By and by we'll defy a little bit of gravity

[the_death_card]

While Jack knows it's good for him, doing a lot to stretch how far his magic will go before he's exhausted, playing with the door trick is also fun. He's been picking locks for so long now that it's almost boring, especially when his actual magic has progressed to the point that, increasingly frequently, doors will unlock themselves before he even knows they were locked to begin with.

Using the Eye's network is something different. It's a constantly moving lock that, if he hits a slightly different pin in a slightly different way, will open a door to somewhere completely different. He's already found a dozen different places across the United States and a half-dozen more outside of it that have all led to some fascinating afternoons. Every time he finds somewhere new, he thinks to ask Jacob or Max or Andrew for a list of connected places, but so far, he's forgotten to actually do it. Finding them randomly is more fun anyway.

Things have mostly calmed down around the suite, now. He knows most of them have returned to their normal sleeping habits, helped along by their brand new connection. That's still new and something he's getting used to, but like someone said, it feels like a natural next step after the year they spent living on top of each other and how close they've all become since then. It is still something they're all figuring out, though, which means that they're still taking it easy on rehearsals. Normally, that's not something he would mind, but today, it's lead to some restlessness that he knows no jog or trip downstairs to the gym will do anything to help.

When he catches himself rereading the same paragraph in his book for the third time in a row, he groans and levers himself into a sit, setting his book to the side and leaning down to grab his boots where he kicked them off earlier. There's an inquisitive ping at the back of his mind that he brushes off as he stands and grabs his jacket, heading out of his room and toward the stairs.

"I'm going out for a while," he calls to the suite at large on his way downstairs. "I've got my phone."

Merritt doesn't look up from behind his book but he does wave a hand at Jack in acknowledgement, and there's an accepting nudge from someone through the connection. Jack flips a wave back at Merritt as he slips out of the suite, closing the door behind him and heading for the elevator. He pauses once he gets there to run his thumb over his middle and index fingers, calling up a spark and touching it to the keyhole set between the standard call buttons. He can immediately feel the pins that make up the Eye's network, and he drifts over a few of them before settling on one. He nudges it into place with his magic and then pulls his hand away and hits the down button to call the elevator. It comes almost immediately, and Jack steps inside, hitting a button at random and leaning back against the wall to watch the numbers drop - and then stands straight again when it slows to a stop with the usual quiet ding.

For everywhere he's been so far, what he finds is entirely unexpected. If he didn't know better, if he hadn't already seen the Peninsula's lobby dozens of times, he would think something had gone wrong with the magic and he had just been taken downstairs. Ahead of him is another hotel lobby, and he stops just outside the elevator, trying to figure out where he is. Just ahead of him is a small desk bearing a stylized sun - and when he looks at it for more than a moment, the paint seems to shimmer, revealing an equally stylized eye set into the paint. The desk is attended by a dark-haired woman in a blue shirt with a name badge pinned to it, and she looks up at him after a moment, smiling immediately. "Good afternoon, Mister Wilder. Checking in?"

"Uh..." Jack begins intelligently, and her smile turns a little less polished and a little more truly amused as she stands up, smoothing her shirt out automatically.

"Or did you just happen by?"

"That one," Jack returns, a little relieved, and she laughs.

"You aren't the first," she assures him, "but welcome to the Sun Veil Resort. We're located on the Yucatan Peninsula with access to the amenities of Cancun with our own specific brand of privacy for our members and their guests." It's clearly a standard speech, but Jack gets well enough what she's saying - or, rather, very carefully not saying.

"You mean this is for the Eye."

"Of course," she returns before her smile fades into something more solicitous. "Would you like a tour? We do have open rooms at the moment, and I'm sure you and the other Horsemen would enjoy a visit."

Even if this isn't where Jack intended to end up, Jack doesn't even need to think about it before he nods. "Yeah, that'd be great." Saying they would all use a vacation and change of scenery after everything that's been going on is puttting it really mildly.

"Give me just a moment, then," she returns with another smile. She turns her attention back to her desk, hits a few keys on her ocmputer, sets a small bell on the desk, and then rounds it, gesturing for him to accompany her. "Right this way."

Comments

[the_star]

Alma nods immediately. "Definitely." She pauses a beat and then jokes, "At least they're old enough not to need a babysitter."

Considering a couple of them are older than she is, it's absolutely a joke, but she has to tease him for his use of the word.

[onebehind]

"I don't know," Dylan drawls, looking all at once unsure, albeit teasingly so. "Sometimes, I'm not sure if Merritt's old enough to be left unsupervised, still."

[the_star]

"Well, I'm definitely not old enough to be left unsupervised," she returns with a grin.

She's pretty sure most of them only pretend to be mature half the time anyway.

[onebehind]

"You sure about that?" Dylan asks on the heel of a breath of a laugh. "Pretty sure you got the market cornered."

