Healing

turquoisemagpie:

1)

It was getting near closing time along The Lanes at Brighton and most shoppers and tourists were making their ways either to late night restaurants or bars, or home. Marvin the Magnificent Magician preferred late afternoon crowds; more tired parents with hyperactive and highly intrigued children were usually drawn to his pitch, and inattentive adults meant more room for mistakes.
“Right! One more go at the card trick again. I’m sure I’ve got it this time.” He straightened the pack of cards and then spread them out in a fan in his hands, the faces facing a small boy in front of him. “Pick a card! Any card!” The boy reached out for one. “Not that one!” Marvin yelped, making the boy flitch. He then smiled and laughed, “Nah, I’m just kidding. Pick any card.”
After a bit of hesitation, the boy pulled out a card. And 5 or 6 more cards with it. Marvin kicked those fallen cards to the side. “Never mind them, never mind them. Now, take a good look at that card.” The boy did so. “Had a good look? Think you can remember it?” The boy nodded. “Ok,” Marvin sang, “put it back in the pack.” The boy slipped the card back into the fan of cards and Marin began to shuffle, not before picking up he fallen cards off the floor.
Marvin wasn’t the best at shuffling smoothly, neither was he discreet at hiding the fact that he was keeping his index finger and thumb on the boy’s chosen card, but the adults were too dazed to noticed. He noticed a few eager children were onto him so he loosened his hand and let a few cards fly out from the pack and onto the kids. “Oops! Runaway cards! They’re not supposed to turn into birds yet, I haven’t done that trick yet!” He laughed and some of the kids laughed with him, while the odd adult mildly chuckled, and the older children continued to look unimpressed at life in general, not just his clumsy magic tricks.
Marvin inhaled sharply and announced, “Ok! Cards are nicely shuffled!” He kneeled down to the boy’s level and place the cards on the floor, the backs facing up. “Now, I’m going to spread them out and one card, out of all of these cards with the backs of them showing, will be facing up, and that, hopefully will be your card!” His voiced trail off slightly. He wasn’t sure if he did the trick right; he probably shouldn’t have thrown a couple of the cards at the kids. He spread out the card evenly and, as told, one card was faced upwards. Marvin pulled it out.
“Is this your card?”
The boy shook his head.
Marvin hummed. “That’s strange.” He took his top hat off and looked in it, tipped it upside-down and shook it. “Nope! Nothing there-”
“Jacksepticeye!” An older girl shouted out, pointing to his bright dyed green hair. “You’re Jacksepticeye, aren’t you?!”
Oh Christ, he thought, Not again.
Soon a group of young people added themselves to the crowd and eagerly awaited what ‘Jack’ would do next. But this wasn’t Jack, this was Marvin. And how he wished that would have been clarified. Marvin was his own character. Just as Jack was from Sean, Marvin’s doppelgänger, as well as the other ego’s doppelgänger.
Don’t let it bring you down, he snapped to himself. “Right!” Marvin said quickly, collecting the cards and swiftly standing up before the boy’s disappointment could set in. “Next trick!”

A stray cat skittered out of an alley in fright from the sudden monstrous crash that came from the dust bin nearby. After a small struggle to pull himself up from the fallen mess, Jackaboy Man stood up and hastily brushed scraps of newspaper off his bright red hero suit. He tried to catch his breath before setting off down the alleyway at high speed. He’d tried to land close to Marvin’s pitch spot without disturbing his performance as Marvin had warned him time and again never to make a landing spot in the middle of his crowds; mainly because the event of a man in a bright red onesie and a small green cape falling from the sky usually scared the majority of people away. But as much as Jackaboy respected Marvin’s rules, the hero would need to pull the magician away as soon as possible for the emergency that had occurred. Jackaboy Man reached the end of the alley way that lead onto The Lanes. One alleyway down from him was Marvin’s performance. He’d need to get to the alleyway behind him to grab his attention.

