."

They end up in a chippy. Phantom had asked, and John had answered. The stuff in Metropolis had been decent, but not as good as anything he could get in England. 

London, though, was absolute pants for chippies, so Phantom had stepped them down to Brighton.

"The closer you are to the sea, the better it'll be, usually," John tells him as they walk through the streets to the chippy. Phantom had stepped them through space into the Gardens this time instead of some random back alley.

It was a sound decision, seeing as the shop they're going to is right smack dab in the heart of Brighton. Stepping out of a rip in space in front of a random civilian would be… not ideal.

He hasn't been to this place in a while. One of his exes… a boyfriend, he thinks, absolutely loved this place and would drag him over every time he came down to Brighton.

"Well, that's a good sign," Phantom murmurs. The place is packed, though John can see a few open tables. "I'll go grab us a table if you want to order."

"Sure," John agrees easily. "Cod, haddock, or hake?"

"Whichever you recommend."

He gets them a haddock supper for two. A band plays in the corner, and he can smell the sea in the air, wafting in through the open windows.

Christ, this is nostalgic.

He watches Phantom's eyes light up—figuratively—as he takes his first bite of his fish.

Honestly, this feels like one of the dates that I had with that bloke… What was his name?

Eh.

It's a dangerous thought, that. 

John dunks his fish in his curry sauce and watches as Phantom tries a bite of his peas. He chews away, thinking.

It's one thing to think that the man is bloody hot and to want to fuck him; it's a whole other thing to be doing something so… domestic. Maybe that's not the word, but it's the only thing he can think of. Domestic, sitting here at a table in the corner, eating a supper plate for two, listening to live music… yeah, domestic isn't the word, really, but…

"Is something wrong with your food?"

John jolts slightly. "Eh?"

Phantom's got a bemused smile on his face. "You've just been staring at your plate."

"Ah—uh, nah. Just a bit tired, I guess." It's even almost not a lie. It's only something like three in the afternoon back in the States, so he should be fine for hours more, but he's starting to feel it.

Phantom nods. "Alright. At least the hotel has blackout curtains."

"I can go for a while more," John protests around the chip in his mouth. He swallows it down, prepared to continue arguing his case, but Phantom smoothly cuts in again.

"I've been running you ragged the last couple days," Phantom says, leaning forward and gesturing with a chip. "It's only fair to head back a little early." He leans back and pops the chip into his mouth. "Besides, I think tomorrow's going to be a long day."

John closes his mouth. "Fine," he says, eventually.

They finish their fish and chips eventually, lingering only for a few minutes to listen to the rest of the band's song.

Phantom snags their trays before John can, offering up a bright grin in the face of John's peeved expression.

They step out into the now-chilly air. John only has to suffer it for a few moments as they find a secluded alleyway and Phantom holds out his cool hand for John to take.

Their hotel room is surprisingly dark. Suspiciously so. He's rather certain that the curtains were open when they left.

Well, John's not too keen to look a gift horse in the mouth, as it were.

"Good morning," Phantom grins. It's dark outside still. According to the clock, John'd gotten a whole eight hours of sleep and had woken up near exactly at midnight.

He offers John a hand. "Know any good breakfast spots in Paris?"

John tugs on his tie. "I know a few."

He takes Phantom's hand.

They whirl throughout continental Europe and Asia. They step from their hotel in Metropolis into the morning sunlight in an alleyway in Paris, near the Eiffel Tower. John brings him to a cafe he remembers fondly and they have eggs and bacon and authentic croissants for breakfast and step through to Germany afterwards, coming out in a thick forest near an old castle. 

They blend in with the rest of the tourists walking through the castle, seeing the sights. At the end of the tour that they've managed to slip into, they step to the side and through space again to Rome. They walk through the city as the sun continues to climb in the sky. John is particularly interested in the way that Phantom points out different parts of the city and talks about how it's so similar to the few Roman cities of the dead he's been to. 

"The Colosseum there, of course, isn't crumbling. And it's painted in all these beautiful colors, just the same as when they were alive. It's all worn off here, now."

Phantom is the one to find them a restaurant this time, lingering in a relatively deserted area and talking to thin air. Seemingly, at least. John can see all manners of ghosts and shades, but what- or who ever Phantom is talking with is likely even less powerful than a shade.

They end up in a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant with a sign the size of a large book and end up splitting the best pizza John's ever eaten.

Good Lord, he's sure that this week will see him with at least another stone on him, if not two. His preferred vice is usually alcohol, not food. 

