Watch Closely (1/2)
"Watch closely or you might miss it."

Disclaimer: I do not own Now You See Me or any of the characters mentioned within the story which should be obvious enough because I'm sure that if I did own it, I probably wouldn't be writing fan fiction about it as I would have more interesting things to do with my time and effort.
Summary: Daniel Atlas hates feeling vulnerable.
Fandom: Now You See Me
Pairing: J. Daniel Atlas & Jack Wilder
Rated: M for language and suggestive themes.
Warning(s): Strong Language and Suggestive Themes.

(A/N): I was encouraged to write more for this fandom and decided that since I liked the pairing enough, it would be nice to write for it again. The story is cut up into two parts and is being posted on two different sites. Both here and AO3 under the name "XXIV". This is self-beta'd and thus there may be some mistakes for which I apologize in advance.

"I think it's more of a love-hate thing, myself." Merritt stated, both he and Henley watching on casually as Daniel and Jack seemed to be quite consumed by their shouting match.

"Yeah… kind of wish they'd take it somewhere else, though," Henley replied, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms over her chest, "it was amusing the first few times. Now I'm seriously considering shock collars."

"How much do you think they go for these days?" Merritt asked after a moment of pause, looking at Henley in sudden interest.

"Can't imagine they'd be any more than a hundred depending on the brand." Henley replied with a shrug.

"Actually, well below if you get one online," stated Daniel suddenly, further infuriating an already very red and angry Jack Wilder who growled in frustration so loudly in response that his voice ricocheted off the walls.

"See? You're a complete smart ass! You sit back in your own little world that revolves around you and you think you know everything. Mean while the people around you are left to deal with how much of a self dignified dick you are." Jack seethed, ripping Daniel's attention back toward him.

"He does have a point, though," Henley chirped noncommittally.

Daniel looked back at Henley as if he couldn't believe she had actually opened her mouth just then.

"Whose side are you on, anyway?" He asked as Jack growled again and picked up something off of the table between them and hurled it at Daniel, hitting him in the back of the head.

"Asshole!" He spat as Daniel turned around in shock, looking around to see what he'd been hit with. "You don't care about anyone but yourself!"

"Did you just hit me with a remote?"

"Damn it, Daniel! Pay attention!"

"I am paying vivid attention and you just hit me with a damn TV remote."

"Here we go…" Henley muttered, standing and gathering her things, "I'm out." She stated just as Daniel picked the remote up off of the floor and pelted it at Jack.

Merritt quickly followed after her, not liking the idea of being hit the face with anything.

Neither Jack nor Daniel heard the door closing because Jack had tackled Daniel to the floor and was busy putting Daniel in a headlock, placing his knuckles against the top of Daniel's head in warning.

"Don't you dare, you little—"

"Little? Were you about to make a reference about my age, you prick?!" Jack griped.

"No, Jack of course not." Daniel choked, Jack's arm against his throat and making it difficult to breathe.

"Liar, you were about to reference my age." Jack spat.

"No, really I wasn't-" Daniel struggled to get out his words.

"Don't bullshit me you dick," Jack snapped, "you were about to say something about me being a kid compared to the rest of you."

"Jack-"

"No. You listen to me. I'm an adult too so you should start treating me like one!" Jack was yelling now, his body having been pulled slightly on top of Daniel's due to Daniel having been trying to struggle away.

"I wasn't going to say anything!" Daniel gasped, his voice seeming a little panicked but Jack didn't notice.

"No. That's why you're always ignoring me. You don't want to listen to me because 'I'm just a kid' and 'what could I know about anything'!"

"J-Jack, I can't breathe."

"Don't make excuses to get away from this, Atlas. You're going to fucking listen to me!"

"No really, I can't breathe," Daniel gasped, "I can't-" he choked, pulling on Jack's arm trying to release himself.

"Yeah right," Jack laughed humorlessly as he tightened his hold.

Daniel struggled a bit more but then he started to panic and tears stung his eyes. Jack didn't realize at first and thought Daniel was just trying to pull one over on him. That was until he heard Daniel whimpering and trying to claw at his arm. It was then that he realized Daniel was really serious and panicking.

