#; threads

Viv wasn’t really a musical theater person per say. Which was hilarious, since the only job she’d ever truly loved was performing. But the concept of spontaneously breaking out into song instead of just killing the guy or kissing the girl or starting the revolution didn’t make sense to her. It seemed like an unnecessary added step. And the love interests always seemed to have to belt out love declarations directly into one another’s faces— nothing remotely romantic about that. The fact that it was a musical being put on was not what had Viv handing her ticket over to an usher that night. Neither was the fact that it was, judging by the performers milling about the space in brightly colored wigs and harlequin tights, an immersive production. 

No, what had Viv posted up in the corner of the carnivalcore bedecked black box theater was the need for a reminder. A performer in a Pierrot costume juggled oranges as he walked by, and the woman felt terribly homesick. Coming to the show was like pressing on a bruise to remind herself of the hurt. Viv took a deep breath and sighed. The show, some budget production (that was definitely unlicensed) of The Greatest Showman that had been retitled The Decent Showguy was just enough of a reminder that it stung. But something about seeing the red and white stripes and gold filigree and the trapeze dangling overhead had her feeling more at home than she had in years. 

The Pierrot clown missed one of the oranges as they made their orbit around him, and the fruit dropped to the floor, rolling to the woman’s feet. The clown looked at her, his sad black and white face paint all but begging for her to return the fruit. Viv stooped to pick it up, and with a flourish she tossed it back to him. Back into the orbit the orange went, and the clown toddled away. A reluctant smile tried to prop up the corner of her mouth. She turned to head to the concession stand for one of the pink frothy things that seemed to be a cotton candy cocktail, and her eyes caught on a familiar face. The poor dog looked just as out of place in the carnival lights as he had in the shifter bar. She walked over and took the seat next to Jackie, not bothering to ask if it was taken. “Big Jack Hughman fan, then?” She asked, settling into the seat beside the werewolf.

—

A theater sounded and probably smelled like potentially the worst place for Jackie to be but when a student handed him a free ticket and said it’d be cool if he went to support the local theater, he wasn’t strong enough to say no. That the student’s, by their definition, very single mother worked there was a factor that went completely unaccounted for in his brain. If anything, going to the theater was a chance at escapism. That’s what he had understood it to be for and God, if he couldn’t have used a near-lethal dose of escapism on any given day. Grimly, he wondered if watching other people put on a show would help him with his own charade of normalcy.

Joanie had taken him to the Academy of Music once, when one of his fights had been called off and his night was unusually free. It was during a time where she had been doing reviews before her journalism career took off and from what Jackie remembered, she didn’t want to see Cats alone. By the end of the night, he wished she had. His head had hurt from crying over an aged cat singing about memories. As he stood in the center of a glimmering and potentially illegal circus landscape that belonged to The Decent Showguy, he had a feeling that he wouldn’t be crying over cats anytime soon. 

Jackie frowned at a juggling clown that drifted too close to him. With conviction, he found a place to sit somewhat out of the way. Tried to center himself from the sickening smell of popcorn, all while he avoided the expectant eyes of someone’s mom that were somewhere in the room. He could attempt to eat or drink something. Wishful thinking. Nothing smelled good. Over the scent of candy and popcorn and stage makeup, a different one drifted over. Not in an overpowering way. A familiar one. His head turned and his eyes caught hers. Viv. 

It took a moment for his brain to fire, to make his mouth speak. To shift from one way of being to something a tiny bit more relaxed. At her question, Jackie quietly snorted and shook his head.

“The biggest,” he answered with a crooked smile. He glanced behind her to assess the space. “But not as big a fan of him as someone’s mom is of me, so…”

His eyes drifted back to her as Jackie breathed a little easier. Safe. It was safe.

“But you? You got a Decent Showguy poster on you to take back home? You could probably get it signed after if you wanted.”

A loud tinkling of a bell rattled his ears and he winced. At the sound, the excitement seemed to grow and he looked at Viv warily.

“That mean it’s showtime?”

—

Jackie looked as though he was about two minutes away from crawling out of his skin. Back at the Chimera, he’d seemed on edge. Viv had chalked that up to being new. He hadn’t lived in a skin that shifted with his appetites or the moon's glow for long, as far as she could tell. But that had seemed… different. Somehow, he seemed less at ease in a crowd full of people looking to be entertained by a budget production of a movie musical than he had in his first bar full of shifters. His eyes met hers, and she shot him a wink. She watched as the gears shifted in his brain, and he readjusted. 

“You’re after someone’s mom? Wouldn’t have pegged you for a milf guy.” Viv sucked in a deep lungful of the popcorn and candy apple scented air, and tried to ignore the tightening in her chest at the thought of how much it felt like home. “How the fuck did you get someone trying to hook you up with their mom, anyway?” The clown juggling oranges passed by again, distributing the fruit as he went. He handed one to Viv with an overly theatrical bow, and she bit on the inside of her cheek. She’d seen Tuck do nearly the same thing a thousand times with the kids that had found their way into the big top. She took the orange, tossing it in the air and bumping it off her elbow before catching it again. The clown pantomimed applause before toddling off, and Viv peeled into the fruit and popped a segment in her mouth before she could think about how familiar the interaction had felt. She held half the fruit out to Jackie as she glanced back at the clown. 

Viv answered his question with a snort of her own. “How’d you guess?  No poster though. They’re charging a fuck ton for a guy nobodies heard of. Probably for the legal fees when they get sued for copyright or some shit.” She popped another piece of the orange in her mouth and shrugged. “Figure I’ll let him live out his rockstar fantasies before the circus closes down and let him sign my boob or something,” Viv sighed, glancing at the man beside her with a deadpan expression. 

A bell jingled from somewhere in the vicinity and lights slowly began to shift in color, little spotlights twirling around the space in a way that made it clear the show was getting underway. “I guess. Could have used a drumroll or something, or at least some mus—“ A crackly prerecorded soundtrack that sounded vaguely like it had the words rehearsal tracks cutting through it under enough bass to bust down a door played overhead. The music lowered rapidly, and from the far side of the space, a kid that looked like he couldn’t have been older than nineteen scrambled to adjust something at a switch board. Viv snickered, shaking her head. “Oh this is gonna be a shit show,” she sighed, watching as the performers started trying to take people along with them. She looked at Jackie as the performers started collecting groups of people to take with them, and a woman in an electric blue wig and lipstick and a gold sequin costume started sauntering their way. “Wanna stick together?” She offered quietly under the music. 

—

Jackie immediately regretted bringing up the student’s mom and pressed back into the stool. And like before, Viv’s wink threw him off and his skin felt too warm to be lived in. But he was more afraid of what lived underneath it than he was of being visibly bashful in front of her. He shook his head aggressively, then lowered his chin into his palm as he propped his arm on the bartop.

