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Efron retrouvé dans l'ombre

Summary:

Setting: Europe, 1890s. The two travel as part of a touring performance troupe — a magician and a mortician-turned-illusionist’s aide. Back alleys, packed theatres, corrupt officials, and revolutions echo in the distance. Same danger. No manor.

Notes:

I have a lot planned for this hah.

Chapter 1: Setting Stage

Chapter Text

The rain fell in sheets outside the carriage, blurring the flickering gaslights of the narrow streets.

The city was unfamiliar, nameless in Efron’s mind, like so many others they’d passed through. A place to perform, to collect their pay, to leave before dawn if they were lucky.

Lucky to be together. And alive, at that.

Inside the carriage, Servais sat across from him, undoing the top button of his vest with one hand, the other brushing soot from his sleeve. His gloves were soaked, hanging from the cabin hook like dead birds. He felt too stiff with his corset on.

“Did you notice the inspector in the front row?” Servais asked casually. His breaths were a bit tight.

Efron leaned back, arms crossed, eyes sharp. “Too stiff to clap. Looked at us like he was memorizing the act instead of enjoying it…” he muttered, not looking at his companion.

“Because he was.” Servais looked up, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, but not reaching his eyes. “Word is spreading again…” he added quickly.

“About us?” Efron asked, though he already knew. They always were talking about the two.

“About you,” Servais corrected. “They don’t like a man who touches the dead so well. They say it invites the wrong spirits…” he whispered. A bit annoyed in his fast paced tone.

Efron’s expression hardened. “Let them talk. I’d rather raise a corpse than shake a nobleman’s hand”. A firm tone as he spoke.

Servais chuckled, low and quiet. “So dramatic.. my my.”

“You didn’t deny the rest,” Efron said, voice softer now, searching. Rolling his eyes at the hypocrisy of the magician before him.

There was a long pause. The only sound was the rhythmic clatter of wheels over cobblestone. The horses’ hooves clapping against the ground.

Then, with precise, practiced grace, Servais leaned forward. He reached out slowly, letting the back of his fingers skim along Efron’s jaw. A gesture almost too intimate for this dim, moving carriage. His eyes searching.

“I don’t need to deny anything,” he murmured. “You’re the only truth I haven’t staged…” he whispered.

Efron’s breath caught.

“Then why do I still feel like we’re hiding in the wings of your show?” he whispered in return. His breaths came out a bit hasty.

Servais didn’t answer at first. Just sat back slowly, retreating to his usual mask. “Because we are. And if they catch wind of it; us- we’ll be torn from each other like a rigged curtain drop.” He muttered.

Efron’s fingers twitched, as if to reach for him, but stopped. “So what? We keep running?”

“No,” Servais said. “We keep performing.”

Chapter 2: Misdirection

Summary:

Efron & Servais, hiding in a rough European city while performing with a traveling troupe, sense growing danger.

They learn inspectors are watching their performances, possibly suspecting not just their illusions, but their hidden relationship!

They argue over whether to keep performing or flee. Efron wants safety and certainty!

Notes:

I had inspiration today let’s gooo I hope nothing big in my life happens. Ao3 curse.

Chapter Text

The next city was worse. Filth in the gutters. Guards on every corner. The posters were already up by the time they arrived—Servais Le Roy: The Conjurer of Smoke and Death. A sold-out week at the Grand Opera.

It was risky. Their duo was off-putting to the common folk. And that was regardless of their romantic tension.

But in the alley behind the theatre, as stagehands scrambled and costumers screamed, Efron leaned against the brick wall, arms folded. His eyes in avoidance of Servais’.

“They posted a watch on the tent,” he said when Servais joined him, coat flaring with every step. “Not one of ours…” he muttered, voice still and deep.

“Then we give them something to watch.” Servais drew a small silver chain from his pocket—a locket, old and worn. He placed it in Efron’s hand. “Inside’s a map. My old escape route. Used it during the revolution in Lyon.” He teases.

Efron opened it. “Why give me this?”, he asks, his face dropping in bemusement when he saw the picture of Mr. Whiskers.

Clearly, important. But not nearly the level that Servais built up.

“In case the curtain falls early.” Servais’s smile was sad. “In case I vanish and it isn’t part of the act.”

