The circus was quiet when you found himâmost 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 couldnât sit straight on him tonight.
âYour not supposed to be back here so late my dearâhe said, without looking up.His voice was rougher then usual,the careful evenness in publicâworn through by whatever was in the bottle.
âI wanted to see if you were okay.â His face flushed more then it already were, you stepped closer anyway.Youâd learned along time ago that Pierrotâs silence in front of others was a mask in itâs own right,one that had nothing to do with porcelain.He spoke to the rest of the cast easily enough when it suited himâbut 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 laughedâshort, and humorous,like breath the sound.âCareful.iâm not good company like this.â
âYour never good company.I come anyway.â
âGood.âThat 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 didâlike everything had simply stopped existing the moment you walked into it. Pierrot didnât watch people. He tracked what was his.
âCome here.â 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 youâ 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, youâd never see the whole of it at once. But drunk Pierrot didnât ration anything.
âDo you know how long I sat here thinking about you?â He said,low,tugging you a inch closer just to prove he could, âwho you talked to,who looked at you a second to long⌠I keep count,I always keep count.âhe blushed slightly and tilted his head
âthatâs not healthyâ
âNo,â he agreed, entirely unbothered,âitâs not.I stopped caring a whether it was healthy a long time ago.â His thumb pressed over your pulse point, feeling it jump, and something in him settled open, proprietary satisfactionâthe look of a man confirming what he already considered a fact. âThere it is. Yours only answers like that for me. Iâd know if it didnât.â
That shouldnât have made your heart beat even faster at something like that. It shouldnât.
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 faceâ 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.
âI donât share,â he murmured,and it wasnât a warning, it was lawâsomething as immovable as the mask itself. âNot the act , not the attraction, not so much as a glance you give me something else without me noticing. Sober, I let you believe Iâm patient about that. Iâm not patient, Iâve never been patient. I just donât say it out loud.â
âAnd right now you canât help it.â
âRight nowâ 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 âI donât want to hold anything back from you at allâ
the bottle hit the dirt, forgotten. Whatever careful distance he kept in daylight went with itâ 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 goâ and no intention of it, either.
âStay,â he said. Still not a request. His grip never loosening.
âI wasnât going anywhereâ
âI knowâ. The words came out low, satisfied,absolute.âyour not going anywhere. Not from this. Not from me. Iâd come and find you either way.â
You stayed. There had never really been a version of tonight when you didnât.
HAHAHAHAH oh my gawd that took FOREVER tysm for reading to this part! ^///^
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