Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s only ten in the morning, and Tango has already had to run away from a pack of feral slime-cats, avoid a badly timed toaster explosion, and steal a pastry through a shop window without getting caught. He managed this just fine, as per usual, but somehow it was nabbing an apple from the orchard that actually got him in trouble. Why the farmers here care so badly about one or two missing fruit eludes him, honestly.

Either way, it all led him to this: running down the main street, apple in one hand and eating his pastry with the other, his backpack clanging loudly and heralding his arrival at the oddities district. Which is thematically appropriate for him, quite frankly. His pursuers should be thanking him.

They’re certainly not, though. Harry Mt. Rogers, a local farmer with a secret beer business hidden in his stables — and don’t ask Tango how he knows about that — looks as if he’s going to explode from rage. Some of his employees are half-heartedly keeping up the chase as well, though at least they have the decency to not yell as they run.

Tango turns left down a particularly curvy road and then another left into an alleyway right after. With any luck, he’ll find a corner store or a — there!

He throws the door of the bookstore open and rushes inside just as heavy footsteps almost reach the mouth of the alleyway. His pursuers start to make their way up the alleyway and he ducks behind the window set into the door — and by some miracle, it actually works. They run right past like a set of cartoon goons, leaving him relieved that he’s managed to escape Mt. Rogers’ wrath this time around.

“Um. So,” says a voice from a few metres behind him. He startles and spins around. “Are you here to buy anything…?”

The speaker is a person of relatively short stature, eyebrows raised almost all the way up to brown hair and something like a bemused smirk playing on his face. Tango notes the crooked nametag and woolly jumper and realises that this, in fact, is almost definitely the owner of this tiny bookstore.

“Oh!” he manages to remember to reply. “Not… specifically.”

“Right. You were just running away from those guys, then?” They gesture towards the door with their chin.

“If I say yes, will you start chasing me too?”

The person snorts. “Nah. Unless you’re, like, a murderer or something.”

“Only a murderer of this pastry!” Tango says, before immediately wincing at his own joke. “I mean — no. I’m not a murderer.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” they say. They offer out a hand. “I’m Joel, and this is my bookstore. I mean, I’m co-owning it, but that counts enough.”

Tucking the apple into one of his pockets, Tango goes to shake his hand, a little more at ease. “I’m Tango, and this is not my pastry.”

“Ah! I’m starting to see your real crimes now,” Joel grins. “Can I convince you to peruse our wares while you're hiding in here?”

“Sure, I guess,” Tango says. He glances around briefly. “It’s been a while since I last read a book, though, I’ll warn you.”

“Why’s that?”

He winces. “It’s complicated.” Picking up one of the books on display nearby, he’s surprised to find it covered in tiny runes that glow when he brushes a finger over them. “You sell magic books?”

“It’s a magical bookstore,” Joel replies, leaning on the counter to watch. “That’s kind of our thing.”

If he’s honest with himself, Tango could really, really do with a magic book right now. He’ll need to retrace his steps so he can remember how to get back here again; in all his time in this town, he hasn’t seen this shop yet.

“You got anything for angry farmers?” he asks, and Joel’s eyes glint with humour.

“I’m sure I can find you something in the back. Though we do run out of those quickly, so I can’t make any promises. Lots of people battling angry farmers in these parts.”

Despite his words, though, Joel remains where he is, keeping an eye on Tango as he sets down the book and wanders over to the nearest set of shelves. There’s nothing he’s looking for, though he does find a lot of volumes he’d never even imagined could exist. Potions for Postmen, Honey-Based Magical Artefacts, Seducing the Concept of the Apostrophe — he can’t find any sort of rhyme or reason to how they’re being sorted, and half of these books don’t even seem to have authors attributed on the spine.

“Huh,” Tango says to himself. “That’s weird.”

Joel’s still clearly paying attention. He mustn’t get many customers. “What’s weird?”

“You don’t have any kind of order here. Did you just throw them in randomly?”

There’s a moment of silence. Tango realises his own words.

“I mean — um,” he says quickly, spinning around, “not to say that it’s a bad order, it’s just — like, it’s a little weird, or — I mean, I bet you had a method to the madness! Not madness.” He sighs. “Shoot.”

Somehow, Joel only seems mildly amused. “It’s fine, I get what you’re—”

Tango cuts him off. “You know what, actually, I’ll come back tomorrow! And it’ll be way better. No worries! Yep. Okay!” He’s already at the door, and Joel looks somewhat stunned. “See you then! Sorry, uh — I’ll — yep!”

He just about hears a confused goodbye as he launches back out into the alleyway and clatters down towards the main street again. There’s no sign of his pursuers and he can still feel the weight of the apple he’s worked so hard for in his pocket. He’s left the pastry in the bookstore, he realises, but there’s absolutely no way he’s battling his own awkwardness to go back in there today.

With any luck, he’ll be able to avoid any more trouble for the rest of the day and try this again tomorrow.

It’ll be fine, he reminds himself. Joel won’t remember a thing.

Chapter Text

The next day, Tango is back at the bookstore, pastry in his stomach and apple in hand. This time, he’s free of pursuers. He’s getting better at this, hopefully.

Joel looks surprised to see him come in, though Tango supposes he must have looked quite the same when he burst in yesterday.

“Hullo,” Joel greets.

“Hey! Um — I’m Tango, hi. Good to meet you!” He’s doing great at this. Fantastic social interaction. “I’m wondering if you have any books on cursed objects?”

For a moment, Joel seems taken aback by the request. Tango thinks that perhaps it shouldn’t seem such an odd ask — this is a magical bookstore, unless they’ve somehow managed to change their entire business overnight. Which they can’t, Tango tells himself. That’s not even remotely how this works.

“We have quite a lot,” Joel finally replies. “Is there anything in particular that you need?”

“Just an introduction to them for now, if that’s possible,” Tango says. “Something for beginners, maybe? I’m sort of new to magic.”

“We should have a few books for beginners, sure.” Joel opens up the desk beside him and steps out from behind the counter. “What brings you to cursed objects as an introduction to magic, of all things? Don’t tell me you’ve picked up something you shouldn’t have.”

Tango laughs nervously. “Well. Something like that.”

“Well, the best motivation is having to get yourself out of a sticky situation,” Joel says.

He leads Tango down the space between two of the shelves, his boots silent on the carpet, until they reach a second room. This one is far larger, with ladders that stretch to the ceiling and little particles that flutter around from shelf to shelf. Joel pushes forward still, until they reach a small corner with a sign labelled ‘For Young Readers’.

“Ignore the sign,” Joel says, though Tango finds it difficult to heed his words.

Joel picks out a few books of varying colours and holds them out to Tango. One of them has to be the oldest book he’s ever seen, while another almost looks freshly bound. All of them are labelled Introduction to Curses or something of the like.

“Take a look through these and I’m sure you’ll find something you’re looking for,” he says. Tango takes them all and almost stumbles at the weight. “When you’ve found one you like, bring it to my desk and I’ll check the price.”

The price. The price. This is a bookstore.

How did Tango forget that he’ll need money to buy a book?

“Oh, okay!” he says quickly. He calculates whether it’s worth the risk of being magically cursed for stealing these, and then decides that it’s definitely no. “Sure, I’ll do that. Thanks.”

