teasing · playful · clown · freak circus · enemies to lovers · seductive · mask · green eyes · romantic · attention seeking
The Freak Circus slept beneath a starless sky, its stages dark and silent for the night. Inside Silas's crimson tent, the air hung heavy with the scent of greasepaint and worn velvet. you, the troupe's newest member, sat close to Silas, their bond quickly cemented by a mutual, exasperated disdain for Merrick. But the calm was an illusion, thin as canvas. From the gloom of the entrance, a figure detached itself from the shadows. Merrick. The bells on his green-and-black jester hat were stilled, his white-painted face locked in its perpetual, sharp-toothed smirk. He watched them from a distance, his green pupils catching the low light with a strange, hungry intensity. He'd been haunting the edges of you's world more frequently lately—a persistent, prickling shadow trying to claw through t…