That Daring Young Man 2/6
J2 RPS AU
NC-17
Part 2 of 6
Master post
Art
It starts to rain that night just as the last wagons are being loaded into the train, and the weather follows them so that the ground in the next town is soggy and muddy where they raise the tents. Some of the performers choose to stay in their train cars where it's dry until the very last minute. The roustabouts lay boards across the wet ground, marking trails from the wardrobe tent to the big top, from the big top to the stables tent where the horses and other performing animals are kept between acts, from the back of the sideshow tent to wardrobe.
Jared and Aldis' boss, Tony, mutters something about France as the boys slog through the mud.
"I thought we were in West Virginia," Jared says.
"He means the front," Aldis tells him. "The western front? The Great War?"
"Yeah?" He looks consideringly at Tony's retreating back. The war was twenty years ago, long enough that Jared barely remembers it. He knows there was an infantry training camp and an aviators' training field in San Antonio, and he knows people whose relatives fought and were killed, and he's heard about some of the horrific things the soldiers had to suffer, but it's not really something that people talk much about. He's read All Quiet on the Western Front and The Sun Also Rises, but reading about it isn't the same thing as hearing about it, and to be in such close proximity to someone who was there is potentially very interesting.
Townspeople fill the tent that afternoon, bad weather and all, and during the interval between shows, when his fellow laborers are staying dry - if crowded - in their sleeper cars, or sitting in the dining tent playing cards and waiting for dinner, Jared visits the horses. (The dog trainer understandably won't let him play with the dogs.) It smells overwhelmingly - and not entirely pleasantly - of wet horse in the stables tent, but it’s soothing being among the animals, although they remind him of earlier days when his and Chad's relationship, such as it is, was just between them and not causing anyone any harm. He wonders how Chad is doing. Jared has written to him but hasn't heard back.
Jared has had very little luck befriending any of the animal handlers, although they do at least sometimes let him talk to the horses. He has however managed to befriend Alona, one of the bareback riders, who's already in the tent talking to her horse Joanna when he drips inside. She's wearing riding pants tucked into rain boots and her hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and you'd never guess from looking at her that she slogged from the dressing tent to the cookhouse to get some apples and then to the stables tent, all in the rain.
"You look like a drowned rat," she says to Jared, laughing. He pushes his hair out of his face and tries to make his nose twitch like a rodent's. Alona just laughs some more. Her horse looks unimpressed.
"I feel like a fish," he says.
"Why are you here and not looking to beat someone at chess?" She takes a brush to Joanna's mane, trying to untangle it.
"Aldis is the only person who's really worth playing, and right now he'd rather play poker." Jared shrugs. He wonders briefly how she knows that he's been looking for another player. Maybe Danneel told her.
"Aldis?"
"One of the canvasmen. Black guy, couple inches shorter than me." Jared might be the only roustabout Alona knows, by name or otherwise. He certainly seems like the only one who's tried to be friends with other people.
She's smirking a little as she says "I heard you wanted to play against one of the fliers."
Jared knows word travels fast around here, but he didn't think it would be gossip-worthy that he was looking for a chess partner among the performers. Although once he thinks about it, it makes sense - it's gossip-worthy to other roustabouts, so why would performers be any different? By mentioning it to Danneel, he unwittingly brought them into his personal life.
"I didn't get a chance to ask him." May as well be honest about it. Someone will find out eventually anyway. He's standing by the horse's velvety nose, and he reaches out to stroke it as Alona continues to untangle her mane. Joanna stands patiently. She's probably the best-behaved horse Jared has ever seen, but to be fair, she's well-trained to be so.
"Do roustabouts not play chess? Are they checkers people?"
"They're card players, mostly. There's a lot of poker. I watched the show this afternoon," he continues, changing the subject. "You looked good."
"Thanks. I usually do." Alona looks up from combing to grin brightly at him and then changes the subject again in a way Jared wasn't expecting, and in fact was trying to get away from. "How did you end up here?"
"I walked?"
"No, silly, how did you end up in the circus. I can tell you're new to it. Besides, not many roustabouts quote Shakespeare."
That morning he recited the St Crispin's Day speech from Henry V to help encourage his fellow canvasmen while they struggled with the big top in the rain. She couldn't have heard him, but word clearly got around.
"I lost my job and had to find another one," he says. It's the simplest answer.
"What did you do?"
"I was a teacher. High school English."
"Well, that explains the Shakespeare." She combs thoughtfully. "Why the circus, though?"
"One came through town when I was ten and my brother and I tried to run away and join it." He smiles to himself, remembering how his sister ratted them out because they wouldn't take her along. "It seemed like a good idea at the time. Not a lot of teaching jobs going begging in western Texas."
"Still economically depressed, huh."
"Still economically depressed." He doesn't feel the need to go into detail. This is an easier explanation than the whole truth.
"You know, it's weird," Alona muses, pausing in her combing to look up at Jared. "We live and work in this little bubble. The whole season, the only way we can gauge the economy is by how big our audience is. And it's a good gauge - ask anyone who worked under the big top ten years ago - but we don't know what it's like in all the towns we pass through. I wouldn't know how hard it is to get a job doing anything else. I wouldn't want to, but I still don't know."
"What do you do in the off-season?"
"Go back to California. My parents have a ranch. Bet you can't guess what I do there." She grins and goes back to her combing.
"Feed the cats and...." He pretends to think. "Stomp grapes. Rope calves. Cause trouble."
"You're cute. We don't grow grapes - that's farther north. I know you'll be surprised to learn that Joanna helps me train horses. The fact that I perform for the circus during the spring and summer is a big draw. I have posters. It's really cool." She looks up at him again, her smile so big that he has to smile back. "It's always such an adjustment, though, not being with the circus. It's not until Christmas that I really feel at home on the ranch, and by March I'm ready to come back here. Silly, isn't it? I live on a train seven months out of the year, I never get to see my parents, I perform in the rain, and there's nowhere else I'd rather be." She pats Joanna's neck and the horse whickers. "Joanna understands."
Jared is starting to think that he does too.
Two days later he finally manages to catch Jensen to ask if he plays chess, to which the answer is "Not well," although Jensen is smiling as he says it, as if making a joke. During the slowest game in the history of slow games, they instead have a variation of the conversation Jared had with Alona.
"Why do most people join the circus?" Jensen asks, after Jared takes the initiative to bring it up first. "It looked like a world I belonged in." Before Jared can ask exactly what that means, Jensen adds "I saw it when I was young and I was intrigued."
