onebehind | magician's apprentice | been a hell of a ride but I'm thinking it's time to grow

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magician's apprentice | been a hell of a ride but I'm thinking it's time to grow

Dylan knew, coming out of the hospital if not going in, that getting sober wasn't going to be easy. He knew he'd have bad days and good days and days in between, and every therapist he's seen since then, every meeting he's been to has only reaffirmed that. They'd also armed him with a bag of tricks to deal with everything and everything in between, but -- well, today is one of the bad ones and nothing is helping. He's been pacing the house like a madman for the better part of the day, trying to find something to hold his attention long enough that he can stop thinking about running down to the nearest liquor store. He needs to get out of his skin. He's just shy of calling his sponsor. He needs to get out of the house.

He needs to get out of the house.

Stopping midway through moving a pile of books from one side of the living room to the other, he latches onto that idea and turns it over in his head. He needs to get out of the house.

He's moving again a second later, though this time, it's with a purpose, a clarity he hasn't felt like he's had in hours, days, weeks. He goes to Jack's room, tapping lightly on the door, and then after a beat and once he's been invited in, sticks his head in. Flashing him a smile that's equal parts reassuring and strained (he's fine, they're fine, this is nothing bad, he's just a little jittery, don't mind him), he tells him, "Hey. Pack your shit."

He has an idea. It'll be good for both of them.

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"I got a workbench?" Dylan supplies, gesturing towards the far wall opposite the door. There is, in fact, a workbench sitting there, taking up most of it, covered in a mess of papers and models made from Legos. None of them are particularly sensitive, though -- he's not that far along in planning his revenge.

"And there's, like, a not-quite bedroom, in the back."

Jack drifts toward the bench in question, grinning at the sight of the Legos. He doesn't dare to pick any of them up, though, still wary of messing something up and making Dylan angry - just because he's starting to relax doesn't mean there aren't still some old habits in there that he's yet to shake.

"Oh, yeah," he returns, glancing toward where he assumes Dylan means. "I guess that makes more sense than having to, like... set up an air mattress or a crappy cot or something."

" ... is this a bad time to tell you it is a crappy cot?" Dylan asks after a long, purposeful pause. As far as he's aware, it actually is, which is why he said not-quite bedroom. It's a place to sleep, sure, but there's no bed.

Jack blinks at him - and then laughs. "It's better than the floor," he declares after a moment.

He shouldn't really be surprised to know it's just a cot, considering the rest of the space - and considering he made his previous comment based on the idea that Dylan came out to work sometimes and just ended up being here later than he meant to.

"You ever go camping or whatever? Tents and all that crap?" That's kind of a random question, but it's related to the crappy cot situation.

He shakes his head.

"We spent the night on the beach, in the bed of a buddy's pickup truck, once, but." There had been two pickups, if you want to get technical, but that's a matter of semantics. The point he's making is that's probably the closest to camping as he's ever been, and that was years ago, decades. It also probably wasn't strictly legal, but again, semantics.

"That something you're interested in doing?"

"Maybe?" Jack decides after a moment. "I've never done it anyway."

There's a lot he hasn't done, really, and he's not even sure if it's something he would end up doing. If the opportunity came up, he wouldn't say no, though.

Dylan's quiet for a moment, thoughtful, before popping one shoulder in a shrug.

"We can try it sometime, see what with think." It's not like they can't be nearly anywhere in the blink of an eye. And by that same logic, "If we decide we hate it, we can pack up and go back home, maybe set up the tent in the living room or something, instead."

Jack laughs. "Yeah, that works."

Considering they're both from New York, he has a feeling it might not go well, but he's also not against giving it a try.

There's a lot he feels like he needs to catch up on that families usually do now that he has a family - and that thought brings with it a swirl of warmth.

Dylan offers it back to him, along with a fond smile. When the latter, at least, dims a little, he glances away, off towards the door to the bedroom he mentioned. "Backing up, though. You wanna set your crap down and check out my shitty cot?"

And try and figure out who's sleeping where. Maybe he should have thought to bring an air mattress.

Jack snorts. "That sounds like a bad line," he returns - but he also nods, adjusting his backpack on his shoulders and turning toward the other door, expecting Dylan to lead the way.

"Yeah, I'm not even gonna touch that one," Dylan decides after a beat.

Shaking his head, he does, in fact, turn to lead the way through the door, which dumps out into a narrow hallway with two other doorways behind it. At one point, before him, before his father, when this place was still a construction site for the park outside, this might have been where the offices were or were planned to be.

