[fic] it fell to me to give the lion's roar
title: It Fell to Me to Give the Lion's Roar
author:
liz_hollis
rating: PG-13/R
pairing: Joe/Nick
word count: 4080
warnings: incest, sad children, lions
summary: 'Kevin runs a a shaking hand through his hair. "Look, we have to decide quickly. Are we going?" Nick doesn't have to think twice. He looks over at Joe and Joe is already there, looking back at him, jaw set. "Let's go."'
disclaimer: Yeah, this didn't happen
author's note: another story in the Disney Circus AU: The Greatest Show on Earth. This part is Nick-centric. The title comes from a Winston Churchill quote. Thanks to allthehopeless for reading this over!
Nick is twelve when their parents die.
It's terrifyingly abrupt; a Mack truck driver asleep at the wheel, their parents in the little red Camry that drove Nick to soccer practice that afternoon, shattered glass and twisted metal and not a thing to be done. Nick is asleep when the phone rings and Joe and Kevin have to wake him. Joe slides silent and trembling into the bed next to Nick, and Kevin's face and voice and words hold an awful, exhausted finality.
Nick doesn't cry.
The funeral is two days later. It's mostly organized by the members of his father's parish, which is good because Kevin and Joe wouldn't have had the first clue of what to do, and Nick-- Nick is twelve and his parents are dead.
It's a nice service, he supposes. It doesn't feel like a funeral for Nick's parents as much as it does a funeral for the minister of the New Life Christian Reform Church and his wife. They don't have much extended family; Aunt Nora comes with her five loud kids, and their father's cousin Roy comes, but he doesn't talk to Nick or his brothers and he drinks from a flask throughout the service. Nick and Joe and Kevin stand in a row in front of the double caskets, holding hands against the crushing tide of empty words and consolations.
Silent tears run down Kevin's pale cheeks and drip onto the upturned soil. Joe cries messily and with great vigor, his nose running and his eyes puffing up to red painful slits. Nick doesn't cry. He just feels cold.
He is vaguely aware of the conversations that happen over the next few days, conversations between Kevin and Aunt Nora about where they'll go, who will take custody of them. Kevin is only seventeen, after all. Mostly Nick sits on the back steps with Cocoa's head on his knee and strokes the silky fur of his ears, teaching him to roll over and beg.
Then two days later, Nick answers the doorbell and a social worker is standing on the front steps.
Kevin and Aunt Nora make him go outside, and Joe follows. They climb up high into the cherry tree and choose thick branches to lie on. Nick stares up at the sunbleached edges of the leaves and thinks about the way his mother's hand felt, brushing unruly hair off his forehead. His throat swells up, but he doesn't cry.
Kevin wakes them late that night. Joe had crawled into Nick's bed after they turned off the lights. He had wrapped his arms around Nick and put his head on the pillow by Nick's shoulder and cried and cried until the pillowcase was soaked and his face was sore and hot. The miserable heat emanating from Joe is the only thing keeping Nick from freezing, from shattering into a thousand pieces of icy, broken boy.
Kevin shakes them both awake. His hand is urgent on Nick's shoulder. Joe wakes with a start and a sleepy grunt.
Kevin puts a finger to his lips, and Nick can see his eyes wide and frightened in the light filtering in off the street. Kevin whispers, "We have to go. Now."
"Go?" Joe mumbles, not quiet enough, trying to pry Kevin's hand off his shoulder. "Go where? Get off, Kev!"
"Shh!" Kevin's hiss is frantic, and he listens intently for a long moment. Nick touches Joe's wrist and feels dread in his gut. Kevin whips back around. "They're going to put us in foster care. Tomorrow morning. We'll be separated. If we want to stay together, stay a family, we have to leave. Right now."
Joe bolts upright. "What? They can't do that!"
"Yes, they can," Kevin responds.
"What about Aunt Nora?" Nick cuts in.
Kevin shakes his head. "She won't take us all. She says she can't handle three more boys." He runs a shaking hand through his hair. "Look, we have to decide quickly. Are we going?"
Nick doesn't have to think twice. He looks over at Joe, and Joe is already there, looking back at him, jaw set.
"Let's go."
They go to New York City first, because Joe surmises it would be easiest to get lost in a city of millions of people. It's surprisingly easy to leave. There is Kevin's guitar and Nick's piano and Joe's room full of books and photographs, but none of it means a thing when confronted with losing each other. The only family they have.
Kevin is terrible at living on the run, hiding and sneaking. He's alert and does a good job taking care of Nick and Joe and planning ahead, but he's too friendly, too social and trusting to be any good at staying under the radar. Luckily, Joe is really good at it, and Nick learns fast. Nick's age is a liability, it makes him stand out, but Joe can pull a hat down over his head and button up his coat and become almost invisible. He gets them most of their food, going out in the late evening and coming back breathless and almost always carrying something.
After a month the cops raid the bridge they've been camping under, and they almost get caught. They ditch the city.
They stay on the move mostly after that. It's really hard, and Nick is always hungry, and he misses beds and school and music and sports and feeling like he can relax... but he doesn't regret it for a second, not once. At night he is surrounded by Joe and Kevin on either side of him, and he doesn't feel so cold like that.
