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“Ladies and Gentlemen, don’t look away! You don’t want to miss a second of our next act!”
The ringmaster’s voice echoes through the big top, bellowing out loud over even the roar of a chattering and gasping crowd. There’s an unceasing bustle to the circus – the cries of candy butchers mingling with the scurry of the troupers running to and fro to get the next acts ready. In between acts, the clowns stumble and fumble and fall over themselves to keep the masses entertained.
It's a hot night. Humid, this far south. The locals in the seats fan themselves, but it doesn’t do much. It’s the kind of hot that sticks to you, that clings to your skin all salty and slick. Before the show, he’d heard bullfrogs hollering out somewhere nearby. Flies sting at any skin they can reach, and outside the safety of the canvas, mosquitoes lie in wait for their meal ticket to come out into the humid night.
“Fuck, Zoro, we need to get out there,” Sanji whines.
It’s even hotter here under a loose flap of tent not far from clown alley. It feels like a sauna. The air’s all stuffy and close, and the breath of the two men mingles with the rising heat from their bodies as they writhe and twist against some forgotten crates.
“They’ll live without us,” Zoro says.
They probably will. Neither one of them are particularly good clowns. It’s just the first job they found that would take them, and a free ticket to traveling down the east coast by train. Buggy the old head clown’s always bitching them out for not having a “true showman’s spirit” and being “as funny as a couple of rocks on the ground.” He’s not far off. Sanji never imagined a clown’s life for himself.
Speaking of…
He turns over his shoulder and glares at Zoro. “I can’t take you seriously with that thing on.”
Zoro grins. His teeth shine white under the exaggerated black lines of grease paint highlighting his normal grimace and making his face a grotesque parody. He’s smeared some of it with his arm at some point, and his skin’s shiny with sweat in the low light.
Damningly, he’s still wearing the fluffy green wig.
“We ain’t meant to be serious,” Zoro says, leaning in to murmur against the back of Sanji’s ear.
He can feel Zoro’s cock rubbing against his ass as he lazily grinds against him. Sanji can’t do much, pinned as he is on his front against these crates. He can only writhe against him as Zoro finally undoes the fastening of his stupid clown pants and shoves his sweaty hand down inside to wrap around his cock.
“Zoro, fuck –”
“Hush. You don’t want them to hear you, do you?” Zoro teases.
He doesn’t. Not really. The circus is the last place to judge them for being two men in a relationship, but there’s a wide gulf between casual acceptance and getting found fucking in a dark corner all made up in their clown costumes when they’re meant to be out there entertaining the crowd.
Fuck, but the stupid clown costume is hot in this sweaty little space they’d found. He feels like his head’s spinning, and even Zoro methodically yanking his clothes aside does little to relieve the heat.
“Lemme take the damn wig off,” he complains.
“Nah, keep it on,” Zoro says. He yanks his cock again roughly.
“Fuck! Dammit. Fuck, I think you’re into this, you sick bastard,” Sanji babbles.
Zoro leans close to mouth at the side of his throat. He feels his grin against his sweaty skin.
“And you’re not?”
“No!” Sanji gasps and whines when Zoro pulls back to yank his pants down and expose his ass. Those wide hands spread his cheeks apart, and he doesn’t know anymore if he’s aroused or embarrassed when Zoro spits directly on his asshole and uses his thumb to press against the rim. “Goddammit, Zoro, fuck, not everyone’s a fucking freak like you. Fucking clown fucking son of a –”
“If I’m such a freak, why are you getting off on this, too?”
Sanji doesn’t answer, because Zoro drools more spit down onto him and starts pressing inside, and his brain feels like it turns to mush. He can’t ever think straight when Zoro’s manhandling him like this. All he can think about is where he’s touching him and how much he wants to do whatever Zoro wants if it means he’ll get Zoro filling him up and using him and stretching him open. There must be something deeply wrong with him if he’s willing to let him fuck him while he’s dressed like a fucking clown.
“I think you like it,” Zoro teases.
“Now, ladies and gentlemen, Mohji the Beast Tamer!”
The crowd roars even louder than the roaring Mohji had trained his lion Richie to perform on command. The sound covers up the way Sanji cries out as Zoro shoves two fingers inside of him before he was quite ready and fucks him with them through the burning stretch.
“You hear that?” Zoro says.
Sanji can’t hear anything over the roar of the crowd. He shakes his head.
“No? You hear the crowd?”
Sanji nods, confused and sweaty and almost delirious from the heat. Zoro spits on him again and forces another finger inside. Sanji collapses further against the crate as his shaky legs finally give out. All he can do is hold himself up on his hands and hold on as Zoro fucks him open with his hand.
Zoro leans closer over him. His lips tickle the shell of Sanji’s ear.
“You hear them clapping? Shouting? Enjoying the show?”
Sanji nods weakly.
“Wanna go back out there? Pull this flap back and give them a real show?”