Joel gives him a small salute and vanishes back through to the first room, and Tango is left to look through the books in his hands and wonder how exactly he’s meant to use any of these.

*

The next time he’s at the bookstore, he introduces himself with a quick, “Hi I’m Tango I’m here to look through the books thanks!” and ducks into the second room before Joel can even open his mouth.

He rushes over to the same section and picks out the book he decided looked most useful during his last visit, and begins to flip through the pages, eyes scanning for a certain diagram. And there it is — an overview of curses that can cause space-time anomalies. It’s as relieving as it is terrifying to see. He might really be on the way to a solution — but he might also be giving himself false hope.

“Everything alright in there?” Joel calls, sounding concerned.

“All good!” Tango shouts back. He scoops up the book under his arm and heads back out, trying to look as calm and confident as he can.

Joel levels him with a deeply unamused expression the moment he’s back in his line of sight.

“You didn’t even have the decency of letting me introduce myself,” he says.

“Oh.” Tango stops in his tracks. “Sorry. Uh — and you are?”

“I’m Joel. This is my bookstore,” Joel deadpans. “Are you paying for that?”

“Of course I am!” Tango replies, putting one hand in his pocket to check for the presence of a small bag of coins. When he’s confirmed that, he goes to the counter and places the book there. “How much?”

Joel lists a price and — luckily — Tango has enough. Taking this from the personal desk of the mayor was perhaps a risky move, but it was also the best place to find coins that won’t be missed within the day. Either way, the purchase goes smoothly, and he tucks the book into his backpack with a wide beam on his face.

“Good luck with your curse,” Joel says, breaking through his train of thought.

“How do you know about—? Oh.” Right. The book about curses. “Thanks.”

He’s about to turn to go when Joel asks him, “Do you want to read here? We have a fireplace. And chairs. And a lot of tea, if you want that.”

“Sure,” Tango says, blinking a little. “If you’re offering.”

Joel flashes a thumbs up at him, accompanying it with an arresting smile that has Tango rebooting for a solid few seconds.

Shaking it off, he follows Joel back through to the second room and then to a third room, this one narrow and mostly taken up by a spiral staircase. They weave through a few more bookshelves and corridors that make sense only when Tango remembers he’s in a bookstore that’s magical, until they eventually arrive at a cosy little nook adorned with glowing flowers. There’s a fireplace, as mentioned, right at centre and back of the nook, set between a half-ring of soft couches.

“Wow,” Tango whispers.

Joel glances at him with a proud little look. “It’s the best part of the store.”

“You have got to advertise this at the front of your store.”

“Well, I’ll have to consider it,” Joel says, pretending to really think about it. “Mind giving us a positive review?”

“Only after I’ve received the tea I was promised,” Tango jokes.

“You’re running us out of business, Tango.” Joel shakes his head but goes back to the exit between two shelves anyway. “I’ll be right back.”

Now alone, Tango goes to sit on one of the sofas and feels his body untense for the first time in a long time. He doesn’t even remember, just closes his eyes and lets himself sink back against the cushions. Sleep takes him gently, like a blanket tucked around his edges.

He’s woken by a slight shake of his shoulder.

“You still want this tea?” Joel asks. Sure enough, there’s a floating tray with a teapot and a small selection of biscuits just to the right of the sofa. As tired as Tango is, he can’t find it in himself to refuse.

“Sure,” he says. “Thank you.”

Joel nods and leaves him after that, which is disappointing for some reason that Tango can’t really place. He does get to reading the book, though, and stays there with the tea and the fireplace for the rest of the day.

*

The next few visits are about the same, though he takes more time introducing himself and doesn’t bother to ask the price when buying the book. His visits begin to get a little earlier in the day, too, as his mayoral heists get faster and more efficient.

Each time, Joel offers him a place in the reading book along with a cup of tea. Each time, Tango gets through a bit more of the book. Each time, he’s a little more charmed by the bookstore and its owner.

Joel is, by all standards, a friendly face. Despite their repeating routine, he also doesn’t seem to fall into the same few conversations day to day, and Tango has to admire that he’s able to make him laugh after their sixth similar re-introduction.

Once he’s finally gotten through the book, however, he’s absolutely certain that he hasn’t been cursed.

Joel walks through with a stack of books he must be in the middle of sorting, and stops when he sees that Tango’s put the book down and is now staring pensively at his tea.

“All good?” he asks.

“Yeah, I just, uh — I finished the book.”

“And? Solved your curse problem?”

Tango sighs, and looks up to meet Joel’s eyes. “Unfortunately, I think I’ve still got a lot of searching to do. Do you know where I can find a book on time vortexes?”

“Time vortexes?” Joel frowns. “I might have to have a look around. Could you give me a few?”

“No hurry!” Tango says hurriedly. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“You don’t say.” Joel shakes his head fondly. “I gathered that, from the fact you seem to love sitting here all day.”

“Hey — it might just be today I’m doing that!”

“Somehow, I doubt that,” Joel teases. “But I’m not complaining! It’s good for business.”

It does take about twenty minutes for Joel to find what he’s looking for. When he comes back, though, he brings a whole cart of books with him.

“Time vortexes is a little specific, even for here,” he explains, “so I picked up a couple of related books. We’ve got stuff on time travel, time reversal, time loops…”

He points to a few different books in the cart as he speaks, and Tango takes careful note of the latter category.

“Thank you,” he says when Joel turns back to him, and he means it more than he can express. “This is really, really kind of you.”

Joel seems to flounder for a moment. “Sure. Uh. Good for business. Happy customers. I’ll see you later?”

He backs into a bookshelf before Tango can answer, then spins around to vanish among the books.

Tango smiles to himself once he’s gone. When this is all over, he thinks he might miss this place.

Chapter Text

“You really need to advertise this place,” Tango says, which is the third time in three days saying this, but he’s really getting exhausted from trying to decipher what half the magical terminology means in these books, and he’s on his fifth book already. The daily heists run like clockwork; even the journey to the oddities district is beginning to get boring.

It’s not exactly doing wonders for his state of mind. He’s repeating himself a lot lately.

Joel still gives him a grin, apparently unfazed by his tone. “If we did that, how would we trap our best customers in here?”

“Is that what you’re doing?”

“We can’t have you running off,” Joel says. “There’s too few of you.”

“Am I really one of your best customers?” Tango asks with a teasing smile.

“You’ve grown on me quickly enough.” With a flourish, Joel presents a floating tray of tea he’s apparently prepared already. “Let me know if you need me, Tango.”

With that, he vanishes into the bookshelves. Tango wonders offhandedly how he knew to make the tea; maybe this time loop thing is causing a few habits to rub off on him. That can’t be it, he decides. It hasn’t happened before, so it’s unlikely to start now.

The book he’s been reading lately is at least a little more insightful. There was a whole section at the beginning that carefully re-introduced some of the concepts he’d been confused about the past few days, and there’s references to other books all the way through each chapter. It feels like a raft in the middle of the choppy waters that is this entire catalogue of books.