Nick turns thirteen in an abandoned rail yard in Virginia. Kevin wakes him up with a styrofoam McDonald's take out box filled with warm, rubbery pancakes. They drench them in syrup and pass the box around, grinning at each other with full mouths, savoring each bite. Joe gives him a package wrapped in damp newspaper- the comics section. It's an old battered Walkman and one cassette. Stevie Wonder. The headphones have wires sticking out of them, but they work and there are fresh batteries in the tape player.
Nick and Joe lie sandwiched together on the floor of a boxcar that night, heads pressed close, one headphone each, listening to the scratchy sounds of 'Sir Duke'. Nick presses his face into Joe's shoulder and breathes in the smell of him until it surrounds him.
They're somewhere in Ohio when Nick gets sick. He's not sure what it is, but one morning he wakes up and his whole body feels like he's been beaten. His bones ache and it's summer, but he's so cold he's shaking. He can't help the moan that escapes him when he tries to move. Joe jerks awake, and when he looks at Nick and touches his forehead the color drains from his face.
The world is a fever dream, wavy and soft at the edges. Nick is lying on pins and needles. Kevin's face hovers above him, then Joe's arms wrap around him and it hurts, the rough touch of Joe's hands against his fiery skin. Nick wants to push him away.
"... have to do something, Kevin!" Joe is saying. Kevin is pacing, and Nick just wants to sink back into sleep where the sun isn't so painfully bright and his whole being isn't one big bundle of nerves on fire.
"Where are we gonna take him? We go to a hospital, a doctor, it's over." Kevin's voice is pitched high with fear.
They've camped in rocky enclosure by a stream. Nick tries to heave himself up. "M'fine," he slurs, but Joe pushes him back down. Nick lifts his arm to point at the girl standing by the water, watching the argument between Joe and Kevin, but neither of his brothers notice, too absorbed in their fight.
"Joe," he croaks. Joe immediately wheels around and crouches by Nick, his hand hovering above Nick's cheek.
"What, Nicky?"
"S' a girl over there, Joe." Nick points again, and Joe and Kevin's heads swing around simultaneously to see her, and everyone freezes for a moment. It's interrupted by the wet, roiling cough that tears through Nick, hunching him over. He spits.
"What's wrong with him?" the girl calls. She looks to be about Nick's age. She's pretty.
Nick tugs on Joe's hand. "Joe? M'just gonna go to sleep for awhile, okay? I'll be fine." Joe says something but Nick ignores it, closing his eyes, because he's really tired and he just wants Joe to shut up for awhile.
When Nick wakes up, he's not outside anymore. He's inside somewhere, he's looking up at a roof and a window and curtains and he's lying on a long soft sofa. The dim light is coming from a lamp with a patterned red scarf draped over it. There's a woman moving around quietly in a kitchen-like area close by.
Nick coughs and she turns around and smiles. She has a face like a mother. She pulls a chair up a few feet away from him and sits down. Nick pushes himself up a little against the pillows.
"Hi, Nick. I'm Diana." Her voice is melodic, with just a hint of an accent.
"Where's Joe? Where are my brothers?" Nick blurts out, suddenly afraid that they've been caught and Joe and Kevin have been taken away from him. If he didn't even get to say goodbye...
"Joe is asleep in one of the bunks in the back. Kevin is at the canteen getting something to eat." Diana says soothingly.
Nick takes a deep breath, which triggers a coughing fit. Diana offers him a glass of water, and he looks around more closely as he drinks it. He's pretty sure he's in a trailer. The space is small, just one big room really, and Nick can see where the wheel casings are.
"Where am I?" he finally asks.
"You're with The Disney Brothers Greatest Show on Earth."
Nick gapes at her. "You mean... the circus?"
Someone laughs from around the corner; a real, solid, brash-sounding laugh, and Nick looks up. The girl he saw by the stream is peeking around the corner by the door, all long brown hair and toothy smile. Diana introduces her as her daughter, Demi, and Nick likes her immediately. She sits on the floor next to the sofa and tells Nick all about Disney Bros Circus; listing off the acts and the people who perform them, who's nice and who to look out for, who are the other kids in the company, all the while braiding and unbraiding a small section of hair with quick fingers. It's hard to feel shy around her.
Joe acts normal when he wakes up, but he also doesn't leave Nick's side for the rest of the day, and there are shadows like bruises under his eyes.
Joe and Nick share the cramped couch that night, Kevin snoring on a pile of blankets and throws on the floor. In the dark quiet, Joe pulls Nick to him, his hands fumbling and almost rough. He tugs their shirts over their heads, Nick fuzzy and stunned, and brings them chest to chest, hooking his chin over Nick's thin shoulder and digging his blunt fingertips into the hot skin of his back. Nick feels tears drop onto his skin.
"Joe, if you don't stop crying so much, m'gonna have to build an ark," he whispers.
Joe hitches a laugh that sounds like a sob. "I've just got a lot of emotions in here, Nicky." They're both quiet for a moment and then, his voice barely there, Joe murmurs, "Don't-- don't do that, Nick. Don't do that to me."
