12. Please

Summary: Miss Fortune wants the Strongman to give him a kiss. The Strongman, though, refuses-and the Ringmaster is super-angry about it.

Characters: Strongman, Miss Fortune, Doll, Ringmaster

Pairings: Onesided Miss FortunexStrongman, Miss FortunexDoll, mentioned Miss FortunexMagician, RIngmasterxStrongman

"Please?"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Please?"

"For the last time, no. I'm not kissing you." The Strongman muttered, crossing his arms. Miss Fortune was not amused by this, obviously, pouting as he mimicked the Strongman's arm-crossing. "Why don't you go make out with the Doll or the Magician?"

"The Magician is busy at his tent doing whatever practice he's doing, I haven't seen Doll in forever, and I've already made out with both of them last time I saw them."

The Strongman face-palmed himself at this. Of course Miss Fortune would be trying to use him as a replacement for his two lovers. That made complete and total sense (or at least as much sense as it made in someone who was as...eccentric...as Miss Fortune).

The Strongman took a deep breath, about to speak, when the Ringmaster intervened.

"What's going on!?" The Ringmaster obviously looked a bit suspicious, already starting to give Miss Fortune a dirty look.

The Strongman figured that the truth might as well come out. "Ringmaster, Miss Fortune is trying to kiss me as a replacement for the Doll and Magician..."

The Ringmaster's glare sharpened. "What!?"

Miss Fortune's eyes widened, and he backed away from the Strongman a few steps. "I-"

"You know the Magician will be angry if you go around kissing other people, right?" The Ringmaster cut in, crossing her arms as she continued to glare at Miss Fortune. "And Doll, too-he's been away on errands and I don't think he'd like to come home and see that his owner has been kissing random people, right?"

The Strongman nearly went pale as he saw his beloved Ringmaster give Miss Fortune the scariest, angriest look he'd ever seen. Miss Fortune backed away completely, his head bowed as he stuttered an apology.

"S-sorry..."

The Ringmaster still didn't lessen her glare. "Do you mean it?"

Miss Fortune looked like a scared rabbit, now. "Y-yes!" He squeaked, averting the Ringmaster's and Strongman's gazes completely as his apology nearly escalated into a panicked wail. "I-'M SORRY!" Before either of them could do a thing, the terrified Fortuneteller had already run off screaming.

The Strongman stared in the direction where Miss Fortune had fled, before turning to the Ringmaster.

"He'll be fine, right...?"

One could never be sure whether emotional trauma could be possible with the Fortuneteller whenever he got scolded. The last time he'd been scolded by the Ringmaster, he tried to avoid all sight of her for the next week and a half.

The Ringmaster shrugged. "Yeah. He'll be fine as soon as the Doll gets back."

"Sorry, what?" The two turned to see the Doll, who was carrying at least five or six bags of groceries with his arms. The other two rushed forwards, grabbing a few bags from him so that he wouldn't be overwhelmed by the heavy groceries. "Sorry it took me so long to get all the groceries-it wasn't easy to find everything, especially the stuff for the animals...and then I hear a wailing scream and I run over here. What happened?"

The Ringmaster just frowned a bit, pretending to play innocent about possibly scaring the Fortuneteller a wee bit too much. "The Fortuneteller has been missing you, you know. He's crying about it and stuff..."

"Oh, no..." He shoved the rest of the groceries into the Ringmaster's and Strongman's hands, before running off.

The Ringmaster smiled a bit at this. "See? I'm sure things will be better for them, now...and I don't have to worry about Miss Fortune going and trying to kiss you again, Strongman. Problem solved."

The Strongman paled slightly at this. As much as he was grateful for this, he couldn't help but feel just slightly bad for Miss Fortune. The poor guy was most likely going to be scared of the Ringamster for another week, now...

The Doll rushed back into the tent that he and Miss Fortune shared, only to find his look-alike lying on the large, frilly, fluffy bed and bawling his eyes out. He literally was smothering his face into one of the bigger pillows, which worried the Doll slightly because

1. If he was doing that, that definitely wasn't good and

2. He didn't want Miss Fortune to smother himself to death by accident.

"Miss Fortune?"

The Fortuneteller perked up, sitting up to see his Doll.

"Doll! You're back!" He literally threw himself at the Doll, the sudden added weight nearly causing the Doll to fall over. Thankfully, the Doll managed to keep his balance as Miss Fortune kept sobbing. "I-I'm s-so sorry! I nearly cheated on you and Magician! I missed you so much and I-I-I-"

The Doll just held him quietly in his arms.

"I'm here now. It's okay..."

The next thing he realized was that Miss Fortune had dragged him onto the bed and was kissing him. The Doll kissed him back, allowing his 'owner' to snuggle up against him.

"Don't ever leave me again."

The Doll stroked a few strands of his look-alike's hair.

"I won't."

Author note: So, uh...yeah. It's been a while since I updated this fic...sorry for the delay, and I hope this makes up for it. Thanks for your patience! XD