“A milf guy?” He said it loud enough for the bartender to shoot him a…not quite insulted look, but an intrigued one. Then Jackie lowered his tone and shot Viv a withering look. “No, I’m not…not a milf guy and I’m not after someone’s mom. Someone’s mom is after me.” At her question, he sat up straighter and folded his arms. His stomach didn’t feel as sick and he breathed in, then out of his nose. What was he supposed to do, thank her for smelling nice? He couldn’t stay still as he constantly shifted in his seat again. “I, uh, have overeager students that think it’s funny to mention their moms. And they’re real freaks about it.”

Jackie watched her catch the orange with ease and a smile came to him easily. She had mentioned the circus, her performing. Was that why she was there too? He ignored the clowns that meandered around the space and focused on her. It helped. There was so much sound, so much noise. The smell of so many humans and what they ate and what they drank. One focal point, one person, was enough to blur that out. She seemed so at ease under the lights. Like her skin didn’t itch or crawl or…slither? He yearned to be like that too. Maybe one day he would be.

Jackie took the offered piece of orange and chewed at it slowly. Then haphazardly swallowed it when she mentioned what she wanted to get signed. The smooth brain in him hazarded a glance down but what was left of his human decency pulled him back from that precipice. He shook his head, then proceeded to not think before he spoke.

“...just the one?”

The bartender slid over a sympathetic glass of water and Jackie downed it entirely to sort himself out.

“Oh yeah, they’re absolutely getting sued into oblivion after this. It’ll be the greatest one show wonder,” he said with an amused huff, the corner of his mouth lifted. His footwork was good enough that he could find his balance again. He wasn’t that rusty. “Or the most decent. Guess we’re lucky to be here for opening and closing night.”

The sound coming through the speakers made Jackie wince and he tugged at his earlobe. It all made his brain itch and then Viv offered to stick with him. That didn’t make his brain itch as much. He didn’t think he would survive any of this alone and he was sure how grateful he was screamed from his eyes.

“Yes, God, please,” Jackie said quietly as he stood up beside her and braced himself for the performer to approach. Oh good, it wasn’t the student’s mom. He let himself relax by a fraction as he eyed Viv then followed the blue-haired woman as she led them to their chosen seats. He didn’t like how…center to the room it was. Or how some of the audience members looked eager to get up on the stage themselves. Before the woman went away, he got her attention. “Hey, sorry, um, how…interactive is this show? It’s just a musical, right?”

“Oh honey, everyone in the room is a part of the show. We couldn’t do it without you.”

Jackie slowly turned to Viv.

“Viv, we’re gonna die here.”

—

Viv grinned, snickering to herself as Jackie looked like he was genuinely considering wandering off to find a supply closet to lock himself in until the evening’s antics were gone, and Viv had taken her hedonism elsewhere. “Wear a fake wedding band to fuck with them, then.” She shrugged, eyeing the bartender who was watching them with a sort of detached interest since milf-gate had transpired. The lamia locked eyes with them and waggled her eyebrows suggestively. The bartender flushed the same shade of pink as the stage lights, and went back to work. Viv sat back in her chair, triumphant. “That’ll probably stop them from being freaks. Or you could tell them you’re joining the priesthood to be Father Jackie, professor of… boxing? Or whatever the hell it is you teach. Father Jackie, patron saint of the one-two punch.”

The lights, and sounds, and smells of the theater were almost perfect. The colors almost matched the technicolor memories that taunted her in her dreams. If she ignored the faces on the performers, and listened back in her memory for Caoimhe’s snort-cackle of a laugh, or Andrej whistling to himself as he practiced, or the hypnotizing shuffle of cards and murmured voiced that emanated from Morri’s tent as she spun out yarns of what the future could bring. She could almost hear them all, welcoming her back. Viv choked on the orange as an unexpected joke from Jackie tore her from her reverie. “Fuck—” She sputtered, gasping for air while fighting down laughter. “Nah, I was thinking first name right boob, last name left. You know. For balance.”

“Give this town more credit. The more buck-ass-wild this thing is, the more successful it will be. If we think it’s fucking insane, it’ll run for years.” Viv hoped she wasn’t around long enough to witness a multi-year staging of The Decent Showguy. She’d rather be sat on the roof of her trailer with Stasi, reading about the insane lawsuit someone in a strange, small town in Maine had gotten into by testing the boundaries of parody law. 

The whine of the speakers had her scanning Jackie’s expression to make sure he was alright. If her head was ringing, she could imagine how that screech had sounded to him. The blue-wigged woman held out a hand toward Jackie as a man in a lime green leotard started making a beeline for her. Jackie said yes, and Viv hastily linked her arm through the werewolf’s, shooting the performer who looked like an anthropromorphic lime a look that, in no uncertain terms, told him to fuck off. The blue wigged woman sighed, and beckoned Viv to come along as well. She let go of Jackie once it was clear that they were not to be separated. The woman led them to their seats, and paused as Jackie asked his question. 

Her answer had Viv’s face breaking into a feral grin. 

They were part of the performance. She could perform.

Viv’s expression filled with a manic sort of glee as she turned to face Jackie, who looked like he’d seen a ghost. 

“This show can never close. I’m coming back every fucking day.” She said, practically vibrating with excitement as she began eyeballing the trapeze. “You’ll be fine.. Probably. Can you walk on a tightrope?” She asked, ignoring the overture as it started to play. 

—

“Sure, sure, I’ll wear three to really throw them off,” Jackie said thoughtfully as he glanced skyward. At the mention of priesthood, he managed a full laugh. One that could have been taken from the before times and brought to the present. “Father Jackie…Ah, I dunno about that one. I don’t really think I could pull off a collar like that. D’you?”

Jackie didn’t think too much about the concept of Father Jackie. Part of him, a large part of him, was thrilled to have made her laugh. A mirror to when they had sat beside each other at the Chimera. The small smile he tried to withhold made itself known in spite of himself and he shook his head. If it wasn’t for the carnival lights and the sickly sweetness of the cotton candy, among other things, they could have still been there. He chuckled and smoothed over his right brow with his middle fingertip.

“Right, yeah, I think balance is going to be really important here.”

She was probably right. The fact that the show was riding the thinnest line between an overwhelming lawsuit and survival was probably the reason it would live forever. The town, for what little Jackie knew of it, seemed to thrive on weird shit. Keep it alive and preserved and revered. It was frightening to think about but he couldn’t look away or move on. She couldn’t either, it seemed.

“Shit, in that case, this won’t be the last time we hear of The Decent Showguy,” he agreed. “I hope we get credited for its success or something. Anonymously. I don’t want my name attached to this. At all.”

The sound, strange and discordant, would likely never adjust correctly in Jackie’s ears. He would just have to make do. Try to focus on other sounds. Like the rhythm of Viv’s shoes on the floor, the tinkling of her jewelry. Her arm around his surprised him and he swallowed down the sensation of panic. She hadn’t thought twice about it. And him? He second guessed, worried, batted away any thought of touch for the last year or so. It was enough to distract him from feeling present in the room, to not fully process what had been said until he felt Viv practically vibrating with joy.

