Circus Arcana PART FIVE
PART FIVE
“Is that the last of it?” Jensen watched Jared set a large wooden tub down beside him, stacked with shiny red apples. Some were rotting, fermenting in the barrel tub. Some were perfectly red and round.
“Yeah,” he answered, wiping the sweat from his brow. “Why do you need apples?”
Jensen had instructed a few of the men to get the apples from the trees at the side of the road, near an abandoned house. He picked one of the apples up, admiring it, and tossed it into another tub that already had several nice pieces of fruit in it. “We're low on food for the animals,” he explained. “These apples will help us out.”
Jared didn't see how apples were going to help very much, but he supposed the elephant and the horses would benefit.
“Here,” Jensen said, placing the first tub with what was left - about a dozen pock-marked and rotting apples - into Jared's arms. “Take these to the horses. But only give them a few. We don't need them getting sick. Set the other ones aside and they can have more later.”
“Okay,” he said. He trudged over to the trailer that held the four white horses and opened the windows on the sides. He gave each horse two apples, smiling when he heard them crunching hungrily on the fruit. He left the trailer doors open to give the animals some air, and headed for the elephant car. They only had one, and it didn't really subsist on peanuts. Its trunk snaked out of the barred windows as soon as it smelled the apples. Jared chuckled and handed it one piece of fruit. The trunk disappeared behind the bars for a few moments. He waited to hand over another piece, his attention wavering. Still smiling, he looked around. They'd stopped and camped in a pretty party of the town. They were in a farmer's unused field, bordered by thick woods, the abandoned house and apple trees further up the road.
The town itself was rather greyer, something which Jared had come to associate with the presence of the Service. None of them had been there yet; instead a few of the greenies had been tasked with putting up flyers to advertise their presence. Tonight, Jared knew, there were plans for all of the Circus Arcana performers to head to the inn for a decent meal. A good last night performance at their previous location meant that Jensen had a few coins to spare and he’d decided that the boost to morale was worth the money.
He spent the afternoon with Chris, Sebastian and Gabe, as Jensen was dealing with his books. They’d become good friends, despite Jared’s initial unease around anybody that wasn’t their Ringmaster. Chris and Gabe had a tendency towards mischief, though, and Jared was often warned not to get involved in their schemes in case he brought too much attention to himself. Together, they plotted to draw up an act that would combine all of their skills and wow the audience more than they ever had before.
“Should we tell Jensen?” Jared asked, when Chris suggested that he could throw knives at Jared while he was surrounded by a ring of fire.
“Keep it to ourselves for now,” Gabe told him, winking. “You know what Jensen’s like. ‘Is that safe? Are you trying to kill one another?’” Gabe affected a stern tone as he imitated his employer and Jared couldn’t help but laugh. “’I can’t have you killing my star act, we’d never find work again.’”
“I’m hardly the star act,” Jared argued.
“You really think that people come to see Gabe here jumping around like his ass is on fire?” Chris asked, then went still and got a wicked glint in his eye. “Hey, we could-”
“Absolutely no setting anyone’s ass on fire,” Gabe interrupted, baring his teeth. “But yes, Jared, you are our star. Without you we’d be on the streets by now. That’s how desperate things were getting. Don’t you realize that?”
Jared took in what he was saying, amazed and embarrassed. “No. No, I didn’t know that.”
“Things are still desperate,” Chris added. “They’re just not as bad as before. Tonight should prove that.”
After the show was done, after Jared had taken a cold shower to cool his skin, all of the performers met up at the front of the Big Top and walked into the town together. Jared had changed back into his costume, hopeful that the Service’s aversion to carnival folk would help him escape their attention. Danni had helped, sweeping his hair up underneath a woollen hat and tucking it in all the way around. She had given him a pair of glasses to wear, too, although to Jared they were more like tinted goggles with thick lenses and brassy rims.
“I hear this place does good steak,” Gabe said, walking backwards, ahead of the group.
“And I hear steak costs ten times more than we can afford,” Jensen retorted, prompting Gabe to poke his tongue out like a child.