Efron closed the locket tightly, his voice low, rough. “I’d rather burn the theatre down than leave you behind….” He snapped a bit. Hungered eyes piercing through Servais.

“And I’d rather die onstage than in some prison cell for loving you,” Servais said simply. “So we’ll keep performing. Smoke. Mirrors. Misdirection. Until we can vanish for real.”

And somewhere inside that vow, under that oil-slick sky, they held onto each other for just a second too long…

Long enough to be dangerous.

The city crawled beneath them. From the upper floor of the boarding house, Efron could see the rows of crooked chimneys puffing out their filth into the black sky. Somewhere down below, someone was playing a violin badly, and a group of drunkards argued in clipped, unfamiliar dialect. It smelled of horses, wet iron, and the kind of quiet danger that made him sleep with a blade under the pillow…

Servais always made fun of him for it.

Servais stood at the window in his shirt, coat long since discarded, cigarette between his fingers as the smoke curled lazily upward. His foot dancing in an anxious rhythm.

“They’re posting up by the theatre again.”

Efron didn’t respond. He was sprawled on the bed behind him, boots still on, fingers folded across his chest. He didn’t need to look to know Servais was already calculating; routes, identities, consequences. His body twisting to its side to catch a glimpse of the other.

“How long do you think we have?” Efron asked finally.

“Three days. Maybe less. Depends if they check the inn registry.” He jitters out. Nervousness laying upon the surface.

Efron sat up and swung his legs off the bed. “We should go before the end of the week.”

“And leave the contract unfinished?” Servais turned to him, brow lifted. Eyes glancing off to the side. Clearly, not anxious enough, when it involved money.

“You want to stay for a few more shows?”

“I want the money,” Servais said flatly. “We need it. I can’t eat off trust alone.”

Efron rose. “It’s not the money they’re after. You think they’ll care about receipts once they see you vanish into a wall and I’m the one left standing in the dark with smoke on my collar?” He snapped. His voice booming within their space.

Servais took a long drag from the cigarette, his eyes tired.

“You’re afraid,” he said, not unkindly. A damned hypocrite.

“No,” Efron said, voice low. “I’m prepared…unlike you”. He added. Realizing the terse tone and softening.

Efron was not mean. No. He was protective. And Servais Le Roy had no greater enemy than himself.

A long silence followed. The kind that lived between them often, like a stray animal neither of them could bring themselves to chase off. Weak. Helpless.

Efron moved toward him, slow and deliberate. He took the cigarette from Servais’s fingers and set it on the windowsill to die. Looking into his eyes, his own hands cradling the nape of his neck.

“I’m not asking you to stop performing. I’m asking you to stop making me watch you disappear without knowing if you’ll come back…” he whispered. A softness only Servais bore witness too like a welcome friend.

Servais didn’t meet his gaze at first. Fear and worry laced his eyes.

Then he turned, reached up, and rested his hand lightly against Efron’s jaw.

“I’ve never left you.”

“Not yet,” Efron said. “But all your tricks have endings…” he said sharply.

“Not this one,” Servais murmured, his gaze now mingling with Efron’s.

He stepped in close, closing the space between them as simply as drawing a curtain. His forehead pressed to Efron’s, and for a moment the city outside didn’t exist. Just warmth. Breath. A pulse between ribs that answered the other. Softness twinging between them.

Efron’s fingers curled into the back of his shirt. “When we run, I want it to be for good.”

“Then let’s not run,” Servais whispered. “Let’s vanish.”

Chapter Text

The Grand Opera House roared with applause as Servais Le Roy stepped into the spotlight, shadowed only by the faint silhouette of Efron Weisz behind the curtain. Plumes of smoke danced around Servais’s feet, catching the amber gaslight and twisting like ghosts.

His coat gleamed with embroidered stars. His gloves, new and white, would be stained with ash by the end of the act; as they always were. And always would be.

He raised his arms, “Tonight,” he said, voice clear as a bell and sharp as a blade, “I will make Death himself vanish.” He began to turn in a circle as he spoke. Listening to the tremble of the uproar.

The crowd erupted again, but in the back rows, beneath civilian clothing and powdered wigs, were men with stiff collars and cold eyes. Watchers. Lawmen. Bureau agents. They weren’t here for the show.

