Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Never have. Never will.
Title: A Good Show
Teaser: Old habits die hard, but they find that they don't really mind when the dam finally breaks.
Rating: K+
Length: 272 words
Notes: Um... Sap. What else can I say? (...Well, okay, as sap goes I suppose I've seen worse. But it's still sap.) Oh, and I seem to be enamored with quasi-run-on sentences of late. Apologies.
They are hesitant about each other, at first. He remembers well how they had last parted, and though he forgives her for her sins – for it is hard to condemn something done in family's name now that he knows what family really is – he still finds it difficult to trust her. For her part, she knows of and understands his feelings, and she is careful not to press him. She knows what he can do, how easy it would be for him to harm, even kill her if he were to feel at all threatened.
And so they tread lightly about each other, watching and waiting, mentioning the past only when necessary.
Their first kiss is like a dam being broken. She is visiting him (his travels with the circus make it difficult for him to meet her at her home, so, whenever he is near, she leaves her brothers, who are now old enough to look after themselves, and joins him until the troupe moves on), and, all of a sudden, without any planning, it happens. The thousand emotions, both good and bad, that flow between them silently communicate everything they had ever wanted to say, and when they part they find that no further words are needed.
He kisses her again, and they lose themselves in each other. Time seems to stop, and suddenly they are the only beings in the world.
And then someone claps, and someone else whistles, and they remember that they are standing in the middle of the circus green, surrounded by people whose livelihoods depend on their ability to find and appreciate a good show.