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]

"Yeah," Dylan answers. A pause of his own follows, then he continues, "There was this little old lady running it, last time I was there." Apparently, Lionel wasn't the only one to spend time in Macau. Either way, after another beat, he shakes his head, "I don't ... "

"Bu Bu," Miranda supplies gently, apparently getting where Dylan was going with that, "and she really is a little old lady, now." Not just old to a seven-year-old's perception. "She's still running it, though. It'll be a cold day in Hell before she retires."

[the_death_card]

"Magic shops are supposed to have awesome old people running them," Jack returns. "Or slightly creepy guys in top hats."

[onebehind]

"New Orleans," Dylan answers automatically and on a hum.

"If you're looking for creepy guys in top hats who run magic shops, that'd be the place," Miranda clarifies, agrees. Most of the time, it's a persona, like she puts on on stage, like Dylan does, but still. Voodoo doctor is very popular. The tourists eat it up.

[the_death_card]

Jack snickers a little. "Okay, yeah. Creepy guys in top hats for New Orleans; guys with way too much self tanner and sequins in Vegas?" he counters lightly with a grin for Dylan, considering he's making fun of the other city he spends most of his time in.

[onebehind]

"I can't actually argue that one," Dylan decides after a moment, making a face at him. He has no great attachment to Vegas like he does Manhattan, but he knows that Jack is ribbing him. He can play along, particularly when it gets him away from dwelling on thoughts of Macau and, more importantly, his father.

"I can," Miranda informs them. "Think less sequins and -- well, less, period. I saw a guy on the corner of Spring Mountain who was wearing nothing but a thong and LED lights, last time I was there." Never mind the fact that he hadn't been a magician.

[the_death_card]

"Agh," Jack groans. "Really didn't need that mental image, thanks," he mutters as he claps a hand over his eyes briefly and then drops it again. "Never mind that kinda doesn't surprise me, considering some of the ads and shit I saw while we were out there."

He'd been good and hadn't gone to the strip at night despite the fact that he kind of wanted to, but that didn't stop him from seeing ads for escort services and the like.

[queen_ofwands]

"You're welcome," Miranda chirps, the smile she's been fighting with coming onto her face in full, now. After a beat, she continues, "But yeah, Vegas is ... well, if you thought Times Square was bad ... " The Strip, day or night, is worse and for more than just the fact that prostitution is legal, though that certainly doesn't hurt. She's pretty sure LED Underwear was advertising one of the Ranches around Las Vegas.

"Fun fact, though?" she continues after a beat. "Prostitution is actually illegal in Vegas. Most of the escort services are supposed to be just that." Not that that stops them from selling sex in the city. More money is spent on that sort of thing in Clark county, in Las Vegas, than any of the other counties where prostitution is actually legal and there are functioning brothels. "The closest place you can actually get a blowjob for twenty bucks is in Nye county."

" ... why are you telling him this?" Dylan asks, embarrassed. Never mind the fact that he's been to the Ranch Miranda is talking about and, yes, paid for sex. It's hard to have a real relationship with someone, when you're pretending to be someone else, and sometimes, you just have an itch to scratch.

"I want to see which one of your heads explode first," she answers, again cheerfully.

[the_death_card]

Jack's actually less embarrassed by this talk than the idea of a cowboy in light up underwear, and he's pretty sure he's about to help with the exploding of Dylan's head. "Uh... considering I know some drag queens and sex workers in New York? I'm gonna go with his," he adds with a grin for Dylan, betting that the idea of his teenage son hanging out with those people might make this all worse.

He's lived more on the streets than in a house since he was ten. It takes an odd sort of thing to shock him at this point.

[queen_ofwands]

Dylan groans and scrubs a hand over his face before lowering his head to the table. After a moment of laying there, he mimes waving a white flag, then collapses back into it. Miranda, meanwhile, hums, amused. "And there we have it, folks."

Despite her flippancy, however, she's -- admittedly a little worried that Jack knows those kinds of people, but then again, she got an idea of his background from Dylan. It's not really surprising.

[the_death_card]

"Does this mean I get the cheese sticks all to myself?" he asks, grinning. Clearly the fact that he broke Dylan's brain means he wins.

He's also not noticing the fact that he bothered Miranda with that, too. It really isn't as bad as it could be, considering how many of those people had asked him occasionally if he had somewhere to go and something to eat and that kind of thing.

[onebehind]

"No," Dylan grumbles into the table.

Miranda shoots Jack a look, this one easier to read, asking why he puts up with Dylan, if he won't let him have the cheese sticks. If her worry lingers, it's because she knows how many Queens and sex workers get into drugs on top of everything else, and that's what bothers her. They may have kept an eye on Jack, but it's something of a miracle, she thinks, that that was all they did.

[the_death_card]

Jack just snickers at both of them again, Dylan for still having his head down and for Miranda giving them both shit about it.

It's not that Jack's never been around or offered drugs, it's that he has no interest in trying them himself considering he already knows people who have ODed. He'd appreciate the worry if he knew she was having it, though. It's still a little weird to have people that actually worry about him considering how long he's gotten by on his own, but he's also starting to get used to it, considering he's pretty sure it's part of being a family.

