Author: Indy Baggins Title: Cirque Pairing: Ryan/Greg/Colin Rating: R Summary: AU, what if they were a different kind of performers, leading a different kind of life… Author’s comments: This probably sounds like crack but I don’t feel like it is. Many thanks to Clay for the beta, I wouldn’t be writing like this if it wasn’t for her. Hope you all love this as much as I do. Ryan is the unknown among the clowns. He’s tall, so he sticks out standing between the dozens of lithe, limber bodies moving in union, even if he stands back. He can’t even touch his toes or hope to ever fit in a clown’s car, so he doesn’t even try (even though it might have been amusing if he did). He doesn’t call himself a clown, doesn’t wear the title as a badge, as an honour like the others do. He doesn’t even do it for the laughs (or so he says while chain-smoking self-rolled cigarettes and draining another whiskey behind the main tent). He has long stopped bothering to stuff his costume or clean his old, faded wig. He doesn’t rehearse jokes or tricks because he has none. What he will do is step up in the middle of a frantic melody and movement and belly-laughs all around and quirk one eyebrow. He will follow the other clowns and make minimal, exasperated movements behind their backs. He will eye the audience with a look that says “I know, the magic is gone,” and they’ll love it. Ryan is both the audience’s favourite clown and the one that never gets approached after a performance, even though there is little doubt that people recognise him. He’ll say it’s easy that way and that he doesn’t care, and most will believe him. What they don’t know is that sometimes he forgets to take off his clown shoes until hours after the show. That he never fails to grin, a little, at his image in the mirror when he positions the tiny red nose over his own. And that when he’s in the pit, carefully navigating clouds of sawdust and walking the fine line of laughter and sarcasm and plain tiredness, underneath the layers of sticky, sweet-smelling make-up, the sweat dripping from his back, his eyes scrunched against the overhead lights… he beams. Colin is a contradiction in terms because shy, careful and timid don’t go along with the vision of a lion tamer, but somehow they do. Colin will rarely look people in the eye because he’s used to never doing so with his big cats. He’ll talk softly, thoughtfully to them, make every demand (let go! don’t! sit!) sound like a request, and he’ll smile at them, genuinely, seemingly unafraid to be surrounded by fangs and teeth and claws on a daily basis, but maybe that is because he already knows the damage they will do and has accepted it. People think he is bland, unapproachable and easily forgettable, and that’s why his act is the best out there. When he performs among his lions, tigers and panthers there are gasps of fear at what they do, cries and shouts and everything more, and it is the animals that are remembered, their actions retold by children in the circus’ wake, eyes big and round, voice filled with awe. The quiet man in their middle, whispering directions and touching flanks, calming with the touch of his hand, is never mentioned; he is only the guide of the magic, not part of it, and he knows it. There are stories about Colin, about how he was a zookeeper once until he forgot to close a fence and people died because of it. How, ever since, he has jumped in front of raging lions too many times to count, offered himself up to be killed without a second thought. But there are numerous stories in the circus world, some more ridiculous than others, and most dismiss those as yet other extravagant legends, thought up over too many drinks and passed on over the years. Only two people know those stories for the truth they are, because they both have lifted Colin’s shirt at one time or another and kissed the extensive scars of claw and bite marks, tried to heal the skin and the memories along with it by touch alone. Greg is the one who plays with fire. Only he won’t ever describe it in such terms as there are much better, more profound words for it such as ‘fire eating’ and ‘flame breathing’ and even ‘fakir,’ the occupation of a holy man, which is probably his favourite way of thinking about it (except maybe ‘plain old crazy,’ because that’s what Ryan habitually calls it). Greg taught himself, has dozens of notebooks filled with his small handwriting, notes on transfers, extinguishing methods, vapour tricks. He has studied the physics of fire endlessly, tirelessly, and even today he still immerses himself in it. When Greg comes on the lights dim; he is all alone in the pit, voices hush. Greg can light a cigarette with his breath alone. He can lick a torch and have it burst into fire, have small flames dangling by his fingertips or hot, furious blazes erupt from his mouth. He says he doesn’t control fire as much as he just knows what it will do, but no one truly believes that. When he performs there is a mad glint in his eyes, his glasses reflecting flames, his skin lit by the orange glow, and the audience is awed. Some people (foolishly) fear him, and most think of him as high-strung, a little vain even as he barely ever talks to anyone he’s not close to. What they don’t know is that Greg liked to talk to everyone once upon a time. Endless debates, laughter, whining and yelling and stories; he never stopped, never found anything too tiresome not to discuss. But a life of fire eating, years of abuse, burns, blisters and scars to his throat, lips and tongue, have claimed their toll. They have cracked his voice and made it hard for him to talk in anything more than a whisper. He still doesn’t stop though. And for people who live in a world of cotton candy and popcorn and screaming children, excitement and magic, they are oddly bitter, all three of them. Ryan chose this life to forget, and he does a pretty good job of it. He won’t say he is truly happy because he is not one to say those things, but he is content in his own right, and people who know him recognise that. He only performs in the opening act, but yet will refuse to watch the rest of the show, not because he will not look at them, but because he is afraid of what he might see happening if he does. Ryan keeps a flask of whiskey in his jacket and steals Greg’s cigarettes out of his locker. He never apologises for not staying, but opts to stand behind the tent, in the wind or rain or summer nights, and listen to the fragments of laughter and applause coming from inside. Colin never chose anything his life didn’t choose for him, and he is the one that instead of running away, steps towards it on a daily basis. He doesn’t always realize that some people