“I’ve never had it anyway,” Jared told them. “So I don’t know what I’d be missing.”
“Sounds like a round of soup and bread and mystery meat pie to me,” Cassidy said. Beside her, Sebastian laughed.
“Ah, darling…I think with your beauty and my wits we can definitely score something better than that.”
He was right. Together they bargained with the chef and paid him an agreed sum for several large dishes of different foods that they could all share between them. Jared did not recognize much of it and he asked Chris, who was beside him, what they were all made of.
“Curried boar,” Chris said, pointing at a dish that looked like a very dark stew. He patted Jared on the shoulder. “You should start with that. Anything else won’t seem nearly as odd after that.”
Jared poked at it and, opposite him, Jensen laughed softly. “Eat it, Jared. You’ll enjoy it.”
“What do you have?”
Jensen had chopsticks in his hand and was picking at a plate that overflowed with noodles and chunks of fried egg, chicken, and strands of something black and jelly-like that Jared wasn’t sure he wanted to know the identity of.
“Try some,” Jensen told him, sucking up one of those strange-looking strands between his lips. Jared wrinkled his nose, shifted in his chair.
“No, thanks. I’ll try this.” He ladled some out into his bowl and started to eat, dipping bread into the sauce to soak up the juices. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t a flavor he was particularly used to, either, but it wasn’t bad.
“Heads up,” Chris said, nodding towards the door. It opened a second later, and two Service agents came inside, one of them patting at the wet drops in his hair. It had started raining and, it seemed, the pair had finished their watch and come in to the nearest shelter for a nightcap. The taller of the two ordered a couple of pints of ale and looked around at the other patrons. Jared noted, not for the first time, the looks of loathing on people’s faces. He ducked his head down, staring intently at the contents of his bowl, as the agent looked their way. The others had fallen quiet, although that didn’t stand out in a crowd of people that had all stopped talking quite as animatedly as they had been, and Jared felt his hands start to shake as the sound of the agent’s boots on the wooden floor came closer.
“Evening,” was all the agent said, though, as he walked past their table and towards the bathrooms at the rear of the room. Jared let out the breath he’d been holding and turned his head slightly to watch the agent disappear into the door marked ‘gentlemen’. He looked at Jensen, and they both looked towards the bar where the other agent had taken off his coat and was now perched on a stool with his pint glass in his hand. He seemed oblivious of the effect his presence had had. Jared was relieved that it meant he was also oblivious of most other people in the room.
When he looked back towards Chris, he saw that the other man was eying the bathroom door with a thoughtful look on his face. With a start, Jared felt a nudge inside his mind and knew without asking that it was Chris. Suddenly there was an idea in his head that he knew wasn’t his.
Let’s mess with them a little.
Chris smirked, not looking at Jared, and it became obvious what was going on. Next to him, Chris made a big show of patting his stomach and declaring himself full. Then he relaxed back in his chair and watched the others resume eating, although they were more subdued now. He saw Chris’s eyes glaze over a little, and to anyone else it might look as though he truly was stuffed with food and needed a rest to recover. But Jared knew better. He could feel it.
The agent came out of the bathroom then, his pants bunched at the front where he held them up with one hand. Jared bit back a laugh, glanced at Chris. Nobody else had noticed yet, too busy with their food. A few people looked up at the agent, but they didn’t look for long.
See if you can do better. The challenge was clear. Jared looked towards the agent at the bar and smiled, slowly. The next time the agent’s hand came down to pick up his drink, instead of lifting it to his mouth, he lifted it much higher and tipped half of it down the front of his own uniform. He cried out, his chair falling back as he rose to his feet in a hurry, and that got people looking. Jared saw Cassidy exchange a confused look with Jensen and he almost laughed out loud as he made the ale-soaked agent walk over to his colleague and smack him hard in the chest.
Then there was a hand on his arm and his concentration broke. Both agents stopped mid-action and stared at one another, then around the room. A few people were laughing at them, but quickly stopped under the weight of their stares. As expected, the agents made a quick exit rather than deal with the room full of citizens. Jared looked across at Jensen and then down at the hand on his arm.
