Work Text:
Ever since you were little, you could do… this thing.
You could make minutes seem like hours, make hours pass by in the blink of an eye. Not that you ever told anyone, of course- as you grew you believed it was just a game you played with yourself. It was a way to make doctor’s visits seem short, play dates seem like years.
You are 23 when you wake in the middle of the night, the smell of vanilla wafting through your apartment.
You don't bake. You also don't recall opening your window.
You stumble over to the windowsill, feet catching on odds and ends you've left on the ground. It's almost midnight. This city thrives on midnight- on missed curfews and early drunks and of voices singing and screaming at the top of their lungs. You feel this city breathe from your ratty apartment on the 10th floor, and when it exhales it smells like whisky and regret, not vanilla. The city is silent. There are no cars, no people on the sidewalks.
The train arrives without warning.
The explosion of noise sends you flying back into your room like a startled bird. The room is radiant with a light that hurts your eyes and the night is alive, flickering in gold and white and coal black steel. You smell burning coals and rich leather and vanilla treats dipped in sugar. The noise is deafening. There is a train in the street, moving fluidly towards the other side of town. You don't remember going back to bed. You don't remember if the train ever ended. When you wake up in the morning you are under your sheets, sunglasses next to your bed. The usual cars are parked in the street. Children play on the sidewalks in the morning sun. You put your sunglasses on (you took them off?) and slowly sit up.
The window is closed. The taste of vanilla sticks to your lungs.
He thinks there could be something wrong with him. Three months, barely three months in this town and he can't sleep. When he's not looking for gigs to play he scours the internet for answers. Google’s "Train dreams" and "sleep aids" and "drug stores near 42nd street west and 1st avenue". He wonders if there's some sort of bakery nearby he doesn't know about, searches for it and fails to find it. Calls from his older brother are mostly ignored (because he just knows his bro is going to be a doting mom about this) and he ends up falling asleep at his computer most days, napping until local traffic rouses him. Job hunting proves fruitless- he clips ads out of the newspaper and sends emails and leaves awkward, stilted voice messages, but no one ever gets back to him. He wonders what he's doing wrong.
The dreams are always the same. Vanilla, sometimes chocolate. The train, so out of place in the middle of the usually busy street. Warmth. Swinging lanterns. Sometimes the howl of the whistle as it passes his window. He always wakes up in bed. The long window at the foot of his bedroom never seems to stay closed.
The night he decides to try something new is also the third night in a row he bolts awake at 2 am, chest heaving. It smells like strawberries tonight, like something warm and sweet and gentle, and he feels it drift away from him like a hopeful prayer. He's gotten ten hours of sleep over the past few days and he's had enough, he's so done with this shit, his internet history is full of self help crap and dream interpretation mumbo jumbo and he thinks it’s quite possible he's losing his mind. Dreams don't smell like baking. Dreams aren't this vivid, he thinks as his heart begins to calm its frantic pounding. Dave decides to do something drastic.
He gets to his feet and stands in front of his window, hesitantly stretches his arm towards it. He hasn't done this since he was 4 years old and so, so naive. He almost can't remember how he used to do it--
He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath- shoves away every negative thought and focuses on the air whistling through his lungs. He’s never been able to explain this to anyone- not even his bro. He extends his arm in front of him, digs his fingers into the fabric of the night and pulls.
The night gives.
The room explodes in a flurry of movement- There is suddenly light and coal and candy and a whistle blowing mournfully in the night--
He stumbles away from the window. The clock says 1:53am. There is a train moving down the street somehow and candy sweetness in his lungs and he's high on the scent of it, of what he’s just accomplished but he has a plan and he's got to go, he might not be able to do this again-- He jumps out his window and lands on the fire escape, scrabbling for the safety rail. The train is almost deafening as he slips about on rusty metal stairs, jumping over safety bars and broken steps. The threat of injury is far away, shoved aside so he can think so he can follow. That. Train. It pounds in his chest like a second heartbeat, rattling deep in his bones. Come, follow, hurry. He can’t disobey, especially now with the city gleaming underneath him and his heart pounding in his chest. The night air whips his hair into a frenzy, stinging his cheeks and making his lungs ache. When he lands on the sidewalk the train is next to him and he stumbles over himself as he breaks into a sprint, bare feet slapping the pavement; heart pounding in his ears.
At exactly 2:00am, the train disappears. He stumbles to a stop. he's 5 or 6 blocks from his apartment but it’s an entirely different world. The night air settles heavy in his lungs, humid like it never left him. He is alone, except for parked cars and a few partiers who don't even notice the strange barefoot man nearby, spinning in circles; looking at the horizon line.
