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"Two seconds. You couldn't just keep it in your pants for two freaking seconds?"

After the brawl at the widow's John and Jeremy had returned to the one and only motel in Heddwich. They had decided to take a short breather before making a game plan for their next actions.

John scoffed, looking a bit offended at Jeremy's scolding as they headed down the hall for their rooms. "She was the one coming on to me!"

"Uh huh." Jeremy nodded slowly, narrowing his eyes a little at his old friend. "Because the lady who just lost her husband definitely wants to have sex with the first guy she sees!"

"Exactly," John said, clearly not picking up on the sarcasm.

Jeremy rolled his eyes. "Whatever. I'll see you outside in fifteen minutes. Try not to get into too much trouble before then, okay?"

With that, Jeremy slipped inside the room he'd been staying in. (Though he had only actually set foot in the place one other time -- earlier that day before he'd gone to the mine.)

He set his bag down next to the bed, opting to simply use John's supplies since he likely had better equipment and Jeremy didn't feel much like lugging his own crap around all day.

Though, he did keep his phone on his person. It wasn't anything fancy, just a small disposable thing. (Jeremy's line of work often had him losing the damned things, so he made it a point to never get any fancy cell phones, lest he just be throwing away his money.)

Jeremy made a quick call to Ralph back at Central City. It wasn't that he didn't trust his partner to keep things running smoothly while he was gone. He just didn't trust his partner in general.

It didn't take Ralph long to answer. He picked up almost immediately even though it was probably close to three in the morning back in Central. Ralph must have been up all night partying with that questionable crowd he hung around.

"Oh, Jeremy! Hey! How's it going in Pennsylvania?" Ralph's words were a bit slurred, and there was a crap ton of background noise. Jeremy could barely hear a word he was saying. (Oh yeah, he had definitely been partying all night.)

"Peachy," Jeremy rolled his eyes even though his partner wouldn't see it over the phone. "And over there? You haven't burned the office to the ground yet, have you?"

Ralph laughed drunkenly. "Oh ye of little faith! Don't worry I've got everything under control -- hey! Don't touch that!"

His sentence was cut off as he turned his focus to yell at someone on his end; a moment later Jeremy heard a crash, as if something made of glass had just hit the floor.

For a moment Ralph was silent, and Jeremy was met with the nerve wracking sound of thumping music. "Okay," Ralph finally spoke up. "That's cool. We can fix that."

Jeremy sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as he felt a headache coming on. He knew leaving Ralph alone would be a bad idea. "Ralph, what was that?"

"Nothing!" Ralph said much too quickly. "It's totally fine. It's not even that broken!"

Jeremy squinted at the phone suspiciously for a moment. "Ralph, that better not be the lamps! Those are the only lights we have!"

"Uh..."

"Ralph!"

"Relax. The lamps are totally safe. The party isn't even at the office this time." But despite his proclamation, Jeremy had a hard time believing him, and he did not relax.

Jeremy didn't push the issue though. He just let out a frustrated sigh, moving the conversation forward. "Whatever. Did we get any new cases?"

Ralph paused for a moment, maybe checking to see if they did, in fact, have any new cases.

The noise went on, and Jeremy had to remove the phone from his ear a few times in order to avoid getting his ear drums blown out.

When Ralph finally spoke up, the noise had subsided a bit, so Jeremy guessed he must have slipped away to another room. "No cases, but get this. There's a guy running around the city with an ice gun, now."

Jeremy blinked. "Excuse me?" What the hell was that suppose to mean?"

"Yeah," Ralph said. "Weird right? He derailed a train earlier tonight. Froze it right off the tracks. The Blur saved everyone, though. And earlier today he killed someone at the theater. Guess he wasn't fast enough to get to that guy..."

Jeremy stayed quiet for a moment, slowly going over that information in his head. "Ralph, I'm gonna ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me. Are you on drugs?"

"What? No! I've been clean since college. Why would you think that?" Ralph seemed a tad offended by the question, but Jeremy wasn't convinced he wasn't sober.

"Because you're telling me a story about a guy that moves through lightning and another guy who has magical ice powers," Jeremy said. "To come up with something like that you'd either have to be intoxicated or insane."

Ralph was silent for a moment, and Jeremy got the feeling he was rolling his eyes at him. "Okay, fine. Don't believe me."

"I don't," Jeremy confirmed. It was a bit difficult to do so when he could hear the impossibly loud music thumping and the undoubtedly drunk twenty year olds cheering at something probably stupid in the background.

