bigbangbigbang fic: I am Sleeping on a Timebomb (1/3)
Title: I am Sleeping on a Timebomb
Author: muir_wolf
Artist: fujiidom
Rating: R
Word Count: 27,247
Disclaimer: BBT is not mine. No, not even this twisted, twisted version of it.
Warnings: Triggery for emotional and physical abuse as well as several mentions of a miscarriage. Also - very strong language and alcohol addiction.
Summary: AU - Circus performers in a world recovering from a devastating war in the 1980s. Penny joins the circus and meets Sheldon, Raj, Leonard, and Howard, who all have their own reasons for being there. But you can only run so far from your past, and eventually you have to start moving forward.
Pairings: Slight Leonard/Penny, Raj/Sheldon, Howard/OCs, eventually Sheldon/Penny, Raj/Howard, Leonard/Leslie (slight implications of possible future Sheldon/Penny/Wil)
A/N: My love and undying thanks to sheerpoetry for beta reading, and being so sweet and patient and brilliant in doing so. Also, thanks to Juniperlane, and E, you lovely fool you! And of course fujiidom, for making the most epically fantastic fanmix ever (see below). And everyone else who kept me sane ;) All mistakes are mine and mine alone.
Ze Muzak:
SO YOU LIKE FANTASTIC MUSIC, RIGHT? AND YOU LIKE FANTASTIC FANMIXES AND GORGEOUS ART/COVERS? YOU NEED TO GO CLICK HERE AND TAKE A LOOK AND LISTEN TO THE MOST AWESOME THING TO EVER AWESOME, COURTESY OF THE BRILLIANT AND LOVELY fujiidom.
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Part One / Part Two / Part Three
I AM SLEEPING ON A TIMEBOMB
-Prologue-
just gonna stand there and watch me burn
Excerpt from a summary of the two-part series finale. The author is unknown, but the summary is accurate.
The Romulan stands above him, disruptor leveled at his head, mouth twisted in a cruel smile.
“Kill me, then,” Ensign Crusher says. His hands are splayed across his stomach, holding himself together after the Centurion had slit his gut with the Teral’n. He has been forced to his knees, mortally wounded, and still his lip curls in disgust as he takes in his enemy. “Kill me,” he repeats, “It will accomplish nothing. Even now my ship is destroying yours, even now Starfleet’s victory is at hand.”
The Romulan is silent, green blood leaking down his arm from where Crusher had stabbed him in the earlier skirmish. Somewhere above them, ships are battling around this planet, Traxis. Somewhere above them, the fate of the galaxy is being decided, red blood awash with green, man and Romulan dying underneath the heavens, but here, here it is just the two of them, blood splattered on the floor, on the walls.
“You’ve lost,” Crusher whispers. “Whatever happens here, you’ve lost.”
The Romulan lifts his head slightly, and Crusher swallows, eyes dark. “You fought like a warrior,” the Centurion says. “You may die like one.”
It’s a struggle for Crusher to stand, but the camera runs for the complete two minutes and twenty-seven seconds it takes for him to work his way up to his feet, blood spilling from between his fingers, pain stark on his face. He wavers on his feet, but he faces the disruptor with a crooked smile, leaning heavily against the wall, panting through the agony that ripples through his body, and you can see that however young he might be, he’s a man now, not a boy.
The Romulan’s eyes are merciless, but there is something like respect on his face. The camera pans closer, until you can see only the Romulan and the gun in his hand, and when he fires the disruptor he doesn’t blink.
There’s the sound of Crusher’s body falling to the floor, and still we look into the Romulan’s impassive face. Finally the camera cuts away to the battle above…
-Star Trek: The Last Stand, season 4 episode 22, The Trials of Traxis
Originally aired May 23, 1989
-I-
chase your shadow ‘til the sun goes down
November 29, 2003
“Today, of course, marks the 20th anniversary of the start of Russo-American War. On November 29, 1983, the first weapons were deployed that would start the most destructive conflict the world has ever seen. Lasting three years and claiming almost 680 million causalities, the Russo-American war was devastating on a global scale.
Both sides held back using nuclear weapons, but that did not stop the destruction, perhaps because civilians were not spared-bombing on both sides was not limited to military outposts, and in some cases larger cities were purposefully targeted in order to send a clear message. The once great city of New York burned, and much of southern California was destroyed in the USSR’s attempt to eliminate the naval bases and ships stationed there. Denver, Colorado was turned to ash. Rhode Island and Hawaii were razed.”
She runs a brush through her hair, feeling the bristles catch on small tangles. Practice had been long today, and her hair-which Mira had insisted stay down to add to the aesthetic appeal of the performance-is now a complete mess. She jerks the brush down, fighting the tangles, ignoring the pain. She’s eager to be done with her hair, to be done with icing her sore ankle from where she fell, to be done with everything that’s necessary and important and stands in the way of sleep.
“Canada, Britain, France, Germany, and Japan-known as The Armistice Alliance-participated in negotiations in order to halt the war before it could reach full nuclear proportions. Britain, who had sided with America at the start of the war, eventually assisted Canada in deposing then-US President Carnell and staging a coup on the American government, while Germany and Japan took Russia’s nuclear bunkers by force, at great cost to themselves. France and Switzerland oversaw the forced disarmament of the nuclear weapons on both sides, ensuring that neither Canada and Britain, nor Germany and Japan, entertained the possibility of continuing the war.”
The crackle of the radio should be distracting, but it’s an old story, and one everyone’s familiar with. It’s almost comforting in a way. Besides, it’s across the way, and she’s not putting any more weight on her ankle than she has to. Let it keep talking, she’s got about five more minutes before she passes out in her cot, finished or not, radio or not.
“While the great nuclear war many had feared did not come to pass, the effects of the Russo-American War were far-reaching. A full twenty years after it began, the world has not recovered from the loss of life, nor from the ensuing collapse of the global economy. In the five years after the war, the national debts that were called in during a desperate attempt to ease the utter poverty of various nations led to a domino effect, and the short-lived growth and prosperity during the years preceding the Russo-American War now seem a distant memory.”
They’re not meeting up with the other trucks until sometime later tomorrow, so she has at least six hours of sleep ahead of her, depending if Mira makes her get up early to do fuck knows what. The last eight weeks have proven nothing if not that Mira is a bitch who derives pleasure in screwing with the acrobats (Kinkers, she reminds herself), probably because Mira prefers the three dancers, and dancers have fuck-all place in a traveling circus. Chances are the new place is going to be just the same as the last, and if Mira keeps trying to force the dancers into the opening acts, the new Ringmaster is probably going to have her head. Darren is not known for being an easy-going boss.
(Let’s face it, he’s known for being a bit of a psychotic bastard, but he sure as fuck knows how to get crowds.)
“However, despite all of this, in the last ten years America has made startling progress in reclaiming their nation. In 1990, the Canadian-British interim-government was finally forced out, and since then America has not only seen the repairing of its infrastructure, but the rebirth of its social and cultural heritage. While much of the Midwest still enjoys a more rural lifestyle, the industries on the East Coast are helping to drive the economy back to a more substantial force. The Pacific Northwest, of course, is still leading the way in technological advances made in the last decade, and it cannot be denied that while such advances are still not readily available on a national scale, they are allowing America to shine on a global level.
While the population is still far from its pre-war 234 million, this year it has risen to 168 million, which is in itself a triumph after the devastating toll of the war. Between the rising population, the marked improvements to America’s cities and economy, and the steps taken to improve America’s place in this new global world, the 21st century is off to a slow but definite climb.”
“Penny!”
She closes her eyes and keeps brushing her hair, counting the strokes, trying desperately to tune out-
“Penny!” Mira barks. Penny opens her eyes, and looks up at Mira. Five foot, she gives the appearance of towering over taller Penny even when they’re both standing. Mira flips off the radio with entirely too much satisfaction. “Why aren’t the lights off?”
Penny inhales and then exhales carefully. “I’m icing my ankle-”
“Lights off at midnight, Penny, you know the rules,” Mira says. “Maybe if you weren’t so clumsy in your routine-”
“I told you I wasn’t ready to make that flip!” Penny says. Mira taps her foot on the floor.
“I expected more from you,” she says. Penny’s fists tighten in the bag of ice, but she doesn’t break eye contact with her. It’s Mira who finally looks away. “You’re keeping everyone else up with these lights,” she says. “And the radio is beyond rude.”
“I didn’t turn it on!” Penny says, outraged. From behind Mira, Alicia, one of the dancers, pops her head up from her bunk with a smirk. Penny braces herself with her hand on the bunk, fully ready to fling herself to her feet and pull Alicia out of bed by her dark hair, but Mira leans forward, getting her face squarely into Penny’s personal space.
“Lights out,” she hisses, grabbing the ice from Penny’s hands and yanking it away. For one moment, Penny is honestly not sure what she’s going to do-lash out, scream, cry-and then she sucks in a lungful of air and forces everything down inside of herself. She needs this job.
She really needs this job.
“Yes, Mira,” she says, tightening her fingers into fists to stop them from trembling. Alicia is still smirking and, despite the overwhelming urge to flip her off, Penny smiles back, sickeningly sweet. Kill ‘em with kindness, she thinks, enjoying the flash of confusion on the other girl’s face.
Penny turns and curls up in her sleeping bag, trying to ignore the way her ankle is throbbing, the way she’s homesick and tired and so willing to give up but for the streak of pride and stubbornness that runs a mile wide, the defiance that slides as thick as blood in her veins.
The room is plunged into darkness, and Penny wills everything away-her hopes, her fears, her worries. Sleep, she thinks. Sleep.
./.
