#like i love sara constantine and zari in particular to the moon and back so worth it?

[alecmagnuslwb]

Alright, now that I’ve caught up on Titans I’m thinking about getting back into Legends of Tomorrow…I saw most of S3 and only really dropped it because I got tired of Nate and the crossovers, so I need opinions is it worth going back?

[nancywheelxr]

27, Zarlie

There are few things that surprise Zari anymore, especially regarding missions with the Legends. Once you had a pet dragon, she supposes, your bullshit-O-meter sort of gains new heights. So yes, when Sara tells her the string of murders in the suburbs of New Jersey needs investigating, Zari thinks nothing of it.

When Sara tells her she needs her and Charlie to go undercover, it’s not like she’s pleased, but she can see it makes sense. Zari has an amulet, she’s lived in a house in the ‘burbs before, she can pass as not-cuckoo-crazy better than half of the Legends. Charlie is a shapeshifter, she knows the supernatural, understands these creatures. 

It makes sense.

Constantine lays down all sorts of wards and spells on their newly bought house. Sara inspects it thoroughly with Ava, pointing out all the ways they were unsafe under that roof and fixing them the best they can. Mick is given a half-assed badge and a generic uniform and told to play night watchman. They set all kinds of contingency plans in place.

By all means, Zari and Charlie are as safe here as one can possibly be. 

Safe as houses. 

“Do you think,” Charlie says as they settle for the night. There’s only one bed, just in case anyone comes snooping, and Zari has claimed it, allowing Charlie to graciously take the large couch they had chosen on Gideon’s IKEA catalog. “This place is haunted?”

“No,” Zari immediately says. But then again, just last year, they’ve dealt with a possessed doll and a demon again. Maybe it’s time she, too, reevaluated her beliefs. “I mean, not this particular one, no. Why?”

“Nothing,” she shrugs, lounging on the velvety couch, and her sleeping shirt rides up, revealing too much skin for Zari’s sanity. Something hot and hungry growls deep in her belly. “It’s just all this empty space– it’s an awful big house for just the two of us, innit?”

It is. Now that Charlie mentions it, Zari feels it, too. All these empty rooms on the other side of the door. Just stale air and the creaking of the wood. The blinking lights of the microwave. The clock ticking in the living room. It’s an awful big house, yes. 

“Mick’s outside,” Zari says nonsensically, wondering who she’s trying to reassure here. Or why, anyway. There’s no reason to be scared at this point, they’ve barely gotten here. Today’s been a blur of moving in, making a spectacle of furnishing the place, putting on a show to assure the neighbors that yes, this is a perfectly normal household, nothing to see here. The most frightening thing so far has been the lingering sewer smell from the busted pipe a few houses away, but Zari’s been living in an enclosed space with both Mick and Constantine, she can stand some stupid unpleasant smells. “Anyway, great topic to discuss at midnight, thanks for that, by the way.”

Charlie smirks, slow and syrupy. “I aim to please, love.”

It’s not easy, falling asleep. Zari has to stop herself from tossing and turning, forces her body to stay very still, a light sheet over her body in the stifling warmth of a heatwave during summer. Even in her dreams, she feels too hot, burning up a fever that brings strange visions to the forefront of her mind– she dreams of walking down a road with thick woods at either side, alone under the moonlight, reflecting eyes watching her from the shadows; she hears the cars approaching, sees the headlights, and yet no one passes her by. Around the bend, there’s a sign but the writing is all wrong, foreign in an impossible way, and Zari keeps on walking with the determined certainty of a dreaming person that whatever she’s looking for is at the end of this road. The eyes follow her, unblinking, and the sour smell burns her lungs like sulfur. Ahead, the road stretches on, infinite.

At some point during the night, Zari jolts awake. Just like that, tugged from her dream between one blink and the next, and she’s staring right into the vanity’s mirror. It’s a rather startling thing to see right as you’re so jarringly regaining consciousness, something terrifyingly cold crawling down her spine. Her reflection stares back at her, just as distraught, and Zari averts her eyes to the window in the reflection, exhaling at the silver moon visible through the blinds. Although, she quickly glances down, lying back on the mattress, glad that Charlie is sound asleep on the couch, because there’s no excusing her irrational fear at how much that car’s headlight had looked like glowing eyes in the dark.