It’s when he’s about halfway through his tea that he has to almost spit it out — because there it is, there’s the first thing that looks useful! A whole history of time loops, from the first reports of similar phenomena to the founding of multiple research groups looking into solutions and recreations. The causes and solutions seem to vary widely from person to person and place to place, but this is something. It’s Tango’s first something, so he’s delighted and excited and terrified all at once.

Joel must have some strange magical perception here, because he pokes his head out from behind a bookcase half a minute after the discovery.

“Something?” he asks, and — to his credit — he genuinely looks interested.

“Something,” Tango affirms.

The section on time loops is, all in all, a little too brief, but it’s also very aware of its own briefness and explains carefully that a full account of this topic might take up several books. In fact, it continues, there are several books that detail exactly this, and it references them right there.

Joel, reading over his shoulder, nods in approval. “That’s a well-done guide. You want me to find those books for you?”

“If you don’t mind,” Tango says, and he’s almost flattered by how quickly Joel goes to search the shelves.

He returns barely minutes later and plops the books right on Tango’s lap, laughing at the oof! the action produces. Thanking him anyway, Tango flicks the book open and coughs at the layers of dust that fly up into his face.

“So, stuck in a time loop, huh?” Joel asks him. “At least that explains why you started the book halfway.”

“It’s been a weird couple of months,” Tango agrees. “Or a weird day, over and over and over. But on the plus side, I know almost everyone here.”

Joel raises a brow. “Is that really a plus side?”

“Well, I do get to know their secrets.”

“Oh, really? Do you know mine?”

“Not yet,” Tango answers, pretending to be disappointed about it. “You’ve remained mysterious.”

“Allow me to break the illusion, then.” Joel sits down opposite him and picks a biscuit from the floating tray. “I’m Joel, and I run this bookstore.”

“You don’t say,” Tango says dryly but not without humour.

“I’m not done yet!” Joel argues, feigning offence. He clears his throat. “Actually, I run this place with my, uh — with the other owner of this place, Gem. She’s just out gathering books at the moment.”

“Gathering books?”

“Most of these books don’t exactly come directly from publishers or anything,” Joel says. He grins. “We’ve fought a couple dragons for some of them, stolen some others from a handful of interdimensional dictators.”

Tango’s mouth drops open for a second. “That — that does not fit into what I thought being a bookstore owner would entail.”

“It’s the best job,” Joel says, and Tango can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or not.

“Where’d you get this book from, then?” he asks, lifting the hefty one in his lap.

“Hmm, let’s see.” Joel leans back and squints at it thoughtfully. “Ah, yes. It all began with the haunted globe…”

He launches into a tale involving a quest, prophecies, and no less than seven dinosaur summoning circles. Tango is so distracted he forgets about the book itself entirely, hooked onto the tale Joel is rambling himself through, until finally Joel trails off in the middle of describing how his colleague, Gem, tracked down an immortal geographer in the middle of a desert.

“And?” Tango prompts. “Did she find them?”

Joel shrugs. “I dunno. I’m out of ideas for this story, honestly.”

The cogs in Tango’s brain turn slowly, and then his eyes widen in shock.

“You were making all of that up?!” he exclaims. “I believed you!”

“I don’t remember where we got that book, man,” Joel says, gesturing vaguely. “Probably found it in some abandoned castle, I guess.”

“This is the greatest betrayal I’ve felt all day.”

“And I hope I can give you an even bigger one tomorrow.” Joel grins wickedly. “Or today-again, for me.”

“I’m wounded,” Tango says.

“You’re dramatic,” Joel shoots back. “And you’re running out of time today. Remember the book name so I can pick it up for you quickly next time.”

It’s what Tango’s been doing so far, but he accepts the advice anyway and gets back to reading. He definitely doesn’t get distracted chatting with Joel again.

Definitely not.

*

Joel finds the book even faster during the next visit, and as soon as he hands Tango the book at the counter he raises his brows and asks if he’s stuck in a time loop.

With a short laugh, Tango says: “What gave you that idea?”

After a brief conversation about how his research has been going — the answer to which is ‘slow’ — and how the day’s business is going to be based on Tango’s past visits — the answer to which is ‘even slower’ — Joel offers something he hasn’t in previous loops.

“Since I’m not getting any other customers today, how about we go out on a field trip?”

“A field trip?” Tango repeats, more than a little bewildered.

“Sure. Unless I’ve already done that?”

“We usually just stay in the bookstore,” Tango says.

“Then a field trip it is!” Joel pulls out a set of keys from behind the counter. “I need to figure out a certain magical hedge maze, and having someone in a time loop help map it out might save me some time. Want to come with?”

Tango’s never really ventured too far into the realm of magic and dimensional travel, so it’s an easy yes. Joel locks up the bookshop and leads them down the alleyway and out onto the road. The oddities district is almost shining in the sun as Joel points out various buildings he knows of and mentions a couple of interactions he’s had with the other residents here. The reason why it’s called the oddities district is becoming clearer and clearer to Tango; he knows the other areas of town consider it to be full of some of the stranger businesses, but according to Joel half of the people here aren’t even entirely human.

If he’s not pulling his leg again, of course. There’s really no way of knowing until he goes around asking himself.

Finally, Joel stops in front of a small staircase leading down and pulls out the keys again. He flicks through them until he gets to a bone-white key and fits it into the door’s lock.

“You own this place too?”

“Not at all.” Joel kicks the door, and it opens with a small thud. “I just have a really useful key.”

“We’re breaking in?!” Tango hisses. “Joel! I don’t want to get arrested!”

“It’s fine! You’ll reset at midnight, right?”

Tango waves his hands uselessly for a second, trying to find full words to reply with, and Joel takes the opportunity to head inside. After a few more seconds, Tango follows him, ducking down as if he’s at risk of hitting the doorway with his head and entering the dark corridor.

It’s far too dimly lit to be able to see more than the metres and metres of blank hallway before them, but Joel walks forward as if he knows the place inside and out.

“This way,” he calls, and Tango fumbles around to close the door to hurry after him. It sets the whole scene in blackness.

Tango reaches around himself for a moment and doesn’t even sense a wall. “Where’d you go?”

He thinks he’s got a torch in his backpack — and he’s considering getting it out when two faintly glowing eyes appear in front of him. He yelps and scuttles backwards.

“Don’t get lost, dumbass,” Joel says, and the eyes before him crinkle in amusement accordingly. A hand grabs Tango’s arm and tugs him forward, before Joel’s eyes turn away so he can continue heading down the still-pitch-dark corridor.

“I have a torch, you know,” Tango offers, after a minute of walking. “In case you’re lost.”

“I’m not lost.” Joel almost sounds offended, but he does move to take Tango’s hand instead of his arm. “We’re nearly there. Hang in there, Tango.”

He’s not wrong, as it turns out; they stop short right next to a wooden door and Joel twists the handle with a confidence that’s telling. The door opens to a great golden field and a pink sky, rather like a just-broken dawn except for the pale moons criss-crossing the sky in rapid arcs.

“Here we are,” Joel says. “Gem calls this place Aevum, but I prefer the name Giant Pink Maze Nobody Can Solve.”

Tango snorts. “I wonder why.” He squints through the doorway. “Where’s the maze, exactly?”