Daniel started gasping for air and ripped himself away just as Jack loosened his hold on him, rolling onto his stomach and burying his face into his arms. Jack realized then, that he had done something very wrong and immediately forgot his anger and why he had even been angry with Daniel to begin with in favor of helping him.

Jack reached forward and placed his hand against Daniel's back and began rubbing in small circles—trying to comfort him.

"Stop touching me." Daniel choked, his body shaking and his voice so broken it didn't sound like him at all.

Jack didn't know how to react. He had known Daniel for some time now and he had never been made aware of Daniel's phobia for confined places or situations.

Daniel continued to breathe, his shoulders shaking for a moment until he shifted and slowly moved so he was kneeling on the floor. Jack immediately moved to console him but Daniel ripped away and stormed out of the room in such a way that Jack had never seen before. He looked like he was running away from something, running away from Jack.

Later that night, once Henley and Merritt had returned, the tension in the air was so noticeably thick, Henley had to refrain from making a comment about being able to cut it with a butter knife.

Daniel did not ask for space—he took it. As soon as Henley and Merritt got back, Daniel went for a walk. The wordless departure made Jack feel horrible. He knew he had done something wrong and he felt like he was cornered—he had no idea how to fix it and he couldn't even bring it upon himself to think of a way to ask for help.

Merritt felt too awkward to pry but Henley, as she always did, sat right down beside Jack and placed a hand on his shoulder, silently letting him know that she was giving him her undivided attention as well as any help she could possibly give him with what had happened in her absence.

Jack only shook his head in response.

The reaction made Henley furrow her eyebrows in confusion. No fight had ever been like this. Normally, the two had found something to patch up the problem with and things would be all right when they got back. Or at the very least no one would be lobbing items across the room at each other.

"What happened?" Henley whispered finally.

Jack frowned and shrugged.

"You can tell me, Jack. I just want to help." Henley cooed, wanting to comfort him in any way that she could.

"That's just it," muttered Jack, "I don't know what happened. One minute we were fighting, the next he was having a fucking panic attack or something."

Henley paused and then sat back.

"Oh." She stated.

"Oh?" Jack replied dubiously.

Henley sighed and ran a gloved set of fingers through her hair and then let her hand fall to her lap with a slap, "Just give him some space, Jack."

And then Henley stood and walked away from him, but not before ruffling his hair as though he were just a kid no taller than her hip. Jack frowned but couldn't be bothered to reach up and fix his hair like usual.

When Daniel came back, it was three o'clock in the morning and everyone was asleep except for Jack. He heard him come in but didn't make a move to go and bother him. He simply stayed there and listened to Daniel move around, wondering if he would talk to him if he did go out and speak to him.

No, Jack thought to himself suddenly, of course not.

Jack became quiet for the next few days. It seemed as though Daniel had no intention on talking to him so he didn't try either. What made it worse was that Daniel would talk to everyone except for him, clearly pointing out in a passive way that he wasn't about to deal with Jack.

Henley had tried, hell even Merritt had tried, to encourage him to apologize for whatever he had done. Henley seemed to know exactly what was wrong but was very intent on not filling in the left over blanks for Jack. It was like she was intent on sending him into the wolf's den without any thing to work with and she did it with a smile on her face.

To make it worse, all Jack could think about was how vulnerable Daniel had looked, how scared, and how fragile he had been in those few seconds. He had never seen Daniel so down and exposed all at once. It was something that he knew was never meant for him to see, never something that he was meant to witness no matter how close Daniel and he may have been.

Jack had stolen something from him… he had stolen the right to keep that side hidden and he wished he cold take it back but there was no way and he was left to handle it in whatever way he could. Which, at this rate, was not at all.

The trouble was, Daniel gave him nothing to handle, nothing to work with. He was met with silence at every turn. And it wasn't the sort of silence that was being expressed from someone that was clearly angry with him. He could probably work his way around that somehow but he was dealing with something far worse, something far more crippling. Daniel was giving him a firm silence that gave away nothing. He couldn't tell whether Daniel was just angry and hated him or what. Jack just knew that Daniel was not going to be the one to fix this—it was not his to fix.

More days went by and the days eventually turned into a week of silence since the event. Jack wanted to talk to Daniel in the worse way and by then he had tried twice.