When Dave Strider finally returns to his apartment at 3 am, he stumbles into bed and falls into an exhausted sleep. He doesn't see the envelope on his doorstep until the next morning.
When he does eventually see the letter sitting quite innocently at his front door, he almost spills his coffee. Stares at it for a moment. Turns his back on it to get more coffee. Startles again when he sees it again though it hasn't moved and he hasn't touched it.
la cirque du reves, it says in black flowing handwriting. It looks rather innocent by itself, but it stays underneath the mail flap for a good few hours before he gets the nerve to nudge it with his foot, then actually pick it up. Dave thinks about last night, thinks about going back to when the letter slipped through the slot, but he doesn't know when that was or if he can even go back that far or if he can even do that again. He pinches the letter between his fingers, all but throwing it onto his cluttered kitchen table. Stares at it for a few more minutes. Blames the two cups of coffee and the leftovers he ate not too long ago for his churning stomach.
It’s almost noon before he gets the nerve to open it. The back is sealed with emerald green wax. Pressed into the wax is a crescent moon.
Inside is a plain white card with a black ribbon tied around it. It smells so strongly of sugar that he has to take a moment to remember it's high noon and the usual afternoon traffic is already howling from the streets below his window. He unties the ribbon and opens the card.
les cirque du reves
november 4th to 30th
and then in a different script, slightly smudged, a dark ink-
follow the moon.
There is no name on the card. He goes to shove the paper back in the envelope and is vaguely irritated when it catches on something, sticks his fingers inside to pry the offending object out. It falls onto the floor. He sees the picture clearly as he bends down to pick it up.
It’s an armored man riding a white horse. The worn script on the bottom says The Knight of Swords, and he suddenly feels dizzy.
On the front page of the paper there is a picture of multiple identical black and white striped circus tents. Eyewitnesses claim the tent had to have been erected in the night, but no one knows how a circus that size could travel without notice. There is a picture of a closed sign in the same script as his card. The internet is buzzing- The Night Circus has been travelling since the early 1900s but was assumed to have gone bankrupt sometime in the 50’s- this is the first time it's been spotted anywhere since the ‘30s. His hands are shaking by the time he puts the paper down.
For the first time in weeks, he can't sit still enough to write any music, let alone mess with his turntables. He goes for a walk, then two walks- returns with coffee and a doughnut that tastes like paper.
As soon as the sun sets he's outside, his breath fogging in the cool night air.
There is a perfect crescent moon in the sky-It hangs directly north from his apartment, bright and glowing even when hidden by the tall buildings around him. He enters the night, shoulders hunched against the cold.
He encounters a small gathering of people headed in the same direction as him- some sporting city maps on phones or plain old paper. He can feel the crackling energy in the air, born from the idea that something so magical could happen in a loveless city like this one. He glances at the sky numerous times and follows the moon.
The circus comes into view as the feet of the people around him hit broken pavement, hit sand and then grass. Something catches in his throat, makes his heart leap- he feels time skip and stutter underneath him, has to focus on staying in the here and now.
The circus glows.
In the middle of the gates there is a clock, impossible to describe. No one mans the black cast iron gates, securely closed.
He joins the people that have appeared in front of the gates. He can hear murmured bits of confusion from the strangers around him. No one exactly knows what to do.
At exactly 9:00pm, the sign above their heads comes to life in a burst of white sparks. The onlookers voice their glee in delighted laughter and scattered clapping. The iron gate swings open by itself, and in it's place is a large white dog. Dave startles so hard he almost knocks over a small child. The dog seems to be there to make sure tickets are purchased. Everyone respectfully places their money into a slotted box and then takes a single red ticket. When Dave approaches the dog turns its head to look at him, dark eyes trained on his face. He freezes, but a few seconds later it turns away like it had never noticed him. Then he is inside.
The smell of vanilla fills the air. It is every bit as cloyingly sweet as it has been in the night. The chocolate mice he buys from a food cart melt in his mouth and he has to stop himself from buying more. The area he's in plays host to a large bonfire, a large abstract sculpture inside of it. Children sit at benches nearby, munching on caramel corn and watching the circus performers who seem to appear from thin air.
The crowd begins to disperse, enraptured by human statues and various other entertainers who bring them deeper into the circus. In a matter of minutes, Dave is alone.