Nick's hand comes up to the back of Joe's neck, stroking the knobs of his spine. "... It's okay, Joe. M'okay." Joe just holds him tighter.
It takes Nick about a week to get over the bronchitis. Once he's better, Diana walks him and Joe and Kevin through the circus camp- basically a huge ring of caravans and trailers encircling the canteen tent and set off from the big top- to a big silver Airstream RV set off from the rest of the camp. Everyone watches them as they pass. Demi waves from where she's playing some kind of kickball variation with a bunch of other kids.
The trailer is dark and smoky, and it aggravates the remnants of Nick's cough. Kevin squints through the gloom and nudges Joe and Nick in the sides when he sees the figure behind the desk.
"Sit down, boys," the shadowy figure says. They sit in the folding chairs. "I'm Mr. Disney, and this is my company you've so abruptly inserted yourselves into." Joe, Nick and Kevin look around at each other nervously. "So tell me. Why shouldn't I send you packing right now? Or maybe give a call to the police and see why three underage boys would be running around the countryside?" Mr. Disney's fingers are steepled together in front of his face and his eyes are narrow, assessing.
"Sir," Kevin pipes up, his voice high in the way it only gets when he's extremely anxious. "It's not like that, it's-- Our parents are dead, sir. And we just--"
Joe cuts in. "We just wanted to stay together, sir."
"Yes, well, I don't have room in my company for freeloading runaways. You could endanger my whole operation."
"We can work, sir." Nick says quietly. "We'll work."
There is a long pause while Mr. Disney sizes them up, taking a long drag from his cigarette. "What can you boys do?"
"Do, sir?" Kevin asks, confused.
"Talents, kid. Have you got any talent in your knucklehead body? Clearly intelligence is not one of your talents," he mutters.
"Oh. No, sir."
"Well, Kevin did gymnastics!" Joe says brightly. Mr. Disney stubs his cigarette out in an ashtray and sits back.
"Isn't that nice for him." Smoke spirals out of his nose. "Well. You'll all work for the animal trainers for now, feeding and mucking out the stalls. You, Mr. Smart Guy-" he jabs a finger at Kevin- "You're with the horses. Mr. Sensitive over here is with the elephants. Watch your wallet. And you-" he points at Nick- "Mr. Strong and Silent. You'll be with the lions." He folds his arms. "And may I suggest you find some talents."
And then they're back outside, summarily dismissed and squinting in the bright sun.
The first time Nick steps into the lion trailer, it feels like coming home.
The light is dim, the air close and thick and sharp. It smells dangerous; like fur and sweat and maybe the tang of blood. And power. Nick looks at the two animals curled up at the end of the caravan, and he sees pure wild power. The lions gaze at him with bright, razor-sharp, deeply intelligent eyes, and Nick has never felt anything like the feeling he gets standing there in front of them.
Nick stands very still and keeps his body relaxed, just like Andrew told him to. The male lion, Zeus, pushes up onto all four legs and stares Nick down. Nick is entirely aware, with his whole being, that the lion could kill him. He watches the ripple of muscle in the lion's powerful haunches, can see the very tips of his incisors in his massive mouth. But he doesn't feel afraid. He keeps eye contact with Zeus, direct but non-confrontational, and after a few minutes the animal huffs out an incredibly human-sounding sigh and flops back down on the floor, batting a massive paw at Hera, the female.
Nick feels like he's passed some kind of test, one he didn't even realize he was desperate not to fail.
He picks up the broom with shaking hands and starts sweeping out the dirty straw. He doesn't realize that he's crying until his vision is so blurred he can't see the floor anymore. He backs up until he bumps into the rough wood siding of the wall, and slides down into a crouch. Tears run down his face for a long, long time, and the lions look at him curiously but don't appear bothered.
Nick is glad they are there.
When Nick is sixteen, Andrew the lion tamer leaves the circus abruptly over some kind of disagreement with Walt. The whole company gossips for a week about what the disagreement concerned, but no one really knows, because Andrew stays tight-lipped and Walt... is Walt. Andrew takes Zeus and Hera with him, and everyone steers very clear of the shiny Airstream trailer for a few days.
They have no lion act, and it's always been their big draw. Kevin's been part of the acrobat team since six months after they joined. It turned out his gymnastics training did count for something. And Joe has been performing with the aerialists for almost a year now, Demi putting extra hours in helping him train. But Nick is out a job. Andrew had been teaching him, training him in lion taming since he started working with him. But you can't have a lion act without lions.
When David taps his shoulder apologetically in the canteen and tells him Walt wants to see him, Nick isn't sure what's going to happen. Would Walt actually kick him out? But when he follows David across the camp, he's shocked to find Walt standing at the bottom of the caravan steps, looking harassed. He looks Nick up and down and shakes his head.
"Come with me."
They drive for over an hour in Walt's Cadillac. Nick doesn't ask where they're going, just watches the scenery whip by outside the window. When the car finally stops, Nick realizes they are at another circus.
The lioness from The Nickelodeon Big Top had two cubs a couple months ago. Walt is buying them. Nick strokes the head of one of the little cubs, half-asleep and mewling, and the cub nuzzles into his palm. Walt eyes him.
