nothing rhymes with 'circus'. chapter 7.
Title: Nothing Rhymes with Circus. Chapter 7.
Author: xonthefloor
Pairing: Dave Karofsky/Kurt Hummel.
Rating: PG for this chapter.
Warnings: None.
Beta: None for now :(
Word Count: 56oo this chapter.
Genre: Supernatural/Superpowers/Romance/Angst/Drama.
Disclaimer: Pfht, if I owned Glee, Blaine wouldn't be on it.
Summary: Dave is just a humble young man whose only expectation from life is having somewhere to sleep at night. Everything changes when he's invited to join a very unique travelling circus where he'll meet a group of very peculiar people, discovering that he's not what you could call a regular guy.
A/N: This is a complete AU and time fic, that takes place in the late 30s. I’m trying to be as accurate as I can with things the way they were back then, but I apologize if something is not exactly the way it was back in the late 30s. Also, you'll notice that this is unbetaed, so I apologize in advance. English is not my first language. Any offers? I have to warn that the later chapters are quite long, since I can't never manage to write short chapters.
Chapter 7
“Hey, Davey. What are you doing?” Brittany asks, sitting at the table with him.
Dave is not doing anything but drinking some coffee by himself in the camp. Half of the guys have left to Atlantic City in order to do some shopping. It had been a great weekend; the original schedule at Sunbury was one show on Friday. Yet, they sold out and they had to add two more shows, performing on Saturday and Sunday as well.
Of course, Dave wasn’t able to attend to the show, but his friends had told him that had been one of the best audiences ever. In addition, due the great ticket sells, Dave -and the rest of the circus crew- got for himself fifty-five bucks, which is a lot considering that they only got that within three days of work and Dave didn’t even perform. Dave hasn’t had so much money in his hands in quite a long time.
Due the illegal gambling, Atlantic City is pretty much a successful city in spite of the recession that hit the whole country, so William decided to take them to do some shopping, since they all wanted to buy stuff with the money they have gotten. The city is only a few miles away from the camp.
They do it in turns; the camp can’t be left alone not only because someone has to look after their stuff, but also because Kurt would be alone as well if everyone left together. A new rule that Dave learned during his stay with the New Directions Circus is that Kurt can’t ever be left alone.
At first, Dave found it contradictory since Kurt spends most of his time by himself. Wouldn’t be the same if no one’s around? From what Dave gathers, if they all went to promenade somewhere, between lunch and dinner, Kurt would probably not even notice it. But then, Dave was told that sometimes, sleeping pills make Kurt ill or that some other times he has -apparently- terrible nightmares that make him really upset and they need to take care of him. So when Kurt feels ill or very upset, he rings a bell that’s hanging next to his door, to let others know he’s in need without having to go to the camp.
They told Dave they developed that system during the days that Kurt joined the circus and that currently, Kurt hardly ever rings the bell. But it still happens from time to time. Dave also learns that he needs to pay more attention, since this bell has been always hung by the door of Kurt’s trailer and Dave passed by it twice and missed it.
Yet, ever since he joined the circus, Dave has never heard the bell sound so he figures that everything is pretty much alright and it doesn’t affect his life much either.
But it’s just a new routine Dave gets to learn. He promenades a lot with his friends, when they are in the towns they do their shows, but it’s the first time they go sightseeing places far from the camp, or at least far enough to have to take the cars.
Dave stayed in the camp with Brittany, Noah, Finn, Sam, Rachel and of course, Kurt. All of them, with the obvious exception -Kurt- are going to Atlantic City tomorrow. Dave plans to buy a suit for himself; a nice suit. He has never been particularly interested in clothing, except during the winter he spent in the streets that he wished for thick wool sweaters. Yet, here in the circus all his friends get to dress nicely every now and then, and Dave’s the only one who looks like a beggar.
But that’s his plans for tomorrow. Right now, his friends are doing their own stuff while Dave is by himself, peacefully drinking coffee.
He smiles at Brittany. “Nothing much. You? Why did you stay here instead of going to the city with Santana?”
He can’t help wondering. If he had a girlfriend -well, a boyfriend- he’d like to be able to go somewhere with him, even more if they are near by an interesting city.
Brittany shrugs. “It’s for the best. We’re too used to be here, kissing and holding hands. I tend to forget we’re not allowed to do that in public.”
Dave nods, feeling slightly stupid. But maybe he got too used to see them acting just like any other couple, forgetting as well that that kind of treatment doesn’t get to go beyond the circus limits. Then he thinks that for the same reason, Sam and Mercedes never go out together. All the times they promenaded in the towns they performed at, Dave went out in groups that included Sam, or Mercedes but never both of them at the same time.
“Sorry.”
Brittany shrugs, grinning at him. “Do you want me to show to you something really amazing?”
“Sure,” Dave replies, curious about the blond girl’s offer.
She stands up, motioning him to follow her and he does so. They walk just for a little bit, right until they reach the place where the circle of trailers ends. Dave can see that Lily’s cage is far from them, at a distance that after over two weeks of being part of the New Direction Circus, Dave got used to measure at a guess: the distance he has to keep from everyone.
“You stay here, and don’t be afraid, alright?” Brittany tells him, and Dave frowns but he stays at his place.
Brittany walks away, in direction of Lily’s cage and when she gets there, the girl opens the door of the tiger’s cozy chamber. Dave can’t help noticing that there’s nothing holding the animal back. Brittany smiles at Lily, who licks the girl’s face with her huge tongue. In spite of being a little scared at the sight of a dangerous wild animal, Dave can’t help smiling at that affection.
He can’t hear Brittany but it’s clear that she’s talking to Lily. It’s amazing to see the tiger staring at Brittany like she actually listens and understands what the girl is saying to her. Dave has to remind to himself that that’s the way it is, since Lily does listen and understand Brittany. It’s still amazing though.
Yet, his smile starts fading when Brittany -who’s still talking to Lily- points at him, and the tiger actually stares at Dave. It seems like Brittany’s giving the tiger instructions, and while Dave thinks that Lily was beautiful, he doesn’t like the idea of being the center of those instructions, as he assumes he is.
“Sit on the ground,” Brittany says loudly in the distance. “And remember: don’t be afraid, alright?”
Whatever it’s going to happen, Dave doesn’t like it in the slightest but for some reason, he does what the girl told him to and sits down in the grass. And it’s right then when the tiger starts walking slowly towards him, and Dave stops breathing. He doesn’t even intend to move; he’s growing scared because no matter how pretty the tiger is, it’s pretty when she’s locked in a cage and not walking towards you, being completely vulnerable. Brittany doesn’t come closer though, and for a fraction of second, he thinks that that’s good because if Lily decides to attack him, the girl will hopefully say something to the animal and the animal will still understand.
Maybe.