“That wasn’t funny,” Jensen told him, releasing him.
“It was kind of funny,” Chris said, defending them both.
“And your idea, I bet.” Jensen pushed his plate away and stood. “What if they go away and think about it? What if they stay out there waiting for everyone to come out of here one by one and question us all? What if they ask for Jared’s papers again and then find out what he is?”
“Excuse me,” Jared said, also standing. The other men stood too, ready to dive in if there was about to be a fight. “What I am?”
Jensen stared back, clearly angry. Jared didn’t know if that was anger directed at himself or at him and Chris.
“At the moment you’re a danger to all of us. I’m disappointed in you. I thought you had more of a sense of responsibility than that.”
Jared’s heart sank to realize that Jensen was right. Their safety was in his hands. Gabe and Chris had told him so not that long ago.
“It was my fault, Jensen,” Chris said. “I urged him on.”
“No,” Jensen answered, shaking his head. “You’re not a child anymore, Jared. You don’t just follow where others lead, especially when you know what the consequences can be.” He picked up his coat and threw it over his shoulders. “We’re going home. We can’t stay here.”
The others didn’t like it, but they still followed. Chris put a hand on Jared’s arm as they neared the door and said, “I’ve got this.” Outside, he caught up with Jensen and went around him, turning so he was facing him and Jensen had to stop. “If you’re going to blame anyone, then blame me.”
Jensen shook his head. “I blame both of you. You should know better. We’ll need to leave town because of this. We can’t hang around knowing that those agents have seen us. Not after this.”
“But they don’t-”
Jensen lifted a hand, stopping Jared mid-sentence. There was a strange expression on his face as they regarded one another, and then he turned away. “Just…Stay out of my sight for a while. We’ll head out first thing in the morning.”
At noon the following day, just as Jensen had said, they started off towards a new town. He had made his mind up that they were going and nothing would change it, even the pleas from the local townsfolk didn’t sway him. The other carnival folk all agreed: it was unsafe to stay here. He promised them that they would return soon and with bigger and better shows. The people had agreed, but didn't like it. The carnival was travelling seventy miles away, with Jensen hoping to put a little distance between them and the Service agents that Jared and Chris had upset.
In the passenger's seat, Jared stared down at a map on his lap, trying to make sense of the damn thing. He was okay with direction back home, but this place had strange markings and a legend that he didn't understand at all. Well, maybe he could have started to understand it, if annoyance hadn't been eating away at his ego.
“What did you mean back there?” he finally asked, accusatory, as he looked over at Jensen.
Confused, Jensen looked away from the road, to him. “What? What are you talking about?”
“Back there,” Jared said. “At the inn. You said you were worried that they’d find out what I am. Like you think I’m some kind of monster.”
“I never said that,” Jensen argued.
“No,” Jared agreed. “You just thought it.”
It was quiet between them for several seconds, but Jared never stopped staring at him. “I’m sorry. You know I don’t think that at all, don’t you?”
“I really hope you don’t.”
Jensen looked at him sadly, and Jared watched his hand as he moved it to squeeze Jared’s forearm. “I don’t,” he promised. “I don’t know what to think, in all honesty. I wish that we had more answers about you, but we don’t. The only clue I have to what happened is you. And you…You’re a mystery.”
“You’re not exactly an open book, either,” Jared told him. He turned back to the map and looked down at it, knowing very well that he would be no help with the damn thing, because he was still caught up in his thoughts. “All I really know is how pretty you are,” he mumbled, mostly to himself.
It might have been said softly, with a grumbling tone, but Jensen still understood what Jared had said. He looked over at him again, his eyes away from the road for much longer than they should have been. Luckily, they were the only ones out at this hour. He didn't say anything else to the man next to him. Instead, he turned his eyes back to the road and remained silent and thoughtful.
After their first rest stop, Jared was in a better frame of mind. He talked to Jensen, asking him questions about his past. He told him it was time that he learned these things and Jensen agreed that he knew more about Jared’s past than the other way around. So Jensen told Jared about his childhood, that he'd grown up in the circus. The circus his parents had been in was a particularly seedy one. He hated it most days, and swore that when he grew up and became head ringmaster, that he would run his own circus with a little more class. He refused to have a hooch tent, for one thing. He wasn't audacious enough to claim he'd never visited the woman's tent as a teen; she had worked her magic on him too. But her sweet words of love and adoration died after he saw the never-ending stream of callers that came to her tent almost nightly.