"How young?"
"I was ten." He peers at the chessboard, pushes his glasses up his nose, moves a pawn, moves it back.
"Me too."
Jensen looks at him curiously.
"The first time I went to the circus," Jared clarifies. "My brother and I tried to run away and join it, but our sister tattled and our parents caught us."
"My parents sent me to aerialist school."
"I didn't know there was such a thing."
"It wasn't a very big school and I don't think it was that highly regarded - it certainly wasn't well-known - but I really wanted to swing from a trapeze. I managed to get hired by the Cameron-Eglee Circus - they folded in '32 - it was kind of like an apprenticeship. Hard work, not always with the best people, but totally worth it." They're sitting in Jensen's dressing tent, using his trunk as a table. He gestures around the tent, indicating the rest of the circus and all the things he gained from suffering through his first job. "I did a year with the Millar-Gough Circus, I met Danny in the Mackay Circus, I've been with K&G five years, and I want to do it as long as I can." He smiles. His eyes crinkle at the corners and Jared is struck - and not for the first time - by how incredibly attractive he is. It's hard to concentrate on the game when all he wants to do is watch Jensen's face and listen to his voice.
But Jared is coming to realize that it's not the purely physical that attracts him. It’s also the way Jensen talks to him, as if he's the only person around and there's no one Jensen would rather be with. That may be because it's just the two of them in the dressing tent, but Jared still has the feeling that if someone - Danneel, say, or Katie - stuck her head inside to demand Jensen's attention, he would tell them to leave, he's playing chess and doesn't want to be disturbed.
"What do you do in the off-season?" Jared asks out of curiosity, remembering what Alona said about her winter plans and how out of place she felt back home.
"Golf." Jensen grins at what Jared knows is a surprised expression. "There's a good golf club in Sarasota. Danny and I practice a lot, work on routines, sometimes put on performances and exhibitions. I go back to Texas, see my family."
"Where in Texas?" This is the longest conversation Jared and Jensen have ever had and now Jared wants to know everything. Jensen being from Texas makes him think this friendship was meant to be.
"Dallas." Jensen finally moves his pawn. "Your turn. How'd you end up here? What made you finally decide to run off and join the circus?"
"I lost my job and didn't think I'd find another one close to home, so I just left home."
"Can I ask what happened?"
Jared isn't entirely sure he's comfortable giving out many specifics as to why he left San Antonio, but he wants to trust Jensen and he can be vague.
"I got caught with my pants down. Literally."
Jensen chuckles, as if sharing a joke. "Did the girl have to leave town too?"
"It… it wasn't a girl." Jared looks down at the chessboard and lowers his voice. This isn't something he wants anyone else to know, especially in such a small, closed world where news travels like wind, and now that he's said it he wishes he hadn't. He doesn't know Jensen that well, doesn't know if he really is that trustworthy. Jared can feel his heart racing, suddenly worried and scared.
He looks up to see surprise flash across Jensen's face, followed by something that looks almost like understanding.
"I'm sorry."
"Why are you apologizing? You didn't - " You didn't pull my pants down and suck me off, is what he almost says.
Jensen shrugs. "It's a hard thing to have happen, to lose your job because of your private life. What did you used to do?"
"I taught high school. English literature. It was my first year, but I was starting to like it." It occurs to him as he says it that a month ago he would have been more upset, but his time with the circus has shown him an interesting, occasionally really exciting way to live, and he realizes he doesn't miss teaching as much as he thought he would.
"So where was home?" Jensen asks, considerately changing the subject. "Texas, right? I can hear it in your voice."
"Yeah, San Antonio. Not much there but the Alamo. The most exciting thing to happen in the last five years is that a bunch of gangsters robbed the Frost Bank downtown. They shot an FBI agent and vanished."
"Really?" Jensen looks kind of impressed.
"Really. That was their first robbery. Word was they were locals, but no one ever caught them." He looks at the chessboard, trying to plan his next move. It's early enough in the game that he can do a lot of things. "Don't think it will make the bank as famous as the Alamo, though."
"Yeah, probably not. When I was twelve we took the train out there to see it. One of my dad's great uncles? Great-great? I can't remember. A distant relative. He fought with William Travis and was killed there. My mom's cousin lives in San Antonio so she provided a good excuse to travel. My brother got sick on the train. My mom and her cousin both got food poisoning. It wasn't the best trip."
"But what did you think of the Alamo?" The most important question.
"It's a big fort." Jensen shrugs again. Jared feigns shock at his nonchalance, and Jensen grins at Jared's faked outrage. "It was interesting to see it, after having heard about it my whole life, and once my brother recovered we spent some time playing Texans and Mexicans and pretending to shoot each other. I'd like to go back if I get the chance." He seems to consider what he's just said. "Maybe it wasn't such a bad vacation after all."
Jared moves his bishop, thinking that it's too bad Texas isn't on the circus' route. He could give everyone a tour of San Antonio if they had a free day.
"So is this what you do with your free time?" Jensen asks. "Corner innocent fliers to play chess?" He's teasing, grinning at the board. Jared is more relieved than he has words for that Jensen's attitude towards him hasn't changed after the revelation about Chad.
"Well, I figure I've asked everyone else, and you were next on the list." Jared grins back. "Sometimes I help Gina with the crossword. Play poker. Write home. Nap. Try to cadge snacks from the kitchen." Matt, the waiter most likely to sneak him something between meals - or to give him a little more during meals - has been down with a bad cold the past day or so, and while Jared feels bad for him (and is glad he isn't handling food), he also misses having the ability to sidle up to the cookhouse and whisper "The starving blackbird flies at midnight" and be rewarded with some cookies or an apple or a leftover ham sandwich or something. "I'm trying to find something good to read that I haven't read twenty times already, but it's hard. I didn't bring a bunch of books with me when I left Texas, and it's not like the circus travels with a library."
Of all the things Jared misses - family and friends, sometimes even his students - although occasionally he wonders if he missed the idea of them more than the fact of them - he misses the ease of going to the library and checking out a pile of books. So he's been wandering through the circus trying to borrow reading material. Vincent has a subscription to Astounding Stories so pulp science fiction can follow him around the country, and he's been more than happy to loan them out. Jared wouldn't have thought that would be something he'd like, but it's definitely better than nothing, and he has to admit that some of the stories are pretty good. Besides, Vincent likes having someone to talk to about them.
