Chapter Text
The first warning should have been that it had been Mohji sent to ask.
Buggy saw him before he had even finished his introduction: The younger man sat perched in the eaves like a gargoyle, legs dangling off his makeshift seat as Buggy’s three o’clock show began. He’d even brought a drink. Settled in. Got comfortable as he waited with intention.
That alone was damning.
Mohji reacted on cue to every trick -- gasps perfectly timed, laughter booming at the deadpan jokes Buggy tossed to the crowd, applause enthusiastic enough to border on grating to the ear; all as if this wasn’t the thousandth time he’d seen the routine.
Buggy purposefully ignored him with professional spite, opting to stick to the farthest end of the stage away from the former-lion tamer.
The show went off flawlessly, as it always did. Knives flashed, clubs spun, and the crowd clapped with polite enthusiasm that suggested they were at least mildly amused. Buggy soaked it in, bowing deeply, then swept off his hat as he threaded through the spectators, rattling off a spiel about tossing a coin to feed his non-existent children.
He extended the hat pointedly toward Mohji as he passed.
“Don’t think you get to watch for free,” Buggy said, sweetly venomous.
Mohji blinked up at him as if surprised by the sudden appearance. Then, dutiful as ever, he scrambled for the change in his pocket, depositing a few crumpled bills.
Buggy scowled at him even more. “You’re still not forgiven.”
And fully believing him, Mohji tossed in a larger bill, even as he shrank under Buggy’s glare.
By the time the crowd had dispersed and he'd finished counting his tips (a respectable haul, thanks in no small part to Mohji’s generous contributions), he was fully braced for whatever absurd request was bound to come next. The sun was dipping low beyond the Faire grounds, the waning late-fall rays throwing long, uneven shadows across the canvas-topped stage. Buggy could already feel the heat of the day being sucked dry from the boards beneath his boots, the soft creaking of the evening air settling into the joists.
Mohji hovered nearby, shifting from foot to foot as Buggy folded the money into his breast pocket.
The younger man's eagerness was almost palpable, a thin, vibrating thread of nervous energy that Buggy had long since learned to recognize. He’d watched Mohji grow into this role over the years, could still remember the way his knees would almost buckle from how badly they’d shake from nerves. That was nearly a decade ago now, and here they were, falling back into a similar pattern.
Just like back then, Buggy wordlessly handed his props to Mohji now, taking advantage of his former lackey's quiet obedience. At least the younger man could make himself somewhat useful, tidying as he gawked,
The silence stretched, taut and uncomfortable, until Mohji cleared his throat. He froze, side-eyeing Buggy for a response, which, of course, never came. They continued picking up objects in unison, the sound of shifting wood and metal oddly amplified in the quiet stage. Buggy started whistling to himself, a light, meandering tune, just to further overstimulate whatever mental acrobatics were happening in the other’s head. He wondered, briefly, if Mohji’s nerves were worth this much effort—or if it was just the way the boy was built, all anxiety until it came to the misplaced courage he placed in things like lions, and tigers, and bears...
With each passing second, the tension in Mohji’s shoulders grew heavier, as if weighing consequence against reward. He shifted, sighed, and fiddled nervously with his hands, the gesture speaking volumes of his indecision and his carefully rehearsed politeness. Buggy, meanwhile, felt the familiar spark of irritation rise in his chest, tempered only by a grudging amusement at how predictably Mohji carried himself.
Finally, Buggy’s patience gave out, a sharp exhale bordering on a groan escaping him as he spun to face the other man, brandishing the dull end of one of his knives. “Out with it, before I throw something.”
“Well,” Mohji said, suddenly finding the floor fascinating, “Cabaji and I were wondering if maybe – possibly -- you’d let us borrow your cannonballs.”
Buggy stared at him.
“My what.”
Mohji flinched. “The cannonballs. From your old act.”
Buggy couldn’t stop the expression on his face, which was surely utter, unfiltered confusion. Of all the requests... That was what had Mohji acting like he was asking how and where to hide a body?
Buggy rubbed his temple and wondered briefly when he would age enough to stop caring about this nonsense. The thought was fleeting; in reality, Mohji’s earnestness was infuriating and endearing in equal measure.
“I nixed those years ago,” he muttered after a long pause, grabbing his stool and the nearby clubs. He started toward the backstage, putting distance between himself and the lingering foolishness. His cannonballs… He hadn’t even thought of them in the last three or four seasons, and now Mohji was acting like they were his most prized possession?
Mohji followed after him. “I know!” he blurted, feet moving faster than his brain as he stumbled along, nearly tripping twice in his hurry. “That’s why we thought—”
“What pray tell, do you and Cabaji plans to use them for…?” Buggy asked flatly.
