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Valant, for lack of anything better to do, got himself a beer. Before Zak and Thalassa had ditched him, when they'd all been together, they'd drawn a few eyes, a few whispers. Alone in the anonymous press of Fremont street, no one spared him a second glance. Of course. Why would they? No one cared about him. Zak's merchandise sold out faster than Valant's without fail. Thalassa garnered louder cheers every single night.
Nausea churned in Valant's belly. He'd never done well in the heat. He sipped his beer even though it tasted like dish soap and wasted dollars.
Thalassa's voice rang out across the cacaphony of the bar, high and mellifluous: "Where's Valant?"
Valant looked up and turned his head, finding them by inexplicable instinct, in one of the branded mirrors on the wall. The word "Michelob" ran across Zak's head. Then they hadn't gotten too far, after all. They were standing too close to each other. Valant stared with narrowed eyes. They couldn't see him; they were facing away from the mirror and he was too low in the crowd. And Zak had a hand resting on Thalassa's hip.
It wouldn't necessarily have been damning on its own, but it made a thousand little things fall into place: the way they were inseparable lately, the way Zak had stopped chasing tail, how Thalassa had stopped sighing quite so wistfully. The night that— Oh, god. The night that Valant had knocked on Thalassa's door to ask for an antacid and she had answered wearing an oversized T-shirt he'd never seen before, her cheeks flushed girlishly.
Zak's answer had evidently gotten lost in the crowd, because Thalassa spoke again, chiding: "Don't say that."
Valant pricked up his ears. Zak smiled. "Who needs him?"
Thalassa batted at his chest, playful and intimate. "He'll think we left him."
"Hey, it's not our fault he wandered off." Zak dipped his head and kissed Thalassa, short and sweet.
Valant lifted his beer.
His mouth tasted like soap. Foam crackled at the back of his dry throat, refusing to move despite all his attempts to swallow it down. The bartender had been shooting him looks now for a good 10 minutes, no doubt hoping he'd move along and make room for rowdy tourists who drank faster and tipped better.
Valant caught his eye. "A shot of vodka. Then I'll close out."
The bartender nodded, looking relieved at the prospect of being rid of him. Of course. Just like everyone else.
With Zak, it made sense. It wasn't like Valant had exactly been giddy at the prospect of spending a whole day with him, but Magnifi had specific ideas about how they should spend their time. Bonding. Thalassa, though? He had thought—
No. He hadn't thought anything. He had hoped. Deluded himself into thinking she might spare a feeling for him.
The bartender set a glass on the counter with a click, and Valant's card next to it.
Valant mumbled an acknowledgment and took the shot. Some of it escaped his mouth and ran in cool rivulets over his jaw and down his neck, carving channels in the drying sweat there. The rest burned down his throat and smoldered in his stomach.
Valant slipped his card back into his wallet and left.
His belly burned as he stalked the long road back to the Strip. Soon his skin began to burn along with it. His head pounded and spun with the combined intoxication of alcohol and too much sun.
One foot in front of the other, chemical aftertaste on his breath, vision blurring. Zak and Thalassa were fucking. Zak and Thalassa were in love. Zak and Thalassa didn't need him. Magnifi knew. Magnifi approved. They wouldn't —couldn't— be together if he didn't.
Only Valant had been kept in the dark. Least-loved son of Troupe Gramarye. Last In Thalassa's heart. In Magnifi's Even in Zak's. His partner!
His boots scuffed the sidewalk as the exercise sobered him up slowly and the dry heat intoxicated him anew. He needed water, but there was nothing and there was nowhere. Just the sidewalk and the road, and a world full of people who didn't give a damn about him. Might as well just keep walking. He could collapse in the Bellagio lobby, and maybe then someone might conjure up an ounce of concern for him, or at least a facsimile thereof.
Miraculously, Magnifi-miraculously, Valant did not collapse in the lobby. His ragged breathing disappeared under the sound of music and chatter and gambling, strangely unaccompanied by any visual cues. His sun-dazzled eyes couldn't really see, but his body dragged itself stubbornly forward anyway. Found itself another bar, another seat. Cold stone under his forearms. Cold glances from strangers. The persistent blast of the air conditioning made him shiver. A vodka soda appeared in front of him as though manifested by a djinn.
He drank it, swallowing twice as hard to keep from coughing against the nausea it elicited. The bitter taste lingered on his tongue, threatening to make a messy reappearance on the stone bartop if he moved too suddenly.
"Valant." Magnifi's voice, low and guttural. Sharp pain at the back of his head. Had there been a noise? Maybe a crack? Magnifi had hit him, after all. "You're drunk."
Valant turned this way and that. Maybe he was dreaming. His tunneling vision didn't allow for much observation. In the end, he had to slide down from the stool onto his aching feet and bodily turn himself around. He stumbled, and there was Magnifi, his bony black-clad shoulder catching Valant's.
"You're drunk," Magnifi said again, looking very much like he wanted to strike him again, too.
Valant sighed. "So what?"
"This is no way to act before a show." Magnifi turned on his heel, dragging Valant to the elevator with sheer force of presence. Like a grip on his collar, leading him forward at a brutal pace that disagreed with his aching knees and churning stomach. Fuck everything. Magnifi couldn't hurt him.
God, he was hot.
