Erik very nearly finished University.
He came so close, so very close to actually doing it, to defying the odds and breaking free of his circumstance. It had been his goal for over a decade to achieve what nobody had expected him, a lowly only son of poor German immigrants to, graduate from an Ivy League school.
Engineering was his passion, and Erik had thrived in Cornell. He was driven and focused and all of his professors were fond of him. His cool head and good looks endured him to faculty and peers alike, and although he single-mindedly spent all of his time buried in study, he had a group of classmates who he considered friends.
Now that finals were drawing to a close, the student body was buzzing with anticipation. Brutal hours of prep were finally paying off and soon another batch of young academics would be loosed into the world to find their places in respectable society. It was the day of Erik's last exam, and he was finally allowing himself to feel the infectious relief that his fellows were exuding. In just three hours he'd be done, he'd be a University graduate.
They were seated along the benches, test papers in front of them. Erik reached to straighten the booklet, running a finger briefly over the seal in the top left corner. The clock hit one o'clock sharp and the exam began. Across the isle Erik caught Magda's eye and the girl smiled encouragingly. Erik felt himself flush and snapped his eyes back to the paper his heart rabbiting in his chest. Magda was simply a classmate, and Erik hadn't allowed himself to be distracted by thoughts of anything more, but now that classes were over…
Ten minutes in the door at the back of the room opened behind them and heads turned curiously to watch the proctor exchange hushed words with the department head. Erik drowned them out, fixated on the exam until a hand landed, impossibly heavy on his shoulder.
An hour later found him in the morgue. The white sheets billowed like twin plumes as the battered faces of his parents were uncovered as Erik felt his dreams catch fire and burn away until nothing was left but ash.
xxx
When Jakob and Edie Lehnsherr immigrated to the United States with their infant son, they'd known exactly what lay in wait. They had no illusions of streets paved with money or fields rich in opportunities. In Germany they'd been poor, living off Jakob's pitiful military pension, and in America they didn't even have that.
A lucky break had found Jakob in the position to procure a raggedy group of farm animals from a friend of a friend who'd moved from the homeland years earlier and thus the Lehnsherr farm was born.
In the twenty years since the farm had grown modestly. At last count they had a herd of fifteen goats, a couple pigs, eight laying hens overseen by one rooster, one lazy hound and two ancient draft horses with which they managed to coax a small annual harvest from the rocky plot of land.
Erik watched as they were all taken away.
He had no more energy left in him to fight them, but he felt a dark satisfaction when the block wrestling old Teufel the cock into a cage let out a pained yelp at the bite of the rooster's notorious claws.
It turned out that Jakob, military man through-and-through had been allowing his generous spirit to interfere with his common sense for a long time. Neither of his parents had ever had much of a head for money, despite all stereotypes pointing to the contrary, and it seemed that they'd lent both their scant funds and services out to the community for almost nothing in return until the family was utterly broke.
Erik's entrance fee, even with all the loans he'd taken out and the scholarship he's managed to earn had been the plunge into the deep end. He'd had no idea.
The land as well as the animals and rusty farm equipment that were now being loaded into an armada of trucks didn't cover the debt, but as it was all that was left under the Lehnsherr name, it would have to do. Erik's inheritance had been wrenched out of reach before he'd even known that his parents were dead.
Erik walked slowly between the men ransacking the farm, no longer his farm, to where the horses were tethered together behind a trailer, waiting patiently to be loaded. He placed a hand on the swayed back and leaned against the larger of the pair. The horses turned their runny old eyes to regard him and he suddenly felt the illogical urge to apologize. He rubbed his hand along the animal's flank, "I don't suppose you even care one bit do you?" He murmured scratching under her mane, "All you need is a warm stable and a bucket of grain and you're just peachy. I don't matter to you who it is that feeds you as long as you're fed, isn't that right?"
The old girl knickerd as a man Erik recognized as a long-time neighbour comes over to take her bridle. From across the horse's back the man offers a sad smile. "I'm sorry m'boy," He says gently, "It's a right shame this business. Your parents were good folk and who never meant no harm," As if Erik didn't know that "If you need a place to stay until you get your feet back under you me and the missus would be glad to have you."
It was an offer from the heavens and Erik would be a fool not to take it. It's what he needed to do, find temporary lodgings, get a job, maybe two or three to pay off the rest of his parents' debts. His shining dreams of an illustrious career were gone, left behind with the unfinished exam booklet he'd abandoned the day before.
But with the voice of reason still screaming itself hoarse over the injustice of it all in a fractured corner of his mind, Erik politely declined the offer.
