Chapter Text
There was a new crack in your ceiling.
This wasn’t necessarily anything out of the ordinary, your apartment was never anything extraordinary; it was just the first place you found with an astonishingly low rent price. For $500 a month this place could be a crack house for all you cared. Sure, the low price meant the place wasn’t exactly top of the line–hence the newly formed crack in your ceiling–but in this economy, you’d make this crack house a crack home.
Whatever, as long as it didn’t start leaking, you’d deal with it. Aka, you'd complain to your useless dick of a landlord about the damages until he did something about it. This strategy had yet to work, but given the frustrated groan you got out of him when you ranted about how your balcony door lock was still broken, you were certain he was going to break before you did.
Though that’d be a future you problem, right now– present you had to lock in. You turned over and with the momentum of said turn flopped your arm right onto your desk. It was sore, incredibly so. Actually there was a throbbing, dull pain that seemed to be radiating from a specific area known as your entire body. Slightly concerning, but you ignored that as you took your phone off the charger and gazed at the time. 7 am, you woke up around ten minutes before your alarm.
“Good job me,” you mumbled to yourself as you forced yourself to get up and out of bed–holy fffuuuuck getting up hurt, so did breathing for some reason–before you could succumb once more to the sweet temptation of sleep. Your apartment was freezing, you guessed it was an especially cold morning. Sleep once more sung its lustful temptations in your ear, beckoning you to embrace the warmth of your bed sheets and the softness of a pillow. But no, you refused the allure. You would, in fact, say no to this.
God you were so cringe, you’re glad you didn’t have any roommates who could’ve witnessed you staring longingly at your bed for around 30 seconds before going into the bathroom.
Though your apartment was cold and your bathroom was even colder it felt nice, especially with how sore your body was.
Speaking of.
You stumbled onto the small step stool in front of your bathroom mirror, allowing you to get a look at your body head to toe. You didn’t waste time “admiring” yourself, you already knew you wouldn’t like what you found so what was the point. Though you would have to look at your body for an extended period of time but it’s fine, you could handle it this time.
There was nothing visible on your face other than the usual bags under your eyes, same for your neck and collarbone. Good, that was one good thing at the very least, though that luck was quickly turned around when– in trying to take a breath of relief– before a small groan left you instead. There was–it could maybe be called a sharp sting, but, honestly it felt more like you just had just gotten stabbed by a big ass bee right under your left armpit.
You knew you got hit hard last night, but surely it wasn’t that hard?
Raising your arm– holy fuck that hurt, nevermind you weren’t doing that. You instead carefully maneuvered your right arm to where the pain was emanating. You pressed gently over the area, increasing the pressure incrementally until you started feeling uncomfortable stinging then pressed further until that hot sensation of hurt hit your neurons. Which, you didn’t have to press especially hard until it did so; that may have been just ever so slightly concerning. Also probably meant something was at best bruised and at worst pulverized and would leave you dead in around 10 minutes.
Which meant like any reasonable person you took the most logical course of action: fumbling into your bedroom, kneeling carefully to reach your good arm under your bed and blindly grasping around until you found your small box of wondrous items. You popped it open and gazed at the many small, orange bottles inside rifling through which one you’d need. You had a lot of work to do today and you’d really like to not be in pain the whole day so, hydrocodone acetaminophen it was! You popped a pill into your mouth and swallowed, taking care to properly close the bottle and place the small box back under your bed.
Alright, time for the rest of your morning routine.
You managed to brush your teeth, wash your face, and get dressed for work (with some minor difficulties) before the pain in your left side felt gone. You’d have to thank Carol once you got to work for getting you these pills. Speaking of work, by the time you buttoned up your shirt and checked the time it was already 7:30. You had to be out of the apartment in ten minutes if you wanted to get to work by 8 which means no breakfast for you.
Despite the shitty morning of pain and suffering, you decided to not spend the remaining time scrolling your phone and instead threw all your shit into your bag, put your shoes on, grabbed a coat from your couch and headed out the door. Sure, your morning was shitty but that didn’t mean your whole day had to be. You’d strive to have a regular day, dealing with your regular shitty ass customers.
