Work Text:
Harlequin yawned, glancing to the side of his bed as he stood up. It was time to head to breakfast unfortunately. Jester expected everyone to eat together and for everyone to have three meals a day.
So the schedule was as follows, at eight in the morning they would all have breakfast together. Then Harlequin would head out with Pierrot to hand out fliers, until twelve pm. When it hit twelve pm, Harlequin and Pierrot would head back to have lunch with the others. Afterwards when they finished eating they would start prepping their shows or if that was done, you were allowed to relax until five pm where everyone was expected to have dinner. Finally the circus would open at six pm until twelve pm and everyone would head to sleep after.
Harlequin rolled out of bed, grumbling to himself as he got ready for the day. Fully dressed now, he pushes through the flaps of the tent he sleeps in.
Harlequin snorts disdainfully under his breath, watching Pierrot walk by his tent. although not that it matters with monsters enhanced hearing. Point proven by Pierrot whipping around with a glare at him, how sensitive. He snickers a little bit of glee filling his morning now.
He walks out of the tent feeling smug and he whistles a little happy tune as he walks by the still form of Pierrot glaring at him.
He walks into a side tent of the black one. This tent, the black one he means, is primarily used for other monsters as a sort of restaurant.
The fools under Jester’s cook elaborate feasts for the other monsters who pay for meals they don't have to hunt for. It is that main reason they are a circus after all, easy access for meat to others of their kind. It's hard in these modern times for any self respecting monsters to hunt humans with all the new fancy cameras and other security.
The side tent of the black tent is purely for the employees, of course meaning just the cast not the fools. Everyone gathers here early in the morning for breakfast and drinking coffee or whatever other disgusting concoction. Looking at Pierrot and Doctor for that both of them have… questionable tastes. Unlike those two, Harlequin has the self respect to drink coffee like the other normal people in this family of his, which are of course dear Bil and Jester.
He glances at Bil and Jester drinking coffee and reading newspapers. Where do they even get the newspapers is the real question. Then another glance to Doctor shows him drinking some glittering pink substance that looks bioluminescent. Harlequin grimaces and looks away, he really does not want to know what is in that..
The others briefly look up at him before turning back to their own things as he begins to make his own coffee. He pours himself a cup from the coffee pot. Adding a random amount of sugar and creamer to spice up his day.
Pierrot finally stalks inside the tent, with narrowed eyes as he heads to the kitchen to make breakfast.
~~~~
It's been over thirty minutes now and Pierrot has brought out a beautiful assortment of items. From what he's aware Pierrot does a lot of prep food so everything is just a grab and make in a few minutes. It's truly impressive, not that he's impressed by any means! but others are of course impressed.
While monsters are obligated carnivores they still enjoy vegetables, it's mostly due to digestion being easier with fiber from the plants. Every carnivore still eats plants for digestion if you have never noticed. Wolves, dogs, and cats all eat grass because it's good for digestion and it's the same way for monsters.
Although almost everything on the table still contains or is human meat. Meat pies, human bacon pancakes. I think everyone can get the gist of it.
Everyone begins to pile their plates full of food, there weren't any non-meat options today unfortunately.
Now looking at all the beautifully prepared meat dishes that Pierrot made looks just downright disgusting. He couldn't bear to look at it.
However there wasn't much Harlequin could do. Especially with Jester glaring at him to make sure he eats his plate.
Harlequin takes his first bite. The taste of metal hit him immediately. How he HATED… being a carnivore.
It didn't matter that the meat he was forced to eat was from humans, all it did.. was remind him of that day. Her cries of pain as he tore into her. He can feel the urge to gag increase but he ignores it as best as he can.
Meat disgusted him. But it was the main part of his diet. Squishy disgusting fleshy bits of meat, how grotesque. Once again he was envious of the omnivorous humans and herbivore animals.
Now with the first bite down the harlequin throat. Jester loses his interest in watching him eat and moves his gaze to everyone else to make sure they are eating before taking his first bite.
How he wishes he was one of those people with dogs. Pierrot was already enough of a dog of course but it was so easy to sneak food off his plate onto the ground. A dog would be great to clean it up.
Fortunately he found his roundabouts. There's nothing a man would do to get his way, everyone should know. So Harlequin, the smart guy he knows he is, stitched a secret compartment on his pants. He would use his fork and eat casually as the others talked. But he would use his smallest tendrils to slip up onto the table and snatch the food, hiding it.
Of course he wasn't one to waste food. That would truly be disgusting behavior, if he says so himself. Even if food wasn't as scarce as it used to be for him… it still hit a sore spot to see waste.
He would take the scraps for wildlife. There were many different types of small and big carnivorous beasts that he liked to feed. Little birds, bears, dogs, cats, whatever he could find. So yes he may have contributed to some random findings of people cutting open a bear and finding a hand.
It was funny, okay? He always got a good laugh out of it. Although it was always a little nerve wreaking, not that he's nervous of course. But watching Ticket Taker or Jester reading the daily news with furrowed brows, noticing that they were in the town currently or previously that it happened, was how to say it.. uncanny? Not the right word but, whatever.
Finally seeing that his plate was empty, he silently gets up to escape from the tent with 3 out of 4th of his plate hiding in his pants. He would like to mention that he used plastic bags to make sure Noone smelt it on his clothes. While he was a monster, he was not an unclean beast.
~~~~~
Jester lets out a quiet sigh as he watches Harlequin walk away from the tent. He knows that Harlequin doesn't think anyone notices, but they have all noticed.
Pierrot had increased the amount of human meat in all their meals trying to get as much of the much needed nutrients into Harlequins body as he could.
Doctor had been playing extensively with figuring out what the needed component of human meat was and if he could just turn it into a vegan form.
Bil would make sure Harlequin arrived at every meal, sometimes Harlequin would try to hide away and excuse it as being unable to remember the time. So he needed to be reminded to come.
Jester made sure he ate at least some food. It was a dreadful cycle. What a cruel world for a carnivore.
~~~~~~~~
Where do Ticket taker and Jester get their morning newspapers?
Bil likes to wake up earlier than everyone else at six am in the morning. He enjoys his first cup of coffee in the morning sitting outside in the breeze. Quite peaceful from the usual terror or nightmare of budgeting for all of the cast.
Sighing he stands up and walks out of the gate, not many people awake. See it's always good to learn about the city or town you are in. So he's headed to get a newspaper this morning. He's of course wearing his human disguise with the finest of clothes.
Now here lies the issue.You have to sign up with a post office to get a newspaper in the morning. Therefore Bil… has to resort to stealing the newspaper. He's never found much resistance in it thankfully.
Although, he can't help but remember the time an old lady ran out of her house… swinging her purse at him. What a shameful sight it must have been. One man being chased by an old woman. How humiliating.
His only luck was that it was too early in the morning for any of his coworkers to see him be hit with a purse…. Well he also got her newspapers.
If anyone found out… he would have to silence them. No one can know about this.