Chapter Text
It’s one of the first warm days of spring. His breath still comes out in puffs of steam in the early morning air and he’s thoroughly grateful for the cigarette clutched between his fingers, but he can feel the warmer weather coming.
His footsteps crunch the against the hard packed dirt road that leads towards the site, marked clearly by tyre tracks that split off as they reach the open gate. The road behind him is busy despite the early hour, commuters driving past on their way to work, engines loud in the morning stillness.
“Mickey!” There are two guys walking towards him, each with a huge cardboard box in their arms, wearing only t-shirts despite the cold weather. “Thought you’d never arrive.” They both grin, foreheads glistening with sweat.
“Blame the fucking bus, man.”
The man on the left dumps his box in Mickey’s arms, ignoring his protests, and starts backing away, grin widening at the sight of Mickey’s glare. “Well, you can make start making yourself useful now. It goes over there -“ he jerks his thumb over at a large empty space where some men are starting to set up a tent, “and the yard’s round the back of the trucks, Dan’ll show you.”
“I’m not a fucking newbie,” Mickey yells at his retreating back, but he doesn’t turn around so Mickey settles for flipping him off as best he can with a box in one arm and a bag in the other.
“Ignore Aaron, you know how he gets at the beginning of the season.” The man beside Mickey shifts the box to one hip, pulling out a cigarette and placing it between his lips. “How’ve you been, anyway?” he asks around the cigarette caught between his teeth.
Mickey shrugs. “Nothing new. How was the tour?”
“Same old. Australia’s fucking hot, ’m so glad we’re up north again.”
“Yeah well, we’re headed to Canada on the next leg. That’s gonna be a real fucking treat.”
Dan laughs, reaching up to remove the cigarette and exhale the smoke. “I’d forgotten, you hate the cold.”
“I don’t hate the cold. What’s not to love about fucking frostbite?”
They dump their boxes in the pile outside one of the caravans, props and costumes for the performances that’ll be shifted inside once the site is set up for the crew, and head towards where the men are starting to unfold the tent. They have to spread out the canvas and then rig it up to the metal frame, and Mickey spends most of the morning scaling ladders and pulling ropes. Even with the whole crew working, it still takes a couple of hours to set up and by the time they take a break it’s midmorning and they’re covered in dust and sweat. They sit against the dirt, spread out in a rough circle as they pass around bottles of water.
“Jesus, I could go for a beer right now.” Dan leans back against the esky and wipes a hand across his neck, already starting to redden from the sun.
“Not getting tired yet, are you, boys?” They straighten a little, heads turning to face the man walking towards them.
“Hey Cob,” Dan calls out, lifting a hand to shield his eyes against the sun, now high in the sky.
Cob’s dressed in a dark shirt and grease stained jeans, a cap shading his face like always. Mickey’s not sure he’s ever seen him without it. “Le,” he nods towards Dan. “Milkovich. Good to see you again.” He lifts his gaze to the tent behind them and up this close Mickey can see his face — mouth set, stern but not hostile, and expression critical as he surveys their work. “Make sure you test those ropes twice. I don’t trust the soil in Chicago, ’t's too sandy.” There’s a collective groan from behind Mickey, and a few laughs, but no one complains. No one ignores an order from Cob, unless you’re looking to be strung up from the ceiling of the Big Top by your ankles.
“Sure thing, boss.” Aaron salutes from where he’s perched on one of the boxes and Cob glares, turning around.
“Insubordination, Harper. Won’t be tolerated.”
—
The finish up as evening falls, clearing away tools and boxes and equipment, storing it back in one of the trucks. Around the back of the tent is where the trailers are parked, dressing rooms and housing caravans, all clustered around an empty space in the middle. The empty yard is adorned with clumps of people, perched on stools and milk crates and circled around small fires.
Mickey makes his way over to where the rest of the crew sit around one of the fires, lighting up a cigarette and sitting down on a wooden box. Dan passes him a beer and he pops the top off on the metal joint of the box, draining most of it in one long gulp.
“How’re you enjoying slumming it with us again?” Aaron pretends to nudge him in the side, eyebrows raised comically. “Didn’t miss us too much?”
“Nah man, glad to get rid of you. Enjoy some much needed peace and quiet.”
“Oi Mickey.” He looks across the circle to see Jeremy smirking at him. “How’s the wife? The Russian contortionist.”
“Ex-wife.” Mickey corrects, rolling his eyes. Technically it was also ex-contortionist — Svetlana had gotten a job at some legal firm, probably because she was an equal blend of cunning and terrifying and could get almost anyone to do anything.
