FIC: Behold! Us Wayward Monsters - Act I (Part Two)
Title: Behold! Us Wayward Monsters - Act I (Part Two)
Masterlist: I ( One, Two) | II ( One, Two) | III ( One, Two) | IV ( One, Two)
Zach slept too well, a deep and soul-sucking sleep. As he tried to wake for the alarm his eyes wouldn’t open, his body convincing him it actually meant nothing. He wanted to go back to his dream, a hazy mess that involved Chris saying more of why the Cirque was his last option-reasonably explained by being a secret agent for the government, trying to uncover a drug ring in Guy Laliberté’s backyard. Even further explained by Chris sharing a long toke with a tiger, the both of them giggling madly.
“Zach-Zach!”
Zach squinted his eyes and saw Joey practically banging his head with the beeping cell phone.
“Dude, this has been going off for 15 minutes.” Joey silenced it, dropping it on Zach’s prone form. “I’m not leaving ‘til your ass is in the shower.”
Zach groaned. In the dream, he had just heard a fascinating confession about Chris growing weed in the back of his minivan, the notebook his accounting logs. Tiger, of course, had been his bodyguard-complete with furry fist bump of bros for life.
Which… made zero sense. “Mmmph, fine. Getting up.”
Joey gave him a soft punch in the leg. “I’ll head off John. Meet us in the cafeteria, okay?”
Zach nodded as he stumbled out of bed, somehow making it to the shower and turning it on. He was starting to chastise himself for dreaming of Chris anyway-and apparently of tigers, who knew where the fuck that came from-but it only descended into melancholy from the night before, a thick blanket on his senses.
He couldn’t shrug it off. Hot water, cold water. Shampoo in his eyes and Joey’s mango-scented body wash. None of it made a difference; fuzziness still stuck on the ends of his nerves.
Zach had gone to bed with the horrifying thought of not performing. Like, ever. Never ever. That’s what Chris had meant, wasn’t it? The Cirque had presumably been his last chance to be a gymnast.
In reality, if Zach and Joey had not joined the Cirque, they would’ve just stayed in Arizona. They would’ve bummed jobs to make rent while juggling on a street corner, or wasted time until they joined another troupe. Joey would’ve used the down time to further his photography, while Zach would’ve worked his ass off to save a little bit of cash.
Some people just didn’t live that way. What a thought. It struck Zach with a tiny bit of horror as he got dressed, absent-mindedly trying to think of decent performance clothes for the show.
Zach would probably just die at a normal job. Which was, okay, a slight exaggeration-but a piece of him would certainly dim if he couldn’t live out his passions. He’d be breathing, certainly, but in the husk of the shell in a life unfulfilled.
The whole train of thought made him unusually quiet as he grabbed breakfast, sitting down at a table where everyone in the troupe had gathered. Karl and Bruce were also unusually mum, letting Zoe take the reins of capturintg attention.
“We’ll have the Chinese go first,” Zoe said, pointing to a small group of kids at the end of the table-real children, strangely enough, perhaps no older than their teens. “Then we’ll go boy/girl, boy/girl. I’ll go, then Karl and Bruce, then Natalia-“
Zach looked at the dark-haired chick from yesterday, thinking how bitchy that name actually was. Natalia. She probably poked people’s eyes out with glass shards or something.
“-And Chris can go last.” Zoe pointed out the blue hoodie at the other end of the table, where a quick wave peeked out from downing cereal.
Zach felt slight apprehension-which was new for him, actually. He didn’t care what Chris thought, and certainly didn’t care that he had been chastised last night.
Except… maybe he did. Just a little. Which was why Zach bowed his head to his own cereal bowl.
Cubicle. Would Chris have given up everything for a desk job? Was that the threat?
“Hey man,” a body slid in next to him, and the easy voice instantly calmed Zach and reminded him of the present. “What bit your ass?”
Zach looked up at the dark eyes giving him a sideways glance. John had a frosted pop tart and was breaking off a corner with his fingers.
“Your mom,” Zach said too easily.
