I do not own The Greatest Showman.
My seven year old is obsessed with it. Seriously, he scream-sings the songs on the swings at the playground. It's adorable.
Rewrite The Stars
Come Alive
Phillip Bailey Carlyle loves Anne Elizabeth Wheeler.
More than that.
He adores her.
She is unlike any other woman he had ever known.
Things he had previously known, from a distance, the things that had been obvious from the first moment he had seen her.
Her grace in the air and on the ground, her beauty, her magic.
Her quiet dignity, her intelligence.
The tenor of her voice, the cadence.
Low and husky, light and airy.
The way her dark eyes gaze deep into his soul, sparkle with interest, delight, happiness at what she may turn her attention.
He loves the line of her nose, the way her lips breaks open into a smile, pulls down into a frown of concentration.
The way she carries herself, feminine, yet confident and sure, everything about her that makes her seem, like something not entirely of this world.
Any world he had ever previously been a part of, at any rate.
He loves other things about her as well, things he was not privy to until after Barnum's Circus burned to piles of scorched, crumbled brick.
He loves things he joys in discovering bit by bit, as they become evident to him.
Her body, for one.
He loves her body.
Not in the way one would immediately assume.
Well, that, yes.
The passion, the euphoria, the abandon.
The way her body feels under his hand, against his.
The way she responds to his touch, the way she's unafraid, bold enough to touch him.
He does love that.
But in other ways, just as much, or moreso.
He loves the strength of her body.
She is no delicate flower, dainty and primping.
Reduced to fainting spells and smelling salts.
No, every part of her, well, almost every part of her, is lean muscle.
Arms, strength enough and more to command those counterweighted ropes, her legs, to control, master, the trapeze, the ring.
Lift herself into the air.
Spin and swing and twirl and twist and glide.
Look effortless and smile while she did it.
She is so strong.
And all that strength leads to something else he loves about her.
Her appetite.
All his life, he has only dined with softly flitting, tightly-corseted women who eat less than caged songbirds.
Daintily sip spoons of soup, delicate bites of vegetable, curiously carved bits of fruit.
The rare nibbles of roasted meat, so small the morsels it's a wonder they didn't simply vanish away.
And he doesn't blame them, those women who are who they have been brought up to be.
Much like he himself once upon a time.
They are them and she is her, in all their, and her, ways.
And it be fair, Anne Wheeler does not stuff herself like the boisterous, raucous, rotund richest of men Phillip have met that judge half their wealth by their ability to unnecessarily, unhealthfully, piggishly, expand their midsections in the name of self-important, entitled gluttony.
No, not Anne.
She eats with dignity and decorum, consideration for the adequate plates of others.
But she eats.
A lot, actually.
And keeps it down.
Even spinning and twirling and flying through the air, with stomach churning abandon.
Which is why, he supposes, she is able to eat so much more than the typical bougee lady.
The energy it takes to simply watch her aerial aerobatics makes him exhilarated, ravenous.
The energy it must take to perform all of her middle-boggling stunts one after the other surely is even moreso.
Which of course leads to another thing Phillip Carlyle loves about Anne Wheeler.
Her bruises.
Asymmetrically splotching, dotting, marring her lovely, dusky skin.
He doesn't love to see her hurt, the hisses of pain that sometimes escape from between her small, white, clenched teeth in the off-hours when she takes the time to take notice of the injuries she's collected when attempting some new fantastical, death-defying stunt and succeeded.
Or failed, partially failed.
She has never been seriously injured, at least so far as he can surmise.
It's that she never really minds.
Or seems to mind.
She does not attempt to become injured, she never seems to purposefully invite it.
It's that she doesn't care.
He has heard women of his previous station bemoan for hours bumpy carriage rides, being so jostled.
And while he attempts to always have compassion for the plight of any person of any station whatsoever-
"Are you alright, Anne? I could ring for a doctor."
"No. There's no need. I'll just get some ice from the fishmonger and it'll be alright. Thank you, Phillip."
- she is truly a marvel in the way in which she cares for, then summarily dismisses, the injuries she suffers whilst flying through the air with the greatest of ease.
Phillip himself not quite so quick to dismiss them . . .
"Here then. Let me at least make it a little better."
. . .. medicating as he can . . .
"Phillip . . ."
. . . with softly kissing lips and gently stroking caresses.
All not because of some kink or fetish.
But because of how . . .
"I love you, Anne."
"I love you, Phillip."
. . . alive she is.
And how much . . .
"Say it again."
"I love you, Phillip."
"I love you, Anne."
. . . he loves her.
Thanks to Seth A. Mincberg for your fantastic review and to blanparbe for adding your support to this tale!
I really appreciate that. :D