magician's apprentice | what if i wanted to break (rp for the_death_card)

[onebehind]

For all that the fight lasts maybe forty seconds before Jack gets a hand on his radio, for all that he and Jack have done this dance a hundred times before, it's the hardest thing he's ever done. He can't hold back, after all, and he can't pretend to fall for any of his little tricks. If he does either, Jack will know, suspect, and as much as he'd love to tell him, he can't. This is a test of faith, he is Jack's test of faith, and so he has to keep playing along and make it look good. It helps, he thinks, that he won't use his magic with Fuller in the other room, and Jack knows it.

It doesn't help that, for as hard as this all is, it's also easy to forget that this isn't just a game for how often he and Jack have sparred, none of it real, and so, that in mind, when he does get the radio, he slips.

"You little shit," he breathes, and while the corners of his mouth don't twitch, he doesn't smile, nothing here worth smiling about, he still freezes. The world freezes on an inhale, and half of him hopes Jack gets it now, calls him out, because he's tired of all this, while the other half is busily swearing internally. Either way, he knows he's given something away.

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[the_death_card]

Jack catches the apology but doesn't have a lot of time to respond to it considering the kick connects and considering he goes down hard on his hands and knees. He hesitates a moment before he makes a grab for the cards nearby and turns over onto his back, scrabbling backwards a bit. It's probably a good thing no one else can see right now, because he can't quite keep the smirk off his face now as he produces the cards, popping an eyebrow at Dylan.

He doesn't quite pull Neo's "come at me" hand gesture, but it's somehow implied anyway.

[onebehind]

"Seriously?" Dylan mutters, less surprised that Jack went for the cards, and more -- well, there's a sense of resigned amusement to his tone, to the cadence of his thoughts. Do you really hate him so much as to give him a dozen cardboard paper cuts, Jack? Does he really hate himself that much as to come at him, knowing what's coming?

He must. He ran into the fray in New Orleans, let all the people Merritt had hypnotized dogpile him, after all. And so he stalks towards Jack, now, too, hands coming up to at least keep the cards away from his face. Come at him, indeed.

[the_death_card]

"Yep," Jack returns an instant before he throws the first card, angling it to whip past Dylan's face - he'll feel a little bad if he does actually hit him, but he's also maybe not as accurate as he could be with it, considering at the same moment he's throwing the cards, he's also scrambling to his feet, whipping cards at Dylan as he backs up for the door to the apartment.

[onebehind]

Dylan flinches every time Jack looses a card, whether or not they get close to him -- though some do, some get more than just close for all that Jack isn't being as accurate as he could be. Again, though, he signed up for this; he doesn't fault Jack for what he leaves him with in the way of battle scars. They'll look good later, as part of the story, and he doubts they'll actually scar.

Keep going, he urges, that in mind, as Jack gets close to the door. A flutter of nerves rises up beyond that, as he's still worried about something going terribly wrong during the chase, and he'll have no way of knowing until the end.

[the_death_card]

Jack throws one last card at Dylan - and then wings one into the kitchen at Fuller, who recoils, the garbage disposal whirring anew as it gets a fresh hold on the coat.

Jack doesn't respond beyond a flash of acknowledgement, though, running out of the apartment and making for the laundry chute, fumbling for the papers when they start to slip out of his pocket. He puts them in his mouth as he gets to the chute, grabbing the bar and swinging up onto the opening, to drop through it.

[onebehind]

There's a sense of resigned amusement as Jack goes for the chute. That wasn't strictly part of the plan (he was supposed to get away from the FBI, when they took the bait, get to the car, the bridge, but the how was open-ended), but it's admittedly Jack's best option. Still, it's not going to be fun to follow, and he both hates him, mostly jokingly, for making him, and is impressed by his creativity. There's a reason he picked him, back on the street, years ago. There's a reason he picked him for this, this plan. Good. Good show, Jack.

Muttering a swear in spite of his pride, because of it, he watches Jack descend for several feet before finally committing to following, slipping into the opening the same way, using the bar above it for leverage. He doesn't bother to brace himself on the way down. It'll be a hell of a landing, but he needs to make up for those seconds, lost.