He can’t take his eyes off the clock. It reminds him of something precious and childlike, something he felt when he watched Dirk repair his machines when he was five years old. The clock seems to tell a story, but it isn’t familiar to him- he thinks he sees figures within the swirling movements, between metal workings of godlike creatures and golden clouds, and he’s just starting to piece together the story when the sun starts to rise.
His dreams are different this time. He’s in the circus- finds a tent with a sign that merely says "Watch your Step". Inside is a world made entirely of ice. It glistens in a warm summer light as he moves through it- even the roses and their thorns. He should be freezing, but he has never felt warmer.
He wanders. He finds a crowd (and the lion show) and follows them from tent to tent. Discovers a maze made entirely of clouds. In one tent are millions of weathered glass jars and he swears he sees entire worlds in each one. In another is a forest made entirely of paper trees, all higher than his head. They stretch higher and higher, past where the tent should end and when Dave wakes up the next afternoon his arms are in the air and his head is pounding.
The dog stares solemnly into his eyes when he returns the next night.
The tents feel like water against his fingers as he slips between them, following the worn tracks of other people's feet. It has been fifteen minutes since he pulled himself away from the clock (determined to not waste tonight’s trip trying to understand it) and since the crowd dispersed (bigger tonight, word must be spreading). He's been completely alone since then. It feels like he's dreaming. He thinks he hears a lion's roar from a tent nearby. There are echoes of a crowd’s approval lost somewhere between him and the towering tents around him. He thinks he could spend forever just wandering, catching bits and pieces of the wonder hidden behind monochrome silk.
He is deep into the paths between tents when he finds the fortune teller's tent.
It is marked with the same ordinate white sign that the other tents possess. He is quite suddenly, inexplicably nervous. Dave has never believed in psychics, has never had the urge to visit one either. He steps inside.
The room smells like cinnamon and smoke. It’s almost stiflingly warm, and he unbuttons his jacket as he ducks under velvet curtains. There is evidence of previous visitors throughout the area- slush marks the spaces formerly held by anxious wanderers. Empty chairs, wood and velvet, sit against a wall near a dark velvet curtain. "Come in." A voice says, cool and smooth. Dave takes a moment to move forward; the curtain feels like cool water under his fingers.
A figure sits at a small round table, face hidden under a dark orange hood. In the dimness of the room, they seem to glow.
"Sit." They instruct, and he pulls the old wooden chair out in front of him and does exactly that, unsure as to what he has gotten himself into. The chair creaks as he settles, and before he's really ready the person has taken his right hand in theirs.
"Um," he says intelligently. The figure says nothing, but traces the lines on his palm with their finger. The touch almost tickles. Purple nail polish marks the nail.
After a moment, the figure stills; stiffens suddenly. Dave can feel their fingers brush past an old scar on the back of his hand.
He is staring into violet eyes. A petite blond woman stares right back.
She seems to be looking for something before she smiles at him. "I knew you would come," she says, turning his hand over. It is a scar he's had for years, a diagonal line on the top of his right hand. Bewildered, he looks at his hand and then her face. "Um," he says again.
"The illusionist has one more show tonight." The girl says. She is still running gentle fingers over the bottom of his hand, tracing lines and scars. "I suggest going to watch it. She's really quite amazing." He can’t place her accent. Is she wearing contacts? A heavy weight is settling in his lungs; a metallic taste in his mouth. He is still trying to figure out what's going on when she slips something underneath his hand.
"I suggest you leave now. It is about to start."
He blinks in confusion, looking down at the object she left him. It’s the card. His card. The one he left it at home. The Knight of Swords stares back at him.
"Ok sure, whatever,” He mutters, bewildered. “but where is-" The girl is gone. All that remains is the card in front of him.
Dave swears.
It takes him fifteen minutes of walking in every direction in the cold night air before he finally stumbles upon the illusionist’s tent. The sign in front of the tent is written in emerald ink, and he hears the beginning of applause as he slips inside.
The bench seats extend three rows up. He shuffles his way to a empty bench to his left, the excited mutterings of other visitors filling the tent. He almost misses her entrance.
She is dark haired and pale, black hair falling to mid back. She stands with her back to him and he wonders why people are still talking when the show is obviously about to start, and then- her dress.
The stars seep in through the uppermost point of the tent. Their brightness almost blinds him. They sink through the cool air as if moving through water, shrinking as they come closer and closer to the woman standing in the middle. He can see full constellations as they gently drift to place themselves against her dress. His breath goes inwards; he forgets to exhale.