[onebehind]

"I thought were were getting two, anyway," he continues after a moment, pulling himself out of the table, albeit marginally, so that he can look up at Jack from under his eyebrows. If there are two baskets of cheese sticks -- well, he's still going to steal from Jack's, but that makes it sort of a lousy prize to have lost or won.

[the_death_card]

"We are, one for me, one for you two," he teases. "I'm a teenager. We're supposed to eat a ridiculous amount of random shit, right?"

He's definitely gonna be stealin ur cheesesticks, Dylan.

And oh dear Lord that meme is actually timely. The narration is sorry she double-checked.

[onebehind]

"A ridiculous amount of healthy shit," Dylan answers, still half-bowed into the table. "You keep stealing your old man's cheese sticks, and you're gonna be short for the rest of your life." You don't want to be a teeny little superguy, Jack. Trust him, he knows.

"Is that what happened to you? Miranda asks, as if she can read his mind. Maybe she is.

"Fuck off," he tells her, no heat behind the swear, as he sinks back into the table.

[the_death_card]

Jack opens his mouth to respond to that only for Miranda to get there first, and he laughs. "I think it's too late, anyway. Pretty sure I'm just doomed to be short or whatever."

Not that he really minds his height, even if people have given him shit for it in the past. It actually comes in handy sometimes when he's trying to get away from people bigger than him, after all.

[onebehind]

Dylan, meanwhile, is incredibly vain about his height. It's one of the few things, along with the grey he's starting to find in his hair, that bother him about his appearance. Rather than point that out, however, he instead just offers, "Fine. Eat the cheese sticks. Eat all of 'em."

He's no where near as upset about this as he's pretending to be. He's only slightly more embarrassed when, when it turns out their waiter has materalized in the time that he's been buried in the table, Miranda tells him, "Two orders of the mozzarella sticks." At least then he finally sits up, like an adult.

[the_death_card]

Jack snickers more at Dylan's assertion and at the fact that he pops up off the table as the waiter appears. He sobers a little when it comes to his turn to order, reaching again for the menu to confirm which burger he's decided on, passing it back once he's ordered.

He's finally to a point where he's mostly stopped worrying about overstepping boundaries with Dylan, and one of the ways even he's aware that it's showing is the fact that he's stopped being weird about food - either in ordering his own meals or requesting things for dinner or the fact that he's stopped hiding food in his room.

[onebehind]

Dylan glances over his menu again, too, before ordering a burger of his own. Miranda, meanwhile, orders a salad with chicken. They both pass their menus back and as the waiter departs, Dylan looks as though he's seriously considering sinking back into the table for a minute and largely for effect, before he gives up on it.

"So, where were we before the two of you made me start seriously questioning my life choices?" he teases. He reaches out to Jack with a brush of warmth, that said, so he knows he's not serious, if it wasn't clear enough.

[the_death_card]

"Uh," Jack begins, shooting Dylan a grin in answer to the warmth he gets. "I think that's pretty much all this conversation's been, actually?" he returns lightly, his grin going even more shit-eating.

[onebehind]

"Okay," Dylan drawls. Jack isn't wrong, he doesn't think. "Can we get off of that, then, and onto something else?"

"Mm, I don't know, honey," Miranda answers, glancing over to Jack as if asking for his opinion. They should probably stop busting Dylan's balls at some point and actually talk about -- anything else, really, but that time might not be now. Maybe in a few minutes.

[the_death_card]

"I bet me asking her for embarrassing stories doesn't count as changing the subject, right?" Jack asks, apparently in earnest, though he's still teasing, too.

"Or, uh..." he adds a moment later, and he is more serious, now. "I can ask you what you're working on?" He looks to Miranda, then. He's been looking up some of her videos, after all, and he's curious.

[onebehind]

"No," he tells him, leveling a glare at each of them in turn.

Miranda hums, amused. If she planned on volunteering anything despite Dylan's protests, however, it dies on her lips at Jack's question. She makes another small noise, a just a second as she leans away, reaching for her purse. From it and impossibly, she produces a program for her show, holding it out for Jack. "This, mostly. I haven't really had the time, lately, to workshop anything new."

The show's been taking up all of her time.

[the_death_card]

Jack snickers a little at Dylan's denial - and then sobers, too, as Miranda produces the program. He reaches out to take it, flipping through it. "Cool," he says after he's a few pages in, and he means that as more than just a basic platitude. There's definitely more than a little awe in his tone.

[queen_ofwands]

"I could probably get you tickets to the show tonight, if you two were planning on hanging around for a bit," she tells him after a moment, looking between Jack and Dylan. Dylan shrugs and looks to Jack. If he wants to go, that's fine by him. He's not worried about anyone from the FBI suddenly showing up to wonder how he got from Vegas to Chicago and back again fast enough to see a show and get home and go to work the next morning.

Not yet, anyway. Give it about ten years.