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rsadelleOne of my bingo squares is circus. I wrote much of the story, including both the very last scene and the important to my idea about this story scene, but I'm not going to finish it, so here it is, [SOMETHING GOES HERE] brackets and all.
Warning: Past death of Mike's family.
Warning: Past death of Mike's family.
In the world of the circus, the Jonas Brothers were royalty. They had a family acrobatics act that was one of the draws of the show, and they were good enough that they'd moved up from one circus to another until they'd settled in with the [CIRCUS NAME].
Mike was a grunt. He helped set up the tent, hauled stuff around, did whatever else he was told to do, most of which involved manual labor. Mike was slightly more important than the guys who mucked out the animal carts.
There was no reason for Kevin Jonas to bring his lunch over and sit down across from Mike, unless it was a misplaced act of rebellion. If he really wanted to rebel against his family, he'd be over with the clowns; they were a rowdy bunch. Mike drank when there was beer around, but he mostly kept his head down and stayed out of trouble.
He'd had enough of trouble, and now preferred the quiet excitement of circus life.
Mike looked at Kevin, hoping that his expression would convey the appropriate level of questioning.
"Someone said you play guitar," Kevin said.
It was something Kevin would have known if the great Jonas Brothers ever hung out with the little people. That wasn't entirely fair; they were always unfailingly polite to everyone; they just didn't make friends outside their family.
"Yes." Mike didn't play the way he used to, before he joined the circus, but he still had a guitar, and he would bring it out when he was missing his life before or when the crew was sitting around with instruments.
"Could you teach me?"
Mike snorted. "You going to play while tumbling through the air?"
There was a flash of something, annoyance maybe, across Kevin's face, and then he said, polite as ever, "This isn't for the act. I just want to learn."
He seemed entirely sincere.
Mike weighed the joy he would get out of sharing his music with someone against the potential trouble that could come from doing anything with one of the Jonases.
"Okay," he agreed.
Kevin beamed at him, the same smile Mike had seen him give the audience at the end of a particularly difficult tumbling pass.
*
Between Kevin's practice schedule and Mike's work, they only managed to eke out enough time for lessons about twice a week, if that. Mike was surprised to find Kevin an eager student, but not surprised that he showed up when he said he would.
They weren't really trying to hide it, although Mike didn't know what, exactly, Kevin had told his family, but they usually tried to schedule lessons at times no one would be around. Sometimes they met outside, in whatever space there was in whatever town they were in, and sometimes they met in the trailer Mike shared with Charlie, one of the other grunts.
It was Charlie who asked him once, after he came in just as Kevin was leaving, "You really think it's a good idea to get mixed up with a Jonas?"
Mike shrugged. "Not really, but he asked for guitar lessons." What he didn't tell Charlie was that what he thought was most unwise about it was the way teaching someone to play reminded him of a life he didn't have anymore.
*
Kevin liked to talk, and Mike didn't mind listening, which was how Mike found out that Kevin was more than just some guy who did acrobatics with the rest of his family.
"I think I want to go to college," Kevin said one afternoon, his head bent over the guitar. Mike didn't say anything, and Kevin looked up after a while. "Have you ever wanted to do anything other than the circus?"
Mike thought about playing guitar while Bill sang and Adam played bass, about swimming, about choosing extracurriculars he liked but that would also look good on a college application.
He said, "Yeah," and then, "That's supposed to be a D," and they got back to work.
*
Mike had been working with Kevin for a couple of months when they set up the tent on the outskirts of Chicago. Setting up the tent took enough effort that Mike was able to forget, for a while, where they were.
Mike had just gotten out of a shower and was tugging his shirt on when he opened the door to the trailer at Kevin's knock. Kevin stared at him for a moment, seemed to realize what he was doing, and said, "We're done for the day. Can I use your guitar?"
Mike was about to send him away, but something made him say, "I'm going to hang out with some friends. Do you want to come?"
Kevin looked surprised for a moment, then smiled and said, "I just have to let my family know I'm going. I'll be right back."
Mike had combed his hair, put on his shoes, and grabbed the keys to the truck by the time Kevin got back, smiling at him again and cheerfully climbing up into the cab of the truck.
"How do you have friends in Chicago?" Kevin asked when they were on their way.