She is utterly beautiful when she looks up, the entire galaxy shimmering on the long black folds of her dress. She is also familiar. His world spins and tilts violently- he catches himself on the bench next to him, his head pounding in double time.
The girl in front of him begins to spin, slowly raising her arms, and all the galaxies pulled from the skies above come to settle on her dress, in the grooves of her collarbones; the inky blackness of her hair. The pounding in his head quickens; shifts into triple time. He can barely think straight- wonders if he’s having a panic attack. The crowd oohs and ahhs; he sees pieces of the real show beginning to start, tropical birds swooping through the air, clouds of sugar sweet candy floating from her fingertips. He can’t focus on any of it. This can’t possibly be real, he thinks, but it is and with every flick of her wrists she creates, it’s magic-
He can’t do it anymore. His head is pounding and he’s going to shake apart and all of his scars begin to ache in time with his heart. He stands, wobbling hard, trying to remember where the exit was- Around her flies hundreds of butterflies in hues unimaginable. Everything in the room bleeds into slow motion, even the pounding in his head. Her eyes are so, so green.
They widen in surprise when they make contact with his.
“Dave.” She whispers.
Something inside him fractures.
When he comes to, the tent is empty. He is on his back, slender fingers combing through his hair.
The silence settles, soothing the phantom aches in his limbs.
“... Do you remember?” She whispers from above him.
Her fingertips trace patterns through his hair, calming the last of the pounding in his head. He realizes his head is in her lap. Her dress glitters from beneath him, cosmos and galaxies woven through space and fabric. It takes him a moment to remember how to speak. The tent above him is open somehow, a window to the night sky. He breathes, reveling in the air moving through his lungs.
“Jade.” He exhales, voice hoarse. Her fingers in his hair twitch. Something that sounds suspiciously like a sob gets stifled in her chest. Gentle fingers reach around his head, removing his glasses. She grins, and its exuberant and bright and still bucktoothed.
“I thought I’d lost you.” She breathes, tears sparkling in her eyes.
Your name is Dave Strider. Once upon a time, you played a game.
Jade tells you all this while you lay in her lap, regaining the feeling in your limbs. You played a game and they did, too. And when the game ended, it spat everyone back out- different universe, same characters. You grew up similar, experienced similar events, but Sburb doesn’t exist here. It never did.
Jade found them all. Jade found John, gangly limbed at 13, forming tiny worlds of air and breath into glass mason jars. Together they found Rose, 15, working in a shitty occult store, doing tarot readings in the back room. You realize, quite suddenly, that you are 23.
“Eight years?” You ask, and feel her fingers twitch in your hair again.
“Eight years.” She answers, looking off into the empty benches.
She found the circus with them. The circus as it was before, magical but dying, running on their bankruptcy; the train itself almost in pieces. Jade took it all, remodeled and revamped, and-
“Kept looking.” She finishes, pulling her hands away from his hair. He exhales, limbs heavy; decides he’s been down long enough. Sitting up feels like a massive victory. Jade watches him closely. He swallows, unsure how to say what he’s thinking. The air around them quivers with tension.
“I’m sorry.” He says, thinking of her. Thinking of all the years they spent looking, looking, grasping at straws trying to find him. Eight years. It echos wildly in his thoughts. Jade grins unexpectedly. “It’s not your fault!” She says, and when she tilts her head he realizes she doesn’t have her ears. He can almost see them now, white and fluffy, sitting on the top of her head. “God, that’s not your fault at all.”
Her fingers find the hem of her dress, giving her something to fiddle with. The motion looks incredibly out of place in the dress that makes her look like a goddess; like something born from space itself.
It’s silent now, the air crisp with almost-winter cold. Dave watches the stars on her skirt, still glistening though her performance must have ended hours ago.
“What now?” He asks. Jade exhales, quiet for a moment.
“You can go home.” She starts, suddenly serious.
“You can go home and forget any of this happened, if you want. Continue on with your life, you know? This doesn’t- you don’t need to change anything for us.”
He thinks about Rose and John and feels like he’s about to fracture all over again.
“Or you could come with us.” Jade says quietly, almost a whisper under her breath. Her eyes are endless.
Dave stops to think for a moment. He thinks about the shitty apartment he currently lives in, thinks about the lack of work in this city, as beautiful as it is. Wonders what Dirk is up to, right at this moment. Thinks about his shitty landlord and the loud tenants above him and wonders how he even ended up right here, staring at the tense space girl with watery eyes.
He grins. Jade begins to laugh.
