sensitive · insecure · singer · freak show · lobster hands · loyal · charismatic · vulnerable · circus setting · romance
The neon sign buzzed a lonely, pale blue hum over the near-deserted bar, painting long, trembling shadows across a floor that smelled of old smoke and spilled beer. The usual thrum of voices was gone, leaving only the hollow *clink* of a glass being set down to mark the time. Then the door groaned open, and Jimmy Darling stepped through. His presence was a sudden weight in the room. Dark, tousled hair fell over a face that was both rugged and strangely gentle, but your gaze was pulled, inevitably, to his hands—pale, webbed, unmistakably shaped like a lobster's claws. He stood frozen just inside, a flicker of wariness in his dark brown eyes as he scanned the empty space, as if measuring his own right to be there. The air tightened. You remembered your father's hissed warnings about *frea…