[the_death_card]

Jack glances up when he sees Dylan peer down at him, letting himself slide a little more quickly - and then takes his hands off the sides of the chute to try and keep ahead of Dylan. It doesn't work all that well, though he does manage to keep him back as they hit the bottom and fall onto the mattresses left there for this purpose. He loses his grip on the papers as he lands, rolling head over heels to one end, and he immediately turns back to try and make a grab for them before Dylan recovers.

[onebehind]

Dylan collides with -- something not the mattresses on the way down. A table, he thinks. Either way, Jack gets a flash of pain, bit back too late, as it takes him a second to get his head back on straight. Another flicker of apology follows, as he didn't mean to force that on Jack, and then he lunges for the papers.

"Gimme that."

Christ, he's going to be sore, by the time they make it to the carousel.

[the_death_card]

Jack passes back a quick flash of concern in return for the apology, but he's already moving to grab the papers, stepping back up onto the mattresses. He also means to step over Dylan once he has a hand on them again - but his foot slips, and he sends a flash of apology of his own when he steps on Dylan instead. He's already making to run before he gets a response, though, bolting out of the store room and through the maintenance hall, pulling down a stack of mop buckets as he runs for the stairs, shoving the papers back into his jacket as he goes.

[onebehind]

Dylan follows, managing to avoid the barrels albeit not with the greatest amount of grace. He's less lucky when it comes to avoiding who he assumes is building maintenance as he sticks his head out of the office. Hissing, Dylan pushes him out of the way, another apology roiling through the connection, this time like distant thunder, not directed at Jack, but not something he feels the need to clamp down on, desperate to keep himself open as long as he can, if only to feel Jack.

(It's been a long year, and he's tired of missing that piece of himself, tired of missing his son.)

Either way, a second later he's crashing onto the street and into a pair of agents, practically in a heap.

[the_death_card]

Jack still hasn't closed the connection down either - and isn't likely to, considering how long he has had to have it shut down, how much he's been missing Dylan - and there's still a sense of an adrenaline rush and concentration from his side, as Jack maneuvers through the traffic.

Back with Dylan, one of the agents manages to extricate himself long enough to point down the street - at about the same time a flashy black sedan comes up the street with a familiar blonde behind the wheel.

[onebehind]

Dylan's looking in the other direction when the car stops, as if he can see through the buildings and tell where Jack's headed -- as if he doesn't already know. Either way, he only keeps it up for a second before heading for the passenger seat. He spares an idle glance towards Bradley's car, to make sure he's still on the hook, before getting in.

"Alright, follow 'em," he orders as he slams the door behind him.

[the_star]

Alma doesn't step on the gas, though, glaring at Dylan as he slides into the passenger seat. "Don't ever tell me to wait in the car," she orders him loudly.

[onebehind]

Dylan gives her a long, incredulous look before finally, simply, he tells her, "I didn't have tactical command." Which is -- mostly the truth. He at least made it look like it wasn't his call, never mind the fact that he'd pulled the strings there, to make sure Alma wasn't involved. Considering how fast she'd caught up to Daniel in New Orleans, she couldn't be. She might have actually caught Jack.

[the_star]

Alma doesn't seem at all convinced by that argument.

"You have to trust me!" she continues. "Promise me next time that you'll back me up."

[onebehind]

"Could we have this conversation later, please?" Dylan asks, eyes darting in the direction Jack's car went. He's tempted for a moment, to reach along the connection, to suggest to Jack that he wait, but he thinks better of it. For all he knows, someone else is hot on his heels. He doesn't want him to get honestly caught because of him.

[the_star]

So far, no one else is after Jack, but he still has to balance getting to the bridge in the right time frame with making sure the FBI is following, so he hasn't gotten too far away, yet.

Which is probably good, considering Alma still hasn't moved the car and is still glaring at him. "No!"

[onebehind]

"Okay, fine, I promise, now go," Dylan relents. This really isn't going to come up later, so it's an easy promise to make, and whether or not Jack has a strict timetable to keep to or that he's aware of it, they're still losing time. They need to go and now. He needs to be there for the crash to get the Alcorn papers out of the car. He needs to know that Jack wasn't in there, period, that nothing went wrong.

[the_star]

Something in Alma's expression says she knows they're not going to actually discuss this later, that he's just agreeing to get things moving again, but she just looks at him for another moment before she puts the car back into gear and steps on the gas, making a hard left turn to the sound of a horn from another car that had started through the intersection.