"Can you do it? Can you train them? I want them ready to perform in 6 months."
The cub opens his eyes and looks up at Nick. "Yeah," Nick says. "Yeah, I can do it."
---
It's been eight years since their parents died. Nick watches the trapeze act from backstage. He doesn't often see it. He knows Joe watches his act every night, and sometimes Nick feels bad that he doesn't do the same for Joe. But he just... he really feels like he needs to be with Stevie and Elvis, getting them focused, making sure everything is right, everything is good so that the act will go off perfectly.
The one time Nick haltingly tried to explain this to Joe, stumbling over his words and fumbling an apology, Joe watched him with fond eyes and finally held up a hand to stop him, cutting Nick off mid-word.
"Nick. It's not like that. I get it," he said, and Nick wondered for the millionth time how Joe had come to understand Nick so completely. How he knew Nick better than Nick knew himself.
Joe is not someone Nick (or anyone, really) would call graceful. On the ground, he is clumsy and accident-prone, constantly misjudging spaces and knocking his shoulder off door frames, tripping over his own feet. But in the air... Joe becomes something else. His body twists and arcs in graceful curves, and he throws himself off the platform and into the air with a reckless abandon that borders on beautiful.
Nick gets dizzy from lack of air watching Joe perform, and he doesn't know if it's fear that is taking his breath away, or just Joe.
After the show, Nick stays backstage to clean out the lion cage. The maintenance crew usually mucks it out, but they just don't get it really clean so it's better if Nick just does it himself.
He's sweeping the cement bottom with short, hard strokes when a voice from above him intones, "Hey there, Cinder-Nicholas." Nick jumps almost out of his skin. He looks up, and Joe has managed to silently climb on top of the metal-barred cage and is lying flat on his stomach, peering at Nick through the bars.
"Jesus, Joe. You scared me."
"Sorry," Joe says, swinging down onto the sawdust floor. He ambles into the cage, leaning back against the side and looking up at Nick from under his hair. "Need a hand?"
"Nah." Nick shakes his head. "I'm almost done."
Joe nods. "Okay. I'll wait for you." He digs the toe of his worn sneakers into the concrete, drawing patterns in the dust, and hums a little. Nick sweeps the last of the straw out on the ground and feels happy. He props the broom against the floor and looks at Joe.
"You thinking about Mom and Dad?"
Joe shrugs, meeting Nick's gaze. "A little bit. Eight years..."
"I know," Nick agrees. He lets the broom fall and leans against the bars next to Joe, letting his head roll towards Joe, reading Joe's profile, his features- looking for some piece of his parents in Joe's nose or the bones of his cheek, the shape of his eyes. But he just sees Joe.
"You were amazing up there tonight," he murmurs.
Joe turns his head to Nick, and his face is lit up. "You watched?" Nick nods. Joe blushes a little, cutting his eyes away. "It was pretty good tonight, I dunno, I mean- I fumbled a grip."
"Joe," Nick shakes his head. "Joe... You're like-- beautiful out there." Joe smiles, and it's guileless and sweet and Nick wants to touch his lips, cup his jaw and touch his mouth to Joe's so badly. And he doesn't understand it, he knows it shouldn't be, but his heart is beating against his ribs like a hummingbird and he can't stop looking from Joe's eyes to his lips.
Joe looks at him with wide eyes. "Nick," he breathes. "What are we doing?"
"I-I don't know," Nick admits, and they're so close, all the time, such close quarters, just them in this little band of stragglers and their too near bunks, floating on inconstant winds around a strange, strange country. Too much of what they need found right there, only inches away. They are so close right now, noses nearly touching, the soft heat of each other's breath on their faces.
Joe tilts his head a little, fingertips brushing against Nick's shirtsleeves. "Nick... Do you want to kiss me?"
"Yes," Nick whispers.
"I want you to."
And Nick takes a breath and leans forward, sways in like the world has turned about and his gravity is Joe, and he presses their mouths together. They are motionless for a long moment, Joe's lower lip caught in between Nick's, and their eyes are open. He can already taste the damp heat of Joe's mouth. Joe makes a tiny sound and his eyes flutter shut, his eyelashes fan out against the skin underneath his eyes, and Nick can't do anything but tilt his head and kiss him again.
Nick opens his mouth, touches their tongues together, and he has to wrap his hand around the bars behind Joe's head because kissing someone has never felt like this, never made his legs shake like they might give out, his heart beat right out of his chest. He has never kissed someone and thought he might not know how he'll ever stop.
Joe's hands grip Nick's shoulders like vices and he kisses Nick back fiercely. Their chests press together and Nick slides a hand around Joe's waist, urging him closer, and think that maybe this is what jumping off that high-up platform feels like. Joe slides a thumb into the hollow beneath Nick's jaw, and he can feel his pulse beating against it.
Nick doesn't know how much time has passed when they finally pull apart, breathing hard. Joe is staring at him, his mouth hanging open, impossibly red and shining still from the last time Nick ran his tongue across it.
Nick wants to say something, something that will give this meaning and understanding, but he doesn't have the words. All he can do is hold out his hand silently, palm up and open; a question and an answer in one motion. Joe looks down at his hand and back up at his face, his gaze searching. Nick's hand is steady.