Mira wakes Penny up a little after five.
(Mira hates Penny.)
“Your turn to make breakfast,” she says. Penny made breakfast yesterday and the day before. Penny’s ankle is still throbbing, and she’ll no doubt be expected to perform for Darren later on.
Penny is fairly confident that one day she’s going to strangle Mira.
She nods groggily and slurs out an “M’kay,” as Mira climbs back into her warm bunk and Penny crawls out of hers.
The truck-turned rooms, which most circuses use, work like this: In the bunk trunks, there are metal bunk-bed frames welded to the floor and the walls on either side of the inside of the truck. On average, you put two frames on each side, so you’ve got eight beds in each semi. Inside the actual frame of the bed, where in most places of the world you’ve got a mattress, there’s a hammock, which keeps you inside the bed instead of rolling off when the truck is going at a good clip, turning corners and going up mountains and generally doing its damnedest to keep you awake. You get a sleeping bag and a pillow, and there: That’s your room.
The rest of the space of the truck is taken up by the carefully installed bathroom and water tank, as well as the really quite good-sized trunk that each person gets, welded to the floor so as not to kill the poor slob who gets up in the middle of the night at the same time the truck turns.
Sometimes there are pictures on the walls. Sometimes there are fancy cloth dividers that give people a sense of privacy.
Mostly, there are close quarters, bruises from falling into each other and the bunks, and never enough quiet.
Now, proper circuses, they tend to have a kitchen-truck, and either a rotating crew or-if they’re really fancy-an actual cook. Darren’s circus has an actual cook. They’re still a good three hours away from the possibility of Darren’s circus, though, so Penny throws on a tattered sweatshirt and trudges to the front of the truck, attempting to avoid the objects in her path despite the lack of light, running her fingers along the far wall until she finds the latch that holds the sliding door shut. With a sigh she opens and slips through it.
Kurt immediately turns and looks at her, leering.
Kurt, of course, is the reason why this chore is such a punishment for her (besides the unholy hour, of course).
They may have picked up Kurt days before Penny joined the crew, but Kurt is from her hometown. Kurt was her high school boyfriend. They didn’t exactly part on the best of terms.
Now he drives trucks for a living.
Her truck.
“Hey babe,” he grins. She ignores him, hooking up the modified toaster, hoping against hope it doesn’t short-circuit. Again.
She pulls the bag of bread open one-handed, shoving the pieces in. Breakfast is nothing fancy-buttered toast more often than not, sometimes just toast-but the making of breakfast is an exercise in hell.
“Don’t be like that, baby,” he says.
It’s a good thing there’s not butter today…she wouldn’t quite trust herself with a knife right now.
./.
They arrive at the meet-up exactly on time, which means in the front of the truck Mira is screaming Kurt’s head off for not getting them there earlier. Darren’s crew is, predictably, already there-and not just there, but set up. Clearly he gave them a time that fit his plans, rather than any sort of accurate arrival estimation.
Penny shrugs out of her sweatshirt and ties back her hair before slipping out the sliding door that’s been installed in the back of the truck. Alicia says something (no doubt snide) as Penny steps away from the truck, and faintly she can hear Mira’s raised voice.
The whole damn circus has evidently turned out to see them, and Penny fights the urge to duck away. Instead, her hand goes nervously to her hair, patting it down as if the light breeze is enough to throw it into disarray. They’re in a large field, trucks parked in a diagonal pattern, and the main tent already erected off to the left. And there are so very many people looking at her…
A solidly built man with slicked back dark hair and a too-sharp smile steps out of the crowd, and from the way he moves alone she knows who he is.
“I’m Darren,” he says, hand snug around hers as he shakes it.
“Penny,” she offers, and he gives her a too-close look over, eyes lingering in ways that make her long for a shower. But then, she’d known about that rumor, too. From behind her she can hear the sliding door slam open, and then Mira’s voice is cooing up at Darren as she shoulders Penny aside with a glare. Alicia isn’t far behind, nose firmly in the air.
Darren has somehow managed to turn Penny and tuck her into his side, his hand resting far-too-familiarly on her hip. Alicia looks fairly apoplectic. Mira’s smile is tight, but she, at least, is the consummate professional.
Mira, predictably, leads off the conversation by bringing up the dancers, her pride and joy. Alicia, Ashley, and Tammy preen behind her as she spouts off her flowery phrases and praises.
Darren’s fingers tap thoughtfully on Penny’s hip, and she tries not to twitch. “Dancers,” he repeats, his voice even as he examines the three girls. Mira bristles at the eyebrow he raises as he gives them the once-over. Behind them, the other three acrobats have followed the others out into the muted sunlight. Dry grass crunches underneath Penny’s feet as she shifts, but Darren doesn’t let her go.
“You should see them in action, they-”
“They have no place in my show, Mira,” he cuts in. Mira wets her lips.
“You have to at least give them a-”
“I have to do nothing, Mira,” he says. “I don’t even have to accept your acrobats, lovely as they may be.” He squeezes Penny’s side. “I’m certainly not dragging down the show with dead weight.”
“Darren-”
“I do, however, need someone to help run the concession stand. We lost a few in the last town, and they haven’t been replaced yet.”
“Concession stand?” Mira repeats, torn between outrage and shock. Darren shrugs luxuriously.
“They can work in the concession stand or they can walk out of here right now,” he says. “It’s no concern of mine.”
Penny can’t help a twinge of amusement at the shell-shocked look on Alicia’s face, but she’s also rather distracted by the way Darren is grinning down at her. She’s saved from having to decide what to do by Mira clearing her throat.
“Do you want a demonstration from the kinkers, then?” she asks, and Penny drops a shade or two of color at Mira’s half smile as she meets Penny’s eyes. My ankle, Penny swears silently.
Darren chucks Penny underneath the chin, amused. “Go get changed, girl,” he says, clearly not remembering her name.
Fuck it, she thinks, and goes and gets changed.
./.
It’s by no means the best routine they’ve ever done, but they stick to mostly aerial rather than the tumbling she excels at. She tosses in some flips despite herself, changing her routine to make lands and transitions only on her good leg (stupid, stupid, showy but stupid). Her fellow kinkers are good, which helps, but Penny’s always been the star, and while some of the people gathered look impressed, some don’t, so eventually Penny has to risk it.
Her ankle turns underneath her, bolts of pain flaring up the length of her leg, but she manages to stick the landing, teeth digging into her bottom lip through the practiced smile. When Darren nods his approval, she’s 99% sure they’ve got the job because she stuck her landing despite the pain.
(if she’d asked anyone there, they’d say she was probably right)
After all the touching earlier, Penny rather expects Darren to come out and talk to her, but instead he sends a short man with glasses out to her and proceeds to back a slender, dark-haired man against the wall. Whatever he’s saying, the other man doesn’t seem to like it, but she’s distracted by the short man arriving and holding out his hand.
“Leonard,” he offers, “I usually work with the animals, but I’m one of the few people here with first aid training.”
His eyes flick back to Darren and the other man, and his mouth twists a little. “Plus, he wanted me out of the way,” he mutters, clearly pissed. Penny blinks.
“What?” she asks. Leonard shakes his head.
“Nothing, nothing,” he says, “Let me see your ankle.”
She frowns, but he wrinkles his nose slightly in concentration and crouches down in front of her, all business, so she lets him at it. “I just need to ice it,” she says, and he’s silent as he prods the joint carefully.
“You’ll need to try to stay off of it until it’s healed,” he says.
She huffs out an amused breath. “I’m a kinker, Leonard,” she says. He shrugs.
“You won’t be in the show tonight, and Wil-our 24-hour man-hasn’t arrived at the next town, yet, so you’ll probably have at least a day to rest. Stay off of it, and if you’re not better by the next show, stick to the aerial, it was good.”
“But not great,” she says.
He sighs, looking vaguely disgusted. “No wonder Darren liked you,” he says, and the way he says it, as if she’s just failed some crucial test, turns her stomach.
“Wait,” she says, and she’s alarmed at how her voice has gone soft and shaky, “Wait, you don’t understand, it’s just, I can’t lose this job!”
Leonard pauses, eyes skimming across her face with reluctant understanding. His eyes flick over to where Darren is still talking to the slightly taller man who’s managing to fold in slightly on himself, and when he looks back at her, he just looks tired.
“Here,” he says, holding out an arm and wrapping it carefully around her. She puts her own arm around his shoulders, noticing the way his hold on her is almost too-gentle, as if he’s worried she might break, as if he hadn’t just seen her throwing herself through the air. At least he’s not groping her like Darren had, although she does notice a hint of appreciation in his eyes that he can’t quite hide. “Here,” he says, “I’ll bandage your ankle.”
-II-
and those secrets hidden in our childish lips
The truck he takes her to is far more spacious than hers. This truck has only four beds over all, and there’s several benches secured to the floor. There are four trunks, but they’re slightly larger than the eight that are welded tightly together in her truck, and overall the space is more open and comfortable.
Leonard must have caught her frown, because he shrugs, looking slightly uncomfortable. “I bunk with the ‘main attraction,’” he says, voice an odd mixture of self-deprecation and poorly-hidden irritation.
“Sheldon?” she asks. Sheldon Cooper, or Sheldon of the Seven Swords or Seven Shotguns, or whatever over-the-top moniker currently attached to his name, supposedly a perfect aim with throwing knives and all forms of guns-blindfolded, upside down, or from horseback. They said the man couldn’t miss. Of course, they send a lot of other bullshit, too. “Is he as good as they say he is?”
Leonard laughs, almost despite himself. “Better,” he says. And then, with an amused smile, half-underneath his breath, “Almost as good as he says he is.”
