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

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

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."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Jack's grin is audible over the phone line. "Yep," he confirms, popping the 'p' a little. "We might have booked a vacation?"

They definitely booked a vacation and they are definitely kidnapping you, Dylan.

"Okay," Dylan drawls, this slowly starting to make more sense, even if it's a little abrupt. Still, for all that he never takes off, he's pretty sure he'll be able to sell Evans on letting him have a few days. Though, "When? For how long?"

Yeah, sorry about the abrupt thing, he got excited.

"Uh, well... I think we're set up starting tomorrow? And just a few nights or whatever? I found this place down in Cancun that's really pretty and just for us. The Eye, or whatever," he clarifies after a beat.

"You go looking for something with a beachfront view?" Despite the fact that he technically just got back to work after the quote-unquote death in his family, God knows he could use a vacation. They all could after all the shit that's happened, lately, so he's not going to fault Jack if he purposefully started scoping out places with little umbrellaed drinks. "Or just playing around?"

Henley, behind Jack, snorts softly, apparently picking up on the mental image of tropical drinks in coconut cups.

"Playing around," Jack returns, his own approval of the possibility of drinks with umbrellas drifting through the connection. "I got bored and went looking for a door I hadn't found, yet."

And he had ended up in Cancun.

"Alright, uh," Dylan starts after another pause, this one practically carrying the mental image of him raking his tongue over his teeth, connection or no. "I got a bag and a couple of suitcases on the top shelf of my closet. Most of my shit's ... " At the suite, now, clothing-wise, but he doesn't dare say that much, despite feeling relatively sure he's not being eavesdropped on. " ... but my swim trunks are in the second drawer of my dresser."

He has no idea why he hasn't moved that over, too, to be honest, given that the hotel has a pool. Maybe because, with all that's been going on, there really hasn't been time to go for a nice, little swim.

Jack picks up what Dylan doesn't say through the connection and hums an acknowledgement even as he turns to head for the hallway toward Dylan's bedroom, gesturing for Henley to follow with a nod. "You need anything else from here?"

Not that Dylan can't stop and pick it up himself, but it would save time if they get it.

Dylan snorts.

"I really wasn't expecting to pack for Mexico, today, so ... " So he's kind of drawing a blank as to what he might need that hasn't already migrated to the suite.

There's laughter in Jack's voice when he responds. "Hey, man, this place is totally worth it. And we all need a vacation." He pauses a beat before adding. "An actual vacation, not a, like, hang around and watch shitty daytime tv vacation."

"No argument," Dylan answers. He's not arguing, he just wasn't expecting getting an actual vacation any time soon. Either way, though, after a beat he continues, "But, yeah, uh. I don't know. I don't want you to, like, toss my apartment or whatever, but if you see anything laying around that you know I don't have ... " Have at the suite, though he doesn't dare finish that thought aloud. He expects Jack will take his meaning regardless, however.

Jack snorts in response to his comment about not tossing the apartment - and then nods, even knowing Dylan won't pick that up. Yeah, he gets what he's not saying. "Got it, yeah," he actually says. "We'll see you at home in a little bit?"

"I might have to slog through the rest of the day -- " And a slog it will be, for all that he finds he desperately wants to be on the beach with a bottle of Jack, right now, but. " -- but yeah. I'll see you in a bit."

That said, he hangs up, and once he does, and as if she didn't get both halves of that conversation anyway, Henley asks, "So, what'd he say?"

Jack tucks his phone back into his pocket as he stops briefly in the doorway to Dylan's bedroom, looking for the dresser in question. "His trunks are in here. And he said to grab anything else we thought he'd want. Short of, y'know, ransacking the place." He grins at her over his shoulder as he opens the drawer.

The dresser really isn't that hard to find, nor is Dylan's swimsuit, his trunks on top of the stack of clothes inside the drawer he mentioned. Henley, meanwhile, drifts towards the closet to get one of Dylan's suitcases, again obviously having caught Dylan's part of the conversation despite asking after him.

"Does drawing moustaches on everyone in any pictures we see lying around count as ransacking?" she asks, glancing back over her shoulder at Jack.

Jack snorts, grinning as he finds the trunks and sets them aside. "That's definitely something we're doing. He's gotta have some magazines or something around. And at least one picture of him and Agent Fuller."

"It shouldn't be too hard to find a marker," Henley tells him, ducking out of where she's leaned into the closet. When she leans back in, she brings a suitcase out with her, this time, and setting it on the floor for Jack to see, asks, "What do you think?"

There might be a bigger one; there's definitely another, if Jack thinks they need more than one for what they need to pack for Dylan.

Jack looks over at the sound of the suitcase hitting the floor and nods. "I think that'll work. It's not like we need a bunch of jackets and stuff."

He turns his attention back to Dylan's clothing. "Oh, uh... see if you can find tennis shoes or sandals or something?" Since she's already poking around in the closets.

"Got it," she answers, a response to both halves of that as she buries her head back in the closet. A second or two later, she comes up with both a pair of sneakers and a pair of sandals, though the latter look like they haven't seen any real use in decades. She holds them up and makes a face, that in mind. "We should have picked up a pair of sandals for him, while we were at the beach shop."

They can always get him a new pair in Cancun, but they'll probably get gouged for them. They can afford it, though, and she is deeply offended by the current state of Dylan's sandals, so she'll probably be the one to buy them and not think anything of it.

Jack picks up on Henley's distaste, making a face of his own when he looks over and sees them. "At least he's got sandals, though those might be better off in the trash. We'll find him some over there." The last statement has the sense of agreement to it - and it is, considering, yes, he picked up on her intention.

"Less surprised he's got sneakers, considering gym shit. Just take those, for now."

The sandals are really sad.

"Works for me," she answers, though she brings both pairs for shoes with her, when she moves from the closet. The sneakers, she'll pass to Jack; the sandals, on the other hand, she actually does plan on tossing, if and when they pass a trash can on their way out. Dylan will have something nicer, soon.

"You think he even knows what a vacation is?" she asks after a beat. "I mean, like, did you use small words when you were telling him we were going to Cancun, so he didn't try and bring case notes with him or something?"

Jack takes the sneakers from her to add to the duffle. He glances up at Henley again as she speaks - and then snorts, grinning. "Doubt it," he returns without having to think about it. "Considering I think he mentioned having plenty of vacation time some time."

He pauses a beat. "Wonder if his boss'll think he's sick or something if he asks for time off..."

Henley hesitates a moment, her amusement taking a swan dive off a cliff, then suggests, "Or that he's still not over the whole ... 'death in the family' thing he fed his boss."

When he took those couple of days, immediately after Ben, to sleep, to try and will himself back into the fantasy he created for him. Maybe Evans will be more understanding, spare him the ball-busting, and to be honest, that might be for the best. None of them are entirely okay yet, even if the connect helps, more than just a balm. There's a reason why they need this vacation in the first place.

Henley's likely able to feel Jack flinch through the connection, his own amusement fading. "Yeah," he returns, pausing a beat before he adds. "We all definitely need this. 'S'why I went ahead and booked it without talking to you guys first."

They need some time as a "family", to let all this settle some more, to just have some time. He may have already said all that, though.

"I would have, too," she reaffirms softly, before turning back towards Dylan's closet. After a moment, she manages, "Anything else we need out of here?" It's a lame segue, but she's trying to get away from the mood she tanked.

"Uh..." Jack begins, following her look back toward the closet. "I don't think so? I mean, he can always come pick up stuff if we forgot anything or I can or whatever. I think we're good.

"Did we already talk about trying to get hold of Agent Dray?"

He's mostly trying to help pull the conversation away from other things.

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