DISCLAIMER: Carnivale and its canon characters are the property of HBO and the show's producers; no copyright infringement is intended.
Note: This fic includes nonconsensual m/f sex, central to the plot, that's not described any more graphically than it has to be to make clear what the man is doing and how the woman perceives it.
Speculative fiction written after Season 1, it has of course been rendered AU by later-established canon. I've discovered two errors in canon established at the time it was written (I'd forgotten I had some episodes on tape, relied solely on my memory and the summaries on the HBO website). But both errors can be "explained away" by assuming characters in the show lied when they told Ben they'd never met someone. If events had occurred as I'm suggesting here, it's understandable that they would have lied.
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The year: 1915.
He'll try to do it to me when he comes back, she realized. No, he will do it to me.
Why else would he have locked me in?
She looked dully at her hands, bruised from banging on the door. Pounding, screaming - nothing had done any good. The midway was noisy, and the wagon that had become her prison was one of the farthest from it. The only people likely to be within earshot at this hour were carny men who'd think her plight was funny.
The best-behaved guy in the troupe forcin' himself on a girl? They'll love it. If they could, they'd pay for ringside seats to watch what he's gonna do.
She huddled wretchedly in the one overstuffed chair, picturing his face as she'd last seen it, a mask of fury. Not all directed at her, no. But that last bitter look he'd given her, that vicious curl of his lip, had spoken volumes about his intentions. She'd been poised to flee as soon as he left.
Then she'd heard him put the padlock on.
She hadn't even tried to squeeze through one of the two crude windows. It was clearly impossible.
Had he approached someone else to be his talker, to introduce his act?
No need. Word gets out, people look for him. Word of his act spreads quick, and people gotta see for themselves.
Meaning she wouldn't have been missed by any of the few carnies decent enough to be concerned.
I brought this on myself. Why couldn't I keep my mouth shut?
The irony of that thought induced a fit of hysterical giggling. The giggles gave way to equally undignified hiccups.
And finally, to wracking sobs.
Why couldn't I keep my mouth shut...?
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She'd been adjusting his tie in preparation for the show, making sure he looked spiffy. Straightening the tie, coming close enough to smell the peppermint candy on his breath.
Their eyes met, and he smiled. A gentle smile that acknowledged the way things had to be between them. The way she needed them to be.
He was handsome and gallant, and her heart swelled with pride at being with him.
She went through the motions of brushing nonexistent lint from his lapels...
"Henry!" a man's voice thundered. The door was flung open, with a violence that shook the entire wagon.
She bolted like a startled rabbit, retreating behind the chair.
And for the first time in the year she'd known him, Hack Scudder let out a string of oaths.
The man framed in the doorway snorted, then said flatly, "Disgusting."
She assumed that was a commentary on Hack's language.
Hack hadn't moved from where he'd been standing, just turned toward the door. "Get the hell out of here," he said in a steely voice that was new to her. "This is our home."
" 'Our' home?" The intruder glanced at her and scowled. "Living in sin with this hussy? I assume you're not married - she doesn't look old enough."
"None of your business. Flo..." Hack looked at her and nodded in the direction of the door, indicating he'd like her to leave. But his quick change of expression showed what he must have read in her face: she'd like nothing better than to oblige him, but she was terrified of the man in the doorway.
He turned back to the unwelcome visitor and said, "Let's take this outside."
"Let's not." The man strode determinedly into their living quarters.
He was big and burly, gray-haired and gray-faced. Well-dressed in a stodgy, small-town way.
Looks stronger than Hack, if it comes to a fight, Flo thought as she edged farther away. But older, old enough to be Hack's -
To be Hack's father.
And suddenly, she saw it. The same intense eyes, the same clean-cut features, marred though they were by seemingly permanent frown lines.
He was Hack's father.
"How did you find me?" Hack had his back to her now and she couldn't see his face, but his voice was angry and strident, with no hint of submissiveness.
"This act of yours has been in the newspapers!" The older man pulled a handful of clippings out of his pocket and hurled them at his son.
Hack didn't glance at them as they fluttered to the floor. "I've kept my picture out of the papers, and I never publicize my name."
"Idiot!" That was a near-shout. Trembling with rage, his father nonetheless managed to get his voice under control before he continued at a lower volume. "Did you think I wouldn't know? This had to be you!"
After a strained silence, Hack said, "It's my life. I'm of age, I'm not breaking any laws, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. I've had my fill of you and your order."
Flo thought she must have misheard that. "Order"? It didn't make sense. He must have said "orders."