despise him and others truly love him. He only knows he is, and he lives in continuous wonder of that fact. Every performance Colin, hidden from sight in the artists’ entrance, watches Ryan and shakes in silent laughter. Greg will hang around there too, never laughing, not even pretending to watch, but when Colin catches his eye he will roll his eyes at Ryan’s behaviour more often than not. Sometimes they even stand shoulder to shoulder, letting the atmosphere of the filled-to-the-brim tent wash over them, the smell of animals, of tacky candy and greasy food, feel the energy from the crowd, the pure joy emerging from the children. Sometimes Ryan will see them like that too, and his confident, routine act will be laced with a glimmer of genuine amusement. Those are Colin’s favourite times. Greg got sucked in slowly, like a dare existing nowhere but in his own mind, continuously urging him on. Just a tad further, just a bit better, and it is exactly under his control when he needs it to be which is only rarely, because Greg likes to feel the edges in himself, push until there is no more. Greg assists in Colin’s act, lights the hoops and makes sure they’re extinguished correctly after, and after so many years he has picked up on Colin’s routine with the animals, makes sure he’s invisible too. It’s his own part of the show, the very last and possibly also the very best of the evening, that still makes his heart beat faster because there is so much pain when things go wrong, and they expectedly still do, even now. When he comes on, Greg always calmly, fondly visualises Ryan, standing just outside the tent and listening to the forced, tense silence the audience predictably falls into before he breathes his first roar of fire into life. It’s the closest he ever comes to a prayer. Greg knows Colin doesn’t watch either. But Colin will wait in the long narrow hallway that leads to the dressing room, wait for Greg to come out to a thundering of applause and walk by his side until they reach Ryan and, although he has never commented on it, that’s enough too. Every single night they meet by the back of the tent, and that’s another ritual, the only one they truly have. Ryan waits for them, waits for their shadows (two) their faces (smiling) and their words (Greg speaks first, asks for a cigarette or a drink) and Ryan will breathe for what feels like the first time since he left the stage, obliging easily. Soon after, Greg’s broken tones shatter through the night, Colin joining in to tell the story of the trapezes, or the loud kid on the second row, or how the director wants to cut another thirty seconds of the horse act, and Ryan just takes them in, silently. Ryan has always, even before the moment he threaded his long fingers into Greg’s shirt and pulled him close, known that his life would be so much easier if he just didn’t, but he still did. They were standing behind the tent almost by accident then, the place nothing special to either of them yet, Ryan still in his make-up, Greg still smelling of flames and torches and something chemical; sharing a smoke. It was raining, and Greg laughed breathily as the rain started spreading Ryan’s make-up into white and black tears, dripping over his chin and forming small colored rivers down his neck. Ryan knew it was funny but didn’t quite care as he focused on Greg’s smile, and suddenly found the courage to reach out and need him. Later, Ryan’s make-up spread over Greg’s cheeks too, Greg’s lips painted a scarlet red as Ryan pressed his mouth to his, and their costumes drenched as they ended up plastered against the plastic sail of the tent, sinking to their knees in the wet grass. As Colin stands there, talks shyly to Ryan, watches Greg smoke a cigarette, he feels grounded between the two of them, and it’s a both familiar and brand new feeling. Colin never fell in love with anyone, was always too cautious, too timid to do anything but watch from the side-lines. He never laughed or joked, found more familiarity in the roar of a lion than in the uncertain smile of another human. But when he started watching Ryan, who rarely seemed cheerful at all, Colin found that he would laugh, sometimes even out loud, and feel the pleasure settle in his stomach, almost effortlessly sharing it with Greg. And when Colin caught Ryan in the middle of a bickering, snarky conversation with a leopard once, Colin approached him, eyes turned downward, hands shaking, heart beating heavily in his chest, and told him just that. With Ryan’s first tender touch (and Ryan would hold him as if he was made out of glass, as if he would break so easily) Colin felt his heart lift, and the so familiar feeling of absolute loneliness change into something warmer, something final. Eventually Greg aims his smoked-to-the-bud cigarette in the direction of the handful or so surrounding Ryan’s feet, and lights another because he knows life is too short to hold back on anything. Greg once made the mistake of lighting a fire, there, in their sacred undefined home behind the main tent, but after seeing Ryan’s face, seeing fear draw too close to the surface, never did so again. Greg knows Ryan hates fire, hates the power it has to destroy, to maim, that he balls his hands into fists every time Greg lets it hurt him, although he doesn’t ever say anything, just holds on to Greg harder when they share a careful hug. Neither of them ever said but somehow Colin knows too, and whenever there is a barbeque, a camp fire, an accidental glimpse of Greg’s act, Colin goes to stand with his back to it, instinctively shielding Ryan from its glow. For years Greg had only one person he would touch in his life, one person he would even let near his body, until Colin timidly stepped up and said “he worries for you,” and Greg felt something loosen inside of him. The first time Greg allowed Colin to touch him it wasn’t because he cared for him as much as he did for Ryan, not yet at least, but because he knew Colin recognised them as being similar and wanted to discover how. So Colin shyly trailed his finger over Greg’s lips and felt the texture there, the braille of old scars and new hurts, the skin both tender and callused, and Greg let him, standing perfectly still with his eyes closed, only shuddering after Colin was long gone. And no one ever told them, ever warned them about the moments that would crawl into their blood, become habits settled heavily in the space behind their heart, making it hard to breathe. That eventually they’d have no choice but to go on, night after night, show after show and revel in the simpleness, the sadness, the extreme pain and the freedom, the epitomes of the life they had chosen. But it was enough. It was.