Mike glanced at him, but Kevin looked genuinely curious. Maybe Charlie hadn't just been hassling him those times he told Mike he was secretive, even for the circus. Mike just didn't have much to say.
"I grew up here." Mike shrugged. "I don't come back much, except when we're stopped here."
"Tell me about your friends."
Mike could feel the grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. "You'll meet them." Kevin was still watching him attentively, so he gave up a little more detail. "Bill and Adam. Bill's the poet. Adam's fun."
"So Bill's Nick and Adam's Joe?"
Mike laughed. "Not exactly. They're not strait-laced church-going guys. They're more likely to get drunk at shows or smoke up in Adam's backyard." Without looking to see if that had alarmed Kevin, he added, "But don't worry. We're just having pancakes tonight."
Kevin seemed to accept that as enough information, and they made the rest of the drive in comfortable near silence. One of the things Mike liked about Kevin was that he didn't have to talk all the time.
The IHOP on Barrington looked exactly the same as it always had. Mike was smiling by the time he walked in, and that smile turned into a grin when Bill and Adam were already waiting for him in their usual booth.
They tumbled out of the booth, and Bill's long legs were the only reason he got to Mike first.
"Mike Carden, you are a sight for sore eyes." Bill wrapped him up in a hug. Bill's hair was longer, but he smelled the same.
Mike held on tight until Adam said, "Stop hogging him. My turn," and then Adam, whose hair was never the same from one time to the next, was hugging him even tighter than Bill had. "Dude, you don't visit us enough."
Mike laughed, feeling lighter than he had in a long time, possibly since the last time he'd been in Chicago. "You'll have to take it up with the circus." He stepped back just enough to make room for Kevin to join them. "This is Kevin. Bill and Adam."
"Kevin," Bill repeated. "Mike never brings his friends home."
"We weren't sure he had any," Adam said.
Mike shoved him toward the booth, which worked to get them all to sit down, Bill and Adam on one side of the table and Mike and Kevin on the other.
After a while of catching up and ordering, Bill asked, "You been to the cemetery yet?"
Mike tightened his grip on his coffee cup and didn't look at Kevin. "No. We had setup all day today. I'll go with Cheryl tomorrow and stay with them tomorrow night." Before things could get even quieter, he said, "Nice thing about big towns is we get to stay for a couple of days. And speaking of." He pulled two pairs of tickets out of his pockets and handed them over. "Day after tomorrow. I'll give you the backstage tour."
Bill grinned. "You know I'm bringing Christine. You should ask Adam who he's bringing."
Mike took the bait. "Adam, who are you bringing?"
Adam smiled a small, pleased smile Mike hadn't seen in a really long time. "His name's Butcher."
Oh, Mike was going to talk to Bill about that.
Beside him, Kevin had gone just a little tense. "That's an interesting name." But always polite.
"He's a butcher," Adam said. "He's nice."
Mike could tell Bill was suppressing a smirk. They were definitely going to have a talk. But that could wait until later. They had pancakes to eat and jokes to tell.
*
Kevin was too polite to ask outright, but Mike thought that he had the right to know.
"My parents and my brother were killed by a drunk driver when I was seventeen," he said on the drive back. "I was at Adam's, and my aunt came to get me in the morning."
"I'm sorry," Kevin said, after he'd drawn in a very loud breath.
Mike nodded. "I lived with my aunt, drank a lot that last year of high school, ran away to the circus after I graduated."
"Thank you for telling me."
Mike shrugged.
A few miles later, Kevin said, "I'm leaving the circus."
Mike stared at him as much as he could while driving.
"I graduate in the spring. I'm applying to colleges. My family doesn't know yet."
"At least you'll have something good to write about for your application essay."
Kevin laughed, and looked a lot less worried than he had when he'd first said it. "Yeah, I guess. Probably not a lot of people apply to college just out of the circus."
"Probably not." Mike was quiet for a while, just the soft sounds of the radio and the wheels on the road filling up the cab of the truck. "I can help you with your essays if you want. I actually got accepted to colleges before I left."
"Yeah? Thanks. I'm not sure my parents are going to want to help."
*
[My original document has nothing between these scenes, but it probably needs more of Bill and Christine and Adam and Butcher.]