Lily gets closer and closer, and she moves gracefully slowly but in a very intimidating way, that gets Dave to almost start screaming like a little girl. He doesn’t scream though, since the only brain cell that isn’t paralyzed in fear, wisely advises him not to upset wild animal with a girly shrieking. And Dave almost wets his pants, just almost when Lily’s face is right in front of his. He stills, not even breathing as the tiger sniffs him, rubbing her wet nose against Dave’s cheek.
Yet, when Dave thinks he’s about become Lily’s lunch, Lily starts licking his face all over, and Dave wants to snort and laugh, but he’s too afraid of upsetting the beast who’s being nothing but friendly. After giving him some wet kisses, Lily turns around and walks back to Brittany.
Once that Lily is back in the girl’s arms -Britt’s holding her and kissing her as well- Dave allows himself to laugh and smile. It was damn scary, but at the same time, it was probably one of the best experiences in Dave’s life. How many times in your life you get to be kissed by a tiger without having it literally eating your head out? Probably not many.
Maybe if Brittany told him about her plans, Dave wouldn’t have been so scared. Of course, there’s no way that she was planning to make of Dave Lily’s next meal, but still. Dave would have welcomed a small warning.
Lily jumps back in her cage, and Brittany carefully locks it. Dave walks to her, rubbing his sleeve over his face since it’s damp with tiger’s saliva.
“That was incredible indeed,” Dave points out, making Brittany smile. “Scary, but incredible.”
“She’s a good kitten. I just told her to go to give you a kiss and come back to me,” the girl explains as they heads back to the camp together. “No need to be afraid of her. She wouldn’t hurt you, unless I told her to.”
Brittany’s probably the most adorable girl that Dave had the luck to meet. Yet, when she says that, in spite of her cute and happy face, she does sound threatening. Dave thinks it’s good though; she has a tiger to defend herself and the ones she loves, instead of fists or guns and that’s very impressive.
And what’s also impressive, is that for the first time since he joined the circus, he got to see Brittany using her ability. By now, Dave has seen almost everyone using their abilities, always from a far distance. But that never happened with Brittany.
“I’ll do my best to never upset you,” he jokes.
Brittany chuckles. “Nah, she never hurt anyone.”
“People must love your act.”
The girl stares at him with bright eyes and wide smile, nodding. “They do. But it’s going to be so much better when Kurt joins us,” she says and Dave continues to smile, not to spoil her great mood.
Yet, he doesn’t understand a thing so he casually asks. “Kurt’s going to be in your act?”
Brittany nods eagerly and to Dave, that doesn’t make any sense. Three weeks passed since Dave joined the circus, and over two weeks since the last time he saw Kurt. Hearing Kurt’s his name and never seeing his face, it became a normal thing to just Dave, just like it is for the rest of the circus guys. The only difference is that Dave doesn’t get to spend time with Kurt like the rest of his friends, since they usually go to the boy’s trailer, to share some meal with him.
It didn’t surprise Dave that after that lunch all together, the kid was absent in the following dinner, and in all the other circus’ gatherings. Kurt didn’t go outside again, and it doesn’t bother Dave much.
Kurt is a constant presence in Dave’s life, but at the same time, he isn’t. His name is in the air every now and then, but Kurt himself is never there. Dave resolves it’s like God, but not in a religious way. You hear his name, you know he’s there somewhere but you never get to see him, and you’d even forget about him quite often.
But if Kurt can’t handle one meal with his friends, it doesn’t make much sense what Brittany’s saying, about them together, sharing an act in the show.
“He will,” Brittany assures, looking very excited. “We have it all planned. We’re going to have matching suits, and we have even rehearsed it. Lily likes Kurt, and I’ve taught her to do with Kurt, all the tricks I do with her in the show.”
Dave stares at her, still not getting her. They reach the tables and sit down; his mug of coffee is still there but the coffee’s now cold. They are sitting across each other, and Dave can’t stop giving Brittany a confused glance since she’s making no sense.
At some point, she seems to pick up Dave’s puzzled state, because she lets out a sad laugh. “Not now, you silly. Kurt can’t face a crowd now, but when he learns how to, we’ll have our number and it’s going to be amazing.”
A pang of sadness hits Dave’s stomach; Brittany sounds very sure of herself, like she truly believes that Kurt will be able to face such a large crowd. It’s also sad to know that Kurt has very unlikely to happen plans for the future he could not achieve.
It’s not like Dave has no hope in Kurt, but he’s being realistic; after four years of training, Kurt could only learn how to manage to be with three people top close to him. Also, the kid’s afraid to go outside his trailer, so Kurt performing in the open, in front of two hundred people, it not something very likely to happen.
At least not any time soon.
It’s something sad, but Dave doesn’t want to dishearten Brittany, who seems so happy about her and Kurt’s plans for their future act.
“I’m sure it’s going to be amazing,” he humors her, with a kind smile in his face.
“David, I’ve been looking you forever,” Rachel shows up out of nowhere, and her voice sounds preachy. But Dave has also learned not to feel bad about Rachel being preachy; usually, it doesn’t mean that Dave is doing something wrong. Rachel’s incredibly bossy to everyone, so Dave doesn’t take it personally.
“I was just here,” Dave replies.
“No, you weren’t. I just looked for you in here.”
“I just took him to meet Lily personally,” Brittany intercedes. “She gave him a few kisses in his cheek.”
Apparently, this is not something extraordinary for Rachel since she rolls her eyes, sighing like she’s annoyed. “We have some training to do, remember?”
Dave groans. “Can we take one day off?”
“No, we cannot. This is important, David. Up and go,” she orders and reluctantly, Dave gets on his feet, saying waving his hand to Britt.
He follows Rachel to his trailer; on their way, Finn joins them.
Dave hates training. He doesn’t want to believe it’s a waste of time, or that he’s a hopeless case but it really seems that it was. They started with two hours of daily training the following day of the big lunch failure. It consists in him, locked in his trailer with Rachel and whoever is willing and available to spend two whole hours doing absolutely nothing.
Rachel says that it’s all about focusing, and she makes it sound like it’s really simple, but Dave still has no clue about what the hell does focusing actually mean. It’s obviously something easy to say, and maybe also easy to understand but difficult to do. There are no proper instructions or any particular advice; he really doesn’t know what he can do to focus on not cancelling people’s abilities since he doesn’t even know how he cancels people’s abilities in the first place.
Rachel also has a huge perfect plan for his training. She even showed Dave a notepad where she wrote all the steps they have to achieve, or to better say, that Dave has to achieve. The first step, is to ‘unblock her; she calls it that way. According to Rachel, since his ability is cancelling everyone’s powers by default, they have to start little by little, therefore, unblocking one single person.
When he gets to do it with Rachel, they’ll add a new person to unblock, and that way they’ll gradually new people for Dave to unblock at the same time. If things go as Rachel plans, Dave should be able to unblock at first, several individuals at the same time, until he could do it with everyone without even have to think about it. “The same way I don’t get everyone’s thoughts inside my head, or fire doesn’t constantly come out from Finn’s body,” she said that first day of training.
