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]

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.

[the_highpriestess]

"It's against city ordinance, unless you have a business license," she shoots back. "If it makes you feel any better, though, you won't have to deal with the urge that much longer." They're almost there, after all.

[the_death_card]

Jack snorts at her comment. "Nah, they probably give the styles punny names, too. Don't they get fined or something if they don't?"

That seems sensible with the whole thing she started, yup.

[the_highpriestess]

"I've never run a business," Henley answers with a shrug. She takes a moment, that said, to put in some mocking thought, however. "You might be on to something, though. I mean, the more I think about it ... " If she wasn't drawing a blank, now that she is thinking about it, she might suggest a punny name for a swimsuit brand.

[the_death_card]

"We'll have to keep an eye out," he supplies when he comes up equally dry for a decent pun. "For, uh... research or whatever."

Or so they can use it against someone else later, either way.

[the_highpriestess]

"Research, right," Henley echoes. A beat and then continuing the theme of being Jack's mirror, here, she adds, "And totally not so we can annoy Danny, later." Merritt and Dylan, she thinks, would probably just jump right in, trying to one-up them, if they started with the puns around them.

[the_death_card]

"'Course not," Jack returns, still grinning. "I mean, not that it's that hard to annoy Danny, and he's still probably gonna be jealous I got to see all this stuff before him, but he also prob'ly woulda griped about having to go shopping, so I feel like it's his fault."

[the_highpriestess]

"It is," Henley assures him. If she has anything else to add to that, however, she never gets to it, stopping instead as they reach the store she mentioned in all its punny glory. She turns to face Jack, as she slows to a halt. "And here we are."

From the mannequins in the window, it appears to be mostly women's swimwear, but somewhere inside, as promised, there's at least a small selection of men's. Never mind the fact that the building is flanked by at least half a dozen more stores that cater more generally.

[the_death_card]

Jack just grins at her - and then looks up at the building in front of them. "Alright," he agrees, moving forward to pull the door open for her to lead the way inside. The others around might look more general, but he's willing to let her pick where to start considering she knows the best places here like he might in New York.

[the_highpriestess]

"You know what kind of stuff I usually wear," she starts, once they're inside and drifting between the racks. "If you see anything you think looks like me, grab it. And grab anything you see that you think you'd like."

She'll make sure to take a pass or two around the men's section, so he can look, too.

[the_death_card]

Jack drifts to the other side of the racks as they start into the store, turning to look back at her across the tops of them. "So lots of sequins?" he asks with a grin.

[the_highpriestess]

"Only on stage, Jack, and you know it," she answers, shooting him a dirty look. The mental image of a neon yellow speedo follows. If he's going to threaten the worst possible swimsuit for her, well, two can play at that game, and knowing this place, they might just have something like that.

[the_death_card]

Jack starts to snicker a little - though it trails off into an indignant sputter. "Fuck, pass," he returns, horror washing away the image she passed over. "Alright, alright," he continues, literally waving her off before he turns his attention back to the racks, looking more seriously, now.