When he was left standing on the edge of the road in the muddy tire tracks left by the trucks with an empty farm at his back and an eviction notice in his had Erik asked himself why he'd declined. Why the hell hadn't he gone to dinner at the neighbour's house, suffered the inevitable pity at the hands of the wife and staring eyes of the young children. He could be there now, being fed and coddled and stepped around like some fragile thing.
They'd let him keep the dog. He looked down at the animal, characteristically sprawled at his feet. Yesterday morning the dog had hopped into the bed of Jakob's old pickup truck, the same vehicle that had careened into the river hours later. The dog had emerged downriver, bedraggled but without a scratch on him. Edie and Jakob hadn't.
Edie had kissed him an extra time as they'd departed, squeezing him tightly for luck. Jakob had grasped his hand and told him how proud they were, tears shining in his eyes. Erik had been impatient to get back to cramming.
xxx
All he wanted to do was get away. His home was no longer his home; the tiny house was empty and quiet. He was no longer welcome at Cornell. He wondered if Magda and the others would give his the time of day now that he no longer had a penny to his name or a future to speak of. They'd likely apologize to him, for his loss, and then avert their eyes and pretend he'd never existed - another soul swallowed by the black hole that was the depression.
He wanted to leave Ithaca and all of its limitations. Maybe even leave the states, go to Israel to discover hiss inner spirituality perhaps.
He had his bags packed before his rationality could chime in that he had nowhere near enough money for a train ticket, not even thinking about the costs of an entire pilgrimage. Everything he had left to his name was stuffed into his moth-eaten duffel. He didn't bother locking the door to the farmhouse; everything of monetary value had been stripped and anything of sentimental value hung from his hand as he made his way down the dirt road.
The clenching in his heart at leaving behind the only home he can remember wasn't enough to make him turn back. However, the jangling of dog tags was. Erik turned to level fat old Rudi with his formidable glare. "Sitzen!" he snapped and the dog fell back on its brown and white haunches obediently, "Und bleiben."
All of the animals had been trained to heed both English and German commands and the dog stayed, tongue lolling, in the middle of the road until Erik was well on his way down the road and then it lumbered to its feet to trot over and lie down under the apple tree in the front yard. It was where Rudi always waited when the family was out, biding his time napping until someone returned to feed him. "Nobody's coming back you dumb animal!" Erik thought bitterly, "You were with them when they died! You must realize that everything is different now!"
Some neighbour would come around the house tomorrow, Erik was certain, to check up on him. They'd see the bare rooms and understand that he'd left. Rudi would be okay, there was always use for a farm dog around and he'd find a good home quickly. There weren't however, quite as many places for a broke university dropout like Erik to go. He snorted; the master more of a stray than the abandoned mutt.
Erik actually did end up walking to the train station. He stared for a long while at the ticket board with all of its unreachable prices before stepping off the platform and onto the gravel maintenance path that ran parallel to the tracks.
The sun had set on Erik's second day as an orphan and he was now officially homeless as well as parentless. The train tracks are stripped with long shadows from the impending night but Erik keeps walking. He knows that he is absolutely insane to be doing this, to be walking the line north into Cayuga County with little but the clothes on his back and the trinkets in his bag. And family photos, his parent's wedding rings and immigration papers could hardly feed him or keep him warm in the forest once the sun was down.
A low rumbling in the metal rails beside him signaled that a train approached. He squinted back down the line against the glare of the engine's headlight as it turned a corner and came into sight. They were still pretty close to the Ithaca station so it wasn't moving at top speed yet, but the air around Erik was still stirred into a miniature windstorm at its passing.
Erik stilled in the rush of putrid air, eyes fixed on the blur of train cars. The steady clunking, puffing, chugging drowned out even the pounding of his heart as he took an unsteady step, and then another, walking beside the train, and then breaking into a run. He flew along the gravel path, kicking up pebbles and stumbling over branches and rocks. Some how he managed to stay on his feet. The wind tore his clothes into disarray and destroyed his carefully slicked hair. At full sprint Erik could just barely reach out, just managed to hook his hand around an open door of one of the cars.
With a push from his long legs Erik was airborne, the duffel bag was ripped from his grasp and sent tumbling into the blackness behind him and out of sight. And then his knees hit the solid wood floor of the storage car and the rest of his body followed suit painfully.
The stench overwhelmed him as his face was jarred against filthy wood strewn with straw. It was an unmistakable mix of hay, rotting vegetation and dung that Erik instinctively associated with large animals. There was a heavy scent of alcohol as well which intensified when multiple sets of hands descended on him, tugging him roughly to his feet and around to face four strangers.
The man who held his left arm appeared to be the main source of the stench of booze, it hung off them thickly. "Well whadda we have 'ere?" He growled in Erik's ear, fowl breath fanning his face and thick stubble scraping his neck, "A little stowaway if my eyes don't deceive me!" Hands on his bicep tightened against Erik's weak struggles.