Then, once he achieves unblocking everyone around without doing any effort, the process would be in reverse: he should have to be able to decide who to cancel. “That’s when you truly master your ability, David. You dominate it; it doesn’t dominate you. And in cases like you and me, that our gifts are forced onto people, you get to decide whom you’re going to impose your ability on.”
It sounded easy when Rachel said it, but so far they made no improvements. The guys keep on telling him that it’s too soon to expect some major changes but it doesn’t make Dave feel any better.
“Here we are,” Rachel announces happily when they reach Dave’s trailer and Dave only nods, faintly, opening his door to let his friends in.
He knows that Rachel would be as annoyed as he is, if it wasn’t because she clearly loves her school teacher role. The three of them step inside and as a habit, Dave throws himself back into the bed. Rachel and Finn sit in the banquettes across each other; Finn picks some bad cartoon magazine that Sam got two towns ago, just to kill his time with something.
“Alright, we’ll start now,” Rachel says; suddenly with a serious face, as usual. “Remember, Finn, quiet.”
Finn frowns. “I know what I have to do. I’ll just read some stuff.”
Finn doesn’t have to do anything. The idea of having a third person is for Rachel to have someone’s mind to read in the case that Dave gets to unblock her. Neither William nor Rachel are completely sure about how Dave’s gift works, so they can’t tell if Rachel will be able to read Dave’s mind, if he manages to unblock her.
“Good,” Rachel replies sharply. “Now David, focus.”
Dave sighs, and closed his eyes as usual. Then, he starts repeating to himself: ‘unblock Rachel, unblock Rachel, unblock Rachel,’ over and over. He’s not sure if that’s the way to do it, but he doesn’t know any other way.
And that’s how they spent those hours. He doesn’t know how much time passed when Rachel breaks the silence, snapping at him. “Are you focusing, David?!”
Startled at the sudden break of the silence, Dave stares at her, pissed. “Of course I am.”
“It looked like you fell asleep,” she tells him, sounding upset.
Dave narrows his eyes at her. “Well, I’m not sleeping. I’m focusing, and if you can’t read Finn’s mind so far, it’s not because I’m sleeping, it’s because this is not working.”
Finn stares at him and then at Rachel without opening his mouth and Rachel’s face softens. “I’m sorry, David. I just-”
“You have to be patient,” Finn finally speaks up. “You don’t even imagine how many stuff I set on fire until I learned how to control it. I still feel bad for all the furniture and blankets my mom had to replace due the fires I started,” he says, amused and Dave’s eyes lit up.
He never really asked Finn about his story with his ability, and unlike others, Finn’s mother knows about his gift. Suddenly, Dave’s mind is filled with questions, and an excited grin forms in his face.
“Man, really? But how? I mean, your mother knew, right? What did she say about it?” Dave asks, sitting up straight in his mattress.
Finn smiles, like he has good memories about it. “She freaked at first, but then-”
“Boys, we’re training. You can chat later when we’re done with this; Finn we need Dave to concentrate,” Rachel cuts them off. Finn nods apologetically, and Dave rolls his eyes, laying back in his bed.
“You’re not fun, Rachel,” Dave grumbles.
“This is not about having fun, David,” Rachel tells him, sharply.
Dave rolls his eyes and closes them, going back to his focusing. Nothing happens though. For the following two hours, they remain in silence and Dave doesn’t ever falls asleep just like he doesn’t ever unblocks Rachel.
It’s pretty discouraging. He has to admit they’ve been doing this for a little more three weeks, which is quite a short time so he can’t really expect to be able to control his ability. Before these past three weeks, he didn’t even know he had one.
But even Kurt, who’s the worst at controlling his gift, can achieve to be with three people at the same time without going crazy. Maybe within four years, Dave will be able to unblock three people at the same time…
He’s not focusing, since he’s thinking about Kurt, but suddenly he finds himself wondering is Rachel can see the future if she reads Kurt’s mind. It would be pretty interesting if she could; it would be like having two abilities at once.
“Time’s up,” Rachel finally announces, and Dave and Finn sigh relieved. “We’ll continue tomorrow, alright, David? Don’t let this dishearten you. You’ll be able to doing it when you less expect it,” she assures him, standing up and heading to the door.
Dave smiles at her, since he really appreciates her good spirit and overall her patience. If he was in Rachel’s place, he wouldn’t be so patient. He would have probably smacked himself once or twice by now.
He sits up straight in his bed, still wondering about her and Kurt.
“Do you ever read Kurt’s mind?” Dave asks her, just when she was about to reach the door.
Finn looks at them both, still sitting at the table with the cartoon’s magazine in his hands; Rachel turns around, showing a horrified face. “Oh, God, no. Never.”
Dave frowns. “Why not?”
Rachel stares at him like he can’t believe what he’s saying, but the truth is that Dave has no clue about why reading Kurt’s mind could be so bad.
She walks towards Dave’s bed, sitting down with him. “Because it’s like, horrible. Makes my head hurt.”
Dave keeps on frowning, but he’s quite curious now. “So you’ve tried.”
Rachel rolls her eyes. “Duh, of course!”
“But, did you get to see the future? That’s how it would work, right? Your future is in his mind, so you get to read your own future,” Dave says, assuming it’s that way.
“That’s exactly what I thought at first. But then I tried to,” Rachel says, and shivers like she’s remembering the experience. “Let’s just say that Kurt’s head is a mess.”
Rachel really doesn’t help Dave to grow even more curious. “What did you read?”
“Nothing? Everything? You can’t really see it, David, but in reality, your ability is all over the place; that’s why we’re all cancelled when we’re with you. But then when you train yourself and dominate it, you actually but your ability in order.”
Dave nods slowly, not really understanding where she’s trying to get.
“Just like Rachel, Kurt sees stuff in his head,” Finn intercedes, obviously seeing that Dave doesn’t get it. “Well, Rachel doesn’t see stuff, she hears thoughts. Their abilities work in their minds, so an ability being all over the place means that Kurt’s head is all over the place.”
“Oh,” it’s all that Dave can say. “What did you hear then?”
“His thoughts and my future mixed up,” she explains. “But it was confusing, too confusing; it gave me the worst headache ever. It was like, twenty people yelling at you at the same time which was interesting, since it was just him and me. Then I understood that, his thoughts and my future mixed together in that incredible messy way was actually all that was in Kurt’s head. I could stop reading him, but he couldn’t stop seeing all that stuff together, so I realized how badly he needed to get trained. If my head hurt just by reading his mind a few seconds, I can’t even imagine how he managed to cope with himself having someone around.”
He should stop asking stuff about Kurt, since every time he knows something new about the boy, he feels even worse for him. There’s nothing he much he can do to help Kurt, so at the end of the day, he gets to feel bad for the kid and nothing else.
“But he’s better now, right?”
