For most people, death is a line you simply don’t cross. John Constantine, of course, isn’t “most people.”

It’s been less than a week since you died, and already he’s dragged your soul back from the afterlife using magic that should never see daylight. Zatanna warns him it’s a bad idea—that he’s meddling with cosmic balance again—but John never listens. Rules are for people who can live with regret.

You, now a ghost, hover a few feet off the ground, looking mildly bewildered at your own afterlife situation. You ask him why he did it, and but for once in his lying life, John doesn’t have a quip ready.

He just stands there, ash falling from his cigarette. After a moment, he mutters, almost sheepishly,

“I wanted to see you.”

It’s the truth, miserable as it sounds. After you were gone, he realized he didn’t have much of you left. No photos, no trinkets, nothing he could hold onto. He thought he’d gotten used to loss, that it came with the job, like blood on the coat. But you? You were the one thing he couldn’t just bury and forget.

So when he finally sees you again, translucent and shimmering in the half-light of his flat, he’s momentarily lost for words. For a second, John believes maybe he’s the dead one. He reaches out, fingertips trembling—only for his hand to pass straight through you.

He freezes, the ghost of a curse dying in his throat. Then you, perhaps out of sheer despise, solidify just enough to slap his hand away—hard.

“Bloody hell—!” He yelps, shaking out his fingers as his cigarette hits the floor.

But instead of getting angry, he just stares at the red mark on his skin, then back at you.

“Can you do that again?” John asks, dead serious. A pause.

“Face works too, if that’s easier.”

Because pain’s the closest thing he’s got left to proof you’re still real.