Marvin pulled his watch off from around his wrist and held it out clearly to his young audience. “You see this watch? Nice watch, isn’t it? Well, let me tell you, I have a good magic trick to do with this watch.” He pulled out a black silk handkerchief from his back pocket and wrapped the watch in it. He held it out in a flat palm to the audience, so they could confirm the watch was there inside the parcel of silk. He then straightened himself up and coughed and held the watch out in a long arm, the corner of the silk handkerchief between his finger and thumb. After a small pause, he tilted his hand to let the watch drop. He jolted his hand up a bit, and the handkerchief lightly unfurled, and, instead of a watch, a card flew out onto the floor.
The small boy from before jumped with excitement. “My card! My card! That’s my card!”
Marvin bowed as the suddenly very impressed crowd began to clap.
After the applause he announced, “And as for the watch…” he stretched his arm out and pulled a watch out from under his long sleeve. “…back on the wrist.”
“Two watches!” An older guy at the back jeered over the crowds’ heads.
“Two, you say? Ha! You are wrong sir.” Marvin japed. Then he pulled up his sleeve to reveal his arm was lined with many other identical watches. “I’ve got about 6 or 7!”
The older adults heartily laughed at his joke. The younger adults didn’t really get the Tommy Cooper homage trick, but they clapped and whooped him vigorously. Probably because they think I’m Jack, he thought, sighing internally. Marvin pulled his sleeve back down and bowed once more to the crowded.
One more trick, he thought to himself as he turned back to his suitcase to rummage through his magic stash.
“Psst!”
Marvin looked up. Through a gap in the dustbins within the alleyway he saw a blue eye mask with equally blue eyes peeking through.
“Jackaboy?” Marvin whispered.
“Finish your show!” he urged, “I need you now!”
Marvin turned back to the crowds and announced the end of his pitch. Packing away his stuff, the crowds dispersed. Well, some of the crowd. The Septiceye fans lingered. They approached him and asked for a selfie. Marvin obliged, taking off his magician-cat mask to show more of his face to seem more like Jack. He could hear Jackaboy in the background getting more agitated, so quickly rushed them off on their way. Finally packed up he walked into the alley to Jackaboy Man, who grabbed him and pulled him further down, scanning the walls of the buildings for a safe way up to the rooftops.
“Calm down there, Red tights!” Marvin chuckled, “What’s happened?”
Jackaboy stared at him, his light blue eyes were wide and wandering, as if he was scared by something. “Is there a way you can… compact yourself in someway? Can you shrink yourself? Anyway I can carry you in a lighter version?”
Marvin’s hands ran down the seams of his cape. “I can use the old Mary Poppin’s bag trick on my cape, if you want-”
“Good. Do it now. Quick.” Jackaboy interrupted, nearly pulling the cape off Marvin’s back.
Marvin flinched back and placed a hand on the hero’s shoulder. “Wow! Calm down! Tell me what’s happening.”
Jackaboy gulped through his rapid breathing and said, “It’s Jack. He’s in trouble.”
Marvin’s body stiffened slightly with concern. “W- what kind of trouble?” He began to unhook his cape from his back.
“I don’t know. An hour ago Dr. Schneeplestein sent a message saying Jack was unwell so he would do a check up on him. Soon afterwards I got a message from Jack saying ‘I need your help.’ Then he called me, and when I answered he didn’t respond, but I heard agonised groaning in the background.” Jackaboy was shaking now. “I tried calling Schneep after that but he wouldn’t respond. Something terrible has happened.”
“Ok, calm down.” Marvin shushed to him calmingly, “We’ll get to his house now. Here.” He passed him a small fragile glass cube of a green substance. “It’s a smoke bomb. Throw it on my cape when we’re there and I should reappear.” With that, Marvin the Magician whipped his caped over his head and let it fall over him. Unexpectedly it fell to the floor softly, and Marvin had disappeared.
Jackaboy Man picked up his cape and strapped it to his belt while also pocketing the smoke bomb. Then he climbed up onto the rooftops and leaped into the air, on his way speedily to Jack’s house.