They were here for the truth behind it. The truth behind these two unruly men.

——————

Backstage, Efron adjusted the ropes of the disappearing cabinet. Every bolt had been oiled, every trap checked twice. He knew this act by heart; he’d built it. The cabinet would burst into flame. Servais would vanish. And if the timing was right, he’d emerge through the trap door at the orchestra pit and flee out the side doors disguised as a violinist.

They could not have the mistake of John.

Which, was also being investigated among the allegations.

Efron would be gone before the smoke cleared. But tonight, there was no plan for return.

“Efron.”

He turned. Servais stood before him, head tilted slightly, the faintest crease in his brow.

“Once we step into this,” Servais said, “there’s no curtain call. No encore…” he said sharply. Almost…disappointed.

Efron looked at him hard. “I never wanted the spotlight. Just you…” he said.

And just for a moment, amid sawdust and perfume and a thousand watching eyes beyond the stage wall, Servais closed the distance. He didn’t kiss him. Not here. Not now. He couldn’t. Though, his lips burned in anticipation.

But his hand grazed Efron’s as he passed him the smoke vial, and the touch said what lips never could:
I’ll meet you on the other side.

—-

Gas lamps flared above, casting golden halos along the curtains. The audience rippled in whispers and shifting silks. Officials in uniform sat stiffly in the balcony, pretending to be at ease. Their eyes were not on the stage props or the swirling smoke.

They were on him.

Servais smiled.

“I dedicate tonight’s illusion to the men who watch us,” he said, bowing low. “The ones who mistake silence for weakness, shadows for sin.”

Efron’s stomach tightened. A sickness settling just above the surface. Enough to make itself known.

Behind the curtains, he was already in motion. Ropes were tested. Trapdoors checked. He had hidden two sets of clothes beneath the false stage and a pouch of silver in a hollowed-out speaker stand.

Tonight, they wouldn’t just vanish…They would leave.

For real.

The trick began.

Flames danced across the velvet-draped cabinet. The crowd gasped as the smoke thickened, swallowing the magician whole. One beat. Two.

Gone.

The audience applauded.

But something was off.

The cabinet door swung open too fast. The ropes above groaned unnaturally. And instead of gasping at the illusion, the crowd’s attention turned; to the wings, to the shadows.

The men in the back rows stood up.

One shouted, “SEIZE HIM!”

Efron heard it before he saw them; the boots, the draw of pistols, the heavy movement through the backstage corridors.

“Shit,” he breathed, bolting down the trapdoor.

But Servais wasn’t there. He wasn’t in the orchestra pit.

He wasn’t anywhere.

He ran. Through the belly of the opera house. Past dancers in half-costume, past terrified assistants scattering like doves from a cage. His hand clutched the locket hard enough to bruise. Chest heaving with each foot beat.

A shout rang out. “Efron Weisz! Surrender yourself!”

He pushed through a door into the alley. Cold night air slammed into his lungs. And standing there, by the back of a soot-covered cart with two horses and a stolen conductor’s baton tucked behind his ear—

Was Servais.

“I told you I vanish best under pressure,” he smirked, swinging himself into the front of the cart. “You coming?”

Efron didn’t answer.

He just ran, jumped the step, and kissed him hard, reckless and breathless, before snatching the reins and cracking them once. Their breath mingling.

They vanished down the alleyway in a blur of hoofbeats and laughter and sparks in the dark.

Servais couldn’t help but look back. Having lost his first ever love in that moment.

Magic. And adoration.

Slowly, his body turned right once more. Eyes falling upon Efron. Would this be worth it?

-
Then Servais, breathless, turned to him and smiled, “I thought you hated horses.”

“I hate dying more.”

Servais’s laugh broke the silence like glass.

“I was thinking,” he said after a beat, “Florence. Or Constantinople. Somewhere with too many people and not enough law.”

Efron didn’t look away from the road.

“As long as they don’t know our names.”

“They won’t.”

Servais leaned back, exhaling slow, eyes on the stars.

“Then let’s become someone else…” he whispers.

Chapter 4: The City without a Name

Summary:

Efron and Servais arrive in Trieste, a foggy coastal city, to hide and start over again. For now.
They check into a modest inn and avoid attention, knowing they have little time before they’re discovered.

