Isaac Rasmussen (guarddog) wrote in the_cirque, @ 2024-03-02 17:25:00 |
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Entry tags: | !thread, c: dayton ashcroft, c: isaac rasmussen |
Everything had happened so fast with Iskander, that Isaac hadn’t had time to really think. The days that had followed, however, had offered him plenty of time to think, too much time to wrestle with the morality of it. Isaac didn’t know if what he, Dante, Callisto and Violette had done was justice or revenge. Was there even a difference between the two?
Isaac’s boots were heavy as he made his way through among the rides and games during his evening rounds. The one thing he was absolutely sure of was that the murders had affected far too many people far too deeply. He would do everything in his power to keep it from happening again.
He lit a cigarette as he walked. He blended in well with the first wave of guests that came through the gates, which was good. He found that it was far easier for him to do his job if he didn’t stick out.
He nodded at Ame as he passed her booth. Yes, hopefully things would settle soon. Isaac’s shoulders relaxed, even as that itchy squirmy feeling at the base of his spine made him want to run. We’ll be fine, he told himself as he passed by Ame’s booth. He nodded to the operator at the water guns booth, then the darts booth. Everyone around him was laughing and having a good time. We’ll be fine…
The carousel had a new operator. A new employee was a good sign that no one had been completely scared off. Isaac blew out a puff of smoke and nodded to the man. He’d just gotten to the flying chairs when he stopped, his heart suddenly in his throat. Those eyes, that face…
Isaac whirled around, nearly crashing into the people who were coming up behind him. “‘Scuse me,” he muttered seemingly oblivious to their exclamations and glares as he made his way back to the carousel. He stopped and stared. No fucking way….”Dayton?!”
“…and I said to her, you don’t even know me!” The crowd around Dayton, a mixture of men and women, burst into laughter. He gave them all his best smile. Charming, confident. Hands went to his hips and his chest puffed out proudly. Most of the crowd consisted of guests whose kids were currently riding the caurosel.
“Mommy! Daddy!” Little voices called out but their parents were distracted by the commanding presence currently operating the gentle ride that their first and second borns were currently riding.
He’d been about to indulge them more when a familiar voice broke into the bubble, entirely shattering it like a fist into a mirror. Dayton lifted his chin, brow furrowed. It wasn’t until he laid those soft eyes on the interloper on the approach that his gaze narrowed neatly to poisonous slits.
“It looks like they allow just anyone through these gates,” he spat. The crowd twisted to look at Isaac. “Including my traitorous brother.” How deeply and dearly he missed Isaac. They had been inseparable since they were kids, but the betrayal ran deep and the poison his ex wife injected into his veins ran deeper. It would take a while before all of that tainted liquid was expelled but for now he was still her biggest defender.
Casually, Dayton emitted a sharp breath and the crowd began to disperse. Moms and dads engaged their children, snapping pictures and waving. Dayton paid them no attention.
The color drained from Isaac’s face. His world bottomed out from under him and he felt as though he could fall straight through the ground. There had been a time in which Isaac would have strode up to Dayton and clapped him on the back in greeting, a big grin on his face. There was an ache in the pit of Isaac’s stomach that made him want to run up to the man he thought of as his brother and pull him into a hug.
The way Dayton looked at him, with his eyes narrowed into hateful slits. It was the same way he’d looked at Isaac that night. No empathy, no warmth. Just contempt, as though Isaac was mere filth. Isaac felt old wounds that he’d worked so hard to bury suddenly, and painfully, rip open. The anger that came with it swelled up the back of his throat.
He dropped his cigarette to the ground and snuffed it under his heel before he quickly crossed the distance between himself and Dayton. The anger in his chest made it hard to breathe, but somehow he was able to growl “what are you doing here?!”
Though Dayton’s face remained stoic, his knees felt as if they’d been cut out from beneath him. Again. He watched the only person he’d ever loved stand there like they were strangers. It was a brotherly, sibling type of connection, never anything physical. As children, Dayton was the shadow in Isaac’s steps. He’d taken to being a big brother to new heights when Isaac had moved in, and then adopted. Before he’d only had sisters and they just never quite understood. But that poison ran deep. The fluid embedded itself into his veins and still coursed through his muscles, his brain. Eugenia. He could remember that day — she had come in crying, upset. Isaac had tried to make a move on her and then….