In other circumstances, Penny would maybe have said “Ohhh,” or “One of those,” or something similarly understanding, but partly because-despite the chagrin-there’s a thread of affection in Leonard’s voice, and partly because her ankle is throbbing, and partly because it’s her first day and she’s tired and new and just fuck that shit, Penny shrugs and turns, eyes flitting across the small chalkboard that’s braced behind one of the trunks, the haphazard assortment of junk that’s overflowing out of another that’s been left partly open.
Leonard gestures farther down, to the benches, and she hobbles down there as he grabs a first aid kit from underneath one of the bunks. “He won’t mind if we use it,” he says, when he notices her looking at the even letters that proclaim the kit PROPERTY OF SHELDON COOPER.
She shrugs again. “Okay,” she says. She glances at two of the benches, which are scattered with various things, and then sits down in the middle of the closest.
“Don’t,” Leonard says, back suddenly stiff, and she pauses, glancing down at the bench and then back at him, obviously puzzled. “Don’t,” he says. “That’s Sheldon’s spot.”
“His spot?” she asks, amused, but he doesn’t smile.
“Just don’t sit there,” he says, and she blinks and then moves, sitting farther down.
“Better?” she asks, her voice a little sharp, and his faces relaxes.
“Yes,” he says, obvious apology in his voice, but not regret. But it’s his truck, and she’s new, and he’s helping her, after all, so she smiles a little and puts it out of her mind.
They talk about light, easy things as he wraps her ankle. She can tell he’s used to doing this with animals, if only for the way he keeps an even voice and a steady hand closer to her knee, as if worried she’ll balk. They had animals on her parent’s farm, so they talk about that for a while, although Leonard deals with the more exotic breeds. (There were no lions on her parent’s farm, for one.)
Halfway through, an Indian man walks in, sees her, and stops dead in his tracks, eyes wide. She scrunches her face a little, feeling awkward and in the way, and says, “Hi, sorry, I’m Penny?”
Leonard’s mouth twitches up a little, and he nods to the other man. “This is Raj,” he says. “He bunks here, too. He’s one of the mimes.”
Despite the craptastic day, Penny does her best to give the obviously shy man a killer grin, because there isn’t all that much privacy in a circus, and she’s just invaded his last resort. He smiles slightly, faintly, back, but doesn’t say anything, and the silence stretches awkwardly until Leonard looks up from his task and finally notices.
“Oh,” he says. “Raj…doesn’t really talk to other people.”
Penny frowns, rubbing a hand along the back of her neck. “You mean because he’s a mime?”
Leonard glances from Penny to Raj and back again. “Let’s call it a quirk,” he says.
“He doesn’t talk to anyone?” she asks, feeling a mixture of confusion and shock, and Raj makes a small, unhappy noise as he climbs up into one of the cots and hunches down with a notepad. Penny winces apologetically.
“He talks to me and Sheldon and Howard,” Leonard says, voice quieter so as not to bother Raj. “I don’t think he talks to anyone else.”
“Howard?” she asks, and he nods at the second top bunk.
“He’s the fourth bunkmate,” he says. “He’s a mechanic. Keeps everything from falling apart, but unfortunately he’s-”
“Just need to brush my hair, there’s this hot blonde chick who-oh, hello,” the new man drawls, eyes skimming up and down along Penny’s body. She bristles, and when Leonard presses a hand on her leg to calm her down her eyebrows shoot up, because he did not just fucking attempt that with her.
“Not interested,” she says, and something about the way she rolls her words in her mouth and then spits them out must get to him because he raises his hands in a placating manner.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay, got it, aborting maneuvers.”
From his top bunk, Raj lets out a hefty sigh, and Howard rolls his eyes before climbing up to the bunk and half-jumping on him. Raj lets out a muffled squeak and Howard laughs and Leonard shakes his head, amused.
There’s the sound of subdued wrestling and whispering as Leonard finishes the bandage, and Penny’s feeling a little out of place by the time a fourth man enters the truck. It’s the same man Darren had been talking to in the big top, the tall slender man who had a tendency to fold in a little on himself, and she looks up, surprised, as he freezes upon seeing her.
“Penny, Sheldon,” Leonard says, gesturing from one to the other in introduction. Sheldon looks decidedly uncomfortable, but after ascertaining that she’s not about to pounce, he moves to the bench and sits precisely where Leonard had earlier declared to be his spot.
“She twisted her ankle in practice a couple of days ago,” Leonard says by way of explanation, and Sheldon nods carefully.
“I thought the landings you performed were unusual, but you did very well disguising their true purpose,” he says, his voice level, his words enunciated to a degree she’s not quite used to. Down here people tend to revel in their accents, and his careful, precise way of speaking is almost as surprising as the content. She’s not quite sure how to take it, but she shrugs it off.
“Had to audition,” she says with a tight smile, and he nods before glancing up at Raj’s bunk, where both he and Howard have stuck their heads over the side. Raj seems concerned as he looks at Sheldon, but Howard seems almost distracted.
“Done,” Leonard says, sitting back on his heels, and Penny glances down at him and smiles.
“Thank you,” she says, and he nods, and when Howard suggests lunch, Raj nods and Sheldon discreetly checks his watch, but his face betrays nothing.
Leonard suggests they perhaps wait until the top of the hour, and the others assent, chatting about various events. She moves to stand, but Leonard tugs her back down with a smile, so she stays.
Better than facing Mira, who must be in a fury.
At exactly 1pm, Sheldon tilts his head to the side and shifts uneasily in his seat, and Leonard stands immediately and helps her up. The other two scramble down from the bunk, and Leonard suggests he help her out.
(“Don’t touch Sheldon,” he tells her softly, when he’s the closest person and she almost stumbles and grabs him. “He doesn’t like to be touched.”
Sheldon had stood there, neither moving to help her nor moving away, and she’s not sure why he doesn’t speak up for himself, but she says nothing.)
She goes to dinner with them, too.
./.
Darren doesn’t have them perform for the first show.
If Penny were still even slightly religious, she’d give thanks for small blessings. As it is, she lets Leonard help her out to a place where she’s not taking the seat of any honest ticket-payer, but where she’s still tucked out of the way.
Raj, surprisingly, drops by with a flower and a wink, which makes her smile. They go back and forth for a bit, amusing the nearby audience as he over-dramatically woos her in full mime fashion, but after a while he seems distracted and keeps glancing over to the side. Penny follows his gaze and sees Howard talking up a couple of girls in the audience, but when she frowns questioningly at Raj he waves her away and trots off to other parts of the crowd.
They’ve got a good show, with a lot of good balance between quality of acts. Nothing drags overly long, and it stays entertaining as well as impressive, but she, as well as most of the audience, is waiting for the lead act.
She wasn’t expecting Sheldon to ride out on a horse. He sits too stiffly in the saddle, his fingers tight around the reins, but he still rides it better than she would have expected from her brief encounter with him.
And he can shoot.
After all the stories, she’d been counting on being let down, because no one could actually be that good.
Except he is.
He’s fantastic.
She’s been around plenty of guys who go out hunting every single year. She’s not a bad shot herself. She knows her way around a couple of different guns. She can take them apart and put them back together, knows how to keep them clean, knows how to aim, adjust for wind, all those basic things that are necessary.
She wouldn’t be able to hold a candle to the man before her.
He shoots targets that he should barely be able to see. He relaxes into the horse after the first lap, and he looks…natural up there, with the cowboy hat and the holster and the way the guns slide along his hands as he swaps them out, fires two-handed, wipes a hand on his jeans and tugs on the bandana at his throat.
She’s sure the entire costume has been planned and perfected by Darren, but she can’t deny that sitting up there on the horse, gun in hand, he can pull it off.
When he starts throwing knives, his entire body aids in one fluid movement, and she can barely see the individual muscles tightening and relaxing and aligning as he lines himself up and releases, his wrist snapping forward in the air, his eyes focused only on the target before him.
He does that blindfolded, too.
He doesn’t miss.
./.
Around midnight, when Raj and Sheldon and Penny and Leonard are playing cards, Raj leaning over and whispering into one of the boy’s ears when he wants to speak, a sharp rap on the door catches them by surprise.
A man pops his head in-late twenties to early thirties, so older than the rest of them. “Miss me?” he smirks. Sheldon’s lip curls as he looks at him.
“I’d hoped you’d get lost coming back, given what you try to pass for a brain,” he says. Penny grins behind her hand at the man’s sneer. It’s the first time she’s seen Sheldon have some bite to him.
Leonard sighs. “This is Wil-he’s our 24-hour man. He goes to the towns a day ahead of us and makes sure there’s no problems with the lot and puts up signs and-”
Wil smirks at Penny. “That’s not the only reason I’m known as the 24-hour man,” he grins. “You’re one of the new girls, I take it?” he says. “Can’t be some gilley, no way these boys could manage a local girl who looked like you.”
Penny isn’t sure if Wil’s serious or joking, but the wave of protectiveness that hits her takes her by surprise. “I don’t know,” she says. “I think they could handle themselves quite well.”
Sheldon raises an eyebrow, but Leonard flushes and Raj looks completely mortified. Wil just laughs. “I like you,” he says, and then points at Sheldon. “Try not to fuck up everything,” he says.
Sheldon looks Wil up and down and then tilts his head to the side, as if finding him utterly lacking. “I don’t recall ever saying you could come in,” he says, and then turns purposefully away and begins examining his cards.
Wil taps his fingers on the edge of the door and then with a scowl pulls away. Leonard shrugs. “They don’t get along,” he says.
Captain Obvious, she thinks.
./.