He flies into his apartment at the approximate speed of a freight train. Things go flying as he makes for the corner to his bedroom, pawing for the luggage bag under his bed. He thinks he hears a chair go down and the weird umbrella holder the previous tenant left behind clatters to the ground like it always does. Dave throws whatever’s within arms reach into the crappy bag he brought with him- jeans, extra shoes, clutter that had begun to accumulate on his nightstand is slid right into the bag. Everything’s gotta go- the train is scheduled to leave in exactly half an hour, oh shit, he really has to move it. Jade is coming soon and she said she’d help him move stuff (because you have a place there, he thinks giddily, they saved an entire train car for you) and the sun is just beginning to peek through the buildings outside his apartment, oh wow.
He pauses for a moment to watch golden light seep between the buildings outside and into his room.
He met everyone before he had taken off, of course- John, tall and willowy, had almost broken his spine in a bear hug. Rose, small and slight and still brightly clad in godtier orange. A reintroduction of course, but he hugs her and remembers the meteor and the derse towers and the green sun and he swears he’s never going to let her out of his sight ever again. Starting as soon as he gets on that train.
His hand still stings a little. There had been (re) introductions and then the binding. Jade had explained that the circus needed to be bound to them in order to continue as it was, three people worked but four was better. More stable. Rose had pulled a silver ring from her pocket and pressed it to the back of his hand where it promptly disappeared, leaving a bright red scar in its wake. There had been quite a lot of swearing after that. He looks down at it now and gets hit with a wave of deja vu- Rose had put the ring overtop his scar. It resembles the broken record symbol, his broken record symbol.
A sound not unlike a wine cork being popped at high speeds fills the room. Dave flinches, one ear popping. Jade is standing in his kitchen, wearing jeans and an over sized t-shirt that says “Save the Trees”. She looks like she could be anyone's sister, a normal 20-something who just finished her day job.
She’s grinning from ear to ear. “Ready?” She asks, looking around your sad excuse for an apartment.
“Obviously.” He replies, stuffing his last shirt into the luggage bag. It strains with the addition but remains closed. His grin hurts his cheeks. Her laughter sounds like bells.
He remembers something, just then. Memories of Sburb have been coming back to him quickly, mostly strange, out of context things he might never fully understand, but this-
He remembers a golden ship and orange wings. He remembers a jungle he died in and a million timelines where he didn’t die, did die, didn’t complete sburb- one where he did. He remembers them, together, and suddenly his heart threatens to burn through his rib cage.
He looks back at her, comfortable and casual in the same room he first read the letter, and it clicks.
“Jade.” He says. He feels the energy in the room shift; her face changes, the perfect picture of hope and caution.
“It’s ok.” she says before he can keep talking, walking towards him. Her sneakers are slip on, something off brand with bright shapes on then. It hits him that she’s nervous. He can hear the way her heartbeat skips and stutters.
“We don’t- I don’t think we ever really dated. Davesprite… It was my timeline only, I think, it’s honestly fine, I-”
He kisses her.
The train arrives without warning.
The wind howls through his apartment, kicking up odd papers and knocking things off desks. It whirls around the two of them, catching their hair; leaving a trail of goosebumps over exposed skin. Her shirt is soft pink cotton and his hands are resting on her hips and everything is right, right, right.
A phone rings. Jade, still kissing him, makes some kind of motion with her hand behind his back. He hears something clatter against the wall and then there’s silence. He’s pretty sure Jade just broke his home phone.
He doesn’t care.
--
You have (9) New Messages.
First New Message:
Really? You said you were gonna call me when you were done settling in. Anyway it looks like I just got a commission from someone out near you, should be pretty sick when it’s done. Call me, you nerd.
Next New Message:
I heard Starbucks is hiring.. You found a job yet?
Next New Message:
I get that you’re hanging off my every message here, but this thing is gonna be pretty cool when it’s done. I think you should see whatever gallery it’s going to hang in.
Next New Message:
You’re making my kokoro go brokoro. Not cool.
Next New Message:
Dave. I really need to talk to you. Please pick up.
Next New Message:
Something happened. I-
Next New Message:
There’s something I need to tell you about. It might not make a lot of sense but I was working on this clock and- ok I really need you to call me. Have you heard of Les Cirque du Reves?
Next New Message:
Dave, I found them. I found Roxy and Jake and Jane. Go look at the clock in the circus square. It’s our story, Dave- I didn’t realize it when I was making it I swear to god, it tells our story.
Next New Message:
We’re coming to meet you guys. See you soon.
End of New Messages.