Finn snorts. “Better? He’s super fine! At first you couldn’t even talk to him,” he says, almost amused. “He couldn’t hold a conversation since he was blurting out your future at the same time.”
What?
“How come?”
“It was like, ‘Hey, Kurt. How are you doing?’ you asked him, and he would reply, ‘I’m okay- Are you going to cook, Finn? Let me help you, you always burn everything,’” Finn snaps suddenly, startling Dave. “‘Oh, Quinn, let me do it! I want lean!’” Finn’s now whining now. “And then he would be back at being himself and continue, ‘How’s the weather outside?”
Dave only blinks. He doesn’t really know how Kurt’s in a regular day, since the two times he got to be with him, he was cancelling his ability so Kurt wasn’t seeing any future.
“Finn, don’t be an insensitive jerk!” Rachel tells him sternly.
“Hey, it’s not bad to find some humor in sad things, alright?” Finn defends himself, and then his attention goes back to Dave. “But it was like that.”
Woah, Dave wasn’t expecting that, so he looks at Rachel, and Rachel shrugs apologetically, confirming Finn’s words.
“Jesus,” Dave breathes out.
“And if you let him continue, he got like really carried away, and he even stood up and moved around and acting all the conversations he was seeing in his head, like he was possessed by all the people that were in your future. It was insane,” Finn tells him, almost amazed and Dave can’t really think about that as something amazing.
Rachel shows a sympathetic smile. “He’s much better than when he first joined us, that’s for sure. It’s hard for him but he learned how to focus,” she says, giving him a stern glare. “His head is still a mess when there are people around though. He just learned to ignore it.”
“You’ve seen it?”
“Yes, but just a few times. Just to see how was he handling it; the last time, I was with him, Santana and Sebastian. I got so dizzy I had to run out not to throw up in his trailer,” Rachel replies, blushing and Finn laughs at her.
“That’s what you get for being so nosy,” Finn tells her and she glares at him.
“I really admire him,” Rachel continues, ignoring Finn’s remark. “It takes him quite a lot of effort to be able to follow a conversation while he’s at the same time seeing a bunch of images of the future in his head, but now he does it, naturally. And it’s not because he controls it, it’s because he ignores it but it doesn’t mean that the mess is still there. That’s why he sleeps so much.”
Dave sighs, really trying to figure out how he can help this kid. He can cancel him so…
“Why don’t you put my trailer next to his? I’d be cancelling all time, and he wouldn’t have to go through so much trouble every time you go to see him.”
He sees Rachel and Finn exchanging a quick look. “He doesn’t want that,” Finn tells him.
Dave feels a little rejected. It’s fine if Kurt doesn’t like him, after all they hardly know each other. But in spite of Kurt’s weirdness, Dave is somewhat fond of him unlike Kurt that seems not to like him.
“He doesn’t have anything against you, man,” Finn says, and Dave blinks trying to look like he doesn’t really care since his displeasure at Kurt’s rejection it showed a lot.
“It’s really fine.”
Rachel sighs. “He doesn’t want to get used to you,” she says quietly. “He says he can’t rely on your ability to cope with his. He has to learn for himself, and you might not be around forever.”
Dave groans, sick of it. “He’s with that too? I’m not going to leave!”
“Also, it’s because his visions strike him harder when you’re not around,” Rachel explains, making him frown.
“I’m never around him.”
“You’ve been twice,” Finn reminds him, and Dave doesn’t think those times are a big deal, since the first time Kurt was a mess and they barely interact in a very awkward way, and the second time they didn’t even speak to each other.
“So?”
“So when you left, or he left, once you stop cancelling the visions struck him harder than usual,” Rachel tells him, and then she presses her lips together like she’s thinking. “I don’t know why yet, I think he gets used to you and forgets to put some resistance to the future, but I’ve been there and I saw him.”
Dave stares at her, frowning. “What happened?”
Rachel shrugs, as if there was not a lot to explain but Dave is clueless so he wants to know. “It was like in the old times; the future wrapped him up, he couldn’t get out from it. I had to do a lot of yelling and shaking to force him to step out of it.”
Dave shouldn’t ask any more stuff about Kurt; everything he gets to know is bad, Dave gets to feel really sorry for him and it’s not like he can do much about it, so why should he bother?
“Can we go back to the camp?” Dave asks, changing the topic of conversation since it’s pointless to keep on speaking about Kurt.
His friends nod, and Dave exhales relieved. He should stop talking about Kurt, since apparently they are not even meant to stick around; Kurt has his reasons to never want him around, so the chances of them getting to know each other, at least a little are narrow. Dave got to know that Kurt wasn’t the last member joining the circus, so new people adapted and became friends with him. It seems that Dave won’t have the same luck, and maybe that’s good.
Scratch ‘maybe’.
Dave is comfortable where he is; every day in the circus makes him feel more and more at home. He doesn’t feel like he’s the new one or the stranger anymore; he’s one of the group, and he likes that. He has great friends, a great job and now he even has money in his pocket.
They head to the camp, just to catch their friends coming back from Atlantic City. They are all carrying lots of bags, looking excited. The whole circus crew ends up gathered in the middle of the camp, right where they have dinner and lunch together.
“I swear, Atlantic City is almost like a big city,” Santana states, placing her shopping bags on the table. “Brittany! Brit! Look what I’ve got!”
Sebastian rolls his eyes. “We should do all boys, all girls sightseeing,” he says, sitting at the table and taking a bunch of records out of his shopping bags and handing them to Sam and Noah, who look excited at their new music.
Santana starts showing Britt a brand new dress that she purchased, as Tina and Mercedes take out of their bags a couple of pairs of shoes. “Don’t be annoying, Seb,” Tina tells him, showing off her new shoes. “We didn’t take that long.”
Sebastian gapes at the girls. “You spent at least an hour trying out shoes! And by the way, San, Atlantic City is a big city.”
Santana snorts. “It’s not New York.”
“New York is not that great,” he muffles, and Dave remembers that Sebastian was born and raised in New York, so obviously for him it’s not anything amazing.
Mike and Artie purchased clothes, and records as well, plus some board games and books to keep themselves entrained in the camp. They also bought different housing stuff, some blankets, tooth paste, combs, a couple of gas lanterns and flashlights. And of course, food.
Dave is pretty excited about going to Atlantic City tomorrow. His friends look excited, and they did some seriously nice shopping. While Mike tells them about an Ice Cream parlor they definitely have to go to, Dave sits down with his friends, taking a look to his surroundings.
This are going remarkably well for him; Dave has almost forgotten about all the troubles he had to face in the past. For the first time, things are going well, and even if that makes him smile, he sometimes wonders if this is just a big dream, or how long this is going to last.
Dave got quickly used to this sweet life, but he’s aware that good things never last, at least not for him and he’s not even used to get good things. This is too good. He doesn’t want to be pessimistic, and the truth is that the circus has been travelling around the country for years, so there’s no reason to believe that it will suddenly vanish. Dave is safe here.
