When Danny and Henley meet up again in New York as per the invitation of The Eye, Henley briefly mentions that she has her own website. Danny remarks that "websites are good" and Henley says that she knows that Danny has known about her website and that she knows that some of the comments on her site were his. This is a brief look at Danny discovering her site for the first time. I own nothing.
For a man as showy and attention-seeking as J. Daniel Atlas, Daniel's apartment was actually quite humble and private. The apartment was typical of the Chicago city; a small kitchenette barely used with equally sized living room adjoined a neat and sparsely decorated single bed and bath. The rent was cheap and favorable, just enough for Danny to get by without living in too much of a dump.
The door of the apartment swung open, and Danny, in his assertive manner, walked in with his tan bookbag on his shoulder and Chinese takeout from down the street for dinner. After closing the door with a firm click, he threw the apartment keys into a little bowl that sat at the door's entrance and slid his bookbag nonchalantly from his shoulder onto his sofa. Turning, Daniel placed the plastic bag of takeout on the tiled kitchen counter, flipping on a light before attempting to numbly untie the knotted bag. His attempts were unsuccessful; the plastic was knotted too tightly and although J. Daniel Atlas was known for performing amazing card tricks with a flourish of his hands, Danny was no magician at untying Chinese takeout bags. Exhaling in annoyance, Daniel yanked open a drawer and found a pair of regular scissors, clipping the plastic bag at the base of its knot before throwing the scissors back in and slamming the drawer with his hip.
With the contents of greasy chow mein and orange chicken in both hands and a plastic fork in his mouth, Daniel sat on his couch, sighing at the relief from standing all day. He placed the takeoutboxes on an old garage sale coffee table in front of him before whipping out a black laptop from his bookbag, setting it also on the table. Opening it and pressing its power button, Daniel waited for the laptop to boot up as he took the fork from his mouth and started to feast upon his dinner. The laptop's opening melody played, and after the usual hums and whirs that associated a machine coming to life, Daniel's desktop appeared. Like his apartment, the Desktop on Daniel's laptop was equally bare, a simple background image of a deck of cards sitting on a shadowed surface that Daniel found on Flickr along with some ordinary icon files on the side.
After clicking the internet icon and grabbing a soda from his fridge, Daniel went through his usual process of scouring all of the social networks he knew of, searching the tags for J. Daniel Atlas. He read the comments, tweets, and blog posts about himself as he did after his shows, smirking lightly at those who praised his shows, and scoffing at those who did not. Systematically and thoughtfully chewing his food, Daniel filed away all the commentary that was made about his previous show, a small, yet sizeable gathering at a jazz club in downtown Chicago, into the recesses of his mind. It was fodder for him to do better.
Daniel's internet prowl came to end at his own personal website that promoted his magic act and provided the public with vague background information and details on the when and where of future next performances. The website was minimally designed and sleek, black with thin white font. On the corner, his tagline, beautifully designed and scripted, lay elegantly to compliment the rest of the site. "The closer you look... the less you'll see..." Reaching the halfway mark for his chow mein, Daniel set it aside and picked up the orange chicken box, stabbing a piece of the overly-glazed meat poignantly with his fork.
A year had elapsed since Henley had left Daniel's side as his assistant. Her leaving was all a blur to Daniel really. Even now, as Daniel stuffed the chicken into his mouth, chewing it with the same systematic and concious effort, the details of Henley's departure bled between the lines. It wasn't just because of the trapdoor. The trapdoor was just the surface, merely the tipping point that caused their whole relationship to spiral down. Henley was brilliant, beautiful, and blooming in her own right. She came to Daniel as a make-ends girl, using her position as an assistant to make a small living in a new city, and left and a passionate, independent woman, burning a flame so bright, it was too much for even J. Daniel Atlas to handle. In the end, Henley's newfound resolve and flame broke through Daniel's need to control, and she left him, singeing his ego in the process. He said nothing as she left, although there was so much to be said; words chained and misdirected, touches unfelt and guarded.
Several months afterward, with much thought and consideration, Daniel ended up firing all his assistants, even Rebecca. With the burn of Henley gone, Daniel streamlined his performances, formulating and reformulating all his tricks. He continually improved his act, and booted up his own website, smug in the thought that he could be equally as successful and popular even without her. Sure, he wasn't on a Vegas stage performing for thousands, or even hundred thousands yet, but Daniel was sure as hell he was doing better than her.
Biting through more of the chicken in the box, Daniel browsed his site a little more, making sure all the information on it was correct. He casually clicked onto the 'Guestbook' tab, reading through the most recent entries. Most of them were essentially the same, fangirls remarking on his appearance rather than his magic tricks, others commenting on how cool his tricks were. With a small triumphant twitch of his lips, Daniel scrolled back up to the top of the page, his mouse clicker ready to exit out of the browser when the page made a small ping. A new entry appeared at the top of the list of guestbook inputs, and this particular one made Daniel almost choke on the orange chicken he was eating. With renewed interest, he placed the orange chicken box back on the table, stabbing his fork in it. Readjusting himself so that he was sitting on the edge of the couch, Daniel leaned over, reinspecting the entry.
"Wow, it is remarkable to finally see J. Daniel Atlas live. After being able to snag a ticket for Henley Reeves's sold-out show in LA, its an honor to see her mentor in person. J. Daniel Atlas is equally as amazing to watch as Henley Reeves and his card tricks are almost parallel to her escapes. Glad to see great magic in action! Will see again!"
Snag a ticket? Sold-out? LA?
Daniel immediately opened a new tab, hurriedly punching in the search engine for Henley's name. The page refreshed, showing the usual list of all related terms, with this top being... her own website. Daniel stared at the link for a brief moment, breathing in and exhaling. He clicked the website link with apprehension, letting it load.
In huge contrast to Daniel's, Henley's website was bright and gaudy, with her magic act in bold letters on top of the page. "HENLEY: THE GREAT ESCAPE" With a deep red background, Daniel clicked on her list of scheduled performances. The list loaded, her locations of her performances ranging mostly in various metropolis areas in California such as San Francisco and Los Angeles. And by almost each location, a little red icon had indicated that the show was sold out, months in advance. Daniel couldn't believe it. The mouse clicker rolled over to her about page, and a full body image of Henley in her performance attire appeared along with some paragraph blurbs about her. Her image was cocky and confident, flashing her own trademark smirk as Henley stood confident with accented gloved hands that sat upon her hips. She was still as fiery and beautiful as Daniel remembered her.
Daniel leaned back away from the screen, sighing. His sharp eyes stared back at Henley's powerful ones, and he knew he wasn't going to sleep well tonight. Quickly leaning forward again, his fingers led the mouse clicker over to her guestbook page and he started typing without a single thought.
"I believe that she needs to do a performance in Chicago. People would want to see and critique what she's done. I think people would recognize her as J. Daniel Atlas's former assistant."
Just as Daniel hit the enter button on his laptop, he immediately regretted it. There was no option to delete the entry, and Daniel's fingers flew to his temple. No sleep tonight.
"There's a big magic community here."
Again, Daniel exhaled in annoyance. That follow-up was no better than the one he had previously posted. Daniel rubbed the side of his face, closing in his eyes in disbelief of what he had done. Before doing anymore damage, his hand brought the laptop screen down, making the computer whirr and mumble to sleep. Shaking his head and blinking a few times, Daniel got up from the couch and made his way to his bedroom, leaving the food and laptop on the table. Kicking off his shoes and flopping onto the bed, Daniel stared at the
ceiling before rolling on his side.
"Websites are good"
First fanfiction. Please review to help me improve! Thanks.