c i r q u e d u p é c h é
Summary: No character in Repo! has been unaffected by sin, either theirs or another's, and they each have a role to play in the circus. Each chapter is a medium-length drabble (call it a kind of character analysis, if you will) on a separate character. The title is French for "circus of sin." And I tried to include what I thought the Largos' favourite sins would be, if you noticed.
Warnings: References to killings, suicide, sex, homoeroticism etc. I cannot write anything clean.
Disclaimer: Darren Smith & Terrance Zdunich own "Repo!", I do not. In related news, any (literate) people want a Repo! roleplay partner? I don't have one, and I'd really like to roleplay my current favourite fandom. I could also be anyone you like, really.
A/N: So the first chapter is the wonderful Blind Mag. I adore Mag (so much I actually have posters of her, replicas of the props from the film), and she is one of the many characters that I have an avid interest in and would love to know more about. She, to me, is like the Marilyn Monroe of her generation – beautiful and endlessly talented, loved by everyone, but with a real sadness behind her smile, and an obviously tragic death at a young age.
This chapter contains one-sided Mag/Luigi, and of course reflections to a Mag/Marni friendship.
The Puppet
Growing up blind meant Mag could never see her own beauty. She'd heard it talked about, but she'd never seen it for herself, and so it never affected her. She'd grown up being told she was beautiful but she was always too busy to care. Practising the piano and singing lessons which her parents gave up everything for ensured that Mag's finest talent, her wonderful voice, was as tuned and perfected as it could possibly be. Even when she had gone from a sweet little girl with long, tangled hair to a pretty nineteen-year-old with a shapely figure and rosebud lips, Mag's beauty was just a story to her. Something sweet which she liked to hear, but wouldn't like to rely on.
Whereas other little girls may have been corrupted by vanity, Mag never was, and blind or not – she wasn't that type of person. She had a soul, she did – nowadays she had to remind herself daily, because although she had sold it to the devil long ago didn't mean it wasn't there.
Mag has eyes now which see perfectly. They do more than see – the facets of her wonderful blue eyes can capture voices and pictures and they are all the memories she has left of her dear Marni. But only one thing reminds her that not everything is as it seems. Try as she might – and sometimes she sits in front of the mirror for hours, idly dreaming about her past – Mag still has not glimpsed that fabled beauty she has been told so much about.
She knows it must be there, because she sees the way people look at her. Her audience are captured before she opens her mouth, and all her little smiles and turns for her shows always earn her raucous applause. Why, even backstage – Mr Largo and his sons give her strange, perverse looks which make her shiver.
She hates being stared at. Sometimes she wishes they would all just vanish and leave her be. Mag knows that she has a contract to fulfil, and she knows she should not bear a grudge – but it is difficult, when Mr Largo yanks her around by her puppet strings, displaying her like she is a perfect sort of marionette. Mag isn't perfect. She can see her pretty rouge mouth and her fine-boned white skin and the way her elaborate opera costumes and finely-fashioned dresses set off her figure, but beauty? Elegance? She just doesn't see it.
Ladies and gentlemen, she is the marvel child of beauty and art, and I stand before you as her captor.
Mag is dressed and ready when Mr Largo bursts into her dressing room. Sitting and staring at her reflection on the other side of the glass panel in the Venetian mirror, Mag is laced into a tight corset and pretty court shoes, and her features are sharp though her eyes are clouded as ever. She looks sad, but wonderful. And more like a wind-up doll than ever. She has always had a passion for old costuming, but she doesn't really have any direction in what she wears onstage – everything is decided for her by her GeneCo management. Mr Largo seems sick; his hand rests on his wheezing chest and he waits for a few moments, catching his breath, before he chokes out, "Mag. I take it you're ready for tonight?"
She inclines her head. "Yes, Mr Largo." Seeing his reflection hover behind her, she turns around to face him and gives him a tight-lipped little smile. His is wider, but it doesn't reach his eyes.
"My dear Magdalene, haven't I told you that you ought to call me Rotti?" He places a large, clammy hand on her shoulder and Mag supresses the urge to shake it off, and also stops herself from giving him a scornful look. Yes, she wants to say, but I never said you may call me Magdalene. She holds her tongue, though; Mag is a GeneCo employee, more than that, she is property. She knows her place by now.