He’s not sure if it’s anxiety or arousal that shoots through him at that. He tries to lift himself up from the crate even as his cock twitches and leaks pre-come out to dribble down the shaft.
“Zoro, no –”
“Thought you wanted to go back out there,” he teases.
Sanji can’t even remember what he’d thought. He and Zoro had been fooling around for months, but nothing they do ever tops this in his mind. He’s gone mad, he thinks. All he can think about is the stretch of Zoro’s fingers inside of him, the feeling of being full, the mouthwatering need for more, more, more. It makes it hard for him to remember they’re meant to be out there making a fool of themselves for money, that that’s the reason they’re both dolled up in these shitty outfits, their colorful pants pooled around their ankles on top of oversized shoes.
Zoro’s free hand slides through the mess of sweat on his lower back, stroking along the ridges of his spine. Sanji whines and arches back to meet him halfway.
“Fuck, can’t wait much longer, Curls,” Zoro growls. His fingers scissor inside of him, stretching him even wider. “You ready?”
Sanji nods. Fuck, he’s ready. He’s ready for whatever Zoro will give him. The fingers slide out of him, leaving him feeling empty and gaping before Zoro fumbles more until something warmer and thicker than his finger presses against his rim.
“You should see what you look like,” Zoro breathes.
Sanji whines, and then Zoro’s pressing forward, stretching him open and making his mind white out. The roar of the crowd echoes in his ears and covers the sound of them panting in the humidity, the low, broken moan Zoro lets out as he sinks inside.
“Think they’d pay to watch you, Curls,” Zoro groans. He pulls out and then snaps his hips forward again, shoving Sanji into the crate in front of him. “You’re so fucking gorgeous like this, all stretched around my cock.”
Sanji moans and reaches back blindly until Zoro threads their fingers together. Zoro’s other hand keeps spreading his asscheek open so he can more easily watch his own cock fucking into him. He snaps his hips forward more frantically, slapping their sweaty skin together.
“All those people out there paying to watch you,” Zoro continues, “All of them wanting to touch.”
Sanji manages to choke out, “No – don’t want –”
“I know.” Zoro squeezes his hand and grinds inside of him. “I know, baby, you’re all mine, right?”
Sanji nods. “Yours – just yours –”
“That’s right. They’d wanna touch, but I wouldn’t let ‘em. They’d just have to watch me fuck you. Wishing they were me.”
The crowd outside the tent bursts into laughter at something happening inside. It’s close. Too close for comfort, really, but Sanji’s lost in the fantasy Zoro’s spinning, lost in the feeling of being full and held close and the suffocating wet heat around them and how much his cock aches for relief and how fucking good it feels to have Zoro’s cock dragging against his insides and his hand gripping his hip and how he can even kind of forget that Zoro’s still wearing that goddamn wig, that he himself is still wearing his own goddamn wig, that the both of them are painted up like a couple of fucking clowns – it’s fine because he’s in Zoro’s hands and he’s alright and they’re going to finish, and clean up, and nobody will be the wiser.
Honk!
Sanji goes stiff.
He must’ve shifted against the crate and managed to – Zoro thrusts forward again with another quiet honk! and Sanji’s blood runs cold.
“Zoro, wait – !”
One of their fucking props, the stupid fucking clown horn, the goddamn thing must’ve ended up trapped between Sanji and the crate. When he shifted, it must’ve moved, and now –
Honk! Honk! Honk!
Every time Zoro thrusts forward, it shoves Sanji into the stupid fucking horn.
“Zoro, stop!”
The crowd cheers again, and the ringmaster is shouting something, but he can’t be arsed to pay attention because Zoro obviously can’t hear him over the crowd, but all Sanji can hear is the damning horn.
Honkhonkhonkhonk!
Fuck, Zoro’s really into it now, and Sanji can only rip his hand out of Zoro’s and try to pull himself up on the crate to try to reach under himself to dig the stupid clown horn out.
“Eager?” Zoro breathes into his ear.
“No, you fucking idiot, I’m not jacking off, I’m –”
The crowd’s quieting down. Oh, god. They’re probably gearing up for a trapeze act or something, about to drumroll to build suspense. It’s going to get quiet, and someone’s going to hear their honking and come investigate, and Sanji’s going to get found wearing oversized shoes and a blue wig with his pants around his ankles and another clown’s cock up his ass.
He’s going to fucking kill Zoro.
“Here, I got you, baby,” Zoro murmurs.
He grabs Sanji by the hips and hoists him up a bit, dragging him far enough away from the stack of crates that Sanji can get his hand around the offending horn and chuck it across the tent. Zoro makes a low, confused noise even as he wraps a hand around Sanji’s cock.
“What was that?”
The idiot really never heard anything. Sanji sags backwards against him, arching his back so he can lay his head against Zoro’s shoulder and laugh quietly and hysterically.