*

In the morning, with the sun shining once again scalding on her skin, Zari pauses as she’s opening the bedroom window. Something odd settles on her gut. She can’t see the bed reflected in the mirror from here. This spot should not have been in the reflection last night.

The room feels suddenly very small and very empty and Zari shivers, hurrying away even as she chalks it up to the remnants of a dream. She had never seen nor heard that car drive by either. Clearly, she must have been dreaming, Charlie wouldn’t have been that still anyway, they all know she’s a messy sleeper.

*

“Do you think,” Charlie asks over breakfast with a plate of steaming pancakes between them, “someone died in this house?”

Zari sets her mug down forcefully, glaring. “Why are you like this?”

“I’m just saying,” she defends herself, resuming her inhaling of the pancakes, “the Boss said a buncha people died ‘round here, right? This place was way too cheap, I’ve seen the papers. I’m just connecting the dots, love.”

“Well, don’t, then,” Zari watches the honey slowly drip down on her plate rather than the way the sunlight hits Charlie, softening all her edges. This early in the morning, she looks too touchable, beautiful in a way that doesn’t seem impossibly far. She’s warm and solid, a person instead of a concept. It makes the fluttering feelings caged between Zari’s ribs too real, too plausible. The waters become too dangerous to thread. “I don’t need any more weird dreams because of your weird theories.”

At this, Charlie perks up. “Oh, you had a weird dream, too? Mine was completely bonkers!” She grins, excited, but something is dulled behind her eyes like she’s trying to fix up the holes in her wall with malleable plaster instead of bricks. “I dreamt I was here, in this house, but it was different. None of our stuff was here, for one, and there was this hideous wallpaper. Very 70s. The lights were out and I had a candle like some bloody Victorian penny dreadful, but whatever, I had a candle and I was hiding from something, I think? I could hear it growling and pacing around the house sometimes, so I hid in a closet– which, by the way, is kind of funny, in an ironic sort of way? Bet the big guy would get a kick out of it– and I could see it coming to open the closet door, you know, I could see through the gaps, but I woke up before it did.”

“Wow,” is all Zari can say. There’s so much to unpack there, she doesn’t even know where to begin. Jesus. 

“I know,” she shrugs, deceivingly nonchalant, “how was yours?”

Uncertainty pools all over Zari, filling her to the brim. A dream is just a dream, but something about those eyes and the writing and the window in the mirror just feels off somehow. Like the sort of thing you shouldn’t say aloud. “Can’t remember,” she says instead, and then because the wind picks up and breezes into the kitchen, she scrunches up her nose, “shit, they really need to do something about this smell.”

A disgusted sound comes out of Charlie as she pushes her half-full plate away. “It smells like something bloody died in there. What the fuck was in those pipes?”

“Dunno,” Zari shrugs, standing up to dump their dishes into the sink, and glances at the street. A few houses away, the sewer is still cordoned off. “Maybe a possum fell in or something? I think I heard some raccoons last night too.”

“Coulda just been Mick, though,” Charlie snickers and leaves to contact the ship.

*

“Nothing’s coming to mind, mate,” Constantine’s voice is staticky and tiny coming from the communicator and it grates on Zari’s nerves even more than usual. She’s folded herself on the couch, throw pillow in her lap, while Charlie is sprawled on the carpet, communicator on her stomach. “Dreamwalkers wouldn’t make this mess.”

“Are you sure?” She presses, sighing frustratedly. It had been foolish of them to think they’d get a lead so soon in the mission. 

“Positive,” he agrees, words mumbled in that way which means he’s trying to sneak a cigarette without Sara noticing, “but I’ll look into it, just in case,” then, a pause where Zari can practically hear the smirk on his voice, “anywho, how’s married life treating you lot?”

