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

[onebehind]

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.

Comments

[the_death_card]

Jack grins at him. "What I was thinking." He knows it's possible Dylan actually did say what he was thinking, but he needs to point out great minds thinking alike and all that.

"Ooh," Jack says softly as he takes the skewer and bites at one of the pieces a little tentatively, more out of fear of it being hot than any fear of not liking it. Just because he does have choices in food now doesn't mean he's entirely lost that fear that food could be taken or denied later. Still, he does like it, but it is hot, and he sucks a little air in before he takes another bite. "That's really good," he says around the mouthful.

[onebehind]

Dylan mirrors him, taking a bite of his fruit and breathing around it in a belated attempt to cool it down a little. He still has his mouth full, too, when he asks, "What was that?"

Never mind the fact that he's just as unintelligible -- it's entirely purposeful.

[the_death_card]

Jack snickers - but also swallows before he says again, "That's really good. Also hot."

He waves the skewer a little - carefully, trying to cool it down without actually launching any of it into space.

"So do you just like... go get lunch like this a lot? Because I totally would."

[onebehind]

"Sometimes," Dylan admits, shrugging. "It's easier to go grab something in New York as opposed to, like, India what with the time differences and all, but ... "

But he has, in fact, grabbed a quick lunch in New York while at work -- or a quick breakfast in Japan. It all depends on what he's craving and what time it is and how the time zones fall.

[the_death_card]

"Still fucking cool," he insists around another mouthful. "It's all so cool."

Has he mentioned just how much he feels like he's lucked out, here? And considering he decided years ago that everything was going to be terrible forever and that there was no such thing as luck?

Sometimes he's still a little worried it's all just a dream, if he's being honest.

[onebehind]

"One of these days," Dylan starts around another bite of his fruit, this one a touch cooler than the last, "I'm gonna show you something and you're gonna pull that blase teenage bullshit on me."

Never mind the fact that, like he told Jack, it never really does get old.

[the_death_card]

Jack pauses - and then finishes chewing the bite he had taken while Dylan had been talking. "That's for like... when parents are trying to convince you it's cool to do something that actually sucks. Or when their parent sucks. Kinda..." He flushes, dropping his gaze from Dylan for a moment, the momentum he had been trying to build dropping off all at once. "That's not. I mean."

The connection says what he can't bring himself to actually voice, considering he is still a teenager and considering no teenager has ever been in a hurry to declare their parent "cool". There's another emotion brewing in there, too, and his difficulty to voice it has more to do with his history than any teenage tendencies, though they probably don't help. He hasn't felt comfortable, felt safe enough, to love anyone since his mom died.

[onebehind]

Dylan snorts, entertained by the not-quite-implication that he might suck. Any amusement he takes from the situation is quick to fade, however, the wind going out of his sails as surely as it does Jack's. His expression softens, and he shifts, telegraphing the fact that he plans on reaching for Jack before he sets a hand on his shoulder. "Hey."

The mental warmth that accompanies the word is meant to be a balm.

[the_death_card]

Jack appreciates the fact that Dylan still lets him see touch coming - but he doesn't particularly need it at the moment, and he shifts toward Dylan, leaning like a cat toward a hand. He still doesn't look at Dylan, reaching up to rub at the corner of one eye with the side of his hand, pushing back the emotion that's all but blindsided him.

"Yeah?"

[onebehind]

"Dunno." But he does know, his own emotions mirroring Jack's. He's at an equal loss as to how to deal with them, however, how to express them in this moment, and so he just lets the connection do the work. The warmth, the love continues, even as Dylan pops one shoulder in a shrug. "Just hey."

[the_death_card]

Jack snorts, amused - and does finally look over at Dylan again, still leaning into the touch. His purposeful use of the connection is more tentative, a little hesitant, partly because he's not entirely sure what he's doing - but the feeling he's been projecting passively, slowly, gains a little more intent.

It doesn't last long before he pulls back, still nervous, and while he doesn't pull away from Dylan's touch, he does go back to fidgeting with his food. "But, uh. Yeah. I wanna learn more of it. How to do stuff on purpose and everything. And all the stuff like this."

[onebehind]

Dylan steps back a second after Jack does, exhaling a slow, vaguely unsteady breath. He, too, curls in over his food a little, and he forces himself to take a bite as a means of steadying himself. It seems to work, too, and once he's swallowed, he nods.

"I was planning on showing you some shit -- " Maybe later rather than sooner, but. " -- but have we talked about it being only at home or in case of emergency, at least until you're older?"