John didn’t even rise to the bait. “I’m tired as fuck.”
“I know.” Zach looked into his mug of coffee, already disturbingly empty. “Apparently I’m supposed to enjoy this.”
“What, the coffee?” John shook his head. “I’ve had gas station coffee better than this.”
Zach grimaced, but didn’t want to explain it. “I don’t know if I even want to eat.”
He pushed away the cereal, knowing he would regret it later and yet not caring. Joey, who sat across from him, gave him a look.
“Eat your fucking Lucky Charms,” Joey said as he pushed the tray back. “It might be the only luck we get.”
The sentence rang out a little too loudly, and Zach struck his spoon into the milk, swirling it around. Good point.
)O(
What was a word that was worse than disaster?
“No,” Guy Laliberté said clearly and calmly, for what seemed like the hundredth time that hour. This one after Zoe had performed some ballerina thing on cups, which frankly had to be a bitch on her feet.
Ah-catastrophe. This fucking review was like the Earth in some disaster movie where the planet iced over, except this time it was Guy Laliberté’s breath.
Zach stood up again, trying not to visibly grit his teeth. If Guy wanted a fucking challenge to make him laugh, Zach would meet it. Although being dropped on his ass had not even garnered a smirk; hell, had not garnered a reaction at all except-
“No.”
Zach attempted to resist the urge to flick his middle finger. Except it apparently failed, as Joey was covering his hand.
“Fuuuuuh!” Zach said as he pulled his hand away and stumbled back. He wasn’t sure where he would take it, as Joey and John were looking at him, startled. But obviously they needed to try something new to prevent Guy’s apparent Tourette’s.
At that, Zach let the sirens-the sandman, his companion-have it in an argument in Cirqueish. His muttered angrily, garnering weird looks from Joey and John-but most of all from Guy himself, where he quirked a slight smile.
Oh, the game was on.
“Nngh?” Zach said as he stared at Guy, pretending to be incredibly insulted by the smirking. Then Zach pointed a finger to his chest, trying to remember that scene from Taxi Driver. “Nnngh talkin’ to me? Eh? Eh? Nngh?”
Zach put up his fists in exaggeration, pretending to brawl like a leprechaun. At that the troupe laughed-hell, even Guy chuckled.
Zach gave a sneer, looking back at Joey and John as he dismissed Guy with a look at this coward! wave of the hand. It garnered more laughter, until Zach realized that Joey and John had no idea how to lead off of him.
So he picked up the remnants of their practiced routine-acting dejected, as Zach and Joey were supposed to start sobering at this part of the night. It would lead the sandman to show them to their final performer, the last siren of their journey.
There was a mix of applause which died into a strange silence, which Zach hoped was a good sign-especially for Chris to perform after them.
Who had shed the blue hoodie, apparently, and now only wore a blue lycra tank and shorts, striped with gold. His back was straight as he walked calmly to the rope positioned for him, ready to go.
Most of the performers had shown their nerves-even Bruce and Karl had started a bit awkwardly before throwing knives at each other. But now Chris climbed that rope with too much grace, too much poise.
Zach had seen aerial acts before. Crazy people did them. Not the type of crazy that Zach was-juggling fire or almost breaking every bone in his body-but the kind of crazy that knew no fear. Maybe the kind of crazy that also placed too much trust in the human body, as only a thin wire would catch Chris if he plummeted to his death, purposefully or otherwise.
Because fuck-the plummeting. Fast and dizzying and while high up in the air. Chris also encircled the gym upside down, sideways, while dropping at the same time and swooping like a bird. Almost making it look way too easy-until Chris fell, and fell, and fell-
Chris fell until his fingertips could whisper the ground, and Zach wondered if he could breathe again.
But just as quickly, Chris whipped up the rope and flew away high into the sky. There was immense applause from his troupe members, also out of breath.
“Okay,” Guy said, turning the room silent once again.
It made Zach smile, wondering why he liked Chris getting the only positive word for the entire show.
)O(
And really, it was the only positive word of the show. Except Guy liked their narrative thread, so apparently they could keep that. The rest, however? Better, better, better.
