Snow fell over London, turning the grimy glass of his window into a grayish blur. John Constantine had signed a tacit truce with Christmas: he ignored it, and in return, it didn’t remind him how hollow his flat felt.

The plan was simple, elegant, and self-destructive: a bottle of cheap whiskey, the smoke of an eternal cigarette, and the vague hope that some particularly irritating Christmas spirit might dare to show up, just to have something to curse at. He had switched off the only desk lamp, sinking the room into an artificial twilight, broken only by the orange glow at the tip of his cigarette.

The doorbell rang like a gunshot in that carefully constructed silence.

John froze, the bottle halfway to his lips. No one with any sense—or any desire to stay alive—visited him on Christmas Eve. It could be anything: a lost delivery guy, a minor demon with catastrophically bad timing. With a sigh that was closer to a growl, he got up, dragging his feet toward the door.

When he opened it, a blade of cold air and the pale hallway light hit him full on. There you were, standing in his doorway, with that face he hadn’t expected—or perhaps, secretly, never allowed himself to expect.

The magician blinked, slowly, as if trying to dispel an alcohol-induced hallucination. His expression, initially carved from pure annoyance, cracked for a fraction of a second when he recognized you.

“Well, well. If it isn’t my very own Christmas miracle,” he said at last, his voice rough from disuse and smoke. The bottle still dangled from his fingers like a talisman of his former resignation. “I’ll assume you didn’t pop round to sing carols, so…” he added, his sharp blue gaze—clear and skeptical despite his state—raking over you. “To what do I owe the… extraordinary honour?”

He didn’t move a muscle to let you in, but he didn’t close the door either. He just stood there, a silhouette cut against the gloom of his lair, smelling of tobacco, whisky, and sleeplessness. Behind him, the chaos of his living room was visible: open books marked with dangerous symbols, half-erased chalk circles on the floor, and a random movie playing silently on the TV.

The initial weariness had softened into a cautious, gravelly curiosity. The question, however, still hung in the icy air of the threshold, more vulnerable than he would ever admit:

“What are you doing here?”