Title: The Showman & The Sleight: Part I

Pairing: Daniel x Jack

Word Count: 3, 070

AN: Imagine if Jack and Danny met before the Four Horsemen.

This was originally the first chapter of a Multi-Chapter fic but I kind of lost track of where it was going and it became messy so I decided to publish it again but as a three-chapter fic.

This is ironic, Daniel thought to himself as he fell to the ground. He was a man who prided himself in not needing his eyesight – he believed it to be treacherous – and he often told the people who watched his magic tricks this. It was ironic that he would be the one to run into someone. Mere minutes after another successful show. One of the few he left without a girl or man by his side.

Daniel put down his elbows. An audible groan left his lips as he felt pieces of gravel tear pieces of his skin through the two layers of clothing. He was fully prepared to tell the person who pushed him that he or she was a complete moron and needed to watch where they were going. And then he looked up.

The man who had pushed him looked a few years younger than Daniel himself. He had brown, short hair, big brown eyes with thick eyebrows and thin lips. Daniel didn't realize that he'd been holding his breath until the man spoke. His voice was contradictory both light, dark and husky at the same time.

"J. Daniel Atlas… Fuck, I am so sorry! Let me help you up." He took Daniel's hands and pulled him up from the ground. "I'm a huge fan, man. I can't believe I ran you down, are you okay?"

"Nice to meet you…"

"Jack Wilder."

"Well, it's nice to meet you Jack Wilder. As for running me down, there's no need to apologize. I wasn't watching where I was going."

Jack smiled and that tiny little expression had butterflies moving inside Daniels stomach and for a moment he thought that he was having a heart attack. There simply was no other way of explaining the way his heart rapidly beat inside his heart. It felt as if his heart had entered a competition to see if it could beat so fast that it could blind the other senses in Daniel's body.

"You practicing what you preach?"

Daniel rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I guess you could say that. So, what were you running from?"

Jack's eyes grew double in size as if he suddenly remembered why he had run into Daniel in the first place and he looked back. "I stole some dude's wallet, he wasn't all that happy about it. I really should go before he catches up with me."

Daniel hummed, easily hiding the disappointment he felt. "Yeah I guess."

"It was nice meeting you." Jack said.

Daniel watched him take two steps. "Hey," Jack turned around. "Can I have your number?"

"You want my number?" Again, Jack's eyes doubles in size.

Daniel nodded. "Yeah." They swapped numbers and then Jack began backing away from him, blending in with the crowd without even trying. Daniel tried ignoring the tiny voice in the back of his head that told him how disappointed he was to see Jack go that soon. He almost managed when Jack smiled at him. "I guess I'll see you around."

"I'll call you," Jack winked at him. "Bye Danny."

Daniel hated nicknames, he especially hated that nickname. But for some reason it didn't bother him when Jack said it. Daniel waved and then Jack disappeared into the crowd of people. Daniel lost sight of him sooner than he wanted to admit. In fact, he spent most of the following days doing things he never thought he would. Being the control freak that he was Daniel didn't change his routine but a new habit found its way into the routine that he had been following since he left home.

Daniel woke up and then he checked his phone.

Daniel had breakfast and then he checked his phone.

Daniel went to the location of his show for the day. No matter how long or short the walk there was he always listened to music and whenever he changed the music Daniel would check his phone for messages or against all possibilities, missed calls.

There never was one. And it was slowly driving him insane. For so many reasons.

Daniel wasn't supposed to be acting like this. He was the famous one. He was the person who had worked his ass of in order to be as known as he was. People – males and females – were throwing themselves at him after each show he put on. He never had to chase people, they always came to him. He didn't do chasing and J. Daniel Atlas definitely didn't pine. Especially not for some guy he had only met once. At least that's what he told himself. A week later Daniel almost bought it. He almost believed that he wasn't interested in this Jack Wilder. It was physical attraction and nothing else. That was the only reason his heart beat one extra time whenever Daniel thought he saw Jack on the street. The chills that went down his spine and the fact that the air was caught in his throat had nothing to do with him pining for Jack. It was something completely different. He just couldn't pinpoint what that was. But that only meant that he hadn't given it enough thought. That was the logical explanation. Daniel shook his head; he couldn't be thinking about Jack if he was performing a show.

He took the deck of cards out of his pocket and stood completely still while he nonchalantly shuffled the cards using both hands. Eventually the murmuring grow louder and when Daniel looked up there was a number of people watching him with anticipation. This was a relatively new development. It had taken him years to get to the point where he didn't have to market the fact that he was performing somewhere. All he had to do was show up and people would surely recognize him and then spread the word about where he was.