Dave sighs, and smiles. Things are good, and hopefully they’ll remain good.
Author: xonthefloor
Pairing: Dave Karofsky/Kurt Hummel.
Rating: PG for this chapter.
Warnings: None.
Beta: None for now :(
Word Count: 56oo this chapter.
Genre: Supernatural/Superpowers/Romance/Angst/Drama.
Disclaimer: Pfht, if I owned Glee, Blaine wouldn't be on it.
Summary: Dave is just a humble young man whose only expectation from life is having somewhere to sleep at night. Everything changes when he's invited to join a very unique travelling circus where he'll meet a group of very peculiar people, discovering that he's not what you could call a regular guy.
A/N: This is a complete AU and time fic, that takes place in the late 30s. I’m trying to be as accurate as I can with things the way they were back then, but I apologize if something is not exactly the way it was back in the late 30s. Also, you'll notice that this is unbetaed, so I apologize in advance. English is not my first language. Any offers? I have to warn that the later chapters are quite long, since I can't never manage to write short chapters.
Chapter 7
“Hey, Davey. What are you doing?” Brittany asks, sitting at the table with him.
Dave is not doing anything but drinking some coffee by himself in the camp. Half of the guys have left to Atlantic City in order to do some shopping. It had been a great weekend; the original schedule at Sunbury was one show on Friday. Yet, they sold out and they had to add two more shows, performing on Saturday and Sunday as well.
Of course, Dave wasn’t able to attend to the show, but his friends had told him that had been one of the best audiences ever. In addition, due the great ticket sells, Dave -and the rest of the circus crew- got for himself fifty-five bucks, which is a lot considering that they only got that within three days of work and Dave didn’t even perform. Dave hasn’t had so much money in his hands in quite a long time.
Due the illegal gambling, Atlantic City is pretty much a successful city in spite of the recession that hit the whole country, so William decided to take them to do some shopping, since they all wanted to buy stuff with the money they have gotten. The city is only a few miles away from the camp.
They do it in turns; the camp can’t be left alone not only because someone has to look after their stuff, but also because Kurt would be alone as well if everyone left together. A new rule that Dave learned during his stay with the New Directions Circus is that Kurt can’t ever be left alone.
At first, Dave found it contradictory since Kurt spends most of his time by himself. Wouldn’t be the same if no one’s around? From what Dave gathers, if they all went to promenade somewhere, between lunch and dinner, Kurt would probably not even notice it. But then, Dave was told that sometimes, sleeping pills make Kurt ill or that some other times he has -apparently- terrible nightmares that make him really upset and they need to take care of him. So when Kurt feels ill or very upset, he rings a bell that’s hanging next to his door, to let others know he’s in need without having to go to the camp.
They told Dave they developed that system during the days that Kurt joined the circus and that currently, Kurt hardly ever rings the bell. But it still happens from time to time. Dave also learns that he needs to pay more attention, since this bell has been always hung by the door of Kurt’s trailer and Dave passed by it twice and missed it.
Yet, ever since he joined the circus, Dave has never heard the bell sound so he figures that everything is pretty much alright and it doesn’t affect his life much either.
But it’s just a new routine Dave gets to learn. He promenades a lot with his friends, when they are in the towns they do their shows, but it’s the first time they go sightseeing places far from the camp, or at least far enough to have to take the cars.
Dave stayed in the camp with Brittany, Noah, Finn, Sam, Rachel and of course, Kurt. All of them, with the obvious exception -Kurt- are going to Atlantic City tomorrow. Dave plans to buy a suit for himself; a nice suit. He has never been particularly interested in clothing, except during the winter he spent in the streets that he wished for thick wool sweaters. Yet, here in the circus all his friends get to dress nicely every now and then, and Dave’s the only one who looks like a beggar.
But that’s his plans for tomorrow. Right now, his friends are doing their own stuff while Dave is by himself, peacefully drinking coffee.
He smiles at Brittany. “Nothing much. You? Why did you stay here instead of going to the city with Santana?”
He can’t help wondering. If he had a girlfriend -well, a boyfriend- he’d like to be able to go somewhere with him, even more if they are near by an interesting city.
Brittany shrugs. “It’s for the best. We’re too used to be here, kissing and holding hands. I tend to forget we’re not allowed to do that in public.”
Dave nods, feeling slightly stupid. But maybe he got too used to see them acting just like any other couple, forgetting as well that that kind of treatment doesn’t get to go beyond the circus limits. Then he thinks that for the same reason, Sam and Mercedes never go out together. All the times they promenaded in the towns they performed at, Dave went out in groups that included Sam, or Mercedes but never both of them at the same time.
“Sorry.”
Brittany shrugs, grinning at him. “Do you want me to show to you something really amazing?”
“Sure,” Dave replies, curious about the blond girl’s offer.
She stands up, motioning him to follow her and he does so. They walk just for a little bit, right until they reach the place where the circle of trailers ends. Dave can see that Lily’s cage is far from them, at a distance that after over two weeks of being part of the New Direction Circus, Dave got used to measure at a guess: the distance he has to keep from everyone.
“You stay here, and don’t be afraid, alright?” Brittany tells him, and Dave frowns but he stays at his place.
Brittany walks away, in direction of Lily’s cage and when she gets there, the girl opens the door of the tiger’s cozy chamber. Dave can’t help noticing that there’s nothing holding the animal back. Brittany smiles at Lily, who licks the girl’s face with her huge tongue. In spite of being a little scared at the sight of a dangerous wild animal, Dave can’t help smiling at that affection.
He can’t hear Brittany but it’s clear that she’s talking to Lily. It’s amazing to see the tiger staring at Brittany like she actually listens and understands what the girl is saying to her. Dave has to remind to himself that that’s the way it is, since Lily does listen and understand Brittany. It’s still amazing though.
Yet, his smile starts fading when Brittany -who’s still talking to Lily- points at him, and the tiger actually stares at Dave. It seems like Brittany’s giving the tiger instructions, and while Dave thinks that Lily was beautiful, he doesn’t like the idea of being the center of those instructions, as he assumes he is.
“Sit on the ground,” Brittany says loudly in the distance. “And remember: don’t be afraid, alright?”
Whatever it’s going to happen, Dave doesn’t like it in the slightest but for some reason, he does what the girl told him to and sits down in the grass. And it’s right then when the tiger starts walking slowly towards him, and Dave stops breathing. He doesn’t even intend to move; he’s growing scared because no matter how pretty the tiger is, it’s pretty when she’s locked in a cage and not walking towards you, being completely vulnerable. Brittany doesn’t come closer though, and for a fraction of second, he thinks that that’s good because if Lily decides to attack him, the girl will hopefully say something to the animal and the animal will still understand.
Maybe.