“I think Guy only knows a handful of English.” Zach popped a chicken nugget into his mouth and tried for a guttural, French accent. “No! No-better! Better, better, better!”
It sounded more like Hitler in the end, but John and Joey laughed anyway.
“You forgot that part where he asked why Chris wasn’t showing his ass more.”
Zach turned to the opposite end of the table as Joey giggled across from him, pinning Chris’ hoodie with a faux-Guy stare.
“Ass! Assss.”
Zach even did wavy-arm motions for emphasis, but Chris seemed to ignore him, anyway. It was possibly because Guy’s whole diatribe had been slightly incoherent. For all Zach knew, he wanted to either tap Chris’ ass or get him to show it less.
“Better ass! Better, better, better!” He slid towards Chris at the table, leaving John’s hysterical laughing behind him.
Zach was mere inches away when Chris finally turned to him, grumpy eyes peering from underneath the blue hoodie. They matched, strangely, although Chris’ eyes were a lighter hue.
Was he grumpy because of Zach, or because of the performance? “Ohhhhhhh-kay?” Zach drawled out and shrugged in exaggeration.
Which apparently pissed him off more, as Chris left the table in a huff.
“Oh, dude!” John said as he snickered “Don’t tick off the pretty one!”
But Zach left them behind as he followed Chris from the cafeteria, both of them walking out into the afternoon sun.
“Will you quit following me? Fuck.” Chris threw up his hood, narrowing the sides to his cheeks.
Which only made Zach more curious. “Sorry man, it was a joke. You know, that thing that clowns sometimes do to make other people feel better?”
“Yeah, well, you’re kind of a fucking jerk.”
Zach pouted at that, only Chris turned around and made a face at him.
“Ha ha-you know, a joke? It was fucking hilarious, man.”
Except no one was laughing, and it only turned Zach onto snark mode. “You know jokes need to have some attempt at humor, right? Irony, a pun-“
Chris gave a growl of frustration, hands going to his face as they stopped at a strange statue outside Cirque headquarters. They had stormed out of the entrance, and apparently there was a huge, floppy shoe that Zach had never noticed before.
That was weird, as the shoe was ginormous and ugly as hell. Hard to miss, honestly. But Zach recognized it for the homage that it was-to the circus clown, Cirque du Soleil’s roots. Zach would smile, but Chris was busy stomping around in red flip-flops.
“I don’t give a fuck!” Chris yelled as he kicked concrete-hopefully not too hard, as Chris didn’t need to be limping. “What does ‘okay’ mean, anyway? Okay. Okay.“
“Well, generally it means something… adequate?” Zach almost shrugged as his voice rose, but then another thought occurred to him. One which snowballed as Chris kept pacing, kept gnashing his teeth-
“Are you seriously pissy because Guy Laliberté said you were ‘okay’?” Zach could barely believe it, but Chris only gave him a dirty look in confirmation. “Because you were the only one to receive a mildly-positive word, you know.”
“’Mildly-positive’ isn’t good enough.” Chris stopped before him and sucked in a breath. “They could replace me at any moment for another gymnast.”
Zach shook his head, squinting his eyes in skepticism. “Then they’re replacing all of us, because I think you were the measurement, and the rest of us fell below the line.”
“I’m serious. There are tons of gymnasts.” Chris looked Zach over as he contemplated his words. “Not so many clowns or contortionists.”
“Have you ever been in LA?” Zach waved his hands, gesturing to the world. “Hell, seen a porno?”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I! Dude, look, you were amazing.” Zach leveled his gaze at Chris, trying for a moment of brevity. “I mean, I fucking hate everyone, so I don’t say this normally-but you, as you dove to the ground? Took my breath away.”
Chris put his hands on his hips, looking uneasy, but Zach honed in.
“I’m not going to blow smoke up your ass, but I did get the impression that Guy Laliberté doesn’t say ‘okay’ easily. In fact, I’m sure he would rather eat a kitten before saying ‘okay’ to any of us.” Zach looked up at the sky and pondered, “Or would it be a baby seal, up here? I don’t know, Canadians are weird.”