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You were pretty sure the circus might have been in town; though, it was just an inkling of a feeling. That was your first thought when you exited your apartment and got hit in the face with a flyer for the circus in town. No hyperbole there, it hit you literally in the face; the wind smacked it against your unsuspecting eyes and tried to smother you to death with paper. It was an embarrassingly long thirty five second fight against a piece of paper that was trying its best to choke you. You peeled it off and crushed your foe in the tight grip of your hand: another day, another fearsome battle won.
God, you were so cringe. Thank whatever god above or below that no one saw that. Or could hear your internal monologue. Anyways.
You had admittedly heard whispers from some customers yesterday that apparently a circus was coming to town but you didn’t expect them to set up so quickly, nor market so quickly either. The streets were littered with people and posters alike; crowding together and creating the lively symphony of what you now called home.
You weaved through the crowd quickly and only with some difficulty, one of the many disadvantages in living in a city where apparently everyone was tall as hell. Seriously, you were starting to think you were the only person under 5’5 here.
The concrete sidewalks you followed to work were as familiar to you as the hustle and bustle all around you. So many people packed into one place, one city, all living in the same space but with wildly different stories. It reminded you faintly of a conversation Carol and you had on one of many of your slow days.
There was supposedly something special about cities, cramming a bunch of people in a space filled with opportunity and chances gave birth to an entity of its own right. A large scale organism of its own right, that's what Carol had said.
She loved cities, swore that once she got enough money to move away from this one she’d move to another one just bigger, better, and brighter.
You lifted your gaze up as you walked to catch the sun rising, rays struggling to weave in between any space and the large scale buildings to blind people. The air smelled faintly of fog and despite all the towering heights and glittering lights, you never really understood that passion Carol held for places. While she loved the fact they were filled with people you could tolerate others at best.
The cold wind pelted your face as you headed to work. Ugh, the weather changed so drastically though you supposed it was just that time of the year. You’d be bundled up freezing your ass off in the morning and dying from the sweltering heat by the end of the day. Admittedly not ideal but you still held onto hope for a normal, no more bullshit day.
“Hey get out of here you freak!”
Goddamn it.
A sharp interruption in the regular symphony a city produced and brought you back to reality. You glanced over to see a man in the middle of the street intersection standing over a–a clown? You were pretty sure that the person on the ground was one, must be from the circus.
The clown had some papers (probably flyers) hanging loosely from their hands and scattered all around them. The guy above him kept on yelling, screaming at the clown hurtling just insult after insult.
“You fucking freak! My son went missing yesterday, your damn circus is probably why!”
“Go back to whatever hellhole you came out of!”
You looked at the clown, waiting for them to do something but all they did was stay on the ground. It was a pathetic scene honestly, some guy just yelling at a worker clearly just trying to do his job all because his son probably ran away from home or something.
The guy would probably lose interest after a minute or two of yelling before huffing off. You could continue walking, be on your day and go to work and at least strive for a normal day. That’s what everyone else around you was doing, they barely even spared a glance at what was happening in front of them.
They minded their own business, either too busy or too scared to intervene.
Well, they were blocking the intersection you had to cross in order to get to work and considering that you only had another 10 minutes left you didn’t really wanna have to make a detour by going across.
You were going to have to walk straight past this debacle and that point, it’d be better to step in and deal with it yourself if the clown had no plans to.
It was a hassle, having to throw away your hopes for a normal day in the trash but honestly this situation was more of a hassle overall. Stepping in would just be the lesser of two evils.
“Hey,” you walked right between the man and the clown, looking straight up and into the guy's eyes “leave ‘em alone man, he’s literally just a worker.”
The man startled a little, clearly baffled that someone would confront him. That reaction scraped at something deep in your chest, it made your head burn a little but you could ignore it for now. Especially since his surprise transitioned right back into outrage, now directed at you.
“You–You’re defending this freak?!”
“I mean yeah, he’s just a guy tryin’ to do his job and you’re yellin’ at him for literally no reason.”
Oh the guy did not like that, you watched his face turn red and his hands curl into balls. He took a step closer to you, forcing you to tilt your head back a little further in order to keep eye contact.
“They took my son–”
“Oh of course,” you cut him off with a snicker, scoffing at the man, “blame the clown for your bad parenting instead of doing some actual reflection. I can see why your son disappeared with a father like you.”