But his father's reply made even less sense. "You don't have a choice! You're the culmination of a line that's been preparing for this duty for a thousand years -" He stopped abruptly and shot a glance at her. But he was too upset to restrain himself. "You have God-given gifts, boy. Maybe more than you know. And you mock God by perverting them like...like...this!" A sweep of his hand seemed to take in the clippings, Flo, maybe even Carnivale itself.
"Actually," Hack said suavely, "I'm using my gift to do good in the world. Most carnivals have acts like mine. Carnivale would have one even without me. But it wouldn't be quite the same, would it?"
Flo's breath caught in her throat as Hack's father raised a hand to slap him. But he stopped himself in mid-swing, and she saw tears well up in his eyes.
"You sicken me," he said bitterly. As he slowly lowered his hand, he looked at her again. "And you. You slut! You know what this repulsive creature is. You know what he does. And you let him...you let him..."
His gaze was directed to one part of her anatomy. She didn't have to guess what he was thinking.
She pulled herself erect and said, "No, I don't."
She regretted the betrayal even before Hack turned to look at her and she saw his white, stricken face.
His father sucked in a hissing breath. She'd given him encouragement. "So. Even the little floozy you're shacking up with agrees with me that you're an abomination!"
Hack's hands clenched into fists, but he kept them at his sides. "Shut up."
A tight smile. "Oh, that's original."
The men stood rigid, trying to stare each other down, while Flo cowered in a corner.
"It's not too late, boy," the elder Scudder said softly. "Come home with me. Think of your responsibility to the world, of your own immortal soul. And remember, if you die or fail -"
"I'm fed up with this bullshit your order teaches! I don't believe a word of it."
"No? Really? Where do you think your powers come from?"
"I don't know." Hack took a step toward the taller, heavier man. "But if any of your damnable order try to abduct me" - another slow, measured step - "they may find I have some powers they don't know about." Yet another step, clearly meant to press his adversary to retreat toward the door.
His father gave way. "No one's planning to abduct you," he said uneasily. "Holding you prisoner wouldn't do us any good, if you were too ornery to cooperate."
"I'm ornery." For the first time, there was something in Hack's voice that frightened her. "Oh yes, Pa, I'm ornery!" He took a sudden, quick step forward.
Backing away, the older man stumbled through the open door - and fell head over heels down the wagon steps. He gave one sharp cry, then a succession of moans.
From the sound of it, he finally picked himself up and dragged himself away. But he got no help from his son, standing motionless at the top of the steps.
Hack came back inside. He stood over the cringing Flo, and when she dared to look up at him, his expression turned her blood to ice.
He turned his back on her, gathered up the top hat and gloves that completed the costume for his act, and went on his way.
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She heard the clanking of the padlock and sat bolt upright.
Someone else? Wonderin' why he's got it padlocked? Heart pounding, she called out, "Wh-who's there?"
The door opened. An icy voice replied, "Just the repulsive creature."
She swallowed hard. "It was him what called you that, not me."
"Yes. But you let him know you agree with him, didn't you?"
He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Locked it. Laid his hat on the table with his usual care. He'd shed the gloves, of course. But in other respects, he was as neat, as elegantly attired, as when he'd left.
She found herself wishing he'd gotten drunk. Then she might be able to tell herself that the way he felt now, the thing he was surely going to do now, didn't represent the real Hack.
He stripped off his tie and his tuxedo jacket. Hung the jacket, precisely, on the back of one of their straight chairs.
"Please, Hack -" she whispered.
He turned and walked toward her in the same slow, menacing way he'd walked toward his father.
She knew any other man in this mood would have been pulling his pants off, probably falling over them, he'd be in such a rush. Not Hack. He hadn't even touched his fly.
"Please!" She was shaking like a leaf, weeping, but not screaming. Partly because it wouldn't do any good, but also because she still hoped he'd relent. He'd been so kind and understanding, for so long...
Hack grabbed her, pulled her over to the bed and threw her down on it. He flopped beside her, pinning her down with one arm.
"No!" she gasped.
Too late, she wished she'd risked making a grab for the oil lamp, tried to overturn it.
"I've let you get away with this nonsense long enough!" His face was inches from hers now, and she moaned.
The look in his eyes told her the audible moan had been a mistake.
He clapped a hand over her mouth to silence her and hold her head down. Then, lying half across her, he lowered his own head and began kissing her exposed throat.
She went rigid at the first touch of his lips.
Again and again he kissed her, those lips claiming more and more of her throat and neck. She squirmed and kicked, to no avail. He progressed to licking her, then letting her feel his teeth. Nibbling, not breaking the skin, but tormenting her with the implied threat of it.