[the_death_card]

Jack had already turned his attention back to his food, that still ingrained instinct to eat quickly before someone tried to take it lingering now that the emotion is passing, and he nods. "Yeah I know," he says once he's swallowed. "Keep it secret and all that so no one has to be flashy-thinged. Kinda makes it even cooler, though."

[onebehind]

Dylan snorts.

"You know, I'm surprised we don't have one of those." We, in this case, being the Eye. "Then again, though, maybe we do, and I just got flashy-thinged into forgetting it."

[the_death_card]

"Can't you just like... do it magically if you have to?" Jack asks, because he was actually assuming that was a thing - or how it worked, at least. "Like... people get hypnotized into forgetting they've been hypnotized, right?"

The narration is very sorry she is foreshadowing, here.

[onebehind]

"Yeah," Dylan agrees, his expression turning more thoughtful as he nods. "I was thinking more, like -- like on a bigger scale, though. I mean, me going through a crowd of people who just saw something they shouldn't have and mindfucking 'em one by one's gonna take time."

Hypothetically. If the people even stuck around for long enough for him to hypnotize them in the first place.

"I guess we could send a group of magicians, in that case, but ... " Somehow, that doesn't seem feasible, either.

[the_death_card]

"Oh, yeah," Jack returns, looking vaguely amused by Dylan's description of the act. A moment later, he shrugs. "Kinda not a thing, anyway, since I really don't plan on running around telling random people about magic being a real thing."

And though he doesn't know, of course, he feels like the Eye would vet its people enough to know they weren't going to do that, if they're so serious about being a secret organization.

[onebehind]

"At this point, I was thinking other people, not you." He trusts that Jack wouldn't tell anyone. If he didn't, he would have taken the memory from him as soon as they got back from the Vegas hospital, where he suffered through the DTs.

"But yeah," he finishes, either way.

If he has anything to add after that, it dies on his lips, however, as the man behind the grill comes up with the rest of their food. Dylan turns towards him, passing bits and pieces along to Jack so he's not stuck juggling it all, and he thanks the man in Chinese before nodding to one of the tables.

"Wanna sit?"

[the_death_card]

Jack takes the food Dylan passes him, offering the cook a smile before he turns away. "Yeah," Jack agrees, heading for one of the small tables and setting down his part of the food before taking a seat himself. "If the rest of this is as good as the fruit things I'm gonna be ruined for Chinese back home forever."

[onebehind]

"You're gonna be ruined for Chinese forever," Dylan tells him as he slides into the seat opposite him. He puts his own food down once he's sitting and takes a moment to admire the spread -- or at least to try and figure out where to start.

When he seems to reach some sort of decision, he reaches for it as he continues, "It's like -- you know in Japan, they have these American restaurants where they serve pizza tacos and shit."

They serve what they think Americans eat. Just like American Chinese restaurants serve what Americans think the Chinese eat.

[the_death_card]

Jack, too, looks over the food. "Pretty sure there's some of those places in New York," Jack returns with a grin as he picks up a skewer of something. "Or, like... you see tourists from Japan wearing shirts that just say 'door' or something. Not like white people don't already wear shirts that have random Japanese shit on them, so I guess I can't really blame them."

[onebehind]

Dylan snorts.

"You know, Japanese writing and Chinese writing are based on the same system, so if you can read one of them, chances are you can kinda work out what shit says in the other." Which is to say that he's seen -- and been able to understand -- some pretty tragic shirts, tattoos and the like.

[the_death_card]

"Guessing you've seen a bunch of tourists with stupid shit tattooed on 'em somewhere?" Jack asks, taking a bite of the skewer.

He pauses a beat. "Where'd you learn Chinese? Your dad?"

He realizes a moment after he asks that he might be poking a wound with the question and there's a little flinch through the connection.

[onebehind]

Dylan echoes the flinch without meaning to, his amusement fading. Despite that, though, he forces himself to answer. Jack deserves to know. Jack should know. "Yes and no. He spent a lot of time here when I was little, and he brought me along a couple of times, and I kind of picked up the basics, then. How to say where is the bathroom and shit like that. After, though?"

He shrugs.

"There's a lot of magic history here -- lot of old family friends, too. I kinda did a deep dive, in college, to learn the language."

[the_death_card]

"Sorry," Jack mutters as he picks a burnt edge of the meat off the skewer and eats it while Dylan answers.

"Nice. I just know English and bad English," he jokes. "And like a handful of Spanish."