"Hello ladies and gentlemen," he spoke with a loud voice in order to make sure that everyone heard. "My name is J. Daniel Atlas and if you want to spend some of your precious time on me I'll make it worth your while."

He winked at some girls standing nearby. They started giggling as he assumed they would. His persona was charming in groups – or so Daniel had been told by his previous assistant – but it was the one on one he had to work on. Daniel had thanked her for the compliment. She'd quit eventually. Not because he thanked her for the compliment but because she – as she put it herself – was sick and tired of being controlled by his sick, cruel and twisted mind. All because he'd told her she needed to lose weight. He hadn't used those exact words but that's what he had meant.

"I am going to perform some magic for you today." The crowd applauded and Daniel forced himself to smile. It was a minimum smile. The ends of his lips lifted a little bit while the rest of his face remained still. "Maybe some of you have seen me before" – a few people raised their hands – "oh, good. Maybe you can enlighten the others of what I always say before I start."

"The closer you look the less you see." People responded. Normally Daniel would have just nodded and started his first trick. But one voice stood out in the crowds. And for a moment Daniel stood completely still with a frown on his face as he scanned the crowd.

He was sure that he had heard Jack. But he couldn't see him. It was probably just his mind playing him a trick. It wouldn't shock him. His eyes had already betrayed him, why wouldn't his mind do the same? Daniel looked down on the ground making a curl fall in front of his eye and when he looked up the disappointment had been pushed deeper inside of him.

"That is very correct." Daniel held the deck of cards in front of him. "Now let's begin."

Even from the back Jack could see that there was something over Danny's eyes. He looked like that every time he performed. He could talk and be normal but when it came to doing the actual trick Daniel pushed himself into a bubble where nothing existed except for him and the next move.

Jack stood with his arms crossed over his chest. Completely hidden in clear view. That's what he liked to call it.

A flash of red caught his attention and Jack turned to the side. A girl with long red hair stood next to him with a bag slung over her shoulder and white gloves covering her hands. She was a little bit shorter than Jack but unlike him she stood out in the crowd.

"He's good, isn't he?" the woman asked as she glanced over at him.

"Amazing." Jack agreed.

"I used to be his assistant. When you work so close with someone it becomes even clearer if they are talented or not. Danny is the real deal. I swear he lives and breathes magic." She said briefly. "Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Henley Reeves, former assistant to that very talented asshole over there and current escape artist."

"Nice to meet you, I'm Jack Wilder."

"It was a pleasure talking to you, Jack Wilder. Sadly, this is where I go. I wouldn't want him to see me. Technically, we're not on speaking terms and I swore never to see him perform even if he was the last magician on earth. I'm not about to give him the satisfaction of seeing me here. You have a good day."

"I thought you were friends." Jack said without hesitation.

Henley shook her head. "I don't think anyone is friends with Danny. He has some acquaintances but no friends. Sadly, talent don't go hand in hand with good manners or decent social skills."

With that said Henley gave him a last nod and followed a group of people walking away from the show. Jack turned his attention back to Daniel. The man was completely immersed in his trick. The tiny smile that signaled satisfaction looked as if it had been glued onto his face. The way it did during all of his shows. Because Daniel never made any mistakes. He always got things right. When you looked at him from the crowd it appeared as if he never did anything wrong and he never hesitated.

Jack hesitated all the time. Especially, when he got given J. Daniel Atlas number. I'll call you he'd said. The very next day Jack looked at his phone like a moron wondering if it was too soon. He decided that it was and thought that maybe if he waited for two days that he wouldn't seem desperate. But when those two days had passed and Jack was going to call it felt as if someone was attempting to strangle him whenever he got even remotely close to the call-button. A week later he still hadn't called.

There was something about calling that stopped him. That's why he decided to walk and see the show. If he met Danny face to face, then he'd have to talk to him. Assuming Danny followed his own advice and saw him in the crowd.

Daniel performed the tricks in the exact order that he had planned it. They all succeeded and by the time it was over he had almost forgotten about the fact that he had heard Jacks voice from somewhere in the crowd. But as soon as the last trick was over Daniel was reminded. Right away he scanned the crowd. Growing more and more impatient when every person he thought was Jack turned out not to be. He almost laughed out loud when he realized what he was doing. Instead of looking at the individual people Daniel took a step back and glanced at them as a group and only stopped when he saw a familiar smile and a familiar set of brown eyes looking at him from a few meters away. Daniel's heart beat a bit quicker when he walked over to the young man.

"I almost thought you were going to leave without saying hello. Don't you follow your own advice, Atlas?" Jack said with a big smile that showed two lines of perfect teeth.