He really hoped that party wasn't going on in their office. The land lord would be murder them, especially considering Ralph had already been warned about it three times before.

Their conversation might have gone a bit further, but Jeremy heard a scream from down the hall. Probably John's doing.

He sighed. "I gotta go." Then, he hung up before Ralph even had the chance to respond, immediately moving out his door and down the hall to see what John had gotten himself into this time. (Jeremy had almost forgotten what a trouble maker he was.)

Once he'd gotten to the honey moon suite -- John always took the largest rooms, claiming it there was more space, space which Jeremy thought was unnecessary.

From inside the room, Jeremy heard someone -- most likely female -- repeatedly shouting John's name.

Jeremy figured he'd just slipped away from whatever poor woman was in there, most likely slipping out through the bathroom window; and she was probably banging on the bathroom door, now.

He rolled his eyes. People really were useless sluts when John Constantine was around. Ralph had a similar effect on women, even though he was a sleazy scumbag.

God help him if he should ever be stuck in a room with both John and Ralph at the same time. Jeremy turned around and headed for the exit.

He headed for the car, taking the keys from his pocket as he went. It would be best if he just waited for John.

The other man showed up a few seconds later, and Jeremy was leaning against the car when he reached him.

"How hard was it to get out the window?" he asked. "They looked pretty small."

A teasing grin formed for a moment, and -- just for a second -- it sort of felt like old times. Before Newcastle, before everything had inevitably gone to shit. The moment was gone in the blink of an eye.

John rolled his eyes, moving towards the passenger side of the car since he couldn't ever be bothered to drive. "Don't be a cheeky bastard, alright?"

He didn't need to ask how Jeremey knew. They'd known each other for a few years, so John already knew about his not so amazing detective skills. Besides, it was obvious to anyone who bothered paying attention.

"Alright." Jeremy shrugged and ducked into the car as well. He was going to head back to the mine to see if they could find anything else, but before he so much as started the car, John was speaking again.

"Head for that old church on the hillside, yeah? I need to see about a tall cross."

Jeremy flashed him a questioning look, but he started the car and headed that way anyways. As odd as the request seemed without much context, John's instincts were usually right about these sort of things.

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The church wasn't much to look at. In fact, Jeremy wouldn't be surprised if learned the people of Heddwich rarely used the place.

The grass was majorly out groan, yellow patches spread out throughout the yard; the woodwork of the building itself seemed to be caving in slightly.

At the front of the church yard, directly in front of the winding, concrete road leading up to the holy building, was that tall cross John was so worried about.

Jeremy didn't bother asking how John had gotten the -- for lack of a better word -- lead on the cross. He knew John's response would be vague, assuming he even answered at all.

The duo walked up the old creaking steps and entered the church. Jeremy was underwhelmed by the amount of effort these people put into their places of worship.

Benches were pushed all over the dusty floor, scattered in no particular order; sheets were hastily thrown over them, not even covering them completely, as if whoever had done it had been in a hurry or just didn't care.

One bench had even been pushed over, like someone had decided to go cow tipping with church booths.

To the left, there was a crudely drawn painting on the wall next to the door -- a nasty dark figure with frail limbs and a mean snarl.

Jeremy turned back to the front of the church, as he heard a tiny squeak in the floor boards. At first, he thought it was their demon, and apparently John did too because he said, "You'll make yourself known if you know what's good for ya!"

There was a pause. Then, a teenage boy poked his head up from where he'd been under one of the benches.

A second after he sat up, a burnette girl followed suit... They were both shirtless. Probably pantless too.

Jeremy grunted, opting to look at the crude painting instead. It was a surprisingly less unholy sight.

"Really?" John sighed at the teens. "In a church?"

"Sorry," the boy mumbled as the two teens scrambled to get dressed.

John moved towards them, the smallest of smirks tugging at his lips. "Oh, don't apologize to us, mate." His eyes flickered to the ceiling for a moment.

Jeremy couldn't help rolling his eyes a little at that. Since when did John Constantine care about offending the all mighty?

"Put your clothes on, will you?" John pushed the teens to move faster. No one really wanted to see a bunch of kids in the nude, after all.

Once they were decent, John nodded at the demonic painting on the wall. "What's this business?"

The boy shrugged, not looking very interested in it. "Just a story. You know, meant to be scary."

He and the girl moved towards the door hurriedly, probably just wanting to get away from the two strange old men who'd caught them hooking up. "Tall man, no face. Follows you home, peaks in your windows."