Which meant bad things were coming for him.

“I am…so thrilled for you, Viv,” Jackie finally said, his tone hushed and grim. At her question, his brows shot up. “Can I walk on a tightrope? Figuratively, yeah, every day. Realistically? No.”

The music swelled. Performers swung overhead, their arms outreached for the brave to take hold of. A very insistent one swung over them continuously and stared daggers down below. Flashed their hand as if it say c’mon, dude. The creature beneath wanted to bite it off, seemingly awakened by the energy that filled the room. Jackie swallowed nervously.

“Do I take that? Do you take that?”

—

Viv could feel the grin on her face. She was certain she looked positively evil. But god, if he hadn’t made it so easy for her to make the joke. Jackie had practically teed it up for her. All she had to do was take the shot, and she’d never let a little something like propriety stop her from making a joke before. “A collar?” She mused, leaning back in her seat as she pretended to study him. “Yeah, I think you could rock it. Father Jackie’s a long name to put on it though… Whose number do you want on the if lost, please call part of the tag?” Her mouth formed a little o, as though something had dawned on her, and her eyes glittered with mirth. “Oooh, you meant the priest collar. Yeah. Sure, you could do the sexy priest thing. You’d give the guy from Fleabag a run for his money. I’m sure your student’s moms would love to say ‘sorry daddy, I’ve been bad’ or whatever the fuck they say at the confessional.” 

As they were led over to their seats, it was impossible not to notice the immediate shot of tension that strained through the man as she looped her arm through his. Viv glanced up at him, concern scrubbing the impish glee from her face as she mouthed an apology to him. She had gotten too comfortable. Everything about this place, this show, reminded her of home. She was used to pats on the back, and hands on shoulders, and the casual ease with which she had been embraced into the troupe. They had been a family. Her family. But Jackie wasn’t. He didn’t know her, and she didn’t know him. She awkwardly extricated her arm from his, reminding herself that while this place soothed that ache inside her that yearned for a way back to before, this was only a temporary cure. The wound inside her still weeped as the barbed wire of her agreement with Rhys kept her tethered to the town. It was enough to sober her, if only for a moment. 

She let out a huff of a laugh at his comment. “What about juggling? Throwing knives? You funny?” Viv’s interrogation halted as a shadow passed over them. She looked up, and her heart soared. A trapeze had been lowered to just above their heads, and the man dangling upside down on it had his hand outstretched to— Jackie? The fuck? Did this guy really think he was the one to pick in this situation? Viv spied some chalk, and dusted her hands in it before bumping Jackie over with her hip. “Nuh uh. This is my trick.” 

She hopped up and gripped the trapeze artist’s hands, letting him hoist her up, up, and away. It was like riding a bike in some ways. It took her a moment to remember the feeling of it. But the second she could, she felt the momentum of the trapeze propelling them forward, and she let go. She closed her eyes a moment as she soared. If she listened close enough, Viv could hear Mara and Zeph in the all to distant past cheering her on like they had that first time she’d trusted enough to just let go. Another set of hands latched onto hers, and caught her as she swung backward with them, and she was back as the audience clapped. She shot a look down at Jackie, as though to say your turn. 

—

The way she grinned at him must have meant that Jackie had said something particularly entertaining. Or something easily malleable into a joke, an innuendo, or–There it was. His brain stuttered on collar, the way she said it, and he wished to be a tomato so he could throw himself at himself. Then she continued and none of the words she said were in the Bible (not that he read it) and he wished to be many tomatoes. His hand covered his face to hide how red he was, how it crept up from his neck like vines. A pained groan reverberated into the flesh of his palm.

“Please no,” was all he managed to mutter out as they walked. “I don’t want to talk to anyone’s mom.”

Jackie had never been happier in his life to be distracted by grown men dressed as clowns. Even when he was feeling like kin to them. He didn’t miss the quick look–he hoped it wasn’t hurt–that she sent him when he tensed. It wasn’t her fault. It was his and he wanted to say as much. To tell her that she was okay, it’s just that he wasn’t. How he didn’t know how to hold or be held by anything anymore. That he was too afraid that he would cut them. Then she apologized and he shook his head, tried to say it was okay, but his panicked heart seized and he couldn’t get the words out. The sound around them swelled and the moment was lost as things moved forward. A kernel of hope that a chance lost could be a chance found again, to tell her it was okay, settled into his back pocket alongside his ticket.

“Jesus Christ, they’re going to throw knives here? At me?” A shock of a laugh jolted his nerves out of their stagnant melancholy. For a brief moment, he managed to find the Jackie from before and hoist him up like Bernie Lomax to make a brief appearance. “Huh, maybe I’m kind of funny. I can make you laugh sometimes, right? Can’t be that bad.”

Her hip pushed him aside and then she was gone. She was flying to the moon through a star painted sky while Jack Hughman sang and Jackie watched her with star-kissed eyes full of wonder. Then with horror as she had nothing to hold her except for gravity. Yet if he squinted, that almost seemed to be when she looked happiest. Free. Like that was where she belonged and he couldn’t help but smile for her. Forget himself and just let marvel take over. Then she was back and before he could say anything else, all eyes were on him.

Jackie shook his head firmly at the trapeze artist. Since he wasn’t going to go to them, they came to him. They lowered themselves down and through a series of elaborate gestures, they instructed him to cartwheel after them down the row towards the stage itself. Fine, just the one time. For Viv. Fuck me, he thought, as he cartwheeled for the first time in years. Fuck this, he thought, as he did an awkward flip-tumble up the ramp that led to Jack Hughman himself. The main man gestured at Jackie with his candy-striped cane.

“Where the lost get found and we crown 'em the circus kings!”

Jack Hughman hesitated and seemed to break character for a breath. He drew nearer to Jackie and the werewolf’s skin prickled uncomfortably as the other man’s voice lowered.

“Wait, are you…?”

Jackie’s gaze fell so hard to the floor, craters formed.

“Please God, don’t talk to me.”

Then a crown was placed on his head by a stray trapeze artist and the show continued on around him. The lights were so bright, he wasn’t sure if he was squinting in the right direction, but he prayed that Viv saw the fear in him.

—

“God, you are easy to fluster. Good news is, I shouldn’t be anyone’s parental supervision. Ever. So, you’re stuck talking to me.” The pair of them had to be a strange sight; A man who looked like he could hold his own in a fight turning progressively more scarlet, and the pint sized, foul mouthed demon that seemed content on terrorizing him. At least Jackie looking flustered was better than the sort of haunted expression that ghosted across his face. The one that made him look like he was scared something was going to jump out of the shadows, and launch them straight into a nightmare. 

Viv snorted. “They could. Not sure how much I trust a pop up musical performer’s aim. Maybe they’d let you throw. You could throw them at me— wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been stabbed with a projectile knife.” For a moment, Viv could see the fighter in him. The way he shook himself off from whatever beating his demons were handing to him, and shrugged it off in the corner, ready to go another round. She found herself rooting for him to keep going. It had her wondering what it was like to watch him in the ring, where he could fight back. A half smile twisted onto her face. “You can. We’ll make a clown out of you yet.” 