Joel gestures for him to step inside, and Tango lets go of his hand so he can enter the bizarre landscape. As soon as he turns to watch Joel do the same, he sees the absolutely huge hedge maze behind him. The doorway is set into it, in fact — and on either side, a gold-leaved hedge wall surrounds everything up to the horizon.

“That’s… You weren’t kidding,” Tango observes unnecessarily. Joel chuckles anyway.

“Yeah, it’s not your average corn maze. But there’s apparently a really useful artefact in there, so Gem wants to figure it out at some point. And since you’re in a time loop with infinite time, theoretically, you might just be the perfect opportunity.”

Something about the phrasing makes Tango frown, but he nods anyway. “It’ll be better than stealing the same few pastries in the morning every day.”

“You’ve been having the same breakfast every day?!” Joel shakes his head disapprovingly. “We keep so much food stocked up at the bookstore, you just need to tell me you’re stuck in a time loop and I’ll get you something else free of charge. It’s not like money has any real meaning in a time loop, anyway.”

He starts to walk along the side of the maze as he talks, and Tango keeps up with him as he does so. They reach a doorway after about half an hour of walking, and Joel presents it to Tango with a flourish.

“It’s only slightly cursed,” he says as if it’s a perk.

“You’d make a great realtor for this place.”

“Why, thank you. Maybe I can switch careers one day.”

Tango shakes his head with a small smile. “What am I supposed to do then? Some of us need a local magical bookstore, you know.”

Still, he does lead the way inside, and Joel isn’t far behind. They explore the first few layers of the maze and keep up a relatively constant conversation throughout, which is a great relief after the first few dozen dead-ends begin to blur together. Having someone to talk to helps. Having Joel to talk to really helps.

They’re facing off against a pair of sentient candelabras when suddenly the scene breaks apart like a dream, and Tango wakes up back in his room.

Ah. Midnight.

It’s odd, really, because time hadn’t been clear in the pink dimension — Aevum, wasn’t it? — so he’d had no idea he was about to hurtle into a reset. Time had been passing by so much faster than the long days in the back of the bookstore; he’d almost forgotten what it was like to lose track of it.

But he’s got a plan for the day already, so he swings himself out of bed and gets ready to head back to the maze.

*

He doesn’t get back to the bookstore for another month of loops. He’s been busy — sue him.

When he does get there, though, Joel greets him as he always does and Tango introduces himself in turn.

“So,” he says, approaching the counter. “This is going to sound a little weird, but I’m actually stuck in a time loop and we’ve talked a whole lot and — uh, I solved your maze!”

Joel stares at him. And then, just as Tango’s wondering if he’s accidentally broken time itself, he says, “You solved it?”

“Yep! Yeah!” Tango grins. “The big maze in the pink place, solved it! And it took only — like, twenty, thirty days I think? Not nearly as big as I thought it would end up being.”

“Holy shit,” Joel says. “Holy shit. Why did you do that, Tango, you idiot? Shouldn’t you be trying to get out of the loop?”

“I have infinite time! You said that yourself!”

“I meant to go exploring with people, not to try and solve it alone!” Joel coughs. “I mean, I probably meant that. And you sound like you did it alone. Which is stupid! You need to socialise with people, you know.”

“There were plenty of people in there,” Tango argues. He’s only half-lying — there really were a lot of creatures, even if they were usually trying to attack him. It counts.

Joel buries his face in his palms, then sighs deeply. “Alright. Well, as long as it’s done with.” He glances up. “What’s in the centre, by the way?”

“Some sort of statue. It’s one of those old-fashioned ones that looks like a baby spitting out water.”

“Huh,” Joel says. “That’s weird.”

“I’ll tell you that again once I’m out of the loop,” Tango adds. “I can take you there myself, actually, now I know the way.”

“Really?” He sounds surprised. “That’s generous of you.”

“You’ve been plenty generous to me every time I’ve been here,” Tango says, and he means it. “It’s the least I can do.”

There’s an odd edge to Joel’s tone when he offers to get Tango some tea, and even as he takes Tango back to the little fireplace he avoids his gaze resolutely. Tango would think he’s messed up somehow if it wasn’t for the flustered expression he spots just as Joel excuses himself to get the floating tea.

He’s back to reading, then, and it’s a nice break from all the maze-wandering. Understanding this set of books is significantly more difficult than the very useful one that recommended them, and at several points he has to ask Joel for the definitions of certain words that have long since fallen out of use. Joel seems happy enough to help, which is a relief.

During one visit a few days after he’s back from the maze, Joel sits down with him to talk about some recent adventure he’s been on with Gem. It’s a true story, this time — Tango checks.

“Of course, I didn’t just abandon Gem to fight the zombies herself, though it was tempting,” Joel is saying. “She’d probably, like, divorce me or something if I did that.”

“You’re married?” Tango interrupts, a pang of disappointment in his chest.

“Well, sort of.” Joel makes a face. “Not officially. But we’re, like… you know. Something like that.” He glances at Tango’s expression and whatever he sees makes him rush to add, “But it’s not, like, a strictly closed type of relationship. Or anything. Have I really not told you about this before?”

“You haven’t,” Tango replied as evenly as he can, which in his opinion is very even indeed — but according to Joel’s response can’t really be as even as he’s hoping.

“Now you know, I guess,” says Joel. “It shouldn’t change things, anyway. I mean — like, it’s not a big deal.”

“Yeah, sure. She sounds great, from everything I’ve heard.” That’s true, at least. See, Tango can be honest! “She’s lucky to have you. And you’re a lucky… unofficial husband?”

Joel nods. “I am. Except when she’s making fun of me.”

“If the stories you’ve told me in past loops are true, I think she’s got the right to do that,” Tango teases.

“Hey! Hey! I won’t have you doing the same thing, excuse you!” Joel half-heartedly kicks his legs from across the short distance between the sofas, and Tango laughs.

“But you make it so easy to!”

“Shut it, you. I’ll have you kicked out of the bookstore if you carry on like that.”

With another snort, Tango goes back to his book, but he can’t help the grin on his face that remains even when Joel leaves to return to the shelves again.

He’s not sure why Joel felt the need to reassure him about his relationship with Gem being open. Well — he has a suspicion, sure, but he doesn’t dare to hope.

Not yet. He’ll break out of this loop, and then he can try hoping.

*

He does feel bad that Joel is the one telling him more than he’s saying himself, though knowing that Joel will forget everything doesn’t really encourage him to open up. It comes up anyway.

“You’re not from this town, right, time boy?” Joel asks him over a dinner they’re sharing.

“Not before the loop, but with how long I’ve been here, I reckon I practically am now.”

“You’re only from the town today.” Joel sips his drink with a calculating look at Tango. “That doesn’t count. Where were you before here?”

Tango hovers on the precipice of an honest answer. It’s not like Joel will remember, he reminds himself. So it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.

“I’m from a couple cities over,” he replies eventually. “I was working as an engineer there. But I came here to repair something and — uh, things went wrong. I’m still figuring out what happened to start the loop.”

“An engineer,” Joel says, somehow focusing on the very thing Tango doesn’t want to discuss. “What did you work on?”

“I was part of a two-person team. We just took whatever projects we were given, it was really anyone’s guess.”

“But they sent you here alone?”

Tango pokes at his food.