When Jensen was still young, probably around seventeen - he couldn't remember exactly - he left his home, his parents having died two years earlier. He found his way to a performing show that scraped in the occasional coin or two. Without the old boss’s knowledge, he made adjustments to the place, and got it running smoothly enough that they started to turn a profit. The old man was furious at first, and then came to his senses and granted Jensen the title of Ringmaster. Two years later, the old boss died and left the circus to Jensen.
They arrived to their new camp in the darkest hours of the night. Still, they all hauled everything out of the trailers, out of the cars, and out of the wagons. They started setting up what they could. They waited for the Big Top, knowing they still had a section to sew up in the morning, when there was better light. It took hours, but finally they all got their jobs done and took to their beds.
In Jensen's trailer, Jared lay on the floor, his arms tucked behind his head. The sounds of the night creatures were different than back home, if he remembered correctly. But it was still soothing.
“Hey.”
Jared looked up to where Jensen lay, even though he couldn’t see him. “What?”
“I'm sorry,” Jensen said.
Jared shook his head. “Don't worry about it,” he said. “I'm sorry that I snapped at you.”
“No, I shouldn’t have said it the way I did.”
“It's okay, don't worry about it.”
Jensen sighed. “I just - you’re so different, and I just don't know what to think of that. But there I go again, I'm sorry. I really don't mean it. I'm not that much of a jerk, I promise.”
A little annoyed, Jared sat up from his place and moved, instead, to sit on the edge of Jensen’s bed. “Will you stop?” he said, gazing down at him. “I said it was fine.”
Staring up at him, Jensen took a deep breath. “Okay, you're right. Sorry.” He realized he'd apologized again after Jared had just told him to stop. And that made him apologize for apologizing. Which then made him smile and laugh gently.
Jared joined him with the chuckle, shaking his head. “You are crazy,” he returned. His smile faded just slightly as he stared at him. “And I love it.”
Jensen felt his heart race. Earlier, he'd wanted to tell Jared that while he had visited the hooch tent as a teenager, he had also visited an older man's tent without his parent's knowledge. The things they'd done there - the things he'd learned - kept running through his head again. Only now, Quinton was replaced by Jared. He'd wanted to tell him about how he laid awake at night and thought of Jared. About how he would look naked, with the moonlight accenting the muscled lines of his strong, lithe body. Staring up at Jared now, Jensen had to admit that all those thoughts jumbled through his mind at once, making his heart pound, his head light.
Jared felt something tickle his arm. Finally taking his gaze from Jensen's eyes, he looked down to find Jensen's fingertips tracing the dark, swirling tattoo on his skin. He watched the man's long, graceful fingers for a moment before he returned his gaze to Jensen's eyes. He stared at him for a long time, looking over every inch of the man's face.
Rather abruptly, Jared rushed at Jensen, kissing him. He felt Jensen almost melt against him, the quiet grazing fingers changing to strong and gripping, pulling Jared in as close as he could. With his free hand, Jared touched Jensen's face, opening his mouth to another needful, hungry kiss. Both of them were breathing heavily, chests heaving as they parted enough for Jared to rest his forehead against Jensen's. His skin was so warm, Jensen almost thought he heard the sweat on his own brow sizzling at the contact.
Trying to catch his breath, he grazed his hand up Jared's muscled arm, to touch his face. He pulled Jared in for another soft, gentle kiss, sighing happily amidst the embrace.
Easing back, Jared stood from the mattress and crawled down to his spot by the bed. “Night, Jensen,” he said softly.
Jensen wasn't sure what to think. He didn't think he'd upset Jared. Didn't think he'd turned him off, but wondered instead, if it was Jared's way of being chivalrous. When he decided that that was it, he smiled and turned on his side, toward Jared. “Night, Jared,” he returned gently.
