Respite

Written by Anakin McFly

The school auditorium is empty on this Sunday afternoon, its wide doors closed and locked from the outside, sunlight meandering its way through the dust that layers the high windows running below the ceiling.

There's a brief disturbance in the air. A teenage boy appears where previously there was no one. He glances around with a slight turn of his head, then slips something into his pocket and trudges over to the piano by the stage. He sits down, and he plays.

The music that emerges is soft at first: uncertain, almost wary of how this might not be allowed. But no one comes to stop him or to complain, and the notes get clearer, louder, more confident, the melody sweeping through the empty hall and creating, just for a moment, a small world of its own.

Engrossed in the music, he doesn't notice when a man appears from behind. The newcomer's arrival is the same - out from thin air - but he seems foreign to this place. He's too old to be a student, and there's something weary about the way he stands that suggests (though he's still got some years to go before middle-age) that he's too old for the world. Seen too much. His once-crisp white shirt is rumpled beneath his suit, skinny black tie loosened around his neck. He leans against the wall, watching the boy play. His hand brings a cigarette to his mouth. He takes a drag, blows out smoke, then breaks into a coughing fit.

The teen freezes at the piano. The last note lingers in the air. His eyes go wide.

The coughing subsides a moment. "Did I say you could stop?" a harsh voice asks, roughened by cynicism and dangerous habits.

"I..."

John Constantine wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and gestures at the piano with his other hand. "Keep playing."

The teen turns to face him. "What... what are you doing here?"

John sniffs. "Don't ask so many questions. Chris, is it?"

Chris Townsend nods, eyes still on the unwanted intrusion.

"Keep playing, Chris."

John slides down the wall to the floor. It's a more comfortable position. Less tiring. He takes another drag on the cigarette, manages to repress the coughing this time, and lets his head fall back against the wall as the music tentatively starts up again. He closes his eyes and exhales. His hand with the cigarette falls to rest atop his knee, and he listens to the music.

Respite is hard to find, these days. He likes to think that he's safe in the other worlds. He probably isn't, at least not for long. But it's nice to believe he is. It's also nice, sometimes, to believe and not know.

He opens an eye, then another, and idly watches the kid at the piano. Guy could do with a haircut, he thinks. John looks at his cigarette. Inhales again. Coughs again. He glares at the world and all that's beyond it. It's not his world, but he's sure they know. They always find him, eventually. He can't escape them forever. He could hide out at Reeves' place, but that would be cruel. Reeves wouldn't last a second if things got nasty. But John finds an odd, sadistic satisfaction in the idea. He smirks. And coughs again.

The tune has slowed as Chris turns his head to look uncertainly at him, because all that coughing doesn't sound healthy, and maybe he should get a doctor or some other kind of help. But John is picking at his cigarette and won't make eye contact.

"Did you... want to see me or something?" Chris asks, and feels uncomfortably self-conscious with the question. There's no reason he can think of for John to want to visit him. They've barely spoken, if ever.

John makes a rude noise that's sort of a snort but not quite, which answers Chris' question.

"I... uh, have to go now," Chris adds, wondering why he's afraid of some guy who's sitting on the floor looking close to death. "I'm meeting friends. For lunch."

John makes some noncommittal sound. Chris waits a while more, and then, when John still doesn't seem interested in his presence (or even seems to remember that he's there), he takes the ITDT out of his pocket, somewhat apologetically, and teleports himself back to his house.

John stays on the floor a while longer. It's just him now, all alone, facing an empty piano, tendrils of cigarette smoke rising up through his fingers past its abandoned keys.

If he is alone. He finds it hard to tell, sometimes. But he should be. It's a whole other world.

Alone.

He gives a short laugh. It sets him coughing again, and he mentally swears. FML, he thinks, in long-form.

It's been a while since the music, and the spell feels broken. He gets back up to his feet. He's a little unsteady, but he's still standing.

John stubs out the dying cigarette and lets it drop to the floor. He digs in his pocket - his hand missing the opening the first time - for the ITDT, takes it out, and jabs at the buttons to set course for home-

A single piano note sounds. John stops.

He turns, slowly. One of the piano keys is depressed, and glowing with an inner light.

"There you are, John," he hears. Only there's no one he can see. Yet.

John rolls his eyes, activates the ITDT, and gets the hell out of there.

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