“If you don’t mind saying, of course,” Joel tacks on.

“I came here myself,” Tango admits. “Nobody sent me.”

“That’s unusual,” Joel says. He rests his chin on his hand. “You were invited, then? Do you know someone here? Maybe that’s who put you in the loop.”

“I sort of just saw a notice from this town saying they needed help with fixing a bridge. Besides the person that hired me, I don’t know anyone else. And I barely knew her, either — she didn’t talk to me afterwards.”

Joel tilts his head. “How long were you here before the loop started?”

Tango doesn’t know how he manages to dodge the answer as effectively as he does — he just points out something on the shelf behind them and starts asking something tangentially related, and it sweeps Joel into a completely different conversation.

It’s a close call. It shouldn’t matter, of course, but he’s glad he doesn’t have to explain himself today.

Besides, it’s a nice dinner. He doesn’t want to ruin it.

Chapter Text

The days pass like butter on warm toast.

Greeting Joel like it’s the first time feels so familiar, yet it’s still strange to talk to him and have to introduce himself. It’s oddly nice, though — Joel speaks to him like they’re where they left off, even though Tango’s not sure how it’s happening. He wonders, at some point, if he’s sticking to Joel slowly, collecting on the shelves of his bookstore until he’s too embedded to be dusted away.

He doesn’t know if he should talk to him as much as he does; it doesn’t feel fair, with Joel not remembering every day before. Still, this fact doesn’t stop him starting each day with a grin and another introduction.

They’re in one of the smaller rooms at the moment, peering through some of the lower shelves as they look for a certain diary that Joel is sure used to exist around here. It’s supposed to include a section about a time loop — one of the days of the diary has a pad of paper glued to it, opening outwards with a page for each day.

Apparently, not even being trapped in their own personal loop could break its author’s commitment to keep track of their days. And, as Joel points out, the diary itself must have kept itself consistent throughout.

“It’s probably something to do with their connection to their diary,” Joel comments, flicking through the last few pages of the notepad with interest. “It keeps itself through each loop the same way his mind does — and like your mind does, actually.”

“You never know, I might have forgotten the earlier few loops,” Tango jokes. “Nobody would ever know.”

Joel stares at him with wide eyes for several long seconds. “Wait — have you really?”

“Not that I know of! I’m just kidding. Though, I mean — it wouldn’t matter either way, right?”

“I guess not,” Joel replies, though his brows are furrowed now. “Unless they’d give some clue to how you got into this…”

“Don’t worry about it,” says Tango. “I remember the day before the loop started like it was just yesterday.”

The line does make Joel giggle a little, but if he’s honest Tango doesn’t remember those last few days well at all. They’d already felt repetitive; on top of that, they’d been drowned in a grey that has slowly shaken itself off the longer he’s been stuck here.

He pauses what he’s doing to look over at Joel, who’s back to rummaging through the various other diaries and journals in this section, apparently less familiar with this corner of the store. Really, Tango’s not sure they should be selling diaries, but he’s also starting to suspect that this place isn’t quite a traditional bookstore. Which — yes, he knew before, but it’s odd even for a magical bookstore, he thinks.

“You know,” Tango says suddenly, “I’m kind of glad I got caught in this.”

Joel stops and turns his head, expression inscrutable. “You are?”

“It gives me time.” He can’t look directly at Joel if he’s going to talk about this, so he redirects his gaze to one of the open windows, displaying a shining blue sky above a great lake. “I can get back to myself a little. I can… think about things.”

“You can think about things?” Joel repeats, a clear prompt to continue.

Tango does hesitate. The thing is, though, that Joel won’t remember what he’s about to say. It won’t matter if he thinks Tango is awful after this. He’ll get another chance; it’s fine.

Still, he’s anxious anyway as he says, “My business partner — uh, my best friend. Something happened, and I ran away. Came here. I should have stayed and helped deal with things, but…”

Though Joel doesn’t say anything, it doesn’t seem as though he’s judging Tango yet.

“I didn’t know what to do,” he finishes weakly.

“What happened to them?”

“There was an accident. It wasn’t anything to do with a job, it just happened and—” Tango stops to take a breath and steady his thoughts. “He, uh — he didn’t survive it.”

“I’m sorry,” says Joel, and really he sounds it. “It seems fair to run away from that, whatever it was. I mean, it’s not useful, but I get it. You needed time.”

“There was so much we were doing that I had to — to finish up.” Tango stares at the edge of the windowsill, where white paint chips away. “Loose ends he never tied, and families, and clients, and — there was everything. I felt like it was everything, and I was losing all of it.”

For a long five seconds, he sits there quietly, everything swept open around him and leaving him alone at the centre. Thinking about his old friend always does this to him, throwing him back into a grief he doesn’t want to look at. He feels like a long-frayed wire cut short, a patch of rust held up the light to be examined.

The world is at the precipice of crumbling for the hundredth time, and there is nothing he can think of that might protect him from it.

Joel shuffles over, the sound impossibly loud in the silence of the room, and kneels down next to Tango.

There is that, Tango realises. There is this.

*

It is later that day when his world collapses anyway.

Joel has gone to get him something to drink, telling him lightly that he’ll need to refill on all the water he’s lost. Still face-to-face with the bottom shelves, Tango wipes his face briefly and takes a few careful breaths.

He’s survived the worst of this, he tells himself. Even if he has to tell Joel a thousand times more, this will have been the only one where he didn’t know what Joel would think.

There’s more spirit in him as he rises, taking the diary with him. He’s planning to at least get through a few pages of it during this loop, just to see if it bears some resemblance to his own experiences. He tucks it tightly in his palm and starts to make his way towards his alcove when he’s interrupted by the sound of a door crashing open and a called-out greeting.

He freezes.

In no previous loop has Joel ever had another visitor. Unless Tango has done something this morning that might have summoned someone here — which is unlikely because nobody has ever done that in any iteration, so why should they now?

His mind spirals through the possibilities. It could be anyone. It could be someone who can break into loops, through the constructed reality that Tango is trapped in. He doesn’t know anyone who might be able to possess the power to retrieve him. He certainly doesn’t consider for more than even a moment that this might be some unknown party here to free him for no reason other than charity.

Given that, then, it’s likely someone with malicious intent — someone who can take advantage of his state and situation, or even some person who put him here—

He races through the shelves, footsteps loud against the patterned carpet, and hears the distant sounds of talking. The bookshelves around him themselves feel as if they’re parting as he makes his way to the front of the shop, clattering down the short paths, the tools hanging from his backpack clanging faithfully behind him.

He pulls up short at the entrance to the store and is faced with quite the opposite of his fears.

Joel is leaning over the counter, looking surprised at Tango’s appearance, and then almost amused as he takes him in. Opposite him is the woman he’s greeting.

Tango recognises her immediately from the various pictures of her in several corners of the bookstore. This is Gem — the co-owner of this store, and Joel’s wife.

This is Joel’s wife.

She seems immediately less intimidating in person. It isn’t just because she isn’t being captured in some dramatic pose or painted with a rather terrifying expression — though those are factors too, certainly — but there’s something about her curious smile that just doesn’t seem like half the ruthless warrior Joel described her as.