PART SIX
“Is that the last of it?” Jensen watched Jared set a large wooden tub down beside him, stacked with shiny red apples. Some were rotting, fermenting in the barrel tub. Some were perfectly red and round.
“Yeah,” he answered, wiping the sweat from his brow. “Why do you need apples?”
Jensen had instructed a few of the men to get the apples from the trees at the side of the road, near an abandoned house. He picked one of the apples up, admiring it, and tossed it into another tub that already had several nice pieces of fruit in it. “We're low on food for the animals,” he explained. “These apples will help us out.”
Jared didn't see how apples were going to help very much, but he supposed the elephant and the horses would benefit.
“Here,” Jensen said, placing the first tub with what was left - about a dozen pock-marked and rotting apples - into Jared's arms. “Take these to the horses. But only give them a few. We don't need them getting sick. Set the other ones aside and they can have more later.”
“Okay,” he said. He trudged over to the trailer that held the four white horses and opened the windows on the sides. He gave each horse two apples, smiling when he heard them crunching hungrily on the fruit. He left the trailer doors open to give the animals some air, and headed for the elephant car. They only had one, and it didn't really subsist on peanuts. Its trunk snaked out of the barred windows as soon as it smelled the apples. Jared chuckled and handed it one piece of fruit. The trunk disappeared behind the bars for a few moments. He waited to hand over another piece, his attention wavering. Still smiling, he looked around. They'd stopped and camped in a pretty party of the town. They were in a farmer's unused field, bordered by thick woods, the abandoned house and apple trees further up the road.
The town itself was rather greyer, something which Jared had come to associate with the presence of the Service. None of them had been there yet; instead a few of the greenies had been tasked with putting up flyers to advertise their presence. Tonight, Jared knew, there were plans for all of the Circus Arcana performers to head to the inn for a decent meal. A good last night performance at their previous location meant that Jensen had a few coins to spare and he’d decided that the boost to morale was worth the money.
He spent the afternoon with Chris, Sebastian and Gabe, as Jensen was dealing with his books. They’d become good friends, despite Jared’s initial unease around anybody that wasn’t their Ringmaster. Chris and Gabe had a tendency towards mischief, though, and Jared was often warned not to get involved in their schemes in case he brought too much attention to himself. Together, they plotted to draw up an act that would combine all of their skills and wow the audience more than they ever had before.
“Should we tell Jensen?” Jared asked, when Chris suggested that he could throw knives at Jared while he was surrounded by a ring of fire.
“Keep it to ourselves for now,” Gabe told him, winking. “You know what Jensen’s like. ‘Is that safe? Are you trying to kill one another?’” Gabe affected a stern tone as he imitated his employer and Jared couldn’t help but laugh. “’I can’t have you killing my star act, we’d never find work again.’”
“I’m hardly the star act,” Jared argued.
“You really think that people come to see Gabe here jumping around like his ass is on fire?” Chris asked, then went still and got a wicked glint in his eye. “Hey, we could-”
“Absolutely no setting anyone’s ass on fire,” Gabe interrupted, baring his teeth. “But yes, Jared, you are our star. Without you we’d be on the streets by now. That’s how desperate things were getting. Don’t you realize that?”
Jared took in what he was saying, amazed and embarrassed. “No. No, I didn’t know that.”
“Things are still desperate,” Chris added. “They’re just not as bad as before. Tonight should prove that.”
After the show was done, after Jared had taken a cold shower to cool his skin, all of the performers met up at the front of the Big Top and walked into the town together. Jared had changed back into his costume, hopeful that the Service’s aversion to carnival folk would help him escape their attention. Danni had helped, sweeping his hair up underneath a woollen hat and tucking it in all the way around. She had given him a pair of glasses to wear, too, although to Jared they were more like tinted goggles with thick lenses and brassy rims.
“I hear this place does good steak,” Gabe said, walking backwards, ahead of the group.
“And I hear steak costs ten times more than we can afford,” Jensen retorted, prompting Gabe to poke his tongue out like a child.
“I’ve never had it anyway,” Jared told them. “So I don’t know what I’d be missing.”
