The sudden sound of a man’s voice in her ear drew Cecilia out of whatever thought she was having about her cards. She wasn’t the best poker player, but she knew her way around a deck. Honestly, she didn’t even want to play but it was the only way to get close enough to her suspect. He was at the table to the right of hers, betting away money that he stole from his estranged wife. She was only spending as much as she had to, but luck seemed to be in her favor with how many chips she reeled in. That was, until the man ghosting over her shoulder whispered words of wisdom. ❝ Well, in that case I would rather get while the getting is good. ❞ She already had a horrible hand, one she could make something work with the right cards but with the warning she didn’t want to take any chances. She folded & withdrew from the game, starting to pile the chips into her handbag.❝ Thank you, but why did you help me? Seems out of place for an establishment of this… caliber.❞
shit. a smile is flashed — wide and apologetic — to the other players on the table to distract from her timing: by ending the game immediately, she’s brought attention to him that doesn’t need to be there, and whatever roughing up they usually do to guys who count cards or otherwise ruin the game for them, dylan’s safe to presume is only gonna get worse if they realise he’s a fed. “ sorry, fellas, we have a LUNCH we gotta be up for tomorrow. but hey, eleven o’clock, tomorrow, it’s double or nothing, right? ” to further sell the idea they’re together despite barely interacting the whole night, he hands her a card he hopes looks enough like a hotel key to fool them for the five seconds it needs to before he starts walking out with her. “ you want your key back? ” a small nod he expects her to imitate without realising before finally bringing his volume down so their company can’t hear them anymore. “ we’ll talk outside, just act along. ”
“ Then we need to turn the tables again - quickly. ” Voice firm and resolute, he’s almost doing enough to give the impression that their change in fortune hasn’t perturbed him — but a n x i o u s hands tugging at the knot of his tie disprove his bluff. Really, he ought to have a better poker face by now. There’s little that VEXES him more than losing the upper-hand in a case; particularly one that’s deemed important enough to require the combined efforts of the FBI andthe CIA. Their drop back to being on the back foot in this chase has left the analyst reeling a little, but that’s never been cause enough to leave him resigned. If anything, it only fuels his determination. He knows little of Rhodes’ work ethics but the other man’s frustration - his declaration of their foolish slip up - gives him cause to believe he might be just as set on seeing the case through to a positive result. “ We can still pull this off, we just need to regroup. I…didn’t see things turning out this way - I’m sorry. ”
it’s conflicting, to be working on a whistleblower case — apparently, the only thing more important than the quiet war between fbi and cia that’s been going on for decades is putting people who want to the world to know the truth behind bars. it’s not the first time dylan’s working against his own morals, but the specific type of case they have in their hands is making this all the worse… just worse enough for him to sabotage it ever so slightly, enough for the people to leak their documents before they can be managed to get caught. “ just SAVE your apologies, okay? ” it could’ve been a permission to stop feeling sorry about it, but the tone with which he delivers make it sound more like he just doesn’t want to hear how sorry fletcher is. a small pang of guilt follows, quickly swallowed — if the younger man doesn’t put it on rhodes’s frustration with the case, dylan can always buy him a beer afterwards and apologise. “ please tell me you have something before my boss gets here. ”
Hello, my name is Aurora, I’m 21 years old and Finnish. EET time zone, naturally not a native speaker — if my replies make no sense, please let me know, it’s either because of me being tired or fucking up grammar. Please tag choking, somnophilia, eating disorders, suicide and bluespace, including screenshots of the dash: essentially, if the sides of the picture are the same colour as the dash, tag it.
selectivity
I am open to ocs and crossovers. This blog is mutuals only: threads, plotting and im are only for people who I have followed back. However, non-mutuals can send me asks and memes and reply to opens. I do tend to form mains and practice exclusivity, especially shipping exclusivity: the list can be found here. Note that I fully admit to being a lazy ass about checking my followers: I am currently using an extension that hides my follower count, so it is up to my own memory to remember to check the list: thus, it can take up to anything from a week to a month to check out a blog — more, if it’s a muse from something I haven’t seen yet.