Howard walks into the truck sometime after three a.m. They’re pulling out at five, but they’ve been finished with their breakdown assignments for hours, and Raj can smell from ten feet away what Howard’s been doing to occupy his time. And it’s not just the alcohol he can smell on Howard’s breath (and clothes) - he’s got grass stains on his pants from where he clearly forgot a towel when he picked up someone and fucked him or her outside, stars overhead, alcohol nearby.
Raj doesn’t say anything when Howard throws an arm around his shoulders and smiles a hello. He dips his shoulder and lets Howard’s arm slide off and then walks away.
Howard follows, mouth twisting in obvious irritation. “What’s your problem?” he snaps, and there’s a slur to his words that darkens Raj’s eyes, and he looks away.
“I’m going to bed,” he says, and Howard grabs him, turns him, pushes him against the wall, and Raj lets him, pliable and disgusted all at once.
“Don’t be mad,” Howard says, and his voice dips and sways as he blinks at Raj, and Raj doesn’t move.
“I’m disappointed,” he says, his eyes skimming along Howard’s body. “There’s a difference.”
He steps around Howard, and Howard snorts derisively, moving back and giving him space.
“Don’t be a fucking bitch,” he sneers, running a hand through his hair and coming away with gel on his fingertips.
“Goodnight,” Raj says, and disappears into his bunk, drawing the curtain shut around it.
-III-
it takes more than fucking someone to keep yourself warm
When Raj was twenty years old, he packed a small bag, withdrew the little money he’d collected in his personal account (the majority of what he’d earned had been brought into the joint account his parents kept tabs on, ensuring he was saving enough to be able to settle down and support his future wife), and bought a plane ticket.
The plane ticket he’d had to buy wasn’t exactly legal - tickets had to be purchased weeks in advance in order to clear security, and special circumstances, such as deaths in the family, usually came with a hefty additional cost. The ticket he bought was under a blank name, so he used his own passport when leaving the country, but the ticket itself was illegal, even if it was the sort of illegal that no one in airport security, or even the government, really paid too much attention to.
It was the first time Raj had broken the law.
He boarded a plane to the United States (and why the US? Still recovering, still in shambles, and somehow still the epitome of the pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentality-and he did, he really did want to pull himself up by his bootstraps, wanted to start afresh, wanted to find-find something, find anything).
He wandered the country for a bit after arriving. The state checkpoints weren’t enforced as well as they’d originally been envisioned, there simply wasn’t the manpower or the resources, and given other things, an expired visa wasn’t really high on anyone’s list. Still, money is money, and it tends to run out fast.
He picked up spare work. They paid him under the table, they paid him in food and lodging, they didn’t ask why he couldn’t (wouldn’t) speak.
(America, land of your damaged and lonely, where everyone’s lost someone, where you hold your pain inside and smile because grit and pride are all you have left.)
Sometimes he was a street performer.
Forget physics and astronomy and science and math and the way the world moves, the way the world works, interconnected and infinitely complex, balanced and predictable and still astonishing in ways you would have thought should be obvious by now.
Forget laboratories, and latex gloves, and computers that let you speak in the only way that has ever come easily to you.
Raj had a talent as a mime (probably because he’d been living the part for years). Darren found him outside some bumfuck town in the middle of nowhere, and whisked him away before Raj had decided yes or no, go or stay.
They billed him underneath different names, dressed him in different costumes. Some of the people there tried to talk to him, some of them didn’t care. After a while it didn’t matter anymore.
He worked and ate and slept and stared at the sky-blue and grey and orange in turn-and he stayed silent. Out of choice, and need, and want.
Out of ease.
./.
Darren holds off adding them for the second show, as well. He’s tearing the entire order apart and redesigning it, and he pushes her harder than Mira ever did.
Mira stays, and keeps coaching from the sidelines. Her face gets pink when he overrides her directions, but she never confronts him.
Alicia is working in the concession stand, for now. Ashley is, too, but Tammy slipped off into the night, and when they checked her trunk they found it empty. No note, no goodbyes. Penny burrows into her cot and tries to ignore the fact that Mira will certainly wake her up too early once again.
At least Kurt is distracted by all the new pretty faces.
./.
After the third show, Kripke gets in Sheldon’s face.
(Barry Kripke juggles fire and swallows fire and is basically a fucking pyro and he wants the lead act, and he’s the sort to do whatever it takes, so getting in Sheldon’s face is nothing new, hand on his arm, voice low; no, that’s nothing new at all.)
“Hey, Shewdon,” he says, smirking, “That what you cawl a show?”
Sheldon is silent as he tries to walk past, but Kripke steps deliberately in his path.
“I was tawking to you, Coopeh,” he says, his voice sharp, and Sheldon steps back, placing deliberate space between their bodies, his hands adjusting the length of his long sleeves as his eyes flicker along Kripke’s face and then back down.
“Don’t,” he says.
Penny has just seen this man shoot and throw knives and never once miss his target (blindfolded, on horseback, two at once), and all he says is Don’t.
Leonard moves from her side, grabbing Sheldon’s arm and glaring at Kripke.
“Move,” he says, clearly pissed, and Kripke laughs but steps to the side. Penny and Raj follow silently, watching as Sheldon folds in on himself, arms crossed tightly against his stomach. He follows Leonard into the truck and then sits down in his spot, back pressed against the wall. Leonard’s hand falls from Sheldon’s sleeve, and Raj slides past him and sits next to Sheldon, legs pressed against legs, arms resting against arms.
“Kripke is an ass,” Leonard says, clearly upset. Sheldon and Raj are silent, and Penny rocks back slightly on her heels, unsure of what to do or say.
Part of her wants to leave.
She ties her hair back and sits down on the opposite bench, grabbing Leonard in passing and yanking him down with her.
“Cards?” she asks brightly.
./.
Penny’s only ever liked her brother out of all her family. Sure, she loved them all, but loving someone doesn’t mean you have to like them.
Penny likes her brother, though. Sure, he’s an ass, and they’d given each other plenty of bruises when they were little, but he was tough and he looked out for her. That asshat who backed her up against a wall and tried to kiss her in eighth grade - her brother knocked some fucking sense into him, sure enough.
It figures that it’s her brother that gets dragged off to jail middle of her junior year, dealing-fucking idiot. Everyone knows they’re cracking down on drugs, what with all the rumors that there’s some big ring dealing in drugs and weapons and secrets. (America still doesn’t trust Canada, what with the whole coup shit they pulled. Neutral their ass.)
But no, her brother gets dragged off to jail, leaving her what?
Leaving her royally fucked, is what.
It starts with her dating Kurt.
The middle gets complicated, but she drops out of school.
The end is where she runs away and joins the circus.
(This doesn’t feel like an end, though.
She’s not sure what it is, but it’s not an end.)
./.
The first time Raj met Howard, Howard had flirted and Raj had smiled hesitantly, mute, and then fled.
The second time, Howard had acted like it didn’t matter. He’d chattered on while Raj listened. Raj had been skittish, but Howard had leaned in close and brushed a strand of hair back from Raj’s face.
The third time, Howard had bumped into Raj while they were walking, and then grabbed his waist to steady him.
The fourth time, Howard had stretched an arm around Raj’s shoulders and tugged him in close for a side-hug.
The fifth time, Raj had let Howard take his hand.
The thirteenth time, Raj had said Howard’s name.
./.
To be blunt, Penny hasn’t slept with anyone since Kurt.
There’s a lot of good reasons for that, but only one that’s really held her back.
She’d liked to pretend she can’t feel it slide along the inside of her skin, coat her throat until swallowing hurts, but Penny’d rather not lie to herself. And it’s a good reason, a damned good reason, but she’s not one to stay down, she’s not out for the count, she will do what she damn well pleases.
When he touches her, fingers brushing along her bare arm, she doesn’t feel like something to be claimed, or something to be won, and that’s nice, that’s new, not being a possession, not being overlooked. Sure, he still touches her like she’s about to shatter, but there’s something sweet about that, too. No expectations, no need for her to be a fighter, to be a scrapper, Leonard seems just happy to have her there, however she is.
She kisses him because she wants to kiss him. His eyes are big and warm and kind, and that’s it, right there, that’s it in a nutshell, he’s kind, and it might not be the best reason to fuck someone, but it certainly isn’t the worst.
And she could do with a bit of kindness. It’s not like her world’s been overflowing with it lately. (Or ever.)
He’s gentle with her, as if he expects her to be skittish, as if she’s naïve and unsure, and he makes her long for when she was those things and more, because this is the sort of boy to lose it to, someone who wants to take care of you, someone who’s maybe broken in his own ways (and if he’s here, he’s got to be at least a little broken) but still wants to love you.
Wants to love you, because she’s going into this with eyes wide open whether she wants to or not. It’s her default now, after…
Well.
She helps him unsnap her bra when he fumbles for the clasp, and he shrugs out of his shirt when she pulls back to get it free, and maybe it’s not mind-blowing, but it’s safe, and he’s kind, and he makes her feel pretty, and he makes her feel wanted, and he makes her feel-
(and this is not something she will ever admit, because she can stand on her own two feet, she’s made a life standing on her own two feet, she doesn’t need anyone to help her up, hold up her, keep her safe)
-protected.
Which, okay, stupid, he’s shorter than she is, and she could definitely take him, but it’s more that he’d try. That she’s worth the effort. And he seems like the type of guy who thinks most people are at least worth the effort, but that’s kinda new and shiny in and of itself.
So she kisses him, and touches him, and his eyes are glittery in the half-light, and he holds her as if he doesn’t want to let go (even though he can’t keep her, even though she won’t stay).
Part One / Part Two / Part Three
./.