“Sounds like a round of soup and bread and mystery meat pie to me,” Cassidy said. Beside her, Sebastian laughed.
“Ah, darling…I think with your beauty and my wits we can definitely score something better than that.”
He was right. Together they bargained with the chef and paid him an agreed sum for several large dishes of different foods that they could all share between them. Jared did not recognize much of it and he asked Chris, who was beside him, what they were all made of.
“Curried boar,” Chris said, pointing at a dish that looked like a very dark stew. He patted Jared on the shoulder. “You should start with that. Anything else won’t seem nearly as odd after that.”
Jared poked at it and, opposite him, Jensen laughed softly. “Eat it, Jared. You’ll enjoy it.”
“What do you have?”
Jensen had chopsticks in his hand and was picking at a plate that overflowed with noodles and chunks of fried egg, chicken, and strands of something black and jelly-like that Jared wasn’t sure he wanted to know the identity of.
“Try some,” Jensen told him, sucking up one of those strange-looking strands between his lips. Jared wrinkled his nose, shifted in his chair.
“No, thanks. I’ll try this.” He ladled some out into his bowl and started to eat, dipping bread into the sauce to soak up the juices. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t a flavor he was particularly used to, either, but it wasn’t bad.
“Heads up,” Chris said, nodding towards the door. It opened a second later, and two Service agents came inside, one of them patting at the wet drops in his hair. It had started raining and, it seemed, the pair had finished their watch and come in to the nearest shelter for a nightcap. The taller of the two ordered a couple of pints of ale and looked around at the other patrons. Jared noted, not for the first time, the looks of loathing on people’s faces. He ducked his head down, staring intently at the contents of his bowl, as the agent looked their way. The others had fallen quiet, although that didn’t stand out in a crowd of people that had all stopped talking quite as animatedly as they had been, and Jared felt his hands start to shake as the sound of the agent’s boots on the wooden floor came closer.
“Evening,” was all the agent said, though, as he walked past their table and towards the bathrooms at the rear of the room. Jared let out the breath he’d been holding and turned his head slightly to watch the agent disappear into the door marked ‘gentlemen’. He looked at Jensen, and they both looked towards the bar where the other agent had taken off his coat and was now perched on a stool with his pint glass in his hand. He seemed oblivious of the effect his presence had had. Jared was relieved that it meant he was also oblivious of most other people in the room.
When he looked back towards Chris, he saw that the other man was eying the bathroom door with a thoughtful look on his face. With a start, Jared felt a nudge inside his mind and knew without asking that it was Chris. Suddenly there was an idea in his head that he knew wasn’t his.
Let’s mess with them a little.
Chris smirked, not looking at Jared, and it became obvious what was going on. Next to him, Chris made a big show of patting his stomach and declaring himself full. Then he relaxed back in his chair and watched the others resume eating, although they were more subdued now. He saw Chris’s eyes glaze over a little, and to anyone else it might look as though he truly was stuffed with food and needed a rest to recover. But Jared knew better. He could feel it.
The agent came out of the bathroom then, his pants bunched at the front where he held them up with one hand. Jared bit back a laugh, glanced at Chris. Nobody else had noticed yet, too busy with their food. A few people looked up at the agent, but they didn’t look for long.
See if you can do better. The challenge was clear. Jared looked towards the agent at the bar and smiled, slowly. The next time the agent’s hand came down to pick up his drink, instead of lifting it to his mouth, he lifted it much higher and tipped half of it down the front of his own uniform. He cried out, his chair falling back as he rose to his feet in a hurry, and that got people looking. Jared saw Cassidy exchange a confused look with Jensen and he almost laughed out loud as he made the ale-soaked agent walk over to his colleague and smack him hard in the chest.
Then there was a hand on his arm and his concentration broke. Both agents stopped mid-action and stared at one another, then around the room. A few people were laughing at them, but quickly stopped under the weight of their stares. As expected, the agents made a quick exit rather than deal with the room full of citizens. Jared looked across at Jensen and then down at the hand on his arm.
“That wasn’t funny,” Jensen told him, releasing him.