The sensation of being weightless had Viv crowing with laughter. She felt like she was dreaming. She tilted her head back, and the megawatt smile on her face faltered when she looked at the face of the person who caught her. It wasn’t Zeph, or Dallas, or Yasmin that had caught her. It was a stranger. She felt like screaming, and laughing, and crying, and running to the edge of town and pounding on that fucking invisible barrier with her fists until it let her go.

 The smile slipped back in place, the performer’s mask not making it all the way to her eyes. Viv closed her eyes, and let them throw her again. In the moments before gravity sent her into the open arms of another stranger, she found some comfort. She found it in the gasps of parents, and the delighted squeals of little kids. She found it on the spellbound expression that hung on Jackie’s face as she flew through the air without an ounce of fear. All too soon, they were lowering her back to the ground, and she set down in a practiced bevel. 

Actors were singing, lights were dancing, and Jackie— Viv let out a delighted crow of laughter. Jackie was doing a cartwheel. It was a little sloppy, as his legs flopped over head. But the shaky dog was learning some new tricks. Unfortunately, the performers seemed to take the small show of participation from Jackie as a sign that he craved the spotlight. Which, even in the short amount of time they’d spent together, Viv was willing to bet every dollar she had to her name was not the case. 

In a much more practiced motion, she did a walkover as she slunk her way up toward the front where Jackie was frozen, looking for a shadow to duck back into. Jack Hughman was peering at him, an odd expression on his face. Jackie looked like he was praying the floor would open up and swallow him. Viv danced up from behind them, making a mental note to find a dance class before she jailbroke out of town, and stole the crown off of Jackie’s head and placed it on her own. “C’mon big guy,” She grabbed his hand and attempted to ballerina twirl him for flourish to appease the ring leader before ushering the wolf to a hasty exit. She dumped the crown on the head of a random kid as she started scooting Jackie faster along, risking a glance over her shoulder at the too-white smile of Jack Hughman, who was still singing about how fucking great his show was. Why were their seats so far? “Look at you with the cartwheel.” Viv whispered between teeth forced into a practiced smile. “You ok?”

—

For once, Jackie didn’t hesitate.

“I’m okay with that.”

For all the ways she, in her words, flustered him, it helped him feel…normal. A funny way to feel about it considering they had met in a bar filled with people that smelled like the same sickness Jackie had. In a way that didn’t exactly come close to curing him but rather gently livened him up enough to just be, that meant a lot. It meant a lot to have a friend. If it was okay to think of her that way. He shot her a quiet smile and hoped it wasn’t drowned out by the carnival noises. 

Very quickly, it shifted into an expression of surprise at the mention of stabbings and she wasn’t talking about her piercings. Jackie knew she performed with the circus and to a degree, he understood that that involved death-defying acts. Like having knives thrown at your immediate person. In simple terms, he was glad that she had defied death. Very rarely did he feel that way about himself most days but that day was a day that he did. Just to be there to be glad that she was still around.

‘Won’t be doing all that but it’s super kind of you to offer that to me,” he said with a huff of a laugh. “Maybe another day, yeah?”

She looked so light, so free among the stars overhead. It hadn’t gone unnoticed, the way she had coiled around herself at that Chimera barstool the same way he kept himself encaged within a small circumference. Jackie understood what it was to maintain a guard while feigning to the guy across from you that you were wide open. She didn’t have to worry about that up there. It was just her, weightless, gravity in her hands. That answered only to her. He wanted that rooftop to open for her, for her to see the real stars and get back home to the people she wanted to see them with. One day she would. He believed that for her.

What Jackie didn’t believe in was in his capability to cartwheel back to his seat, his body seized in embarrassment. And he was thankful to Viv, again, as she saved him from an approaching panic attack wearing clown paint. He twirled with her, albeit clumsily, and the motion was enough for him to find his feet again. Jesus, their seats were a fucking country mile and then some away. The theater felt longer. Like it had layers. The way hell did. At her question, he blinked at her rapidly then slowed and he breathed normal again.

“This is…” Jackie hesitated. He couldn’t say it was the worst day of his life. He had had much, much worse days. And those days weren’t glittering, they weren’t golden. They didn’t have a man that bore an uncomfortably uncanny resemblance to Wolverine. “Certainly a day of my life.”

He focused on her. On the faint thrum of her excited and happy heartbeat.

“What was it like up there? Flying?”

—

“Just a day?” Viv let out a whistle. “Damn, you must have a lot of fucking weird ass days if this ranks mid level.” She had to imagine it wasn’t the worst day. If how jumpy he seemed about everything was any indicator, the man had seen far worse than being volun-told to participate in circus shenanigans by a bunch of non-equity theater nerds in Maine. But for Viv, it was the first okay-ish moment she’d had in what felt like an eternity. 

She glanced up at him, surprise flickering across her face for a moment. Viv wasn’t sure she’d ever been asked that question. All the people who’d known this version of her knew what it was like to fly overhead, how it felt in the moments before gravity reclaimed its hold on them. How it felt, even as unusual as they all were, to be something even more spectacular, to create wonder out of nothing but their natural talent, hard work, and dedication. She paused, frowning slightly. “I don’t know if I know how to describe it,” Viv sighed, arms crossing tight over her chest. “It’s like… you ever jump off the swings as a kid? Just pushed that thing as high as it would go, until you launched yourself off it to land in the sand box? And you get as close to flying as you’re ever gonna get?” She glanced up at the trapeze artists, who were still doing basic tricks, but managing to sustain a full belt while upside down. “It’s that. But like you never hit the ground. You just keep on flying… I don’t know.” The moment she caught herself getting too lost in her own reverie, she cut herself off. Her feet hadn’t gone higher than the four feet off her apartment floor in three years. She was grounded. Getting lost in the reverie of what it was like would only hurt. 

They finally got back to their seats, and Jack Hughman’s costar, X Zafron, who’s countenance was closer to Wildcats era Zefron than it was The Greatest Showman was dancing on their seats, and a clown was handing out balloon animals as the song entered its final chorus. The High School Musical wannabe did a bell jump off the chairs, dancing around Jackie, as the clown handed Viv a long, unbent balloon. She snorted. “A purple snake… eh, close enough.” She accepted the balloon creation and sat down, yanking Jackie away from the ever so slightly too sharp serenading of X Zafron.

The song ended, and little confetti poppers shot rainbow flecks of paper floating down all around. There was a blackout, a beat. There was a moment where Viv wondered if something had gone wrong. A spotlight hit the center of the room, and there was Jack Hughman again, in silhouette. The chorale whoa sounded around them, and Viv groaned. “Are you fucking kidding me?” They were singing the same song. Again. 

