Part two for ladytelemachus
Sometimes David spends the night. When they wake in the morning, Adam is warm and wrapped around him, fingers tracing circles and patterns into David's skin. He is content to lay there curled into Adam's side, pretending like only they exist. No words are spoken and none need to be; these are the moments David is at his happiest.
"I dream about you all the time," Adam tells him, taking David's hand in his. "Sometimes that you stay here, something I go with you. It never matters though, because we're always happy."
David never knows how to respond. He has the same dreams. There are times he dreams he leaves everything he has ever known behind and lives with Adam over the train depot. Other times he dreams he convinces Adam to join him on the road and they travel city to city together, experiencing life outside of Briartown. When he wakes he tells himself dreams are fleeting.
He thinks of the canaries in the cage. In captivity they are housed and fed, never facing danger from the wild. There is always the chance they will be led into the mine and not come back up again, but the chances are slim. In the wild they will always be hunted and going hungry is more common than naught. David feels like he and Adam are on the outside looking into different cages, both too afraid to leave the safety of theirs for another.
"I want you to come with me," David whispers into Adam's skin, pressing a kiss against it.
"You know I can't," Adam's fingers don't press down as hard as he continues to trace the lines of David's body, and David feels as if Adam is fading away from him. "My family has always been here. I'm the only one who can run the station. Briartown needs me."
David wants to tell him he can teach someone else to take care of the trains, but David knows he could just as easily leave the circus. Adam is afraid of leaving the only memory of his family behind him; David is afraid of being confined in a smaller cage. Mostly David dreams of days of clarity when he will know what flight outside the cage will feel like.
*
The fire is still distant from him. When he's not thinking about it, dreaming at night or staring off into the distance during the day, it feels stronger, but the moment he reaches for it the flames leap away as if the wind is blowing and the smoke obscures his vision. His frustration builds inside him and he finds confinement in Carrington only adds to his annoyance. In his efforts to alleviate the burn of a nonexistent fire, he finds himself walking anywhere he is not in danger of falling into a frozen body of water or a collapsing mine shaft.
One day his feet bring him a little ways down from the main street of Briartown, to the ruins of the old house. Its beams still stand, charred and seared by a fire long gone. Everything of use and value has been scavenged away, and all that remains is scorched skeleton. David stands in front of it, off of the road and to the side, but close enough to contemplate the house and remember the days before it burned.
He doesn't know how long he stands there, long enough for his feet to go numb from the cold, before he sees someone else coming down the lane. David doesn't move or try to hide from them, assuming it's someone from the town or mine out for a walk as well, but as they near David sees Roberto's favorite blue and white striped scarf. With a sigh, David braces himself for a conversation he would rather avoid.
"You don't have to hide him from me," Roberto tells him, placing a soft hand on David's shoulder. "I remember what it was like, hiding a relationship from my father when he was in charge." A wistful smile mixed with something David can't quite discern flitters over Roberto's face. "How is he?"
"I wish I knew," David tells the ground more than he tells the man next to him. "We don't talk about it."
"He's busy now, with the telegraphs for the mine and now the train comes every day. I don't know how he does it."
David doesn't know either. He can't think of anything to say to Roberto, so he stands in silence, a marionette waiting for its strings to move. Around them snow begins to fall. Roberto removes his hand from David's shoulder and places it out in front of him. A few of the crystal flakes drift into his palm lazily.
"You would try to catch them when you were little," Roberto recalls with the same unplaceable expression. "You never could. Even then the fire already had you."
The words swirl around him with the snow. In the back of his mind an idea begins to form, but it is gone with the next gust of wind.
*
Adam isn't on his back porch the next time David is able to steal away. Even though it is late the light is still on downstairs in the depot. Peering in the side window to make sure no one besides Adam is there, David lets himself in. There's a rapid series of clicks and the sound of a pencil dragging furiously over paper. David finds Adam in front of the telegraph machine, decoding long strips of paper as the machine continues to push out more. Adam looks filthy, covered in oil from the turntable and coal from the train; the dark circles under his eyes are more pronounced against the alabaster of his skin. On the main ticket desk is a sack of letters from the earlier post drop still unsorted.
"Oh," Adam looks startled for a moment when he sees David standing there. A smile, tired but genuine, blossoms onto Adam's face as he stands. "I have to finish all of this and switch the turntable." He reaches for David's hand and squeezes it in between frigid fingers. "Wait for me upstairs? I won't be more than a few hours."