Joe takes it.
author:
liz_hollis
rating: PG-13/R
pairing: Joe/Nick
word count: 4080
warnings: incest, sad children, lions
summary: 'Kevin runs a a shaking hand through his hair. "Look, we have to decide quickly. Are we going?" Nick doesn't have to think twice. He looks over at Joe and Joe is already there, looking back at him, jaw set. "Let's go."'
disclaimer: Yeah, this didn't happen
author's note: another story in the Disney Circus AU: The Greatest Show on Earth. This part is Nick-centric. The title comes from a Winston Churchill quote. Thanks to allthehopeless for reading this over!
Nick is twelve when their parents die.
It's terrifyingly abrupt; a Mack truck driver asleep at the wheel, their parents in the little red Camry that drove Nick to soccer practice that afternoon, shattered glass and twisted metal and not a thing to be done. Nick is asleep when the phone rings and Joe and Kevin have to wake him. Joe slides silent and trembling into the bed next to Nick, and Kevin's face and voice and words hold an awful, exhausted finality.
Nick doesn't cry.
The funeral is two days later. It's mostly organized by the members of his father's parish, which is good because Kevin and Joe wouldn't have had the first clue of what to do, and Nick-- Nick is twelve and his parents are dead.
It's a nice service, he supposes. It doesn't feel like a funeral for Nick's parents as much as it does a funeral for the minister of the New Life Christian Reform Church and his wife. They don't have much extended family; Aunt Nora comes with her five loud kids, and their father's cousin Roy comes, but he doesn't talk to Nick or his brothers and he drinks from a flask throughout the service. Nick and Joe and Kevin stand in a row in front of the double caskets, holding hands against the crushing tide of empty words and consolations.
Silent tears run down Kevin's pale cheeks and drip onto the upturned soil. Joe cries messily and with great vigor, his nose running and his eyes puffing up to red painful slits. Nick doesn't cry. He just feels cold.
He is vaguely aware of the conversations that happen over the next few days, conversations between Kevin and Aunt Nora about where they'll go, who will take custody of them. Kevin is only seventeen, after all. Mostly Nick sits on the back steps with Cocoa's head on his knee and strokes the silky fur of his ears, teaching him to roll over and beg.
Then two days later, Nick answers the doorbell and a social worker is standing on the front steps.
Kevin and Aunt Nora make him go outside, and Joe follows. They climb up high into the cherry tree and choose thick branches to lie on. Nick stares up at the sunbleached edges of the leaves and thinks about the way his mother's hand felt, brushing unruly hair off his forehead. His throat swells up, but he doesn't cry.
Kevin wakes them late that night. Joe had crawled into Nick's bed after they turned off the lights. He had wrapped his arms around Nick and put his head on the pillow by Nick's shoulder and cried and cried until the pillowcase was soaked and his face was sore and hot. The miserable heat emanating from Joe is the only thing keeping Nick from freezing, from shattering into a thousand pieces of icy, broken boy.
Kevin shakes them both awake. His hand is urgent on Nick's shoulder. Joe wakes with a start and a sleepy grunt.
Kevin puts a finger to his lips, and Nick can see his eyes wide and frightened in the light filtering in off the street. Kevin whispers, "We have to go. Now."
"Go?" Joe mumbles, not quiet enough, trying to pry Kevin's hand off his shoulder. "Go where? Get off, Kev!"
"Shh!" Kevin's hiss is frantic, and he listens intently for a long moment. Nick touches Joe's wrist and feels dread in his gut. Kevin whips back around. "They're going to put us in foster care. Tomorrow morning. We'll be separated. If we want to stay together, stay a family, we have to leave. Right now."
Joe bolts upright. "What? They can't do that!"
"Yes, they can," Kevin responds.
"What about Aunt Nora?" Nick cuts in.
Kevin shakes his head. "She won't take us all. She says she can't handle three more boys." He runs a shaking hand through his hair. "Look, we have to decide quickly. Are we going?"
Nick doesn't have to think twice. He looks over at Joe, and Joe is already there, looking back at him, jaw set.
"Let's go."
They go to New York City first, because Joe surmises it would be easiest to get lost in a city of millions of people. It's surprisingly easy to leave. There is Kevin's guitar and Nick's piano and Joe's room full of books and photographs, but none of it means a thing when confronted with losing each other. The only family they have.
Kevin is terrible at living on the run, hiding and sneaking. He's alert and does a good job taking care of Nick and Joe and planning ahead, but he's too friendly, too social and trusting to be any good at staying under the radar. Luckily, Joe is really good at it, and Nick learns fast. Nick's age is a liability, it makes him stand out, but Joe can pull a hat down over his head and button up his coat and become almost invisible. He gets them most of their food, going out in the late evening and coming back breathless and almost always carrying something.
After a month the cops raid the bridge they've been camping under, and they almost get caught. They ditch the city.
They stay on the move mostly after that. It's really hard, and Nick is always hungry, and he misses beds and school and music and sports and feeling like he can relax... but he doesn't regret it for a second, not once. At night he is surrounded by Joe and Kevin on either side of him, and he doesn't feel so cold like that.