The first time, it had been forced. Henley had encouraged him to talk to him and so he had accidentally gotten in Daniel's way in hopes of forcing Daniel to address him and thus open a door for some kind of conversation but Daniel had made like he had accidentally ran into an inanimate object and walked around Jack, leaving the younger male left behind feeling out of place and even more wounded than before.

The second time, Jack had been forced into it also as Henley had asked the boys, namely Jack and Daniel at the time, to help her move something which in turn had put the two in close proximity and would have probably involved conversation for coordination. However, Daniel had done it without a word of response.

It aggravated Jack to realize that he missed Daniel's voice. He heard it all of the time, much less than before but still enough, but he hadn't addressed him in what felt like a very long time. It didn't help that even before he had harbored feelings for the man and now he was left in complete silence, left to assume that the man hated him after what had happened. It was tearing him apart and making him feel alone.

Even when he tried to surround himself by Merritt and Henley, he felt alone and unable to appreciate anything. He just wanted to fix things; he wanted Daniel to let him fix things.

In a way, he supposed that his feelings had gotten him into this in the first place. He was always so caught up in being angry at Daniel for ignoring him, for treating him like a kid, and for not taking him seriously and treating him like an equal. Only this time, it didn't end in a quick apology... it hadn't ended at all yet.

It wasn't until the tenth day of silence that Jack broke. Henley was busy sitting in the center of the living room cross-legged, Merritt across from her, and playing some card game that Jack didn't care to figure out. From what he could hear, though, Henley was winning. Daniel was in the kitchen making dinner as he always did on Tuesdays and Saturdays and Jack already had acknowledged the opportunity—he was just terrified to take it on his own.

"Gee," Merritt hummed pointedly all of a sudden, "Daniel's pretty quiet in the kitchen all alone with no one in there with him."

Henley glared at Merritt suddenly but only got a shrug in return as Jack sighed heavily and ran his hands over his face in stress.

"Kitchen. Alone." Merritt sang until Henley reached over and slapped him in the arm.

Jack growled and stood, feeling annoyance rising when he heard Merritt laugh and Henley's comment of how 'smooth' he was, even if it was in sarcasm.

The annoyance, however, vanished in an instant as Jack entered the kitchen and saw Daniel reaching up into one of the cabinets for a bowl. Jack swallowed hard and stood there awkwardly until Daniel turned around and saw him standing there. He only faltered for a second before he continued on what he was doing as if he hadn't seen Jack at all.

Jack clenched his jaw, the muscles in his jaw flexing a little as he ground his teeth slightly.

"Daniel?"

Daniel didn't respond and instead turned around to stir something. The reaction made Jack's heart drop into his stomach. The feeling of falling had never sucked so badly.

Without his permission, his feet carried him across the kitchen just as Daniel turned around again for something that had been on the island. Jack stepped up behind him and turned him around to face him, glaring down at him in determination but Daniel stared over his shoulder intently, clenching his jaw in a way that let Jack know that he was now pointedly avoiding him.

All he wanted was for Daniel to look at him, to say something. He didn't know what to say to make it happen and he knew that whatever he did say would probably make things worse.

So he took Daniel's face into his hands and kissed him and really it hadn't at all been what he had been intending to do but he went along with it anyway, too terrified to pull away and too terrified to go any further.

He's going to punch me in the face. Jack screamed in his mind frantically. He's going to reach for the nearest thing and stab-

Daniel's body relaxed slightly and when Jack opened one eye to investigate, Daniel's eyes were closed lightly but his eyebrows were slightly furrowed. Jack blinked and then closed his eyes, taking a leap of faith and hesitantly parting his lips so he could take Daniel's lower lip into his mouth.

He nearly jerked in surprise when he felt Daniel move his lips to accommodate the kiss accordingly. Jack's heart was hammering against his chest but it was the first time in days since Daniel had acknowledged his existence; he scrambled to keep it going as long as possible.

Jack gently ran one of his thumbs over Daniel's cheekbone, moving his lips slowly to see if Daniel was still on board with him. When Daniel's lips moved in sync with his, he felt as though he could fly. His heart had fluttered up from the pit of his stomach and was now trying to fly out from his throat in excitement.

