I laughed as I ran away with John trailing after me. Even though he had threatened to get me back I could hear his laughter behind me. I looked over my shoulder and laughed harder when I saw the look on John's face. He looked like he was going to pass out with how much we had been running. I slowed down and moved to sit down when I noticed where we were. John slowed down next to me and we both stood trying to catch our breath, staring up at the school building.

"How is it we ended up here?" John asked as he slowly stood back up and his breathing evened out.

"I have no clue." I shrugged and started to back away from the school. It was a bad enough place during the day but at night it was just plain creepy. I reached for John's hand as I stumbled backwards. John gripped my hand just as tightly as I was gripping his. "But I really wanna get out of here John."

"Agreed." John squeezed my hand and the two of us turned and started running again. We ended up outside of the local arcade. We sat down on the bench in between the arcade and the comic book store before John looked over at me. He noticed the tears running down my face before I could wipe them away. "Hey hey hey." He soothed as his arm fell around my shoulders and pulled me into his side. "It's okay." His hand rubbed up and down my arm as I turned into his chest and let the tears fall. There was no hiding my feelings from him. He would find out about them anyway. We sat like that for a while before John spoke again. "Do you want to talk about it?" I pushed myself closer to him instead of answering and buried my head in his neck. John chuckled at my actions and I could feel him take a deep breath. "I know you get bullied." I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

"How do you know about that?" I asked as I leaned back to look him in the eye. Even though I knew that it would kill me to see the look in his eyes. John raised his eyebrows at me, silently questioning me about my question. "Right. You're John Constantine. You know about everything that happens to me." I scoffed as I stood up. "Well if you wanted honesty that's all you had to say! You always seem to know exactly what happens to me and yet it still happens! Nothing I do seems to be good enough for anyone in that damn school except for you! I tried laying low and keeping my nose to the ground but you just had to move here didn't you John? Throw my entire life upside down!" I was ranting now, pacing back and forth in front of John. He watched me solemnly. "I never did anything to them and yet I'm the brunt of all their jokes! All their pranks! It's not a good look when you are constantly hiding from them either! It makes things worse!" John reached out and grabbed my arms, stopping me in my tracks. He made me look up at him and I had never seen him be this calm and angry at the same time.

"It's okay. Trust me (Y/N). It's okay." John tried to sooth me while keeping his calm. "We'll take care of them first thing tomorrow morning." I shook my head. "The important thing is are you okay?"

"I'm not o-fucking-kay!" I yelled as I pushed John away. "It was bad enough before you moved here but once you did.....Damn those girls really found a new way to make my life a living hell!" John stood up abruptly. I ignored him and kept going. "You read me like a book and yet you couldn't do something about this one fucking thing!" John fought against me as he grabbed me and pulled me as close to him as he could. He let me hit his chest and struggle against him, knowing that eventually I would calm down and settle against him. In the back of my mind I knew his chest would hurt like hell tomorrow and probably be covered in bruises but I didn't care at the moment. All I cared about was letting out the emotions that had built up over time. Even before John I had been good about bottling up my emotions. He just showed me a better way to do it. It was a while before I finally settled down and either one of us said anything. I was quietly sobbing into John's chest, my fists clutching at his shirt. John was holding me so tight, like he could put the broken pieces back together that way.

"Why didn't you tell me?" John whispered. "It was bad enough to watch it happen but then you didn't say anything about it afterwards. You just bounced right over and hugged me and walked me home before sneaking me into your house when you realized that dad was completely buggered." I could feel John's head shake before falling on top of mine. "Why didn't you just tell me?" I felt something wet hit the top of my head and I gently looked up at him, knowing what I'd be met with.

"I never wanted to let you down." I whispered back. I gently reached up and wiped some of John's tears away. "It was better off this way. Just acting like it wasn't happening." John shook his head again as a few more tears fell. "I didn't think it would get worse. I thought that if I just ignored it, they would get bored after a while. But they just kept going at it." I gently pulled John close and rested my forehead against his. "I thought that because I had you, it would be easy to just forget about them and focus on you. But it isn't as easy as I thought it would be." John chuckled and started to relax in my arms.

"It never is luv." His eyes met mine and we gently smiled at each other. "Next time tell me. I'll be there to help you. Hell, I'll even stop them if I have to." John rubbed his nose against mine, causing me to giggle.

"Alright John." I nodded. Reaching up, I wiped John's remaining tears away and just looked up at him. One of his hands reached up and held my hand against his cheek while the other slipped down. He squeezed my hand as he slowly lowered our hands to our sides. "Are you okay?" I repeated his question from earlier. He looked down and nodded slowly.

"Yeah." His voice sounded a little rough as he looked back up at me. "Yeah I'm okay." His tight lipped smile told me differently but I chose to ignore it. John smirked at me as he rubbed his chest. "Well emotionally speaking." I gently shoved his shoulder as we both started to laugh. "You really did a number on me luv. I'll be sore tomorrow for sure."

"Sorry about that." I said as I smirked back at him, knowing full well that he would weather through it just like he did everytime that I had done it before. Besides, I thought with a slightly sick feeling, he had had worse done to him by his father.

"I'll be okay. Just a little sore." John wrapped his arm around my shoulder and started to lead me towards the arcade. "But that doesn't mean that I can't kick your ass in video games." My head fell against his shoulder as I laughed.

"Yeah right!" I looked up at him as I pulled myself together. We walked in the door and nodded to the owner. He knew us and always let us stay an hour after closing. I think he also knew about John's shitty home life and wanted to give him time to just be a kid but I also think it was because we were so nice to him and helped him officially close when we were getting ready to leave. John dropped his arm from my shoulder and took my hand. The owner smiled at us and shook his head. "Go get the tokens stupid scouser." I gently pushed him towards the counter and John let go of my hand.

"How's it going John?" I heard the owner say. I walked around the arcade looking for a good game to play for a while.

"It's going good." I could tell John had shrugged. "Better than it was earlier tonight." I heard the tokens being slid across the counter. Then hushed voices. "I'll get around to it eventually. Trust me mate." I had rounded the counter and stopped when I saw John looking at me already. He smiled and tapped the counter. "Cheers mate." He looked at the owner and held up the tokens.

"Ready to go down Constantine?" I asked as I pulled him to the game I had found.

"Over my dead body." John laughed as he slid the first token of many into the machine.