The stress of constantly running weighs on Efron, who voices his exhaustion and desire to simply live without lies.

Notes:

Sorry. I got very unwell.

Chapter Text

They reached the sea by nightfall.

The salty smell stung their eyes and nose.

Trieste was built like a maze of stone and fog, pressed hard against the Adriatic like it was hiding from the rest of the continent. And perhaps it was. It felt like shame.

Sailors moved like ghosts on the dock. Market stalls were covered in damp cloth. Cats prowled rooftops like sentries. Meowing passing by as a cat stalked for an unattended fish.

Efron pulled the cloak tighter around his shoulders as they stepped off the train cart that hadn’t fully stopped. The platform was unguarded, except for a blind man playing the violin for coins that never came. Silence otherwise. The creaking of the dock and the distant crashing waves the only accompanying sound.

They didn’t speak as they walked.

A new city meant a new version of themselves
- - …

The inn was three floors above a dying apothecary. The mattress sagged like a trapdoor. The walls were yellowed from old smoke. But the lock worked, and the window faced the alley. Though, could they complain? For right now, it was a sanctuary.

Efron dropped the bag on the floor and rubbed his eyes. “We have maybe a week before they know we’re here.” He mutters. A waved hand in silence.

“I sent the carriage down the coast,” Servais said, peeling off his gloves. “They’ll follow the wrong trail.”

“They always follow the right one eventually.” He snapped back immediately.

Servais turned, walked to him, and gently undid the clasp at Efron’s neck. “Then we vanish again.” He said in a hopeful tone. Quelling that misdirected anger.

Efron’s jaw tensed, but he let Servais remove the cloak. His fingers brushed the back of his neck; soothing, habitual, familiar. His thumbs brushing into his soft skin.

“We can’t keep living like this,” Efron muttered. Agitation masking fear.

Servais didn’t stop undressing him. “We are not living. We are surviving…” he whispered into a kiss.

Efron sat down heavily on the bed, elbows on knees, staring at the floor.

“What if I don’t want to be someone else anymore?” he asked quietly. “What if I just want to be Efron? No masks. No games.” He said. Not responding to the gesture.

Servais knelt in front of him, hands resting on his thighs. His eyes were darker here, under the dull lantern light. His voice was quiet.

“Then we make a place where Efron gets to exist.” Servais spoke up.

“Where?” He asked. Scared.

“Here. If only for a night.” Servais replies, quickly.

— . . .

They undressed slowly, not like men running for their lives; but like men who’d forgotten what safety felt like, trying to remember. Each other.

Servais soon hoped that Efron realized he was home.

The bed creaked beneath them. The noise of the city faded. Servais’s hands were careful. Efron’s were shaking. Silence as servais’ own met them. A soft tangle of passion as his leg dragged up and between efron’s thighs. An impassioned night together.

It wasn’t lust. It wasn’t escape.

It was the quiet act of remembering they were real.

Bodies pressed together in silence, sharing breath like a confession. Servais kissed the scar beneath Efron’s collarbone like it was a name no one else had ever said aloud. His bites were tender and spaced out.

And when they laid still afterward, skin against skin, breath slowing, neither spoke.

Because there was nothing to say that hadn’t already passed between them.

- - - …
Dawn crept through the cracked shutters. Lacing each piece of furniture and blanket in the room.

Efron stirred first, propping himself up on one elbow. His eyes sticking shut from sleep before he gazed down upon Servais.

Servais’s back rose and fell in slow rhythm beside him. He looked younger in sleep. Less like a man who’d made people believe in magic and more like a boy who used to believe in it himself.

Efron reached for the locket on the nightstand. Opened it…

Servais was his home. Wasn’t he?

Chapter 5: A Quiet Betrayal

Summary:

You will see.

Notes:

i have been so unwell. but i had inspiration for this.

Chapter Text

The fog over Trieste hung heavy, much like a blanket that felt far too warm. Like it wanted to press the city into silence. Muffled over like a quiet threat.

Efron stood at the harbor rail, his coat damp, staring at the black waters. They lapped against the concrete before rescinding. Ships swayed in the distance, faint creaks could be heard all around, while lanterns were bobbing like ghosts.

