Well, you're where you should be all the time...

[sarkraticmethod]

If someone were to find themself walking along the length of Navy Pier, they’d probably be far too enchanted by the sights and distracted by the throngs of faceless people to notice one young man weaving in and out of the crowd unless they were paying close attention to the fact that he wasn’t so much weaving as vanishing into thin air and then

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[definitivestep]

And no one has sharper eyes than a cop in a strange place far from home with nothing to do. Especially a cop who's gotten accustomed to paying attention to the strange, the out of place, the things that just might lead him back to his proper life.

He's fairly sure this man with the disappearing act is not one of those things, but it's certainly caught his attention, and Sam's been keeping an eye out for him since he first noticed it. He's almost gotten the hang of locating him every time he reappears, sort of like unfocusing your eyes to see those Magic Eye things.

And he's slowly making his way towards the man, a little bit at a time, trying to look casual the whole while. What exactly he intends to do when he reaches him, Sam's not sure. This is probably just further proof that he really is crazy.

[sarkraticmethod]

It's a testament to whatever counts as instinct to someone in his line of work (or former line of work) that Sark was becoming aware of the fact that some stranger was, more or less, creeping closer to him in a way that didn't suggest he was just a tourist out for a stroll along the pier.

He turns around and faces the direction the man's coming from, keeping his eyes on the crowds to avoid looking like he's expecting a confrontation. It's mostly just a precaution- if the man truly intends to engage him and he's not just being unreasonably paranoid, he'd rather not have his back turned.

And there are certainly far more intelligent things to do than sit and wait for something to happen and he knows it, but he's been bored out of his skull for far too long and he could really use something a little more exciting in his life.

Beyond, of course, the thrill of working with demons, which was rather like working a desk job in a field of landmines.

[definitivestep]

Sam gets near enough to the man to stop, looking out toward the water with a perfectly calm smile on his lips - though it's the same smile he wore when confronting Frank Morgan about his coma. It's not that it's not entirely sane, but it's something... not quite normal either.

"That's a neat trick you've got there," he says, making no preamble. After a moment, he glances over at the man, smile unwavering. "Nice night, isn't it?"

[sarkraticmethod]

Sark arches an eyebrow. "It's a fine night if you're fond of Chicago." A pause. "And I'm not entirely certain what you mean by 'trick.'"

Surprisingly, it's his actual accent that slips out. If asked, he'd make some excuse about how faking an accent really doesn't have much of a point when no one knows who you are anyway. In reality, it was just because he was so stunned to hear that question come out of nowhere that the need to respond to it in a manner that suggested he wasn't stunned at all overrode the desire to reply in some other voice.

And here he thought every other human in this world (save the girl he met a week or two ago, but he still had his doubts about her humanity and no one would ever be able to tell him otherwise) was an idiot.

[definitivestep]

Sam's spoken to enough people in the hotel, gotten lied to enough - little white lies, most of the time, nothing earth-shattering, but enough - that he's started to catch on to just what the rift did to him. It's not nearly as dramatic as Gene's ability to turn into a bloody lion or anything, but Sam can't mistake it when it kicks in.

The sharp pain in his chest prompts him to draw an uncomfortable, hissing breath between clenched teeth, and he closes his eyes for just a second, waiting for it to pass. When it does, he opens his eyes, lips twitching into a faint smile of absolute disbelief.

"Really? Must be mistaken, then."

[sarkraticmethod]

The hissing doesn't go unnoticed. It would be hard for a less perceptive man to catch, but Sark made his living finding tiny little hairline crack weaknessrd in strong men and exploiting them. Either this man's suffering from a heart condition or some other medical affliction or, considering it came about right when he told his little lie, it's something else.

He can't be the only one with an ability, after all.

And that smile of disbelief all but proves it, even if his words don't.

"Clearly," he replies, taking a step forward. He cocks his head to the side, regarding him warily. "Tell me, is there something wrong with your heart or does it simply hurt when I tell you that I am not in the slighest a dangerous man."

As far as lies go, that's a fairly big one.

[definitivestep]

Sam swears silently in his head, clenching his teeth against the pain and wincing only a little, though it hurts like hell. At least this time he expected it...

And meanwhile, his hand edges the slightest bit toward his gun. He's not going to grab it without provocation, but given just how big a lie that was... it doesn't hurt to be prepared.

"My heart," he says, reminding himself at last to breathe, "is just fine."

[sarkraticmethod]

Sark shoves his hands in his pockets, more than a little amused. No one would ever call him a sadist. He certainly doesn't enjoy the pain he inflicts on other people... Unless it's Agent Vaughn (he's a special case), but being right in an assumption is always worthy of a little note.