Lily gets closer and closer, and she moves gracefully slowly but in a very intimidating way, that gets Dave to almost start screaming like a little girl. He doesn’t scream though, since the only brain cell that isn’t paralyzed in fear, wisely advises him not to upset wild animal with a girly shrieking. And Dave almost wets his pants, just almost when Lily’s face is right in front of his. He stills, not even breathing as the tiger sniffs him, rubbing her wet nose against Dave’s cheek.
Yet, when Dave thinks he’s about become Lily’s lunch, Lily starts licking his face all over, and Dave wants to snort and laugh, but he’s too afraid of upsetting the beast who’s being nothing but friendly. After giving him some wet kisses, Lily turns around and walks back to Brittany.
Once that Lily is back in the girl’s arms -Britt’s holding her and kissing her as well- Dave allows himself to laugh and smile. It was damn scary, but at the same time, it was probably one of the best experiences in Dave’s life. How many times in your life you get to be kissed by a tiger without having it literally eating your head out? Probably not many.
Maybe if Brittany told him about her plans, Dave wouldn’t have been so scared. Of course, there’s no way that she was planning to make of Dave Lily’s next meal, but still. Dave would have welcomed a small warning.
Lily jumps back in her cage, and Brittany carefully locks it. Dave walks to her, rubbing his sleeve over his face since it’s damp with tiger’s saliva.
“That was incredible indeed,” Dave points out, making Brittany smile. “Scary, but incredible.”
“She’s a good kitten. I just told her to go to give you a kiss and come back to me,” the girl explains as they heads back to the camp together. “No need to be afraid of her. She wouldn’t hurt you, unless I told her to.”
Brittany’s probably the most adorable girl that Dave had the luck to meet. Yet, when she says that, in spite of her cute and happy face, she does sound threatening. Dave thinks it’s good though; she has a tiger to defend herself and the ones she loves, instead of fists or guns and that’s very impressive.
And what’s also impressive, is that for the first time since he joined the circus, he got to see Brittany using her ability. By now, Dave has seen almost everyone using their abilities, always from a far distance. But that never happened with Brittany.
“I’ll do my best to never upset you,” he jokes.
Brittany chuckles. “Nah, she never hurt anyone.”
“People must love your act.”
The girl stares at him with bright eyes and wide smile, nodding. “They do. But it’s going to be so much better when Kurt joins us,” she says and Dave continues to smile, not to spoil her great mood.
Yet, he doesn’t understand a thing so he casually asks. “Kurt’s going to be in your act?”
Brittany nods eagerly and to Dave, that doesn’t make any sense. Three weeks passed since Dave joined the circus, and over two weeks since the last time he saw Kurt. Hearing Kurt’s his name and never seeing his face, it became a normal thing to just Dave, just like it is for the rest of the circus guys. The only difference is that Dave doesn’t get to spend time with Kurt like the rest of his friends, since they usually go to the boy’s trailer, to share some meal with him.
It didn’t surprise Dave that after that lunch all together, the kid was absent in the following dinner, and in all the other circus’ gatherings. Kurt didn’t go outside again, and it doesn’t bother Dave much.
Kurt is a constant presence in Dave’s life, but at the same time, he isn’t. His name is in the air every now and then, but Kurt himself is never there. Dave resolves it’s like God, but not in a religious way. You hear his name, you know he’s there somewhere but you never get to see him, and you’d even forget about him quite often.
But if Kurt can’t handle one meal with his friends, it doesn’t make much sense what Brittany’s saying, about them together, sharing an act in the show.
“He will,” Brittany assures, looking very excited. “We have it all planned. We’re going to have matching suits, and we have even rehearsed it. Lily likes Kurt, and I’ve taught her to do with Kurt, all the tricks I do with her in the show.”
Dave stares at her, still not getting her. They reach the tables and sit down; his mug of coffee is still there but the coffee’s now cold. They are sitting across each other, and Dave can’t stop giving Brittany a confused glance since she’s making no sense.
At some point, she seems to pick up Dave’s puzzled state, because she lets out a sad laugh. “Not now, you silly. Kurt can’t face a crowd now, but when he learns how to, we’ll have our number and it’s going to be amazing.”
A pang of sadness hits Dave’s stomach; Brittany sounds very sure of herself, like she truly believes that Kurt will be able to face such a large crowd. It’s also sad to know that Kurt has very unlikely to happen plans for the future he could not achieve.
It’s not like Dave has no hope in Kurt, but he’s being realistic; after four years of training, Kurt could only learn how to manage to be with three people top close to him. Also, the kid’s afraid to go outside his trailer, so Kurt performing in the open, in front of two hundred people, it not something very likely to happen.
At least not any time soon.
It’s something sad, but Dave doesn’t want to dishearten Brittany, who seems so happy about her and Kurt’s plans for their future act.
“I’m sure it’s going to be amazing,” he humors her, with a kind smile in his face.
“David, I’ve been looking you forever,” Rachel shows up out of nowhere, and her voice sounds preachy. But Dave has also learned not to feel bad about Rachel being preachy; usually, it doesn’t mean that Dave is doing something wrong. Rachel’s incredibly bossy to everyone, so Dave doesn’t take it personally.
“I was just here,” Dave replies.
“No, you weren’t. I just looked for you in here.”
“I just took him to meet Lily personally,” Brittany intercedes. “She gave him a few kisses in his cheek.”
Apparently, this is not something extraordinary for Rachel since she rolls her eyes, sighing like she’s annoyed. “We have some training to do, remember?”
Dave groans. “Can we take one day off?”
“No, we cannot. This is important, David. Up and go,” she orders and reluctantly, Dave gets on his feet, saying waving his hand to Britt.
He follows Rachel to his trailer; on their way, Finn joins them.
Dave hates training. He doesn’t want to believe it’s a waste of time, or that he’s a hopeless case but it really seems that it was. They started with two hours of daily training the following day of the big lunch failure. It consists in him, locked in his trailer with Rachel and whoever is willing and available to spend two whole hours doing absolutely nothing.
Rachel says that it’s all about focusing, and she makes it sound like it’s really simple, but Dave still has no clue about what the hell does focusing actually mean. It’s obviously something easy to say, and maybe also easy to understand but difficult to do. There are no proper instructions or any particular advice; he really doesn’t know what he can do to focus on not cancelling people’s abilities since he doesn’t even know how he cancels people’s abilities in the first place.
Rachel also has a huge perfect plan for his training. She even showed Dave a notepad where she wrote all the steps they have to achieve, or to better say, that Dave has to achieve. The first step, is to ‘unblock her; she calls it that way. According to Rachel, since his ability is cancelling everyone’s powers by default, they have to start little by little, therefore, unblocking one single person.
When he gets to do it with Rachel, they’ll add a new person to unblock, and that way they’ll gradually new people for Dave to unblock at the same time. If things go as Rachel plans, Dave should be able to unblock at first, several individuals at the same time, until he could do it with everyone without even have to think about it. “The same way I don’t get everyone’s thoughts inside my head, or fire doesn’t constantly come out from Finn’s body,” she said that first day of training.