Chris gave a small smile at that, looking off to the side in discomfort. But at least he wasn’t pacing or gnashing his teeth, so Zach took that as a good sign.
“Look, I can’t say I relate. I’ve never taken this stuff personally.” Zach recalled his one-fingered salute from earlier, but pushed it from his mind. “I just do what I do, and then let the chips fall into place. They either love me or hate me. If they hate me, I’ll go somewhere else.”
That seemed to be the wrong thing to say, as Chris casted his gaze downward and frowned again.
Zach was never going to be the next Tony Robbins. “But you’re an athlete, so maybe I don’t know shit.”
Chris sighed. “You’re right… sort of. I should look at it that way.”
“But you don’t.”
“I don’t.”
Zach checked the ground around him, then decided to sit on the ledge of the horribly-ugly shoe. From the way Chris liked to talk and reveal things, Zach suspected they could be here a while, and Zach wasn’t standing up for that shit.
Surprisingly Chris followed and sat next to him, their shoulders almost touching, friendly-like It was a long and drawn out moment, followed by more minutes, and followed by the sky darkening from a sunset-probably on the other side of the building.
Chris picked a horrible place to be silent. Zach would make sure they argued in someplace more interesting, next time.
Zach was about to open his mouth to bitch about the impending cold, when Chris finally said, “I was an okay gymnast. For the Olympics.”
Zach narrowed his eyes. “You said you never went to the Olympics.”
Chris quirked up a corner of his mouth. “Gee, I wonder why.”
Zach tried to fit the pieces together. He could imagine some Olympic hopeful, wanting his spot-only to fail by a few points, by hundredths of a point.
They didn’t measure actors or clowns that way.
“So you tried out, and they told you that you were only ‘okay’?” Zach shook his head and huffed. “Losers.”
Zach expected a reproach of some sort-the Olympic committee being ultra-respected or elite or some other shit-but instead he only heard muffled chuckling.
Chris was covering his mouth, trying not laugh, but incredibly failing.
“Did one of your judges have like, a mustache and a paunch-and that would be the female judge, by the way.”
Chris bent over, still covering his mouth, but Zach continued.
“Zis man is too attractive for ze Olympics-no!”
Zach pushed out his arms in disdain-still only managing to sound like Hitler-but Chris was shaking his head and giggling.
“I’m sure they weren’t checking out my ass.”
Zach tilted his head. “Damn straight they weren’t. It deserves a gold medal on its own-even Guy says so.”
Chris covered his eyes “Oh my God.”
“So you know what I say? Fuck ‘em-fuck ‘em in the ass, Chris.”
“Let’s not talk about asses.”
“If you insist.”
“It’s just-I failed on technical merit, you know?” Chris took a deep breath. “I didn’t go because I couldn’t beat the guy ahead of me, who didn’t have an ankle injury, a handicap on the vault-“ Chris looked Zach in the eye, “He might also have been prettier than me.”
“Lies.”
“I wouldn’t have done the United States any good in Beijing, that’s all.”
It was a sober moment. Zach wondered if Chris had ever reasoned that out, or if he had been angry about it this entire time. Either way, Chris was a fab gymnast in Zach’s book, and missing the Olympics by mere technicalities seemed an awful thing to get hung up over.
“Well, thank God we’re still not trying to beat the Chinese.”
Chris looked up sharply, but Zach waved a hand.
“I mean, have you seen those guys? They could all fit into my duffel bag, just saying.”
Chris smiled-perhaps a genuine smile-but Zach turned away from it, motioning for Chris to follow him.
“Come on, let’s head back. I hear Karl is hosting some Poker after dinner.”
“Are we gambling?”
“I hope so. I could use somebody’s pants.”
“You wouldn’t fit-you might be skinnier than the Chinese.”
Zach sighed. “Details, details.”
But at least Chris was following him back inside, no longer angry. Zach wondered if this technically made them “friends”-or at least was a good starting point for them to not hate each other.
