#m: thread

It had been a while since Vicente had a dream like that, his subconscious had always woken up at the memory of the impact, but this time it began right at the end. It had been more fantastical than the real thing, there had been no pain as he untangled himself from the wreckage though there was blood running from his temples and bruises forming all over his skin, but the reality of holding him (and not even in Vicente’s dreams could he allow himself to say his name) remains.

Had he sung at the real thing? This was the stuff he should remember, but the day wasn’t always as crystal clear as one would expect. It certainly felt like something he would do. Holding his partner in his arms, forehead pressed together, Vicente was reminded of the first time he had held a guitar, the romantic notion that nothing would fit so perfectly in arms, against the shape of him.

What did it say that when he first started singing it was not in his own voice - this part he knew can’t be true by then he hadn’t realized he could do that trick - but his brain soon corrects the error. The coroner had later reported that his partner died on impact, but in that moment Vicente wondered if he could hear it, what he would think of this swan song. Not even in his dreams was he satisfied with the way it sounds, but is partner had loved it had. Had always preferred when he leaned into it.

When Vicente finished he put him down both with gentle precision before rising to his feet and began  walking away towards an ambiguous distance outside of the ditch. It was here that his subconscious finally decided that it has put him through enough and he woke up.

In the wake of the fire the circus is ripe with questions, about each other safety and why it had happened, but Vicente only have one. And there is only one person who can answer it. It takes no time to track Soren down, having been one of the five people trapped in the fire everything else seems attracted to or away from him, and for the same reason he is impossible to get alone. Until he isn’t. Vicente has learned more from being an owl than just the power of voices, he knows a moment to strike when he sees it.

He approaches with frantic expression assuaged only by the sight of Soren solidly in front of you. Worrying eyes betraying a steady face. “There you are, I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” A hand is placed on his shoulder, moving down his arm as Vicente inspects him for the extent of his injury. He leaves leeway for Soren to lean into the touch should he desire. “I knew this place would be trouble....”

When Marlowe Daedalus was in the zone of his work all else fades away. Which was why he had scheduled his life down to the minute: class time here, office hours there, grading papers and meals combined to save time, and nights were his thesis.

Or it would have been if he had a thesis to work on.

Instead he is reading a theory on the origins of Everte Statum, a dueling spell, and hoping that a particular line or phrase would reach out and grab him as it had years ago. But he couldn’t see beyond the basic, couldn’t find it himself to have any passion about it except in the ways he could introduce it to his student in a few weeks. 

Marlowe was scribbling in the margins of the textbook when he heard the knock on his open door. “Whatever it is not now I am busy.” It was becoming to difficult to fit the notes into the thin white spaces and it was even harder to concentrate when he could feel someone hovering just outside his field of vision. Looking up he squinted above the rim of his glasses. “For Merlin’s sake wh — “ The visitor’s blurry expression became clearer as he pushed his glasses up the brim of his nose. This wasn’t about inviting him for a drink and idle conversation. “What happened?”

Vicente was starting to see what the big was. Standing outside the train he watched in childlike wonder as his breath visibly clouded up in front of him before evaporating into the brisk air. It’s not the first time that he ever saw snow, that memory belongs to a night in New York watching from his hotel window as it flurried from the sky and stuck to the ground only to melt by morning, but in St. Petersburg the snow covered everything in its path and stretched on for miles.

But for all it’s beauty, Vicente de Leon was a child of the sun, meant for warmth and heat and golden rays and the cold seeping into his boots and running up his spine was his signal to return back inside. There were other drinks better suited for the task, but for his money the best thing to warm him up could be found in the bar.

Unlike or maybe just like him Mateo’s work never seemed to be over and sure enough Vicente found him positioned behind the bar as he was almost every day of the week. Bartending was not something he could ever imagine doing, to spend hours upon hours placating that many drunk people and all their reasons for seeking a drink in the first place, but Mateo seemed comfortable behind that counter. If he had not seen the inside of his sleeper car Vicente would think he never left.

Taking a seat at the counter he made no move to call out to him or wave him down, but waited for his eyes to find you. When they did he flashed him the infamous smile, not the blinding one saved for the stage, but the one that forewarned of mischief to come. “Long night?” In the wake of the fire the fact the whole circus isn’t compacted into the room was a bit of a shock.

“Drink with me.”