Nodding towards the door on one side of the hallway, Dylan lets Jack peek into it. There's a small bathroom behind, with a pair of sinks and urinals to one side of a boxed in toilet stall, and a box of a shower on the other. Once Jack's seen that, Dylan indicates the other door, and --

-- well, it should be a room, no bigger than for a desk and a couple of chairs, with a cot and a nightstand wedged in, instead. It should be, but while the room is no bigger than Dylan remembers, something closer to a bed has been shoved in here against one wall, a slightly bigger end table beside it, now. It'll still be tight quarters in here, with the two of them, but at least, like this, no one will have to sleep on the floor.

That in my, Dylan blinks. "Okay, uh."

Jack just snickers at Dylan's response, expression turning curious again as Dylan leads the way farther into the warehouse. He takes quick stock of the bathroom and then leans around Dylan to peer into the other room when he stops.

"Yeah, that's not a crappy cot," he points out like Dylan hasn't already noticed that.

"It was the last time I was here," he promises, making a face at him. A moment of pause follows, and then at length, he ventures, "I guess me and my old man have spent enough time here for shit to kind of react to us."

It's not the first time he's seen a place change based on whoever happened to be in it. It's just the first time it's happened to him, in a place that belonged to him.

Jack moves around him into the room, setting his bag down once he's farther into the room and turning to look back at Dylan. "What do you mean?"

Before Dylan can respond to that, though, his eyes go a little wide. "Wait, you mean like your hoodie or whatever?"

"A little less deliberate?" he answers, making a so-so gesture. "The hoodie, I passed along to someone who took the time and energy to into purposefully making it do what it does. This is ... me and dad have done enough unrelated real magic here that it's kind of seeped into the building."

Less deliberate, like he said, and much longer in the making, since it wasn't a focused effort.

Edited 2022-10-11 20:51 (UTC)

Jack takes in the room again, still slightly awestruck. "That's fucking awesome," he says again. He pauses, then, though it's clear he's still thinking. "Like the carousel, though. Why everything's..." He waves a hand vaguely. "Warmer? There."

He doesn't how to put it into words, but they've basically already had that conversation - how the carousel has always felt Safe when very few places in the city did.

Dylan nods at once. He gets what Jack's talking about, and more to the point, he's absolutely right. "Like the carousel, yeah. I feel like this probably took longer to get to that point, since it was only me and Dad, and not, like, half the Eye, but."

"Yeah," he returns - and then grins again. "This is all so fucking cool."

He knows he's said that before and he should maybe be a little embarrassed to just blurt it out like that, but he means it, and he's meant it every time he's said it.

"So you've said," he teases, lightly. If anything, though, Dylan is pleased that Jack is into all of this, and that much bleeds through the connection -- as does a vague sense of relief. There was maybe some worry there that Jack wouldn't be interested in any of this, being a teenager and too cool for anything, but he's glad that he is.

"Kinda glad we don't have to worry about where everyone's sleeping and how much my back's gonna hate me in the morning, though," he finishes, a little more seriously.

If it wasn't honestly cool and if it wasn't everything Jack had ever dreamed of back during his time in the system, he might be less enthused. As it is, he's really just not that jaded.

He laughs at Dylan's comment. "Yeah. I mean, I can sleep on the floor or whatever, but it sucks."

He would have been fine in a sleeping bag or whatever, but this is definitely better.

Dylan hums, and then finally steps into the room, narrow as it is, more fully. He drops his bag on the edge of the bed, to be dealt with later -- probably about the time he and Jack start getting ready for bed -- and then steps back out into the hallway, gesturing for Jack to do the same.

When that's all said and done, he notes, "Guess I probably should've brought something for us to eat." He was kind of in a state when they left, though. Getting out of town was about as far into the future as he'd managed to think.

Jack steps past him into the bedroom, dropping his bag next to Dylan's before he steps back out of the room - and huffs out a laugh. "Uh, yeah. I guess the pizza guys don't really come out this far?"

"Not so much." A beat. "Though, we could go get something and bring it back."

Or they could just go out, period. The sky's the limit, all things considered. The ceremony of the car was just for getting here, not what they did once they arrived. Either way, though, stay or go, it's Jack's decision.

"Oh, okay," Jack returns, tilting his head a little in thought. "Uh... I dunno, though? Whatever?"

Which is very helpful, he knows, but he also doesn't know what he wants to eat at the moment.

Dylan snorts.

"Helpful." A beat and then a little more gently, he offers, "Well, think about it while we look around."

He's pretty sure Jack's not done exploring yet, after all.

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