—

Jackie nodded at her question. He had jumped off of swingsets as a kid and had been quickly, swiftly reprimanded for it. Too much could have gone wrong, his mother had said gently. Too much could have been ruined, his father had said less gently. He tried to hold onto the way his mother had voiced her worry and not the way his father had expressed it. Thoughts of his own short-lived attempt at flying dipped too low out of his line of sight as he listened to Viv. The tone in her voice was softer than he had heard it all night. Flying mattered to her. It seemed to mean everything. So he listened, he smiled, and when she pulled back from thoughts of flight, he spoke up.

“I hope you get to fly again,” he said, sincerely. He glanced at her then glanced away, back up at the stage. He didn’t like the way that Jack Hughman’s eyes zeroed in on their location. “The way you, uh…The way you really want to, y’know? There’s a lot of sky up there, sure there’s a spot waiting for you.”

Jackie also didn’t like that there was a man dancing on their seats. While he could deal with performance anxiety, he couldn’t abide by…whatever this was. Just as he was about to speak up, X Zafron got the hint and scuttled away. He shook his head at the sad purple balloon, thankful that he hadn't been handed one either. The squeaking of plastic was getting to him. Among the many other things in the room getting to him. The lights dropped and he stared at where Jack Hughman was. Immediately didn’t like that Jack Hughman was staring right back at him in the perfect dark.

Then the song started back up.

“Is that the same…?”

He slowly turned to Viv again.

“I think we did die here.”

This time, the dancers from before went to a different section of seats and he let out a sigh of relief loud enough to startle the small child beside him. The child’s mother glared at him before she went back to ogling the man on stage. In all the…joy of the performance, he had forgotten that he was being hunted. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees and head in his hands.

“...How bad do you want that autograph? I don’t know if I can do this again. Can you do this again?”

—

“Yeah,” She watched the trapeze artists in their costumes that were the wrong color, and the faces that weren’t the same, and tried to replace them with visions of her friends. “Yeah, me too.” Viv sighed, her arms flexing as she held herself together with all her might, refusing to let this be the moment she fell apart. She twisted the balloon snake into a dog, and handed it to the sticky cotton candy covered kid in the seat next to hers, letting the practiced motion of twisting the balloon into shape relieve the ache in her chest. 

The music started again and Jackie turned to look at her with the same baffled expression she was certain was on our face. “Dead and stuck in someone else’s circus in Wicked’s Rest with only this song forever… yeah that sounds like my version of hell.” There was something off about it all… well, other than the fact that it was an illegally licensed budget production with surprisingly performers attached to it. There was something about Jack Hughman that was just a little off putting. The man was singing through pearly white shark teeth, and staring at Jackie with such intensity that the woman was left to wonder what Jackie had done to piss the circus man off. “Man, the fuck is his problem? Why is he staring at you like that?” Viv bristled as the ring leader continued his performance with pointed glances in their direction. 

Jackie leaned forward and assumed the sort position reserved for people on airplanes in the event of a crash landing. And the only thing he seemed to be on a crash course with was Jack Hughman, with his smile that was growing progressively more manic by the second. “You have to know that was a fucking joke,” Viv sighed. “I was being sarcastic. If that guy comes within ten feet of me with a sharpie, he’s losing both his hands… might still be losing his hands. Maybe his eyes too if he doesn’t stop looking— what is his deal?” The mother next to them hissed at them to shush, and Viv raised her middle finger to fix her lipstick, blowing a kiss when the woman gave an indignant squawk and turned her attention back to the stage. “I can keep up the circus tricks for hours. But I don’t want to. Not with these people. I’m not doing another round of this. Not unless they change their tune real fucking fast.”

—

Jackie’s feet were meant to stay firmly on the ground. He had long ago accepted that fact and didn’t entirely disagree with it. His feet on the ground meant he was upright. That he hadn’t been knocked over. That he hadn’t lost. Some won by taking to the skies. Some won by planting themselves firmly like a tree. And the earth spun all the same. He was just glad to be able to share it. To still be there to do that, even with his head and his insides all messed up. Even in that carnival room, he was happy to share it. Happy wasn’t easy to come by on most days.

The kid seemed thrilled with his new…dog balloon and Jackie raised an eyebrow at Viv, as though he was saying ‘uh huh’ with a crooked smile. If only that kid knew he was sitting next to a snake lady and a…He didn’t want to think of what he was, actually, and left his thoughts at that, his amused expression going quiet. He didn’t want to let his mood plummet, to have it knock Viv’s joy out of the sky. Getting away from the eyes of whatever the fuck Jack Hughman was would probably help with that.

“I wish I knew,” he answered, his hands tightening around the edge of his shirt. “I think he’s a…knows me from, uh, what I did before. Or just weird. Probably both. Real fucking strong chance of both. I think he’s gonna feed me to that mom. Wherever she is.”

Not knowing where she was made it all the worse. She could have been any of the clowns in that room. Initially, Jackie’s worried tone had been a joke, but it became more real the longer he spoke. Then one of the clowns in the distance turned, looked at him, then at Viv, then quickly painted on the angriest pair of eyebrows he had ever seen. Quickly after, she started to move towards them in a way that was decidedly unclownlike. Ah fuck.

“We can go, we should go, maybe this circus isn’t for us,” Jackie started to move, to try and coordinate himself to get up and away. He went to gently take Viv’s upper arm to lead them away but wasn’t sure, hesitated. “You’re right, let’s not let him, them, anywhere near us. He’s either gonna lose hands or catch them, y’know? Can we, uh, go? That okay?”

—

Jackie looked over at her as she handed off the little dog balloon, and she smirked. “What? You need at least two to make a good hat. The poodle’s like. Day one clown school stuff.” Viv winked at the kid as he played around with the balloon, missing the way the smile slid off of Jackie’s face. 

Jack Hughman, as he sang about the impossible coming true and taking over for the second time that evening, never seemed to look away from Jackie for more than the time his choreography demanded. Viv didn’t like the look in his eyes. Cold. Manic. Like he was in on some secret. To make it worse, a clown across the way paused mid-pirouette and stared at them. Then, the clown painted cartoonishly angry brows on her face, and broke from the dancing crowd and started barreling toward them. “Dude, the fuck did you do to the clown lady?” Viv whispered. The mother a few seats down hissed at them to be quiet again and Viv rolled her eyes, shifting her back to face the annoyed parent and fully faced Jackie— an action that only had the clown moving faster. 

Viv watched as his hand paused inches from her bicep and retreated, as though he’d been burned before he could even touch her. It wasn’t difficult to catch the rising note of panic in the man’s voice. He needed to get some air, and frankly Viv did too. For all the good memories being in the air for even a moment had brought swimming to the surface, there were just as many reminders as to why life couldn’t be that way dragging the joy back down into the depths. “Yeah.” She bridged the gap he’d seemed hesitant to and  placed a hand on his elbow as she guided them both up to their feet, and looked around. “Where the hell’s the exit?”

—

“Did you graduate from clown school? With a clown degree?”