"I'm sorry, Rotti," she apologises, sounding sincere. He gives her a fake little smile – she can recognise a fake smile by now, surely – and pats her shoulder once more. Then comes a look of feigned distress, and worry. "But Mag, my dear. Your hair is torn." He gestures to Mag's hair, which has been primped into fake curls, where a lock has escaped and curls in naturally wavy tendrils about her shoulder. "You should be more careful. How did it happen?"
It happened in a backstage scuffle with Amber Sweet; Rotti's dear daughter waylaid her on the way to her dressing room and demanded, once more, why she thought she was entitled to sing at GeneCo's performances and not Amber. She stops herself from giving Amber any fine responses, and kept her dignity as always, but it doesn't mean she isn't angry. Your children, she stops herself from saying to Mr Largo. You should keep them on a tighter leash.
Mag tried to get to know them when she first signed her contract; she dutifully spoke to each sibling, but she was repaid with scorn and indifference, and quickly learnt not to try again. Paviche Largo paid her various little compliments; calling her bella and cara, praising her performances when he caught her after a show and reaching out to try to grab her hand; but Mag would brush it away quickly and the way she scuttled off to her dressing room as quickly as she could made it plain she wasn't interested. Not only had she caught the way his eyes lingered rather unpleasantly on her body in the dresses she wore on stage, but she knew precisely what happened with his many female admirers, and the women's faces which constantly adorned his repulsed her.
Amber Sweet was a different story. From the moment they first met, Amber made it plain – even though she and Mag were both young then, the soprano a mere ten years older than Rotti's daughter when she received her new eyes at the tender age of nineteen – that she couldn't stand her. She knew that Amber's hatred was fuelled by jealousy, but it still did not make it any easier. She wanted to be Magdalene, wanted her title – the voice of GeneCo – for herself, but she lacked the singer's natural talent and charisma. Surgery could change Amber's appearance, but it could not change that. Still, Mag looks at Amber's rouge lips and the stitches on her collarbone and her tight leather clothes, and her cold, dead eyes, and places her back to the spoilt and angry young child she still is, inside.
In the wake of one of her final shows, leading up to her goodbye, Mag is fixing her hair again hurriedly when Mr Largo turns to leave ("Remember, Mag, you belong to GeneCo now. You must think about how you are representing us. Your cue is in five") only to catch a glimpse of a figure behind her in the mirror and become suddenly aware of a cold presence in the room. Luigi Largo appears there for a mere moment – Mag freezes, but he says nothing, just grins at her, and Mag allows herself to breathe again once he disappears. He knows she is going to die.
When she was younger and her contract with GeneCo was fairly new, Rotti's eldest son once burst into her dressing room unannounced. She had been lacing her corset ready for a public performance endorsing new GeneCo products with Rotti, and she gasped once she saw him in the doorway to her dressing room, her hands shaking. "Luigi!" she addressed him in scandalised tones, although her voice faltered. "Please leave. I have to be ready – your father expects me on stage."
He just leers at her, his expression perverse. "C'mon, Blind Maggie. My old man can wait a little longer. There's plenty of time to fuck." Mag's expression makes the sneer on his face widen and he bursts out laughing – she looks highly shocked, her pretty mouth open in an 'o' of surprise. She hopes his laughter means it is just a slightly sick joke, but no luck. One of Luigi's gloved hands catches her slender wrist and tugs her over to the table.
His thick, calloused hands find her waist and clutch it, shoving her against her dressing table with a loud thud. "You look like a fucking doll!" he crows, his hand, still clutching the knife, trails lightly up her clothed leg, and his lips find her neck. "You ever done this before, Maggie?" Luigi mutters.
"Luigi!" Mag gasps, her hands finding the small of his back and attempting to push her away. Luigi only knocks her hip against the vanity table again, painfully, and clamps his lips down on her neck, his breath hot and stale and sour. "I'll take that as a no, huh? Pop's little bitch is a fucking virgin. Perfect. A girl like you, she needs a proper man…"
Now she is horrified, and Mag pushes away Luigi Largo with all the strength she can muster. The lewd smirk on his face vanishes, to be replaced by rage. "What the fuck do you think you're doin', you mad bitch?" he demands. The leather from the cuff of his glove tickles her skin, making her turn up her nose.