Nick turns thirteen in an abandoned rail yard in Virginia. Kevin wakes him up with a styrofoam McDonald's take out box filled with warm, rubbery pancakes. They drench them in syrup and pass the box around, grinning at each other with full mouths, savoring each bite. Joe gives him a package wrapped in damp newspaper- the comics section. It's an old battered Walkman and one cassette. Stevie Wonder. The headphones have wires sticking out of them, but they work and there are fresh batteries in the tape player.
Nick and Joe lie sandwiched together on the floor of a boxcar that night, heads pressed close, one headphone each, listening to the scratchy sounds of 'Sir Duke'. Nick presses his face into Joe's shoulder and breathes in the smell of him until it surrounds him.
They're somewhere in Ohio when Nick gets sick. He's not sure what it is, but one morning he wakes up and his whole body feels like he's been beaten. His bones ache and it's summer, but he's so cold he's shaking. He can't help the moan that escapes him when he tries to move. Joe jerks awake, and when he looks at Nick and touches his forehead the color drains from his face.
The world is a fever dream, wavy and soft at the edges. Nick is lying on pins and needles. Kevin's face hovers above him, then Joe's arms wrap around him and it hurts, the rough touch of Joe's hands against his fiery skin. Nick wants to push him away.
"... have to do something, Kevin!" Joe is saying. Kevin is pacing, and Nick just wants to sink back into sleep where the sun isn't so painfully bright and his whole being isn't one big bundle of nerves on fire.
"Where are we gonna take him? We go to a hospital, a doctor, it's over." Kevin's voice is pitched high with fear.
They've camped in rocky enclosure by a stream. Nick tries to heave himself up. "M'fine," he slurs, but Joe pushes him back down. Nick lifts his arm to point at the girl standing by the water, watching the argument between Joe and Kevin, but neither of his brothers notice, too absorbed in their fight.
"Joe," he croaks. Joe immediately wheels around and crouches by Nick, his hand hovering above Nick's cheek.
"What, Nicky?"
"S' a girl over there, Joe." Nick points again, and Joe and Kevin's heads swing around simultaneously to see her, and everyone freezes for a moment. It's interrupted by the wet, roiling cough that tears through Nick, hunching him over. He spits.
"What's wrong with him?" the girl calls. She looks to be about Nick's age. She's pretty.
Nick tugs on Joe's hand. "Joe? M'just gonna go to sleep for awhile, okay? I'll be fine." Joe says something but Nick ignores it, closing his eyes, because he's really tired and he just wants Joe to shut up for awhile.
When Nick wakes up, he's not outside anymore. He's inside somewhere, he's looking up at a roof and a window and curtains and he's lying on a long soft sofa. The dim light is coming from a lamp with a patterned red scarf draped over it. There's a woman moving around quietly in a kitchen-like area close by.
Nick coughs and she turns around and smiles. She has a face like a mother. She pulls a chair up a few feet away from him and sits down. Nick pushes himself up a little against the pillows.
"Hi, Nick. I'm Diana." Her voice is melodic, with just a hint of an accent.
"Where's Joe? Where are my brothers?" Nick blurts out, suddenly afraid that they've been caught and Joe and Kevin have been taken away from him. If he didn't even get to say goodbye...
"Joe is asleep in one of the bunks in the back. Kevin is at the canteen getting something to eat." Diana says soothingly.
Nick takes a deep breath, which triggers a coughing fit. Diana offers him a glass of water, and he looks around more closely as he drinks it. He's pretty sure he's in a trailer. The space is small, just one big room really, and Nick can see where the wheel casings are.
"Where am I?" he finally asks.
"You're with The Disney Brothers Greatest Show on Earth."
Nick gapes at her. "You mean... the circus?"
Someone laughs from around the corner; a real, solid, brash-sounding laugh, and Nick looks up. The girl he saw by the stream is peeking around the corner by the door, all long brown hair and toothy smile. Diana introduces her as her daughter, Demi, and Nick likes her immediately. She sits on the floor next to the sofa and tells Nick all about Disney Bros Circus; listing off the acts and the people who perform them, who's nice and who to look out for, who are the other kids in the company, all the while braiding and unbraiding a small section of hair with quick fingers. It's hard to feel shy around her.
Joe acts normal when he wakes up, but he also doesn't leave Nick's side for the rest of the day, and there are shadows like bruises under his eyes.
Joe and Nick share the cramped couch that night, Kevin snoring on a pile of blankets and throws on the floor. In the dark quiet, Joe pulls Nick to him, his hands fumbling and almost rough. He tugs their shirts over their heads, Nick fuzzy and stunned, and brings them chest to chest, hooking his chin over Nick's thin shoulder and digging his blunt fingertips into the hot skin of his back. Nick feels tears drop onto his skin.
"Joe, if you don't stop crying so much, m'gonna have to build an ark," he whispers.
Joe hitches a laugh that sounds like a sob. "I've just got a lot of emotions in here, Nicky." They're both quiet for a moment and then, his voice barely there, Joe murmurs, "Don't-- don't do that, Nick. Don't do that to me."
Nick's hand comes up to the back of Joe's neck, stroking the knobs of his spine. "... It's okay, Joe. M'okay." Joe just holds him tighter.