"You want to borrow a book?" Jensen carefully moves the chessboard off his trunk and flips the lid open. "What are you in the mood for? I have Zane Grey, Jack London, Poe, The Age of Innocence - I can't finish it, I'm going to give it to Danny - a bunch of Sherlock Holmes, and Hemingway's Green Hills of Africa." Jared must look stunned, because Jensen laughs sheepishly and adds "I like to read. You can borrow any of them. I just started Riders of the Purple Sage, so not that one. But anything else."
Jared scoots around next to Jensen and peers into the trunk. There's an actual pile of books inside, among the folded-up costumes and pairs of soft shoes and street clothes and random miscellany that people take with them when they travel. He's impressed and pleased by the variety of literature on offer. He grew up in a house where books were important, and as much as he likes spending time with his fellow roustabouts, they're not really readers. He wishes he'd managed to track Jensen down sooner, so they could have had this conversation sooner, so he could have learned about Jensen's little traveling library sooner.
"Have you read Green Hills of Africa?" Jensen asks. "I finished it last week, and it would be nice to have someone to discuss it with."
So when Jared has to leave, because Jensen has to get ready, because the evening show is about to start, and they were too busy talking and not playing chess to pay attention to the passage of time, he leaves with Green Hills of Africa and a beat-up copy of The Hound of the Baskervilles, which has someone else's name written on the inside front cover and was clearly bought used.
(The Hound of the Baskervilles disappears the next afternoon, and later Jared discovers Tony sitting behind the sideshow tent reading it.)
About a week later Jared is on his way to the stables tent to see if Alona is there and if she wants anything for Joanna - his next stop after that is the kitchen tent - when he's accosted by one of the aerialists, a slight English guy named Jamie.
"I need your help," Jamie says, grabbing Jared's arm and starting to lead him away before he can even say anything. Jamie doesn't look like much, and he's a good ten inches shorter, but he's determined enough to drag Jared along. "Come with me."
He leads Jared around the lot to where several baggage wagons are lined up behind the dressing tent. The door to one of them is half open, and Jamie climbs up into the wagon and gestures for Jared to follow. Inside are several bicycles tied together and, pushed in back behind a couple of trunks, a motorcycle.
"I can't move the trunks myself," Jamie explains, "and the bike's too heavy to lift over them. I need you to help me get it out."
"It's not part of your act," Jared says, feeling stupid. As far as he knows, a motorcycle isn't part of anyone's act.
"No, but it's mine. Help me get it out and I'll give you a ride."
The trunks seem to be anchoring the motorcycle against the back of the wagon, but Jared and Jamie heaving together manage to shift them enough to get it out. Jared jumps down from the wagon and has Jamie push the bike out at him so he can guide it down to the ground.
Jamie climbs out of the baggage wagon, straddles his bike, and looks up at Jared. "Well? You coming or not?" He pulls a key out of his pants pocket, slots it into the ignition, turns it with a quick twist of his wrist, and smiles as the engine roars to life.
"Too bad you don't have a sidecar," Jared says.
"Just as well." Jamie laughs. "You wouldn't fit in it anyway." He looks Jared up and down again, considering something, and repeats his question. "Yes or no? I'll give you a ride to town and back." His face is innocent but Jared doesn't believe that he is.
This shouldn't be a question, really. Jared has never been on a motorcycle. He swings a leg over the bike and settles on the seat behind Jamie, arms around his waist, holding on for dear life as Jamie suddenly roars away.
They zoom away from the lot towards town, and Jared lets out a whoop of joy as soon as he can catch his breath. He doesn't feel very secure - Jamie is smaller than he is and there isn't much to hold on to - but he doesn't care. They're flying down the road and into town, traveling several blocks before swinging around to go back to the lot and swoop close enough to the cookhouse for someone to angrily tell them off, and then they're circling the big top and screeching to a halt next to the menagerie. Christian, the lion tamer, comes out to yell at them and Jared finally lets go of Jamie and climbs off the bike. He feels unsteady and windblown and exhilarated.
"Thanks for the hand," Jamie says.
"No problem," Jared tells him. "Thanks for the ride."
He leaves Jamie to talk Christian down from what sounds like an epic rant, and heads over to the stables tent to finish his original quest.
One morning in mid-May, about a month into the circus' run, Jared is crossing a rare patch of grass - most of the ground is churned up and muddy from earlier rain so some of the guys are putting down boards to create paths - when he hears someone yell Tom's name, then his name, but when he turns to see who it is and what they want, he has just enough time to register a wooden plank, probably a two-by-four, coming at his face before it hits him and he hits the ground.
He lands on his ass, which isn't too bad, and he doesn't lose consciousness, which is better, but he's almost immediately surrounded by people, which is a little claustrophobic - Tony, Aldis, Tom (who looks guilty and embarrassed), a couple other canvasmen, and Eric the sword swallower, oddly enough.
"I'm really sorry," Tom apologizes, at the same time Aldis says "You must have a hard head" and Tony tells everyone to move back and give Jared some air.
"Ow," Jared says. His face hurts. "What happened?"
"Thomas hit you in the face with a duckboard," Tony says, sounding exasperated.
"I didn’t know you were right behind me," Tom protests. He still looks guilty. "I am so sorry. Does your face hurt really bad?"
"Kinda like I walked into a wall," Jared tells him. He lifts a hand to gingerly prod his nose - where he discovers a ragged cut across the bridge - and feel his cheeks and forehead. Nothing feels broken, other than the skin on his nose, and he doesn't think he has a concussion, although it's hard to tell. His head certainly hurts badly enough. He tries to stand, feels dizzy, sits back down. "How hard did you hit me?"
Tony holds up a couple of fingers in front of his face. "How many fingers?"
"Who's the president?" Aldis asks over Tony's shoulder. "Do you know what day it is? What's the year?"
"Shut up," Tom says. "Let him think."
"Uh," Jared says. "Tuesday? Roosevelt? What was the other question?"
"Who do you love?" Aldis asks, and grins when Jared answers, "You."
"You're good," Tony pronounces. "Everyone move back, let him up."
"I think I'll just stay here another few minutes, if that's okay," Jared says.
"You can't, you're in the way. And you should see the doc. Come on."