Then, once he achieves unblocking everyone around without doing any effort, the process would be in reverse: he should have to be able to decide who to cancel. “That’s when you truly master your ability, David. You dominate it; it doesn’t dominate you. And in cases like you and me, that our gifts are forced onto people, you get to decide whom you’re going to impose your ability on.”
It sounded easy when Rachel said it, but so far they made no improvements. The guys keep on telling him that it’s too soon to expect some major changes but it doesn’t make Dave feel any better.
“Here we are,” Rachel announces happily when they reach Dave’s trailer and Dave only nods, faintly, opening his door to let his friends in.
He knows that Rachel would be as annoyed as he is, if it wasn’t because she clearly loves her school teacher role. The three of them step inside and as a habit, Dave throws himself back into the bed. Rachel and Finn sit in the banquettes across each other; Finn picks some bad cartoon magazine that Sam got two towns ago, just to kill his time with something.
“Alright, we’ll start now,” Rachel says; suddenly with a serious face, as usual. “Remember, Finn, quiet.”
Finn frowns. “I know what I have to do. I’ll just read some stuff.”
Finn doesn’t have to do anything. The idea of having a third person is for Rachel to have someone’s mind to read in the case that Dave gets to unblock her. Neither William nor Rachel are completely sure about how Dave’s gift works, so they can’t tell if Rachel will be able to read Dave’s mind, if he manages to unblock her.
“Good,” Rachel replies sharply. “Now David, focus.”
Dave sighs, and closed his eyes as usual. Then, he starts repeating to himself: ‘unblock Rachel, unblock Rachel, unblock Rachel,’ over and over. He’s not sure if that’s the way to do it, but he doesn’t know any other way.
And that’s how they spent those hours. He doesn’t know how much time passed when Rachel breaks the silence, snapping at him. “Are you focusing, David?!”
Startled at the sudden break of the silence, Dave stares at her, pissed. “Of course I am.”
“It looked like you fell asleep,” she tells him, sounding upset.
Dave narrows his eyes at her. “Well, I’m not sleeping. I’m focusing, and if you can’t read Finn’s mind so far, it’s not because I’m sleeping, it’s because this is not working.”
Finn stares at him and then at Rachel without opening his mouth and Rachel’s face softens. “I’m sorry, David. I just-”
“You have to be patient,” Finn finally speaks up. “You don’t even imagine how many stuff I set on fire until I learned how to control it. I still feel bad for all the furniture and blankets my mom had to replace due the fires I started,” he says, amused and Dave’s eyes lit up.
He never really asked Finn about his story with his ability, and unlike others, Finn’s mother knows about his gift. Suddenly, Dave’s mind is filled with questions, and an excited grin forms in his face.
“Man, really? But how? I mean, your mother knew, right? What did she say about it?” Dave asks, sitting up straight in his mattress.
Finn smiles, like he has good memories about it. “She freaked at first, but then-”
“Boys, we’re training. You can chat later when we’re done with this; Finn we need Dave to concentrate,” Rachel cuts them off. Finn nods apologetically, and Dave rolls his eyes, laying back in his bed.
“You’re not fun, Rachel,” Dave grumbles.
“This is not about having fun, David,” Rachel tells him, sharply.
Dave rolls his eyes and closes them, going back to his focusing. Nothing happens though. For the following two hours, they remain in silence and Dave doesn’t ever falls asleep just like he doesn’t ever unblocks Rachel.
It’s pretty discouraging. He has to admit they’ve been doing this for a little more three weeks, which is quite a short time so he can’t really expect to be able to control his ability. Before these past three weeks, he didn’t even know he had one.
But even Kurt, who’s the worst at controlling his gift, can achieve to be with three people at the same time without going crazy. Maybe within four years, Dave will be able to unblock three people at the same time…
He’s not focusing, since he’s thinking about Kurt, but suddenly he finds himself wondering is Rachel can see the future if she reads Kurt’s mind. It would be pretty interesting if she could; it would be like having two abilities at once.
“Time’s up,” Rachel finally announces, and Dave and Finn sigh relieved. “We’ll continue tomorrow, alright, David? Don’t let this dishearten you. You’ll be able to doing it when you less expect it,” she assures him, standing up and heading to the door.
Dave smiles at her, since he really appreciates her good spirit and overall her patience. If he was in Rachel’s place, he wouldn’t be so patient. He would have probably smacked himself once or twice by now.
He sits up straight in his bed, still wondering about her and Kurt.
“Do you ever read Kurt’s mind?” Dave asks her, just when she was about to reach the door.
Finn looks at them both, still sitting at the table with the cartoon’s magazine in his hands; Rachel turns around, showing a horrified face. “Oh, God, no. Never.”
Dave frowns. “Why not?”
Rachel stares at him like he can’t believe what he’s saying, but the truth is that Dave has no clue about why reading Kurt’s mind could be so bad.
She walks towards Dave’s bed, sitting down with him. “Because it’s like, horrible. Makes my head hurt.”
Dave keeps on frowning, but he’s quite curious now. “So you’ve tried.”
Rachel rolls her eyes. “Duh, of course!”
“But, did you get to see the future? That’s how it would work, right? Your future is in his mind, so you get to read your own future,” Dave says, assuming it’s that way.
“That’s exactly what I thought at first. But then I tried to,” Rachel says, and shivers like she’s remembering the experience. “Let’s just say that Kurt’s head is a mess.”
Rachel really doesn’t help Dave to grow even more curious. “What did you read?”
“Nothing? Everything? You can’t really see it, David, but in reality, your ability is all over the place; that’s why we’re all cancelled when we’re with you. But then when you train yourself and dominate it, you actually but your ability in order.”
Dave nods slowly, not really understanding where she’s trying to get.
“Just like Rachel, Kurt sees stuff in his head,” Finn intercedes, obviously seeing that Dave doesn’t get it. “Well, Rachel doesn’t see stuff, she hears thoughts. Their abilities work in their minds, so an ability being all over the place means that Kurt’s head is all over the place.”
“Oh,” it’s all that Dave can say. “What did you hear then?”
“His thoughts and my future mixed up,” she explains. “But it was confusing, too confusing; it gave me the worst headache ever. It was like, twenty people yelling at you at the same time which was interesting, since it was just him and me. Then I understood that, his thoughts and my future mixed together in that incredible messy way was actually all that was in Kurt’s head. I could stop reading him, but he couldn’t stop seeing all that stuff together, so I realized how badly he needed to get trained. If my head hurt just by reading his mind a few seconds, I can’t even imagine how he managed to cope with himself having someone around.”
He should stop asking stuff about Kurt, since every time he knows something new about the boy, he feels even worse for him. There’s nothing he much he can do to help Kurt, so at the end of the day, he gets to feel bad for the kid and nothing else.
“But he’s better now, right?”
Finn snorts. “Better? He’s super fine! At first you couldn’t even talk to him,” he says, almost amused. “He couldn’t hold a conversation since he was blurting out your future at the same time.”