pre-established relationships
If you have a non-romantic relationship idea (friends, colleagues, even family) between our muses, chances are I’ll be up for that, but do please run it through me first. This is twice as important for Horsemen ocs. The Horsemen and the dynamic between them form a large part of Dylan’s life, so I am more hesitant than most about writing with them because I need to understand why Dylan would have chosen them. I hope you can understand this.
shipping
Shipping-wise, Dylan is free game, but only if it happens with chemistry. This is even more highlighted by the fact that I play Dylan as demisexual, meaning that he doesn’t feel sexual attraction to anyone until he has a strong relationship with them, platonic or romantic.
Statistics
FULL NAME: Dylan Caspian Shrike
ALIAS: Dylan Rhodes (active from 1990 to 2015)
AGE: 44
BIRTH DATE: December 21, 1971
GENDER: Cis male
ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Panromantic
SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Demisexual
RELIGION: Atheist
SPOKEN LANGUAGES: English (native), Mandarin, Cantonese, French, Italian, some Greek
CURRENT HOUSING: Apartment connecting to The Eye’s headquarters in London
OCCUPATION: The “fifth” Horseman, leader of The Eye’s western base. Worked as a mole in the FBI until being exposed publicly at the end of 2015
relationships
PARENTS: Lionel Shrike (deceased in March 6, 1984), Henriette Shrike (deceased in October 20, 1988)
SIBLINGS: None
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: Currently, none
CHILDREN: Unable to have
physical traits
EYE COLOUR: Brown
HAIR COLOUR: Dark brown, greying
HEIGHT: 5'7½
BODY TYPE: Short, square, somewhere between builtfat and chubbyfat.
personality
INTELLIGENCE: Book-smarts: studied engineering in college, degree in Criminology, mathematical brain. Strategist by nature.
DISPOSITION: Intelligent and calculating. Extroverted, but prefers a small social circle. Needs to feel in control, tends to take a leadership position very easily, as well as responsibility over others. Strong moral compass and need to see justice served.
Biography
Dylan Caspian Shrike was the first and only child born to Henriette Wilson, a former actress, and Lionel Shrike, a famous magician and a member of The Eye. The family lived in an apartment New York they owned, greatly relying on Lionel’s profession to supply for them. Partly to this, Lionel was largely absent at home, always performing, practicing, or travelling to China to buy equipment for his tricks. Dylan always knew his father first as a magician, and only then as a father.
This not-ideal but functioning life came to a stop when Thaddeus Bradley revealed how all of Lionel’s magic tricks were done in the pilot of his show, leaving the family unsure how Lionel’s career would handle such a blow. In an attempt to regain spotlight, Lionel insisted on doing a trick Thaddeus had called impossible: to break out from being handcuffed in a safe in the middle of a river. Dylan watched his father go down in the safe but the metal the safe was made of warped, making the escape impossible and causing Lionel to drown. Because his body nor the safe was ever found, his life insurance claim was denied, and the family was left without a penny.
Dylan always blamed the death of his father above all on Thaddeus Bradley, and after his mother had to give him up for adoption at the age of 12, Dylan started to plan for revenge. He spent most of his teenage years in a group home and two foster families, copying his father’s tricks and practicing some of his own, never specialising in anything in particular, finding himself more interested in the behind-the-scenes work that went into the larger tricks.
He started to study engineering in college, but The Eye gave him another task: take a new identity — that of Dylan Rhodes — and move to study Criminology in order to become a mole in the FBI. This alias gave him a possibility to start working on his plan to bring those responsible for his father’s death and the hardships that followed: a group of magicians that would bring the art back to a global spotlight whilst using their abilities to deceive for a greater cause. Gathering resources, perfecting his plan, and making it possible to do without known help from The Eye — as is required from applicants — was a long process, but he finally got it to motion in February 2013.
