magician's apprentice | we've come a long way from where we began (rp for the_death_card)

[onebehind]

The place Miranda picks for their lunch date is meant to be neutral ground, Dylan is sure. She has them come out to Chicago, and while she is doing a show here, sometime this weekend, if her website is to be believed, it's still not home, not for either of them. It's also not one of the dozen places around town that might have required a reservation and no escape, if either of them thinks this is going south. No, it's just a diner, a literal hole in the wall, in a strip mall between a chiropractor and -- something else, Dylan's not sure, as he misses the sign, etched into the wall as they head in, but either way, the effort all adds up to a massive relief. He's not sure this will go badly, that he needs to think in terms of advantages and disadvantages as if he was playing chess, considering he's changed in the last twenty years, twenty months, twenty weeks, but still. He lets out a breath of relief, as they step into the building and he takes a look around.

It's a little less reminiscent of a dive bar, inside, even if the floors are bare, the ceiling open, and Dylan takes a certain amount of comfort in that, too. He glances to Jack briefly, to gauge his impression of all of this, and then steps up to the hostess's station as he looks out over the tables, trying to spot Miranda in the dwindling late-lunch crowd. When he doesn't see her, he's not surprised (she never could be on time for anything), and so he gets them a table for three, by the window, and settles into a chair. He expects Jack will take up his side of the table, too, and that's fine with him.

Once he's settled, Dylan pauses a beat, before, "Have I mentioned the part where she'd be late for her own funeral?"

Comments

[onebehind]

"People who walk into a casino know what they're getting into," Dylan tells him, a touch of seriousness to his tone, even if he knows Jack is joking. Before, when Jack was still practically a street kid, he might have forgiven his habits. Now, however, there's no excuse -- mostly no excuse, and so he continues, "Not so much with you."

Jack's just a kid and the tourists would never see him coming.

Miranda, meanwhile, says nothing in response, no argument on either side coming to her lips. Instead, she looks between each of them in turn, curious, maybe, to see how this plays out.

[the_death_card]

"Tourists, though. Half of them are totally asking for it," he argues, glancing at Miranda. "Right?"

Some of them just deserve to get messed with, as far as he's concerned, especially the most obnoxious ones.

[onebehind]

"I could think of a few that deserve it," Miranda admits.

And now it's Dylan's turn to look between the two of them. Rather than hold his silence, however, with a shake of his head, he mutters, "The two of you are never allowed to be in the same fucking zip code ever again." You're really not helping, Miranda, Jesus.

[the_death_card]

Jack can't help it and giggles as he turns his attention back to his food. "Nope, you gotta deal with us both all the time, now."

This is all your own fault, Dylan.

[onebehind]

"Uh uh," Dylan shoots back, shaking his head violently. "I'm gonna change my name, move to -- I don't know, Abu Dhabi or something." That would get him away from the two of them, right?

"Good luck, honey," Miranda tells him, nixing that idea. A pause follows, and then she tells Jack, "You know, he stole my last name." Or, well, her birth last name. She's been Vale for years, now, legally.

[the_death_card]

Jack laughs more at that, still giggling a little despite himself - and tapers off as Miranda goes on. "Really?" he asks, looking from her to Dylan. He'd sort of wondered where Dylan's cover name came from, but an opportunity hadn't come up to ask.

[queen_ofwands]

"Mm-hm," Miranda confirms, nodding. Dylan, meanwhile, just shrugs a little helplessly. He has no argument against this topic of conversation and Miranda's not wrong about where his last name came from.

"I don't know where he got 'Dylan' from," she continues after a beat, wrinkling her nose, as she's clearly not a fan of the first name he picked for himself, "but 'Rhodes' was my legal name, when I was born." Her mother, also legally a Vale at the time, hadn't wanted to inflict her stage surname on her daughter, so she'd gone with her maiden name. Miranda had taken her mother's stage surname as her own, later, all on her own, despite that.

[the_death_card]

"Huh," Jack begins thoughtfully. He's not really sure what else to say about it all, though. It's some interesting information to have, though, considering: "I kinda wondered. How you picked a different name or whatever."

He's not going by the name he was born with either, after all.

[onebehind]

It's not the name Jack was born with, no, but it's close enough to his actual given name and has a reason behind it. Dylan, meanwhile, shrugs before he admits, "Rhodes was hers, yeah. Dylan just ... just sounded right." It had just felt like it fit, somehow, when he was going through the baby names book he'd picked up, looking for something suitable.

[the_death_card]

Jack mirrors the shrug, too. Works for him.

And, after a minute, he's still kind of at a loss for what to say next.

/fade

[onebehind]

Thankfully, at least for the moment, no one needs to say anything, as the waiter returns to check on them. When they disappear again, Miranda leans forward to fill the void, starting with, "So ... "

And so the bullshitting continues throughout lunch.