_a/n: i was so emo after watching nysm2 bc all i kept thinking about was how u know if isla/henley was in it, it would have been her and jesse/daniel to kiss at new years eve and the thought/scenario would have been absolutely perfect. fuck me bc this kiss is so long overdue and her ass best show up in the third movie like i can already imagine her coming back (bc its def a possibility, especially with the expansion of the Eye members! omg) and the bantering between her and daniel would prob increase as well as their sexual tension since this would have canonically been after their second break up. oh my god. can you imagine. and their long overdue kiss scene would probably be before the last heist and it could be for luck or because maybe they won't survive it or something! FUCK
anyways. i love daniel and henley and intend to write more fics for them. i think i have like 4 of them already posted :)
x
ad nauseam
ad nau·se·am. adverb. referring to something that has been repeated so often that it has become annoying or tiresome.
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He doesn't miss her, he tells himself (over and over.) — Daniel, and the moments that remind him of Henley
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9:57 a.m.
There is a woman in his living room, lying on his couch—the couch of one-night-stands and numerous shameful rebounds consisting of fangirls and strangers willing to throw themselves at him after showing effortless two-minute card tricks in those flashy bars he hates (but she used to love and no he's not trying to accidentally run into her or anything; that would be preposterous and a little creepy of him and he is neither of those things, of course.) He's always wearing a disguise when he does indulge in these disapproved outings and he knows she is too, meaning that the possibility of them having been in the same atmosphere could be likely and hidden just right under their noses.
Or his, for the matter. She could recognize his hands anywhere. He knows this. He knows everything. Almost. Kind of.
Anyway, there's a woman in his apartment and he must get her out because his mind is running haywire suddenly and all he needs is to be is alone. But she just won't shut the hell up and there she goes decapitating herself and—
Daniel just does not have the time nor patience to give a single fuck about this girl's magic. Really.
Then she mentions a name that he keeps himself from saying by biting his tongue and swallowing the sting she's left in the hitch of his throat not so long ago.
And he's gonna snap at this girl if she continues to talk about his failures, but he's able to compose himself in the nick of time. She should consider herself lucky.
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10:23 p.m.
He's in Macao.
Dylan's socked him in the gut, pinned him to the wall, and pushed him out the door of a farmer's market—basically: saved his ass from being pummeled by native muscle men in a simple act of misleading escapism. Trickery at its finest, though involving bruising, pain, and sacrifices made.
For a split second—in between fiddling with the card between hesitant fingers and before placing the wanted device back into his coat pocket—he thinks of an artist that has mastered the action of whimsical escapes far beyond the capabilities of the horsemen accompanying him in China and how there is a slight possibility that things would go a little smoothly with her around.
Although it had never run smoothly with them, per se, her magic had never failed to do so. He'll give her that.
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2:01 a.m.
After being engulfed in water and wading as thoroughly as he possibly could with the lack of oxygen his system could withhold and retrieving Dylan from very bottom, Daniel is cold, wet, and in need a heater. Or new attire. In the magic shop, a rag around his shoulders suffice.
It could be worse, he deems, pondering over when he had lost a bet against this red-haired nuisance involving him plunging into lake water butt-naked and she escaping with his clothes.
He holds the blanket around him and shudders.
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9:14 a.m.
Don't die, Danny.
He reads the text over and over and over, sent by an unknown number—an international one, at that. He smirks at it in disbelief, for a minute or two thinking of whether or not someone's toying with him. It has got to be her; there is no doubt in his mind that it is the very ex-horsemen plaguing the back of his mind.
Did you forget who you're talking to?, he types with quick, nimble fingers.
Though, because he is watchful with his usage of technology, especially during the day of their finale, he disposes of the message before pressing send.
Regardless if he had sent it or not, he's aware that she already knows what he would say in return. She's had a knack for somehow stealing words from his mouth and reading his thoughts before he states them. He'll never know how.
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12:00 a.m.
There are fireworks almost as loud as the heartbeats he had once felt resonating with his own in the early hours of morning day by day and night by night. The sky is illuminated in yellows, whites, pinks, and blues, the crowd's cheer roars alongside each heavy powdered explosion, and the horsemen have just won, and on international television.
He wonders if she's watching him, if she's up to date on everything, or if she's planning the outfit she's going to wear that night since London is eight hours ahead and she's probably still excited to celebrate the new year with a boy toy she's hooked along her finger, who will have most likely complimented her very, very red lips. Her signature.
Then he sees Lula and Jack making out and in all complete honesty (that he would never admit to), he is bitter. Bitter because it should have been his kiss with Henley. They were supposed to be the (troublesome) lovebird pair of the horsemen and that would have been the moment that has been long overdue—a public kiss, one for the crowd, simultaneously with their victory, their best stunt yet.
A minute passes and he brushes off the unfair resent that burdens him as he and Merritt interrupt the duo's budding romance with words that otherwise would have been said to he and Henley Reeves.
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9:09 a.m.
Daniel slides his phone across the marble surface of his kitchenette, annoyed at the fact he is still very much awake when he had had no drinks whatsoever and should very well be exhausted after the final heist. Despite Merritt's attempts to get him drunk alongside the rest of the crew—c'mon you buzzkill, drink up, it's a new year—Daniel would still hardheadedly refuse due to, well, bitterness. And maybe a little melancholy.
He's been toying with his phone for an hour and eight minutes with only one stupid thought in his mind. He wants to call her. He wants to check up on her, make sure she's sober enough to head home from her Happy January 1st one night stand, make sure she's alright, and all (when he very well knows she is, the tough girl), if the boy she just had fun with knows to never pull her hair or how to make her toes curl in the midst of her orgasm. He just wants to hear her voice on the other line, honey sweet and sharp in one. He remembers the hum of it as she'd murmur good night and the nostalgia makes him dizzy.
He grabs his phone and quickly unlocks the home screen—one that had used to solely be a photo of her, one she had taken, of course, and changed herself without his permission. He would change it back to a scenic wallpaper every time, but somehow, someway, she is always able to those gloved hands back on it and swap his home screen back.
Daniel scowls at her previous contact name, the photo icon, the seven digits of her number (to the right of a star-sixty-seven, but he is not a pussy or anything, he is simply just careful), with an inexplicable want to tell her about everything she has missed and everything the horsemen had overcome. But that's not how Daniel works, nor is. It is pride over everything. It is knowledge over everything. Superiority over everything. Control, she would say.
She would say a lot of things, actually, come to think of it; all never pertaining anything even remotely nice.
He runs through all the possible conversations via one single phone call he would be damned to make, each one ending with an abrupt hang up on her end and a bittersweet satisfaction on his.
In the end, he doesn't make the call.
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1:36 p.m.
Upon entering the headquarters of The Eye, there is an infinitesimal twinge of hope (that he internally berates himself for having) that once the door unlocks and the horsemen set foot onto the polished, wooden floors, that he would see heels, perhaps gloves, a cherry red smile, and a glimpse of strawberry blonde.
He can't say he's disappointed.
He's too astonished by absolute magic that is the reality of The Eye.
There is no room for disappointment, heartbreak, anguish. That would be foolish, and J. Daniel Atlas is anything but.
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_a/n: should i write more? i basically wrote in the time span of the movie itself, and i was wondering if i should add more moments in between or i could continue with time after or even touch upon the before-when they were canonically together between the first and the sequel.
i know this was short, but i mean it's just a one shot. no general plot. just the moments in between.
what do you think?