He says as much to Phantom as the two of them finish off the pizza and Phantom laughs. 

"Doesn't alcohol make you fat, too?"

"If you just drank straight beer all the time, sure," John says. "Beer is just liquid bread. Whisky and vodka, on the other hand…"

"Fair enough, I guess."

They step out of Rome and into a wave of heat.

"Bloody hell," John winces, squinting up at the cloudless sky.

They'd hopped over the Mediterranean, evidently, because pyramids rose up into the sky in the distance. 

"Huh." Phantom's voice brings him out of his musing. "I knew about where I'd be putting us, but really?"

He tracks Phantom's gaze to the Pizza Hut that they've circled around in front of. Beyond it, across the street, is only miles and miles of sand and then the pyramids.

John snorts. 

They don't end up going to the pyramids right away. They look around the city for a bit, stopping in at a few open air markets and such, just browsing. John manages to pick up a few trinkets that actually have some oomph behind them before any hapless person without any magical aptitude can. There was a particularly nasty curse on one of them, too.

Good deed done for the day, Phantom takes his arm to personally fly them over to the pyramids. They hover in the air over them, invisible to the tourists and locals alike milling around below them, mobbing the base of the pyramids. 

John flexes his hand that's fisted in Phantom's shirt, very pointedly not looking down again. That really hadn't been the best for his heart. To be fair, though, being like this, up in the air, limpeted to Phantom's side isn't the best for his heart either. 

John's arm is slung over Phantom's shoulders and his hand is fisted in Phantom's shirt. Phantom's arm wraps around John's waist, making sure he won't fall. By virtue of their configuration, their sides press together, Phantom's body a cool line against his, even through his coat. Their hips press together too.

He wonders if Phantom can feel how fast his heart is beating. He hopes that if he does, he'll ascribe it to the height they're at.

"So my friend—from when we were alive—is the reincarnation—was the reincarnation?" Phantom cocks his head slightly and his hair tickles John's cheek. "He was the reincarnation of an Egyptian pharaoh. He took over Duulaman's kingdom when he f—died."

John's brow wrinkles at the way Phantom trips over a word, but lets it lie.

"So you've seen a lot of sand, then?"

"So much sand."

They do a couple of slow laps around the outside of the pyramids. Phantom could just get them inside, but he would rather not disturb a tomb 'not his own,' which—well, that's fair. More than, John thinks.

"Move your feet like you're taking a step," Phantom murmurs in John's ear, and they're suddenly back on solid ground. It's a lot cooler where they are. "Welcome to Moscow."

John looks up. Even from this dingy alley, he can see the colorful onion domes. They have crosses sat on top.

They walk through the Red Square, looking at the architecture. The colorful building with the cross-topped onion domes is Saint Basil's Cathedral, evidently, and the Kremlin is behind the bright red wall. They make a short detour into the GUM, walking the corridor underneath the arching glass ceiling.

Their next location is a lot warmer and a lot louder, the sun starting to fall below the horizon. The two of them walk through the streets of Delhi, dodging traffic at every turn. 

"So," John says, eating his skewer of delicious chicken. "Not that this isn't fun, but why the rush around all these cities? Surely spending an hour or two in each of these places isn't nearly enough time to get to see everything."

Phantom, eating his own skewer, shrugs. "Oh, no, definitely not. But…" he looks away, blushing slightly. "It's just… I've heard about all these different cities from people I know—ghosts—but I've never been. And I know it's not exactly their cities, but, still… it's nice to be able to see them, even briefly."

"Why didn't we start this earlier?" John asks, brow furrowing. "You could've had more time in each place."

Phantom somehow blushes harder, the pale pink spreading all the way up to the tips of his ears. With great effort, he tears his attention away from that and back to Phantom's words.

"I… may or may not have just had the thought yesterday."

John snorts. "Fair enough, mate."

They bounce backwards through time zones to Greece, ending up in Athens to see the Parthenon.

"Wow. It's almost exactly the same." Phantom blinks up at the structure, eyes wide. The sun is just starting to set, sending flaming pinks and oranges across the sky.

"As what?"

"So, in the Realms, there's this Greek area, and…"

They step back into Paris after a while, just to see the Eiffel Tower at night. It sparkles and glows with lights, shooting straight up into the sky.

"Do you want to go up?" John asks.

Phantom turns to him, eyes widening. "You can do that at night time? Uh, hell yes?"