The mirror in the elevator told a humbling story: Valant, white as a sheet, slouched and sweating; Magnifi statuesque, though no longer in his prime, with eyes that blazed.
The same intangible force dragged Valant out of the elevator and into Magnifi's suite. Maganifi slammed the door and rounded on him, cuffing him upside the head once more.
The blow made seismic ripples through the bones of Valant's skull. His temples ached, his stomach rising to the call. He slapped a hand over his mouth, hunching forward with a miserable, nauseated cough.
"Get yourself right!" Magnifi barked. "This is unacceptable, Valant. When have I ever tolerated this kind of behavior?" He paused, perhaps waiting for Valant to start groveling. "Explain yourself. Now."
Valant covered his eyes and swallowed thickly. Magnifi hadn't even hit him that hard, but his head hurt.
And, really, what was there to say? The answer was there, as plain as the burning sun: apologize, get down on his knees, brush his forehead to the floor. Beg and beg for forgiveness.
But what if he didn't? Who would care, who would even notice if Magnifi kicked him out?
Something hotter than sweat slipped down Valant's cheek.
No. No.
"Valant—"
"Shut up!" Valant swallowed hard. "Just— shut up. I don't want to hear it."
Magnifi stiffened. "Have you lost your mind?"
"Maybe I have!" Valant's voice had risen to a shout without his express permission. "What do you care? What does anyone care? Zak and Thalassa certainly don't!" He laughed, sick and hysterical. "I know you all think I don't notice these things— don't care—" Zak and Thalassa kissing. Zak and Thalassa abandoning him. "Nobody cares about me." A sob escaped him despite all his desperate swallowing, and a few more tears followed the sticky tracks of the sweat that had dried on his face. "Nobody even likes me. Not you. Not the audience. Nobody."
"For God's sake, Valant." Magnifi sneered at him. "So you're the least-loved member of the most famous magic troupe in the world. Cry about it all you want in your own time. If you don't get yourself together in time for tonight's show, I can promise you one thing: You won't even have that."
Valant closed his eyes. His skull ached like someone was pressing nails into it, one for each temple and one at the base of his neck. In turn, his stomach pulsed and pushed, desperate to rid itself of the irritants Valant had forced in.
Magnifi was right. This pity party was unseemly, something best saved for private quarters and the ears of some woman who, through no fault of her own, would never be Thalassa. The least-loved member of the best-loved group in the world. Millions would have killed to be him.
Valant sniffled. His body shook, and another pathetic sob breached the barrier of his lips. "I don't even like me."
"You're too neurotic for your own good," Magnifi grumbled. His form, blurred with tears, moved away. The minibar opened amd shut, and he pressed something cold into Valant's hands. A bottle of water. "Get yourself right, Valant. Don't make me fire you."
—
It wasn't the first show that Valant had done hungover, or even sick, but it may have been the most brutal. As soon as the curtain fell, he staggered to the bathroom and vomited up everything Magnifi had forced into him— water, Gatorade, painkillers. Everything that had been sloshing in his stomach like so much poolwater, bumping continuously against barriers that could barely hold it.
His headache returned with a wicked spike between his eyes, then vanished in a puff of smoke.
And then he was Valant again, Valant Gramarye. Tired after a show, and covered in cold sweat, with his makeup stinging in his eyes. Just like normal. Just like always. The least-loved member of the best-loved group in the world.
With a shuddering sigh, Valant rose on shaky legs. His unsteady hands missed the flush several times, and he could barely get soap onto his palm. He didn't even bother with the paper towels, just let the water drip from his fingertips. Magnifi would be expecting him at the merch table.
Not that they didn't have people for that, but Magnifi had some strange , specific notions about appearing humble, about seeming accessible. Magnifi had strange, specific notions about a lot of things.
Valant's head spun as he stepped back into the hall, with its line of fluoerescents. One of them was flickering and humming out of tune with the rest.
A door opened and shut. Magnifi. Again, the irresistible pull of his presence called Valant to his wake. "You're going to bed."
"Yes, Magnifi."
Again, he followed Magnifi to the elevator. Again, he was forced to reckon with his own pathetic reflection juxtaposed against the quiet dignity of Magnifi's own. He looked a little better in his stage yellow, with a degree or two more color in his cheeks.
"Zak told me he lost track of you on Fremont street," Magnifi said.
Lost track of him. Like Valant was a child. "Yes, Magnifi."
In the mirror, Magnifi's brow furrowed. "I've told him what will become of him if it ever happens again."
"Thank you, Magnifi." Voice dull and broken, rough with vomiting. Valant was never drinking again.
"You're supposed to be a team." The elevator doors opened. Magnifi led Valant to his room, and backed off so Valant could look for his key. "Do you understand that? You're partners."
"Y-yes." Partners with Zak. Partners like a man and his dog.
Magnifi sat Valant down on the bed and took his hat off, then cleared the smeared makeup out from under his eyes with two perfunctory swipes of his fingertips. "Go to bed, Valant. Get some rest. Replacing you now would be too much of a pain."
It was truth, not a kindness, but there was something gentle in the way Magnifi said it, if not fond. Or Valant was fooling hinself again. But he needed it, so he clung to it. A tender word from his mentor. "Thank you, Magnifi."
Magnifi clapped him on the shoulder. "I'll see you in the morning."
He went out, leaving Valant in silence.