silence fell once again at dylan’s plea, the tension stretching between them like a wall. jack turned away to stare out the window, at the passing lights and the people in the city, celebrating the NEW YEAR. he could see activity and laughing faces and stupid hats, as if the sun wouldn’t rise again for some of the most goddamn important people in it. he expected the headlines to read HORSEMEN DISAPPEAR BEFORE FINAL ACT – he knew there were people who would be waiting on the banks of the thames. they’d never show up – for all he knew, this was the end of the horsemen, and the eye would go further underground than before.
the gps chimed to alert them to their destination, and jack moved out of the van almost before dylan had come to a full stop. hands braced against the side, head hanging, taking deep breaths in an effort to keep back the nausea that the events of the night had brought on. the moment dylan rounded the side of the van, jack turned, pulling him abruptly into a tight embrace – his body ached, eh was sure dylan’s did too, but he needed a moment – a moment to reassure himself that dylan, at least, was alive. that he was not ALONE.
❛ we’re gonna figure this out, right ? ❜
figure it out, he said, as though they could solve the fact that lula, and merritt, and danny were dead.dead. their bodies broken on the ground somewhere in england, but YEAH, he asked dylan if they could figure it out. jesus christ, wilder. always looking for direction. as if their leader would know any more than he.
briefly, dylan wondered how long it will be until the bodies are found. he wished, he really did, that he didn’t know what a body thrown out of an aeroplane looks like: he hates himself for how quickly he imagine his friends ( fuck ‘friends’, the closest thing he’s had to a family in decades ) in that condition. it can’t take long if the plane remained over london — maybe a day or two max to identify them after that and then the world would know. he’s not gonna be able to watch any news once that happens.
his mind must have switched on autopilot: he didn’t notice jack moving towards him before he felt the boy’s arms around him. the initial reaction to the pain was quickly pushed aside for the comfort, and dylan had never wished so sincerely there was a godly power that could tell him what to say or do to make it right. he could feel jack’s pain, mixing in and mirroring his own, and dylan had to swallow down a broken sob when he heard the words talked somewhere over his shoulder just to be able to answer.
“ YEAH. ”
he had no idea what he meant by it — jack probably didn’t know what he was asking either — but there was no other answer he could even think of giving, not with the grief burning his lungs and wanting to break his bones. dylan could figure out tressler. he could figure out walter. and yeah, he couldn’t bring back any of the people who died because he had lived, but he could for damn sure make sure jack wouldn’t be met with the same fate. he had to. it wasn’t him the tresslers wanted — he should be allowed to live the rest of his life without all of this, no matter what the cost would be… and he knew that the cost was going to be giving them the one person whom they’ve really wanted dead. “ YEAH, ” he repeated, much surer now, and as he pulled away he could only hope the grief was too overwhelming for jack to notice the hint of melancholic determination that had crept to his gaze.
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.
