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_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.

[the_death_card]

Jack frowns a little as she concentrates on the store, as he gets a sense of where it is and where they need to go to be relatively close to it - and then he nods. "I think I got it. We might have to walk a little bit."

There's a handful of points in the Eye's network in LA, though he hasn't been to California enough to really be super familiar with any of them the way he is with the suite or the warehouse.

[the_highpriestess]

"That's fine," Henley tells him. As long as he can get them within a few miles, she doesn't mind walking or calling an Uber. Like she said, it's not like walking a distance in heels.

[the_death_card]

"Okay," he agrees and turns his attention back to the elevator before he reaches out for the lock. It takes him a few moments to find a pin and nudge it into place - and then there's a spark at his hand as he pulls back, the elevator door opening a moment later. "After you," he tells her, following her inside.

[the_highpriestess]

Stepping into the elevator, she waits for him to follow, then pushes a button at random, figuring that it doesn't matter, that the elevator will get them where they need to go. It does, too, doors opening again only a handful of 'floors' later into an alley rather than a hallway, and she steps out into it, into the heat, not stifling, not like New York, but a change from the air conditioning all the same. She glances back at Jack, making sure he's following, still.

"Gimme a couple of seconds to get my bearings?" she asks, once she's sure he is and as she makes for the end of the back street they've wandered into.

[the_death_card]

Jack leans back against the elevator wall next to her as they descend, gesturing for her to go ahead and then following her out into California. "Take your time," he agrees with a nod as he follows her to the end of the street, looking around some himself to see where they are while she thinks.

[the_highpriestess]

Stepping out onto the sidewalk, Henley turns, looking one way, then the other, then to the facings of the shops around them, trying to decide where they are. When she has a sense of that, she wheels back around to Jack, looking and feeling satisfied.

"Okay," she starts, "I know where we are. It's only a couple of blocks from here." Jack did good to get them so close.

[the_death_card]

"Oh, cool, I picked the right one," he returns with a grin - and then gestures again, meaning for her to lead the way since she has a much better idea of where they're going. He'll fall into step with her once they start walking, though.

"I keep meaning to get like... a map of all the places the network goes so I can actually aim right on stuff like this, but it's also kinda fun just... ending up various places, too."

[the_highpriestess]

"Where have you actually gone?" she asks, taking the lead. Once Jack catches up with her, is walking with her, she continues, "Besides, like, Cancun, obviously."

She'd play more with the network herself if, even for all her ability to handle misogynistic assholes at her shows, she wasn't very aware that sometimes, in some places it's a bad idea to be a woman on your own. Raped and-or murdered really isn't her idea of a good time.

[the_death_card]

"Uh," Jack begins, thinking. "Paris, London, somewhere in Canada. China, Japan a couple of times? I've found a couple of different doors in Vegas, and a few around New York. There's a bunch of just... theaters and museums and that kind of thing, too? And one time just a brick wall?" He gives a little "who knows" shrug. Considering the kind of people they work with and around, it's hard to tell what that was about.

He's found a few dozen places during the time he's been playing around with the network.

[the_highpriestess]

She starts to ask about Japan, when he mentions it; the sound of that train of thought screeching to a halt, then jumping tracks when he mentions the brick wall is practically audible. After a blink and instead, she asks, "Wait, like, you opened a door and there was just a brick wall? Nothing else? Like, I don't know, in a cartoon or something?"

[the_death_card]

"Well, I mean... it wasn't like I hurt my nose on it or anything - there was a little bit of space between the door and the wall, and I thought maybe it was like... Diagon Alley or something that I could find a secret brick to push, but I didn't find anything."

He's still pretty sure there was something there he just didn't find, but he also hasn't gone back to try again or gotten around to asking anyone else about it. He'd just chalked it up to a mystery to be solved later.

[the_highpriestess]

"Okay, after this whole vacation thing?" she starts, making a vague gesture that smacks of Daniel, somehow. Whether that's because she's spent so much time around him on her own or a side effect of the connection, however, is anyone's guess. "We're totally checking that out, because I bet there is some kinda trick to it or something."

[the_death_card]

Jack grins, laughing a little. "Sounds like a plan. I tried messing with it a little, but a second look never hurt anything." He's still curious about it too, after all, and he won't mind revisiting it.

"So where are you dragging me off to first today?" he asks as they head down the street. He's wondering if she has a certain store in mind she wants to start with. He's also teasing with that wording because again, he wouldn't have agreed to come with her if he minded hanging out with her.

[the_highpriestess]

"Definitely not," Henley agrees. A brief face follows, mostly on principle, and then she continues, "But we're going to Body and Sol. It's mostly women's swimwear, but they have some other stuff, too. And there are, like, twenty other places around, if we can't find what we're looking for there."

It shouldn't be hard to find Jack a pair of swim trunks. Really, the hard part will be finding her swimsuit, for all that she's liable to be picky about it.

[the_death_card]

"That is a terrible pun," he complains, making a face. "I thought bad puns like that were saved for hair places."

See also: Hair Force One. Curl Up and Dye. And so on.

[the_highpriestess]

"Not in California," Henley tells him brightly. A gesture to the shop faces all around them follow, and she adds, "Seriously, Jack, just look around." The stores don't all have terrible puns for names, but more do than don't, here.

[the_death_card]

Jack does make a show of looking around them, of checking out some of the storefronts around them and finally makes a face. "I feel like I should be making bad puns about everything just to keep up," he declares.