The guy raised his fist as if that were going to do anything to intimidate you. His hand was curled with his thumb inside of his fist instead of outside, plus the way he raised his arm lacked any proper technique and his other side was completely open as well. You smiled at him, tilting your head.
“You’re like twice my height and weight, and you think punching me, an innocent woman over some words is the best idea?” You glanced around you, keeping an eye on the man just in case he decided to do anything stupid. “You’d get the cops called on you in an instant, dumbass.”
The guy was completely red in the face but judging by the way he lowered his fist, he saw the logic in your words. He huffed, glaring into your eyes and you steadfastly held his gaze.
“I hope they take you too, bitch.” He bumped your left shoulder (ow) and stomped past you. You watched him disappear into the crowd before letting out a sigh. Well, you’ve probably made an enemy for life and also your shoulder kinda stings now. What a great Tuesday you were having.
“Asshole.” You muttered to the air where the guy stood before leaning down to grab some of the flyers that were scattered. People had trampled all over them in the meantime, leaving them rumpled and slightly dirty but otherwise usable. Honestly, did people have no sense or object permanence or was it just a complete lack of respect for whatever was in their way, too caught up in their own lives to care about what was happening around them?
You turned around, offering the stack of crumpled papers to the fallen clown. “Here, kinda messed up but it’s better than nothin’.”
Said clown didn’t do anything, you guessed he was still recovering from the shock of what happened. You let yourself finally get a good look at him: he was wearing a red, black, and gold clown suit that despite being slightly scuffed up because of the earlier tussle, wasn’t like anything you’d seen before. Though admittedly you didn’t know a whole lot about clowns to begin with so maybe you were unintentionally enforcing clown stereotypes.
Every inch of skin was covered besides his silver hair and his face, maybe? You knew the bone white couldn’t be his actual skin tone though you weren’t sure if he was just wearing a full face of makeup or a mask which was scuffed on the left cheek. It all contrasted pretty nicely with his eyes, an admittedly pretty golden color that were still stuck gazing right at you.
Well, this was getting awkward incredibly quickly. You were kinda just here now, staring into a clown's eyes with your hand extended offering a stack of flyers. What a batshit turn your day had taken. You’d make sure to tell Carol and Boss about once this fucking guy did anything besides staring at you–
Suddenly the clown bolted upwards– holy shit this guy was tall– with a large grin on his face (so not a mask unless it was a really good one) as he quickly took the flyers from your hands. His head was craned down to look at you in a way you were sure could not be comfortable. Though, that was not the most pressing matter to address currently.
“What the hell?! You’re like, huge! You did not need me to step in to stop that guy!” Listen, you barely wanted to help this literal clown in the first place! You only did so because the commotion was blocking your easiest way to work, but this guy could have easily avoided this confrontation with intimidation alone!
“I am like half your size and I managed to stop him but with all that size you should be able to defend yourself. You can’t always count on others to step up for you!”
The clown seemed to at least be listening to your impromptu scolding at the very least, holding his flyers close to his chest and nodding along to every word you spoke. His bells also gently jingled with each nod too, a detail that made your chest hurt. Probably just leftover pain from when the asshole shoulder checked you.
“Honestly how you got into this situation I have no idea, just kick his ass next time.” You sighed, eyes tracing back to the scuff mark on his cheek once more.
You grumbled out some more ‘advice’ to him as you scoured your bag for– c’mon where is it you know you had one– ah! There it is!
“Here, it’s a bandaid.” Carol had gotten you two entire kits of cat themed first aid equipment. You don’t know how she found cat themed first aid equipment to begin with but it was the bane of your existence nonetheless. You’d get your coworker back for it one day, when she least expected it.
But it was admittedly useful to carry bandaids around for situations like this. Didn’t change the fact you hated it but, whatever.
“It’s kinda stupid looking but that’s what you get for being so dumb, so it fits.” The clown didn’t react to your words, just took the bandaid from your hands with that same dumb grin plastered on his face.
Could he just not speak or was it all part of whatever act he had? Well it wasn’t important–not like you cared either way. You spent way too long here and if you lingered any longer you were going to be late for work.