Dayton’s lips pulled into a smirk. “I could ask you the same question, but it wouldn’t matter.” Calm and cool, he remained at his perch even though his feet wanted to cross the same distance and go head to head.
He did catch a glimmer of something though. A crest that he knew, still wrapped around one of Isaac’s fingers. “Still pretending?” Coldly, he glanced back up. “Hmm…I thought you would’ve gotten the message by now.” There were several nights they’d cooked meals together in the same kitchen. Dayton had been run out on more than one occasion - giggling and eager - by the kitchen staff but anywhere Isaac was, he wanted to be. Even now.
Isaac growled again. He stepped forward and got up good in Dayton’s face. His lip curled back in a sneer. “I was never pretending,” he growled in Dayton’s face. “I asked you a question. What the fuck are you doing here? It wasn’t enough that you chased me off two years ago? Huh? What, you decide to run me outta here as well?”
“Operating a ride?” As if Isaac was trespassing. With that, Dayton turned to the panel and began to slow down the piece in question. There was a chorus of awwws from the kids. “I know, I know. But you’ll come back for more fun!” A few cheers and some swoons from parents and then the animals stopped.
Those in line waiting climbed aboard their favorite animal. When the ride began he turned back to Isaac. “They don’t allow violence here.” Dayton gave his most charming smile, “and you wouldn’t do anything in front of our guests. So I suggest you turn tail while you can!” Pleasantly, he twisted back to watch the ride, actively ignoring the addition of an old staple if only to mask his own feelings.
Isaac stepped back as the carousel riders exited the ride and those waiting in line got on. A few of the adults who had been waiting with their children near the front cast him weary glances as they passed, ushering their children quickly onto the ride as though anxious to get away from him.
I’m not a monster, Isaac told himself, though after the events of the last week, he wasn’t sure if that was something he believed any longer. Dayton’s voice grabbed Isaac’s attention back towards him. His eyes narrowed at Dayton’s little pun about turning tail. “I work here too,” he informed Dayton, his voice low. A mean grin crept across his face. “Actually, I’m security.”
That soft and heavy revelation caused Dayton’s muscles to tense. Brows arched up with surprise and his browns widened. All of this took place in a matter of seconds, and then the expression eased back into cool and comfortable. “Well, I suppose you can still drink tainted water and survive.” Dayton cast a sidelong glance at his brother, “sooner or later the flock comes back to roost, Isaac.” Regardless of his imposed position of protecting and serving, things had a way of catching up with you.
Glancing back at the ride to ensure all was well, Dayton finally turned to acknowledge the presence of the other man. “The people here must not know your true colors. You can wear the fur of any animal, my brother, but that makes you no less a wolf on the inside.”
“Those are fine words coming from the man who chased me into the woods at gunpoint,” he snarled in response. Isaac was fully aware that people could hear him, but he was far too focused on Dayaton to realize, or care.
It had been two years since that night, but Isaac remembered it vividly. All that hate and anger rolling off of Dayton in suffocating waves. How deaf he was to Isaac’s protestations that he was innocent. He hadn’t touched Eugenia. He would never even dream of doing the cruel, terrible things Dayton accused him of doing. But Dayton refused to listen. Dayton never listened when Eugenia was involved.
Isaac’s eyes narrowed and he folded his arms over his chest. “Is she here with you?” He asked, not even trying to disguise the venom in his voice.
“The penance justified the actions,” Dayton countered. “The moment that you put your hands upon something I loved, you shattered everything that you and I had built.” Thrown away their childhood, stuffed all of those good moments into a box and set it ablaze. “And a traitor has no place on the grounds.” Dayton could still remember that night. Raised voices, accusations. The way his blood boiled when a sobbing Eugenia told him what transpired. And then it was cold metal in his hands, crushed blades of grass beneath his feet. The trees had cried but he ignored them. Never in his wildest dreams had he ever expected Isaac to betray him. They were supposed to be close and then the unthinkable happened…
“Can you smell her?” Dayton was certain that Isaac already knew the answer to his question. Eugenia had a distinct scent - oleander and honey - that stained the inside of his soul with its tarnished saturation. It clung to his pores. Even now he caught a whiff of it on the gentle breeze and that caused his dark eyes to focus on a woman standing nearby: blonde, tall, obviously there with her family. Genie’s hair always smelled like her shampoo. Their bed, the weft of the sheets and pillows, a nest of floral fragrance.
