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

[the_death_card]

"That's not fair," Jack complains. "You can't start with that and then not tell me the rest of it."

He's trying very hard not to start laughing and not doing a very good job of hiding how much he's about to.

[onebehind]

"There was this little pond area with, like, lily pads and frogs and shit in it," Dylan explains hurriedly, shooting a glance at Miranda in an effort to judge just how close to killing him she might be.

"Jake," she warns, though she looks, sounds more mortified than homicidal, at least for the moment.

"The frogs were screwing around, jumping from one lily pad to another," he continues, looking back to Jack.

"Jacob," Miranda insists, a little louder, now. Dylan shoots her another look, then shrugs as he returns his attentions to Jack. He might be able to guess where this story is going now, regardless. Even if he can't, Dylan offers him the mental image of a little Miranda, soaking wet, where she thought the lily pads might be able to hold her weight, too.

[the_death_card]

Jack manages to keep from laughing at first though he is grinning, amused both at the story itself and at Miranda's reaction to it - and then he gets the mental image and can't stop the laugh that bursts out of him.

[queen_ofwands]

"I'm going to murder the both of you, I swear," she mutters, shooting the both of them a sour look, though the one she offers Dylan is lingering. Blame the fact that he's grinning from ear to ear -- or the fact that he seems even more amused by her displeasure. Paybacks, as they say, are a bitch.

[the_death_card]

"I'd, uh... say it's not my fault but I guess I literally asked for it, so..." He looks vaguely apologetic, but he's also grinning and can't quite stop. Sorry, Miranda. They might actually be too good for each other.

[queen_ofwands]

"It's very much your fault," she tells him. "And his." She points to Dylan, then, as if it's not obvious who she's talking about. "And five years from now, I'm going to ask him for stupid stories about you, because by then, there's bound to be something."

She's not sure there isn't something now, but she's also pretty sure none of them involve Dylan, and she doesn't want to cause Jack pain, asking him about his life before.

[the_death_card]

Jack snorts again in response to that and looks at Dylan. "I mean, I guess the trying to pick a Fed's pocket is the big one right now."

She already knows that one, but it was still definitely not his brightest moment, even if he didn't know Dylan was a Fed at the time and even if it turned out for the actual, literal best.

[queen_ofwands]

"I'd say it probably wasn't your best plan, but ... " But yes, it worked out for the literal best. She's not sure whose luck it was, in this situation, Jack's or Dylan's, but someone sure as hell was lucky. All of this could have ended much worse in a hundred different ways.

That in mind, after a beat, she continues with, "And if you haven't used up all that luck, you might want to think about bottling it."

[the_death_card]

It definitely worked out in ways he never would have imagined before. He laughs a little when Miranda goes on. "Too bad I'm not old enough to hit up a casino," he jokes with a look at Dylan, clearly and already half-expecting any one of a few possible responses to that.

[onebehind]

"No," Dylan answers immediately. Even if Jack were old enough and planning to try and win legally, just -- no. Lucky or not, Dylan doubts he would get very far, the system not really based on luck or skill or anything but the house winning, for the most part. There's a reason why he never got into gambling, despite living its practical capitol.

Never mind the fact that he's pretty sure Jack wouldn't play fair, and he'd end up arrested. The casinos don't really stand for that shit, either.

[the_death_card]

Jack definitely wouldn't play fair, and he snickers a little at the speed with which Dylan responds to that. "I mean, it's all basically a hustle anyway, and you tell me that's a bad thing when I do it," he continues teasing considering he's all but stopped hustling tourists based on the fact that he doesn't need to for money, anymore.

[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.