The city sprawls to the horizon, lights sparkling in the dark, as they climb up the Tower's stairs.

"The only thing that would make this better is if I could see the stars," Phantom remarks, almost hanging off the edge of the railing as he bends over it. John averts his eyes reflexively. 

"Well," John starts, "Didn't you say we need to kill some time? We could find somewhere out in the middle of nowhere to stargaze for a while."

And that's exactly how John finds himself sitting next to Phantom on the ground in the middle of nowhere. He's not sure exactly what country they're in, actually. It's at least not too chilly. Phantom's grabbed a blanket from whatever pocket space he has access to and spread it over the ground so at least they're not sitting on the bare dirt and scraggly brush.

Phantom lays on the blanket next to him, staring up at the sky. It's pitch dark for miles and miles around them and stars blanket the sky. His eyes glow faintly, and John can see those constellation freckles of his lit up on his cheeks.

"Mind if I smoke?" He'd almost just not asked at all—it's a dirty habit and one that Phantom's already expressed his disapproval of, but the lack of nicotine is making him itchy again. "I can go a little ways away if you'd like."

"Nah, it's fine."

John squints against the bright flash of flame from his lighter and sighs when the smoke hits his lungs. This week is probably the first time since his childhood that he's smoked so little, honestly. More than, actually, since it's rather difficult to smoke in a space station.

John finishes his cigarette eventually, the stick burning down almost to the filter. He stubs it out on the heel of his shoe and tucks it away in one of his coat pockets.

They might be in the middle of nowhere, but littering is still littering.

The horizon is starting to lighten, the black of the night sky starting to brighten, stars being outshone by the sun.

"I could've planned this better," Phantom says out of the blue. "We should've started on the other side of the world and worked with the time zones instead of against them."

"Eh," John grunts. "If you wanna play this game, I'm the one that should've been planning everything. I'm supposed to be your tour guide, aren't I? I've mostly just been following you. Haven't been much of a guide, really."

"I think you're a pretty good tour guide," Phantom says. "Or, at least, pretty good company."

Phantom smiles and John's stomach does a flip that he tries to ignore. They're in the middle of nowhere… with no one around for miles—in the wilderness.

And he's still upholding his part of the Deal.

Cut it out, he tells himself sternly.

They end up watching the sun rise the rest of the way.

They go through the next couple of cities in quick succession, fighting against John's internal clock. Without the time zone fuckery, he's been up for almost a full day, even if it's not quite close to being up for a full twenty four hours.

Sydney goes by first. They walk by the water and Phantom marvels at the sweeping sails of the Opera House as the sun continues to rise. It's unfortunately—according to Phantom, at least—too early to do the Bridge climb, but they can still (and do) walk across said bridge like normal people.

They while away just enough time to step into the back alleys of Tokyo just as the sun comes up properly.

"Are you hungry?" Phantom asks him as they stand on the street corner, waiting for the light to change so they can cross with the rest of a small army's worth of people, likely all on their morning commute. 

"I could eat, but I'm not particularly hungry," he replies.

Phantom hums. "Alright. Our last stop has plenty of food."

They walk through some truly magnificent gardens. John's contemplating coming back in the right season to see the trees in bloom, actually. They don't go into the palace, but they do walk around it, and go on the bridge going up to it. It really does look like there are two bridges, one curving up and the other curving down through the water. The illusion is ruined when a bird lands in the pond, sending ripples across that disrupt the smooth surface.

They walk a bit longer to find a secluded corner and then they're stepping through to yet another city. The sun's obviously just come up, but the streets are already bustling.

"To be honest, the only reason I wanted to come here was for the street food," Phantom says somewhat sheepishly.

"Well, I can understand if it all tastes as good as it smells."

By the time they've reached the other end of the street, John is very full. He cracks off another sugar-covered piece of fruit off the skewer he's holding, crunching through it.

He tries to hide his yawn, but Phantom notices it.

"Ah, hell," Phantom says. "I need to get you back to the hotel. You've been up for much too long."

"It's-" he starts to speak, but he cuts himself off with another yawn, bigger and longer this time. He shuts his mouth sheepishly.

When they get to a secluded corner, John takes some of Phantom's bounty so they both have a free hand each. The teleportation is as smooth as ever, but John stumbles slightly as he steps forward, another yawn cracking his jaw.

"Here." Phantom takes his food back from John as well as John's singular fruit skewer. "Go to bed. Shoo."

John gives him a sloppy salute. "Night."