The fog of anger had clouded Isaac’s mind so much that he actually hadn’t noticed the distinct lack of Eugenia’s recognizable scent in the air. Once the pair had started seeing each other, Dayton’s smell had become overpowered by Eugenia’s. Looking back on it now, that was the first sign of the woman taking over Dayton’s life. It had been a long, long time since Isaac had smelled only the fresh turned earth and cool rain that was so very Dayton. He smelled it now and it brought back so many memories he thought had long been forgotten. Amazingly, they eased some of his anger away, but in its place was only sadness.
“No,” Isaac said. Saying the word aloud made him realize that Dayton was here alone. Here at the Cirque by himself. Isaac’s brows furrowed and for the first time he truly looked at Dayton and saw the state of him. Instead of the finely tailored silk suits that he loved so much, he was clad in a threadbear sweat-shirt over a dingy looking t-shirt and jeans that looked as though they hadn’t been washed in months.
Despite himself, Isaac was concerned. Worried even. It was clear in his eyes and the way his expression softened. Isaac’s gaze moved back up to his brother’s face. It was all to clear why Dayton was at the circus now. Isaac didn’t have the details, but he didn’t need them. He had seen Eugenia for what she was from the start. He wished he could have been able to Dayton to see it before he had been reduced to this.
That sadness felt infinite. Every burden laden step he’d taken from the gates of the estate spoke more than he ever had to. He carried that regret, flaunted in the same way he had once done with the family crest. That same emblem carved into the metal of Isaac’s ring. The time away from Eugenia had given Dayton moments of clarity. He could think, he could understand and reflect back upon certain events in the last stretches of years. But he’d made his choice that night he’d driven away the only person he’d truly ever cared about - chosen love and madness over security. And here wss Isaac, protecting people in the way that Dayton should have been extending to him.
“Mmm..” it came as a soft vibration, a simple hum of acknowledgement. Of course Eugenia wasn’t here. This was not the place she would ever step a leather high heel into for a number of reasons, and yet here he was. Perhaps that was a comfort and a security in itself knowing that she would never consider finding him here.
As the ride began to slow, Dayton made sure that the kids were able to escape easily and get back to their parents. The next group filtered on. Perhaps this was the penalty he would pay - the life of a man who pressed the same button and flipped the same switches until his fingers reduced to bone. He couldn’t hear the trees here, or the earth. While Genie had literally taken everything, his magic still ran strong in his blood. You couldn’t make a court of law persuade you to surrender that.
The silence that followed between the two was thick and heavy. All around them the Cirque continued on as normal. People walked past them going from game to game, laughing and planning what game or show to go to next. Happy children skipped off the carousel and rushed to join their parents. Isaac watched them all without actually seeing them. He should have offered Dayton some words of comfort, of support. He wanted to. He ached to tell his brother how much he missed him and how sorry he was that he hadn’t been there to protect him. A lump formed at the back of his throat hard and unforgiving, choking the words he ached to say.
What good would words have been anyway? Isaac’s eyes moved back towards Dayton, watching him as he operated the ride. Time had done nothing to temper the way Dayton thought of Isaac, that much was clear. Nor had it healed Isaac’s own wounds.
Isaac pulled his pack of cigarettes out from his back pocket. He hit it against his palm to force one of the sticks to slide out. “You look like shit,” he said, though his voice lacked the same punch and vitriol as it had before. He put the cigarette between his lips and lit the end. “Go to the costume tent after your shift and get a decent set of clothes,” he said, blowing out a plume of smoke from his first drag. He cast Dayton one more look before he stepped away from the carousel to resume his rounds.
“I thought mother taught you better,” Dayton indulged casually. Isaac wasn’t wrong though. He did look worn down, run down. He had nothing to speak for. Everything he had crumbled, or had been swept away like a magician would pull a tablecloth out from underneath a full and set dinner. “I miss you, too.” With that, he chuckled and went t back to his task of setting up the rides.
The truth was, he did miss Isaac. The hold that Eugenia had on him faded with each measure of distance he put between them and for the first time in his life he was thinking clearly. This wasn’t the place to sort out differences. There would be time to test the tepid waters.
He let his brother go and with a heavy sigh, he watched the animals in their paused race.