It takes Nick about a week to get over the bronchitis. Once he's better, Diana walks him and Joe and Kevin through the circus camp- basically a huge ring of caravans and trailers encircling the canteen tent and set off from the big top- to a big silver Airstream RV set off from the rest of the camp. Everyone watches them as they pass. Demi waves from where she's playing some kind of kickball variation with a bunch of other kids.
The trailer is dark and smoky, and it aggravates the remnants of Nick's cough. Kevin squints through the gloom and nudges Joe and Nick in the sides when he sees the figure behind the desk.
"Sit down, boys," the shadowy figure says. They sit in the folding chairs. "I'm Mr. Disney, and this is my company you've so abruptly inserted yourselves into." Joe, Nick and Kevin look around at each other nervously. "So tell me. Why shouldn't I send you packing right now? Or maybe give a call to the police and see why three underage boys would be running around the countryside?" Mr. Disney's fingers are steepled together in front of his face and his eyes are narrow, assessing.
"Sir," Kevin pipes up, his voice high in the way it only gets when he's extremely anxious. "It's not like that, it's-- Our parents are dead, sir. And we just--"
Joe cuts in. "We just wanted to stay together, sir."
"Yes, well, I don't have room in my company for freeloading runaways. You could endanger my whole operation."
"We can work, sir." Nick says quietly. "We'll work."
There is a long pause while Mr. Disney sizes them up, taking a long drag from his cigarette. "What can you boys do?"
"Do, sir?" Kevin asks, confused.
"Talents, kid. Have you got any talent in your knucklehead body? Clearly intelligence is not one of your talents," he mutters.
"Oh. No, sir."
"Well, Kevin did gymnastics!" Joe says brightly. Mr. Disney stubs his cigarette out in an ashtray and sits back.
"Isn't that nice for him." Smoke spirals out of his nose. "Well. You'll all work for the animal trainers for now, feeding and mucking out the stalls. You, Mr. Smart Guy-" he jabs a finger at Kevin- "You're with the horses. Mr. Sensitive over here is with the elephants. Watch your wallet. And you-" he points at Nick- "Mr. Strong and Silent. You'll be with the lions." He folds his arms. "And may I suggest you find some talents."
And then they're back outside, summarily dismissed and squinting in the bright sun.
The first time Nick steps into the lion trailer, it feels like coming home.
The light is dim, the air close and thick and sharp. It smells dangerous; like fur and sweat and maybe the tang of blood. And power. Nick looks at the two animals curled up at the end of the caravan, and he sees pure wild power. The lions gaze at him with bright, razor-sharp, deeply intelligent eyes, and Nick has never felt anything like the feeling he gets standing there in front of them.
Nick stands very still and keeps his body relaxed, just like Andrew told him to. The male lion, Zeus, pushes up onto all four legs and stares Nick down. Nick is entirely aware, with his whole being, that the lion could kill him. He watches the ripple of muscle in the lion's powerful haunches, can see the very tips of his incisors in his massive mouth. But he doesn't feel afraid. He keeps eye contact with Zeus, direct but non-confrontational, and after a few minutes the animal huffs out an incredibly human-sounding sigh and flops back down on the floor, batting a massive paw at Hera, the female.
Nick feels like he's passed some kind of test, one he didn't even realize he was desperate not to fail.
He picks up the broom with shaking hands and starts sweeping out the dirty straw. He doesn't realize that he's crying until his vision is so blurred he can't see the floor anymore. He backs up until he bumps into the rough wood siding of the wall, and slides down into a crouch. Tears run down his face for a long, long time, and the lions look at him curiously but don't appear bothered.
Nick is glad they are there.
When Nick is sixteen, Andrew the lion tamer leaves the circus abruptly over some kind of disagreement with Walt. The whole company gossips for a week about what the disagreement concerned, but no one really knows, because Andrew stays tight-lipped and Walt... is Walt. Andrew takes Zeus and Hera with him, and everyone steers very clear of the shiny Airstream trailer for a few days.
They have no lion act, and it's always been their big draw. Kevin's been part of the acrobat team since six months after they joined. It turned out his gymnastics training did count for something. And Joe has been performing with the aerialists for almost a year now, Demi putting extra hours in helping him train. But Nick is out a job. Andrew had been teaching him, training him in lion taming since he started working with him. But you can't have a lion act without lions.
When David taps his shoulder apologetically in the canteen and tells him Walt wants to see him, Nick isn't sure what's going to happen. Would Walt actually kick him out? But when he follows David across the camp, he's shocked to find Walt standing at the bottom of the caravan steps, looking harassed. He looks Nick up and down and shakes his head.
"Come with me."
They drive for over an hour in Walt's Cadillac. Nick doesn't ask where they're going, just watches the scenery whip by outside the window. When the car finally stops, Nick realizes they are at another circus.
The lioness from The Nickelodeon Big Top had two cubs a couple months ago. Walt is buying them. Nick strokes the head of one of the little cubs, half-asleep and mewling, and the cub nuzzles into his palm. Walt eyes him.
"Can you do it? Can you train them? I want them ready to perform in 6 months."