Jackie couldn’t help his curiosity, even with the honking horror that was fast approaching. There would be a better time to ask about Viv’s clown credentials. The clown with the knife-eyebrows was fast approaching and he stared at her, unable to look away. Why would this one singular clown be upset with him and Viv? What had they done to spurn her specifically?

“Wait. Nonononono.” 

He whipped his head to look back at Viv and the urgency from before had doubled.

“The clown is the mom,” he said frantically. “The mom is a clown. The mom is a clown!”

Just as Jackie said it, the mom beside him had had enough and was ready to form an unplanned pincer maneuver with the encroaching mother clown. Sticky child be damned. They wouldn’t make it to the exit door. Not in these conditions. Fuck. His ears were ringing and Jack Hughman was still singing and there was a goddamn red light in the upper corner of the room that was pissing him o—Wait. He looked harder. It was an exit sign! But how would they get to it?

One of the silk aerialists had been tasked with trying to corral the mom, or to try and make it look like part of the performance, whichever. It didn’t matter. What did matter was that it left a long strip of pink silk alone. It wasn’t ideal. None of this was. Thoughts of himself aside, he gently took Viv’s arm and freed them from the cramped row. Not too far. The closer they got to it, he took in a deep breath.

“Sorrysorrysorry,” Jackie said as he guided Viv up and to the silks. “We get to fly again, fun, right? Right behind you, promise.”

—

“Nah. I dropped out when I saw how dumb the red nose looked on me.”

Viv doubted there was a single timeline in which she’d make a good clown. Her sense of humor was too dark and deadpan to ever be something to perform for hundreds of eager eyed little kids. It was better for her to stick soaring above the stage, or being her plain, serpentine self. The same could probably be said for the clown that was now practically charging at them. The painted on scowl that was definitely reflected on the face underneath was enough to have a little girl behind her start wailing. Viv raised a brow at the mad clown, as though to shame her for breaking character. Which only made the clown charge faster. Viv whirled to look back at Jackie as the word no began falling from his mouth like water from a leaky faucet. Her eyes widened. “Oh. Oh— the mom is the clown—the hell did your student promise her your hand in marriage why is she so m—“

Jackie was taking her by the arm and maneuvering them both through the seats, leading them god only knew where. “It would be fucking great if you told me what the plan is—ohmygod!” She cut herself off with an abrupt and uncharacteristically excited squeak as Jackie deposited her in front of a pink aerial silk that was unoccupied, and not too far from a glowing beacon of an exit sign up near the theater’s catwalk. Viv’s head whipped back to look at Jackie as he spoke the words she was praying to hear. “Don’t have to tell me twice. See you at the top, big guy.” Viv looped the fabric around her leg, and started steadily climbing. She was a good portion of the way up when she realized the top wouldn’t be close enough to the catwalk with the exit. But the next silk over was. Somewhere below them, Jack Hughman’s vibrato grew more aggressive, and he seemed to hit a flat note. Viv shouted down at Jackie. “Think you can swing so we can jump to the next one?”

—

Jackie nodded. Fair enough. He didn’t think anyone was meant to pull off the red nose but he didn’t want to tell Viv that. Too much was happening to get further into that thought. He threw his hands up in defeat. He didn’t know what the student’s plan was. If they were worried about their clown mom being alone in her clown life. Whatever it was,  he was not the guy to put on that face paint. He was glad that Viv was thrilled to be climbing the silks that somehow looked less safe than the ropes from his gym class. But it was only because of the latter that he had any idea how to pull himself up after her. 

Viv? The image of elegance in a quickly escalating nightmare circus. Jackie? A fish fighting for his life while trying to swim upstream. Her heart sounded calm compared to his, he wagered. He did his best to not throw the rope around as he climbed after her. Jack Hughman kept on but his tone changed. He was pissed. He and his circus could die mad, as far as Jackie was concerned. He lifted his head up in time to see a commotion on a different set of silks, thankfully away from the exit. An aerialist had gone down and in their place, the mother clown clambered upward. He was going to have to politely tell his student to change school or cities or states or universes the next time he saw them.

“No! God no!” he called up, then lowered his tone before he bolstered whatever confidence was left in his body. Jackie shifted the weight in his hips forward and back. Swung his feet a little. The silks moved in the direction of the ones they needed and with the feeling of eyes like knives in his back, he swung them with more gusto. She was coming. He felt it in his bones. And with that feeling, he swung high, and let go. Floundered in the air, expected death, then hastily grabbed onto the next pair of silks to anchor them. He could almost smell the outside. “Oh my God. Please God. Okay, okay, Jesus fuck, almost there, I got it, go ahead. Right behind you, right beh–Oh shit she’s coming, wegottagowegottago.”

—

She flipped herself up and up, legs straddling the swath of material in a split as she hoisted herself up, hooked her knee around the fabric, and repeated the motion. Viv was suddenly grateful for nights spent alone in her apartment practicing movements she questioned if she’d ever get the chance to use again. And she was trying not to laugh at Jackie’s method of clambering up the silk, which seemed to be to scramble for the top as best he could. And—oh great. Just below him, was the clown. Who was still chasing after them. And gaining. Shit. “C’mon, don’t be a chicken!” Viv crowed, pulling herself higher still. “If snakes can fly, so can you.” 

Jackie seemed to get on board with her plan, as the silk began swinging back and forth in the direction they needed to go. Viv closed her eyes as she held on tight to the silk, and felt the rise and fall of the motion. She waited until they hit the height of their backward trajectory, and she leaned forward. She rode the wave of momentum, and just as they were as far forward as they could go, she let go. She’d never tried to jump from silk to silk before.  First time for everything, she supposed. 

She caught the silk and slid down a few feet as she got her bearings, but she’d done it. She’d made it. Viv tried not to look too surprised that she hadn’t gotten herself killed in her attempt to escape the angry jealous clown mom, and looked back at Jackie as she scrambled further up to make room for him. “Come on— I won’t let you fall, I promise.” It had been a long time since she promised anyone anything. She felt the weight of it in her chest, and tried not to think about how the words tasted like poison on her tongue, when at one time they’d been so sweet. Viv reached out a hand for him, ready to reach out and grab him if she needed to. So what if he was easily a foot taller than her? She could make it work.

—

Jackie did not wish to fly, even if Viv made it look spectacular and wonderful and magical. He did not wish to be or do a lot of things but those things fell on him anyway and he had to keep moving. For him, for Viv, for the promise that they would get out of this fucking clown hellhole and see the day again. The song started over again. Somewhere in him was the urge to cry in frustration at this clownery but he would not let Jack fucking Hughman see him cry. 

And there was Viv, miraculously making gravity her own again. All Jackie could do was his best to imitate it. He met her eyes, chose to trust the promise held in what she said, and let go.

