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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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.

"Oh," Jack says simply to the first part of that, because he's not sure what else to say. As the narration has said before, it's not that he doesn't know Dylan cares about him, it's not that he doesn't care about Dylan, but he still doesn't entirely know what to do with his own feelings, considering how long it's been since he's let himself really care about anyone.

"Yeah, that's, uh... kinda what I meant," he manages after a long moment.

"Oh," Dylan repeats, gently, not mocking.

A brief, warm smile follows, and when it fades, he says, "Sorry, though. I wasn't planning on ... " Bringing him here. " ... or being a little Stepford Wives, before I realized." That he was asleep and this was a dream.

Jack shakes his head. "No, it's okay. I kinda knew it was a dream? Or, like... thought it was more of a dream, or whatever. Just kinda wasn't sure whose it was." Like he said, and he grins, crookedly.

The grin fades a little. "Woke up earlier because I dreamed I couldn't find you or whatever, so."

His filters might still be down a little, but he still looks a little shy about that admission. It makes sense that he would have dreamed about Dylan again, is his point.

"Couldn't find me, how?" Dylan asks, ever gentle.

While he expects an answer, however, he pushes away from the wall, that said, moving for another one of the doors. Pulling it open, he leads them into what appears to be a green room and moves for one of the couches set up in the middle of it. He figures they can at least sit and talk.

Jack follows, moving to take a seat on one of the other couches, half-facing Dylan. "Like, I was at home but you weren't there? And I went outside and everything was weird? Like... not bad weird just... didn't know where I was or whatever."

The change in scenery's obviously messing with him a little more than he realizes. Again, he wouldn't actually call it a nightmare, it was just unsettling enough that he woke up and needed to make sure everything was okay, which had led to him falling asleep in the chair.

"Guess I'm kinda... used to New York or whatever," he adds finally with a crooked, self-deprecating smile.

Dylan snorts in response to that, and a little more teasingly, he offers, "Next time I'll remember not to remove a Jack from his natural habitat."

He does, however, wonder how Jack would have fared if they'd slept at the warehouse. It may not sound like the city either, but the magic that he and his father both have bled into the place makes it feel familiar all the same. Like the carousel.

Jack laughs, reaching up to ruffle his own hair. "I mean, we already established New York's the best, don't really know why anyone would wanna go anywhere else."

He sobers again. "But I mean, I like being here and everything? Guess I'm just not, y'know. Used to being different places."

He knows Dylan is kidding with that, but he also doesn't want him to think it was a mistake, them coming out here.

"It takes time," he promises, sobering again, too. "And it's ... harder, when it's somewhere that doesn't speak the same language as you. It's kinda why I made myself Babel Fish, while we were running around. It gets overwhelming."

He'll still start teaching Jack to speak Chinese properly, but.

"I just don't wanna be, like... I don't know. It feels dumb," he admits to his knees as he pulls them up, bracing his heels on the edge of the couch, mirroring how he had been sitting in the chair.

He pauses a beat. "Maybe it would have helped if I'd brought a towel," he adds cheekily a moment later, because that book, he has read.

Dylan snorts. "Next time."

A beat.

"But seriously, Jack. You're a kid. It's okay for shit to be scary or overwhelming or whatever." And another. "Hell, I'm an adult and shit still strikes me as scary or overwhelming. I just gotta pretend that I got enough of my crap together to handle it."

Being an adult sucks.

Jack pauses a beat, tilting his head to look at Dylan. Finally, he nods, letting out a long breath. "Okay."

That's a new thing for him to agree to, honestly, considering he's been expected to keep his shit together in the face of constant changes for so much of his life. Being told that, hearing that from an adult he trusts... It takes something off his shoulders.

"Okay," Dylan repeats, seriously.

Another moment of pause follows, and then, "So, uh. What now?"

Yes, he knows it's his head, but Jack's just as responsible for this shared dream of their as he is.

Jack blinks at him - and then shrugs. "I don't know? You were going to find sketch books? Or would you rather wait and show me those when we're actually awake?"

Or he doesn't have to show them to him at all, if he would rather not, considering Dylan wasn't really aware when he had made the offer.

Jack would like to see them though, if Dylan doesn't mind.

Dylan looks thoughtful for a moment, raking his tongue over his teeth. When he seems to reach some sort of conclusion, he stands up wordlessly, and heads for a set of shelves set up against one of the back walls. Head tilted to one side, he considers the spines of the books, eventually pulling one free. He returns with it a second later, holding it out to Jack.

"This is kinda ... think of it like a greatest hits."

This book as it exists here does not exist in the waking world -- it's a compilation of all of his favorite pieces. A character model sheet of his father. One of Jack. One of Miranda. One of Fuller. A view of Yankees Stadium from high above home plate. A sketch of the Las Vegas Strip, looking down it from one end of the street; one of Times Square in the same style. A sketch of himself in the Red Death costume he had made, this last Halloween. A few technical drawings of a couple of tricks he designed. A door, ornately carved, with a pair of moons set into a circle in the center of it. The same door, but now the design on it has been shifted to reveal an eye. A staircase that spirals endlessly upwards into another stylized eye. And so on and so forth.

Dylan settles back into the couch and watches as Jack thumbs through it.

Jack leans forward to take the sketchbook and then settles back in his seat to set it on his lap. He's careful as he turns the pages, taking a long moment with each one, tilting his head a little to consider some of them, and so on.

"These are awesome," he says eventually as he pauses on one of Times Square, glancing up at Dylan. "Like. Seriously awesome."

Dylan shrugs, genuinely modest. "Some people journal or whatever, I draw shit."

It's how he gets out of his head.

Jack looks back down at the sketchbook, continuing to turn pages, pausing to really look at each one. "They're fucking great, man." He looks up again. "What got you into the cop stuff instead of like... art stuff? Just the fact that it's hard to get jobs with art stuff?"

He obviously has no idea but he's heard that's an issue, anyway.

He shifts slightly, all at once uncomfortable. A moment of silence follows as he tries to find the words to explain, regardless, and then finally, he offers, "I didn't want anyone else to have to go through the same shit I did as a kid. I wanted to kinda -- kinda be able to be there on the worst day of someone's life. To spare them some of the pain, if I could."

Maybe if someone had been there, the night his father died, they could have saved him.

Jack looks up from the book in earnest, apology on his face. "Sorry. Didn't mean to like... poke that."

He probably should have known better to ask, too.

"I get it, though."

Dylan shakes his head, the majority of discomfort falling away. "I told you you could ask questions. Just 'cause the answers might be hard for me doesn't mean you can't ask."

He might reserve the right to answer, if what Jack asks cuts too deep, but he's not going to bite his head off.

Jack shrugs, shoulders still pulled up a little in more guilt than discomfort on his own part. "I just don't wanna like... ask the wrong thing or whatever?"

He doesn't want to upset Dylan. And he knows that Dylan isn't like his other fosters, who said things like that and then got upset when he did try to ask - but it was easier to just not ask. He does know that. But sometimes he still worries.

"I'll let you know if I need you to back off," he answers, ever-gentle, "but you're good. I'm good. We're okay."

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