*
Word spread once Kevin told his parents he wanted to go to college. Mike actually heard it from Charlie first, before Kevin got a chance to tell him.
"Heard it didn't go well," Mike said the next time Kevin showed up at the door of his trailer.
Kevin grimaced. "Can we just play?"
Mike shrugged and let Kevin in.
After about an hour of chords and melodies, Kevin sighed and said, "I'm breaking up the act and disappointing the family."
Mike pried Kevin's hand away from where he had the neck of the guitar in a death grip. "And I ran away from my whole family and all my friends. You're an adult. You can make your own choices."
Kevin let Mike take the guitar away from him before he could hurt it or himself. "They're not going to help me."
*
[This is the large part I didn't write. This would be the part where Mike helps Kevin with his college applications and they grow closer.]
*
Kevin had a stack of envelopes clutched in one hand. Mike eyed them, and Kevin's pale face, and silently let him in.
Kevin sat down at the table. Mike pulled his emergency bottle of Jack out of the back of his cupboard and splashed shots into a pair of coffee cups. He put one in front of Kevin and sat across from him with the other.
"Drink it," Mike said. "You need it."
Mike almost laughed at the look on Kevin's face, but the stack of envelopes kept him from doing it. He shifted enough to get at his pocket knife, flicked it open, and handed it over to Kevin, handle first.
Kevin took it from him and slit open the envelopes one by one. When he was done, there was an array of acceptance letters spread out over the table: UCLA, University of Chicago, Rutgers, University of Texas.
"I got into all of them." Kevin stared down at the table, and then looked up at Mike. "All of them."
"Yeah," Mike said. He kind of felt like he needed another drink. "You've got choices."
Kevin stood up, and Mike did too, because he needed to hug Kevin as much as Kevin needed to hug him.
Mike took a chance and kissed Kevin.
Kevin made a sound like "mmph," and then he kissed back.
"I think," Mike said after a moment of that, "I'm going to leave. Go back to Chicago. See what it's like to stay in one place for a while."
Kevin looked a him for a few seconds, close enough that Mike could see him almost cross his eyes to focus. "Chicago," he said.
Mike nodded. "Yeah."
Neither of them looked at the letters on the table, but Kevin said, "Okay."
Warning: Past death of Mike's family.
Warning: Past death of Mike's family.
In the world of the circus, the Jonas Brothers were royalty. They had a family acrobatics act that was one of the draws of the show, and they were good enough that they'd moved up from one circus to another until they'd settled in with the [CIRCUS NAME].
Mike was a grunt. He helped set up the tent, hauled stuff around, did whatever else he was told to do, most of which involved manual labor. Mike was slightly more important than the guys who mucked out the animal carts.
There was no reason for Kevin Jonas to bring his lunch over and sit down across from Mike, unless it was a misplaced act of rebellion. If he really wanted to rebel against his family, he'd be over with the clowns; they were a rowdy bunch. Mike drank when there was beer around, but he mostly kept his head down and stayed out of trouble.
He'd had enough of trouble, and now preferred the quiet excitement of circus life.
Mike looked at Kevin, hoping that his expression would convey the appropriate level of questioning.
"Someone said you play guitar," Kevin said.
It was something Kevin would have known if the great Jonas Brothers ever hung out with the little people. That wasn't entirely fair; they were always unfailingly polite to everyone; they just didn't make friends outside their family.
"Yes." Mike didn't play the way he used to, before he joined the circus, but he still had a guitar, and he would bring it out when he was missing his life before or when the crew was sitting around with instruments.
"Could you teach me?"
Mike snorted. "You going to play while tumbling through the air?"
There was a flash of something, annoyance maybe, across Kevin's face, and then he said, polite as ever, "This isn't for the act. I just want to learn."
He seemed entirely sincere.
Mike weighed the joy he would get out of sharing his music with someone against the potential trouble that could come from doing anything with one of the Jonases.
"Okay," he agreed.
Kevin beamed at him, the same smile Mike had seen him give the audience at the end of a particularly difficult tumbling pass.
*
Between Kevin's practice schedule and Mike's work, they only managed to eke out enough time for lessons about twice a week, if that. Mike was surprised to find Kevin an eager student, but not surprised that he showed up when he said he would.