Masterlist | Act II (Part One)
Masterlist: I ( One, Two) | II ( One, Two) | III ( One, Two) | IV ( One, Two)
Zach slept too well, a deep and soul-sucking sleep. As he tried to wake for the alarm his eyes wouldn’t open, his body convincing him it actually meant nothing. He wanted to go back to his dream, a hazy mess that involved Chris saying more of why the Cirque was his last option-reasonably explained by being a secret agent for the government, trying to uncover a drug ring in Guy Laliberté’s backyard. Even further explained by Chris sharing a long toke with a tiger, the both of them giggling madly.
“Zach-Zach!”
Zach squinted his eyes and saw Joey practically banging his head with the beeping cell phone.
“Dude, this has been going off for 15 minutes.” Joey silenced it, dropping it on Zach’s prone form. “I’m not leaving ‘til your ass is in the shower.”
Zach groaned. In the dream, he had just heard a fascinating confession about Chris growing weed in the back of his minivan, the notebook his accounting logs. Tiger, of course, had been his bodyguard-complete with furry fist bump of bros for life.
Which… made zero sense. “Mmmph, fine. Getting up.”
Joey gave him a soft punch in the leg. “I’ll head off John. Meet us in the cafeteria, okay?”
Zach nodded as he stumbled out of bed, somehow making it to the shower and turning it on. He was starting to chastise himself for dreaming of Chris anyway-and apparently of tigers, who knew where the fuck that came from-but it only descended into melancholy from the night before, a thick blanket on his senses.
He couldn’t shrug it off. Hot water, cold water. Shampoo in his eyes and Joey’s mango-scented body wash. None of it made a difference; fuzziness still stuck on the ends of his nerves.
Zach had gone to bed with the horrifying thought of not performing. Like, ever. Never ever. That’s what Chris had meant, wasn’t it? The Cirque had presumably been his last chance to be a gymnast.
In reality, if Zach and Joey had not joined the Cirque, they would’ve just stayed in Arizona. They would’ve bummed jobs to make rent while juggling on a street corner, or wasted time until they joined another troupe. Joey would’ve used the down time to further his photography, while Zach would’ve worked his ass off to save a little bit of cash.
Some people just didn’t live that way. What a thought. It struck Zach with a tiny bit of horror as he got dressed, absent-mindedly trying to think of decent performance clothes for the show.
Zach would probably just die at a normal job. Which was, okay, a slight exaggeration-but a piece of him would certainly dim if he couldn’t live out his passions. He’d be breathing, certainly, but in the husk of the shell in a life unfulfilled.
The whole train of thought made him unusually quiet as he grabbed breakfast, sitting down at a table where everyone in the troupe had gathered. Karl and Bruce were also unusually mum, letting Zoe take the reins of capturintg attention.
“We’ll have the Chinese go first,” Zoe said, pointing to a small group of kids at the end of the table-real children, strangely enough, perhaps no older than their teens. “Then we’ll go boy/girl, boy/girl. I’ll go, then Karl and Bruce, then Natalia-“
Zach looked at the dark-haired chick from yesterday, thinking how bitchy that name actually was. Natalia. She probably poked people’s eyes out with glass shards or something.
“-And Chris can go last.” Zoe pointed out the blue hoodie at the other end of the table, where a quick wave peeked out from downing cereal.
Zach felt slight apprehension-which was new for him, actually. He didn’t care what Chris thought, and certainly didn’t care that he had been chastised last night.
Except… maybe he did. Just a little. Which was why Zach bowed his head to his own cereal bowl.
Cubicle. Would Chris have given up everything for a desk job? Was that the threat?
“Hey man,” a body slid in next to him, and the easy voice instantly calmed Zach and reminded him of the present. “What bit your ass?”
Zach looked up at the dark eyes giving him a sideways glance. John had a frosted pop tart and was breaking off a corner with his fingers.
“Your mom,” Zach said too easily.
John didn’t even rise to the bait. “I’m tired as fuck.”