At the same time, however, Jack didn't want to push his luck. So, with that thought in mind, Jack pecked Daniel's lips and pulled away a few inches, opening his eyes to see that Daniel's were already open.

He could feel Daniel clenching his jaw against his hands but made no attempt to move them. Instead he leaned forward and rested his forehead against Daniel's and closed his eyes.

"Please talk to me?" Jack mumbled, his voice way more desperate than he had intended for it to be.

Daniel didn't reply for a moment but then he sighed and Jack opened his eyes to see that Daniel was looking down.

Immediately, Jack assumed that the action was negative and that Daniel wanted him to leave him alone so he pulled away slowly and then dropped his hands from Daniel's face, muttered an apology, and then turned to leave.

However, Daniel reached out and took his wrist, holding it for a moment before his hand loosened and slipped down so he could take hold of Jack's hand. He held it for a moment before pulling, guiding, Jack back toward him so he was standing in front of him again.

Confused but having no intention to reject Daniel, Jack waited patiently, not sure what the man was thinking.

"I'm sorry." Daniel said suddenly, his voice seeming foreign to Jack all of a sudden.

It was soft and gentle, quiet and just for Jack.

"You didn't do anything wrong." Jack muttered in confusion.

Daniel shook his head and tightened his hold on Jack's hand.

Daniel seemed to go silent for a long time and for a moment, Jack wondered if Daniel might not intend to speak again. He watched as Daniel stepped around him and continued looking after the cooking food, making sure that none of it was burning until finally he turned off the stove and covered everything.

Only then did he address Jack again, however, by then Jack had moved so he was leaning against the island in the middle of the kitchen.

Daniel turned around and leaned against the counter across from him, pushing his hands into his pockets and looking off to the side.

"I have severe anxiety that is triggered when I'm being held down, restrained, or crowded. I can't breathe and my entire world starts warping and all I can think about is that I can't breathe."

Jack felt the sinking feeling again, this time in shame.

"People thought I was being obnoxious and overreacting when I was a kid. When I would cry and panic they said I was playing it up so they would feel bad for me and I was ridiculed for it. My mom understood but everyone said she was babying me—I grew to hate myself for it—this condition that I had no control over." Daniel explained, not looking at Jack once whilst he spoke. "It's never necessary to tell anyone about it and I haven't experienced it in a long time… I was-" Daniel paused, swallowing hard, "I was helpless again and I hated it. I took it out on you when I shouldn't have. It's not like you knew… Hell I even stopped being mad at you by the next day but I just—"

But Jack had already crossed the room and pulled him into a hug, a hug that he made sure to keep firm but gentle all together to avoid making Daniel any more upset than he already was.

Jack was shocked, really. He had spent the last week and a half feeling alone and out of place and yet here Daniel was feeling even worse. What made Jack feel even worse was that Daniel had given him an explanation as if he had deserved one. In Jack's eyes, Daniel hadn't needed an explanation at all for what had happened.

He had seen Daniel go through his freak out—he had seen how genuine it was and wouldn't think for a second that it was something he had a right to question. He felt like he was the one that owed Daniel something, not the other way around.

"I should have let you go when you told me to. I should have listened—it's my fault." Jack replied, as Daniel buried his face against Jack's shoulder.

Daniel let Jack hold him for a moment before he pulled away and looked at Jack, his eyes having darkened slightly. The look on Daniel's face made Jack feel cornered all of a sudden.

"Why'd you kiss me?" Daniel asked suddenly as though he was just then realizing that that had happened for real.

Jack blinked and looked at him blankly for a moment before he took a step back and began running his fingers over his hair and down the back of his neck stressfully.

"I hadn't really meant to." Jack said dumbly, wincing when Daniel's face hardened a little.

"No, that's not what I meant," Jack spluttered, "I meant it was on accident."

Daniel's face only seemed to get more and more set into stone the more Jack tried to come up with something to say.

"No, wait," Jack tried again, really not fond of the idea of messing up again right when Daniel had decided to speak to him again.

He sighed and closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Can we maybe go for a walk or something?" Jack asked, picking his head up and looking at Daniel hopefully. He felt like he might get his words out a little bit better if he could breathe properly.