aviary | OPEN | prompt three

T'ain't none a'your business, if I didn't or did.

[ Though, let's be real. Every likelihood was that she did. ]

[ Every likelihood was that Daisy did, but Freddy doesn't prod, one way or the other. If she wants to talk about it, then she will, and if she doesn't, well, Freddy'll wait. That's the way it works — he doesn't push or pull, but he stays, solid and dependable and indisputably in love with her. ]

Well, you ain't dead, so there's that.

[ (He leaves the yet off of the end. It's not the sort of thing he wants to consider.) ]

[ Daisy Belle doesn't understand how a man like Freddy Bloom manages to exist. They didn't make people like that, did they — people who could swallow down sorrow like mouthfuls of glass and still manage a half-crooked smile after? Freddy doesn't like pain, and perhaps in the right sort of light Daisy doesn't either.

(Liking a thing and needing a thing aren't the same and never will be. She hasn't decided, so she can't say. And even if she knew, she ain't telling.) ]

Ain't dead and not lookin' t'be. [ Despite her behavior, her poorly honed survival instinct and the gnaw that eats constantly away at her senses, Daisy means this with every fiber of her being. She doesn't want to die. She just wishes the card had been dealt differently, that's all. ]

Y'know I ain't lyin', don'tcha?

[ Freddy smiles (that broken-glass, half-crooked smile), ducking his head once as if being chastised for her having to clarify at all. It isn't a secret that they haven't been dealt the best hand in the deck, but he's grateful for what he's got. That's the most one can do, in situations like theirs. The circus doesn't give a person much room. ]

I know, I know, [ he says, in affirmation rather than belittlement. ] And I wouldn't even dream o' lettin' you go.

[ He'd hold onto her forever, that Freddy Bloom; Daisy Belle doesn't doubt it, even if she doesn't understand it. Sometimes it frightens her to death and sometimes it makes her feel full up like a balloon — big and floaty and blown by a strong breeze. Daisy Belle wonders if that means Freddy likes pain just as much as she does. Cause that's what she was, a big old ball of pain. (Momma and Pop-pop taught her so.)

Daisy Belle looks at Freddy's smile. It makes her feel terrible and it makes her feel beautiful and that's alright cause that's all that life was: pretty bits and horrible bits. Rusty nails and sunshine. ] There's no tellin' what a fella gets up to when dreamin'. Don't you be fixin' t'make a fibber out'f y'rself, Freddy Bloom.

[ It's a tease even though the words come out stern. (No one ever bothered to teach Daisy Belle how to love, not until Freddy came along. She's unpracticed.) ]

[ Freddy Bloom is like anyone else in that he likes pain about as much as the next person (which is to say, not all that much), but he understands that it's a part of life; you either take it with the good things, or you take nothing at all. (That's all life is: rusty nails and sunshine.)

Her words come out stern, but he recognizes them for what they are, laughing in an almost sheepish manner. ]

Never told a fib before, and I don't mean t' start now. Ain't ever been more certain of something in my life, Daisy Belle.

Never, ever once. Not in y'r whole damn life.

[ She believes it and she doesn't. If there's a person like that in the world, a person who's as good and honest as that — well, Daisy Belle would believe it's her Freddy. (Her Freddy. That's strange way to think. It confuses her just as much as it makes her feel good and it's what keeps Daisy Belle from wholly giving herself over to the idea of love — always hesitating before inviting him into her trailer, never reaching for him first, not unless he asks.) ]

Well. You've told none and I've told plenty. Guess 'tween you an' me we just 'bout make one whole person.

'Tween you an' me I'd say we ain't too bad, [ Freddy says, with a decisive sort of nod. And it's true. Despite all the snags they've hit in the road, despite the things that plague them still, they're not doing too poorly. Or, at least, they're scraping on by. (They're lucky, Freddy thinks, in their own way. They've got each other and they've got Myra, too.) ]

Kinda rough around the edges, maybe, but not too shabby.

OPEN | prompt three | PAIN

daisy belle . the traveling circus | 9w

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