“I know.” Zach looked into his mug of coffee, already disturbingly empty. “Apparently I’m supposed to enjoy this.”
“What, the coffee?” John shook his head. “I’ve had gas station coffee better than this.”
Zach grimaced, but didn’t want to explain it. “I don’t know if I even want to eat.”
He pushed away the cereal, knowing he would regret it later and yet not caring. Joey, who sat across from him, gave him a look.
“Eat your fucking Lucky Charms,” Joey said as he pushed the tray back. “It might be the only luck we get.”
The sentence rang out a little too loudly, and Zach struck his spoon into the milk, swirling it around. Good point.
)O(
What was a word that was worse than disaster?
“No,” Guy Laliberté said clearly and calmly, for what seemed like the hundredth time that hour. This one after Zoe had performed some ballerina thing on cups, which frankly had to be a bitch on her feet.
Ah-catastrophe. This fucking review was like the Earth in some disaster movie where the planet iced over, except this time it was Guy Laliberté’s breath.
Zach stood up again, trying not to visibly grit his teeth. If Guy wanted a fucking challenge to make him laugh, Zach would meet it. Although being dropped on his ass had not even garnered a smirk; hell, had not garnered a reaction at all except-
“No.”
Zach attempted to resist the urge to flick his middle finger. Except it apparently failed, as Joey was covering his hand.
“Fuuuuuh!” Zach said as he pulled his hand away and stumbled back. He wasn’t sure where he would take it, as Joey and John were looking at him, startled. But obviously they needed to try something new to prevent Guy’s apparent Tourette’s.
At that, Zach let the sirens-the sandman, his companion-have it in an argument in Cirqueish. His muttered angrily, garnering weird looks from Joey and John-but most of all from Guy himself, where he quirked a slight smile.
Oh, the game was on.
“Nngh?” Zach said as he stared at Guy, pretending to be incredibly insulted by the smirking. Then Zach pointed a finger to his chest, trying to remember that scene from Taxi Driver. “Nnngh talkin’ to me? Eh? Eh? Nngh?”
Zach put up his fists in exaggeration, pretending to brawl like a leprechaun. At that the troupe laughed-hell, even Guy chuckled.
Zach gave a sneer, looking back at Joey and John as he dismissed Guy with a look at this coward! wave of the hand. It garnered more laughter, until Zach realized that Joey and John had no idea how to lead off of him.
So he picked up the remnants of their practiced routine-acting dejected, as Zach and Joey were supposed to start sobering at this part of the night. It would lead the sandman to show them to their final performer, the last siren of their journey.
There was a mix of applause which died into a strange silence, which Zach hoped was a good sign-especially for Chris to perform after them.
Who had shed the blue hoodie, apparently, and now only wore a blue lycra tank and shorts, striped with gold. His back was straight as he walked calmly to the rope positioned for him, ready to go.
Most of the performers had shown their nerves-even Bruce and Karl had started a bit awkwardly before throwing knives at each other. But now Chris climbed that rope with too much grace, too much poise.
Zach had seen aerial acts before. Crazy people did them. Not the type of crazy that Zach was-juggling fire or almost breaking every bone in his body-but the kind of crazy that knew no fear. Maybe the kind of crazy that also placed too much trust in the human body, as only a thin wire would catch Chris if he plummeted to his death, purposefully or otherwise.
Because fuck-the plummeting. Fast and dizzying and while high up in the air. Chris also encircled the gym upside down, sideways, while dropping at the same time and swooping like a bird. Almost making it look way too easy-until Chris fell, and fell, and fell-
Chris fell until his fingertips could whisper the ground, and Zach wondered if he could breathe again.
But just as quickly, Chris whipped up the rope and flew away high into the sky. There was immense applause from his troupe members, also out of breath.
“Okay,” Guy said, turning the room silent once again.
It made Zach smile, wondering why he liked Chris getting the only positive word for the entire show.
)O(
And really, it was the only positive word of the show. Except Guy liked their narrative thread, so apparently they could keep that. The rest, however? Better, better, better.
