Painted Smile Slipping
The circus was quiet when you found him—most of the lights turned off,Pierrot sat alone outside his tent,a bottle held in his gloved hands loosely,his mask tilted just slightly off true, even it couldn’t sit straight on him tonight.
”Your not supposed to be back here so late my dear”he said, without looking up.His voice was rougher then usual,the careful evenness in public—worn through by whatever was in the bottle.
“I wanted to see if you were okay.” His face flushed more then it already were, you stepped closer anyway.You’d learned along time ago that Pierrot’s silence in front of others was a mask in it’s own right,one that had nothing to do with porcelain.He spoke to the rest of the cast easily enough when it suited him—but the moment he turned to you,something in his voice dropped to register no one else got to hear,like he made sure it stayed a thing between the two of you and no one else.
He laughed—short, and humorous,like breath the sound.”Careful.i’m not good company like this.”
“Your never good company.I come anyway.”
“Good.”That got him to look up, and the world landed with more weight than it should have. Even half-lidded with drink,eyes behind the mast found you instantly,fixed on you the way they always did—like everything had simply stopped existing the moment you walked into it. Pierrot didn’t watch people. He tracked what was his.
”Come here.” He said.not a request. It never was with you.
You did. Of course you did. You always did, and some drunk-honest part of him seemed to relish that you never made him ask twice.
He caught you wrist the instant you were close enough, gloved fingers closing tight, deliberate,like he was making sure of you— like some part of him needed confirmation that you were actually there and not somewhere he had to go looking. Sober Pierrot carefully rationed himself around you,doled out his want usually pretty well, you’d never see the whole of it at once. But drunk Pierrot didn’t ration anything.
”Do you know how long I sat here thinking about you?” He said,low,tugging you a inch closer just to prove he could, “who you talked to,who looked at you a second to long… I keep count,I always keep count.”he blushed slightly and tilted his head
”that’s not healthy”
”No,” he agreed, entirely unbothered,”it’s not.I stopped caring a whether it was healthy a long time ago.” His thumb pressed over your pulse point, feeling it jump, and something in him settled open, proprietary satisfaction—the look of a man confirming what he already considered a fact. “There it is. Yours only answers like that for me. I’d know if it didn’t.”
That shouldn’t have made your heart beat even faster at something like that. It shouldn’t.
He pulled you down until you were eye level with him, until the cool of the porcelain curve of his mask was a breath from your face— the one barrier that never moved, never slipped, no matter how far gone he was. Painted tears. Painted smile. Real eyes, golden yellow, fixed on you like you were the only fixed point in the world.
“I don’t share,” he murmured,and it wasn’t a warning, it was law—something as immovable as the mask itself. “Not the act , not the attraction, not so much as a glance you give me something else without me noticing. Sober, I let you believe I’m patient about that. I’m not patient, I’ve never been patient. I just don’t say it out loud.”
“And right now you can’t help it.”
”Right now” he agreed, voice dropping further,his hand splayed wide and deliberate against the small of your back, holding you there like he had no intention of ever letting you do “I don’t want to hold anything back from you at all”
the bottle hit the dirt, forgotten. Whatever careful distance he kept in daylight went with it— and so did whatever was left of the version of him that let you think, even for a moment, that you belonged to yourself.
Later, the bottle lay on its side,long from empty, the lights completely turned off nether of you noticed. Pierrot lay with his mask still fixed in place, his gloved hand tracing slow,deliberate patters against your skin like he was memorizing you my touch, in no hurry to let you go— and no intention of it, either.
“Stay,” he said. Still not a request. His grip never loosening.
”I wasn’t going anywhere”
“I know”. The words came out low, satisfied,absolute.”your not going anywhere. Not from this. Not from me. I’d come and find you either way.”
You stayed. There had never really been a version of tonight when you didn’t.
HAHAHAHAH oh my gawd that took FOREVER tysm for reading to this part! ^///^