“Make sure to clean the wound first before putting it on! I gotta go now, so you stay outta trouble!” You walked away with a brisk pace, catching a slight glimpse of the clown giving you a small wave as he faded into the distance.
Well this was a contender for top 5 weirdest morning you’ve had and it was only 8am.
This was going to be a long ass day.
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The door to the cafe jingled its familiar tune as you entered, surprisingly only a minute late. Though you didn’t have time to bask in the fact as you noticed the sheer amount of customers filling the place. Morning rush was always the worst.
You made your way through the crowd of people until you reached the counter where Carol was taking customers' orders. She barely gave you a glance as you put on your apron and tied it around your waist, handing you the customers cup before turning to take the next one's order.
The next two hours were nothing but pure work: taking orders, making drinks, delivering food, stocking, cleaning. It was a familiar chaos now but when you first began to work here you wanted to cry. Carol and the Boss helped you through and now you got through these rushes with little to no panic.
Eventually the rush slowly died down into the usual lull of comfortability, a couple of patrons still lingered around the place enjoying their food and drinks. You checked your station and took note of what you needed to stock up on. Mostly caramel, oat milk, and matcha.
Before that though.
“Good morning, Caroline.”
Carol glanced over at with such a straight faced expression you couldn’t help but let out a laugh.
“Go restock, firestarter.”
“I didn’t mean too– I hope you drop your next customer's drinks.”
Carol and you weren’t necessarily friends, you two didn’t really hang outside of work, but you weren’t strangers either. She was reliable if a bit too serious at times, but from what you knew of her home life with her less than great mother– you let it slide. She was still your favorite coworker by process of elimination, even if she could be a pain in the ass when making fun of you.
“Honestly I should report a case of harassment to the Boss.” You grabbed your supplies and started restocking as Carol wiped down the counters. The conversation lulled there as you two focused on your tasks, nothing but the occasional chatter of patrons and the music over the speakers filling the space.
Were you too direct or did Carol just not feel like talking anymore? Not that it mattered either way but you didn’t really want to get Carol mad, she always hit you with the silent treatment and it was inconvenient to have the person you work with everyday mad at you.
“Speakin’ of the Boss,” you smoothly revived the conversation after a minute of silence, “do you know where he is? Usually he’s around here naggin’ us to do shit like drink water or whatever.”
That got a slight chuckle out of Carol–it was always such a hassle to make her laugh or get any genuine smile on her face. Someone as naturally funny as you even had to put in work.
“He said he was going to scout out the circus, he was curious if they were going to be a problem for business or not.”
Huh, you… you guessed that made sense? Though you don’t know any normal person who’d rather go to a circus everyday for food instead of an actual establishment.
“Are you thinking about checking it out? The circus?”
You paused for a moment to think about it: were you? So far the two encounters you had with said circus was an attempted murder attempt by flyer and defending a clown. Plus you weren’t a fan of experiencing horrors, not willingly anyways.
“Probably not? At least most likely not soon, maybe in like a week or so I’ll check it out.”
Carol nodded at that answer, gazing out into the now empty Cafe. “I’m thinking the same thing. We could even go together if you want.”
Huh, that was new. Not bad new, not that you thought, but new nonetheless. You felt warm, must be the temperature outside finally increasing to kill you all. Climate change was very real after all, so you turned away from Carol so she couldn’t see your inevitable demise play out.
“I-I mean if you’re so afraid of clowns that you can’t go alone, I guess I could accompany you.”
Carol laughed once more, how dare she find humor in your offer to protect her from the circus of obvious horror. You almost turned around to argue but after a huff you let it go. She should be lucky you owed her for the pills and that you were feeling merciful today.
“Why thank you my loyal knight,” Carol teased, jokes on her though because knights were cool as hell so you took that as a compliment, “now can you run this food while I clean?”
You gave her a salute as you grabbed a couple of plates and began delivering them to tables. It was actually getting harder, the sun seeming to amplify its heat as it beamed through the windows like it had beef with you specifically. Luckily there was a persistent shadow that followed you while serving food and making idle conversation with the customers.
The rest of the day progressed slowly though not torturously, the two of you bantering and enjoying the occasional silence that laid in between your chatter. It was the usual but it felt a little different this time, a little more lighthearted than usual.