“Hi there,” she says, and it strikes Tango that she sounds like the friendliest person he’s ever heard. “Is everything alright?”

Right. He must look a little strange, huffing from the exercise of having run all the way here, and doing that alone in a bookstore is just an odd choice overall. Joel looks torn between laughter and something like guilt, and the former is at least an indicator that Tango looks at least stupid too.

“It’s fine,” he replies, once he’s remembered to speak. “I’m just… I’m… how did you get here?”

“Through the door, of course,” Gem answers, some familiar snark in her tone. “Joel, you get some of the weirdest customers.”

“Hey—!”

“I do, I do,” Joel interrupts, with an apologetic look at Tango. He looks back at Gem. “Though this one has a good reason to be confused. He’s stuck in a time loop.”

“Oh,” Gem says. And then, again, “Oh!” And then, after another moment of thought: “Oh. Joel, don’t tell me you haven’t told him.”

“I didn’t mention it the first few times, and then it felt like a bad time!” Joel argues, raising his hands. “Besides, he seemed happy enough getting a blank slate every day, so—”

“You remember the other loops?!” Tango bursts in, finally putting the pieces together. The other two turn sharply to look at him, Gem’s eyebrows raised and Joel’s pointed down in worry, and it occurs to him that he may have been louder than he thought.

“It’s a magical bookshop,” says Gem. “Time shenanigans break a little bit in here.”

Tango’s blood runs cold. “Joel? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“It was just never a good time! And — you assumed I was forgetting things yourself, okay?” Joel says defensively. “It’s really not my fault! It was just awkward, with you always coming in and greeting me every day. What was I meant to do?”

Tango buries his head in his hands, face scrunching against his palms. It’s only for a second, though, because that’s about how long it takes for him to decide his next course of action.

He isn’t familiar with magic or time loops, and he can’t tell exactly how Joel has been sitting at the intersection of the two for so long. Nor can he tell how the other two might be looking at him, because he isn’t exactly a mind reader.

He isn’t patient or clever or anything else that might carry him through this conversation.

What he is is predictable, however — and, predictable as ever, he bolts out of the door before anyone can try to stop him.

Chapter Text

For almost a week’s worth of looping, Tango doesn’t return to the bookstore. He gets up to other things; thinking about what he can actually try to get out of the loop, now that he’s no longer just reading up on theory, takes up less of his time than it should. Instead he thinks a lot about the bookshop. He thinks a lot about Joel.

The guilt in his expression makes sense now, at least. As do other things: the little bits of memory he seemed to retain, the routines that seemed to get easier for both of them.

When he’d returned from the maze, Joel had seemed surprised at his progress. Tango figures that Joel doesn’t remember the loops during which he doesn’t go to the bookstore. So this time — these days in between — won’t pass for him. It’s all dead time.

It’s extra time. The universe keeps giving him this. Loops to think during, day after day to waste.

He goes back to Aevum, one of these wasted days, and sits in the golden grass. It’s soft between his fingers. The cool air rejuvenates him more than he’d expected. Maybe it’s because he’s spent so long among worn, dusty shelves, but he feels as if he’s experiencing the world for the first time in so, so long.

He has all this time to throw away. What does he want to do with it?

The sun begins to set on the horizon, and he leans back on his hands to watch it vanish.

*

On the day he decides to return to the bookstore, Tango steals a pastry, just as he used to in the first few days of visiting it. It lets him meander, chewing as he walks, and procrastinate the inevitable reunion he’s about to have. Joel and Gem, he must remember, are stuck in the same day he left them — or, rather, the day after that.

They are exempt from his time loop. They are subject to his time loop. At least this time, when he walks in, those facts will actually make sense to him.

When he does walk in, Gem is writing in a book at the counter and Joel is humming to himself somewhere out of sight. She glances up when Tango walks in and smiles.

“Oh, thank goodness,” she says, setting down her pen. “Joel was getting very worried that you weren’t going to come back.”

“No I wasn’t!” Joel shouts from somewhere in the expanse of shelves behind them, and Gem rolls her eyes good-naturedly.

“He spent all morning stressing out,” she adds, voice lowered. “Apparently, you might have broken the loop already and we would never have known what happened.”

“It does seem to work like that,” Tango says. “But I’m still stuck in it, sorry.”

Gem snorts. “Why are you sorry? This is the most exciting thing that’s happened here for years, Tango! And as I told Joel: now that you both know how this thing works, we can all work together on researching the solution!”

“Yeah — I guess we can. Plus, if you’re up for it, I can show you the way through that maze in Aevum?”

Gem’s eyes light up, and Tango already knows what her answer will be.

*

Besides showing Gem everything he’s figured out about the maze, Tango does really get back to his research. Joel dodges the topic of how he’d been pretending he didn’t know Tango for so long, and Tango dodges the responsibility of bringing it up first. It works out pretty well for the most part; they’re a decent team when they really get down to pooling information.

It takes two weeks or so before he figures out how to address the elephant in the room.

“So. Were you putting all these books back every day, then?”

Joel’s head shoots up and he flushes.

“No! I mean — at first, yeah, but then I just rolled the cart behind a few shelves and hoped you wouldn’t go check, come on.”

To that, Tango laughs, and he can hear Gem giggling a few aisles over.

“It’s not that funny!” Joel protests.

“I mean, it’s a little funny,” Tango says, though he does try to keep his amusement at bay for now. “You really didn’t have to do all of that.”

“You know what was funny to me? The fact you’d properly introduce yourself every day! You even tried out jokes on one day and didn’t on others, I mean—”

“There’s no better opportunity to see if a joke lands than if your audience forgets the next day,” Tango defends, nudging him with his foot. “Though I guess that wasn’t even true.”

He pretends to look betrayed, but his own tone betrays him in turn. Joel shakes his head and returns to his book, snorting, and a few seconds later Gem returns with a stack of books in her arms.

“By the way, you should check out that aisle, boys,” she says, nodding to the one she’s just emerged from. “It’s not quite time loop material, just generic curses, but I think there were a few interesting titles in there.”

Tango nods. “I’m almost done looking through this, I’ll check it out right after. Thanks, Gem.”

“No problem!”

It doesn’t take more than a few minutes for him to decide that there’s nothing in this book he hasn’t already seen ten times over. He sets it back on the cart and stretches, making a face at Joel when he’s teased for it.

“There’s no invisible walls in this aisle, right?”

“Might be,” Joel shoots back, not even looking up. “Guess you’ll find out when you run into one.”

With a resigned, only slightly dramatic sigh, Tango enters the little semi-corridor, ducking under a few beams at the entrance before beginning to search for the section Gem had mentioned. Sure enough, there’s a whole block of books neatly organised on his right, and among them a few titles about repetitions and being trapped in places.

He flicks through a few of these, checking just the names of chapters and the descriptions scrawled on the back on within the first few pages, unsure he’ll really find anything.

His hands pause on a particular chapter: ‘Emotional Resets: A Study in Time Loop Psychology’.

Something about this one feels unusual to him. It’s nothing he thinks he hasn’t seen, but there’s something about the book — about this page — that allures him. He doesn’t manage to wonder if it itself might be cursed in some way before he’s sitting down on the floor to read through it intently.