“Even better. Reckon she’s single? I’d love to see how far back she could bend while I- ah, shit.” He rubs the side of his skull, off of which Daniel’s spoon had just rebounded.
Mickey just rolls his eyes, flipping him off. The other guys laugh, dissolving slowly into their own conversations — catching up, swapping news. Mickey’s not the only one who rejoined the tour in Chicago; a few of the other guys had arrived today as well, now that the circus had finished it’s Australian tour. They’d follow it through most of the country, Canada as well, and then stay here when the tour left for Europe and they picked up a new crew.
There were a few new performers too — Dan had pointed them out during the day, and he thought he could see a few more new faces around the campsite, but it was too dark to really tell. Mickey didn’t really care, anyway — there were always new routines to coordinate, new stages to construct, new props to get, whose it was didn’t really concern him.
A shout from the fire next to theirs pulls Mickey from his reverie, and he turns to see some of the clowns standing up, throwing balls between them.
“You think they ever get tired of playing with balls?” Aaron adopts a faux-critical expression, glancing over at Mickey and winking. Mickey ignores him, turning back to the beer in his hand. Undeterred, Aaron leans closer and opens his mouth to continue goading him. “You know —“
“Fuck off, Harper.” Affronted, Aaron leans back scowling a little, and the other guys laugh.
Most of the acrobats seem to be seated over in the corner, clustered around their own fire. It’s hard to make it out in the darkness but the flames provide just enough light to see them climbing onto each other’s shoulders, the shouts of laughter carrying easily across the yard.
“Show offs,” Jeremy mutters as he gets up, stretching his shoulders out and cracking his neck. One by one more of the guys get up, dropping cigarette butts in the fire and packing away their milk crates by one of the trucks, heading off to their caravans for the night.
“Milkovich,” Cob leans over towards him across the dwindling firelight, “I’ve got a new act for you to rig, it’s Diane and one of the new aerialists. You’ll meet with them tomorrow at eight.”
Mickey sighs, an exhalation of cigarette smoke that’s almost invisible in the darkness. Newbies have a reputation as a pain to work with, often filled with entirely unrealistic ideas about the capacity of a circus tent or the capabilities of steel frames and rope and usually ready to offer up unnecessary and unhelpful suggestions.
“Better get some sleep,” Cob says pointedly, the direction clear in his tone.
“Yeah, sure.” Mickey reaches over to the esky to pull out another beer, but Cob snaps it shut.
“Eight, Milkovich.”
—
It’s still dark when Mickey gets up, the sun catching only the top of the tent and the surrounding trees. He makes himself a cup of coffee inside the trailer — the only thing he can stomach this early in the morning — and has a brief shower. By the time he’s dressed and ready the sun has fully risen, illuminating the remains of last night’s fires and the early morning bustle.
Mickey’s certainly not the first to wake; there are dozens of people already moving about, setting up tight ropes between trucks or testing out makeup, moving props and packing away crates to make room for acrobatics.
Cob looks over from where he’s directing the placement of the arcade games just as Mickey steps out of the caravan. “Cutting it fine, Milkovich.” He nods his head towards the main tent.
“Not late yet,” Mickey mutters, but he makes his way over anyway, glancing back at Cob with raised eyebrows when he reaches the tent opening.
“Mickey!” Someone calls out his name from inside and he blinks until he can make out Diane in the darkness, standing beside one of the metal frames. On her other side is the new guy, but from this distance all Mickey can tell is that he’s tall and lanky with a shock of red hair.
Getting up closer Mickey can tell that, objectively, the guy’s pretty attractive. Broad-shouldered, with a tight-fitting tank-top and shorts that Mickey swears cover less than half his thighs. The muscles of his arms are well defined and despite the dim light he can make out dozens of freckles adorning his upper arms.
Mickey tears his eyes away and glances over at Diane, who’s got one hand on her hip and the other clutching a trapeze bar and length of rope.
“This is Mickey. He’s our go-to guy for aerial stunts, he does most of the rigging and set-ups.” She’s known for getting straight to the point, and it’s probably why Mickey likes her so much.
“So, Red, what’s the act?”
“It’s part of the ‘light and dark’ theme, so we play opposites —“ the guy speaks fast, excitement clear in the upturned corners of his mouth and his green eyes crinkle and that’s probably why it takes Mickey so long to interrupt, though of course he’d never admit it.
“I meant, what do I need to do?” He sounds rude, harsher than he’d intended, but Red only laughs, little more than a huff of air and a grin, and rubs the back of his neck.
“Right, yeah, sorry.”
