So this is super heavily based on The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and if you haven't read it you will be confused as heck
The Night Circus. It is quite the event. Full of magic and wonder and fascinating dreamlike exhibitions of beauty and love.
Of course, Robin liked to be s e e n as nothing but a simple stage magician with smoke and mirrors. In reality he could easily conjure storms and hurricanes with a click of his heels or snap of his fingers. Not that many people knew about those powers, though.
On the other hand, his lover enemy was a blatant showoff, preferring to amuse his own audiences with smoke he plucked from the air. Alternatively, he'd show them the magical fires he could seamlessly create and destroy in mere moments of blazing afterimages. Arrogant, cocky, and handsome, Roy was a "smug son-of-a-bitch".
He infuriates me. Robin would thoughtfully muse to himself.
Roy rather enjoyed having his pyromaniacal powers visible and known by the public. He basked in the looks of wonder and amazement that his viewers wore, in stark contrast to the hasty thunder-jolt that was Robin.
He considered his soulmate adversary to be an overly timid being. Fearful and withdrawn, unable to display his true strength without his anxiety dragging angrily at his worn and ripped coattails. He had the power to shuffle a deck of cards, turn them all into the Aces of Spades before everyone's eyes, and then turn them blank before smiling as they would all vanish a moment later. He could do this just as easily as he could create a tempest, as easily as Roy could breathe. Robin was the epitome of an "overly-cautious, easily-frightened, and incredibly cute...somebody".
(Truth be told, they were both schooled in multiple forms of magic, it simply was that Roy preferred to show raw power versus the simple parlour tricks that Robin rather liked.)
Quite a mystery, that Robin. Roy would've tonelessly and flatly said.
It was quite the meeting of the minds upon discovery.
"I suppose you're his student then?" He questioned with a tilt of his blazing hair.
"Quite possibly. Are you my counterpart?" Murmured the snow-haired boy.
"I guess so."
"Good luck..." Robin had whispered, yet Roy had already ran off.
"Oh. Hello again," Robin had whispered after running into the enigma that was Roy after ten long years. Ten years of stained ink and flinch filled days.
Roy blinked and let out a surprised, "Hm," before responding. "Hello. It's nice to see you."
"You...what?" Whispered the startled and swan-feathered male.
Carefully enunciating, his crimson dyed companion spoke, "Nice. To. See. You."
"I just didn't expect-"
"Pleasantries from your victim or murderer?"
"I suppose that's...one way to phrase it."
Conspiratorially, Roy leaned in and whispered, "Between you and me and all our eavesdroppers, I'd rather win without spilling blood, now."
Robin nodded and replied in his usual hushed and hard-to-hear tone. "I was never one for violence."
"Really?"
"...well, yes." Robin shrugged before inquiring, "And you?"
A silence. Then a reply followed with a resigned sigh. "I do what's necessary."
The silence lingered while their shadows lengthened against the street they stood beside. Hesitantly, Robin uncrosses his arms and slowly draws back the glove on his left hand. Roy raises a single red eyebrow. Curious yet intimidating, a sparrow eying its next meal.
Robin inhales and raises his hand tentatively to show the scar on his index finger. It gleams a vague, barely visible dull silver in the twilight. He closes his eyes...
...only to open them in shock to find that Roy had pulled back his own left glove and revealed his own index finger, shining with the same strange glow, yet more gold in hue. Not only has he truly revealed and proved his identity, he accepts the other's as well.
Robin slowly exhaled. "Thank you."
For once, Roy was startled. "Whatever for?"
"I'm quite sure you know."
The Night Circus.
It's a stage of sorts. One where either of the two magicians could freely display their talents in different tents. With carefully crafted illusory effects or simple demonstrations of the sheer beauty of magic, they would be compared and contrasted by their awed audiences.
Behind the curtains, the pair was guided by another pair, a pair that played games and wagered the lives of others in order to establish dominance. The mages were tasked with killing each other, and yet neither wished to follow through.
Nonetheless, it was a stage, a stage like any other stage, a stage where shows were performed. Whether it was the audience of the hidden pair or the audience that clamored at the gates before sundown, they would receive a show. A good show.
The Night Circus is of the travelling sort.
The stage has stretched, beginning in lovely London and twirling around the globe. Sometimes it would visit the exotics of Asia and Africa, or land briefly in enchanting Europe and touching down occasionally in the Americas.
For the spectators, the circus tents were the cornerstones of mystique and wonder.
For the proxies, the tents became elaborately crafted and subtly designed battlefields. It began the day after they had met at sixteen and rashly displayed their scars.
The bulk of their fights were displayed in one particularly interesting exhibit. A series of tents that became something known only as "The Labyrinth". These tents (while only encompassing a very small number of the total in the circus) were completely blank slates from the start, their walls meant to be imparted upon by the proxies. On the very first night, Robin boldly paints the walls of the first tent with vivid lightning bolts and gales of soothing winds.
"Perhaps it could be a bit more inviting, if it is to be the first room of this strange conglomerate." Robin turned to see the twenty-six year old pyromancer stride in and watch as he continued to carefully set more and more electricity through the air, causing his white hair to begin sticking upwards like a globular halo.
"I rather like it." Replies the artist with a touch of defiance and a blossom of confidence he lacked ten years earlier.
The next day, the second room is completed as well. Robin steps inside to take a peek before he makes his own move. It starts out as a vague tint of yellow before evolving into a lovely and vibrant shade of lavender with hints of vermillion at the ends.