They weren't really trying to hide it, although Mike didn't know what, exactly, Kevin had told his family, but they usually tried to schedule lessons at times no one would be around. Sometimes they met outside, in whatever space there was in whatever town they were in, and sometimes they met in the trailer Mike shared with Charlie, one of the other grunts.
It was Charlie who asked him once, after he came in just as Kevin was leaving, "You really think it's a good idea to get mixed up with a Jonas?"
Mike shrugged. "Not really, but he asked for guitar lessons." What he didn't tell Charlie was that what he thought was most unwise about it was the way teaching someone to play reminded him of a life he didn't have anymore.
*
Kevin liked to talk, and Mike didn't mind listening, which was how Mike found out that Kevin was more than just some guy who did acrobatics with the rest of his family.
"I think I want to go to college," Kevin said one afternoon, his head bent over the guitar. Mike didn't say anything, and Kevin looked up after a while. "Have you ever wanted to do anything other than the circus?"
Mike thought about playing guitar while Bill sang and Adam played bass, about swimming, about choosing extracurriculars he liked but that would also look good on a college application.
He said, "Yeah," and then, "That's supposed to be a D," and they got back to work.
*
Mike had been working with Kevin for a couple of months when they set up the tent on the outskirts of Chicago. Setting up the tent took enough effort that Mike was able to forget, for a while, where they were.
Mike had just gotten out of a shower and was tugging his shirt on when he opened the door to the trailer at Kevin's knock. Kevin stared at him for a moment, seemed to realize what he was doing, and said, "We're done for the day. Can I use your guitar?"
Mike was about to send him away, but something made him say, "I'm going to hang out with some friends. Do you want to come?"
Kevin looked surprised for a moment, then smiled and said, "I just have to let my family know I'm going. I'll be right back."
Mike had combed his hair, put on his shoes, and grabbed the keys to the truck by the time Kevin got back, smiling at him again and cheerfully climbing up into the cab of the truck.
"How do you have friends in Chicago?" Kevin asked when they were on their way.
Mike glanced at him, but Kevin looked genuinely curious. Maybe Charlie hadn't just been hassling him those times he told Mike he was secretive, even for the circus. Mike just didn't have much to say.
"I grew up here." Mike shrugged. "I don't come back much, except when we're stopped here."
"Tell me about your friends."
Mike could feel the grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. "You'll meet them." Kevin was still watching him attentively, so he gave up a little more detail. "Bill and Adam. Bill's the poet. Adam's fun."
"So Bill's Nick and Adam's Joe?"
Mike laughed. "Not exactly. They're not strait-laced church-going guys. They're more likely to get drunk at shows or smoke up in Adam's backyard." Without looking to see if that had alarmed Kevin, he added, "But don't worry. We're just having pancakes tonight."
Kevin seemed to accept that as enough information, and they made the rest of the drive in comfortable near silence. One of the things Mike liked about Kevin was that he didn't have to talk all the time.
The IHOP on Barrington looked exactly the same as it always had. Mike was smiling by the time he walked in, and that smile turned into a grin when Bill and Adam were already waiting for him in their usual booth.
They tumbled out of the booth, and Bill's long legs were the only reason he got to Mike first.
"Mike Carden, you are a sight for sore eyes." Bill wrapped him up in a hug. Bill's hair was longer, but he smelled the same.
Mike held on tight until Adam said, "Stop hogging him. My turn," and then Adam, whose hair was never the same from one time to the next, was hugging him even tighter than Bill had. "Dude, you don't visit us enough."
Mike laughed, feeling lighter than he had in a long time, possibly since the last time he'd been in Chicago. "You'll have to take it up with the circus." He stepped back just enough to make room for Kevin to join them. "This is Kevin. Bill and Adam."
"Kevin," Bill repeated. "Mike never brings his friends home."
"We weren't sure he had any," Adam said.
Mike shoved him toward the booth, which worked to get them all to sit down, Bill and Adam on one side of the table and Mike and Kevin on the other.
After a while of catching up and ordering, Bill asked, "You been to the cemetery yet?"
Mike tightened his grip on his coffee cup and didn't look at Kevin. "No. We had setup all day today. I'll go with Cheryl tomorrow and stay with them tomorrow night." Before things could get even quieter, he said, "Nice thing about big towns is we get to stay for a couple of days. And speaking of." He pulled two pairs of tickets out of his pockets and handed them over. "Day after tomorrow. I'll give you the backstage tour."
