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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"Mm," Dylan answers, giving him an equally crooked smile in return.

That said, Dylan moves for his side of the bed and falls back into it. He takes a moment following, getting the blankets situated, and then rolls over to face Jack, one arm going around his waist to pull him close. All things considered, he figures the closeness won't be unwelcome.

Jack settles - and then settles again when Dylan pulls him close, burrowing into the blankets and pillows a little as he closes his eyes, tension seeping out of him. Considering he had never quite woken back up after falling asleep in the chair, it won't be long before he's out again.

It's not long before Dylan's out again, either.

The next time Jack wakes up, it's inexplicably in what appears to be the lobby of a theatre. Directly ahead of him, the box office stands as an island, doors leading into the house set further back on either side. Leading up to them, gold framed show posters for various magicians line the walls -- including one for Dylan, despite the fact that he's never been on stage. That may go unnoticed, however, if only because the lobby carries an air of etherealness to it, caught somewhere between liminal space and fever dream, the edges of reality vague and vaguely blurry. While strange, though, it's not entirely unpleasant.

Honestly, dreaming about theaters isn't that new to Jack, considering how into magic and everything he already is. The sense of unreality makes it obvious enough that this is a dream, though it feels different somehow. He doesn't question it too much, though, just moving past the box office.

He does take note of some of the posters, catching sight of one of Miranda's as he heads for the doors into the house, pulling them open to step inside.

How much actual control he seems to have is a bit new, considering he's never been very good at lucid dreaming and the like.

The doors open into a grand house, done in the same cherrywood and white tile as the lobby. The seats themselves are framed in gold and upholstered in red, and in one of them near the stage, Dylan sits. If you want to call what he's doing sitting, anyway.

While he is, in fact, in one of the seats, he's sitting sideways, his feet in the seat beside him. The position creates a sort of easel with his knees, and he has a sketchbook resting on them, a graphite pencil in hand as he works on something. Intent on it as he is, he doesn't seem to notice Jack -- or maybe it's more he's not particularly concerned by his arrival. Either way, however, he doesn't look up.

Jack takes his time meandering toward the stage, looking around as he goes. He's distracted enough by the decor that he doesn't notice Dylan until he's just a row or two away, and then he stops. "Oh. Hey."

Dylan being here isn't particularly weird either considering he's been in Jack's dreams before, too - or pointedly missing from them, in some cases.

Finally, Dylan looks up, and when he does, he smiles lazily.

"Hey." A beat. "Sorry, I was working on ... "

He gestures to his lap, then shifts a little, so that Jack can see the sketchbook better. On the page, there's a half-finished sketch of the Macau skyline as seen from their hotel room -- or, well, there is for a second, anyway. After a moment or two of looking at it, it shifts into a portrait of Lionel Shrike. No, maybe it's the graveyard of half-finished rides and midways outside the warehouse. Or the safe Bubu showed Jack, in half-finished detail. Or the table that Jack considered in Long's.

Dylan doesn't seem to notice that the sketch can't make up its mind, regardless of what it is at any given moment.

Given that Jack is aware this is a dream - sort of -, he doesn't seem particularly bothered by it either, just moving to sit down in the row behind Dylan, leaning forward so he can actually see the sketches as they rotate. "Huh. Those are awesome."

It's not that he didn't know Dylan was an artist, but he also hasn't actually seen that much of Dylan's art, and he is impressed.

Dylan shifts a little so Jack can better look over his shoulder.

"I haven't really shown you much of my shit, have I?" he asks after a moment. In the waking world, it might be easy to guess that Dylan read that off of Jack in one way or another. Here, it's harder to tell. It still feels like he's parroting what Jack didn't say, but it's not as clear how.

Jack is already pretty used to Dylan reading things off him, and everything's hazy enough that even if he did think it was weird, he would still probably just chalk it up to the dream. "Huh uh. I mean, I guess I haven't really asked, either, but, like. I dunno. Didn't want to invade your privacy or whatever."

He's being a little more blunt than he normally is, if just because he doesn't think this is real.

Dylan snorts.

"Anything that'd actually be invading my privacy's put up somewhere. The shit I've got around the house's ... " He trails off only because something seems to occur to him only to slip away a second later. While his eyebrows draw down as he chases it, however, he doesn't seem to be terribly concerned by whatever it was. Which probably explains why he gives up on it with a shake of his head a moment later. "I might have some more shit here, somewhere, if you wanna see."

Jack tilts his head a little, waiting for whatever Dylan's caught by. When he doesn't seem to address it, though, Jack is equally content to let it go.

The offer makes him grin, scooting forward a little to the edge of his seat. "Yeah, definitely."

Dylan should have guessed the answer to that, honestly, considering Jack's never been anything but eager for this stuff.

"Alright, c'mmon."

Juggling the sketchbook, Dylan manages to extricate himself from his seat with little difficulty. He takes a moment, once he's standing, to debate putting his shoes, which have been sitting in front of the chair he was actually sitting in, back on. Finally, he decides against it, abandons his current sketchbook along with the shoes, and heads for the stage.

From there, he leads them into the backstage area, to a hallway with multiple doors on either side. Dylan pulls one of them open, looking in on a dressing room that's empty save for a dress form with one of Dylan's (Agent Rhodes's) suits on it. Dylan squints at it for a moment, then moves on to another door. When he pulls this one open, it leads to a dressing room that appears to belong to Jack. He lingers on this one a little longer.