He's pretty sure Alma is more mature than all of them put together -- himself included, some of the time.

[the_star]

Alma laughs. "I feel like I might need to remind you that you said that the next time you accuse me of being as much of a smart ass as the kids."

Because she is, and because he will.

[onebehind]

Dylan takes a moment, largely for effect. He puts on a teasingly stricken expression, before he asks, " ... is it too late to take that back?"

[the_star]

Alma laughs, shortly but loudly and smacks him on the arm, much like she did that first day in Paris on the bridge. "See, this is why you attract so many smartasses. You are one yourself," she tells him after a moment - like it's something he might not already know.

[onebehind]

Dylan hums, oddly pleased by that little shove, and grins at her for a moment before effecting an innocent look -- or trying to, anyway. He can't quite ditch the smile in entirety. "Who, me? I'm completely innocent."

[the_star]

"That's what you want everyone to think," she reminds him - because yeah, that's literally his entire point.

She doesn't sound remotely bothered by that, though.

[onebehind]

"Well, yeah. 'Cause it's true," he insists, managing to pull it together a little more. Now he manages to pull off looking sweet and innocent and harmless and not at all like a smart ass.

[the_star]

Alma can't help but laugh at that. "I would never have bought that. Ever. Not even when I first met you."

Sorry, Dylan. You're too much of a cop to pull that off.

[onebehind]

"Hey, c'mmon, I was pretty innocent, when we first met."

Depending on how you look at it, that's not entirely a lie. Considering they're talking about whether or not he's a smart ass, however -- well, that is a lie and he knows it. He is, in fact, too much of a cop for that.

[the_star]

"'Too many French people in one room'?" she returns in a gruff voice that is absolutely not meant to be in imitation of him.

She doesn't buy it at all, nope. She's known you were a smart ass since she met you, Dylan. It just took her a while to realize you weren't also just a plain old ass.

[onebehind]

"That was a valid complaint," he protests, holding up one hand. "There were, in fact, too many French people in one room."

He's pretty sure he's going to get swatted again for saying as much -- and that he's absolutely proving her point -- but fair is fair. It's what she gets for making fun of him and his tone in that moment.

[the_star]

Alma does, in fact, swat him on the arm, laughing again. She could easily keep this "argument" going, but it's just for the fun of it at this point, and they're coming up on a building, now. "Well, your tolerance seems to be improving," she teases, one last shot before they reach what is labeled Carte.

"And we just found a gift shop."

[onebehind]

"Guess exposure therapy really does work," Dylan finishes, letting the argument go there.

He glances between her and the building, then, something in his expression taking a turn towards more serious albeit still in a relaxed sort of way. He tilts his head in that direction. "Wanna go in and poke around, or keep walking?"

[the_star]

"Let's go look around," Alma answers almost immediately. "I'm going to need some souvenirs from this anyway. We might as well see what they have."

She starts forward, heading for the doors to the shop.

[onebehind]

Dylan follows, pulling the door open for her as they reach it. He steps in after her and into waiting racks of t-shirts in varying styles, and immediately, he can't help but exhale a breath of a laugh. "I feel like I should get Cowan a shirt."

In a sort of and all I got is this crappy t-shirt sort of way. It'd be a nice, dickish gift.

[the_star]

Alma laughs, too. "Maybe a size or two small?" she proposes before she turns her attention to the racks, to actually see what they have.

[onebehind]

"Medium, maybe?"

If he had to guess, he'd say that Cowan actually wore a large. He's not Henley, though, so he could be wrong. Maybe later, he'll bring her through here to help him find the perfect-not-perfect size, but right now he still beelines for the t-shirts along with Alma. He can still at least look.

[the_star]

"Or you could get him a kid's shirt," she offers as he joins her. "I feel like he would appreciate something with glitter on it."

By which she means he would hate it, which is, after all, the goal here.

[onebehind]

Dylan takes a moment to judge a nearby shirt that is, in fact, heavy on the glitter. When he seems to reach some sort of decision, he nods once, approvingly. "Yeah, I definitely think that'd be right up his alley."

And then he's reaching for the shirt that caught his attention in the first place to hold it up for Alma's inspection. "This one, maybe?"

[the_star]

Alma laughs as Dylan picks up the shirt. "Oh, absolutely."

She turns to look toward the front of the store where there are racks of accessories, and then heads for some bright pink sunglasses. "And these to go with it."

[onebehind]

Dylan follows, still looking around as they go. He takes a moment to inspect the sunglasses as Alma points them out, then gestures to a rack of flip-flops nearby. "Can't go wrong with some shitty sandals, either."

Cowan is going to be so thrilled with him.

[the_star]

He deserves it, honestly. She didn't even talk to him that much, but it was still enough to know that he's a dick.

"Absolutely not."

They should probably stop there, though, before they buy more as a joke than they actually do for real souvenirs.