At last he raised his head; he was sweaty and panting now. She bucked frantically. His mouth twisted into a grotesque grin.
And someone knocked on the door.
"Hack?" A man's voice - familiar, but she couldn't place it immediately. "Is somethin' wrong in there? I just heard someone was screamin' earlier!"
She struggled desperately, and managed to jolt the bed. Had the man outside heard it?
"Hack?" He tried the door, then rattled it hard. "Hack! I know you're in there! What's goin' on?"
Flo got her mouth free just long enough to cry out before Hack covered it again, his eyes blazing.
"Damn you, Hack!" The man outside began hurling himself against the door, clearly trying to break it down.
Hack smirked. With his eyes locked on Flo's, he called out, "Give it your best shot, Samson."
Oh God. The dwarf!
That dwarf, she remembered, was a strongman - but his fabled strength was relative to his size and weight. It wouldn't enable him to break the door down; it would just add to his frustration.
"I'd like to kiss you all over your face," Hack said giddily. "But it seems I have to cover your mouth, to avoid disturbing the neighbors! So I may as well cover it the right way."
And then the hand was gone, and his mouth, his hated mouth, was on hers. She very nearly passed out at that point, and the moment of faintness cost her any chance of keeping her own mouth clenched shut. Nightmare of nightmares, his filthy tongue forced its way in.
She could still hear Samson outside, cursing, alternating between slamming himself against the door and yelling for some of those no-good bastard rousties to come and help him.
She didn't try to defend herself by biting. She knew she couldn't injure Hack. A brief drawing of blood would only make the horror worse for her, and probably anger him enough to make him prolong her ordeal.
As it was, it seemed to go on forever. That revolting tongue licked and pried and writhed inside her mouth. Like a snake...
One other voice had been added to Samson's, one other willing body contending with the door...but this voice and body belonged to a woman.
Ruthie.
Flo forgot her own peril long enough to hope someone was minding Ruthie's little boy.
And then Hack flooded her mouth with his loathsome saliva, and she fought not to swallow it but lost the fight, and couldn't understand why she didn't lose consciousness as well.
She wouldn't have objected to his cock being in her mouth, or his semen. They'd been there more than once, with her consent. She'd never objected to his cock being in any of her bodily orifices, though truth be told, she preferred its being where nature seemingly intended.
No, she was only repelled by that foul mouth - that tongue with its slobbery licking, that saliva tasting of God-knew-what, those teeth she knew were polluted despite their being pearly-white. Until tonight he'd respected her wishes, hadn't attempted even the most chaste of kisses, on cheek or fingertips or hair. But now she'd betrayed him, and he'd responded by betraying her.
By shattering her.
He let her go, and she tottered into a dark corner and threw up.
When she returned, Samson and Ruthie were still attacking the door, and Hack was still sitting on the edge of the bed.
She looked at him and said in a dead voice, "That was rape."
"Rape?" He gave a hard-edged laugh, a dangerous laugh. "I'll show you what rape is!"
And then he did open his fly.
He pushed her down on the bed again, spread her legs, and set about doing what her would-be rescuers doubtless thought he'd been doing all along.
Flo didn't scream, didn't resist. She didn't care. There was no chance of her body's responding to him as it normally did; she was numb. She just lay there limply and let him have his way.
When it was too late for her to have any chance of stopping him, she had a disturbing thought: he'd never before done this without using a rubber.
In fact, the only times he'd experimented with other "orifices" were when he'd been caught without protection.
What if he's givin' me syphilis or somethin', for spite? Was it possible VD could only be transmitted to a woman through her vagina?
But then she realized Hack couldn't have VD. Aside from the matter of his "powers," which she tried not to think about, there was no way he could have contracted it. When they'd first made love - weeks after his rescue of the naive runaway from three rousties who'd been planning to share her - Hack, a man in his twenties, had been just as virginal as her 16-year-old self. He'd been forced to admit it to explain his clumsiness.
Now he was driving into her again and again, muttering to himself, cursing his father.
She began paying more attention. There was a wild light in his eyes, and the muttering was no longer confined to curses.
"If I die or fail...if I die or fail..." Another thrust into her.
"Make someone else do it." Another thrust.
"Make someone else do it!" Another.
And with a final thrust: "Make...someone...else!"
Moments later, Samson and Ruthie succeeded in wrenching the door off its hinges.
Flo got away from Hack and rolled off the bed. As he sat up, Ruthie lunged at him. She kept him seated just long enough for Samson to knock him out with one punch.