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_highpriestess]

Buoyed somewhat by the teasing, albeit if only for a moment, she makes a series of sick, wet kissy faces at him, miming that PDA. When he sobers again, and she does, she lets out a breath, allowing herself to truly relax, and nods. "Okay, yeah, good point."

A beat.

"We got this." It'll work out, and she can expect she'll be forgiven for anything that slips through until it does.

[the_death_card]

Jack makes a face back at her - and then nods. "We got this," he agrees - and then pauses a beat before he adds. "And hey, if it makes you feel any better, I'm pretty sure the only reason we're not getting grossness from Paris is the distance thing."

[the_highpriestess]

"Thank God for that," Henley breathes, equal parts amused and horrified, teasing and serious. "I want to think about Jacob having sex even less than I want to think about you guys thinking about me and Danny having sex."

A beat.

" ... and 'think' has definitely stopped sounding like a word, at this point." Which is true but also a way to get away from thinking about Dylan having sex in spite of herself.

[the_death_card]

"You think so?" Jack shoots back with a grin - and then snickers because yes, it has, but he had to get it in there one more time.

"But yeah. What are we doing now? Shopping, right?" he checks. "Are we going back through the lobby or am I just finding a door?"

[the_highpriestess]

"Ugh, stop," she demands, shoving him lightly. She sobers, however, after a moment and at the question, glancing over her shoulder in the direction of the resort proper. When she looks back to Jack, she pops that shoulder in a shrug. "Whichever's easier for you? I mean ... "

He's the one who's going to get them there, after all.

[the_death_card]

Jack snickers faintly at the shove, rocking away from her and then taking a step back toward her again. "It doesn't matter?" he returns. "C'mon." He veers toward a path that leads toward another of the cabanas. It doesn't look currently in use - there's no one out in front right now, at least, which is the important part.

"Back home first?" Does she want to change again?

[the_highpriestess]

Smoothing a hand over the waist of her dress, Henley glances down, considering. The hat might get a little tiresome, if she's going to be trying on clothes, but it won't be the first time she's had to juggle a hat or a purse or what have you, while out on the town. What she didn't think to bring with her, coming out, was a purse, or by extension her wallet, however, and while Jack may have his on him, along with the card tied into the group fund -- well, she'd still like her purse. She can lose the hat, find some more comfortable walking shoes while they're there.

That in mind, as she looks back up at him, she asks, "You mind?"

[the_death_card]

"Nope," he returns, reaching out for the door when they reach it. He pushes it open, revealing the hallway outside of the suite, and steps back for her to lead the way through it, pushing the door closed again behind him and making sure it is actually closed. "Should be open," he says, referring to the suite's door, since she's going to get to it before him.

[the_highpriestess]

"Thanks," Henley calls over her shoulder as they step out into the hallway. If she starts moving a little faster, that said, it's less because she expects it to miraculously lock again if she's not quick enough, and more because she's excited to get going, go shopping, go on vacation, a real vacation. She's in a particular hurry to get to that last part.

That in mind, faster than the last time she ran up to change, she returns. She's still wearing the sundress, the matching gloves, but the hat has disappeared, switched out for a complimentary purse, and the sandals have been replaced by heels. Yes, heels, shut up. They're totally comfortable walking shoes. She will totally Claire Dearing the shit, thank you.

"Okay," she breathes, as she returns, leaning into her purse to make sure she has her wallet before they leave again.

[the_death_card]

Jack hums an acknowledgement of her thanks. Again, he perches on the back of the couch to wait for her, happy enough with what he's wearing - though he does pop up after a moment to add a Sharpie to his jacket pocket, considering the odds of them not running into someone that recognizes them are almost zero.

He looks up as she comes back down the stairs - and then mimes stopping an invisible stopwatch. "Annnnnd that's a new record of an hour not wearing heels," he teases as he gets to his feet again.

[the_highpriestess]

"Do I bust your balls about the fact that you own, like, fifty pairs of jeans and nothing else?" she asks, making a face at him as she ducks out of her purse. Never mind the fact that, yes, she does -- she did no more than twenty minutes ago, she is now. If he's going to take them in a circle, with commentary on her heels, she'll return the favor, meet him halfway.

"I can't help it I actually think they're comfortable," she continues after a moment. That's probably a magic power all its own.

[the_death_card]

"You did like an hour ago," he objects, though there's no heat to it. "And I obviously own other things, I'm wearing it, now."

He pushes to his feet. "Yeah, you're one of like... five people I've ever known that could actually walk in them without throwing them across the room the minute they had a chance to take them off."

