In a bar...

[captain_fucking_magic]

Harry's having a fairly good day, as these things go. He's taking a break from work, and has absconded with Perry's laptop to the bar, where he is typing up a blog post detailing their last case. Or at least, what he's allowed to blog about. Perry still insists on checking these things over before Harry posts them (confidentiality and all that, which fine. Harry can work with that), but he's got pretty good at knowing which bits to leave out or alter slightly to keep Perry in business.

And besides. It's kind of fun, being like Dr Watson. Only, you know. Without the doctor part.

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[captain_fucking_magic]

"Yeah," Harry says slowly. "My boss is a detective. That's how I met him, actually. I was supposed to be getting detective lessons for a movie role that I didn't actually get." And there's no bitterness there. Nope. "Then there was this dead chick in a lake and some asshole with a serious hard-on for old detective movies.

"I got shot. It kinda sucked."

[myeuh_muh]

"...No wait, really?" Darcy frowns at him. "For someone who writes like you do you suck at story-telling. Tell it properly."

[captain_fucking_magic]

"What, really?"

He's surprised anyone actually wants to hear it, considering his blog gets all of about three hits a month.

[myeuh_muh]

"Well, yes. Either you're making it up, and your story will not hold up, or you'll tell a good story."

Well, it's not that simple but whatever. Darcy waves a rat over.

"I'd like chai tea please. Want one?"

[captain_fucking_magic]

"Uh. OK."

Whether that's for the tea or the story is unclear.

He tells her, though. Tells her pretty much everything. The toy shop in the East Village, the detective lessons, getting completely whacked on Demerol.

When it comes down to it, it was a pretty insane four days.

"I even have some of his cards, but I'm not allowed to say that they're mine," he says. He hands her one of them, which is just your basic business card for someone called Perry van Shrike.

"I can't technically help him with the cases though. Mostly, I just pay the bills, file the papers. Translate for him, because what kind of jackass lives in LA and doesn't speak Spanish?"

[myeuh_muh]

Darcy leans forward as he speaks. It's kind of disjointed, like someone telling a joke but not remembering it all.

"You know what's weird about this story? You never once went to the police like 'Hey so these guys pulled my finger off.'"

[captain_fucking_magic]

"I only saw them, like, once. The whole time," Harry says. "They were probably too busy beating up some black guy for trying to unlock his own car. I don't know."

[myeuh_muh]

"The whole time? Even when you were like, dangling from the dead chick? Jeez... To be honest I'm amazed you gave way before her arm did."

Oh okay that thought was kind of gross.

[captain_fucking_magic]

"I had just been shot," Harry reminds her. "Which ain't fun. Like. At all.

"You think it'll be cool and get a neat scar or something, but it's just months of physical therapy and an arm that kinda goes numb sometimes if you hold it wrong."

[myeuh_muh]

"Ew." Darcy makes a mental note to avoid getting shot. "You didn't get like, any sort of cool scar at all? You know, one you can show to impressionable girls or something?"

Is that a thing people still do?

[captain_fucking_magic]

"No. It doesn't really look like anything. I thought it would be all, like in the war movies where they dig the bullet out of the guy's leg? But they don't do that. They just stitch you up and send you home with an outrageous fucking bill."

[myeuh_muh]

"Oh." And when this doesn't seem like enough. "I fell out of a tree when I was a kid and got a big cut on my stomach. I told people it was where they cut out my identical twin sister till Mom found out and made me stop."

[captain_fucking_magic]

Harry laughs at that, sort of amused by the mental image.

"What, seriously?" he asks. "Why'd she make you stop?"

[myeuh_muh]

"Because the reason it was so ragged and not like Charlie Seller's appendectomy scar was because she'd cut it out of me with the big kitchen knife."

Darcy has the decency to look shamed.

"You know that moment when you can't not say what you're about to say?"

[captain_fucking_magic]

Always.

"I think so," he says. "Still, sounds like a good story to tell kids at school."

[myeuh_muh]

"Yeah, I showed it to kids for Lunchables. That and a Snack Pack and you could touch it."

There's a hint to her tone suggesting that in Harry's case, the currency is more flexible. It's a pretty subtle hint though.

[captain_fucking_magic]

"Really?" he asks. "I don't any Lunchables on me. And I just finish my last Snack Pack this morning."

[myeuh_muh]

"Huh. Well, I don't do free shows. Bad for business. You show it to one boy 'cause he's got pretty brown eyes and before you know it everyone's demanding their lunch back."

The resulting battle may have been how her mother got wind of the story and how come Darcy has another scar on her knee.

[captain_fucking_magic]

An idea occurs to Harry. He is actually really curious to see. All this build-up; how can he not be?

But she's, like, young enough to be his kid. If he'd started early. It's kinda weird.

"What if I teach you a card trick?" he asks.

[myeuh_muh]

"Ooh, okay." Darcy perks up. "You have to teach me first. I've been taken in that way before."

[captain_fucking_magic]

"Oh, really?" Harry asks, possibly implying something. Or possibly just being oblivious.

Of course he has a pack of cards on him. Blue-backed Bicycles, because everyone knows you can't get trick Bicycle cards.

These ones are, of course, completely marked, and very slightly shaved, but that doesn't matter. Harry's going to teach her some good-old-fashioned sleight of hand.

He shows her the trick first, so she knows what she's going to be learning. Working a quick overhand shuffle, he asks her to tell him when to stop shuffling, and then shows her the card at the break and tells her to memorise it, before he loses the card back in the deck.

"Is... this your card?" he asks, showing her a cart that is most certainly not her card.

[myeuh_muh]

Darcy smiles. She can't help it.

"Nooo." She draws it out like a kid would.

[captain_fucking_magic]

Harry looks at the card as though he's annoyed at it.

"Aw, damnit," he says, possibly over-acting just a little bit. He puts the card back and tosses the whole pack down on the table between them. "Shouldda known you'd have picked the three of clubs."

[myeuh_muh]

Darcy smiles even more broadly. She can't help it. A good card trick played well will get her every time. She looks down at the table, expectantly.

[captain_fucking_magic]

"It's real easy," Harry says. He picks the deck back up and fans it out so he can find the card again.

"You got your card, here, and you put it at the bottom, here. You gotta be careful you don't flash that, because then the trick's ruined."

He shows her how to shuffle the pack to keep the card on the bottom, and then how to shuffle it in a different way to force the card.

"They think, because the cards are coming out of your hand, that they're getting a random card. But you're pulling off the top of the stack and then showing them the bottom one," he says. "You can do anything for the pay-off. It's usually better to pretend to fuck it up first, though. It makes the reveal seem somehow more impressive."