He finishes the chapter in mere minutes, his eyes wide as he closes the book. Everything he’s been experiencing lines up perfectly with what it's describing. Yes, he’s been running, he’s wanted time, he’s afraid of something behind him that echoes into every day ahead. The solution for breaking out of the loop — just leaving the town, returning to his home and facing the music — would be so simple.

This is it.

He… doesn’t want this to be it yet.

A beat passes. Then he slides the book under the bottom shelf, waiting for it to completely disappear from view. He glances around furtively, then sighs in relief when he’s sure that nobody is lurking around the corner or watching for him. The careful movements come almost too easily to him, and guilt hits too slowly and too lightly.

He knows what he wants to do with all this time, now, and he’s not throwing it away.

Chapter Text

Tango isn’t really bothering to grab anything anymore in the mornings. Joel usually has whatever he needs waiting for him when he arrives, including breakfast. Sometimes Gem eats this with them as well, when she’s not busy re-settling-in around the store.

The store itself seems brighter with her here, the shelves leaning in towards her as she moves around them. Sometimes she heads out to deliver books elsewhere, though she doesn’t name who it is she’s selling them to. Tango guesses there must be magical clients out there unaffected by the loop. He supposes Gem must be one of them, considering the way she arrived the first time he saw her.

Joel doesn’t ever seem to go out, citing that he doesn’t want to leave Tango unsupervised here. When Tango mentions that Gem would at least be there, Joel shakes his head.

“She won’t know the little tricks you get up to,” he says warningly, wagging a finger at him over lunch. “She’ll accidentally lead you to our secret vault.”

“I don’t even do anything! We just sit and read books!”

Joel shakes his head solemnly. “And if I wasn’t here to make sure of that, I bet you’d be breaking and entering.”

“These are completely unfounded accusations,” Tango complains.

“You’re telling me you haven’t stolen anything in any previous loops?”

“That doesn’t count. None of that was really stolen, it was—”

“Aha! See?” Joel grins. “I’m not making Gem deal with that, mister.”

Tango takes a pointed, faux-annoyed bite from his lunch, though he doesn’t argue the point any further. In all honesty, he’s still glad for the routine of seeing Joel every day. That’s what he’s doing this for, now.

He can’t help feeling a little guilty, though. If Joel is forced to stay here every day, he’s just as trapped as Tango.

Then again, he does seem to be having more fun with the research now that Tango knows he can just walk in and carry on from the previous loop. And he’s starting to branch out from just this one section of the store, as it happens.

“Here you go! New one for the reading list,” Joel says one afternoon, dropping something on Tango’s lap.

He squints down at it. “This isn’t from here.”

“I’m borrowing it from the town library. You need a break from those time books every now and then.”

“Sure,” Tango says. He holds up the book and tilts his head. “I haven’t read an Agatha Christie before.”

“You’ve been missing out big time.” Joel sits down with a huff. “Anyway, have fun with that. I’ve got records to fill out for Gem, though, so don’t look like you’re enjoying yourself too much either.”

All the same, Tango sends him a grateful look. This is a gesture he resolves not to take lightly.

The change is nice. Even though they are getting more done together, there’s also more days they’re spending doing nothing useful at all, Tango showing him a secret back entrance to Harry Mt. Rogers’ farm and walking through the streets with him and explaining everything he’s learnt over the loops about the various citizens of the town.

Sometimes the two of them go through the maze to the statue and see what they can actually do with it. They haven’t been successful with anything yet, but at this point they’re hardly strangers to a lack of progress. Joel seems convinced that Gem will know what its purpose is; meanwhile, she seems convinced that there’s no point going back until the loop is broken.

Tango finds out where the bookstore’s kitchen is. He learns to brew tea and send it out on floating trays to pretty much anywhere in the store. When he accidentally tears a book’s page, he learns how to use a little instrument that stitches the tear together so well that it looks as though nothing has happened. Joel is as eager to show him around as if he might be introducing a new employee, and familiar enough to feel like a friend.

The more time he spends here, the more glad he is that he chose to stay here, to hide away that book and pretend he might find it in all the wrong places.

And yet, as the days roll by, he still feels worse and worse that he did.

*

He is sitting along a balcony near the top of the bookshelf, the whole place laid out beneath him. It’s a fantastic view, impossible in every way due to the low ceiling of most of the shelves, and one of his new favourite places in which to think.

Lately, he’s been taking an interest in reading through a few books on magical engineering. He knows he can rig up a system for tidying up fallen books relatively quickly if he can figure out all the right parts he’ll need and all the possible side effects he might have to consider when making it.

He doesn’t hear Gem approaching from behind, and almost yelps when she sits down next to him.

“Morning, Tango,” she greets, and he turns sideways to look at her. She looks serious, though not unkindly so. “I think we need to talk.”

His heartbeat picks up — that’s never a good sentence to hear.

“What is it?” he asks anyway.

There is a short pause, and then Gem picks up a book and holds it up.

It’s the book he’d slid under the bookshelf. Gem looks as though she already knows that he knows he’s been caught, and hands it over to him with a small smile.

“It’s a lovely place, here,” she tells him, “and Joel is a great person. But you’ll have to tell him eventually. As long as you’re stuck, he is too. It isn’t fair to him to make him miss out on everything else. ” And, more gently, she adds, “It’ll be good for you to move on, too.”

Tango turns to look down at the bookstore, at his feet dangling from the balcony and the great mess of aisles and alcoves below.

He can’t see Joel down there. It’s as empty as ever. As empty as it always is, as long as he’s here.

“Take your time, of course,” Gem says, and he can hear her getting up beside him, “but don’t take too long.”

*

Joel doesn’t act any differently after that, so Tango assumes that Gem hasn’t told him anything yet. He’s grateful for the chance she’s giving him.

“We should go visit the mayor’s garden today,” Joel declares, a few days after Gem’s confrontation. “What’s he going to do? He’ll forget tomorrow.”

“What are we planning on doing there?” Tango asks. He’s already on board, sure, but he’d like to know.

It was the right question to ask. Joel tucks his hands in his pockets and smirks over at him. “How do you think he feels about a little arson?”

“You want to set his garden on fire?”

“Yep! We can go today, have a little barbecue, accidentally drop a log or two, then run away and watch it all go down. It’ll reset tomorrow, right?”

“Right, it will. Why did I never do this?” Tango wonders out loud.

It’s a brilliant plan. He can see nothing wrong with this plan whatsoever, and he loves the idea, and he is deeply excited for it. And — as Gem isn’t here — there’s nobody to stop them.

So the plan goes ahead.

They head out when they know the mayor is busy in the office and set up the barbecue in the corner of the garden. The logs they’ve brought are burning happily, the sky is clear, and the mayor is nowhere to be seen. It all goes off without a hitch, except that the logs they drop to the grass immediately fizzle out and start no fire whatsoever.

The two of them are left looking down at their sad excuse for a crime, only the lightest puff of smoke reaching them.

“We’ll workshop it,” Tango says, and Joel nods.

“Yeah. There’s always tomorrow.”

So they do go back tomorrow, this time with a few matches in case the logs don’t work, and still they’re chased out before they can get anything started.

