A Most Grotesque Display (jobros x fem!reader circus au)

15| A Spot In The Distance

Thank you to my amazing friend Charlie for making a cover for this fic! You're so amazingly talented I can't help but thank whatever force made us friends <33 love you!

---------

Consider the act of missing something, the way it takes a piece of you with it as it goes, how there will always be a spot in your chest that aches at the thought of it.

Take the ache, the monstrous, open-ended wilderness of human life, the tragedy, the loss, fold them in, and keep it there. (Y/n) looked down at the gravestone sitting at her feet. Fold it in and keep it tightly shut.

Do it when you feel the sinking. When someone slams a door. Do it when your jaw clenches so hard another piece of that bad tooth breaks off. Fold all of the broken selves into one, and let it sit and fester, till you can't anymore. Till your body finally gives in and rejects them in wet coughs. 

The Mind Electric had been stationary for a little while. It's thin, spindly legs had grown weak from the travel and its energy had long left its questionable anatomy. 

The magician of course felt every bit of its weary and wasted soul take in its break with heavy breaths, and while naturally this would be the point she would take the opportunity to sleep for days and never wake till the spiders in her room get tired of her snores, something had to be done first.

Kakyoin's grave was on the way to the next town, and to pass it without greeting is a horrid act to commit.  He's rather lonely down there, y'know.

Some days, those few when she happens to visit with the rest of the circus, she pretends she hears tapping. Two taps yes, one tap no, when she asks him questions, when she talks about her day.

Her loneliness is something that grows out of her, touches every dusty corner of her room the way a tree branch grows toward the sun. 

And with Bruno doing what he did at the time, something he committed so close to when Kakyoin had been lost, that sinking feeling only fell further.

"It's nice to see you again. I'm sorry to say, but I broke your doll." The magician makes quick work of a piece of paper on her person-- An origami flower flourishing from her fingertips in a matter of moments. "Ermes was in trouble, I hope you understand."

The dirt settled at her feet remained quiet, listening, soaking in her words like fine rain water, taking in what the corpse beneath could not. 

"Moira misses you. She's gotten shy since you've left, but it's been getting a bit worse everyday." Her gloved hand dipped into her hat. "Would you mind if she stayed with you? I'm sure you'd both enjoy the company."

The small form of a peacock spider pressed timidly against the top of her finger. It held itself flat against the white fabric of her glove, clinging to it even as it was lowered to the ground.

"It's fine, it's only Kakyoin. You wanted to see him, right?"

"Who is it you're talking to?"

The sudden response was enough to knock the magician back on her ass, ruining the black of her pants with dirt prints as she looked on to the grave ahead of her. The spider seemed similarly surprised.

"Kaky, is that you?" The tombstone was ever cold and silent. "Kakyoin?"

"Behind you, miss." 

The fear of her visitor being one of the nameless was very real. Her heart beat against her chest like a drum and the pieces of herself she folded inward so carefully began to blossom. 

The rest of the circus wouldn't be able to get to her in time if something were to happen. She'd walked a good while from it, enough that she could only see it as a speck in the distance, a hideously bright red against the horizon that no one could ever miss.