September 1, 2000
Here goes. It is: AU, OOC, strange, pointless, angsty in a contrived way, and probably been done a thousand times before. And more OOC.
Trowa was not a person who stood for such foolishness, for coat racks and soup bowls and other artifacts that only tied him down. He had a job to do, and a sister to watch over. He had responsibility. Some parts of him enjoyed the word, even.
Yet as he passed the ringmaster's trailer, Trowa couldn't help but peek inside through the windows. It was dark; the older man had gone into town to post notices about the circus' arrival. No one would ever know, except for him, and the audience in his mind.
As his hand melted onto the doorknob, turning slowly, they cheered, stamping their feet and oohing when appropriate. The only witnesses to the slow debauchery of his soul. Couldn't, for once in his short life, he bring smiles instead of tears?
Before he knew it, he had shed his jeans and turtleneck, slowly tugging on someone else's clothes, becoming someone else. The red coat, the brass latches and elaborate buttons, all part of the fantasy. It should have been erotic, but instead it was cold hail pounding inside him.
The black boots completed the ensemble. Gathering the whip into his hands, he left the trailer and entered the musty tent. It was early morning; Cathrine, a night owl by habit, would sleep until noon, and the rest of the circus members had probably split up to explore the town. Trowa didn't know why. It was always the same thing, the same gawking people, no matter what the names.
He stood in the center ring of dirt, staring blankly into the rows of shiny metal bleachers, and took a deep breath. //The ringmaster calms himself in preparation for his big debut.// Twin green eyes smoldered in the darkness as he cracked the whip once, twice. //The old master has been grooming this promising young man for years, and only now does he step into ring. Yet does he turn such an opportunity into a debacle of epic proportions? Or does he wield the whip with such grace that all eyes turn to him, transfixed as the wrapped leather becomes a writhing snake, an extension of his body?//
//Oh, but the cage opens now! See how he tames the ferocious lion,// he whispered, but not aloud. Strange, how the lion seemed to bear the stiff regard of royalty, not that of a creature of blood and children's nightmares. //There is no fear in him. The lion leaps--//
And suddenly, he was against that flat, cold board again, face half hidden beneath his clown's mask, watching impassively as his sister drew three sparkling knives from her left boot. He wanted to be afraid. Somehow, it would have made it better if he could only have felt the pit of his stomach drop out, or his insides turn to liquid ice.
He felt nothing.
"Cathrine Bloom, the knife thrower," said the ringmaster with a wide sweeping gesture. They held up a mirror and showed him what he wanted to see. She smiled at him, reassuringly, and then--one knife, embedded deeply into the cracked and old target.
Their eyes met for a moment, and he saw the brief flicker of fear. That was not good. If she was afraid, she would miss, and the crowd would be horrified, though still entranced. 'I saw a clown killed by his own sister.' Yet if she hit her mark... Trowa was rapidly discovering that his own conceptions of a hit and a miss were being redefined and interchanged.
She reared back, thin meshed arms flailing comically, and then, to her own surprise, released both blades at the same time. There was a word for them that he had once heard used by someone who was less than a friend, a word that signified death by the purest edge.
Thunk. He heard wood splinter below his knee.
There was no third 'thunk', no clean hit. The tiniest line of blood dripped from his ear where the blade had just scratched his skin. Around them, a roar of approval ripped holes in the old tent.
She had been badly shaken after, hurling one their mother's prized teacups to the floor in her rage.
"Why didn't you dodge the knife?" she demanded as she ripped off her headdress, that too gracing the tile. "Answer me!" He looked at her as if she'd turned into the peacock whose feathers she wore laced into her costume.
"Why didn't I dodge the knife?" //There you go, repeating everything she says,// he scolded himself. "I'm not paid to dodge," he snapped.
//Why didn't I *lean into* the knife--?//
She deflated quickly, his sharp tone a pinprick. "Trowa, I won't miss, next time I won't, I pro--" But Cathrine's heart-shaped face froze in his mind, obliterated more easily than glass beneath the hammer's loving embrace.
Memories like that had no place in Trowa's circus. He opened his eyes, trying to recapture that feeling, that emotion which had no human words, but all he saw was the yellowed inside of canvas, flapping maliciously in the barest breeze.
But if he tried, he could almost hear them crying his name, their voices a sharp cacophony. //The people, so enamored of him, call his name and toss thornless roses to the dirt floor.//
No one had given him flowers. You drop bombs and bullets at the feet of killers, not daffodils. In his ears, the noise swelled like the trill of a male falsetto and began to overtake his dreamworld.
He came to his senses with a start. How long had he been standing there?
"TROWA!" The ringmaster, wearing plainclothes, wearing his profession despite the normality, stalked up to him and began to shake him. "Damn it, boy, we've got a show in an hour!" Gray eyes ran over his clothing. "And what are you doing in my...?"
"Like you said, we've got a show in an hour, sir." As if that should explain it. //And with that, the ringmaster exits triumphantly.//
He would go to their trailer, and he would change into that pathetic clown. Trowa would slide on the mask, feel its heavy plaster weight on his face, and he would stand submissively against that wooden board. She would, of course, throw her three knives, thunk, thunk...
This time, *he* wouldn't miss.
ja!
bclw and aklw, your friendly neighborhood pizza delivery girl axe murderers
Ariana and Bianca
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