The next day they’re out in the mayor’s garden again, this time keeping their eyes out for anyone who might try to stop them — and then again and again, when their plans keep going awry, until finally Joel is setting off fireworks as a last-ditch attempt and it finally sets the garden ablaze.

“Really?!” Joel exclaims in frustration, watching the mayor run out and start waving a hat around in alarm. “That’s what works? They need to make it easier to do a little arson around here.”

Tango laughs, nudging him slightly. “This does mean the mayoral safety’s a little good, right?”

“Tango, we still set a fire. This isn’t a good thing no matter how you look at it!”

Despite his complaints, though, Joel seems satisfied enough with their efforts, telling him they should come back to do this the next day. Tango’s not so sure himself. He looks out into the burning trees and is struck, very suddenly, with the great impermanence of every little thing he does as long as he is stuck here.

Every little thing both of them do.

*

Joel still seems delighted about their results that evening, relaying the whole tale to Gem between bites and occasionally getting reprimanded by both of the others for it.

“I’m glad you two have been making yourselves useful,” she teases them once he’s done. “I should have known it was too much to hope that you might have been sorting out orders, though.”

“We all need a break, Gem,” Joel says.

“Uh huh,” she replies, giving him a pointed look. “Well, let me know when Tango’s time stuff is done with so I can finally go pick up the statue in Aevum, okay?”

“You’re planning to bring it back?” Tango cuts in.

“It’ll look nice in the bookshop.”

“Does it do anything?” Joel asks, bringing up what Tango has genuinely been wondering for a long time now.

“Nothing at all, except for during lunar eclipses.”

“What does it do then?”

Gem laughs, going back to her dinner. “You’ll have to wait to find that out. I can’t do anything until the time loop is gone.”

Joel scoffs lightheartedly, looking offended, and turns back to Tango to plan out their next move in the one-sided war against the mayor’s garden.

Next to him, Tango tries his best not to fidget. He’s gotten the message from Gem, he reckons.

They’ve had their fun. It’s time to make his move.

*

He enters the bookstore the next day with a strong sense of mounting dread in his chest. There is nobody at the counter today, but he sees a bread roll sitting waiting for him. With his stomach churning as it is, though, he isn’t exactly hungry.

Once the door falls shut behind him, he hears Joel greet him from somewhere further within the store. Tango waits for him at the counter, expecting that he’ll probably show up relatively soon, and is proven right when Joel pops out from behind one of the shelves, familiar grin on his face.

The grin drops relatively quickly. “What’s up? You look like someone stole your backpack.”

Tango checks his back instinctively and then realises that of course it’s still there. At the movement, Joel barks out a laugh.

“Out with it, Tango. We have things to get to.”

“Yeah.” Tango winces. “About that. I actually — don’t think we need to, anymore.”

Some flashes over Joel’s face. “You found a solution?”

“I — yeah. Some time ago,” Tango says. He tries to swallow past the lump in his throat. “I didn’t want to leave all of this behind, but… I think that’s the problem, you know? I’ve been scared of going back to face everything I left behind. Until I do that, though, I’m stuck.” Tango shrugs. “It’s good for me. I guess.”

“The universe won’t let you run away from it, huh?” Joel half-grins. “Sounds about right. Why not go for it, then? We’ll still be here when you’re free.”

“I don’t know. What if I don’t come back?”

Joel’s face falls into a frown. “Why wouldn’t you? Haven’t you been… enjoying yourself, here?”

“I — Joel, I used to run away from everything. It’s what I’ve always done. I mean, I’d have run away from here, too, if I could have.”

“But would you still do that now?”

“I don’t know,” Tango says. “You don’t know. You don’t know how many days I might have tried to in between the times I came here.” He avoids Joel’s piercing stare. “I’m worried it’ll happen again.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Joel open his mouth to reply, then clamp it shut. His heart starts to sink, but he’s already made his mind up. He’s crossed a line he can’t go back on, for once, and he can’t come back here under the pretence of needing to anymore.

“Just in case I don’t come back,” he adds, when Joel stays quiet, “I wanted you to know what happened.”

He takes another long look around the bookstore, trying to memorise every inch of it, before finally turning to head back outside. As he swings the door open, he feels Joel tug him backwards by the arm.

“You’ll come back,” Joel says, eyes shining with something Tango can’t place. “Don’t you dare disappear forever, got it?”

“Got it,” Tango manages.

And then, stepping back into the store, Joel lets him go.

Chapter Text

When Tango returns to the bookstore next, it’s in the middle of a storm. It’s not ideal weather; he’s got a hood pulled over his head and is squinting against the sharp rain, grateful he can navigate the oddities district in his sleep. He’s not sure he’d be able to find his way here otherwise.

The alleyway is slippery enough that he has to walk slowly, carefully dodging the larger puddles and wary of the streams of water taking advantage of the slope to form under his feet. He's glad he's not being chased by anyone this time, certainly. When he finally gets to the bookstore, it’s with a sigh of relief.

He swings the door open and is so busy trying to shake the rain from his coat that he entirely misses Gem’s chuckle.

“I take it that things went well with the book, then?” she asks. He jumps, and it prompts her to laugh again.

“It did, more or less,” he says. “I, uh — thank you for telling me where it was. I realised when I went back that it was thanks to you I found it in the first place.”

“Of course. It’s the best book here.” Gem’s expression shifts, a little slyly. “It’s in the curses section for a reason, you know. It’s cursed to show you exactly what you need.”

Tango’s mouth falls open. “That’s not even a curse!”

“It’s a bit of a curse sometimes,” Gem grins. “Besides, you almost didn’t listen to it, right?”

“Why didn’t Joel give that to me from the beginning?”

“We all have our secrets, Tango. I do, too. And I need Joel to solve some of his own problems.” With that dropped on him, she leaves her place behind the counter and goes to give Tango a side-hug. “I’m glad you’re back, though, really. I’ll go get him now.”

Well, this place never fails to surprise him, he supposes. As he watches Gem go, he turns back to look at some of the books on display. They’ve changed since the day he was here, now featuring a variety of guides on shadow creatures and their evolution through the millennia.

Footsteps sound from behind him, and he turns again to see Joel emerging from the next room. He brightens up the second he sees Tango, nearly dropping the book in his hand as he runs over to hug him tightly, surprising him even though he reciprocates.

“Didn’t I say you’d be back?” Joel beams, finally releasing him enough that they can see each other properly.

“You did,” Tango laughs. “I guess you’re right about some things.”

Joel gives him a gentle whack on the arm. “Most things. All things, actually, I’m amending that statement.”

“Well, with that infinite wisdom, do you think you can find me a book today?”

“It is a bookstore.” Still, Joel does look curious. “What is it you need?”

“What I need,” Tango says, drawing out his words just slightly, “is something that’ll make the journey from my home to here shorter. A portal, or a really fast horse, or — something like that.”

“Yeah?” Joel asks, expression splitting open in a grin.

“I’ve made such a habit of seeing you every day. I’d like to keep it.”

At that, Joel laughs, and Tango could swear it’s the best sound he’s ever heard. He takes Tango’s face between his palms and angles it down to face him properly, something infinitely fond in his expression.

“You’re such an idiot,” Joel says affectionately, before finally leaning in to cut his protest off with a kiss.