"Cut the crap Logan." The other pair of hands snaps, "We need to get him the fuck out of here."
"And how the fuck do you expect that to happen genius? We've got to be going seventy by now, this idiot would be nothing but a splat on the tracks."
"Well we need to do something or else that's what'll happen anyway, you know what Shaw'll do if he finds out we have a jumper, he'll chuck him and by then we'll probably have reached one hundred."
Wait wait wait, Erik was NOT okay with this train of thought. He struggled a little more energetically in the two mens' grip and surprisingly they let go at once, and Erik a boot on his arse that sent him tumbling forward. His breath wooshed out of him in a gasp that turned into a horse shout of fear at the end when he found himself hanging half out of the speeding car.
A weight landed across his shoulders and a hand fisted in his hair. "NO!" he managed to choke out before the second voice, who'd sounded disturbingly eager to through him from the train spoke from above him.
"Listen here asshole," the stranger hissed, "Keeping you aboard is risking our asses as well as yours if the owner finds out, and apperantly Logan is made of fucking rainbows and sunshine today," -This drew a cheerful "Fuck you Summers!" from further off in the car- "so you'd better be fucking grateful that we don't throw you out right now."
Erik was hauled roughly to his feet and tugged into the centre of the floor. He spun to look peer into the dimly lit car.
There was a flickering lamp set down on an unmarked crate and two men -or were they boys- crouched beside it. There were bottles of amber booze scattered around them in various levels of full and their eyes shone up at him curiously.
The two who'd manhandled him so thoroughly stood closer. The bulkier, very hairy one must have been Logan, as Erik had become closely acquainted with his spectacular sideburns just moments ago. The closest man was tall and thinner with mussed dark hair and a days growth of whiskers on his cheeks. His sharp gray eyes glared distastefully at him and his whole body was tensed as if he was prepared to spring back on Erik at any moment.
"Relax Summers," Logan grunted at the other man as he flopped down on the floor with the other two, "The boss isn't going to come pay us a visit tonight, we'll just send him packing at the nest stop." He took a deep swig out of one of the bottles.
"Fine!" Summers snapped irritably, striding across the car and wrenching open the door at the end, "But it's YOUR ass on the line Logan, if Shaw comes down on us, I'm shoving the blame on YOU." And he exited to car closing the door firmly behind him.
Erik turned back to the other three. "Well, sit on down then," Logan ordered gruffly, "And meet the boys." He waved his bottle at the lanky red-headed youth who couldn't have been old enough to drink the liquor in his hands, "This here is Sean Cassidy." He introduced, "He's a highflying trapezest with a lovely singing voice to boot. And this chap," he thumped the other heartily on the shoulder to a grunted protest, "Is Summers the Junior, baby brother to the prick who just left. He's a clown."
"I'm not a clown!" The younger Summers snarled, proving in Erik's mind that the two siblings were just as alike in temperament as they were in their heavyset gray eyes.
"Sorry, sorry," Logan amended, his voice pitching to a ridiculous farce of a posh British accent, "He's an actor, my apologies. He also runs around with his face painted face and ridiculous costume."
Flushing pink, Summers jumped to his feet and followed his brother's path to the door. "Scott was right." He snarled, "This is foolish. I'm not going to be dragged into your mess again Logan."
"Now, now pipsqueak." Logan hummed, grinning, "Not so fast. You sir, are going to be the new guy's temporary roomie."
"What?" The young man hissed, "Like hell I am!"
"Exactly, like hell you are. You're the only one with your own room. Beasty doen't count Summers."
"No way! Shaw'll skin me alive! I am not taking this guy."
"Just tell him that I forced you too. I'd take him myself if it weren't for Vic, you know that he'll run scampering to Shaw right away the little bitch. Same with Gabe and Scott, Gabe's a little bitch who'll sell anyone out if it means staying on Shaw's good side and you know it, and you saw how Scott was, he wouldn't stop him. Sean is in with Tom who is right in with Shaw's gang. You're the only one man."
Obvious conflict twists across the young man's face before he snaps, "Fine! But if Shaw tries to throw me off I'm dragging you out with me! You," He points at Erik with a dark look, "Come with me. Quietly."
Behind them, Logan chuckles darkly, "Buddy, Welcome to The Brotherhood of Traveling Performers."
SO! Circus AU based on the wonderful novel and movie Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. I'm so stuck in this fandom that I project the characters into everything else I read and watch.
I have a lot of this already written and will be posting it every couple days. I'm lazy with editing so please let me know if you spot any mistakes or awkward parts. I'd love to hear any critiques/suggestions (polite ones please) as for me fanfiction is me practicing writing. I hope you enjoy!