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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"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.

"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?"

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."

"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.

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."

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.

"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.

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."

"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."

Dylan grunts in response to Jack's lingustic prowess, then dismisses it, circling back to the apology with a shake of his head. He offers Jack something gentle, soothing along the connection to go with what he says next. "Don't be. You deserve to know this shit, it's just -- it's been awhile since I've got to talk about my dad."

And it'll always be a sore spot, but like he didn't say, Jack is privileged enough to know. He's pretty sure him screaming into the cabinets under the sink while he was going through the DTs entitles him to the knowledge.

Jack nods. "I want to know?" he admits after a moment. "But I don't want to, like... kick salt on it or whatever."

Mixing the metaphor a little, but he figures it's getting the point across well enough.

The two of them are getting closer all the time, and he feels special that he gets to see a part of Dylan that no one else does, even if it did come about because of that really awful night - but he also wants Dylan to feel like he can talk to him because of that. It's probably a little more of an adult line of thinking than Jack should be dealing with as a seventeen year old, but he grew up quick.

"Nice metaphor," Dylan huffs, regardless.

Again, whatever amusement it draws from him is quick to fade into something more thoughtful and infinitely sadder.

"Most of the time, I don't even know where to start," he continues, at length. It's not that he doesn't want to share, even if yes, it hurts, it's just -- well, like he said. He hasn't really had a whole lot of opportunity to talk about his father. He can't tell anyone he works with, and Miranda dances around the subject for good reason. He's gotten used to keeping it to himself.

Jack just huffs out a laugh, this one more directed at himself.

He takes a bite of food as Dylan answers and then shrugs. "I get it. Just uh... you know. When you feel like it? I'll listen." He offers him a smile that's crooked but real.

For a moment, Dylan's tempted to tell him, albeit not unkindly, that he may be waiting awhile for all that he really doesn't know where to start. He clamps down on the urge, however, instead settling for studying Jack for a minute as he rakes his tongue over his teeth.

"You're allowed to ask questions, too, y'know," he says, instead and finally. Jack's allowed to prompt him on stuff, and it may actually help.

Jack makes a face - again with not wanting to bring up any bad memories for Dylan, but he already apologized for that and had it dismissed. "Okay," Jack returns simply, instead. "But you're allowed to tell me you don't feel like answering."

If Dylan's already having a bad day - like he was today, like led to them going to the Warehouse - he doesn't want to make it worse.

"Deal," Dylan allows, with a firm nod. A pause follows, as he finally takes a bite of his own food, and then, "So, uh."

He really has no idea where they go from here.

Jack mirrors the nod, turning his attention back to his own food for a few moments before Dylan speaks again. He pauses another moment, thinking, and then finishes the bite he's just taken. "So, uh... Maybe we talked about this, but. Did you live in New York at all before I ran into you?"

He's pretty sure they had a discussion about the Brownstone's decor at some point, but that had been before Jack had known the whole truth, and he doesn't think it's come up since then.

Dylan huffs out a breath of a laugh, then leans forward a bit, eyebrows creeping upwards over a wry smile. "What, you really think my aesthetic is doily schick?"

A beat, then he leans back, his expression fading into something more thoughtful in measures. "But uh -- no, I moved to Vegas after I graduated the Academy. I came back to New York a lot for lunch or whatever, though."

His heart was still in New York, even if he wasn't.

"I thought about getting a place, and kinda splitting my time between the two a couple of times, but ... " He shakes his head. "It didn't really make sense before I met you, you know? Like, what would be the point?"

Jack shrugs, but he's grinning, too. "Not like I knew that before," he tells him, teasing - never mind that he has seen Dylan's actual aesthetic now - or at least Agent Rhodes's -, considering he'd spent time at the Vegas apartment while Dylan was detoxing.

He sobers a little as Dylan actually answers, nodding. "Right, yeah, that makes sense, considering you could just go back and forth and not actually have to stay wherever." He pauses. "And then I tried to steal your wallet and made you get a second mortgage."

Jack's smirk returns - and he doesn't actually know how Dylan's paying for the Brownstone, if he rents it or owns it or what, and he doesn't actually know what "second mortgage" means beyond the general idea, but it's a thing people say regarding housing, right? He's just being a little shit, as usual.

"Alright there, Warren Buffett," Dylan says with a roll of his eyes. There's a smile that hides under the expression, though -- he's clearly entertained. "Lucky for you I rent. And the FBI pays pretty well. And the Eye pays me a stipend ever month for doing occasional side shit for them."

Or for being Lionel Shrike's son. Or just for being a member. He's not entirely sure, to be honest, and he's never really thought to ask. He just keeps himself available if the Eye needs anything from him and leaves it at that.

Jack makes a face that's half cringe and half apologetic. "I have no idea who that is," he admits. Sorry, Dylan. This may be when he goes all blasé teenager on him, because he definitely doesn't understand that reference.

"And you save a shitton on plane tickets," he jokes, grinning around a sip of his drink. "But, uh... what kinda stuff do you do for the Eye? Since you're obviously not on stage or whatever."

He's assuming it has something to do with the sketches he's seen Dylan doing, but he's also never actually seen Dylan's sketchbooks beyond quick glances. The idea of looking through them without permission feels like an invasion of privacy.

"Jesus, I'm fucking old," Dylan mutters under his breath.

A sullen bite of his food follows, and at Jack's next question, he rakes his tongue over his teeth before he meets it with one of his own. "You know what an ingenieur is, as far as stage magic goes?"

Jack can't help but laugh a little, giving him a shit-eating grin before he, too, takes a bite of his food.

Jack nods quickly while he chews and swallows. "Uh, yeah," he says finally. "They're like... the ones who design the tricks and stuff, right?"

He nods.

"That's what I do for the Eye. I may not be able to get on stage, but I can still design shit for other magicians." A beat. "Well, that and I do some art for them, too, sometimes." And another. "Remind me to show you some of my sketchbooks, sometime."

He has both art and plans drawn up in some of them.

"That's awesome," Jack says into the beat - and then sits up a little, excitement on his face and fizzing down their connection.

"Oh, man, definitely," he agrees immediately, grinning.

"Can you tell me anybody you've designed stuff for?"

Jack is absolutely a nerd for stage magic, so there's a good chance he'll at least recognize the name, even if he might not have actually seen the trick considering most shows don't end up on YouTube. He's not sure just how much of a secret it all is, though.

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