David can't say no to Adam when he is like this; sometimes it angers him to think of all Adam does for Briartown when he receives nothing in return. He finds himself stumbling up back staircase and falling into Adam's bed alone. It smells like Adam, and David closes his eyes. The cold starts to seep away and he's tumbling toward sleep before he can stop himself.
It's a dream David knows well and one he keeps buried away and tries to forget. In truth it is a memory thrown to the dream world and made into a constant nightmare. In the beginning David is at Carrington, a few years younger than he is now, surrounded by the marionettes of his childhood. They dance with him, stringless, mimicking his actions in their own stiff way as fire moves around them. Blank faces stare at him; some smile, some frown, but none ever change. Eventually they lose interest and he hears someone call his name. David's feet move without him telling them to, out of his room in Carrington and down the staircase and out the door. The voice is familiar to him and after a while he realizes it's his own voice and suddenly he is standing next to an image of himself composed of flames. His fire-self scorches into the earth destroying it, all while pulling him toward town and telling him to find Adam. They move together in the darkness of the night, a dance of destruction while stumbling toward an unknown end.
Adam is in his room as David throws a few pebbles at the window to wake him up. He doesn't remember what he says to convince Adam to sneak out in the middle of the night, only that Adam follows him and soon they are running toward the forest and hiking up to one of their hideaways. It's the first night David dances for Adam, intoxicated on whatever the fire is filling him with, pulling Adam against him and letting the fire swirl around them in its true form. The fire marks them both that night as they press against each other in the forest; Adam's eyes are wide as he sees what David is, what the fire is, for the first time.
The world falls from under them and the fire turns sinister. When they return to Briartown the house is in flames and there is nothing they can do but watch the ash and smoke drift down around them.
"David."
David is pulled from his nightmare, confused and mind clouded, when Adam sinks down next to him in bed. He looks out the window and sees the hints of purple in the sky; the sun is about to rise and Adam is only now coming to bed. David sits up and takes Adam's hands in his; they are cold and stiff, lifeless as the world they have come to know.
"Do you blame me for what happened?" David asks him and Adam starts as if he's been jolted.
"I don't want to talk about it." Adam mumbles, unable to look David in the eye. "Can we just-"
"If they were still alive, you would have left," David is upset for reasons he can't describe and Adam just stares at him. "You... you," David grasps for the right words, "work yourself to death because you are feeling guilty for living when they did not."
"Why don't you leave them then?" Adam snaps back at him. "They're not your family, you don't owe them anything. They can survive without you. Who will run all of this if I'm not here?"
"This is what you want?" David throws the blankets back and gestures angrily around the room. "This is a good life?"
Adam reels back as if David has slapped him. "This is my life. I had something that made me happy, but I guess not anymore."
David doesn't know if he's more infuriated with Adam for not seeing his point or himself for putting the sad look on Adam's face. He stumbles out of bed, pulls his shoes and coat on, and runs from the apartment over the depot. The frigid air burns as it enters his lungs and spreads throughout his chest, but he doesn't care. Around him the world spins, a mix of dark branches reaching toward something unobtainable, the coal dusted snow, and a sky shrouded by human avarice. He rushes back toward Carrington, but once he is there he stops at the gate. Running his hands over the icy iron, he grasps the metal and closes his eyes, gasping for breath. As quiet as possible, he slinks back into the safety of his cage.
*
The bag of mail and packages take less than a half an hour to sort and sit in neat piles on top of the freshly polished ticket counter. Once upon a time Adam would have run them into town, but now there are not enough hours in the day for Adam to complete all of his tasks. A strip of telegraph paper rolls out of the receiver as he deciphers the already gargantuan stack in front of him for the mine. Every time someone comes in- for their mail, to send a telegram, to send a package, to inquire about the train schedule- he must stop what he is doing and help them. When the train does come he is the only one who knows how to work the machinery of the turntable to turn the engines back around.
Keeping the roundhouse clean and maintained can take hours. The floors must be kept free of dirt and objects which could potentially jam the mechanism. The turntable needs to be cleaned and oiled to prevent rust from accumulating. It would go faster if Adam kept the oil heated, but fire is something Adam avoids at all costs. The grease and oil stick to Adam like a second skin he longs to shed. Without the roundhouse the trains cannot come to Briartown to export the coal from the mines. Without the mines, Briartown would have faded long ago.