They paused by the door, and the boy finished the lack luster story with a short, "It's not very original."

John and Jeremy shared a quick look before John turned back to the teens, ushering them off once more. "Alright, go on."

"Alright." Then, they were off. Jeremy figured, if they hadn't completely ruined the mood, they would probably just pick some other place to screw each other's brains out.

He tried not to think about that too much, though. Instead, he turned his focus back to the painting, shoving recent events from his mind with nothing more than a short grumble and another eye roll, "Teens."

In a matter of seconds, Jeremy and John set to work. Fortunately, John had left his bag full of magical crap in the car, so he hadn't forgotten it when he'd fled through his bathroom window.

He pulled out a thermos of holy water and a knife, cutting his finger and letting his blood drop into the water. Jeremy was, frankly, too much of a prune to do that part.

So, instead he snatched the thermos from John and dumped it over his head without bothering to give him a warning.

"Oi!" John complained. But a moment later he began chanting his spell anyways, Jeremy still pouring the water onto his head.

He chanted for a few seconds before pausing, apparently seeing some sort of vision, courtesy of the incantation.

Jeremy stopped pouring the holy water when John blanched, stepping back a bit. He screwed the lid back on and put it back in the bag. "Well?"

"Well that was...insightful," John said shortly.

"And that was vague," Jeremy pointed out, but he didn't expect an actual answer. John was pretty stingy when it came to details, which made working with him kind of irritating; but Jeremy was use to it by now.

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Jeremy was use to John leading him into strange places without really explaining what they were doing, sure, but sneaking into a woman's apartment early the next morning had to be crossing the line.

At least, he would have thought so until he spotted the countless paintings of John this woman had laying around.

It wasn't just a few in the living room either. They took up most of the floor space, and easels upon easels blocked off the halls and littered the room, the halls, probably the next room too.

The whole thing was way past the boarder line of creepy and obsessive. John didn't seem very phased by the paintings though, giving Jeremy the impression that he'd already known about them.

"Jeez, John. What did you do to this poor lady to make her so...invested?" That was really the only word that Jeremy could think of that didn't sound as if he were insulting this lady. Whoever she was.

"Normally I'd say my dashing good looks or my irresistible charm," John insisted, making himself comfortable on the woman's couch. "But this time, I didn't do anything."

He kicked his feet up on the arm rest, laying back with his hands behind his head. "She just showed up this mornin' with fancy pictures and crazy talk."

"Uh huh," Jeremy nodded, not sure if he believed him yet or not. "So, she just shows up out of the blue with pictures of you even though you've never met her?"

John gave a curt nod. "Pretty sure she's clairsentient."

Ah. That would make sense. Clairsentient people could feel and experience energy in intuitive manners -- they could feel other's feelings, gain spiritual insights, and occasionally sense the future. Basically, they were empaths on steroids.

"Is that how you pulled 'tall cross' out of your ass? She gave it to you?"

Jeremy's question unsurprisingly went unanswered. When he turned around, John was fast asleep on the couch, apparently warn out from the night before.

Jeremy was a bit exhausted himself, but he thought it would be sort of rude to start dozing off in some lady's house, especially when he hadn't even met her yet.

He turned back to the pictures around the room, studying them closely. It was a bit odd, seeing so many images of John laying around, unnerving.

Having one John hanging around was bad enough. This just seemed like a really bad omen.

Jeremy was only observing the creep photos for a few minutes before he heard the door sliding open at the front of the room; a woman slipped inside. The clairsentient, he guessed.

She was pretty. Latina. Thick dark curls laying over her shoulders. Big brown eyes that seemed a bit too empty.

Just the type of person to screw around with John and get all stalkery. Only she didn't seem to be all that stalkerish as her sights set on John, laying there on her sofa.

She slammed the door behind her, waking John instantly. His his snapped open, drifting to the woman almost instantly; he flashed a, what Jeremy guessed was supposed to be, a charming smirk her way. "Hello, luv."

He slowly sat up, still giving her that look that didn't seem to be doing much of anything except pissing her off. "Is it morning already?"

She huffed, folding her arms over herself as she made her way towards the sofa, glaring at John. "You leave when I want you, you're here when I don't."

Jeremy let out a small chuckle at that. Yeah, that was pretty much John in a nutshell. He was stubborn asshole when he wanted to be, which, as it happened, was most of the time.

The woman's eyes flickered up for a moment; apparently she hadn't noticed Jeremy before he'd made a noise. She seemed a little taken aback, probably not expecting John to bring along any friends.