It was by no means pretty but it was effective, which was all Jackie could half-promise at any given moment. Either from stress or fear, his hands felt slick but he held on. Held hers. Steadied himself He was surprised that the creature below his skin wasn’t stirring. Maybe shame kept it away. Embarrassment, too. Like it hid its eyes from whatever was happening to the skin man because god forbid something like that ever happened to it. 

Jackie tensed his jaw, held onto her hand, and made a desperate attempt to hook his foot around the balcony ledge that would lead to their exit. Then another one that actually stuck. In a move he would feel in his back later, he threw himself over it. Back on solid ground again, he planted his feet and turned to Viv with arms outstretched.

“Won’t let you fall either, c’mon, I got you.”

—

Viv’s heart stuttered for a moment as she watched Jackie let go. Was this what it was like for the rest of the world? Watching as someone executed death defying stunts with their hearts in their throats? Viv was not used to the fear. She was used to flying with trained professionals. But right now, she had to believe Jackie could make it, and they could get the fuck out of there. 

His hand closed around hers and he grabbed hold. Viv let out a victorious whoop. She reached out with her arm that was tangled in the silk and extended a middle finger to the climbing clown. “Suck it, lady!” The clown looked even angrier, if that was at all possible. The silk was flopping and swaying as Jackie was trying to hoist himself up onto the catwalk. The man clambered up topside— they were almost there! The silk swayed beneath her and Viv looked down. The clown was on her silk now, and climbing furiously. And she had friends. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, pull me up, pull me up!!” 

Viv reached frantically for his hand. The swaying of the silk had her miss once, twice… on the third time, she caught Jackie’s hand and he hoisted her the rest of the way. “GO! Go, go go go—“ Viv pushed him toward the exit, and pushed it open with her hip as Jack Hughman screamed that this was, in fact, the greatest show.

—

Jackie had never been so happy to see the moon. As soon as the light of it hit their faces, it meant they were free. That they were out. On the rooftop of a theater where he wasn’t sure where the way down was but he didn’t care. They had made it. Holy shit.

“...Holy shit,” he said as he looked at Viv, his hand still in hers. “What was that? What the fuck was that?”

He took in as many clean breaths of air as he could then laughed. Loud and bright. No more smell of cotton candy or Jack Hughman’s cologne or greasepaint. Or the sound of angry mom hearts. Just the sound of Viv’s and the street below. At the sound of her heart, Jackie remembered himself, and gently, carefully untangled his hand from hers. A quiet apology crossed his face before he softened.

“Hey, I’m, uh, glad you were here,” he said with barefaced honesty. “Clown moms and whoever that fucking guy was and all that shit…You out circused the fucking circus. Nothing can touch you, you were amazing, that was crazy.”

Beyond the door, noise grew. Jackie’s hand quickly found hers again.

Rosemary didn’t remember there being a lawn flamingo there. Plastic tropical birds didn’t exactly go with the Arthurian vibe the staff at Excaliputt was going for, but the witch wasn’t about to complain. If anything, the lawn flamingo was adding to the experience for Rosemary. 

The course was quiet that day. Her caddy (apparently named Gawain) trotted happily alongside her as the witch snuck the miniature pony some sugar cubes. The caddies were what kept the her coming back. She couldn’t have cared less about actually playing mini golf by herself. But mini horses. She could make an exception there. Gawain let out a little whinny as Rosemary stood there staring at the flamingo. She frowned. “Verily, he is so sweet and endearing!” She insisted, looking at the plastic bird perched in the middle of the water feature on a rock. She paused, actually hearing the words that left her mouth. “Fy on it.” she sighed, remembering the fun little linguistic spell the golf course was under. 

Gawain snorted, and Rosemary interpreted that to mean no you shouldn’t steal the flamingo. “Aye, but who shall e'er discern that 'twas I that didst perpetrate this deed? None, anon!” She said, already setting down her putter and cuffing her pants. She could probably get to the flamingo… probably. “Hear thou, fair knight Gawain, yonder fowl doth belong to me.” The witch said, hopping onto the moat as she attempted to reach for the lawn flamingo. 

—

Isabella had always wanted to go to Excaliputt, but could never bring herself to go. She could go out and eat by herself, go to the movies on her own, sure, but going mini golfing by herself? That was pushing it even for her generally solitary lifestyle. Her going on her own, would just be sad. She had no friends to go with and Isabella was sure that if she suggested a group outing to her fellow Scribes, they would look at her like she grew a second head.

But things were different now. She had to be here. She had a mission.

A couple of days ago someone online made an off-handed comment about how strange the decision was to put lawn flamingos at Excaliputt. Isabella flagged that as something to note. And then sure enough, another person commented on how there seemed to be more plastic flamingos appearing each day. To confirm, she went into the bowels of Containment and sure enough an object matching that online description had gone missing. OBJECT 2998, a pink lawn flamingo with a perchance for multiplying if left unsupervised outside the confines of Containment. 

Isabella had spent the last half hour making her way through the course,dodging the occasional fire salamander, and poking and prodding at every plastic flamingo she came across only to watch them disappear in a puff of pink smoke. Surely, she was bound to come across the real one at some point, right? 

She didn’t know what hole she and her mini pony were currently at because her main focus was a pink flamingo perched on a rock and the blonde woman who was currently reaching for it for some reason. Without wasting a second, Isabella stuffed the large pillow case she had brought to store the OBJECT 2998 in her back pocket (not the best containment solution, but she was making do with what she had) and hopped onto the rocks leading up to it.

“Hail, good maiden, I doe beseech thee, deliver unto me yonder flamingo!” Isabella called out as her hands flew out in front of her, trying to maintain her balance and keep from falling into the water beneath her. 

—-

Maybe scaling the moat wasn’t her greatest idea. 

It wasn’t the climbing or the balancing that was the problem. Rosemary would have been fine with both of those, if she’d been in an isolated scenario where there was no one around to distract her. Except Excaliputt didn’t exist in the void, and was absolutely teeming with distractions. So when someone shouted at her to deliver unto them yonder flamingo, the witch very nearly fell face first off the two-foot-tall moat into the ankle deep water trap. “Fuck—“ She wobbled on the moat, questioning if this had been a bad idea. Gawain whinnied, as if to say I told you so. 

The witch’s arms flailed and wheeled around as

She regained her balance and managed to remain unsoggy for the time being. She looked around until her eyes landed on a woman with no caddy and no club. She was just… there. Not golfing. And trying to get the flamingo. The flamingo Rosemary was trying to steal. Rosemary’s flamingo. She blinked. 

What she wanted to say was Jesus Christ, lady, warn a girl next time, I almost fell in the pond. Instead, the curse had its way with her words, and out came “Fairest maiden, Pray, thou dost affright me sore, lest I hadst tumbled into yonder pond. What wilt thou with yonder feathered fowl, the flamingo?” Oh. So the language curse stopped being fun when she was annoyed. Noted. Rosemary inched further down the balance beam of the moat as she tried to stretch for the plastic bird again— still not close enough. She sighed, and continued inching along. 