Jack follows Dylan backstage, peeking around him to see into the first dressing room. Somehow, its contents are not a surprise, considering how much the Agent Rhodes persona is something like a costume Dylan puts on and takes off every day.

He is a little more surprised by the second room, and he stops, blinking at it. "Oh, that's. My stuff?"

It's not as disconcerting as it maybe could, and he shakes off the surprise easily enough. There's a brief flash where he might wonder whose dream this is, exactly, but it's gone before he can really question it.

There's a chair with one of the jackets he's been favoring lately tossed over its back. The chair is facing a dressing table, a mirror over it, and on the table is a book of cardistry he picked up somewhere, along with a deck of cards.

"Yeah," Dylan says, something vaguely confused creeping into his tone. It's quick enough to fade back into comfortable calm, however. "You need anything outta here?"

Before they continue their search for the sketchbooks.

He doesn't seem to notice that the dressing room mirror isn't actually reflecting anything like it should.

"Uh... considering this is a dream, I think I'm good," he says lightly, stepping back out of the doorway so Dylan can take the lead again. "Kinda not sure whose though," he adds after a moment, a little under his breath.

Dylan blinks, then inhales sharply -- and the edges of reality come into sharper focus as he does. His expression hardens, too, the fuzzy calm he's been projecting falling away in the face of realization. That whetted look remains for a moment as he gets his bearings, and then finally, on a slower breath out, he relaxes.

Mostly.

There's still something discerning behind his eyes as he asks, "Gonna guess you're actually you?"

Jack blinks a few times as everything sharpens, rubbing at his eyes a little as the haze fades. He drops his hand, looking back up at Dylan. "Wait. Is this real?"

"Real" in the sense that Dylan isn't the construct his subconscious gives him sometimes, that is.

Dylan tilts his head to one side -- a so-so gesture. This isn't real in the fact that, yes, it's a dream, but it is real in the sense that Jack means that. He's actually him. And judging by his reaction and where they are, Dylan's not as surprised as he could be that Jack is actually himself.

"You know how in, like, Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal has a mind palace or whatever?" Wrong book, right character. Still.

Jack frowns, raising an eyebrow. "No? I've only seen part of the movie, and it was just the 'put the lotion in the basket' thing."

He pauses a beat before asking, "Have you read it because of the FBI parts?"

It's kind of a random question that could seem sarcastic, but again with his filters being a little broken currently. It's just harder for him not to be a little shit right now.

Dylan squints at him for a moment, and while he rolls his eyes, he still answers honestly. Maybe he's having the same problem as Jack with his filter being broken, despite realizing this is a dream, now.

"Someone said it was a pretty accurate depiction of how the FBI worked, and I wanted to see if they were right or not."

A beat.

"But okay, uh -- " Honestly, he's a little glad that Jack doesn't know what a mind palace is. Even if it's the easiest way to explain, he's always hated the terminology for reasons he can't quite explain. " -- yes, this is a dream, but it's also more than that. I'm guessing it's 'cause I was touching you, when we went back to sleep, but we're in my headspace, right now."

The fact that he was touching him and how wide he had to throw the floodgates of the connection, to act as a translator for Jack.

Jack shrugs, a little baffled by Dylan's reaction in the same way he was a little baffled by their reaction to his comment about Bubu's age. Sometimes he's just a very earnest little weirdo, okay?

Fair enough, though, as for why Dylan read it.

"Whoa, really?" Jack asks, fascination crossing his face. "That's awesome. And maybe also kinda weird. But mostly awesome."

He pauses a beat. "So, like... you knew this was a thing?" He gestures around them.

Leaning back into the wall behind him, Dylan folds his arms over his chest and mirrors the shrug.

"I had the opportunity to work with a couple of really good mentalists, back when I was still nailing down the whole Dylan Rhodes persona thing. One of 'em taught me this. How to kinda ... make my subconscious a place I can actually go.

"I didn't end up using it to separate myself -- " Because that had seemed like a good way to magically break himself mentally. He didn't want to inflict a split personality on himself. " -- but it's still kinda nice to have in my toolkit. I come here, sometimes, if I'm struggling with a case. Some of the shit that ends up here ... "

He hesitates, trying to find a way to explain it.

"It's like the sketchbook in the auditorium," he decides, finally. "Shit I might have noticed but didn't realize I'd noticed, like the way the skyline looked. Or thoughts I had, like about my old man. It's not perfect recall, not like a photographic memory thing, but it kinda lets me sift through my shit."

Like dreaming is supposed to be the brain's way of processing the day's events.

"Maybe I figure out something new because of I can see how the pieces fit together a little more clearly, maybe I don't."

"So like," Jack begins thoughtfully. "Kind of a meditation thing?"

Not that Jack knows that much about meditation, but that's what it sounds like anyway. A way to set aside distractions or stuff he doesn't want to think about to focus on the stuff he does.

"So why am I here? Because we're asleep?"

"Kind of a meditation thing," Dylan allows. It's a little more actual magic than just quieting his mind, but close enough. "As for why you're here ... "

He glances back at the door that lead to what appeared to be Jack's dressing room.

"You're there 'cause you're here." He touches his fingers to his temple, then his chest. "You're here in general because I kinda ... I've been plugged into you all day, to do the translation thing. I guess I forgot to unplug. Probably doesn't hurt that I think I was touching you when we fell back asleep, too."

Physical touch will always be a good anchor.

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