The Boss didn’t come back which wasn’t anything too concerning. Sometimes he disappeared for a day or two but he’d always come back, plus, he was a tough guy. He could handle his own.
You and Carol could handle yourselves at the Cafe as well, it’s why the Boss never hired anyone other than you two. That and the fact that more shifts meant more money which the two of you desperately needed.
Eventually Carol’s shift came to a close at 8, though she stayed till 9 to help you with the closing duties. You had of course told her you didn’t need the help, you could close fine all on your own…
(Carol had been gone for 10 minutes longer than her break lasted. You hadn’t taken yours yet, though it wouldn’t have mattered since you didn’t pack a lunch anyways.
She probably was just spacing out or taking a breather, which you didn’t mind but you just wanted to make sure she wasn’t dead or something. Dealing with that paperwork would’ve been terrible.
You glanced around quickly to make sure no sudden customer was going to pop up and demand something of you before you opened the door and peaked into the back.
Carol was there, sitting on one of the few untouched boxes of supplies the Boss had ordered and had yet to unpack. She was talking on her phone, hunched over with one hand gripping her knee. Her hair was covering her face so you couldn’t exactly see her expression.
“Mom no— no I do mean it I just didn’t… I’m just sick and tired of us fighting all the time! If you could just listen to me–!”
There was a pause for a long while after that.
“Yes, yes ma’am. I-I understand.”
The last thing you saw was Carol let go of her knee to enclose her hand a fist before you slowly walked back to register.)
…but if she insisted on helping you then you wouldn’t say no to an extra pair of hands. The sooner you could go home and rot in bed, the better.
“Do you need someone to walk back with you?” You asked Carol as she was in the middle of clocking out, leaning around the oven to get a better look at her. “I don’t feel like going through the process of training a new hire if you get kidnapped or whatever."
Carol shook her head, grabbing her purse as she headed for the door. “No I’m fine, though thanks for the offer. Honestly I think I’d be pretty happy if someone kidnapped me about now, it’d basically be a free vacation.”
“Don’t even joke about that, get home safe and try not to get kidnapped.” Carol just shrugged and you sighed, opening the oven and wrapping the chocolate croissant you had heated up. You slid it over to Carol and she stared at it for a moment before looking at you in surprise, clearly in shock from your act of kindness.
“I’m surprised you didn’t start another fire.”
Nevermind, you hope Carol got murdered in some back alley. “Just take the damn thing and go! I’ll see ya tomorrow.”
Carol chuckled–three in one day, a world record— before waving at you. “Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The bell jingled and with that, Carol was gone. You watched her walk off and disappear into the night, keeping an eye on her till it was physically impossible to see her. Once she was out of sight your shoulders slumped, well you’d have to power off and clean the oven again but it was fine. The chances of anyone coming through at this hour were low and as long as nothing disastrous happened, you could probably be outta here in twenty minutes.
“Welp, time to get started.” You dusted off your apron and clapped your hands, ready to do anything to get out of here early.
Which is the exact moment the door bell jingled its death knell.
“Sorry we’re–”
Then the lights turned off.
“God fuckin dammit.”
The Cafe was plunged into complete darkness and you stood there for a moment in said darkness, just contemplating life. Though you quickly fumbled for your phone remembering that there was a person who just entered here and was also probably scared shitless that the lights just randomly turned off.
“Oh shoot, my bad! We have a kind of finicky breaker but I assure you nothing’s wrong,” you fished out your phone and quickly turned on your flashlight, “don’t wor–”
There was no one there.
You looked around, just double checking cause you swear you heard the jingle of the bell and yep, no one.
Hm.
You walked over to the other side of the bar, and grabbed the knife that you’d usually cut lemons with. Once that was done you looked around, triple checking that there was in fact no one there.
“Hey uh, if someone’s breakin’ in here to rob the place or whatever, can you at least wait till I close?”
No response. Well, you tried your best.
“Okay then. If you jumpscare me just know I’ll stab the shit outta ya.” You headed over to the breaker behind the bar, setting your phone behind you so that way the flashlight illuminated you back and you could see the wires in the breaker. You glanced every once in a while at the floor as you attempted to reset the breaker, remembering the instructions the Boss gave you.