Bill grinned. "You know I'm bringing Christine. You should ask Adam who he's bringing."
Mike took the bait. "Adam, who are you bringing?"
Adam smiled a small, pleased smile Mike hadn't seen in a really long time. "His name's Butcher."
Oh, Mike was going to talk to Bill about that.
Beside him, Kevin had gone just a little tense. "That's an interesting name." But always polite.
"He's a butcher," Adam said. "He's nice."
Mike could tell Bill was suppressing a smirk. They were definitely going to have a talk. But that could wait until later. They had pancakes to eat and jokes to tell.
*
Kevin was too polite to ask outright, but Mike thought that he had the right to know.
"My parents and my brother were killed by a drunk driver when I was seventeen," he said on the drive back. "I was at Adam's, and my aunt came to get me in the morning."
"I'm sorry," Kevin said, after he'd drawn in a very loud breath.
Mike nodded. "I lived with my aunt, drank a lot that last year of high school, ran away to the circus after I graduated."
"Thank you for telling me."
Mike shrugged.
A few miles later, Kevin said, "I'm leaving the circus."
Mike stared at him as much as he could while driving.
"I graduate in the spring. I'm applying to colleges. My family doesn't know yet."
"At least you'll have something good to write about for your application essay."
Kevin laughed, and looked a lot less worried than he had when he'd first said it. "Yeah, I guess. Probably not a lot of people apply to college just out of the circus."
"Probably not." Mike was quiet for a while, just the soft sounds of the radio and the wheels on the road filling up the cab of the truck. "I can help you with your essays if you want. I actually got accepted to colleges before I left."
"Yeah? Thanks. I'm not sure my parents are going to want to help."
*
[My original document has nothing between these scenes, but it probably needs more of Bill and Christine and Adam and Butcher.]
*
Word spread once Kevin told his parents he wanted to go to college. Mike actually heard it from Charlie first, before Kevin got a chance to tell him.
"Heard it didn't go well," Mike said the next time Kevin showed up at the door of his trailer.
Kevin grimaced. "Can we just play?"
Mike shrugged and let Kevin in.
After about an hour of chords and melodies, Kevin sighed and said, "I'm breaking up the act and disappointing the family."
Mike pried Kevin's hand away from where he had the neck of the guitar in a death grip. "And I ran away from my whole family and all my friends. You're an adult. You can make your own choices."
Kevin let Mike take the guitar away from him before he could hurt it or himself. "They're not going to help me."
*
[This is the large part I didn't write. This would be the part where Mike helps Kevin with his college applications and they grow closer.]
*
Kevin had a stack of envelopes clutched in one hand. Mike eyed them, and Kevin's pale face, and silently let him in.
Kevin sat down at the table. Mike pulled his emergency bottle of Jack out of the back of his cupboard and splashed shots into a pair of coffee cups. He put one in front of Kevin and sat across from him with the other.
"Drink it," Mike said. "You need it."
Mike almost laughed at the look on Kevin's face, but the stack of envelopes kept him from doing it. He shifted enough to get at his pocket knife, flicked it open, and handed it over to Kevin, handle first.
Kevin took it from him and slit open the envelopes one by one. When he was done, there was an array of acceptance letters spread out over the table: UCLA, University of Chicago, Rutgers, University of Texas.
"I got into all of them." Kevin stared down at the table, and then looked up at Mike. "All of them."
"Yeah," Mike said. He kind of felt like he needed another drink. "You've got choices."
Kevin stood up, and Mike did too, because he needed to hug Kevin as much as Kevin needed to hug him.
Mike took a chance and kissed Kevin.
Kevin made a sound like "mmph," and then he kissed back.
"I think," Mike said after a moment of that, "I'm going to leave. Go back to Chicago. See what it's like to stay in one place for a while."
Kevin looked a him for a few seconds, close enough that Mike could see him almost cross his eyes to focus. "Chicago," he said.
Mike nodded. "Yeah."
Neither of them looked at the letters on the table, but Kevin said, "Okay."
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Date: 2011-04-09 10:25 pm (UTC)♥
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Date: 2011-04-09 11:24 pm (UTC)