There has always been a Johnson in Briartown. At first nothing more than a sleepy community down river from the bigger towns of Pennsylvania and the Virginia mountains, the need for coal soon tore through the region. His grandfather found funds to extend the track from Fairmont, breathing life and wealth into their small town. Adam runs the station as his father and his father's father have for the past thirty years. His family's blood runs on these tracks and letting them fall into disuse is not something he could do to their memory.
When night falls he is still at his desk decoding messages for the mine foreman to pick up in the morning. Morse code has never been Adam's strong suit; reading signs of any sort always seems to be a bit above him. When he is finished, he makes the trip back and forth from the well in the back to heat water in the outdoor fire pit before bringing it inside and dumping it into a basin. Wetting his hair he lathers it up and dunks it into the basin, shivering as rivulets of rapidly cooking water run down his back and neck in the frigid room. It takes more soap than he'd like to scrub the grease and ink off of his hands and arms, but for tonight he must be clean.
When he is dried, he takes his time dressing himself before pulling on his warmest boots and coat. Pouring the water out the window and cleaning up after himself, he makes sure his rooms are neat before walking down the backstairs to sit on the porch. In the pale light of the moon he waits until he sees the black smoke drifting around the bend and hears the mechanical screech of the train engine.
Adam knows there is nothing for him in Briartown; the only thing he'll ever need is on the train steaming toward the station.
*
Most of the circus is in the barn preparing for the upcoming season, practicing their trade for the first time since November. Now in mid-February they are scrambling for ways to improve their current acts or reinvent them altogether. Kun, Carlos, and Pablo are in a corner trying to time a combination flip involving Micah throwing Kun into the air. Some circuses have acrobats on horseback, but when asked Mario lifted an eyebrow and walked away. Joe and Vincent are sitting together working on Joe's script and the story which ties all the acts together. Aleks is helping James build a new box from which he will escape, adding more locks and hooks for chains to pass through.
David watches the commotion from where he sits on the ground leaning against a tiger-shifted Mario. Samir is on the bench next to him flipping his tarot cards over and stealing glances at the others as Edin fiddles with the piano behind them. David wonders what it would be like to see glimpses of the future and if Samir ever sees things he'd rather avoid. Samir told him once there are very few truths and no absolutes when seeing the future; what is true one day can change the next as any action can have multiple outcomes.
"Can you see your own?" David asks him, and Samir stops laying the cards down.
"Sometimes," Samir's smile is half grimace. "But I am not so good at trusting myself."
Samir picks his deck up and shuffles the cards a few times. Laying three cards down he studies them before frowning. With a sigh he looks up, and David follows his eyes to where Micah is laughing with Pablo.
"Sometimes they tell me things I have a hard time believing." He picks the cards up and shuffles them again. "Would you like to know something?"
Samir fans the cards out in his hands and holds them out to David. David reaches forward but hesitates. There is nothing in the cards he doesn't already know and nothing they can tell him he hasn't already told himself. Despite this, he picks one anyway and hands it to Samir to interpret. Samir shakes his head as he lays it down on the bench in front of him.
"The wheel of fortune means you are standing at the crossroads of fate and freewill."
"How can there be both?"
Samir smiles and simply says. "All roads lead to Rome."
The feeling of the room changes quickly and both men turn to see Roberto walk in. He smiles and greets the performers before asking to see what they have been working on. David goes and dutifully sits next to him, Mario sulkily following and curling up at David's feet. The acts are still a little shaky, but Roberto nods his head approvingly and applauds their efforts. When Edin drags the calliope out to play the new piece, they are entranced by the bubbles which pour out of the pipes as he plays. They float around the barn, some in the normal round shape, but others like animals and colored in every shade imaginable. It's hard to miss the way Edin smiles at Aleks when he plays or the look the Aleks' otherwise stoic expression as he creates this illusion for Edin's music.
When Roberto leaves so do most of the performers. Only Joe and James stay with David, the drummers for his act. They've worked on a new beat and in his mind David imagines the fire snaking across his body, exploding outward in a spiral. He stands in the middle of the deserted barn as they drum, but no fire comes to him. Holding his hands out he reaches down for the remaining embers but grabs only air. The thought of never having the fire again, of losing both Adam and the fire, washes over David and he pushes his hands through his hair and screams in frustration as he kicks the floor. Joe and James stop the beat, but he snaps at them to continue. When the beat picks up again and he looks up, he sees someone standing in the door to the barn.