Author: muir_wolf
Artist: fujiidom
Rating: R
Word Count: 27,247
Disclaimer: BBT is not mine. No, not even this twisted, twisted version of it.
Warnings: Triggery for emotional and physical abuse as well as several mentions of a miscarriage. Also - very strong language and alcohol addiction.
Summary: AU - Circus performers in a world recovering from a devastating war in the 1980s. Penny joins the circus and meets Sheldon, Raj, Leonard, and Howard, who all have their own reasons for being there. But you can only run so far from your past, and eventually you have to start moving forward.
Pairings: Slight Leonard/Penny, Raj/Sheldon, Howard/OCs, eventually Sheldon/Penny, Raj/Howard, Leonard/Leslie (slight implications of possible future Sheldon/Penny/Wil)
A/N: My love and undying thanks to sheerpoetry for beta reading, and being so sweet and patient and brilliant in doing so. Also, thanks to Juniperlane, and E, you lovely fool you! And of course fujiidom, for making the most epically fantastic fanmix ever (see below). And everyone else who kept me sane ;) All mistakes are mine and mine alone.
Ze Muzak:
SO YOU LIKE FANTASTIC MUSIC, RIGHT? AND YOU LIKE FANTASTIC FANMIXES AND GORGEOUS ART/COVERS? YOU NEED TO GO CLICK HERE AND TAKE A LOOK AND LISTEN TO THE MOST AWESOME THING TO EVER AWESOME, COURTESY OF THE BRILLIANT AND LOVELY fujiidom.
CLICKY CLICKY
SERIOUSLY. SERIOUSLY, GUISE. IT'S PRETTY FRICKING AWESOME.
Part One / Part Two / Part Three
I AM SLEEPING ON A TIMEBOMB
-Prologue-
just gonna stand there and watch me burn
Excerpt from a summary of the two-part series finale. The author is unknown, but the summary is accurate.
The Romulan stands above him, disruptor leveled at his head, mouth twisted in a cruel smile.
“Kill me, then,” Ensign Crusher says. His hands are splayed across his stomach, holding himself together after the Centurion had slit his gut with the Teral’n. He has been forced to his knees, mortally wounded, and still his lip curls in disgust as he takes in his enemy. “Kill me,” he repeats, “It will accomplish nothing. Even now my ship is destroying yours, even now Starfleet’s victory is at hand.”
The Romulan is silent, green blood leaking down his arm from where Crusher had stabbed him in the earlier skirmish. Somewhere above them, ships are battling around this planet, Traxis. Somewhere above them, the fate of the galaxy is being decided, red blood awash with green, man and Romulan dying underneath the heavens, but here, here it is just the two of them, blood splattered on the floor, on the walls.
“You’ve lost,” Crusher whispers. “Whatever happens here, you’ve lost.”
The Romulan lifts his head slightly, and Crusher swallows, eyes dark. “You fought like a warrior,” the Centurion says. “You may die like one.”
It’s a struggle for Crusher to stand, but the camera runs for the complete two minutes and twenty-seven seconds it takes for him to work his way up to his feet, blood spilling from between his fingers, pain stark on his face. He wavers on his feet, but he faces the disruptor with a crooked smile, leaning heavily against the wall, panting through the agony that ripples through his body, and you can see that however young he might be, he’s a man now, not a boy.
The Romulan’s eyes are merciless, but there is something like respect on his face. The camera pans closer, until you can see only the Romulan and the gun in his hand, and when he fires the disruptor he doesn’t blink.
There’s the sound of Crusher’s body falling to the floor, and still we look into the Romulan’s impassive face. Finally the camera cuts away to the battle above…
-Star Trek: The Last Stand, season 4 episode 22, The Trials of Traxis
Originally aired May 23, 1989
-I-
chase your shadow ‘til the sun goes down
November 29, 2003
“Today, of course, marks the 20th anniversary of the start of Russo-American War. On November 29, 1983, the first weapons were deployed that would start the most destructive conflict the world has ever seen. Lasting three years and claiming almost 680 million causalities, the Russo-American war was devastating on a global scale.
Both sides held back using nuclear weapons, but that did not stop the destruction, perhaps because civilians were not spared-bombing on both sides was not limited to military outposts, and in some cases larger cities were purposefully targeted in order to send a clear message. The once great city of New York burned, and much of southern California was destroyed in the USSR’s attempt to eliminate the naval bases and ships stationed there. Denver, Colorado was turned to ash. Rhode Island and Hawaii were razed.”
She runs a brush through her hair, feeling the bristles catch on small tangles. Practice had been long today, and her hair-which Mira had insisted stay down to add to the aesthetic appeal of the performance-is now a complete mess. She jerks the brush down, fighting the tangles, ignoring the pain. She’s eager to be done with her hair, to be done with icing her sore ankle from where she fell, to be done with everything that’s necessary and important and stands in the way of sleep.
“Canada, Britain, France, Germany, and Japan-known as The Armistice Alliance-participated in negotiations in order to halt the war before it could reach full nuclear proportions. Britain, who had sided with America at the start of the war, eventually assisted Canada in deposing then-US President Carnell and staging a coup on the American government, while Germany and Japan took Russia’s nuclear bunkers by force, at great cost to themselves. France and Switzerland oversaw the forced disarmament of the nuclear weapons on both sides, ensuring that neither Canada and Britain, nor Germany and Japan, entertained the possibility of continuing the war.”
The crackle of the radio should be distracting, but it’s an old story, and one everyone’s familiar with. It’s almost comforting in a way. Besides, it’s across the way, and she’s not putting any more weight on her ankle than she has to. Let it keep talking, she’s got about five more minutes before she passes out in her cot, finished or not, radio or not.
“While the great nuclear war many had feared did not come to pass, the effects of the Russo-American War were far-reaching. A full twenty years after it began, the world has not recovered from the loss of life, nor from the ensuing collapse of the global economy. In the five years after the war, the national debts that were called in during a desperate attempt to ease the utter poverty of various nations led to a domino effect, and the short-lived growth and prosperity during the years preceding the Russo-American War now seem a distant memory.”
They’re not meeting up with the other trucks until sometime later tomorrow, so she has at least six hours of sleep ahead of her, depending if Mira makes her get up early to do fuck knows what. The last eight weeks have proven nothing if not that Mira is a bitch who derives pleasure in screwing with the acrobats (Kinkers, she reminds herself), probably because Mira prefers the three dancers, and dancers have fuck-all place in a traveling circus. Chances are the new place is going to be just the same as the last, and if Mira keeps trying to force the dancers into the opening acts, the new Ringmaster is probably going to have her head. Darren is not known for being an easy-going boss.
(Let’s face it, he’s known for being a bit of a psychotic bastard, but he sure as fuck knows how to get crowds.)
“However, despite all of this, in the last ten years America has made startling progress in reclaiming their nation. In 1990, the Canadian-British interim-government was finally forced out, and since then America has not only seen the repairing of its infrastructure, but the rebirth of its social and cultural heritage. While much of the Midwest still enjoys a more rural lifestyle, the industries on the East Coast are helping to drive the economy back to a more substantial force. The Pacific Northwest, of course, is still leading the way in technological advances made in the last decade, and it cannot be denied that while such advances are still not readily available on a national scale, they are allowing America to shine on a global level.
While the population is still far from its pre-war 234 million, this year it has risen to 168 million, which is in itself a triumph after the devastating toll of the war. Between the rising population, the marked improvements to America’s cities and economy, and the steps taken to improve America’s place in this new global world, the 21st century is off to a slow but definite climb.”
“Penny!”
She closes her eyes and keeps brushing her hair, counting the strokes, trying desperately to tune out-
“Penny!” Mira barks. Penny opens her eyes, and looks up at Mira. Five foot, she gives the appearance of towering over taller Penny even when they’re both standing. Mira flips off the radio with entirely too much satisfaction. “Why aren’t the lights off?”
Penny inhales and then exhales carefully. “I’m icing my ankle-”
“Lights off at midnight, Penny, you know the rules,” Mira says. “Maybe if you weren’t so clumsy in your routine-”
“I told you I wasn’t ready to make that flip!” Penny says. Mira taps her foot on the floor.
“I expected more from you,” she says. Penny’s fists tighten in the bag of ice, but she doesn’t break eye contact with her. It’s Mira who finally looks away. “You’re keeping everyone else up with these lights,” she says. “And the radio is beyond rude.”
“I didn’t turn it on!” Penny says, outraged. From behind Mira, Alicia, one of the dancers, pops her head up from her bunk with a smirk. Penny braces herself with her hand on the bunk, fully ready to fling herself to her feet and pull Alicia out of bed by her dark hair, but Mira leans forward, getting her face squarely into Penny’s personal space.
“Lights out,” she hisses, grabbing the ice from Penny’s hands and yanking it away. For one moment, Penny is honestly not sure what she’s going to do-lash out, scream, cry-and then she sucks in a lungful of air and forces everything down inside of herself. She needs this job.
She really needs this job.
“Yes, Mira,” she says, tightening her fingers into fists to stop them from trembling. Alicia is still smirking and, despite the overwhelming urge to flip her off, Penny smiles back, sickeningly sweet. Kill ‘em with kindness, she thinks, enjoying the flash of confusion on the other girl’s face.
Penny turns and curls up in her sleeping bag, trying to ignore the way her ankle is throbbing, the way she’s homesick and tired and so willing to give up but for the streak of pride and stubbornness that runs a mile wide, the defiance that slides as thick as blood in her veins.
The room is plunged into darkness, and Penny wills everything away-her hopes, her fears, her worries. Sleep, she thinks. Sleep.
./.