He couldn’t see their faces anymore, but he felt them; the watchers, the inspectors, the endless shadow of being followed…

Behind him, Servais’s footsteps were soft but certain. They had a purposed, that wasn’t mistaken.

“You slipped out without me,” he said. A bit hurt, brows furrowed in contemplation.

Efron didn’t turn. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“You never can.” Servais shot back.

And for a long time, they stood in silence, broken only by the creak of ropes and the groan of the sea. Which was far from welcoming. But what was?

Efron finally spoke, low and rough. “I can’t keep doing this.”

Servais’ blood ran cold. The very meaning of ‘this’ worried him to ask, so for now he tilted his head, his voice quiet. “Doing what?”

“Running. Pretending. Waiting for the day I disappear for good—It’s worse than dying.” it sounded defeated— resigned.

“You think dying would hurt me less?”, a scoff. The idea alone insulted him. Servais’ words cut sharp, but his eyes softened. “Efron, you are the only real thing I have. Without you, all I am is—“ his head shook a bit as his hand did a useless gesture into the wind.

Efron wanted to believe it. He wanted to, more than anything- But this weight inside him wouldn’t lift. Not even by Servais.

“You’ll survive me,” he whispered. “You always do.”

Two nights later, the performance was sold out within the local theater. Small, quaint, and only heard of by word of mouth.

The theatre house glowed with golden lamps, buzzing just softly to remind it was still a quaint building.

Servais dazzled the crowd with fire and mirrors, smoke and shadows. But when it came time for the final act; the vanishing cabinet… Efron wasn’t at his post.

Silence fell over the crowd. Servais as well.

The cue rang twice. The cabinet stood, waiting… The audience leaned forward. Servais’s smile did not falter, though his heart seized. His eyes darting to and fro.

He opened the door himself; empty.

The smoke curled, but no figure emerged…

The audience applauded anyway, assuming it part of the trick. They clapped as Servais bowed, alone in the light. His hand trembling.

Backstage, his chest ached when he saw it, on the table where Efron should have been was the torn locket. A note lay in his place, brief as a blade:

If I stay, they’ll take us both. Better one ghost than two…

Servais sank into the chair, the deliberate roar of applause bleeding through the walls, his hands trembling for the first time in years. Without the other’s hand to hold in comfort. For the first time in… forever.

His eyes were boring holes into the worn velvet curtain. Tears threatening to leave their place.

Servais sank into the chair; alone at last. His Efron was gone, and the world caved in with him.

Chapter 6: Two

Summary:

… I am so sorry.

If it helps, I cried writing it.

Notes:

CW// SUICIDE MENTION, DESCRIPTIVE LOSS

Chapter Text

Chapter I – The Vanishing Act

(Servais Perspective…)

The house was too quiet. Even the floorboards had stopped their protesting.

The lamps gave off a sort of pale, sickly glow that refused to reach the corners of the room, shadowing bearing their fangs at each point; and the air smelled faintly of the dust, the kind of stillness that comes before grief knows it’s loss.

Servais stood there for a long while, staring at the paper left on the table.

It trembled slightly in the current from the cracked window, as if still alive. His eyes fixing on it far too long.

His body clinging to the moment. The moment he knew Efron was still alive.

Efron’s handwriting; graceful, slanted, far too calm— practiced, even.

He could see him now, sitting exactly here, bent over the page with that same quiet resolve he wore before walking into a tank of water. The other always went silent when writing. And he’d hush Servais, who talked too much to hear his better half’s plea for momentary silence.

Forgive me, Servais. I can’t keep you waiting in this half-light any longer. I’ll be where the water is still…

What?

His eyes dragged across the words—over and over, until they blurred into a single line, black and endless. Tears abandoned his eyes as his breath was lost in his chest.

He read them again, again, as if somewhere between the loops of ink Efron might have left a secret: a place, a promise, a way to follow—a sign.

But there was nothing, just the faint indentation of the pen’s pressure, the faintest echo of a hand that once trembled against his. He always had such a heavy hand…

The world began to shrink. Suffocating Servais to a point where he was swallowed by it.