They help him up and Tony tells everyone to get back to work before guiding Jared across the lot to the vet's tent - the circus doesn't have a traveling doctor, despite what Tony called the man - but the vet has a small selection of medical supplies for the care of people, having been grumpily pressed into service as a human doctor before. Jared sits on a storage trunk and lets the vet poke him and prod him while Tony goes back to supervise his crew. Jared definitely has a headache now and is still dizzy and nauseous - he's pretty sure the only way he managed to walk here was because he had Tony to lean on - but at least he doesn't feel as if he's going to pass out. The vet cleans the cut on his nose, applies a piece of gauze and some adhesive tape, swabs his forehead which was apparently scraped up from the two-by-four, and gets him some water and a couple of aspirin.
"You wanna sit here, you can," he says. "Take it easy. Be glad I don't have to use the horse tranquilizers on you."
"Yeah, uh, thanks," Jared says.
The vet waves that away and goes inside his tent. A minute later Jared can hear the sounds of a jazz record coming from inside. He climbs off the trunk to sit on the ground with his back against it. The vet's tent is tiny, just a shelter for the vet and his medical supplies (and apparently his record player), and it went up on a random patch of gravel behind the stables tent, so the ground is a pebbly but not muddy. Jared can't see much of the lot from this vantage point, but he can hear circus noise all around him, and if he looks up he can see the flags fluttering from the peaks of the big top, and he realizes that he loves this job. It's hard work, it's uncertain money, it's sharing a bunk in a train car and eating in a tent and washing in a bucket. But it's also sharing crossword puzzles and chess games and books, and it's walking through the lot at six at night and saying hello and stopping to chat and knowing he has friends who like him and tease him and don't judge him.
Jensen has kept his secret. Not a single other person in the circus knows the real reason Jared had to leave home.
If he didn't miss Texas and his family and friends at home, he doesn't think he'd ever leave the circus.
"I heard someone got hit in the head," Jensen says, appearing next to him. Jared looks up, squinting because Jensen is half blocking the sun and there's a glare behind him. "I didn't know it was you. How do you feel?"
Jared shrugs. "Like I got slammed with a two-by-four. Headache, a little nausea. I don't have a concussion, at least."
"That's good." Jensen sits down on the ground. He's wearing khaki pants and a green-and-white open-collared shirt and he looks cool and clean and unrumpled, like he hasn't slogged through mud to get here. Jared wonders if he's had breakfast yet. It should be that time of morning. Jensen searches Jared's face, eyes concerned behind his glasses.
"How do I look?" Jared asks.
"Like you walked into a board. You've got a nice goose egg coming up already. What happened to your nose?"
Jared touches the gauze taped down over the cut. "I guess I caught the edge of the wood. It's not bad. My first circus injury." He chuckles.
"Do you need anything? Should I ask someone to bring you breakfast?"
Jared tries to shake his head, feels sick, stops. He's too nauseous to even consider eating.
"So that's a no?" Jensen says.
"That's a no."
"I guess you won't be well enough to sneak into the big top to watch us this afternoon either, huh." He pats Jared's leg comfortingly. "It's okay, the show hasn't changed since yesterday."
Jared finds that unaccountably soothing, the gesture as much as the words and the knowledge that Jensen is fully aware that Jared likes to sneak into the main tent to watch him.
They just sit there for a while in companionable silence while the circus goes on about its business around them. Jared's head still hurts, badly enough that he doesn't want to go back to work. He wants to lie down. His ass is getting wet from the gravel, but he figures he can wait until Jensen decides to get ready for practice or for the afternoon show. He's grateful to Jensen for keeping him company, although to be honest he'd enjoy Jensen's company no matter what.
Eric comes by to see how he's doing as well, already dressed for his act in baggy pants and shoes with curled-up toes. Aladdin shoes. Genie-in-the-magic-lamp shoes. Well, if genies wore shoes. All the illustrations Jared's ever seen, the genie in the lamp is smoke from the waist down.
His thoughts are getting away from him. Tom's two-by-four must have scrambled his brains more than he thought.
"You sure you're okay?" Eric asks. "It looked like you got hit pretty hard. You look kind of scattered."
"I think I should lie down," Jared says.
"Do you want to borrow my tent?" Jensen asks. "It's pretty close."
"Yeah. That'd be good. Thanks." He stands up slowly. He's still a little dizzy, and thus a little nauseous, but he thinks he'll be fine for the length of time it takes to make his way to Jensen's dressing tent and lie down. He should really stay here - the vet can keep an eye on him - but he likes the idea of sleeping in Jensen's tent, among Jensen's stuff. He likes that Jensen suggested it, rather than telling Jared to stay where the vet could watch him.
"I'll tell the rest of the freaks that you'll be okay," Eric says cheerfully. "You'll be okay, right?"
"Yeah, I'll be fine. I just need some sleep."
"Good luck finding enough quiet. See you later, yeah?" He tips an imaginary hat at Jared and saunters off towards the sideshow tent.
Jensen guides Jared across to his dressing tent, ushers him in, and gestures to the folding cot along the side. There's a blanket thrown across it and a pillow at one end. Jared sits gingerly on the edge of the cot, takes off his boots, and lies down. The tent spins around him. He closes his eyes. Damn Tom for not paying attention to where he was going.
"I'll change in Danny's tent," Jensen says. Jared opens his eyes and slowly turns his head to watch Jensen gather up some clothes and the shoes he wears during his performance. "I'll be back after the show. You rest."
"Thanks," Jared tells him for the second time, closing his eyes again. He doesn't hear Jensen leave. He doesn't hear Jensen come back either, and only wakes up when he feels someone shaking his shoulder.
It's not Jensen, it's Danneel. She smiles at him. "Hello, darlin'," she says brightly. "Dinner's served if you're hungry. Jensen told me to come get you. I heard what happened. Ouch."
"It wasn't a ball of fun," Jared agrees. He's not as dizzy any more. He sits up, is grateful when nothing hurts or spins, leans down to grab his boots, feels a wave of nausea wash over him, and sits back up again. He doesn't feel as if he's going to throw up, but he isn't that hungry either. It's not like him to not be hungry. Maybe he's not better after all.
But he'll have to get back to work. He's not completely incapacitated, and it will make things easier on everyone to have him pulling down the big top and packing up the circus with the rest of them. And he's starting to feel like an invalid, which annoys him because he's just as able-bodied as anyone here, and fully capable of going back out and doing his job. He's done construction, for Christ's sake, and he's fallen off scaffolding and gone right back to work.
Danneel is looking at him expectantly. "Well? Are you coming or not?"
"I'm coming, I'm coming." He manages to get his boots back on, stands up, and follows her out of the tent.