—

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you! But I need that flamingo because it belongs to me!” was what she meant to say, but all that came out was, “Verily, I pray thee, pardon mine error! Forsooth, I had not meant to daunt thee. Yet, alack! The flamingo I taketh, forsooth, belongeth it unto me.” Not a complete lie, but not the whole truth of it anyways. OBJECT 2998 didn’t necessarily belong to Isabella PERSONALLY, but rather belonged to the Scribes as a whole. So by the transitive property that made it hers, right?

 Sure, let’s go with that.

And if can’t be considered Isabella’s, she was pretty much its steward and guardian given her job. Granted, steward/ guardian might be an overblown pompous title all things considered. 

These days she felt more like a zookeeper trying to wrangle in her escaped animals. Isabella watched as the other woman continued to reach for the flamingo, seemingly determined to take it for her own. What she wanted to say was, “Please don't take it. I've been looking for that thing for weeks.” but all that came out was a tired, “Fie upon thee, good sir! Lay not thine hands upon it. Forsooth, I have sought this trifle for a span of weeks.” Maybe if she was here of her own volition and actually golfing she would have found the little language curse endearing, but right now it was just frustrating because she was having trouble even understanding herself. 

__

The whimsy of the flowery old English was growing old. After a few minutes of mental calculus to figure out what the fuck forsooth meant in its present context, Rosemary sighed. Of course she wanted the flamingo. Of course. The witch looked at the plastic bird. The bird stared vacantly back at her, its painted on eyes seeming to call out to her, saying but you could have another flamingo for your collection. Except presently any pleas on the flamingo’s part to take it home with her would have included about a half dozen more thee’s and thou’s, and at least one forsooth. 

She cleared her throat, straining against the spell uncomfortably. “Is he your flamingo? Or is this some I saw him first thing?” The witch’s throat tickled as though she’d swallowed a pillow’s worth of festhers, and she coughed furiously until she croaked out a “My lady.” As a punctuation. The tickling ceased. Rosemary heaved another sigh. “Pray tell, good lady, why dost thou needest the bird both bright of plumage and long of limb?” She asked, walking along the cobblestone wall as she drew closer to the plastic bird. 

—-

“Yes… tis mine…” Isabella managed to get through her grit teeth. Apparently, the curse couldn’t tell if she was going to say ‘it’s mine’ or go with the old English version and was ready to unleash. She could feel the tickle of feathers in the back of her throat before the curse relented and deemed her response as acceptable. In regards to the flamingo… technically the flamingo didn’t truly belong to Isabella. She didn’t go to a store and buy it (the ridiculous notion of buying a supernaturally powered chaos object at the store almost made her laugh), but she was in charge of it and tasked with its overall care and containment. So by the transitive property, yes, it could be argued that the OBJECT 2998 did belong to her. That was her story and Isabella was sticking to it, it’s not like the blonde woman in front of her had to know about the nitty gritty details about the whole thing. 

What she meant to say was “It's been missing for weeks and I've only been able to track it down here recently.” but all that came out was, “Woe is me, 'tis gone naymore these weeks past, and I hath sought it in vain till now I chanced upon-AAAAH!” Isabella barely finished her sentence when suddenly her sneaker slipped on a particularly slippery part of the rock she was balancing on. In a moment of pure desperation, she reached out for the nearest flamingo in the hopes that the flimsy plastic would be enough to save her and keep her upright, but her fingers passed through the illusionary bird and it disappeared into a puff a pink smoke, just like every other flamingo she had come across. And into the water Isabella went. She could feel the water quickly soaking her pants, socks, and the pillow case that she had stuck in her pocket. “Great…” Isabella sighed, a loose feather escaping her lips proving to be the cherry on top of the whole situation. 

—

The woman was in the middle of a monologue that could have been out of a Shakespearean comedy if you squinted, when her feet went out from under her. Rosemary let out a gasp as the woman reached for the plastic bird for leverage, only for her hand to pass right through it in a puff of pink smoke, before careening into the water feature. The witch winced as the other woman landed with a tremendous splash, and the flamingo they’d both been after seemed to have disappeared altogether. 

“Oh my god, are you—“ she coughed, rolling her eyes as the spell took hold. Shouldn’t the Arthurian theatrics get sidelined for potential medical emergencies? The witch clambered down from her perch and walked to the edge of the water to hold out a hand for the other woman. “Pray tell, good lady, how dost thou fare? Twas a tremendous fall, and t’would be most pitiful if thy fair face and limb were injured.”

—

Her ears were slightly under water so Isabella could faintly hear what the other woman was asking. Was she okay? God was she? As she lay there in the water, motionless, looking suspiciously like John Everett Millais’s Ophelia painting, she couldn’t help but feel like this was the most tried she had ever felt in her god damn life. Why was it that all of sudden the Objects that had been dormant and well behaved were suddenly seemingly using every opportunity to escape and cause Isabella trouble? The task of supervising Containment was supposedly an easy job and Isabella always thought of it as the higher ups sending her away to their equivalent of Siberia to be forgotten so she would bother them at the main headquarters. Why was this happening?

 “Forsake me so I may perish in this place…” Isabella groaned dramatically as she lay in the shallow water a moment longer before she forced herself to sit up with a small splash. There’s a thought that she should be getting hazard pay for this, but that would also require her to admit to the hire ups that things were getting out of Containment and she wasn’t ready for that conversation. “Assist me?” Isabella asked, holding up her hand to the woman in the hopes that maybe she’d help her up. 

—

There was something kind of laughably pathetic about watching a stranger lay starfished in the shallow depths of a mini golf water trap. The witch stifled a laugh as the now drenched woman stared up at the sky, as though asking if this was really her life. God. Rosemary had been there before. The sad-wet-cat adjacent display had a twinge of guilt winding her chest into a knot over pestering the woman about why she needed the flamingo. She carefully clambered down from her perch and made her way over to the shore line. Her miniature horse caddy, Gawain, stomped his hoof in approval. 

She pressed her lips together, caging in the laugh that threatened to escape upon hearing the medieval version of leave me here to rot. The soggy woman held out her hand for an assist, and Rosemary didn’t hesitate to take it. “Tis a pity. Thy raiment was most fine. Perchance a goodly merchant in Ye Olde Gyft Shoppe has some spare rags for wares.” She sighed as she hoisted the woman out of the pond. The woman looked truly pitiful. “Thou lookest as though the spirits might restore some life to ye. Wouldst thou like a mead?”

–

The woman was kind enough to offer her assistance and a wave of relief washed over Isabella’s soggy and waterlogged form. Her cold and clammy hand clasped around hers and she let herself be pulled up from the water feature and back on to her two feet once again. “Thank you for your kindness, my lady,” she said gratefully before she turned around to look at the flamingo the two of them had been going after. With a sigh, Isabella trudged through the shallow water over to what she had hoped was the real OBJECT 2998 and gave it a half heart THWAP with her hand. Much to her surprise and relief, she made contact with something plastic and solid for once.