“Piss off,” Charlie scowls, eyes still closed, basking in the patch of sunlight like a cat, “don’t be a bastard. We’ll be off playing nice with our dear ole neighbors today, so tell Sara not to call until later.”

“Will do, love,” Constantine is laughing, chuckling, really, considering he doesn’t laugh, still entirely too amused by their situation, but he grows serious before adding, “be careful, though. There’s something dark in here, something hungry.”

Zari thinks of eyes watching you in the dark. She shudders. “Thanks.”

“Ta-ta,” Charlie murmurs, turning off the thing. 

In the silence that follows, his words hang in the air, floating along Charlie’s it’s just all this empty space, and Zari grips the fabric tighter, resists the urge of pulling the quilt over herself. It stems from child logic, the naive certainty that if you don’t see it, it doesn’t see you, as if a flimsy blanket would be enough to build a safe space. 

“Think its time to go pay Ms.Flower-Prints a visit?” Charlie is sitting up now, studying her with guarded eyes, a tension to her shoulder that hadn’t been there before.

Pull yourself together, Zari tells herself. To Charlie, she only says, “don’t call her that.”

*

Myrtle Jones has lived in Cherry Street for her whole life, from childhood to now, and according to her file, she never married, never had children; a lonely life in a fairly lonely place. It makes Zari wonder why she had been so reluctant to invite Zari and Charlie to her home– no, actually, it doesn’t. There are dozens of possible reasons and none of them is a good omen to the kind of person Myrtle might be. Zari wants nothing more than turn right back on the quaint stone path leading to her front door, but Charlie’s got her hand on a vice grip as if anticipating her flighty attitude.

That, of course, is a hurdle on Zari’s whole plan on staying sane and dignified for the duration of the mission. She had banked on Charlie staying as disinterested in her as she is with following rules, not teasing her over breakfast, all soft-eyed, or holding her hand because she knows Zari is liable to turn tail. Zari needs Charlie to be as awful about this whole thing as possible, needs her to make it difficult not to focus on the mission. 

In all her plans, Zari had been very stupid not to consider Charlie, as unpredictable as ever.

“Christ, could you look less like I’m holding you hostage here?” Charlie hisses, ringing the doorbell. On the glass door, Zari tries not to commit the reflection to memory. “We’re going for happily wed, not a Criminal Minds episode.”

“I really don’t want to talk with our racist neighbor,” she whispers back, shuffling a little, “besides, this whole thing is a Criminal Minds episode. Wanna bet our murderer is probably passing as a middle-aged white man?”

“Point,” Charlie admits. Huffing, she rings the doorbell again. “But Sara told us to interview everyone, see what they know. And hey, we could make a game out of pissing her off?”

Zari snorts, relaxing instinctively, and glances around. The mailbox is empty, a sign Myrtle has got to be awake already to pick up her mail. “Weird. Do you think she went out?”

“How would I know?” Charlie shrugs, peering inside the dark foyer, “looks empty to me. Do old people go out? The fuck would she go?”

Feeling considerably better already, Zari can barely suppress her smile. “Well, what a pity, it looks like we’ll have to come back later.”

Unfortunately, once again, she had forgotten to consider Charlie’s overall Charlie-ness. “Forget that,” Charlie says with a smirk bordering on excited, “why don’t we try it my way, uh? Let’s pop in, snoop around a bit, see if the old lady has got something interesting in there.”

“Charlie,” Zari hisses, fuming, “that’s breaking and entering! That’s a felony!”

“That’s rich coming from Miss FBI’s-Most-Wanted,” she raises her eyebrow in challenge, “or are you too scared, Z?”

Hey now, that just won’t do. “Shut up,” she scowls, uncrossing her arms harshly, “I’ll pick the damn lock. At least the smell can’t be any worse inside,” she mumbles with a resentful look behind her shoulder at the offending open sewers behind her.

*

With the way this whole mission is going, it’s unsurprising that the smell is not, in fact, gone. If anything, it’s even stronger inside the house, with flies buzzing past them in a frenzy. “Damn, Myrtles,” she murmurs, slipping the door closed behind them, “you live like this?”