"Chappy told me Mr. Mancini was out here," Adam mumbles, holding a telegram out for them. "It was urgent."
David finds himself crossing the space between them and coming to stand before Adam. Adam doesn't look at him, biting at his lip and fidgeting with his fingernails. David's fingers brush against Adam's when he takes the telegram, and inside he feels the fire whisper as it begins to grow.
"Adam," David whispers, flinching when Adam pulls his hand back, "I did not mean-"
"Yes you did," Adam still can't look at him and it hurts more than David ever cared to know. "And I've always known. I just didn't think you'd ever say it."
He turns and walks away; David knows there is nothing he can say to make him come back. In them he sees the world around them. There is only so much you can take, only so much you can destroy before you have to give back or condemn it. The rivers are dead and soon the mountains will be too; David isn't sure if there is anything he can do to save the life he wants with Adam.
*
Packing begins when the first hints of green buds begin to dot the trees. Ice and snow still pack the ground, but both are melting and soon spring will arrive and usher winter away. They've spent four months lingering here, and David longs for warmth again. The fire has returned, but it does not burn as bright as it once did.
The circus begins to move their belonging back into the train cars. David does not use any props beside his costumes and they are accounted for by Vincent. All he has to do is pack his clothing and whatever else he wants to take with him. David's life fits into two suitcases; clothing, a few journals he'll never write in, and a daguerreotype of his mother. He carefully folds enough money to see him through the season into a secret lining in his suitcase and locks them both with a key he keeps around his neck.
A knock comes on his door and he calls for whoever it is to enter. He is surprised to see Roberto open the door as he almost always sends Chappy or another member of the household staff to summon David. There is an old marionette in his hands, standing up and moving without strings. When he places it on the table in the middle of the room, David sees it is a girl with a bird in her hand. It continues to move as Roberto puts it down, walking around as if inspecting the table, nodding at David before laying down and becoming lifeless. He smiles, remembering the days when all it took was a dancing marionette to make him forget his problems.
"Her name is Anna," Roberto tells him, running a finger over the immobile doll. "She was a gift from my father when I was a child, my very first marionette." Looking up he gives David a guarded smile. "Life in the country is not for her. I thought she would perhaps like to go with you, if you had room."
David stares at the unseeing painted eyes of the puppet before picking her up. She comes to life again, balanced on David's palm and spinning in a circle. The bird in her hand flutters on its string, the only string on the marionette.
"My father built the circus when I was just a small boy," Roberto tells him, taking a seat at the table and David mirrors the action. "Our relationship was never strong, but I knew I was important to him. Family was important to him and duty to his family and the loyalty and pride he had was essential to his character. As he passed the circus to me, someday I hope to pass it to my son."
David's mind tries to grasp at what Roberto is saying. The older man smiles at him and pats his hand, before standing from the table. David doesn't follow him, but puts Anna back on the table as she lays down and becomes motionless once again. He remembers his encounter with Roberto in front of Adam's old house, of hidden relationships and wistful smiles that lingered in eyes.
"You loved my mother?" David sounds lost.
Roberto's smile is happier than David has seen in years before it is gone again. "For a time I was blessed."
David doesn't move from the chair until he is summoned for dinner, Roberto's words weighing heavily on his mind.
*
The whistle blows as the train begins to pull out of the Briartown station. On the platform the assorted household staff and Roberto have come to see them off. As the cars begin to move David waves at Roberto, Anna stored safely on the shelf above his bed. The train begins to wind around the bend, and David looks to see if Adam is standing on the platform. He's not; David's heart sags heavily in his chest. Briartown moves out of view and David sits in his window seat, content to spend the next few hours watching the scenery roll by.
The snow is gone now leaving behind the beginning green of spring's breath. The rains have washed the dust back into the soil, and the countryside looks cleaner than David has seen in sometime. It isn't until they join the mainline in Grafton that David sees the destruction he's spent winter trying to forget. Shantytowns line the tracks every couple of miles, without the dark of night or the dying leaves of last spring hiding them, David sees more land strip mined and mountains carved hollow. The river churns more violently with the added rain, and the sewage from the mines combined with the industrial runoff leaves it disgusting. David finds it hard to watch, but knows no good will come of ignoring the destruction.