The room tilted. His breath grew shallow, as though he too were underwater now, waiting for the cue to rise. He felt, all of a sudden, the ground against his knees and hands. A heaved gag as he wrenched himself forward.

No. That wasn’t fair.

The were mean to disappear together!

He thought of the tank. The blue light. The way Efron’s skin looked beneath the glass, almost silver, almost holy.—

Another gag.

He thought of the towels waiting backstage, of the quiet laughter they shared every night— and the taste of whiskey on trembling lips.

He thought of how alive Efron always was, how life itself seemed to bend for him, light seemed to follow, and how the water clung to his clothes as if even it could not bear to let him go…

Like Servais couldn’t.

But now—he was gone?

It couldn’t—

A sound escaped Servais’s throat, soft and small, the kind of sound made by a man who has forgotten how to weep properly. A nearly childlike wail as one hand came to his mouth.

His knees gave way before his will could stop them.

He pressed the letter to his chest until it wrinkled, until the ink bled into his fingers like veins. Fingers wrenching the paper into a ball. As if it was a wad of paper and not the end of his life.

“I was supposed to go first,” he whispered. “You promised I’d go first.” a hurl of his arm as the paper struck the wall and bounced off. Once it stopped rolling, Servais was reminded of the silence.

Oh, god. The silence. His laughter, his huffs, his complaints—all of it was gone. The torture of his voice began to make Servais feel faint.

He would never hear his name again.

He moved with a terrible calmness. His reflection in the dressing mirror looked like a stranger’s ghost, already halfway gone. Legs pushing himself because he couldn’t do it.

Magic had been his life. until Efron was gone. Then it was only an empty stage. Because Efron was the magic. Efron was his home. And now he was homeless.

Chapter 7: One

Summary:

IM SO SORRY

SUICIDE MENTION

Notes:

CW// SUICIDE MENTION, DESCRIPTIONS OF GRIEF

Chapter Text

Chapter II – The Final Curtain

(Efron perspective)

It was raining when he came back.

He hadn’t meant to leave for long.

Just long enough to think. To breathe. To disappear for a while before Servais could tell him not to.

The letter had been a performance, a cruel, desperate act of self-deception. A rehearsal for loss, not an ending… he didn’t expect Servais to be the one to find it…

He pushed the door open. The hinges sang like something dying. Inside, everything was still; the kind of stillness that feels deliberate, practiced. Promised and expected. Just like home often was for them.

“Servais?”

No answer.

The floor creaked once—twice, leading him to the dressing room. The air was colder there.

His reflection met him first; tired, pale, the edges of himself frayed. Then he saw the cane. Then the chair. Then—

His name nearly broke him when it left his lips.

“No—no, no, you’ve gone and ruined the act…” His voice cracked, half laughter, half fear. “I was supposed to come back. You weren’t supposed to——“ a hitch. His breath stolen by Servais once again. But oh.

Oh… god. No. This time it was a threat.

He couldn’t finish.

The letter lay open beside the body—creased, tear-stained, clutched like a prayer. He read his own words again and again until they became unrecognizable. Then, with trembling fingers, he pressed his forehead against Servais’s hand, still warm enough to break his heart.

“I thought you’d understand it was—,” he whispered. “Everything we ever did was theatre…” he croaked.

But the silence that answered was perfect…

Sacred and desperate. The find of silence where you start to wonder if it’s some nightmare that won’t let you go.

He sat there until the night thinned into dawn, until the edges of the world began to dissolve. Then, gently; like preparing a stage for its last bow…he gathered the deck of cards from the vanity. He shuffled once, twice, a hollow rhythm.

From the deck, he drew the twin to the one in Servais’s hands. The king of hearts.

He smiled faintly. “Our final trick.”

The smile wasn’t welcome nor expected. But what more could Efron—a madman, do?

And when the first light of morning broke through the cracks in the window, Efron followed. The sound was small, like the click of a lock. The first morning in years where Efron didn’t wake up to see Servais’ half-awake face.

But they did sleep together. As all things; they came in alone. And left together.

They found them together: his hand laid over Servais’s, cards between their fingers, two magicians finally vanished from the stage.

And somewhere, perhaps, in the faintest hush between applause and curtain fall, the illusion lived again; two voices laughing softly, water shimmering around them, as the world took its final bow.