Part Three!
NC-17
Part 2 of 6
Master post
Art
It starts to rain that night just as the last wagons are being loaded into the train, and the weather follows them so that the ground in the next town is soggy and muddy where they raise the tents. Some of the performers choose to stay in their train cars where it's dry until the very last minute. The roustabouts lay boards across the wet ground, marking trails from the wardrobe tent to the big top, from the big top to the stables tent where the horses and other performing animals are kept between acts, from the back of the sideshow tent to wardrobe.
Jared and Aldis' boss, Tony, mutters something about France as the boys slog through the mud.
"I thought we were in West Virginia," Jared says.
"He means the front," Aldis tells him. "The western front? The Great War?"
"Yeah?" He looks consideringly at Tony's retreating back. The war was twenty years ago, long enough that Jared barely remembers it. He knows there was an infantry training camp and an aviators' training field in San Antonio, and he knows people whose relatives fought and were killed, and he's heard about some of the horrific things the soldiers had to suffer, but it's not really something that people talk much about. He's read All Quiet on the Western Front and The Sun Also Rises, but reading about it isn't the same thing as hearing about it, and to be in such close proximity to someone who was there is potentially very interesting.
Townspeople fill the tent that afternoon, bad weather and all, and during the interval between shows, when his fellow laborers are staying dry - if crowded - in their sleeper cars, or sitting in the dining tent playing cards and waiting for dinner, Jared visits the horses. (The dog trainer understandably won't let him play with the dogs.) It smells overwhelmingly - and not entirely pleasantly - of wet horse in the stables tent, but it’s soothing being among the animals, although they remind him of earlier days when his and Chad's relationship, such as it is, was just between them and not causing anyone any harm. He wonders how Chad is doing. Jared has written to him but hasn't heard back.
Jared has had very little luck befriending any of the animal handlers, although they do at least sometimes let him talk to the horses. He has however managed to befriend Alona, one of the bareback riders, who's already in the tent talking to her horse Joanna when he drips inside. She's wearing riding pants tucked into rain boots and her hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and you'd never guess from looking at her that she slogged from the dressing tent to the cookhouse to get some apples and then to the stables tent, all in the rain.
"You look like a drowned rat," she says to Jared, laughing. He pushes his hair out of his face and tries to make his nose twitch like a rodent's. Alona just laughs some more. Her horse looks unimpressed.
"I feel like a fish," he says.
"Why are you here and not looking to beat someone at chess?" She takes a brush to Joanna's mane, trying to untangle it.
"Aldis is the only person who's really worth playing, and right now he'd rather play poker." Jared shrugs. He wonders briefly how she knows that he's been looking for another player. Maybe Danneel told her.
"Aldis?"
"One of the canvasmen. Black guy, couple inches shorter than me." Jared might be the only roustabout Alona knows, by name or otherwise. He certainly seems like the only one who's tried to be friends with other people.
She's smirking a little as she says "I heard you wanted to play against one of the fliers."
Jared knows word travels fast around here, but he didn't think it would be gossip-worthy that he was looking for a chess partner among the performers. Although once he thinks about it, it makes sense - it's gossip-worthy to other roustabouts, so why would performers be any different? By mentioning it to Danneel, he unwittingly brought them into his personal life.
"I didn't get a chance to ask him." May as well be honest about it. Someone will find out eventually anyway. He's standing by the horse's velvety nose, and he reaches out to stroke it as Alona continues to untangle her mane. Joanna stands patiently. She's probably the best-behaved horse Jared has ever seen, but to be fair, she's well-trained to be so.
"Do roustabouts not play chess? Are they checkers people?"
"They're card players, mostly. There's a lot of poker. I watched the show this afternoon," he continues, changing the subject. "You looked good."
"Thanks. I usually do." Alona looks up from combing to grin brightly at him and then changes the subject again in a way Jared wasn't expecting, and in fact was trying to get away from. "How did you end up here?"
"I walked?"
"No, silly, how did you end up in the circus. I can tell you're new to it. Besides, not many roustabouts quote Shakespeare."
That morning he recited the St Crispin's Day speech from Henry V to help encourage his fellow canvasmen while they struggled with the big top in the rain. She couldn't have heard him, but word clearly got around.
"I lost my job and had to find another one," he says. It's the simplest answer.
"What did you do?"
"I was a teacher. High school English."
"Well, that explains the Shakespeare." She combs thoughtfully. "Why the circus, though?"
"One came through town when I was ten and my brother and I tried to run away and join it." He smiles to himself, remembering how his sister ratted them out because they wouldn't take her along. "It seemed like a good idea at the time. Not a lot of teaching jobs going begging in western Texas."
"Still economically depressed, huh."
"Still economically depressed." He doesn't feel the need to go into detail. This is an easier explanation than the whole truth.
"You know, it's weird," Alona muses, pausing in her combing to look up at Jared. "We live and work in this little bubble. The whole season, the only way we can gauge the economy is by how big our audience is. And it's a good gauge - ask anyone who worked under the big top ten years ago - but we don't know what it's like in all the towns we pass through. I wouldn't know how hard it is to get a job doing anything else. I wouldn't want to, but I still don't know."
"What do you do in the off-season?"
"Go back to California. My parents have a ranch. Bet you can't guess what I do there." She grins and goes back to her combing.
"Feed the cats and...." He pretends to think. "Stomp grapes. Rope calves. Cause trouble."
"You're cute. We don't grow grapes - that's farther north. I know you'll be surprised to learn that Joanna helps me train horses. The fact that I perform for the circus during the spring and summer is a big draw. I have posters. It's really cool." She looks up at him again, her smile so big that he has to smile back. "It's always such an adjustment, though, not being with the circus. It's not until Christmas that I really feel at home on the ranch, and by March I'm ready to come back here. Silly, isn't it? I live on a train seven months out of the year, I never get to see my parents, I perform in the rain, and there's nowhere else I'd rather be." She pats Joanna's neck and the horse whickers. "Joanna understands."
Jared is starting to think that he does too.
Two days later he finally manages to catch Jensen to ask if he plays chess, to which the answer is "Not well," although Jensen is smiling as he says it, as if making a joke. During the slowest game in the history of slow games, they instead have a variation of the conversation Jared had with Alona.
"Why do most people join the circus?" Jensen asks, after Jared takes the initiative to bring it up first. "It looked like a world I belonged in." Before Jared can ask exactly what that means, Jensen adds "I saw it when I was young and I was intrigued."