[the_highpriestess]

She shoots him a look that suggests that one pair of shorts doesn't make up for the forty-nine other pairs of jeans he owns. A shrug follows, as he continues. "Don't get me wrong, they're nice to take off at the end of the day, but ... " But that can be said of any pair of shoes, really.

[the_death_card]

He makes a face back at her but also doesn't push on that. "Okay, good point," he acknowledges, considering he does definitely pull his boots off as soon as he's sure he's not going to need to be up and about again immediately.

"You do the whole, like... clean the house in them to get used to them?" Yes, he's known drag queens that did that to learn to walk in them. "Or you just always like them?"

[the_highpriestess]

"I know I usually run errands in a new pair of shoes to break them in," she answers, making a little face. Mostly because, "But I can't remember doing anything special, to get used to them in general. They just never bothered me."

Which is somewhat disappointing of an answer, she knows, but it's the truth as far as she knows it.

[the_death_card]

Jack nods, accepting that. "Cool." It's not really disappointing when it's just the actual answer. "So did I ask you when you started making clothes, yet? Was that when you started performing?"

They've known each other long enough now that he's not sure if he did already ask this - and if he didn't, he's kind of glad to have thought of something he doesn't already know about her.

[the_highpriestess]

"If you wanna get super technical," she starts, making another face, sure that this answer is just as boring as the last, "I learned to sew in high school. We had to do this one project, where we had to make, like, this ugly 1800s Amish, No Ankles Visible Because Ankles are Improper kinda dress, and I decided that sucked, so ... "

So, she made something more modern on her own, with fabric left over from the project as she did it. It hadn't been terribly good, but -- well, she'd gotten better from there with time and practice, until, yes, she was making her own costumes.

[the_death_card]

He wouldn't ask if he didn't want to know. "This that kinda home ec class where everything looks like it's out of Leave It to Beaver or some shit?" he asks with a crooked smile, considering that was his impression of what people learned in the home ec classes in high school.

Not that he took any of them, but they seemed to be a bit behind the times.

[the_highpriestess]

"God, yes," Henley answers on the heel of a groan. That's it. That's it exactly. "And it wasn't just the sewing shit. Like the entire textbook was kind of ... 'women should stay home and make babies, preferably manchild.'" Which is to say it was was dated and chauvinistic and shitty.

[the_death_card]

"Forty-seven different ways to make casseroles so you can bake them while you iron all his shirts and shine his shoes?" he added, still grinning, drifting a little to one side to nudge her shoulder.

[the_highpriestess]

"Yep," Henley hums, making another face. There's a pause, a stab of upset, old and lingering, and then something nearing shame, as she hates to think of it, but, "You know, Danny tried pulling that shit on me, before."

Before they broke up, right about the time he told her she needed to lose weight, too. She understands, now, why Danny said those things, did those things, and she knows that he's grown up some, now, but it still stings. She may have forgiven but it's hard to forget.

[the_death_card]

Jack frowns both at what he gets from her through the connection and at the admission. "Danny's an ass," he declares after that moment. "And I know you know that, and I was pretty sure those first few days it was gonna be the whole... 'never meet your heroes' thing, but.." Yeah, Daniel has grown up more in the time they've all been together.

Still, though. "And if he ever pulls that shit again or starts acting like that again, I'm pretty sure me, Dad, and Merritt would actually kill him, so." He grins reassuringly, nudging her both physically and through the connection.

[the_highpriestess]

"If he ever pulls that shit again, you and Jake and Merritt will be the least of his worries." At this point, she'll cut off his balls, herself. She doesn't think it's going to be a problem, though. They're beyond that, at this point.

Either way, she nudges Jack back, mirroring him both mentally and physically, letting that old hurt go with the gesture. "But I appreciate it."

[the_death_card]

Jack chuckles a little at her answer - and then nods. "'Course," he returns simply, and there's not much else to say, there. She's as good as his sister, and even though he knows she can take care of herself, but he'll also do what he can to make sure she doesn't have to if someone else is hassling her - even if that ended up being someone else in their family.

He pauses a moment, stopping short of reaching out to the elevator. "So, uh. Where are we going?" He knows basically, but he might be able to pinpoint it if she has somewhere specific in mind.

[the_highpriestess]

"There's a place in San Fernando -- " In Los Angeles, naturally. " -- it's kind of ... "

Well, she could describe it and its history, when she first noticed it, that sort of thing, but she's not really sure any of that would help. She tries to offer Jack a memory of the storefront, instead, hoping that a mental picture will work better. How well it actually translates, for all that this is still new, however, she has no idea. At least she can count on the idea that Jack got her sense of appreciation, a moment ago, for him offering to defend her, even if she doesn't need it.