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Harlequin stuck his clawed thumb directly into the wound, reveling in how easily it sunk through the flesh, how blood oozed into his glove and pooled beneath his nail. It would have been oh so easy to drag the maw open, tearing through vessels, tearing through bone, until it sunk into his cold heart. Instead, he brought the blood to his mouth and licked it off his finger. Metallic. Pungent. It made his stomach turn. Just how he liked it. Pierrot’s knife lay splattered beside him, rejected and dull now that it had finished its purpose, and Harlequin soiled it with dirt before leaving the tent to find Doctor.
“How pathetic you are, Pierrot,” Harlequin cooed, “throwing a hissy fit because the Red Ticket Guest chose me over you.”
Pierrot was as predictable as ever, his eyes shrinking like a cat exposed to a headlight, his entire body stiffening as though someone had shoved a sleeping snake into his costume. The truth was, the Red Ticket Guest had no interest in Harlequin at all. He saw it in their muscles when they shifted, or the fear in their gaze when he cornered them away from prying eyes. It didn’t bother him the same way it bothered Pierrot whenever the guest showed hesitation towards his advances. After all, Harlequin wasn’t the one who truly loved the Red Ticket Guest. He loved the way Pierrot trembled. He loved the way Pierrot seethed. He loved the way Pierrot’s knives always found their way clawing to his throat. An earthworm had gluttoned itself in the pit of Harlequin’s stomach, feeding on Pierrot’s pain, and it choked his insides like it was the next course in a buffet. And Harlequin especially loved indulging his dear, dear earthworm.
Pierrot’s knives stayed hidden, and Harlequin’s smile turned sour. Posters fell from his arms into the hands of curious pedestrians, and he pretended not to care when Pierrot stormed the other way. Pretended not to see when Pierrot returned injured that night. Pretended to breathe when stitching Columbina’s head back onto her puppet, dangling innocently next to Pierrot’s from his hands.
Blood was used to Harlequin, the same way Harlequin was used to spice. It had been spilled over trivial things in the past: an insult, a provocation, a comment about the taste of angels. When the Red Ticket Guest walked into Harlequin’s life, his desperate claws had unsheathed before he’d known it. The need to sink his teeth into something that mattered, something that was cared for, was so tangible that he could taste it on his tongue. Harlequin didn’t leave things half finished. He couldn’t bear to see the remains of the bridge between himself and Pierrot, so thoroughly charred and sharp: something ugly that remained even when freedom had appeared past the door. He remembered when they used to be brothers, fighting over the smallest things, at each other’s throats one moment and laughing the next. He wanted to see Pierrot laugh again. At the same time, he wanted him to writhe at his feet. Killing Columbina had been the fire. If there was no turning back, no rebuilding a bridge without supports, he wanted Pierrot to suffer for it. He wanted to lose him completely.
The woman below him looked beautiful in pink. Unfortunately for her, Ticket Taker was the one who valued beauty. Harlequin destroyed it. Red smearing through pink, screams painting over laughter like whiteout. He felt no remorse. Cages were cold, and blood was warm. If they wanted to laugh at his pain, he would laugh at their deaths, no matter how many times his mania was denied. He would tear them all apart one by one if it meant the circus would stay free.
“Harlequin,” Jester’s voice was a ruler. Unbendable and measured in exact increments. “What are you doing?”
“What?” Harlequin admired the innocence of the color in his hands, the clear nothingness in a bottle that he’d stolen from Doctor’s tent. Doctor didn’t miss them anyway, the aphrodisiacs never having been his main interest.
“If you want to drug someone, do not contaminate the entire food truck, or else there will be an investigation on our circus.”
“Relax, Jester,” Harlequin put the bottle away, “I’m not that careless.”
“No, but you pretend to be.” The thing about Jester was that he saw through everyone. Humans and monsters alike were dissected within milliseconds under his watchful eye. Meanwhile, Harlequin had been under Jester’s eye for an uncountable amount of time. He liked to think that Jester hadn’t cracked him yet, but he knew that wasn’t true. Jester chose what to reveal to others, the same way Harlequin chose to break every rule. Jester had chosen to become a conductor, Harlequin had chosen to become the wind.
“Then I’ll make sure to make every visitor dizzy from its effects,” Harlequin put a finger to his lips, choosing defiance, again. Jester’s expression stayed unflappably even, though his eyes narrowed dangerously. That was the other thing about Jester. He knew when to pick his battles. He could have had every member of the circus twisted around each of his fingers, but he chose to lose.
He knew Harlequin better than Harlequin knew himself, which was why he let it go. And Harlequin, just like everyone in the circus, flew away, pretending that he was free.