“Bloody hell,” Charlie breathes beside her and Zari follows her gaze, taking in the living room beyond the small foyer. Yellowed photographs in old-time frames line the walls, making up almost all the empty space in the shelves too, all those people undoubtedly dead by now, their eyes seeming to zero in on them and follow their movements, staring from every corner. Everything in this house seems to have stayed in the past, left stagnant in the 40s. The furniture, the decoration, the curtains– even the TV looks like it might not broadcast in color. It also must not work anymore if the static station it was left on is anything to go by. “Talk about creepy.”

“C’mon,” she tugs at Charlie, hand slipping oh-so-easily on hers, “let’s take a look upstairs first.”

The stairs creak with each step they take as if hell-bent on announcing their uninvited presence there to unseen witnesses and Zari feels Charlie squeezing her hand in wordless reassurance. Any other time, any other place, Zari would probably focus a little more on this. As it is, though, stepping into the bedroom without gagging is her main concern. Jesus, is there an open window right over the pipes in there or what?

“Well, this is dodgy,” Charlie says after getting one look inside the room. “Either the old lady is into some kinky shit or someone definitely got murdered in here.”

Blood stains the walls, the ceiling, the floorboards, in different stages of drying, while the whole place is trashed beyond recognition, almost as if a wild animal had torn it all apart in a fit of inhuman rage; a butcher’s place destroyed down to the red-stained structure. Deep scratches have gone through the floral wallpaper and revealed the wood, the plaster, all the way to the other room, and the smell is even worse in here, sticking to the back of her throat, to her tongue, to her lungs, makes her taste mothballs and rotten eggs. “What the hell,” Zari croaks, holding her breath before her stomach turns inside out on what’s clearly a crime scene.

“We should go,” Charlie coughs, eyes tearing up at the foul stench, her hands like claws on Zari’s wrists, “Z, come on, I’m not trying to be funny, we should go now.”

But they can’t, not yet, not when the closet is staring right there at Zari, door slightly ajar, and fuck, she knows what she’s going to find there, she’s seen their eyes on her dreams last night, but she has the same crystal clear certainty now– whatever it is she’s looking for is just up ahead, just around the bend. Just beyond that closet door.

“Oh, bollocks,” Charlie curses, kicking a nearby ottoman and checking the hallway outside as Zari slowly unfreezes herself to follow the bloody breadcrumbs, that terrible smell. “Please tell me you’re not going to– for fuck’s sake, Z, we need to go!”

Zari doesn’t answer her, simply reaching a hand to the cold metal handle, pointedly not taking a deep breath before carefully swinging it open. 

The contents inside all topple down at her feet but the first thing she registers is the smell. It burns in her nostrils and she gags, dry heaving in the blood-soaked carpet. Then, she notices a terrified Myrtle Jones staring right back at her with glazed unseeing eyes.

Her scream stays stuck in her throat, but Zari feels nausea lap at her stomach and the next thing she knows, Charlie is supporting her weight, an arm around her middle, and there are even more flies now, buzzing around them, covering what’s left of Myrtle with black polka dots that clash terribly with her floral patterns, with the blood staining her whole dress. Limbs and body parts too rotten to recognize litter in a pile over her body and Zari is going to be sick because they all look gnawed on, there are teeth marks on them, sharp fangs that scratched down to the bone and sucked out the marrow, and the maggots fester on the putrefied meat.

“Z,” Charlie whispers, arms tightening around her, drawing her back, away from the gore, “that looks–”

“That’s Myrtle,” she confirms, voice breaking and wavering, as she wobbles herself, “that’s– Charlie, that’s Myrtle!”

“That’s at least a week old, Z,” Charlie continues, eyes fixed on the bloody pile of what must be their murderer’s leftovers, “Myrtle’s been dead for a bloody week.”

Something cold crawls up her spine and Zari’s stomach bottoms out. If that’s– that can’t be right, it just. If Myrtle has been dead for a week – “then who the fuck did we talk to?”

Downstairs, the stairwell creaks.