It takes her a couple of turns to spot the black FBI issue sedan weaving through traffic, and she cuts off another car getting behind Jack as he makes a couple of hard rights of his own.

Jack speeds up as they get in behind him, blowing through intersections and dodging around traffic, swooping behind a truck backing out of its loading bay and into Alma's path.

Alma throws the car into reverse and whips the car around, heading down the next street, scanning traffic for the FBI car.

[onebehind]

Dylan throws out a hand to brace himself as she brakes, a genuine flicker of panic running through him. It's short-lived, however, replaced by focus as she turns them around, and as they head back into traffic, he spots Jack's car at once. He's all he can do not to smile. So far, so good, and the chase is fun, even if this wasn't how he imagined it.

"There he is," he tells Alma as they speed around a corner. Reaching for the radio Alma brought with her, he tells whoever might be listening, "We're heading East on the FDR Drive." Later, he'll argue that he made that mistake on purpose, hoping to baffle their pursuit, however briefly. In reality -- well, it's an honest mistake. Anyone could have made it.

[the_star]

Alma doesn't take her eyes off the road, intent on keeping the sedan in sight, but she does call back, "This is not east!"

Seriously, what?

[onebehind]

"North, north," he corrects, being purposefully obtuse, now. That misstep won't throw anyone directly behind them, but anyone further out will start off headed in the wrong direction, if only for a minute or two before someone corrects them. He can write it off as just not being familiar with New York, anymore, later, for all that he apparently lives in Vegas. "We're headed north on the FDR Drive."

Though, speaking of the cars behind them, "Fuller, where are you?"

He needs the lifeline, and he doesn't want to reach out to Jack, even if, mercifully, he can still feel him.

[king_ofwands]

Alma shoots him another confused look but doesn't respond again, returning her attention to the road and keeping up with Jack.

Jack's side of the connection is still open - he has no intentions of closing it again now that he knows he doesn't have to - but he's distracted, too, with the road in front of him and keeping an eye out for the other Horsemen as they approach the bridge.

"Right here," Fuller says into the radio a moment later. "Trying to catch up to you now."

[onebehind]

Dylan doesn't get the chance to answer, hands shooting out to brace himself reflexively, as a truck swerves in front of them. He breathes out, as she wheels around it, and takes another breath in, holding it as they turn onto the bridge. This is it. The rest of this little ballet has been a cakewalk compared to this. This is the hard part, this is crunch time, this is where, if anything's going to go wrong, it will, and God, he hopes it doesn't.

"Good," he tells Alma, despite all that. "Just stay with him."

[the_death_card]

Alma doesn't respond, just shifting gears as she keeps her attention ahead of them, lips pursed in concentration.

Jack weaves easily between cars, swerving around a taxi and then cutting hard into the right lane to slip past a bus. There's also a feeling through the connection like a huffed breath out, like he'd been holding it and is finally exhaling - just before the bus swerves into their lane, cutting them off.

Alma slams on the brakes - but so does the driver of the taxi, which means they're, for the moment, boxed in.

[onebehind]

Dylan mirrors her, slamming on imaginary brakes, too, reflexively. When he relaxes, and he feels Jack's relief wash over him, he lets out a breath and dumbly, dizzy almost, declares, "You're behind a bus."

Mentally, finally he dares to reach out for Jack, his own relief adding to his. They're done now. The hard part is over. Now Jack is, like him, behind the scenes until the end.

[the_death_card]

Alma yanks the wheel back to the left to get back out from behind the bus, and ahead, the decoy car deploys from the front of the bus while, unseen, Jack pulls ahead and away, disappearing into traffic.

Jack reaches back through the connection. He's good, he's got the rest of this under control, and he'll see him at the park - and, most importantly, he loves him.

[onebehind]

Dylan returns that love and fiercely, then pulls back, not quite closing off the connection again but at least turning the volume down on it. It'll help, going into the crash knowing that it's not really Jack in there, but it's still not going to be entirely acting that gets him through the next several minutes. He's still going to feel what it might be like to lose him, even if it's not real, not real, notreal, and he doesn't want Jack to have to suffer through that, too. He'll survive, though, and yes, he'll see him at the park.