Joe joins him with a cup of tea as he normally does, but David leaves his untouched on the table next to him. Thankfully words seem to evade Joe today and he is allowed to piece together his own thoughts without being interrupted. It isn't until they are a few miles outside of Cumberland and slowing down to take on more water and coal, that Joe points to an abandoned mine.
"Look, the trees are growing back."
David looks closely and finds trees and other plants are beginning to regrow in the earth around the entrance to the mine. Ivy has overtaken the derelict buildings; a haze of green moss covers much of the other destroyed pieces.
"Yes, yes they are," David murmurs partially in response but mostly to himself.
The fire reaches out to him, telling him it's okay, and he closes his eyes. If there is any hope of restoring the shards of what he and Adam have, both of them must learn to give as well as take. Standing, he looks out the window and sees they are about to enter Cumberland city limits. He grabs the suitcase with the money still locked inside and opens it, adding a few changes of clothing, the picture of his mother, and the carefully wrapped marionette. Pulling his coat and hat on, he turns around with an explanation on the tip of his tongue, but Joe hands him an envelope. David's name is written in Samir's neat script in the top corner. Inside is a ticket from Cumberland back to Briartown.
"You can't really hide things from us," Joe tells him with a sad smile before wrapping him in a hug.
David disappears from the train in Cumberland without a word or a backward glance. He waits inside the waiting room of the depot for the mid-afternoon train to come. Here in Cumberland there is a post office and a Western Union Telegraph outpost. A slew of mechanics fix and maintain the track and two men run the inside counter. One man is not responsible for shouldering the survival of a town; David watches them with envy. The railroad crossing sign outside reminds David of a crossroads and he shakes his head with a knowing smirk. When the train comes, he finds a seat by the window, unused to sharing a compartment with strangers. He ignores them, watching the country fly by in a reversal of his morning, bringing him closer to uncertainty. In the signs of coming spring he finds renewal, as if the buds and new leaves outside are a dream meant to drive a nightmare away. He feels the bars of the cage crumble and fall around him. The strings of the puppet master feel lax around him.
He changes coaches in Grafton for one headed toward Wheeling. It's only two stops, not more than an hour, before he is in Fairmont waiting on the platform for a coal train to bring him back to Briartown. Grafton is much bigger than Briartown, and from the platform David watches the town move around him. As there is an hour before the coal train is due to arrive, David finds himself wandering into one of the general stores. Nothing catches his eye until he sees a jar of lemon drops on the counter. Laughing to himself, he buys the entire jar and stores the multiple bags in his coat pockets and inside his suitcase.
When the train is ready to leave for the half an hour journey back to Briartown, David hesitates. There is no guarantee Adam will forgive him, and for a moment he wonders if it is better for them to live their lives separately, both dutifully carrying out the wishes of ghosts instead of their duty to themselves. His suitcase is heavy in his hand, weighed down by lemon drops and a marionette.
The whistle blows and he steps into the empty passenger coach.
*
The clouds gather overhead as the train begins to leave the station. Spring storms can be violent and unpredictable in the mountains and soon the sky is down pouring. There is no lightning, but the wind roars and David cannot see more than a few feet outside the window. His stomach churns; anxiety burns his chest with a fire he doesn't control. As they round the last bend, David sees the light is still on in the depot and he sighs as he thinks of Adam still working this late. Bracing himself, he steps off the train.
Adam is standing on the platform with a suitcase in his hand. When he sees David neither of them says anything for a long moment until the whistle blows and both men jump. The storm blows around them, drenching them in rain. David feels it begin to seep into his coat and run down his back. It isn't until Adam begins to shiver that he can speak.
"Were you coming after me?" David asks him.
"Yeah," Adam tells him with an awkward shrug of his shoulders. "Were you coming back to stay with me?" David nods. "Why?"
There aren't enough words for David to tell Adam why. Instead, he simply states, "I wanted to."
"Yeah?" Their words are only just audible in the raging storm, and Adam crosses the space between them, grin that David loves on his lips. "So where do we go from here?"
David reaches out and takes Adam's free hand in his. From his hand the fire crawls out, circling their joined hands like a ribbon before disappearing again. Adam doesn't jump or shrink away from David, and his heart thuds heavily knowing Adam isn't afraid of the fire in him. He doesn’t know if they’ll stay or go, but as long as it is together they’ll be fine. Placing his suitcase on the ground, he pulls Adam against him and thinks 'home'.
The spotlight dims and the strings are cut. The curtain sweeps to a close.