He'd be smart to also note that the man he's engaging is clearly armed and he is, in fact, not, and not everyone follows protocol when it comes to shooting unarmed men in public places.

He regards him with the tiniest flicker of a smile. "So it's really just lying that does it then, correct? I would say that would be extremely incapacitating power to have, considering how often people are given to lying."

Being a smarmy little bastard to your clearly armed opponents would be a stupid move from anyone else. For Sark, it's just what he does. Only through skill and trickery has he managed to survive as long as he has.

[definitivestep]

Sam manages a calm smile, though something about this man puts his hackles up. He reminds Sam of Tony Crane, and that is enough to make Sam want to lunge for his throat without waiting for him to give a reason... But that's Gene's purview. Sam's the one who's completely in control, the one who follows procedure even when it kills him to do so, even when he knows the man's guilty - of something, even if he doesn't know what.

Even if there is no procedure to follow here, no CID at all...

"I'll be fine." He assumes after a while he'll find a way to get past it, make it not hurt so much... It is a bit incapacitating at the moment, but he certainly wouldn't admit as much. "I took a walk off a roof a couple weeks ago. I'm not afraid of pain." You cocky son of a bitch.

[sarkraticmethod]

Sark is. Afraid of pain, that is. He was trained to not to be, and to some extent he can be extremely resistent to it, but.. Well, there's a reason why he sings like a canary every time someone comes close to threatening him with something.

Which is why he's hoping to get out of this situation before anything happens to invoke pain. Of course, that would involve backing out now, and he's not quite ready to do that yet. A weird sense of curiosity, probably... That and a total lack of decent opponents.

"And I suppose that's not just a colorful metaphor, is it?" He asks after a moment, failing to figure out on his own whether he was kidding about 'walking off a roof' or not.

[definitivestep]

Sam lifts his chin slightly, studying the man in silence for a second before answering.

"I'm not injured. Not even bruised, so how could it be anything else?" His tone belies the words themselves, and Sam's slight smirk hasn't wavered, but mostly only because he knows better to show the slightest flicker in the facade around people like this man. And he's still intent on finding out just what this man is.

Whatever he is, he doesn't particularly want him to know he's in a coma. Or possibly dead. Look how well that turned out with Tony Crane.

[sarkraticmethod]

Sark merely shrugs, turning his attention back to the water, but still keeping the other man slightly in his periphreal vision. "My apologies," he replies flatly. "It's just that I've seen stranger things than men surviving after jumping off buildings, so it wouldn't have surprised me

[definitivestep]

"Right," Sam says, with a faint chuckle. "The Rift. That one's new even for my subconscious." Maybe the Rift is what a suicide attempt instead of an accident gets him, but how was he to know that? Or maybe it's all just random, whatever his crazy brain happens to be thinking of at the time. This is all much too complicated for Sam's liking, either way.

"You don't live at the hotel, though. I'd know you. Different Rift, or just a different part of the same one?"

[sarkraticmethod]

"It is a bit unsettling, I'll admit, but I've never been one for being uprooted from whatever I'm considering a home currently without my consent."

As far as his tone is concerned, he might as well have been a bored teenager complaining that his parents dragged him on some boring vacation as opposed to being dragged through a Rift.

He purses his lips a bit, thinking. "The same one, I suspect. If there's more than one, I'm not aware of it."

Calisto wouldn't leave that out. He knows full-well she probably doesn't tell him everything, but that would have been too important to leave out.

"But really, how would you ever know if I wasn't one of those wandering souls living at the hotel. From what I hear, it's getting crowded. Or are you really perceptive enough to keep your eyes on every single living thing in that building?"

[definitivestep]

Sam himself doesn't have that many attachments to his world - thus the trying to leave it - but he'd really rather he ended up in a make-believe world that's familiar, not... here.

He smiles slightly derisively at the question. "It's my job to be perceptive. I think I would have heard about someone who can turn invisible at will. After all, everyone gets fair warning about the girl who walks through walls. But even if not... I think I would have noticed someone like you, Mr... What was it?"

[sarkraticmethod]

"And what sort of job would that be exactly?" He asks even if he's got an idea in his head. Very few types of people make it their job to be perceptive and he's clearly not two of them.

"Sark. Julian Sark," he responds without really thinking about it. It doesn't bother him as much as he should, stating his real name as casually as all that. "And I suppose you have a point, although people like myself don't stand out in crowds, but that doesn't seem to be a problem for you."

Perceptive, indeed.