"How young?"
"I was ten." He peers at the chessboard, pushes his glasses up his nose, moves a pawn, moves it back.
"Me too."
Jensen looks at him curiously.
"The first time I went to the circus," Jared clarifies. "My brother and I tried to run away and join it, but our sister tattled and our parents caught us."
"My parents sent me to aerialist school."
"I didn't know there was such a thing."
"It wasn't a very big school and I don't think it was that highly regarded - it certainly wasn't well-known - but I really wanted to swing from a trapeze. I managed to get hired by the Cameron-Eglee Circus - they folded in '32 - it was kind of like an apprenticeship. Hard work, not always with the best people, but totally worth it." They're sitting in Jensen's dressing tent, using his trunk as a table. He gestures around the tent, indicating the rest of the circus and all the things he gained from suffering through his first job. "I did a year with the Millar-Gough Circus, I met Danny in the Mackay Circus, I've been with K&G five years, and I want to do it as long as I can." He smiles. His eyes crinkle at the corners and Jared is struck - and not for the first time - by how incredibly attractive he is. It's hard to concentrate on the game when all he wants to do is watch Jensen's face and listen to his voice.
But Jared is coming to realize that it's not the purely physical that attracts him. It’s also the way Jensen talks to him, as if he's the only person around and there's no one Jensen would rather be with. That may be because it's just the two of them in the dressing tent, but Jared still has the feeling that if someone - Danneel, say, or Katie - stuck her head inside to demand Jensen's attention, he would tell them to leave, he's playing chess and doesn't want to be disturbed.
"What do you do in the off-season?" Jared asks out of curiosity, remembering what Alona said about her winter plans and how out of place she felt back home.
"Golf." Jensen grins at what Jared knows is a surprised expression. "There's a good golf club in Sarasota. Danny and I practice a lot, work on routines, sometimes put on performances and exhibitions. I go back to Texas, see my family."
"Where in Texas?" This is the longest conversation Jared and Jensen have ever had and now Jared wants to know everything. Jensen being from Texas makes him think this friendship was meant to be.
"Dallas." Jensen finally moves his pawn. "Your turn. How'd you end up here? What made you finally decide to run off and join the circus?"
"I lost my job and didn't think I'd find another one close to home, so I just left home."
"Can I ask what happened?"
Jared isn't entirely sure he's comfortable giving out many specifics as to why he left San Antonio, but he wants to trust Jensen and he can be vague.
"I got caught with my pants down. Literally."
Jensen chuckles, as if sharing a joke. "Did the girl have to leave town too?"
"It… it wasn't a girl." Jared looks down at the chessboard and lowers his voice. This isn't something he wants anyone else to know, especially in such a small, closed world where news travels like wind, and now that he's said it he wishes he hadn't. He doesn't know Jensen that well, doesn't know if he really is that trustworthy. Jared can feel his heart racing, suddenly worried and scared.
He looks up to see surprise flash across Jensen's face, followed by something that looks almost like understanding.
"I'm sorry."
"Why are you apologizing? You didn't - " You didn't pull my pants down and suck me off, is what he almost says.
Jensen shrugs. "It's a hard thing to have happen, to lose your job because of your private life. What did you used to do?"
"I taught high school. English literature. It was my first year, but I was starting to like it." It occurs to him as he says it that a month ago he would have been more upset, but his time with the circus has shown him an interesting, occasionally really exciting way to live, and he realizes he doesn't miss teaching as much as he thought he would.
"So where was home?" Jensen asks, considerately changing the subject. "Texas, right? I can hear it in your voice."
"Yeah, San Antonio. Not much there but the Alamo. The most exciting thing to happen in the last five years is that a bunch of gangsters robbed the Frost Bank downtown. They shot an FBI agent and vanished."
"Really?" Jensen looks kind of impressed.
"Really. That was their first robbery. Word was they were locals, but no one ever caught them." He looks at the chessboard, trying to plan his next move. It's early enough in the game that he can do a lot of things. "Don't think it will make the bank as famous as the Alamo, though."
"Yeah, probably not. When I was twelve we took the train out there to see it. One of my dad's great uncles? Great-great? I can't remember. A distant relative. He fought with William Travis and was killed there. My mom's cousin lives in San Antonio so she provided a good excuse to travel. My brother got sick on the train. My mom and her cousin both got food poisoning. It wasn't the best trip."
"But what did you think of the Alamo?" The most important question.
"It's a big fort." Jensen shrugs again. Jared feigns shock at his nonchalance, and Jensen grins at Jared's faked outrage. "It was interesting to see it, after having heard about it my whole life, and once my brother recovered we spent some time playing Texans and Mexicans and pretending to shoot each other. I'd like to go back if I get the chance." He seems to consider what he's just said. "Maybe it wasn't such a bad vacation after all."
Jared moves his bishop, thinking that it's too bad Texas isn't on the circus' route. He could give everyone a tour of San Antonio if they had a free day.
"So is this what you do with your free time?" Jensen asks. "Corner innocent fliers to play chess?" He's teasing, grinning at the board. Jared is more relieved than he has words for that Jensen's attitude towards him hasn't changed after the revelation about Chad.
"Well, I figure I've asked everyone else, and you were next on the list." Jared grins back. "Sometimes I help Gina with the crossword. Play poker. Write home. Nap. Try to cadge snacks from the kitchen." Matt, the waiter most likely to sneak him something between meals - or to give him a little more during meals - has been down with a bad cold the past day or so, and while Jared feels bad for him (and is glad he isn't handling food), he also misses having the ability to sidle up to the cookhouse and whisper "The starving blackbird flies at midnight" and be rewarded with some cookies or an apple or a leftover ham sandwich or something. "I'm trying to find something good to read that I haven't read twenty times already, but it's hard. I didn't bring a bunch of books with me when I left Texas, and it's not like the circus travels with a library."
Of all the things Jared misses - family and friends, sometimes even his students - although occasionally he wonders if he missed the idea of them more than the fact of them - he misses the ease of going to the library and checking out a pile of books. So he's been wandering through the circus trying to borrow reading material. Vincent has a subscription to Astounding Stories so pulp science fiction can follow him around the country, and he's been more than happy to loan them out. Jared wouldn't have thought that would be something he'd like, but it's definitely better than nothing, and he has to admit that some of the stories are pretty good. Besides, Vincent likes having someone to talk to about them.