The woman shook off her surprise a moment later, turning her attention back to John. "I'll make it easy for you. Get out!" When he refused to move she added a sharp, "Get up!"

John gave her a fake pout, and Jeremy rolled his eyes for what felt like the millionth time. "Oh, don't be that way, luv."

"I don't want you!" the woman hissed, glaring harshly at him. "Get out, and take your friend with you!"

Jeremy would have been happy enough to leave. It was weird breaking into some broad's home anyway; Jeremy had never been one to invade other's privacy.

Not just because it was insanely rude but because he genuinely didn't give a shit what people did behind closed doors. (Unless of course he was getting paid to find out.)

But John continued to ignore the woman's request. He shifted himself on her couch so that he could look both Jeremy and the woman in the eyes. "Oh, that reminds me..."

He waved his hand between the two of them as he spoke, introducing them. "Jeremy, Zed. Zed, Jeremy."

The woman, Zed, glanced at Jeremy for only a brief moment. "Yeah, hi." Then, she gestured towards the door. "Bye."

John looked back at her, still not moving an inch. "I had to verify that which you provided," he told her. "A security protocol is, in fact, required in our business."

Zed mused over his words for a moment, relenting after a moment. "I still don't know what you do."

John leaned back in his seat, a smug grin forming over his face that sort of made Jeremy want to deck him. "What I am, as you have so conventionally portrayed," with this he nodded at the paintings, "is an exorcist, demonologist, and..."

He paused here, but Jeremy wasn't sure if it was for dramatic effect or something else. It almost sounded like hesitation, but John almost never hesitated. "Occasional dabbler in the dark arts," he finished.

John got to his feet, looking the woman straight in the eyes. "Now, the question is: who are you?"

Zed narrowed her own eyes back at him, seemingly challenging him. "I'm Zed."

"Ugh," Jeremy groaned. He could tell listening to the pair of them was going to be a drag. It always was whenever John drug around his little 'friends,' clairsentient or not.

"Right." John went on staring intensely at the woman, as if Jeremy wasn't even in the room. "Zed Martin." He paused again, briefly. "I found your three month lease. So, what's a chica bonita in her mid 20s doing slummin' it in a one-horse Welsh mining town in the middle of Pennsylvania?"

Zed shrugged, evidently not taken aback by his attempt to intimidate her. "I travel a lot."

"Right," John nodded curtly. "Well, there's only two types of people who 'travel a lot.' Those in the circus and those who run." He took a quick glance around the room. "And curiously I'm not seeing any funny wigs or face paint."

"I know what I'm running from." Zed took a step closer to John, a cocky grin of her own forming over her lips. "Do you?"

She could keep up with him. Jeremy had to give her that. Not very many people could keep up with John, even if they tried.

John narrowed his eyes, taking a step closer himself so that the two of them were mere inches apart. "You came to me, not the other way around."

Then, came the inevitable moment John tried to scare her off as he tried scaring everyone off.

"You step into my world, you'll be staring down demons, devils, and the like." He nodded to one of the pictures. "Those things in your paintings? They're real."

The two stared at each other for a long moment, the tension growing higher. Jeremy was convinced they had forgotten all about him.

"It won't be bad memories nippin' at your heels," John went on, moving so that he stood behind her, whispering in her ear, "but the scourge of hell gunnin' for your soul."

Zed turned around so they faced each other again, the two closer than ever. John continued, "And when the bell rings you better be ready, willin', and able to answer with some far more deadly than a charcoal pencil."

He gave her a small shrug, acting as nonchalant as could be. "Now, if you could handle that, then we can talk business. If not then we go our separate ways, and I never see your pretty little face again."

Zed stared at him, real serious, tilting her head to the side with the tiniest of smirks tugging at her lips. "I ain't going nowhere."

Jeremy cleared his throat awkwardly. It looked like the two of them were on the verge of going to town; and they might, right in front of Jeremy, had a blaring alarm not sounded just then.

Jeremy let out a sigh of relief as Zed and John jumped apart. He knew it meant something awful must have happened, but in the moment he was glad it happened.

"Is that what I think it is?" John asked.

"Mine collapse," Zed confirmed.

Hopefully this is an alright chapter. Jeremy finally met his future wife!

They don't talk much though. Sadly. I think at first they'll just kind of be dismissive of each other, because Jeremy will be convinced she's trying to get with John and Zed will sort of be put off by the fact that he's indifferent towards her.

I dunno. Let me know your thoughts in the comments!