As the den was nearing closing time--so late into the night that dawn was fast approaching--Alphonse approached his brother, who was entangled with a young lass on one of the many low couches. He reached down, hit him lightly in the shoulder. "We should get back."
Hyacinth, being rather occupied at that particular moment, grumbled at his brother's interruption. "Already?" he said, looking up with distaste. "Can I bring her with me?" He indicated the woman on his lap, who giggled and hiccupped.
Alphonse smirked. "Leftovers, Hyacinth? Really? Return tomorrow for fresh pickings." He dabbed again at the soiled front of his waistcoat. "I need to change. And sleep, before the matinee. You would be wise to do the same."
Hyacinth smiled - his face eerily mirroring his twin's - and rolled to his feet, dropping the woman rather unceremoniously to the floor and stretching his arms above his head. "Ah, yes, show tomorrow," he said. "Musn't miss our beauty sleep." He blinked a bit, then squinted, studying his brother more closely in the dark light of the den. "You've spilled on your vest, Alphonse. Had too much to drink?"
"Wasn't my fault," complained Alphonse. "This crazy woman threw her wine at me. Then again, they're all crazy," he scoffed. "And near injury added to insult, her bodyguard or something. Threatened me. He had a knife! Said he was from that other circus. They all must have been--did you see them? With the flowers?" He vaguely indicated the lapel of his coat, where a pin or badge might lie.
Hyacinth burst out laughing - big, graceless guffaws. "Did you offend her honor or something?" he said, making his way towards the den door. He paused at the mention of another circus, tilting his head thoughtfully, threatening his already dangerously askew tophat. "Yeah, I saw one of 'em. Pretty thing, lots of scarves. Did you punch him?"
"Course not. He had a knife." He added sullenly, "And I didn't do a damn thing to her. I gave one of her company a free pass, actually. I was a prop'r gentleman." He grinned unconvincingly. "Think it'll come to trouble?"
Trouble was something Alphonse tended to avoid, much favouring the company of women or a glass of ale to any ruckus, though he was not quite dedicated to keeping the peace. He'd slit a throat if it'd gain him a few hours of quiet to spend with opium or ladies of questionable morals.
"Shoulda punched him," Hyacinth insisted - he was not, perhaps, at his most rational, and thought a brawl might have made the evening even the more interesting. "Who'd you give a pass to? Not the one with the knife?" He narrowed his eyes suspiciously, which led to him tripping over the threshold of the door and sent his hat tumbling to the street. He had recovered and walked several steps beyond it before he realized and went back to pick it up.
"No, not him. The scrawny one. She seemed quite taken by you. But so did the other half dozen. You might not have noticed her." He held his hand out, and then it wavered somewhere between a height of three and a half and four feet. "She was small. Young, I guess. I didn't know she was with the crazy woman. Or that the crazy woman was with the man with the knife. Or that any of them was with..."
He paused, while Hyacinth fumbled with his hat. "What was that other circus? Cirque du... de..." He snapped his fingers a few times, and then coughed in annoyance. "Something. The one Jacque doesn't like."
"Jacque doesn't like any of them," Hyacinth mumbled, shoving his hat back on his head as grumpily as if it had personally offended him. "I didn't see her. Was she as determined to stab you or ruin your clothes as the rest of them?"
"No, I think she was too besotted. Or drunk, perhaps." Alphonse shook his head. "She didn't even get angry until I gave the thing the ticket. Which makes no sense."
"Women," Hyacinth said dismissively, waving his hand. "Can't make sense, can they? They haven't got any. Was she pretty, then?"
"The little thing? Or the crazy?" Alphonse stumbled over a loose stone in the street, and spat at it as he righted himself and passed over it.
Hyacinth chucked at his brother's stumbling. "The besotted one," he said. "Another pretty swooning dove fluttering in the stands is never a bad thing." He frowned thoughtfully. "But if she's from another circus, won't they have their own show? Might not ev'n need to worry 'bout it."
Alphonse shrugged. "Well, if she shirks her own circus to attend ours, perhaps they'll suffer for it. And then Jacque will be less annoyed, and may give us more coin for a night out. I see no bad...things. Results."
After a moment, he added. "She was pretty, but very lean. A performer, maybe?"
Hyacinth nodded thoughtfully. "They can't be very good," he said, with much conviction. "Stabbing innocent bar patrons, skipping their own shows... A rag-tag bunch playing circus for a lark, I'm sure of it." He took off his hat and started fiddling with the pin, as he always did when an idea came to him. "We should mess with them."
Alphonse arched an eyebrow. His twin's assessment seemed right on; any group of showmen that ran around murdering people deserved what was coming to them, and if he happened to help speed along their fate? Well, all's fair in the business. "How?"
Hyacinth fingered the feathers on his hat. "Dunno," he admitted. His cleverness had run into the rather solid wall to thought that a night of debauchery had erected in his brain. "You saw more of them than I."
"There were quite a lot of them. At least... a dozen?" He tried to recall their numbers, but failed. "More than I want to see again."
He sighed. "Should we tell Jacque? He'll only get more angry."
Hyacinth shook his head. "He'll find out another circus is in town soon anyway, no need to make him take it out on us," he said.
Slowly, Alphonse replied. "He knows already. That's why he had us stop, remember? Donatelle told us that he'd seen the airships. But if their members are coming tomorrow, he may want to prepare something... special... for them."
"Ah." Hyacinth said. "Your point, sir, is well made." He hiccupped.
The alcohol was making Alphonse feel buzzed and weary, and he was irritable at the best of times. "We should just burn them out of Orleans. There's no room here for two circuses, and ours is clearly superior."
Hyacinth frowned, stopping in the street to frown up at the skyline for a bit, looking for dirigibles. "I think that's illegal," he said, grudgingly, as though arson laws ruined all his fun. "We could have the magician pick the little one to volunteer. Saw her in half or something." He chuckled. Sawing women in half was probably equally illegal, but it was an amusing mental image, and all in the name of art, of course.
Alphonse chuckled. "But we'd have no hand in the fun!" He put his hands on his hips, grinning at his twin. "And it's really doing them a favour. They'll be humiliated, otherwise. Might as well just encourage them to move on along."
Hyacinth nodded. "It's a tough business, circus. Kind of us to give them some sort of warning. But you're right, it's no fun for us..." He bit his lip, the effort of plotting becoming increasingly strenuous as the evening tore towards dawn. "Do they ever take volunteers on the highwire, you think?" he said with another laugh. He was officially out of ideas, but had great faith that this would end excitingly.
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