“Our act?”
He could not, for the life of him, fathom why Mohji was so nervous about this, nor how he and Cabaji planned to wedge half a dozen thirty-pound iron balls into a shared act between a knife thrower and an exotic animal tamer. Honestly, he didn’t even have the energy to spend on it.
“Not my circus,” Buggy said, waving him off as he set his burdens down. He gave Mohji a final, long once-over before committing fully to the notion that he did not care. “Not my monkey.”
That had been true for years. He’d long ago aged out of babysitting the two younger men. These days, any proximity was enforced only by logistics: overlapping schedules at two of the three festivals he toured annually, and the fact that Mohji and Cabaji still descended on his house every holiday like feral relatives who hadn’t learned boundaries.
He moved over to a large, ornate chest, rifled through it for a moment, then reemerged with one of the cannonballs. He almost tossed it at Mohji—just to keep him humble—but decided the idiot had suffered enough from his own anxieties over the past half-hour.
The way Mohji beamed back at him should have been the second warning.
The inevitable, horrible, preventable outcome arrived in the form of a crack that Buggy himself hadn’t even been there to hear, but that he still felt deep within his soul.
It happened, as he found out later, during rehearsal the following morning.
When he arrived shortly after, coffee in hand, it was to find his stage surrounded by frantic Faire staff, Mohji apologizing loudly, and Cabaji standing very still beside a hole punched clean through the floorboards.
A hole. In his stage.
“Oh,” he said faintly.
Then louder: “Oh.”
Buggy dropped his coffee right on his own feet.
It took several minutes after for him to calm down enough and stop cursing and blaming the two idiots (with staff having to physically hold him back on a few occasions) before he could even hear past the ringing in his own ears.
There had been, according to Faire management, ‘a very unfortunate incident.’
According to Buggy, it was a tragedy. A crime. Possibly even an assassination attempt on the very last shred of sanity that he clung to so, so desperately…
The Big Top stage sat at the far edge of the Faire grounds, tucked beneath a stand of towering oaks whose branches knit together overhead like a vaulted ceiling.
It had once been smaller. Plainer. Forgotten enough to sequester newcomers - a perfect hiding spot for a fledgling performer, like Buggy had been years and years ago.
That was, until he decided to do something about it.
During one off-season, Buggy had widened the sides himself, hauling lumber and cursing all the while, then spent countless hours rigging a canvas backdrop that stretched into a tented canopy overhead. He’d draped the frame in bright banners meant to catch wandering eyes and refuse to let them go. Painted masks now hung from the beams (grinning, leering, solemn) watching the world with knowing eyes. Lanterns trailed from the main path in a crooked, deliberate line, their warm glow luring guests off the thoroughfare and toward what had once been one of the Faire’s most overlooked stages.
The stage was old, its placement far from ideal, but it was his.
He had tuned the boards by ear, memorized every creak and sway beneath his boots, learned exactly where the wood would flex and where it would hold. The stage responded to him like a living thing: temperamental, yes. But it was familiar. Loyal in a way nothing else ever quite was.
And now there was a hole in the center of that.
“We’ve called someone,” one of the stage managers said weakly as he approached, already bracing.
Behind him, Mohji and Cabaji exchanged a glance, faces pale. Mohji’s hands twitched nervously at his sides, while Cabaji stayed unnervingly still, jaw tight, as if willing himself invisible. Both had learned long ago that when Buggy’s eyes burned like that, the world was about to get very small and very loud very, very quickly.
Buggy turned on the stage manager, eyes blazing. “Who?”
The man withdrew half a step, hands lifting as if that might help. “A professional.”
Buggy laughed, high and incredulous. “Oh? I’m sure. Let me guess… This is someone’s cousin, or a guy who built a deck once and now thinks he’s an expert. He’ll slap down a board, tell you it’s ‘good enough,’ and when I break my neck it’ll somehow be my fault.”
Buggy paced the length of the stage, boots thudding dangerously close to the break. “They always do. Do some half-assed patch work while completely ignoring the tension, ignoring the weight or the fact that this stage is meant to withstand movement. And then when I put my foot through it in front of a crowd, it’ll be my fault for being ‘too energetic.’”
He spun back toward the manager. “I am not going to be made responsible, or be forced to give less of a performance, for the sake of bad construction.”
The stage manager swallowed. “We told him it was urgent.”
“Urgent until you cut the first check,” Buggy snapped, pacing a step closer. “And then suddenly we’re cutting corners, or it’s the wrong materials, a rainy day… You’ll get someone who doesn’t listen, doesn’t ask questions, and couldn’t care less about what I’ve—”
He cut himself off, teeth clicking together as he closed his mouth.