"You want to borrow a book?" Jensen carefully moves the chessboard off his trunk and flips the lid open. "What are you in the mood for? I have Zane Grey, Jack London, Poe, The Age of Innocence - I can't finish it, I'm going to give it to Danny - a bunch of Sherlock Holmes, and Hemingway's Green Hills of Africa." Jared must look stunned, because Jensen laughs sheepishly and adds "I like to read. You can borrow any of them. I just started Riders of the Purple Sage, so not that one. But anything else."
Jared scoots around next to Jensen and peers into the trunk. There's an actual pile of books inside, among the folded-up costumes and pairs of soft shoes and street clothes and random miscellany that people take with them when they travel. He's impressed and pleased by the variety of literature on offer. He grew up in a house where books were important, and as much as he likes spending time with his fellow roustabouts, they're not really readers. He wishes he'd managed to track Jensen down sooner, so they could have had this conversation sooner, so he could have learned about Jensen's little traveling library sooner.
"Have you read Green Hills of Africa?" Jensen asks. "I finished it last week, and it would be nice to have someone to discuss it with."
So when Jared has to leave, because Jensen has to get ready, because the evening show is about to start, and they were too busy talking and not playing chess to pay attention to the passage of time, he leaves with Green Hills of Africa and a beat-up copy of The Hound of the Baskervilles, which has someone else's name written on the inside front cover and was clearly bought used.
(The Hound of the Baskervilles disappears the next afternoon, and later Jared discovers Tony sitting behind the sideshow tent reading it.)
About a week later Jared is on his way to the stables tent to see if Alona is there and if she wants anything for Joanna - his next stop after that is the kitchen tent - when he's accosted by one of the aerialists, a slight English guy named Jamie.
"I need your help," Jamie says, grabbing Jared's arm and starting to lead him away before he can even say anything. Jamie doesn't look like much, and he's a good ten inches shorter, but he's determined enough to drag Jared along. "Come with me."
He leads Jared around the lot to where several baggage wagons are lined up behind the dressing tent. The door to one of them is half open, and Jamie climbs up into the wagon and gestures for Jared to follow. Inside are several bicycles tied together and, pushed in back behind a couple of trunks, a motorcycle.
"I can't move the trunks myself," Jamie explains, "and the bike's too heavy to lift over them. I need you to help me get it out."
"It's not part of your act," Jared says, feeling stupid. As far as he knows, a motorcycle isn't part of anyone's act.
"No, but it's mine. Help me get it out and I'll give you a ride."
The trunks seem to be anchoring the motorcycle against the back of the wagon, but Jared and Jamie heaving together manage to shift them enough to get it out. Jared jumps down from the wagon and has Jamie push the bike out at him so he can guide it down to the ground.
Jamie climbs out of the baggage wagon, straddles his bike, and looks up at Jared. "Well? You coming or not?" He pulls a key out of his pants pocket, slots it into the ignition, turns it with a quick twist of his wrist, and smiles as the engine roars to life.
"Too bad you don't have a sidecar," Jared says.
"Just as well." Jamie laughs. "You wouldn't fit in it anyway." He looks Jared up and down again, considering something, and repeats his question. "Yes or no? I'll give you a ride to town and back." His face is innocent but Jared doesn't believe that he is.
This shouldn't be a question, really. Jared has never been on a motorcycle. He swings a leg over the bike and settles on the seat behind Jamie, arms around his waist, holding on for dear life as Jamie suddenly roars away.
They zoom away from the lot towards town, and Jared lets out a whoop of joy as soon as he can catch his breath. He doesn't feel very secure - Jamie is smaller than he is and there isn't much to hold on to - but he doesn't care. They're flying down the road and into town, traveling several blocks before swinging around to go back to the lot and swoop close enough to the cookhouse for someone to angrily tell them off, and then they're circling the big top and screeching to a halt next to the menagerie. Christian, the lion tamer, comes out to yell at them and Jared finally lets go of Jamie and climbs off the bike. He feels unsteady and windblown and exhilarated.
"Thanks for the hand," Jamie says.
"No problem," Jared tells him. "Thanks for the ride."
He leaves Jamie to talk Christian down from what sounds like an epic rant, and heads over to the stables tent to finish his original quest.
One morning in mid-May, about a month into the circus' run, Jared is crossing a rare patch of grass - most of the ground is churned up and muddy from earlier rain so some of the guys are putting down boards to create paths - when he hears someone yell Tom's name, then his name, but when he turns to see who it is and what they want, he has just enough time to register a wooden plank, probably a two-by-four, coming at his face before it hits him and he hits the ground.
He lands on his ass, which isn't too bad, and he doesn't lose consciousness, which is better, but he's almost immediately surrounded by people, which is a little claustrophobic - Tony, Aldis, Tom (who looks guilty and embarrassed), a couple other canvasmen, and Eric the sword swallower, oddly enough.
"I'm really sorry," Tom apologizes, at the same time Aldis says "You must have a hard head" and Tony tells everyone to move back and give Jared some air.
"Ow," Jared says. His face hurts. "What happened?"
"Thomas hit you in the face with a duckboard," Tony says, sounding exasperated.
"I didn’t know you were right behind me," Tom protests. He still looks guilty. "I am so sorry. Does your face hurt really bad?"
"Kinda like I walked into a wall," Jared tells him. He lifts a hand to gingerly prod his nose - where he discovers a ragged cut across the bridge - and feel his cheeks and forehead. Nothing feels broken, other than the skin on his nose, and he doesn't think he has a concussion, although it's hard to tell. His head certainly hurts badly enough. He tries to stand, feels dizzy, sits back down. "How hard did you hit me?"
Tony holds up a couple of fingers in front of his face. "How many fingers?"
"Who's the president?" Aldis asks over Tony's shoulder. "Do you know what day it is? What's the year?"
"Shut up," Tom says. "Let him think."
"Uh," Jared says. "Tuesday? Roosevelt? What was the other question?"
"Who do you love?" Aldis asks, and grins when Jared answers, "You."
"You're good," Tony pronounces. "Everyone move back, let him up."
"I think I'll just stay here another few minutes, if that's okay," Jared says.
"You can't, you're in the way. And you should see the doc. Come on."