What?
“How come?”
“It was like, ‘Hey, Kurt. How are you doing?’ you asked him, and he would reply, ‘I’m okay- Are you going to cook, Finn? Let me help you, you always burn everything,’” Finn snaps suddenly, startling Dave. “‘Oh, Quinn, let me do it! I want lean!’” Finn’s now whining now. “And then he would be back at being himself and continue, ‘How’s the weather outside?”
Dave only blinks. He doesn’t really know how Kurt’s in a regular day, since the two times he got to be with him, he was cancelling his ability so Kurt wasn’t seeing any future.
“Finn, don’t be an insensitive jerk!” Rachel tells him sternly.
“Hey, it’s not bad to find some humor in sad things, alright?” Finn defends himself, and then his attention goes back to Dave. “But it was like that.”
Woah, Dave wasn’t expecting that, so he looks at Rachel, and Rachel shrugs apologetically, confirming Finn’s words.
“Jesus,” Dave breathes out.
“And if you let him continue, he got like really carried away, and he even stood up and moved around and acting all the conversations he was seeing in his head, like he was possessed by all the people that were in your future. It was insane,” Finn tells him, almost amazed and Dave can’t really think about that as something amazing.
Rachel shows a sympathetic smile. “He’s much better than when he first joined us, that’s for sure. It’s hard for him but he learned how to focus,” she says, giving him a stern glare. “His head is still a mess when there are people around though. He just learned to ignore it.”
“You’ve seen it?”
“Yes, but just a few times. Just to see how was he handling it; the last time, I was with him, Santana and Sebastian. I got so dizzy I had to run out not to throw up in his trailer,” Rachel replies, blushing and Finn laughs at her.
“That’s what you get for being so nosy,” Finn tells her and she glares at him.
“I really admire him,” Rachel continues, ignoring Finn’s remark. “It takes him quite a lot of effort to be able to follow a conversation while he’s at the same time seeing a bunch of images of the future in his head, but now he does it, naturally. And it’s not because he controls it, it’s because he ignores it but it doesn’t mean that the mess is still there. That’s why he sleeps so much.”
Dave sighs, really trying to figure out how he can help this kid. He can cancel him so…
“Why don’t you put my trailer next to his? I’d be cancelling all time, and he wouldn’t have to go through so much trouble every time you go to see him.”
He sees Rachel and Finn exchanging a quick look. “He doesn’t want that,” Finn tells him.
Dave feels a little rejected. It’s fine if Kurt doesn’t like him, after all they hardly know each other. But in spite of Kurt’s weirdness, Dave is somewhat fond of him unlike Kurt that seems not to like him.
“He doesn’t have anything against you, man,” Finn says, and Dave blinks trying to look like he doesn’t really care since his displeasure at Kurt’s rejection it showed a lot.
“It’s really fine.”
Rachel sighs. “He doesn’t want to get used to you,” she says quietly. “He says he can’t rely on your ability to cope with his. He has to learn for himself, and you might not be around forever.”
Dave groans, sick of it. “He’s with that too? I’m not going to leave!”
“Also, it’s because his visions strike him harder when you’re not around,” Rachel explains, making him frown.
“I’m never around him.”
“You’ve been twice,” Finn reminds him, and Dave doesn’t think those times are a big deal, since the first time Kurt was a mess and they barely interact in a very awkward way, and the second time they didn’t even speak to each other.
“So?”
“So when you left, or he left, once you stop cancelling the visions struck him harder than usual,” Rachel tells him, and then she presses her lips together like she’s thinking. “I don’t know why yet, I think he gets used to you and forgets to put some resistance to the future, but I’ve been there and I saw him.”
Dave stares at her, frowning. “What happened?”
Rachel shrugs, as if there was not a lot to explain but Dave is clueless so he wants to know. “It was like in the old times; the future wrapped him up, he couldn’t get out from it. I had to do a lot of yelling and shaking to force him to step out of it.”
Dave shouldn’t ask any more stuff about Kurt; everything he gets to know is bad, Dave gets to feel really sorry for him and it’s not like he can do much about it, so why should he bother?
“Can we go back to the camp?” Dave asks, changing the topic of conversation since it’s pointless to keep on speaking about Kurt.
His friends nod, and Dave exhales relieved. He should stop talking about Kurt, since apparently they are not even meant to stick around; Kurt has his reasons to never want him around, so the chances of them getting to know each other, at least a little are narrow. Dave got to know that Kurt wasn’t the last member joining the circus, so new people adapted and became friends with him. It seems that Dave won’t have the same luck, and maybe that’s good.
Scratch ‘maybe’.
Dave is comfortable where he is; every day in the circus makes him feel more and more at home. He doesn’t feel like he’s the new one or the stranger anymore; he’s one of the group, and he likes that. He has great friends, a great job and now he even has money in his pocket.
They head to the camp, just to catch their friends coming back from Atlantic City. They are all carrying lots of bags, looking excited. The whole circus crew ends up gathered in the middle of the camp, right where they have dinner and lunch together.
“I swear, Atlantic City is almost like a big city,” Santana states, placing her shopping bags on the table. “Brittany! Brit! Look what I’ve got!”
Sebastian rolls his eyes. “We should do all boys, all girls sightseeing,” he says, sitting at the table and taking a bunch of records out of his shopping bags and handing them to Sam and Noah, who look excited at their new music.
Santana starts showing Britt a brand new dress that she purchased, as Tina and Mercedes take out of their bags a couple of pairs of shoes. “Don’t be annoying, Seb,” Tina tells him, showing off her new shoes. “We didn’t take that long.”
Sebastian gapes at the girls. “You spent at least an hour trying out shoes! And by the way, San, Atlantic City is a big city.”
Santana snorts. “It’s not New York.”
“New York is not that great,” he muffles, and Dave remembers that Sebastian was born and raised in New York, so obviously for him it’s not anything amazing.
Mike and Artie purchased clothes, and records as well, plus some board games and books to keep themselves entrained in the camp. They also bought different housing stuff, some blankets, tooth paste, combs, a couple of gas lanterns and flashlights. And of course, food.
Dave is pretty excited about going to Atlantic City tomorrow. His friends look excited, and they did some seriously nice shopping. While Mike tells them about an Ice Cream parlor they definitely have to go to, Dave sits down with his friends, taking a look to his surroundings.
This are going remarkably well for him; Dave has almost forgotten about all the troubles he had to face in the past. For the first time, things are going well, and even if that makes him smile, he sometimes wonders if this is just a big dream, or how long this is going to last.
Dave got quickly used to this sweet life, but he’s aware that good things never last, at least not for him and he’s not even used to get good things. This is too good. He doesn’t want to be pessimistic, and the truth is that the circus has been travelling around the country for years, so there’s no reason to believe that it will suddenly vanish. Dave is safe here.
Dave sighs, and smiles. Things are good, and hopefully they’ll remain good.