Buggy dragged in a sharp breath, then another, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he could physically rein himself in. For a moment, he stared at the boards beneath his boots, willing his pulse to slow.
When he looked up again, his hands swept wide, taking in the beams arching above, the bright banners, the canvas canopy stretched taut overhead.
“This isn’t a bench,” he said, voice tight but controlled. “It’s not a fence. It’s a platform built to take impact - rhythm, timing...” Buggy’s hand cut through the air, precise. “You mess that up, you don’t just end up with a pile of shitty boards nailed together.”
Buggy’s chest rose and fell sharply, his boots scraping lightly against the worn boards as he fought to slow his own breathing. He blinked, forcing the heat from his face, trying to draw the words out of his lungs before they exploded again.
“I’d imagine you’d also end up with a pretty shitty show if done that way,” said a voice behind them.
Buggy nearly jumped out of his boots, a strangled shriek caught in his throat. He whirled around.
At the edge of the stage stood a man he hadn’t noticed before.
He hadn’t announced himself. Hadn’t cleared his throat or made a show of arriving. He simply stood there, tool bag resting against his hip, watching with open interest.
Buggy bristled immediately at the interruption, at the audacity of it, and at the deeply unfair fact that the man was irritatingly good-looking and that this was absolutely not the time…
Tall, broad-shouldered in a way that spoke of labor rather than show. He looked relaxed, hands loose at his side and on his tool bag, entirely unbothered by the sharp attention now pinned on him. His work shirt was rolled back to his elbows, sleeves dusted with sawdust and his skin with sun. A few buttons at the collar were undone, exposing the line of his throat in a way that made Buggy grit his teeth.
Color had always caught Buggy’s eye, but the shade of red in the man’s hair clashed against his tan complexion in a way that was so offensively lovely Buggy nearly resented it on principle. It made him want to punch something. Possibly the man himself. If not for the additional complication that his face was, infuriatingly, kind of lovely too.
Even with the scars.
“If it helps,” the man said gently, an accent curling around his consonants, “I don’t take payment until the work is fully done.”
Buggy’s left eye twitched.
“Excuse me?” he finally snapped, bristling at the intrusion.
“Sorry,” the man added, tone warm and unapologetic, he rested one boot against the bottom step to the deck, sending up a tiny cloud of dust. “I couldn’t help but over hear…”
Buggy stared at him, suspicious. “And you are?”
“Uh,” the man hitched the tool bag higher, “I guess I’m the professional.”
The stage manager let out a breath that sounded like a prayer.
Buggy’s eyes narrowed.
He looked the man up and down – not like he wasn’t checking him out, of course! Just… sizing him up – taking note of the lack of fluster, the easy confidence, the way the man didn’t rush to defend himself or apologize for existing. If anything, he seemed exactly where he belonged, standing there with a tilt to his head that made Buggy’s chest tighten and stomach flip, like the world had simultaneously dropped out from under him and snapped neatly into place.
“Well,” Buggy said coolly, crossing his arms, “you picked an interesting time to show up.”
The man’s smile widened, just a fraction. “I figured it was better to listen first.”
Buggy scoffed. “And?”
“And,” the man said, glancing briefly at the hole in the stage, then back at Buggy, “I think you’re right.”
Buggy blinked.
Once.
“…Don’t agree with me,” Buggy snapped, already forgetting what he was supposed to be right about. “That’s not how this works.”
The man laughed softly, clearly delighted. “Guess I’m off to a rough start, then.” The man went on, “I mean, I can’t promise that it’ll be exactly like you remember it – the new wood will take a little bit to settle in – but, I can give you my word that when I’m done, you won’t even remember it was ever broken.”
Buggy’s chest heaved; his usual fire was still there, but it tangled with something unfamiliar, something that made his jaw ache from clenching.
He blinked, more than once, trying to decide if he should be outraged, suspicious, or… something else entirely.
Buggy crossed his arms, chin lifting. “You get one shot not to make a complete mess, you understand?”
The man inclined his head, still smiling. “Fair enough.”
From the sidelines, Mohji nudged Cabaji, whispering something inaudible, both of them still fixed on like spectators at a match.
Cabaji’s eyebrow lifted just slightly. “Interesting,” he murmured, voice low enough only Mohji could hear. “Looks like this one might actually have a chance of surviving Buggy’s wrath.”
Buggy, meanwhile, clenched his fists, muttering under his breath as he spun sharply on his heel. He left the stage behind: the carpenter, the hole, the whole battered, imperfect platform he had poured himself into. A cold, sharp knot coiled in his chest, pooling into his limbs, and he nearly stumbled over his own feet in his haste to escape whatever the hell had just happened.
And that, truly, should have been all the warning he needed for what came next…