“I think Guy only knows a handful of English.” Zach popped a chicken nugget into his mouth and tried for a guttural, French accent. “No! No-better! Better, better, better!”
It sounded more like Hitler in the end, but John and Joey laughed anyway.
“You forgot that part where he asked why Chris wasn’t showing his ass more.”
Zach turned to the opposite end of the table as Joey giggled across from him, pinning Chris’ hoodie with a faux-Guy stare.
“Ass! Assss.”
Zach even did wavy-arm motions for emphasis, but Chris seemed to ignore him, anyway. It was possibly because Guy’s whole diatribe had been slightly incoherent. For all Zach knew, he wanted to either tap Chris’ ass or get him to show it less.
“Better ass! Better, better, better!” He slid towards Chris at the table, leaving John’s hysterical laughing behind him.
Zach was mere inches away when Chris finally turned to him, grumpy eyes peering from underneath the blue hoodie. They matched, strangely, although Chris’ eyes were a lighter hue.
Was he grumpy because of Zach, or because of the performance? “Ohhhhhhh-kay?” Zach drawled out and shrugged in exaggeration.
Which apparently pissed him off more, as Chris left the table in a huff.
“Oh, dude!” John said as he snickered “Don’t tick off the pretty one!”
But Zach left them behind as he followed Chris from the cafeteria, both of them walking out into the afternoon sun.
“Will you quit following me? Fuck.” Chris threw up his hood, narrowing the sides to his cheeks.
Which only made Zach more curious. “Sorry man, it was a joke. You know, that thing that clowns sometimes do to make other people feel better?”
“Yeah, well, you’re kind of a fucking jerk.”
Zach pouted at that, only Chris turned around and made a face at him.
“Ha ha-you know, a joke? It was fucking hilarious, man.”
Except no one was laughing, and it only turned Zach onto snark mode. “You know jokes need to have some attempt at humor, right? Irony, a pun-“
Chris gave a growl of frustration, hands going to his face as they stopped at a strange statue outside Cirque headquarters. They had stormed out of the entrance, and apparently there was a huge, floppy shoe that Zach had never noticed before.
That was weird, as the shoe was ginormous and ugly as hell. Hard to miss, honestly. But Zach recognized it for the homage that it was-to the circus clown, Cirque du Soleil’s roots. Zach would smile, but Chris was busy stomping around in red flip-flops.
“I don’t give a fuck!” Chris yelled as he kicked concrete-hopefully not too hard, as Chris didn’t need to be limping. “What does ‘okay’ mean, anyway? Okay. Okay.“
“Well, generally it means something… adequate?” Zach almost shrugged as his voice rose, but then another thought occurred to him. One which snowballed as Chris kept pacing, kept gnashing his teeth-
“Are you seriously pissy because Guy Laliberté said you were ‘okay’?” Zach could barely believe it, but Chris only gave him a dirty look in confirmation. “Because you were the only one to receive a mildly-positive word, you know.”
“’Mildly-positive’ isn’t good enough.” Chris stopped before him and sucked in a breath. “They could replace me at any moment for another gymnast.”
Zach shook his head, squinting his eyes in skepticism. “Then they’re replacing all of us, because I think you were the measurement, and the rest of us fell below the line.”
“I’m serious. There are tons of gymnasts.” Chris looked Zach over as he contemplated his words. “Not so many clowns or contortionists.”
“Have you ever been in LA?” Zach waved his hands, gesturing to the world. “Hell, seen a porno?”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I! Dude, look, you were amazing.” Zach leveled his gaze at Chris, trying for a moment of brevity. “I mean, I fucking hate everyone, so I don’t say this normally-but you, as you dove to the ground? Took my breath away.”
Chris put his hands on his hips, looking uneasy, but Zach honed in.
“I’m not going to blow smoke up your ass, but I did get the impression that Guy Laliberté doesn’t say ‘okay’ easily. In fact, I’m sure he would rather eat a kitten before saying ‘okay’ to any of us.” Zach looked up at the sky and pondered, “Or would it be a baby seal, up here? I don’t know, Canadians are weird.”