Mira wakes Penny up a little after five.
(Mira hates Penny.)
“Your turn to make breakfast,” she says. Penny made breakfast yesterday and the day before. Penny’s ankle is still throbbing, and she’ll no doubt be expected to perform for Darren later on.
Penny is fairly confident that one day she’s going to strangle Mira.
She nods groggily and slurs out an “M’kay,” as Mira climbs back into her warm bunk and Penny crawls out of hers.
The truck-turned rooms, which most circuses use, work like this: In the bunk trunks, there are metal bunk-bed frames welded to the floor and the walls on either side of the inside of the truck. On average, you put two frames on each side, so you’ve got eight beds in each semi. Inside the actual frame of the bed, where in most places of the world you’ve got a mattress, there’s a hammock, which keeps you inside the bed instead of rolling off when the truck is going at a good clip, turning corners and going up mountains and generally doing its damnedest to keep you awake. You get a sleeping bag and a pillow, and there: That’s your room.
The rest of the space of the truck is taken up by the carefully installed bathroom and water tank, as well as the really quite good-sized trunk that each person gets, welded to the floor so as not to kill the poor slob who gets up in the middle of the night at the same time the truck turns.
Sometimes there are pictures on the walls. Sometimes there are fancy cloth dividers that give people a sense of privacy.
Mostly, there are close quarters, bruises from falling into each other and the bunks, and never enough quiet.
Now, proper circuses, they tend to have a kitchen-truck, and either a rotating crew or-if they’re really fancy-an actual cook. Darren’s circus has an actual cook. They’re still a good three hours away from the possibility of Darren’s circus, though, so Penny throws on a tattered sweatshirt and trudges to the front of the truck, attempting to avoid the objects in her path despite the lack of light, running her fingers along the far wall until she finds the latch that holds the sliding door shut. With a sigh she opens and slips through it.
Kurt immediately turns and looks at her, leering.
Kurt, of course, is the reason why this chore is such a punishment for her (besides the unholy hour, of course).
They may have picked up Kurt days before Penny joined the crew, but Kurt is from her hometown. Kurt was her high school boyfriend. They didn’t exactly part on the best of terms.
Now he drives trucks for a living.
Her truck.
“Hey babe,” he grins. She ignores him, hooking up the modified toaster, hoping against hope it doesn’t short-circuit. Again.
She pulls the bag of bread open one-handed, shoving the pieces in. Breakfast is nothing fancy-buttered toast more often than not, sometimes just toast-but the making of breakfast is an exercise in hell.
“Don’t be like that, baby,” he says.
It’s a good thing there’s not butter today…she wouldn’t quite trust herself with a knife right now.
./.
They arrive at the meet-up exactly on time, which means in the front of the truck Mira is screaming Kurt’s head off for not getting them there earlier. Darren’s crew is, predictably, already there-and not just there, but set up. Clearly he gave them a time that fit his plans, rather than any sort of accurate arrival estimation.
Penny shrugs out of her sweatshirt and ties back her hair before slipping out the sliding door that’s been installed in the back of the truck. Alicia says something (no doubt snide) as Penny steps away from the truck, and faintly she can hear Mira’s raised voice.
The whole damn circus has evidently turned out to see them, and Penny fights the urge to duck away. Instead, her hand goes nervously to her hair, patting it down as if the light breeze is enough to throw it into disarray. They’re in a large field, trucks parked in a diagonal pattern, and the main tent already erected off to the left. And there are so very many people looking at her…
A solidly built man with slicked back dark hair and a too-sharp smile steps out of the crowd, and from the way he moves alone she knows who he is.
“I’m Darren,” he says, hand snug around hers as he shakes it.
“Penny,” she offers, and he gives her a too-close look over, eyes lingering in ways that make her long for a shower. But then, she’d known about that rumor, too. From behind her she can hear the sliding door slam open, and then Mira’s voice is cooing up at Darren as she shoulders Penny aside with a glare. Alicia isn’t far behind, nose firmly in the air.
Darren has somehow managed to turn Penny and tuck her into his side, his hand resting far-too-familiarly on her hip. Alicia looks fairly apoplectic. Mira’s smile is tight, but she, at least, is the consummate professional.
Mira, predictably, leads off the conversation by bringing up the dancers, her pride and joy. Alicia, Ashley, and Tammy preen behind her as she spouts off her flowery phrases and praises.
Darren’s fingers tap thoughtfully on Penny’s hip, and she tries not to twitch. “Dancers,” he repeats, his voice even as he examines the three girls. Mira bristles at the eyebrow he raises as he gives them the once-over. Behind them, the other three acrobats have followed the others out into the muted sunlight. Dry grass crunches underneath Penny’s feet as she shifts, but Darren doesn’t let her go.
“You should see them in action, they-”
“They have no place in my show, Mira,” he cuts in. Mira wets her lips.
“You have to at least give them a-”
“I have to do nothing, Mira,” he says. “I don’t even have to accept your acrobats, lovely as they may be.” He squeezes Penny’s side. “I’m certainly not dragging down the show with dead weight.”
“Darren-”
“I do, however, need someone to help run the concession stand. We lost a few in the last town, and they haven’t been replaced yet.”
“Concession stand?” Mira repeats, torn between outrage and shock. Darren shrugs luxuriously.
“They can work in the concession stand or they can walk out of here right now,” he says. “It’s no concern of mine.”
Penny can’t help a twinge of amusement at the shell-shocked look on Alicia’s face, but she’s also rather distracted by the way Darren is grinning down at her. She’s saved from having to decide what to do by Mira clearing her throat.
“Do you want a demonstration from the kinkers, then?” she asks, and Penny drops a shade or two of color at Mira’s half smile as she meets Penny’s eyes. My ankle, Penny swears silently.
Darren chucks Penny underneath the chin, amused. “Go get changed, girl,” he says, clearly not remembering her name.
Fuck it, she thinks, and goes and gets changed.
./.
It’s by no means the best routine they’ve ever done, but they stick to mostly aerial rather than the tumbling she excels at. She tosses in some flips despite herself, changing her routine to make lands and transitions only on her good leg (stupid, stupid, showy but stupid). Her fellow kinkers are good, which helps, but Penny’s always been the star, and while some of the people gathered look impressed, some don’t, so eventually Penny has to risk it.
Her ankle turns underneath her, bolts of pain flaring up the length of her leg, but she manages to stick the landing, teeth digging into her bottom lip through the practiced smile. When Darren nods his approval, she’s 99% sure they’ve got the job because she stuck her landing despite the pain.
(if she’d asked anyone there, they’d say she was probably right)
After all the touching earlier, Penny rather expects Darren to come out and talk to her, but instead he sends a short man with glasses out to her and proceeds to back a slender, dark-haired man against the wall. Whatever he’s saying, the other man doesn’t seem to like it, but she’s distracted by the short man arriving and holding out his hand.
“Leonard,” he offers, “I usually work with the animals, but I’m one of the few people here with first aid training.”
His eyes flick back to Darren and the other man, and his mouth twists a little. “Plus, he wanted me out of the way,” he mutters, clearly pissed. Penny blinks.
“What?” she asks. Leonard shakes his head.
“Nothing, nothing,” he says, “Let me see your ankle.”
She frowns, but he wrinkles his nose slightly in concentration and crouches down in front of her, all business, so she lets him at it. “I just need to ice it,” she says, and he’s silent as he prods the joint carefully.
“You’ll need to try to stay off of it until it’s healed,” he says.
She huffs out an amused breath. “I’m a kinker, Leonard,” she says. He shrugs.
“You won’t be in the show tonight, and Wil-our 24-hour man-hasn’t arrived at the next town, yet, so you’ll probably have at least a day to rest. Stay off of it, and if you’re not better by the next show, stick to the aerial, it was good.”
“But not great,” she says.
He sighs, looking vaguely disgusted. “No wonder Darren liked you,” he says, and the way he says it, as if she’s just failed some crucial test, turns her stomach.
“Wait,” she says, and she’s alarmed at how her voice has gone soft and shaky, “Wait, you don’t understand, it’s just, I can’t lose this job!”
Leonard pauses, eyes skimming across her face with reluctant understanding. His eyes flick over to where Darren is still talking to the slightly taller man who’s managing to fold in slightly on himself, and when he looks back at her, he just looks tired.
“Here,” he says, holding out an arm and wrapping it carefully around her. She puts her own arm around his shoulders, noticing the way his hold on her is almost too-gentle, as if he’s worried she might break, as if he hadn’t just seen her throwing herself through the air. At least he’s not groping her like Darren had, although she does notice a hint of appreciation in his eyes that he can’t quite hide. “Here,” he says, “I’ll bandage your ankle.”
-II-
and those secrets hidden in our childish lips
The truck he takes her to is far more spacious than hers. This truck has only four beds over all, and there’s several benches secured to the floor. There are four trunks, but they’re slightly larger than the eight that are welded tightly together in her truck, and overall the space is more open and comfortable.
Leonard must have caught her frown, because he shrugs, looking slightly uncomfortable. “I bunk with the ‘main attraction,’” he says, voice an odd mixture of self-deprecation and poorly-hidden irritation.
“Sheldon?” she asks. Sheldon Cooper, or Sheldon of the Seven Swords or Seven Shotguns, or whatever over-the-top moniker currently attached to his name, supposedly a perfect aim with throwing knives and all forms of guns-blindfolded, upside down, or from horseback. They said the man couldn’t miss. Of course, they send a lot of other bullshit, too. “Is he as good as they say he is?”
Leonard laughs, almost despite himself. “Better,” he says. And then, with an amused smile, half-underneath his breath, “Almost as good as he says he is.”