“Nothing,” he gasps.
Zoro hums and keeps fucking into him. His hand squeezes and strokes Sanji’s cock in time with his fucking, and Sanji – to his own surprise after the stress he’d just endured – comes suddenly and violently, streaking his spend across Zoro’s hand and the crate in front of him. He barely muffles his own cry by slapping his hand over his mouth – right on time, as the big top goes quiet right before the drumroll.
He sags in Zoro’s arms and hears the building drumroll as Zoro keeps fucking him. God, it’s suffocating in here, he thinks, smelling the reek of their sweaty bodies and sex mingling with the background odor of manure and popcorn that seems to permeate the circus. Zoro grunts and mouths along his neck and seems to be close.
The drumroll builds up to a crescendo and cuts off as whoever is up on the trapeze performs whatever death defying feat they advertised, and Zoro gasps out a quiet groan into Sanji’s neck.
His cock pulses inside of him and floods his ass with hot spend just as the crowd goes wild, slamming their feet on the boards of the stands and screaming and applauding.
Zoro releases him slowly. Sanji leans forward against the crate and breathes shallowly and listens to the ringmaster shouting. Zoro’s come trails down his leg, and he mostly just feels tired now.
“C’mon, let’s get out of here.”
Zoro gently pulls his pants up and buttons them shut. Sanji lets him and then languidly follows him as they duck out of the fold of tent and back to the area where the other performers line up. It’s easier to let Zoro do the leading, so he follows sedately as Zoro leads them back to the railway and the train cars they live out of.
“Wait here,” Zoro says.
Sanji nods and leans against the train car. Zoro’s not gone but for a few minutes before he emerges with their two battered suitcases in tow.
“C’mon,” he says.
Sanji nods and follows him away from the circus and out towards the outskirts of town. Zoro never knows where he’s going, but that’s fine. They don’t have anywhere they need to be.
They leave town and follow the road until Sanji spies a path down to the river. Wordlessly, they trudge down and start stripping off their costumes.
“C’mere,” Zoro murmurs.
Sanji follows. Zoro leads him down the bank and into the river. The water’s cool on their skin in the humid night. Gently, Zoro leads him to float in the water, Sanji ducks down to wet his sweaty hair. When he emerges, Zoro is waiting with a cloth and some soap.
“Here, let’s get that shit off your face,” he says.
Sanji closes his eyes and lets Zoro gently scrub the grease paint from his face. He likes how Zoro is after they fuck. He’s always so nice to him. The fucking is amazing, of course, but some days he thinks he likes this just as much. A rare ceasefire on their griping at each other – he can be soft and quiet and Zoro matches that well. He feels like he can be vulnerable like this.
Later, they’ll be back to their usual antics.
But for now, he lets Zoro take care of him.
“We’re not that far from Tampa now, right?” Zoro rumbles.
Sanji rinses his face and cracks his eyes open. The moon is full and bright, so he can see Zoro clearly beside him. He’s missed a spot of paint near his ear. Sanji wordlessly takes the rag from him and starts scrubbing him off.
“Few towns away now,” Sanji answers. He dips the rag in the water and rinses the spot he was scrubbing. It looks slightly red, and without thinking too hard about what he’s doing, he leans in and presses a kiss to the skin there. He pulls back and keeps talking gruffly, looking away, “Only a day or two if we stick with the circus.”
Zoro presses closer to him. “So, what? A week if we hitchhike?”
“Maybe.”
“We’ve still got a month before Luffy said to meet him there.”
Sanji nods.
“Let’s ditch the circus, then,” Zoro urges.
Sanji scoffs, but… well, it wouldn’t be much of a loss. They were pretty shitty clowns.
“Won’t hear me complaining,” he says in answer.
Zoro grins and swoops in for a quick kiss. Sanji melts into it, but he’d deny it if anyone asked. He pulls back and starts wading back to the bank, naked in the moonlight, surrounded by the croaking of bullfrogs and screaming chirps of the crickets.
“You sure?” Zoro asks.
Sanji nods and fishes out a couple of cigarettes for the two of them. They flop onto the bank to slowly dry in the humid air. Sanji lazily lets the smoke curl out of his mouth before blowing it away.
“Yeah,” he says finally, “I reckon we’re close enough. Made good time with the circus, anyway. Doubt they’ll even notice we left.”
Zoro hums agreement. They sit in silence for a spell.
“So,” Zoro finally says, “We’re done with the circus gig for good?”
“Yeah.”
Zoro’s quiet for another moment before he asks, “Can we keep the costumes?”
Sanji turns to him in disbelief.
Zoro grins and blows smoke out at Sanji’s face. “C’mon, Curls. Admit it. The clown thing’s kind of hot.”
It takes them even longer to dry after Sanji pushes Zoro into the river and tries to drown him.
Tellingly, though, the clown wigs make it into Zoro’s suitcase.