A couple moments later, the lights flickered on and before you could even let out a sigh of relief the door bell jingled once again.
“Oh my god we’re– OH WHAT THE HELL!”
You jumped back a little because one: the clown you had encountered a couple hours ago was now here in front of you.
Two: the clown you encountered a couple of hours ago was also bleeding profusely from the forehead.
“What the hell?! How?! Did you get jumped?!”
The clown tilted its head, seemingly not bothered by your outburst and instead looking at the knife you still held in your hands. You quickly put it down without a second thought, pointing at the bar. “Take a seat you dumbass, honestly I haven’t even known you for a day and somehow you’ve been beat up twice. Did nothin’ I said earlier get through to you?”
You quickly snatched your bag and grabbed the gauze and gauze tape you had stored in there. Technically the Cafe itself had a first aid kit you could’ve used, but those were filled with regular supplies and not cat themed ones.
Not that you liked the cat theme ones, but stupid people got stupid prizes and this clown was proving to be quite stupid.
You turned and said clown was leaning against the bar, a pink flush spreading across his face and a dopey smile on his lips. Oh god, he was losing a lot more blood than you thought to be this out of it.
You grabbed a stool–because even sitting down this guy was still freakishly tall– and wet a paper towel you had nearby to clean the blood from his forehead. You gently wiped the blood away, red becoming a light pink on the watered towel. You examined his forehead closely, looking for the wound. You couldn’t see it, though it might have been too small to see or hidden by his hair.
“Honestly, how do you end up in these situations?” You muttered under your breath, the slight shaking of bells and shoulders were enough to indicate that the clown had the audacity to laugh at you.
You pulled back to glare at him before he leaned in, hands positioned on either side of the counter that you were practically bent over; he was so close you could feel him inhale against your ear. “I apologize for the offense, my liege, I did not intend to inconvenience you.”
Woah. Okay. Not the voice you expected to come out of this guy. You leaned away from him, just a little to focus back on placing the gauze. Did the AC break in here too, why was it so warm all of a sudden??
“Oh you’re um, fine I guess. Just try to be careful, who knows if I’m going to fix you up again!” You reached for a strand of silver hair, pushing it out of the way and placing a piece of gauze with a bunch of cat patterns across his forehead. “Is it like a performance thing– not speaking?”
“You are quick to catch on. I do not speak in public, my liege, though allowances are passed for special occasions such as these.”
Well that added a tone of context to your first encounter earlier. You leaned back, admiring your medicinal skill. While you were no specialist you’ve sustained enough wounds in your lifetime to know how to deal with them on your own.
The sight of this insanely tall clown adorned in bright pink cat bandages was absurd enough to get a chuckle out of you. Everything with this guy was weird in a way you weren’t used to, and you had seen some weird shit.
“Well I think you should be all patched up and I gotta get home.” You glanced at the clock and eugh, yeah it was almost 10. This little encounter ate up a lot more time than you were expecting. “Ugh I’m just gonna run the auto cleaner on the oven, I’m too tired.”
The clown said nothing, nor made any notion of moving so the two of you stood in awkward silence for a bit. W-Why was he not going? You had to close soon before it got any later, who knew what might happen too late out at night–
Oh.
Was that why he was still here? Was he too afraid to walk back on his own? This clown seemed extremely prone to attracting people’s ire and who knew what’d happen if he walked back on his own. You didn’t want all your hard efforts patching this guy up to be wasted on nothing.
“Why don’t you stay around for a bit, at least until I finish closing? Honestly I feel like if I take my eyes off you then you’re gonna get jumped.”
“Then you should keep your eyes on me at all times, my liege.”
“Hm?”
The clown’s smile only grew wider as he shook his head, the bells attached to him making jingling noises with the movement. It was a… sight, to say the least. A sight that made you very angry for some reason.
Weird emotional response but you didn’t have the time nor energy to unpack that now or ever, so into the suppression box it went!
With that settled you went over to the oven and quickly put it into self cleaning mode, it would need a deep cleaning tomorrow but you’d deal with it tomorrow. For now, you just wanted to go to sleep.
You began to spray down the counter you were just on, which didn’t take lon. Honestly everything probably took seven minutes max, and it probably wouldn’t have felt long at all if it weren’t for the fact the clown was staring at you. Just big, bright golden eyes gazing directly into your direction and examining every single move you made.