In other circumstances, Penny would maybe have said “Ohhh,” or “One of those,” or something similarly understanding, but partly because-despite the chagrin-there’s a thread of affection in Leonard’s voice, and partly because her ankle is throbbing, and partly because it’s her first day and she’s tired and new and just fuck that shit, Penny shrugs and turns, eyes flitting across the small chalkboard that’s braced behind one of the trunks, the haphazard assortment of junk that’s overflowing out of another that’s been left partly open.
Leonard gestures farther down, to the benches, and she hobbles down there as he grabs a first aid kit from underneath one of the bunks. “He won’t mind if we use it,” he says, when he notices her looking at the even letters that proclaim the kit PROPERTY OF SHELDON COOPER.
She shrugs again. “Okay,” she says. She glances at two of the benches, which are scattered with various things, and then sits down in the middle of the closest.
“Don’t,” Leonard says, back suddenly stiff, and she pauses, glancing down at the bench and then back at him, obviously puzzled. “Don’t,” he says. “That’s Sheldon’s spot.”
“His spot?” she asks, amused, but he doesn’t smile.
“Just don’t sit there,” he says, and she blinks and then moves, sitting farther down.
“Better?” she asks, her voice a little sharp, and his faces relaxes.
“Yes,” he says, obvious apology in his voice, but not regret. But it’s his truck, and she’s new, and he’s helping her, after all, so she smiles a little and puts it out of her mind.
They talk about light, easy things as he wraps her ankle. She can tell he’s used to doing this with animals, if only for the way he keeps an even voice and a steady hand closer to her knee, as if worried she’ll balk. They had animals on her parent’s farm, so they talk about that for a while, although Leonard deals with the more exotic breeds. (There were no lions on her parent’s farm, for one.)
Halfway through, an Indian man walks in, sees her, and stops dead in his tracks, eyes wide. She scrunches her face a little, feeling awkward and in the way, and says, “Hi, sorry, I’m Penny?”
Leonard’s mouth twitches up a little, and he nods to the other man. “This is Raj,” he says. “He bunks here, too. He’s one of the mimes.”
Despite the craptastic day, Penny does her best to give the obviously shy man a killer grin, because there isn’t all that much privacy in a circus, and she’s just invaded his last resort. He smiles slightly, faintly, back, but doesn’t say anything, and the silence stretches awkwardly until Leonard looks up from his task and finally notices.
“Oh,” he says. “Raj…doesn’t really talk to other people.”
Penny frowns, rubbing a hand along the back of her neck. “You mean because he’s a mime?”
Leonard glances from Penny to Raj and back again. “Let’s call it a quirk,” he says.
“He doesn’t talk to anyone?” she asks, feeling a mixture of confusion and shock, and Raj makes a small, unhappy noise as he climbs up into one of the cots and hunches down with a notepad. Penny winces apologetically.
“He talks to me and Sheldon and Howard,” Leonard says, voice quieter so as not to bother Raj. “I don’t think he talks to anyone else.”
“Howard?” she asks, and he nods at the second top bunk.
“He’s the fourth bunkmate,” he says. “He’s a mechanic. Keeps everything from falling apart, but unfortunately he’s-”
“Just need to brush my hair, there’s this hot blonde chick who-oh, hello,” the new man drawls, eyes skimming up and down along Penny’s body. She bristles, and when Leonard presses a hand on her leg to calm her down her eyebrows shoot up, because he did not just fucking attempt that with her.
“Not interested,” she says, and something about the way she rolls her words in her mouth and then spits them out must get to him because he raises his hands in a placating manner.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay, got it, aborting maneuvers.”
From his top bunk, Raj lets out a hefty sigh, and Howard rolls his eyes before climbing up to the bunk and half-jumping on him. Raj lets out a muffled squeak and Howard laughs and Leonard shakes his head, amused.
There’s the sound of subdued wrestling and whispering as Leonard finishes the bandage, and Penny’s feeling a little out of place by the time a fourth man enters the truck. It’s the same man Darren had been talking to in the big top, the tall slender man who had a tendency to fold in a little on himself, and she looks up, surprised, as he freezes upon seeing her.
“Penny, Sheldon,” Leonard says, gesturing from one to the other in introduction. Sheldon looks decidedly uncomfortable, but after ascertaining that she’s not about to pounce, he moves to the bench and sits precisely where Leonard had earlier declared to be his spot.
“She twisted her ankle in practice a couple of days ago,” Leonard says by way of explanation, and Sheldon nods carefully.
“I thought the landings you performed were unusual, but you did very well disguising their true purpose,” he says, his voice level, his words enunciated to a degree she’s not quite used to. Down here people tend to revel in their accents, and his careful, precise way of speaking is almost as surprising as the content. She’s not quite sure how to take it, but she shrugs it off.
“Had to audition,” she says with a tight smile, and he nods before glancing up at Raj’s bunk, where both he and Howard have stuck their heads over the side. Raj seems concerned as he looks at Sheldon, but Howard seems almost distracted.
“Done,” Leonard says, sitting back on his heels, and Penny glances down at him and smiles.
“Thank you,” she says, and he nods, and when Howard suggests lunch, Raj nods and Sheldon discreetly checks his watch, but his face betrays nothing.
Leonard suggests they perhaps wait until the top of the hour, and the others assent, chatting about various events. She moves to stand, but Leonard tugs her back down with a smile, so she stays.
Better than facing Mira, who must be in a fury.
At exactly 1pm, Sheldon tilts his head to the side and shifts uneasily in his seat, and Leonard stands immediately and helps her up. The other two scramble down from the bunk, and Leonard suggests he help her out.
(“Don’t touch Sheldon,” he tells her softly, when he’s the closest person and she almost stumbles and grabs him. “He doesn’t like to be touched.”
Sheldon had stood there, neither moving to help her nor moving away, and she’s not sure why he doesn’t speak up for himself, but she says nothing.)
She goes to dinner with them, too.
./.
Darren doesn’t have them perform for the first show.
If Penny were still even slightly religious, she’d give thanks for small blessings. As it is, she lets Leonard help her out to a place where she’s not taking the seat of any honest ticket-payer, but where she’s still tucked out of the way.
Raj, surprisingly, drops by with a flower and a wink, which makes her smile. They go back and forth for a bit, amusing the nearby audience as he over-dramatically woos her in full mime fashion, but after a while he seems distracted and keeps glancing over to the side. Penny follows his gaze and sees Howard talking up a couple of girls in the audience, but when she frowns questioningly at Raj he waves her away and trots off to other parts of the crowd.
They’ve got a good show, with a lot of good balance between quality of acts. Nothing drags overly long, and it stays entertaining as well as impressive, but she, as well as most of the audience, is waiting for the lead act.
She wasn’t expecting Sheldon to ride out on a horse. He sits too stiffly in the saddle, his fingers tight around the reins, but he still rides it better than she would have expected from her brief encounter with him.
And he can shoot.
After all the stories, she’d been counting on being let down, because no one could actually be that good.
Except he is.
He’s fantastic.
She’s been around plenty of guys who go out hunting every single year. She’s not a bad shot herself. She knows her way around a couple of different guns. She can take them apart and put them back together, knows how to keep them clean, knows how to aim, adjust for wind, all those basic things that are necessary.
She wouldn’t be able to hold a candle to the man before her.
He shoots targets that he should barely be able to see. He relaxes into the horse after the first lap, and he looks…natural up there, with the cowboy hat and the holster and the way the guns slide along his hands as he swaps them out, fires two-handed, wipes a hand on his jeans and tugs on the bandana at his throat.
She’s sure the entire costume has been planned and perfected by Darren, but she can’t deny that sitting up there on the horse, gun in hand, he can pull it off.
When he starts throwing knives, his entire body aids in one fluid movement, and she can barely see the individual muscles tightening and relaxing and aligning as he lines himself up and releases, his wrist snapping forward in the air, his eyes focused only on the target before him.
He does that blindfolded, too.
He doesn’t miss.
./.
Around midnight, when Raj and Sheldon and Penny and Leonard are playing cards, Raj leaning over and whispering into one of the boy’s ears when he wants to speak, a sharp rap on the door catches them by surprise.
A man pops his head in-late twenties to early thirties, so older than the rest of them. “Miss me?” he smirks. Sheldon’s lip curls as he looks at him.
“I’d hoped you’d get lost coming back, given what you try to pass for a brain,” he says. Penny grins behind her hand at the man’s sneer. It’s the first time she’s seen Sheldon have some bite to him.
Leonard sighs. “This is Wil-he’s our 24-hour man. He goes to the towns a day ahead of us and makes sure there’s no problems with the lot and puts up signs and-”
Wil smirks at Penny. “That’s not the only reason I’m known as the 24-hour man,” he grins. “You’re one of the new girls, I take it?” he says. “Can’t be some gilley, no way these boys could manage a local girl who looked like you.”
Penny isn’t sure if Wil’s serious or joking, but the wave of protectiveness that hits her takes her by surprise. “I don’t know,” she says. “I think they could handle themselves quite well.”
Sheldon raises an eyebrow, but Leonard flushes and Raj looks completely mortified. Wil just laughs. “I like you,” he says, and then points at Sheldon. “Try not to fuck up everything,” he says.
Sheldon looks Wil up and down and then tilts his head to the side, as if finding him utterly lacking. “I don’t recall ever saying you could come in,” he says, and then turns purposefully away and begins examining his cards.
Wil taps his fingers on the edge of the door and then with a scowl pulls away. Leonard shrugs. “They don’t get along,” he says.
Captain Obvious, she thinks.
./.