“It was kind of funny,” Chris said, defending them both.
“And your idea, I bet.” Jensen pushed his plate away and stood. “What if they go away and think about it? What if they stay out there waiting for everyone to come out of here one by one and question us all? What if they ask for Jared’s papers again and then find out what he is?”
“Excuse me,” Jared said, also standing. The other men stood too, ready to dive in if there was about to be a fight. “What I am?”
Jensen stared back, clearly angry. Jared didn’t know if that was anger directed at himself or at him and Chris.
“At the moment you’re a danger to all of us. I’m disappointed in you. I thought you had more of a sense of responsibility than that.”
Jared’s heart sank to realize that Jensen was right. Their safety was in his hands. Gabe and Chris had told him so not that long ago.
“It was my fault, Jensen,” Chris said. “I urged him on.”
“No,” Jensen answered, shaking his head. “You’re not a child anymore, Jared. You don’t just follow where others lead, especially when you know what the consequences can be.” He picked up his coat and threw it over his shoulders. “We’re going home. We can’t stay here.”
The others didn’t like it, but they still followed. Chris put a hand on Jared’s arm as they neared the door and said, “I’ve got this.” Outside, he caught up with Jensen and went around him, turning so he was facing him and Jensen had to stop. “If you’re going to blame anyone, then blame me.”
Jensen shook his head. “I blame both of you. You should know better. We’ll need to leave town because of this. We can’t hang around knowing that those agents have seen us. Not after this.”
“But they don’t-”
Jensen lifted a hand, stopping Jared mid-sentence. There was a strange expression on his face as they regarded one another, and then he turned away. “Just…Stay out of my sight for a while. We’ll head out first thing in the morning.”
At noon the following day, just as Jensen had said, they started off towards a new town. He had made his mind up that they were going and nothing would change it, even the pleas from the local townsfolk didn’t sway him. The other carnival folk all agreed: it was unsafe to stay here. He promised them that they would return soon and with bigger and better shows. The people had agreed, but didn't like it. The carnival was travelling seventy miles away, with Jensen hoping to put a little distance between them and the Service agents that Jared and Chris had upset.
In the passenger's seat, Jared stared down at a map on his lap, trying to make sense of the damn thing. He was okay with direction back home, but this place had strange markings and a legend that he didn't understand at all. Well, maybe he could have started to understand it, if annoyance hadn't been eating away at his ego.
“What did you mean back there?” he finally asked, accusatory, as he looked over at Jensen.
Confused, Jensen looked away from the road, to him. “What? What are you talking about?”
“Back there,” Jared said. “At the inn. You said you were worried that they’d find out what I am. Like you think I’m some kind of monster.”
“I never said that,” Jensen argued.
“No,” Jared agreed. “You just thought it.”
It was quiet between them for several seconds, but Jared never stopped staring at him. “I’m sorry. You know I don’t think that at all, don’t you?”
“I really hope you don’t.”
Jensen looked at him sadly, and Jared watched his hand as he moved it to squeeze Jared’s forearm. “I don’t,” he promised. “I don’t know what to think, in all honesty. I wish that we had more answers about you, but we don’t. The only clue I have to what happened is you. And you…You’re a mystery.”
“You’re not exactly an open book, either,” Jared told him. He turned back to the map and looked down at it, knowing very well that he would be no help with the damn thing, because he was still caught up in his thoughts. “All I really know is how pretty you are,” he mumbled, mostly to himself.
It might have been said softly, with a grumbling tone, but Jensen still understood what Jared had said. He looked over at him again, his eyes away from the road for much longer than they should have been. Luckily, they were the only ones out at this hour. He didn't say anything else to the man next to him. Instead, he turned his eyes back to the road and remained silent and thoughtful.
After their first rest stop, Jared was in a better frame of mind. He talked to Jensen, asking him questions about his past. He told him it was time that he learned these things and Jensen agreed that he knew more about Jared’s past than the other way around. So Jensen told Jared about his childhood, that he'd grown up in the circus. The circus his parents had been in was a particularly seedy one. He hated it most days, and swore that when he grew up and became head ringmaster, that he would run his own circus with a little more class. He refused to have a hooch tent, for one thing. He wasn't audacious enough to claim he'd never visited the woman's tent as a teen; she had worked her magic on him too. But her sweet words of love and adoration died after he saw the never-ending stream of callers that came to her tent almost nightly.