The difference between a joyful laugh and a sadistic one is marked by sharp, broken lines. It isn’t always easy to tell without practice, but Harlequin had too much practice. He also knew the distinct difference between the laughter of the monsters from the circus, and the laughter of people. He loved the laughter of the circus. It made him feel like they were tucking another win under their tattered belts. He hated the laughter of people. Especially when they held the bells of sadism.
His intention was to remember their faces, and their clothes, before passing by. He had no pink tickets with him, but Ticket Taker definitely did. He couldn’t wait to see their faces covered by masks, anticipating for a fountain of blood to crack them open and reveal horrified expressions. He didn’t end up just passing by.
Truly, it disgusted him, how Pierrot refused to stand up for himself. He was so skilled at throwing his knives, and yet he never refused to let those vermin hurt him. He didn’t even run away. What would get it through his thick skull that it didn’t matter whether he stopped those humans? They would chase them out eventually no matter what. They would pick apart invisible flaws, hurl accusations, and tear them apart, just to protect their own peace. They were selfish little creatures.
Harlequin stepped closer to them with an exaggerated bow.
“I see you’ve taken an interest in our Pierrot. Could I offer you some posters?”
They responded with violence. They almost always did. It wasn’t hard to catch the human’s fist, and squeeze. Not enough to raise suspicion, but enough for his claws to threaten the barrier between safety and injury.
“Eager for one, are we?” Harlequin opened their palm and forced the paper into their hand.
“You don’t think we notice how so many people are going missing? Get out! You’re not welcome in our town!”
“So noisy..” he gave them his best smile. “Would you like to file a complaint?”
After so many years, Harlequin knew that the circus was careful. The stranger’s accusations weren’t wrong, but they were baseless outside of coincidence. And coincidence wasn’t enough. Not yet.
In any case, as the cowards that they were, they were easy to herd away after that. Too easy. Harlequin didn’t know why Pierrot never learned. Truly, how was he more scared of a baby mob than of him?
A hand wrapped around his wrist, and unlike how Harlequin was careful not to spill the human’s blood, Pierrot’s claws dug straight into his flesh. It amused him how easily Pierrot turned to violence. It amused him how he could make him break his act. It amused him how painful it was. He wouldn’t have had it any other way. Blood was used to Harlequin, and Harlequin was a stranger to gentle love. He was dragged out of the streets.
“So dramatic,” he teased, “Don’t tell me you intend to– oh my.”
Old bricks dug into his costume, jagged edges carving into his back. Pierrot’s hands cracked the walls surrounding him, and suddenly, he was caged. His stomach burned, the blind earthworm shifting again.
“Harlequin.” Harlequin showed all of his teeth. It only seemed to make Pierrot angrier, and victory tasted spicy on his tongue, even when the war wasn’t won. “Why did you do that?”
“I have no idea what you–”
“Yes you do.” The knife was out. Finally.
“Won’t even let me finish my sentences this time? How out of character. I wonder how Jester would feel about this.”
Pierrot trembled, and Harlequin felt it. It made his lungs feel cold and numb and useless. “You take everything away from me. Everything. And you still think that you have the right to pretend to care about me?”
The knife moved again. It found a home and Harlequin felt his smile falter. Pierrot’s knives were never cold, not when they were in his hand. They were an extension of him, and they were hot, burning with hatred, fear, and despair. And yet, no matter how much hatred Pierrot felt towards Harlequin, he always came back. Harlequin once heard him call the circus his family, perhaps forgetting to exclude Harlequin. But how could they be family? How, when the bridge was disintegrating before both of their eyes?
Pierrot’s ghastly face held a smarting red mark, and blood escaped from the wound, creating stripes down his face. It lit a fire in Harlequin’s stomach, one that hungered, one that hurt, one that yearned.
He wanted Pierrot to never look at him again. He wanted him to stop caring enough to hate him. He wanted whatever they had left to disappear with a nuclear explosion.
He reached out before he could stop himself, not that he would have if he could, and dragged his thumb across the blood on Pierrot’s face. It smeared like charcoal on pristine white paper. When he brought the blood to his lips, it made his stomach turn. It tasted just like his own.
“Oh, Pierrot, Pierrot,” Harlequin licked his teeth, reveling in the liquid destruction rolling down his costume in Pierrot’s red. He liked to believe that blood was red because Pierrot told it to be, “You don’t understand, do you? No one is allowed to hurt you other than me. Maybe that way, you would grow out of your idiocy and finish what you started.”
Pierrot’s reaction was instant and furious. His claws were sharp, and his poison was deadly. It was really too bad that the wind never stopped for injuries.