You could spray the cleaner straight into those eyes– and okay that was enough of that thought process! You really needed to go to bed, also take another pill because your arm was starting to ache again. You finished your work in relative silence before turning to the clown once you were officially done.
Was it disrespectful to keep referring to him as ‘the clown’? This was your second encounter and given how trouble prone the guy seemed to be, it felt like you were going to be seeing a lot more of him in the future. That thought caused another wave of hot anger to go through you before you shoved it right back down. You were not getting angry about this. Literally the only thing you had to do was ask for the guy's name, and you’d be done for the day. You could do that, easy.
“Clown.” You pointed a finger at him. “Name, now.”
Holy hell above and heaven below what was that?! Did the demons of past 10pm social skills possess you? You were so glad Carol wasn’t here, otherwise she’d be unabashedly taking amusement from your ineptitude.
Though the clown didn’t seem to take your brusqueness personally, just tilted his head as his smile grew wider. “I am the Pierrot, my liege. It is an honor to make your acquaintance.”
“Good, I’m–”
“I already know your name, my liege.”
Hm. Concerning. You slowly began reaching for the knife again.
“How?”
He pointed a gloved claw (who added claws to their gloves???) at your chest and you looked down to see–ah, your nametag. Yeah that made more sense, your hands rest on your hips instead.
“Well then Pierrot,” he straightened and shivered a little as you spoke but you ignored it, “I have an offer for you. I gotta go home and I can’t keep an eye on you the entire time. So: stay outta trouble until tomorrow night. If you manage that, you can come here at closin’, and I’ll make you a free drink! Deal?”
This was stupid but you prayed that it would work. You were just really tired and you wanted to go home and you didn’t feel like walking this guy back to whenever the hell he was staying and–
And… was he having a stroke?
His body was hunched over as his hands clutched the red and black fabric of his suit right over where his heart was. Though his face was covered by his hair, what you could see of his face was a concerningly dark red. He seemed to be struggling to breathe, panting and letting out noises that sounded like dying balloon animals.
“Oh god don’t die here I put so much effort into patchin’ you up and it’s gonna be so much paperwork–”
“I’MFINE!!” Pierrot shot up, eyes wide before he turned away from you to let out a rather loud and painful sounding round of coughs. He raised a hand in a placating manner once he was finished with his coughing. “I’m fine, my liege, I swear. I accept your deal, I shall stay out of trouble as you’ve commanded!”
“Oookay good, cause I’m genuinely not going to patch you up next time this happens. I mean that.” Pierrot just nods his head, bells jingling rapidly.
“Alright, now get outta my shop for real, gotta lock up. Get home safe, don’t get beat up again or I’m kickin’ your ass personally!”
Pierrot just smiled at your serious threats as he got up and walked toward the door. “Then I shall see you tomorrow, my liege.”
You watched him walk off and once he was gone, your shoulders relaxed. “What a weirdo, can’t believe I got spooked by him. He’s like a puppy.”
An overgrown puppy who seemed like a bit of a pushover, but a puppy nonetheless. You began closing up shop again working quickly as a wave of exhaustion washed over you once more.
☆ ★ ⋆｡°✩☆★⋆｡°✩★ ｡°⋆★✩☆｡°⋆★✩
You stumbled into your apartment, kicking off your shoes by the door before locking it. It’s been a long ass, weird ass day.
You didn’t even feel like showering nor getting dinner, those felt like too much energy actions for you. Instead you quickly shucked off your outerwear, put on your pajamas, wrapped your hair and barely managed to brush your teeth before heading into bed.
You did take another pill, dry swallowing it as you turned on the TV for background noise to fall asleep too. You wanted to do some training tonight but with everything that happened today, it could wait until tomorrow.
You wanted to think more about all the weird shit that happened today, to process any of it emotionally like a probably healthy person would do. Carol, the Boss, the Circus and its hostility, even Pierrot.
The moment your head the pillow though you were practically out like a light, the rapid thoughts swirling around in your head becoming a muddled record of events.
Well, this was definitely one of your weirder days. Hopefully the week wouldn’t get any stranger than this.