When Jensen was still young, probably around seventeen - he couldn't remember exactly - he left his home, his parents having died two years earlier. He found his way to a performing show that scraped in the occasional coin or two. Without the old boss’s knowledge, he made adjustments to the place, and got it running smoothly enough that they started to turn a profit. The old man was furious at first, and then came to his senses and granted Jensen the title of Ringmaster. Two years later, the old boss died and left the circus to Jensen.
They arrived to their new camp in the darkest hours of the night. Still, they all hauled everything out of the trailers, out of the cars, and out of the wagons. They started setting up what they could. They waited for the Big Top, knowing they still had a section to sew up in the morning, when there was better light. It took hours, but finally they all got their jobs done and took to their beds.
In Jensen's trailer, Jared lay on the floor, his arms tucked behind his head. The sounds of the night creatures were different than back home, if he remembered correctly. But it was still soothing.
“Hey.”
Jared looked up to where Jensen lay, even though he couldn’t see him. “What?”
“I'm sorry,” Jensen said.
Jared shook his head. “Don't worry about it,” he said. “I'm sorry that I snapped at you.”
“No, I shouldn’t have said it the way I did.”
“It's okay, don't worry about it.”
Jensen sighed. “I just - you’re so different, and I just don't know what to think of that. But there I go again, I'm sorry. I really don't mean it. I'm not that much of a jerk, I promise.”
A little annoyed, Jared sat up from his place and moved, instead, to sit on the edge of Jensen’s bed. “Will you stop?” he said, gazing down at him. “I said it was fine.”
Staring up at him, Jensen took a deep breath. “Okay, you're right. Sorry.” He realized he'd apologized again after Jared had just told him to stop. And that made him apologize for apologizing. Which then made him smile and laugh gently.
Jared joined him with the chuckle, shaking his head. “You are crazy,” he returned. His smile faded just slightly as he stared at him. “And I love it.”
Jensen felt his heart race. Earlier, he'd wanted to tell Jared that while he had visited the hooch tent as a teenager, he had also visited an older man's tent without his parent's knowledge. The things they'd done there - the things he'd learned - kept running through his head again. Only now, Quinton was replaced by Jared. He'd wanted to tell him about how he laid awake at night and thought of Jared. About how he would look naked, with the moonlight accenting the muscled lines of his strong, lithe body. Staring up at Jared now, Jensen had to admit that all those thoughts jumbled through his mind at once, making his heart pound, his head light.
Jared felt something tickle his arm. Finally taking his gaze from Jensen's eyes, he looked down to find Jensen's fingertips tracing the dark, swirling tattoo on his skin. He watched the man's long, graceful fingers for a moment before he returned his gaze to Jensen's eyes. He stared at him for a long time, looking over every inch of the man's face.
Rather abruptly, Jared rushed at Jensen, kissing him. He felt Jensen almost melt against him, the quiet grazing fingers changing to strong and gripping, pulling Jared in as close as he could. With his free hand, Jared touched Jensen's face, opening his mouth to another needful, hungry kiss. Both of them were breathing heavily, chests heaving as they parted enough for Jared to rest his forehead against Jensen's. His skin was so warm, Jensen almost thought he heard the sweat on his own brow sizzling at the contact.
Trying to catch his breath, he grazed his hand up Jared's muscled arm, to touch his face. He pulled Jared in for another soft, gentle kiss, sighing happily amidst the embrace.
Easing back, Jared stood from the mattress and crawled down to his spot by the bed. “Night, Jensen,” he said softly.
Jensen wasn't sure what to think. He didn't think he'd upset Jared. Didn't think he'd turned him off, but wondered instead, if it was Jared's way of being chivalrous. When he decided that that was it, he smiled and turned on his side, toward Jared. “Night, Jared,” he returned gently.
PART SIX