"I have stepped into a flower." He says to the empty-yet sweet-smelling-air. It's a strange room, simple in concept yet grandiose when experienced. It makes the stormcaller feel...inadequate, insignificant.
Almost immediately he begins work on the third room.
The puppeteer behind one of the marionettes is furious once he discovers the rebelliously turned seventh tent into a masterpiece mockery.
It's merely a tent on the outside, yet the inside is a culmination of strange dreams and an unaccounted variable.
Robin's mentor finds him lying on the top floor of an entire castle constructed of stained glass that radiated serenity and cohesive existence. He gracefully stands up, his snow-white hair bouncing with the motion. "I didn't expect to see you here."
"What the hell are you doing?! Collaboration will only result in your ruin! If you have any desire to live in that empty head of yours, you would've realized that by now."
Gepetto is furious with Pinocchio, and he remains rather unfazed as he is screamed at.
A blink of his amber, unhollow eyes is the only response received. The master stops all of a sudden mid-rant and leans forwards. He smells the scent of smoke on his hurricane of a student and immediately slaps him for it.
Robin's hand jumps upwards almost immediately to gently probe for serious injury. Finding none, he lets his hand drop to his side. "I'm quite afraid that I do."
"This will only make your task harder," he warns, "This has to stop if you are to win."
Robin says nothing as his master turns on his heel and exits the labyrinth. As soon as the sound of his footfalls disappear, the illusionist sinks to the ground and lets out a hoarse sob.
"We need to talk." Robin says in greeting the second they arrive inside Roy's apartment, finality and weariness weighing down on him.
Roy blinks and immediately pulls him into an embrace. "Tell me what's wrong," he soulfully whispers into the other's shoulder.
Robin reluctantly pushes him away and shamefully looks downwards. "Stop. Just stop. It's better for both of us."
"What? I don't understand-"
"Just leave me alone. In the end, one of us will die. Don't make it worse for yourself by loving me before I'm gone."
For the second time that day, Robin is slapped on the cheek, albeit with less force. He still flinches.
"Idiot. I'd just follow suit if you went and killed yourself." Roy forcefully replies, his voice rough and layered with the slightest hint of anger. His vibrant blue eyes glimmer with fear and touches of determination. And warmth.
"Don't-" The swan starts before being cut off by a kiss from the cardinal. His eyes widen in shock before he (regretfully) kisses back.
They pull apart, one with tears in his eyes and the other with a hand over his mouth. "It's too late," the former grimly replies, "I love you too much to let you do this."
"Then what do we do? It's not like we can run away…"Robin counters with a tone of helplessness as he holds Roy's hand.
The pyromancer rolls his eyes and eloquently mutters, "Who the fuck cares?" Before he leans in for another kiss, this one being hot and heavy, the weight of his affection pushing behind it.
Pulling away, the stormcaller gasps for air and uselessly whispers, "We shouldn't…"
"Do you want me to stop?"
"...no."
Roy wakes up to find himself on the floor while holding Robin. I've no regrets. He thinks doubtlessly.
Slowly, the male in his arms blearily blinks and smiles at him. "I love you."
Roy only responds by kissing his forehead. "They'll hate us so much. But I don't care what they think right now."
"Me neither."
They lie in silence, trying to stretch out the feeling of afterglow.
"We'll have to face the music eventually."
"I know."
Minutes pass. Finally, Robin gently extricates himself from the now-asleep Roy and wearily dresses. He kisses the redhead for what he hopes isn't the last time and leaves.
Almost immediately his instructor falls into step beside him. "I told you to stop." He mutters darkly.
"Apologies, then." Is the audacious reply.
They meet again at midnight on the next day inside the Château de la Sérénité. Roy waits patiently inside one of the inner rooms, mostly obscured by the opaque dusty rose glass that makes up most of the Château's walls.
"Roy!" Sings the swan once he finds the cardinal.
He thinly smiles back and weakly returns the embrace before sighing deeply. "I...I have a plan."
"What is it?"
"I...I'll trap myself inside a fire. I'll be unable to continue, and there is a…a chance I will not be dead."
Abruptly, Robin pulls away, shock mingling with helplessness marred his face. "Roy, you can't-"
"We don't have a choice, and I'd much rather off myself then let you live with the guilt of killing me instead." He gently explains.
"I don't understand...first you tell me not to do this, now you're doing it? Why?" The stormcaller sharply questions.
Uncomfortably, Roy swallows and weakly replies, "I cannot bear to stay afloat if you sink into the earth."
"Nor can I."
Abruptly, Roy stands and runs, half out of fear and half out of determination.
Robin follows, both of them running at top speed until they reach the roof.
He runs to try and knock Roy to the ground, to try to stop him from leaving him.
He turns and smiles as the first few flames begin to bloom from his feet and sear upwards along his clothes.
Robin screams as he pushes him out of the center of the inferno.
Time freezes in that moment as they both begin to fatally burn up. Robin laughs soundlessly as he promises, "I would follow you to the ends of the world."
Roy doesn't hear anything. All he can see behind the veil of smoke and ashes flying upwards is the smile of a dying swan. He feels himself holding onto the other's fading body as they both fall backwards through the fire.
Hours later when the fire finally dies down, all that remains is a pile of smoldering ashes and a rose-colored glass heart atop a similarly colored castle.
Well holy mother of god this was awesome to write. And kinda my first actually really long fic that I really like and I personally think turned out really well.
I hope you enjoyed it.