It’s a simple job, similar to a lot of rigging he’d done before, but it’s the kind of work he likes — building things, solving problems. The performers do most of the conceptualising, the big picture thinking and planning how an act would look, but it’s Mickey’s job is to actually make it happen. Setting up the tent might be the biggest job of the show, but there’s no thinking that goes into it. With acts like this he gets to be creative — the only downside is the performers, though Red doesn’t seem too bad, so far.
“You think you can do that?” The guy says it like a challenge, lifting his chin infinitesimally and holding back a grin.
Mickey only raises an eyebrow in response, and Diane grins, clapping her hands together. “Let’s get started.”
They draw up a diagram on a sheet of paper for reference and Mickey tucks it into his pocket for reference. He’s about to start scaling the ladder when Red calls out. “Don’t you need a harness or something?” The guy’s so obviously a rookie that Mickey just laughs. “You think there’s something funny about safety?” Mickey turns back and he notices that the guy’s smirking, one eyebrow raised, not quite on Mickey’s level of sarcasm but still quite impressive.
Instead of replying Mickey just rolls his eyes and starts scaling the ladder. Fucking acrobats trying to tell him how to do his job.
Mickey finishes up around ten, leaving them to keep practising. He does odd jobs, helping Aaron fix a tyre on one of the trucks, setting up some of the sideshows. He stops for lunch around one, grabbing a plate and setting himself down at one of plastic folding tables set up in the main yard, his back to the table and legs on the wrong side of the bench. There aren’t many others already eating lunch, but it’s early and he knows it’ll fill up soon enough.
A thud from behind him makes Mickey swivel around, turning to face the table behind him. Red’s sat himself down on the bench opposite; he’s facing outwards as well, legs too long to sit comfortably tucked under the table. Mickey ignores him, turning back to his food with an almost inaudible sigh.
They sit like that for a few minutes, eating quietly, before Red breaks the silence.
“Cob can’t be his real name.” He follows the guy’s gaze to the other side of the yard, where Cob is talking to one of the clowns — they appear to be arguing about something, Cob gesturing to one of the caravans. Mickey shrugs, looking back down at his plate and the guy seems unbothered by Mickey’s lack of response, shrugging a little and turning back to his own food.
Cob wasn’t technically in charge — that was the ringmaster, or the owner, depending on how you looked at — but he certainly ran the entire operation. The whole show wouldn’t mean shit without him, and he knew it. Mickey had no idea how long he’d been there, certainly far longer than Mickey had, but he’d become a sort of fixture in the place. Meet anyone else in the same business, performers and crew alike, and the first thing they’d ask was whether Cob was still there. Then they’d laugh or maybe roll their eyes, shaking their head as if to say ‘of course, they’ll never get rid of him’. He doesn’t know how Cob knows people from all over the country, and beyond, but Mickey’s not surprised. Honestly, the guy’s so mysterious he’d be willing to believe pretty much anything about him.
Cob’s still talking to the clown, and the guy’s looking more and more pissed off while Cob seems to be even more serene.
Mickey doesn’t have anywhere near the same amount of self control.
“Oi, slacking off are we, Milkovich?” Aaron walks past, a box cradled in his arms.
He’s spared from answering by Cob, who chooses that moment to look over. “I wanted those boxes in Midway half an hour ago, Harper.” Aaron ducks his head a little, quickening his step a little as he heads towards the sideshow alley.
Mickey likes this — the constant activity, the people moving, the way that he can just blend into background. The pay’s shit but the security is — surprisingly — pretty good, and he knows that during the other half of the year, when the circus is off touring Europe or Canada or some other remote corner of the globe, he can get a decent construction job somewhere.
“What is it? His real name?”
Mickey’s almost forgotten who they’re talking about, and takes a moment to reply, his voice coming out perhaps a little more irritated than he intended. “I don’t know, man, you gotta ask him.” Red just tilts his head a little, expectant, and Mickey sighs. “Someone said once it was short for ‘corncob’, fuck knows what that means. But he’s been Cob for as long as anyone here’s known him.”
The guy looks satisfied with that, and turns back to his empty plate. Mickey hadn’t even noticed the food had gone, and he’d only gotten through half of his own. Red stands up, stretching his legs and starting to head back to the kitchen, but stops only a few steps away and turns back.
“I’m Ian, by the way. Ian Gallagher.”
He starts to turn away, as if he doesn’t really expect a response, but Mickey surprises even himself when he calls out.
“Mickey.”
Ian turns back, his cheeks stretching into a grin, and it’s possibly the biggest smile Mickey’s seen. “Nice to meet you, Mickey.”