Howard walks into the truck sometime after three a.m. They’re pulling out at five, but they’ve been finished with their breakdown assignments for hours, and Raj can smell from ten feet away what Howard’s been doing to occupy his time. And it’s not just the alcohol he can smell on Howard’s breath (and clothes) - he’s got grass stains on his pants from where he clearly forgot a towel when he picked up someone and fucked him or her outside, stars overhead, alcohol nearby.
Raj doesn’t say anything when Howard throws an arm around his shoulders and smiles a hello. He dips his shoulder and lets Howard’s arm slide off and then walks away.
Howard follows, mouth twisting in obvious irritation. “What’s your problem?” he snaps, and there’s a slur to his words that darkens Raj’s eyes, and he looks away.
“I’m going to bed,” he says, and Howard grabs him, turns him, pushes him against the wall, and Raj lets him, pliable and disgusted all at once.
“Don’t be mad,” Howard says, and his voice dips and sways as he blinks at Raj, and Raj doesn’t move.
“I’m disappointed,” he says, his eyes skimming along Howard’s body. “There’s a difference.”
He steps around Howard, and Howard snorts derisively, moving back and giving him space.
“Don’t be a fucking bitch,” he sneers, running a hand through his hair and coming away with gel on his fingertips.
“Goodnight,” Raj says, and disappears into his bunk, drawing the curtain shut around it.
-III-
it takes more than fucking someone to keep yourself warm
When Raj was twenty years old, he packed a small bag, withdrew the little money he’d collected in his personal account (the majority of what he’d earned had been brought into the joint account his parents kept tabs on, ensuring he was saving enough to be able to settle down and support his future wife), and bought a plane ticket.
The plane ticket he’d had to buy wasn’t exactly legal - tickets had to be purchased weeks in advance in order to clear security, and special circumstances, such as deaths in the family, usually came with a hefty additional cost. The ticket he bought was under a blank name, so he used his own passport when leaving the country, but the ticket itself was illegal, even if it was the sort of illegal that no one in airport security, or even the government, really paid too much attention to.
It was the first time Raj had broken the law.
He boarded a plane to the United States (and why the US? Still recovering, still in shambles, and somehow still the epitome of the pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentality-and he did, he really did want to pull himself up by his bootstraps, wanted to start afresh, wanted to find-find something, find anything).
He wandered the country for a bit after arriving. The state checkpoints weren’t enforced as well as they’d originally been envisioned, there simply wasn’t the manpower or the resources, and given other things, an expired visa wasn’t really high on anyone’s list. Still, money is money, and it tends to run out fast.
He picked up spare work. They paid him under the table, they paid him in food and lodging, they didn’t ask why he couldn’t (wouldn’t) speak.
(America, land of your damaged and lonely, where everyone’s lost someone, where you hold your pain inside and smile because grit and pride are all you have left.)
Sometimes he was a street performer.
Forget physics and astronomy and science and math and the way the world moves, the way the world works, interconnected and infinitely complex, balanced and predictable and still astonishing in ways you would have thought should be obvious by now.
Forget laboratories, and latex gloves, and computers that let you speak in the only way that has ever come easily to you.
Raj had a talent as a mime (probably because he’d been living the part for years). Darren found him outside some bumfuck town in the middle of nowhere, and whisked him away before Raj had decided yes or no, go or stay.
They billed him underneath different names, dressed him in different costumes. Some of the people there tried to talk to him, some of them didn’t care. After a while it didn’t matter anymore.
He worked and ate and slept and stared at the sky-blue and grey and orange in turn-and he stayed silent. Out of choice, and need, and want.
Out of ease.
./.
Darren holds off adding them for the second show, as well. He’s tearing the entire order apart and redesigning it, and he pushes her harder than Mira ever did.
Mira stays, and keeps coaching from the sidelines. Her face gets pink when he overrides her directions, but she never confronts him.
Alicia is working in the concession stand, for now. Ashley is, too, but Tammy slipped off into the night, and when they checked her trunk they found it empty. No note, no goodbyes. Penny burrows into her cot and tries to ignore the fact that Mira will certainly wake her up too early once again.
At least Kurt is distracted by all the new pretty faces.
./.
After the third show, Kripke gets in Sheldon’s face.
(Barry Kripke juggles fire and swallows fire and is basically a fucking pyro and he wants the lead act, and he’s the sort to do whatever it takes, so getting in Sheldon’s face is nothing new, hand on his arm, voice low; no, that’s nothing new at all.)
“Hey, Shewdon,” he says, smirking, “That what you cawl a show?”
Sheldon is silent as he tries to walk past, but Kripke steps deliberately in his path.
“I was tawking to you, Coopeh,” he says, his voice sharp, and Sheldon steps back, placing deliberate space between their bodies, his hands adjusting the length of his long sleeves as his eyes flicker along Kripke’s face and then back down.
“Don’t,” he says.
Penny has just seen this man shoot and throw knives and never once miss his target (blindfolded, on horseback, two at once), and all he says is Don’t.
Leonard moves from her side, grabbing Sheldon’s arm and glaring at Kripke.
“Move,” he says, clearly pissed, and Kripke laughs but steps to the side. Penny and Raj follow silently, watching as Sheldon folds in on himself, arms crossed tightly against his stomach. He follows Leonard into the truck and then sits down in his spot, back pressed against the wall. Leonard’s hand falls from Sheldon’s sleeve, and Raj slides past him and sits next to Sheldon, legs pressed against legs, arms resting against arms.
“Kripke is an ass,” Leonard says, clearly upset. Sheldon and Raj are silent, and Penny rocks back slightly on her heels, unsure of what to do or say.
Part of her wants to leave.
She ties her hair back and sits down on the opposite bench, grabbing Leonard in passing and yanking him down with her.
“Cards?” she asks brightly.
./.
Penny’s only ever liked her brother out of all her family. Sure, she loved them all, but loving someone doesn’t mean you have to like them.
Penny likes her brother, though. Sure, he’s an ass, and they’d given each other plenty of bruises when they were little, but he was tough and he looked out for her. That asshat who backed her up against a wall and tried to kiss her in eighth grade - her brother knocked some fucking sense into him, sure enough.
It figures that it’s her brother that gets dragged off to jail middle of her junior year, dealing-fucking idiot. Everyone knows they’re cracking down on drugs, what with all the rumors that there’s some big ring dealing in drugs and weapons and secrets. (America still doesn’t trust Canada, what with the whole coup shit they pulled. Neutral their ass.)
But no, her brother gets dragged off to jail, leaving her what?
Leaving her royally fucked, is what.
It starts with her dating Kurt.
The middle gets complicated, but she drops out of school.
The end is where she runs away and joins the circus.
(This doesn’t feel like an end, though.
She’s not sure what it is, but it’s not an end.)
./.
The first time Raj met Howard, Howard had flirted and Raj had smiled hesitantly, mute, and then fled.
The second time, Howard had acted like it didn’t matter. He’d chattered on while Raj listened. Raj had been skittish, but Howard had leaned in close and brushed a strand of hair back from Raj’s face.
The third time, Howard had bumped into Raj while they were walking, and then grabbed his waist to steady him.
The fourth time, Howard had stretched an arm around Raj’s shoulders and tugged him in close for a side-hug.
The fifth time, Raj had let Howard take his hand.
The thirteenth time, Raj had said Howard’s name.
./.
To be blunt, Penny hasn’t slept with anyone since Kurt.
There’s a lot of good reasons for that, but only one that’s really held her back.
She’d liked to pretend she can’t feel it slide along the inside of her skin, coat her throat until swallowing hurts, but Penny’d rather not lie to herself. And it’s a good reason, a damned good reason, but she’s not one to stay down, she’s not out for the count, she will do what she damn well pleases.
When he touches her, fingers brushing along her bare arm, she doesn’t feel like something to be claimed, or something to be won, and that’s nice, that’s new, not being a possession, not being overlooked. Sure, he still touches her like she’s about to shatter, but there’s something sweet about that, too. No expectations, no need for her to be a fighter, to be a scrapper, Leonard seems just happy to have her there, however she is.
She kisses him because she wants to kiss him. His eyes are big and warm and kind, and that’s it, right there, that’s it in a nutshell, he’s kind, and it might not be the best reason to fuck someone, but it certainly isn’t the worst.
And she could do with a bit of kindness. It’s not like her world’s been overflowing with it lately. (Or ever.)
He’s gentle with her, as if he expects her to be skittish, as if she’s naïve and unsure, and he makes her long for when she was those things and more, because this is the sort of boy to lose it to, someone who wants to take care of you, someone who’s maybe broken in his own ways (and if he’s here, he’s got to be at least a little broken) but still wants to love you.
Wants to love you, because she’s going into this with eyes wide open whether she wants to or not. It’s her default now, after…
Well.
She helps him unsnap her bra when he fumbles for the clasp, and he shrugs out of his shirt when she pulls back to get it free, and maybe it’s not mind-blowing, but it’s safe, and he’s kind, and he makes her feel pretty, and he makes her feel wanted, and he makes her feel-
(and this is not something she will ever admit, because she can stand on her own two feet, she’s made a life standing on her own two feet, she doesn’t need anyone to help her up, hold up her, keep her safe)
-protected.
Which, okay, stupid, he’s shorter than she is, and she could definitely take him, but it’s more that he’d try. That she’s worth the effort. And he seems like the type of guy who thinks most people are at least worth the effort, but that’s kinda new and shiny in and of itself.
So she kisses him, and touches him, and his eyes are glittery in the half-light, and he holds her as if he doesn’t want to let go (even though he can’t keep her, even though she won’t stay).
Part One / Part Two / Part Three
./.