Her chest is rising and falling with what has just happened to her, and her spine tingles with fear as she sees the scowl on Luigi's face, but she maintains her composure, pretends to be unafraid. "Luigi, I am asking you to leave. I am not your property, I am an employee of your father's, and he would certainly not be happy with the way you are speaking to me." She knows that is not true. "If you don't mind, I am late enough as it is. I have a song to sing." With that, she pushes past him and begins arranging her hair in the mirror, her hands shaking.
He looks as though he would like to stab her – and of course, he would. Nobody says no to Luigi Largo, or to any of the Largos for that matter, (certainly not Blind Mag, their little puppet.) He has killed people for less, but Mag has the upper hand now – and she knows it. He can't kill her without his father's permission – Rotti would be furious (they certainly don't need that sort of publicity), and there would be no chance at all of him inheriting the company then. She allows herself a self-satisfied little smile as Luigi barges out of the room. She wouldn't like to be in the shoes of whoever he next meets, however.
Her wardrobe management are able to cover up the quickly-blooming mark on her white skin with even more powder so it is not visible under the stage lights and on the cameras; thankfully, they do it with discretion, obviously assuming it is something to do with one of the Largos, but tactfully deciding not to mention it. Although perhaps tact is not such a defining factor – it may be more to do with the fact they would like to keep both their jobs and their vital organs.
She is the voice of her generation. All the posters claim it, the people love her – there was such an uproar when news of her leaving was announced, Rotti already calculating the rapid decline of his ticket sales. First he tried gentle coaxing, then bribery, then threats and coercion. But nothing could make Mag change her mind. This is the first choice she has made in years.
She is a sideshow act. Mag's voice lures in customers to watch her through the bars of her imagined cage – step right up and see her, folks – and opera-goer or alley-crawler alike, everyone has heard of "Blind" Mag, seen her face, heard her warning words in her pretty songs (although they do not dwell on them.) No – everyone loves a good puppet act, and Mr Largo certainly knows how to put on a show.
She pities the Largos. Rotti is a cold and evil man, but his children – although their sins are undoubtedly terrible and they are certainly monsters – they still remind her of scared infants. She will see Amber stumble in, filthy and corrupted, and know that she never had any proper love from her father and that she grew up witnessing things nobody should see, especially a child. She sees blood on Luigi's hands and on his knife and knows it is the only way he can feel alive. She smells some poor, unwilling girl's fear on Pavi and knows that in the Largo household, abuse is, and has always been, the done thing.
But there is no use dwelling on the past. What's done is done, and part of Mag – a large part of Mag – will be glad to never see those sick creatures again. The Largos are not the beasts in Mag's childhood stories that could be coaxed out of their ghastly horror with a touch of the hand, or a lullaby, or a display of human kindness. Why, the very idea is laughable!
She isn't a little girl anymore. But at the same time, she has heard about her hypnotising sex appeal and she just doesn't believe in it – doesn't see what others see when they look at her. Now she is GeneCo's chanteuse with her music-box voice and her delicate figure. In exchange for these brand new eyes, Mag's innocence left a long time ago. She has seen things she never dreamt of, hears things she wishes she could block out and remembers things she wishes she could forget.
But there is something she will always remember, and that is how she first felt when she met Marni, her best friend – her only friend – and when she met Marni's child. The moment she saw the awe in the girl's eyes at the sight of her, and the way her lips quirked into a smile, she knew immediately that it was her goddaughter. Her countenance, her frame, even her eyes – everything was so reminiscent of Marni. And Mag sought to warn her, to protect her, because she had promised Marni she would be present in her life, and even if she never got to – she could do one last thing for her. She loved her like a daughter, even though she had only seen her briefly, only been a minor presence in the girl's life.
And when her harness takes her towards the sky, GeneCo's puppet smiles genuinely for the first time. Her eyes try to seek out Shilo from the crowd, but she cannot see her – but she still glances amongst the faces and bids everyone farewell. In the second before she gouges out those eyes, and her strings are cut – her voice has never been so clear, or unfaltering, or sweet.
Because the song of a caged bird is never so sweet as that of those who are free.