The cub opens his eyes and looks up at Nick. "Yeah," Nick says. "Yeah, I can do it."
---
It's been eight years since their parents died. Nick watches the trapeze act from backstage. He doesn't often see it. He knows Joe watches his act every night, and sometimes Nick feels bad that he doesn't do the same for Joe. But he just... he really feels like he needs to be with Stevie and Elvis, getting them focused, making sure everything is right, everything is good so that the act will go off perfectly.
The one time Nick haltingly tried to explain this to Joe, stumbling over his words and fumbling an apology, Joe watched him with fond eyes and finally held up a hand to stop him, cutting Nick off mid-word.
"Nick. It's not like that. I get it," he said, and Nick wondered for the millionth time how Joe had come to understand Nick so completely. How he knew Nick better than Nick knew himself.
Joe is not someone Nick (or anyone, really) would call graceful. On the ground, he is clumsy and accident-prone, constantly misjudging spaces and knocking his shoulder off door frames, tripping over his own feet. But in the air... Joe becomes something else. His body twists and arcs in graceful curves, and he throws himself off the platform and into the air with a reckless abandon that borders on beautiful.
Nick gets dizzy from lack of air watching Joe perform, and he doesn't know if it's fear that is taking his breath away, or just Joe.
After the show, Nick stays backstage to clean out the lion cage. The maintenance crew usually mucks it out, but they just don't get it really clean so it's better if Nick just does it himself.
He's sweeping the cement bottom with short, hard strokes when a voice from above him intones, "Hey there, Cinder-Nicholas." Nick jumps almost out of his skin. He looks up, and Joe has managed to silently climb on top of the metal-barred cage and is lying flat on his stomach, peering at Nick through the bars.
"Jesus, Joe. You scared me."
"Sorry," Joe says, swinging down onto the sawdust floor. He ambles into the cage, leaning back against the side and looking up at Nick from under his hair. "Need a hand?"
"Nah." Nick shakes his head. "I'm almost done."
Joe nods. "Okay. I'll wait for you." He digs the toe of his worn sneakers into the concrete, drawing patterns in the dust, and hums a little. Nick sweeps the last of the straw out on the ground and feels happy. He props the broom against the floor and looks at Joe.
"You thinking about Mom and Dad?"
Joe shrugs, meeting Nick's gaze. "A little bit. Eight years..."
"I know," Nick agrees. He lets the broom fall and leans against the bars next to Joe, letting his head roll towards Joe, reading Joe's profile, his features- looking for some piece of his parents in Joe's nose or the bones of his cheek, the shape of his eyes. But he just sees Joe.
"You were amazing up there tonight," he murmurs.
Joe turns his head to Nick, and his face is lit up. "You watched?" Nick nods. Joe blushes a little, cutting his eyes away. "It was pretty good tonight, I dunno, I mean- I fumbled a grip."
"Joe," Nick shakes his head. "Joe... You're like-- beautiful out there." Joe smiles, and it's guileless and sweet and Nick wants to touch his lips, cup his jaw and touch his mouth to Joe's so badly. And he doesn't understand it, he knows it shouldn't be, but his heart is beating against his ribs like a hummingbird and he can't stop looking from Joe's eyes to his lips.
Joe looks at him with wide eyes. "Nick," he breathes. "What are we doing?"
"I-I don't know," Nick admits, and they're so close, all the time, such close quarters, just them in this little band of stragglers and their too near bunks, floating on inconstant winds around a strange, strange country. Too much of what they need found right there, only inches away. They are so close right now, noses nearly touching, the soft heat of each other's breath on their faces.
Joe tilts his head a little, fingertips brushing against Nick's shirtsleeves. "Nick... Do you want to kiss me?"
"Yes," Nick whispers.
"I want you to."
And Nick takes a breath and leans forward, sways in like the world has turned about and his gravity is Joe, and he presses their mouths together. They are motionless for a long moment, Joe's lower lip caught in between Nick's, and their eyes are open. He can already taste the damp heat of Joe's mouth. Joe makes a tiny sound and his eyes flutter shut, his eyelashes fan out against the skin underneath his eyes, and Nick can't do anything but tilt his head and kiss him again.
Nick opens his mouth, touches their tongues together, and he has to wrap his hand around the bars behind Joe's head because kissing someone has never felt like this, never made his legs shake like they might give out, his heart beat right out of his chest. He has never kissed someone and thought he might not know how he'll ever stop.
Joe's hands grip Nick's shoulders like vices and he kisses Nick back fiercely. Their chests press together and Nick slides a hand around Joe's waist, urging him closer, and think that maybe this is what jumping off that high-up platform feels like. Joe slides a thumb into the hollow beneath Nick's jaw, and he can feel his pulse beating against it.
Nick doesn't know how much time has passed when they finally pull apart, breathing hard. Joe is staring at him, his mouth hanging open, impossibly red and shining still from the last time Nick ran his tongue across it.
Nick wants to say something, something that will give this meaning and understanding, but he doesn't have the words. All he can do is hold out his hand silently, palm up and open; a question and an answer in one motion. Joe looks down at his hand and back up at his face, his gaze searching. Nick's hand is steady.
Joe takes it.