"That's funny." So, I thought you were going to call me but you didn't, what's up with that? Daniel thought but didn't say. "So, what are you doing here?"

"Well, I was watching you perform." Jack responded in a duh-tone of voice that had Daniel rolling his eyes. "And I figured that instead of calling you and see if you wanted to hang out I could go here and ask you myself. So, do you want to hang out?"

Daniel nodded. "Sure, maybe one of these days you could show me what you do."

"What's wrong with right now?"

"Nothing." Daniel shook his head. "My place or your place?"

"Well," Jack shrugged. He pushed his hands down the pockets of his jeans and all of the sudden the smile fell from his face and his eyes looked dark and hard like stone. "I'm kind of homeless right now so going to my place could be hard."

Daniel shrugged. "My place it is then. We'll get something to eat on the way. Do you like Chinese?"

As soon as they began walking Daniel started asking questions. He never said anything about himself but kept on shooting away questions at Jack. And as soon as he began talking Daniel looked him straight in the eyes and hummed every now and again to show that he was still listening. He very rarely reacted by smiling or frowning but every time Jack managed to get him to smile it felt as if he'd won some kind of prize. Because when Daniel smiled it wasn't the usual smile that everyone saw at shows. It was something out of the ordinary. It looked like a genuine smile. Jack began noticing little things about Danny during the first few minutes of talking to him. He noticed even more when Danny was ordering food. Jack noticed the way he'd mumble the words when he was in line like an actor about to do some really hard scene and when he stood by the counter he moved the spices on the table until they stood in the correct order; from the smallest to the largest.

Eventually they got back to Danny's apartment. Jack didn't know what he thought it would look like but he wasn't disappointed. There were a lot of open spaces, a kitchen table, a couch and then two doors further down the room which Jack assumed would lead to the bedroom and the bathroom.

"Cool place," Jack said as he walked around. Daniel – though seeming fully invested in the task at hand – managed to say thank you. "So, do you live here by yourself?"

"Yeah, well for now anyway. Do you want food first or do you want to show me your magic?"

Jack didn't ask what that was supposed to mean even if he wanted to. "I can do magic at the same time. Do you have a deck of cards somewhere?"

"Not at all, it's not as if I'm constantly carrying one around or anything." Daniel rolled his eyes as he took one from the back of his pocket and threw it to Jack who easily caught it.

"Now, do you have anything you won't mind me breaking?" Jack asked. Daniel raised an eyebrow but nodded and picked up a pen. "Good, now hold that a bit higher. And don't move." He threw the card with one swiping move and watched as the ben broke in two pieces.

"That's really impressive." Daniel said while nodding. "What else can you do?"

So, Jack showed him. He stole the older man's phone without him noticing it, he copied his voice and then broke some more stuff using only Daniel's deck of cards. He still spoke the most. He told Danny about what got him interested in magic and about leaving his parents' house; not the entire story, just the parts he wanted him to know and luckily Danny didn't ask for more information than what he got. Danny didn't say anything about himself. He sat quietly, he asked questions and he made sounds when they were appropriate. Jack didn't know if he was imagining or not but it looked and felt as if Danny acted like he did when performing. He put his entire heart and soul into it to the point where the world outside of him and his next action disappeared.

"This is unrealistic." Jack eventually spoke.

"What is?"

"I'm having dinner with my idol."

Daniel frowned. "Thanks for the compliment but that doesn't sound right. It sounds better if you say friend instead of idol."

Jack almost choked on the noodles he was about to swallow. "Are we friends?"

"Yeah, at least that's what I thought." Daniel replied with a shrug. "I mean I like you. I rarely like people but you I like and I'd like to hang out with you some more. Isn't that what friendship is? You find a human that you like and want to do stuff with so you bring them along to pretty much everything you can come up with that they may be into?"

Jack blinked several times. "Yeah, I guess that's one way of looking at it."

Daniels smile grew. "Cool, so since we're friends now. Do you want to spend the night? And yes, I am partly asking because you're homeless and it doesn't feel right kicking you out. Even if you could probably find another place to stay. But I'm also asking because we're friends. And because of that reason I don't want to kick you out."

"Are you sure you have the space?"

Daniel rolled his eyes. "I live alone in this apartment. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I have the space for one more person."

Jack laughed. "You're weird. You do know that people don't tend to invite semi-strangers to stay the night?"

Daniel shrugged. "Yeah well, I've been told that I'm not normal so if anyone would do then it's me plus you're not a semi-stranger. You're my friend. We're friends. With that being said will you stay?"

Jack nodded. "I'll stay."

Daniel didn't bother hiding his smile. "Good."