Chris gave a small smile at that, looking off to the side in discomfort. But at least he wasn’t pacing or gnashing his teeth, so Zach took that as a good sign.
“Look, I can’t say I relate. I’ve never taken this stuff personally.” Zach recalled his one-fingered salute from earlier, but pushed it from his mind. “I just do what I do, and then let the chips fall into place. They either love me or hate me. If they hate me, I’ll go somewhere else.”
That seemed to be the wrong thing to say, as Chris casted his gaze downward and frowned again.
Zach was never going to be the next Tony Robbins. “But you’re an athlete, so maybe I don’t know shit.”
Chris sighed. “You’re right… sort of. I should look at it that way.”
“But you don’t.”
“I don’t.”
Zach checked the ground around him, then decided to sit on the ledge of the horribly-ugly shoe. From the way Chris liked to talk and reveal things, Zach suspected they could be here a while, and Zach wasn’t standing up for that shit.
Surprisingly Chris followed and sat next to him, their shoulders almost touching, friendly-like It was a long and drawn out moment, followed by more minutes, and followed by the sky darkening from a sunset-probably on the other side of the building.
Chris picked a horrible place to be silent. Zach would make sure they argued in someplace more interesting, next time.
Zach was about to open his mouth to bitch about the impending cold, when Chris finally said, “I was an okay gymnast. For the Olympics.”
Zach narrowed his eyes. “You said you never went to the Olympics.”
Chris quirked up a corner of his mouth. “Gee, I wonder why.”
Zach tried to fit the pieces together. He could imagine some Olympic hopeful, wanting his spot-only to fail by a few points, by hundredths of a point.
They didn’t measure actors or clowns that way.
“So you tried out, and they told you that you were only ‘okay’?” Zach shook his head and huffed. “Losers.”
Zach expected a reproach of some sort-the Olympic committee being ultra-respected or elite or some other shit-but instead he only heard muffled chuckling.
Chris was covering his mouth, trying not laugh, but incredibly failing.
“Did one of your judges have like, a mustache and a paunch-and that would be the female judge, by the way.”
Chris bent over, still covering his mouth, but Zach continued.
“Zis man is too attractive for ze Olympics-no!”
Zach pushed out his arms in disdain-still only managing to sound like Hitler-but Chris was shaking his head and giggling.
“I’m sure they weren’t checking out my ass.”
Zach tilted his head. “Damn straight they weren’t. It deserves a gold medal on its own-even Guy says so.”
Chris covered his eyes “Oh my God.”
“So you know what I say? Fuck ‘em-fuck ‘em in the ass, Chris.”
“Let’s not talk about asses.”
“If you insist.”
“It’s just-I failed on technical merit, you know?” Chris took a deep breath. “I didn’t go because I couldn’t beat the guy ahead of me, who didn’t have an ankle injury, a handicap on the vault-“ Chris looked Zach in the eye, “He might also have been prettier than me.”
“Lies.”
“I wouldn’t have done the United States any good in Beijing, that’s all.”
It was a sober moment. Zach wondered if Chris had ever reasoned that out, or if he had been angry about it this entire time. Either way, Chris was a fab gymnast in Zach’s book, and missing the Olympics by mere technicalities seemed an awful thing to get hung up over.
“Well, thank God we’re still not trying to beat the Chinese.”
Chris looked up sharply, but Zach waved a hand.
“I mean, have you seen those guys? They could all fit into my duffel bag, just saying.”
Chris smiled-perhaps a genuine smile-but Zach turned away from it, motioning for Chris to follow him.
“Come on, let’s head back. I hear Karl is hosting some Poker after dinner.”
“Are we gambling?”
“I hope so. I could use somebody’s pants.”
“You wouldn’t fit-you might be skinnier than the Chinese.”
Zach sighed. “Details, details.”
But at least Chris was following him back inside, no longer angry. Zach wondered if this technically made them “friends”-or at least was a good starting point for them to not hate each other.
Masterlist | Act II (Part One)