They help him up and Tony tells everyone to get back to work before guiding Jared across the lot to the vet's tent - the circus doesn't have a traveling doctor, despite what Tony called the man - but the vet has a small selection of medical supplies for the care of people, having been grumpily pressed into service as a human doctor before. Jared sits on a storage trunk and lets the vet poke him and prod him while Tony goes back to supervise his crew. Jared definitely has a headache now and is still dizzy and nauseous - he's pretty sure the only way he managed to walk here was because he had Tony to lean on - but at least he doesn't feel as if he's going to pass out. The vet cleans the cut on his nose, applies a piece of gauze and some adhesive tape, swabs his forehead which was apparently scraped up from the two-by-four, and gets him some water and a couple of aspirin.
"You wanna sit here, you can," he says. "Take it easy. Be glad I don't have to use the horse tranquilizers on you."
"Yeah, uh, thanks," Jared says.
The vet waves that away and goes inside his tent. A minute later Jared can hear the sounds of a jazz record coming from inside. He climbs off the trunk to sit on the ground with his back against it. The vet's tent is tiny, just a shelter for the vet and his medical supplies (and apparently his record player), and it went up on a random patch of gravel behind the stables tent, so the ground is a pebbly but not muddy. Jared can't see much of the lot from this vantage point, but he can hear circus noise all around him, and if he looks up he can see the flags fluttering from the peaks of the big top, and he realizes that he loves this job. It's hard work, it's uncertain money, it's sharing a bunk in a train car and eating in a tent and washing in a bucket. But it's also sharing crossword puzzles and chess games and books, and it's walking through the lot at six at night and saying hello and stopping to chat and knowing he has friends who like him and tease him and don't judge him.
Jensen has kept his secret. Not a single other person in the circus knows the real reason Jared had to leave home.
If he didn't miss Texas and his family and friends at home, he doesn't think he'd ever leave the circus.
"I heard someone got hit in the head," Jensen says, appearing next to him. Jared looks up, squinting because Jensen is half blocking the sun and there's a glare behind him. "I didn't know it was you. How do you feel?"
Jared shrugs. "Like I got slammed with a two-by-four. Headache, a little nausea. I don't have a concussion, at least."
"That's good." Jensen sits down on the ground. He's wearing khaki pants and a green-and-white open-collared shirt and he looks cool and clean and unrumpled, like he hasn't slogged through mud to get here. Jared wonders if he's had breakfast yet. It should be that time of morning. Jensen searches Jared's face, eyes concerned behind his glasses.
"How do I look?" Jared asks.
"Like you walked into a board. You've got a nice goose egg coming up already. What happened to your nose?"
Jared touches the gauze taped down over the cut. "I guess I caught the edge of the wood. It's not bad. My first circus injury." He chuckles.
"Do you need anything? Should I ask someone to bring you breakfast?"
Jared tries to shake his head, feels sick, stops. He's too nauseous to even consider eating.
"So that's a no?" Jensen says.
"That's a no."
"I guess you won't be well enough to sneak into the big top to watch us this afternoon either, huh." He pats Jared's leg comfortingly. "It's okay, the show hasn't changed since yesterday."
Jared finds that unaccountably soothing, the gesture as much as the words and the knowledge that Jensen is fully aware that Jared likes to sneak into the main tent to watch him.
They just sit there for a while in companionable silence while the circus goes on about its business around them. Jared's head still hurts, badly enough that he doesn't want to go back to work. He wants to lie down. His ass is getting wet from the gravel, but he figures he can wait until Jensen decides to get ready for practice or for the afternoon show. He's grateful to Jensen for keeping him company, although to be honest he'd enjoy Jensen's company no matter what.
Eric comes by to see how he's doing as well, already dressed for his act in baggy pants and shoes with curled-up toes. Aladdin shoes. Genie-in-the-magic-lamp shoes. Well, if genies wore shoes. All the illustrations Jared's ever seen, the genie in the lamp is smoke from the waist down.
His thoughts are getting away from him. Tom's two-by-four must have scrambled his brains more than he thought.
"You sure you're okay?" Eric asks. "It looked like you got hit pretty hard. You look kind of scattered."
"I think I should lie down," Jared says.
"Do you want to borrow my tent?" Jensen asks. "It's pretty close."
"Yeah. That'd be good. Thanks." He stands up slowly. He's still a little dizzy, and thus a little nauseous, but he thinks he'll be fine for the length of time it takes to make his way to Jensen's dressing tent and lie down. He should really stay here - the vet can keep an eye on him - but he likes the idea of sleeping in Jensen's tent, among Jensen's stuff. He likes that Jensen suggested it, rather than telling Jared to stay where the vet could watch him.
"I'll tell the rest of the freaks that you'll be okay," Eric says cheerfully. "You'll be okay, right?"
"Yeah, I'll be fine. I just need some sleep."
"Good luck finding enough quiet. See you later, yeah?" He tips an imaginary hat at Jared and saunters off towards the sideshow tent.
Jensen guides Jared across to his dressing tent, ushers him in, and gestures to the folding cot along the side. There's a blanket thrown across it and a pillow at one end. Jared sits gingerly on the edge of the cot, takes off his boots, and lies down. The tent spins around him. He closes his eyes. Damn Tom for not paying attention to where he was going.
"I'll change in Danny's tent," Jensen says. Jared opens his eyes and slowly turns his head to watch Jensen gather up some clothes and the shoes he wears during his performance. "I'll be back after the show. You rest."
"Thanks," Jared tells him for the second time, closing his eyes again. He doesn't hear Jensen leave. He doesn't hear Jensen come back either, and only wakes up when he feels someone shaking his shoulder.
It's not Jensen, it's Danneel. She smiles at him. "Hello, darlin'," she says brightly. "Dinner's served if you're hungry. Jensen told me to come get you. I heard what happened. Ouch."
"It wasn't a ball of fun," Jared agrees. He's not as dizzy any more. He sits up, is grateful when nothing hurts or spins, leans down to grab his boots, feels a wave of nausea wash over him, and sits back up again. He doesn't feel as if he's going to throw up, but he isn't that hungry either. It's not like him to not be hungry. Maybe he's not better after all.
But he'll have to get back to work. He's not completely incapacitated, and it will make things easier on everyone to have him pulling down the big top and packing up the circus with the rest of them. And he's starting to feel like an invalid, which annoys him because he's just as able-bodied as anyone here, and fully capable of going back out and doing his job. He's done construction, for Christ's sake, and he's fallen off scaffolding and gone right back to work.
Danneel is looking at him expectantly. "Well? Are you coming or not?"
"I'm coming, I'm coming." He manages to get his boots back on, stands up, and follows her out of the tent.
Part Three!