Circus by Day, Assassins by Night

  • Thread starter All My Love Is Books
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"I'm coming." Markie snapped at him, the pain beginning now that the adrenaline had calmed down since they were safe in their family of circus freaks. She was actually kind of glad that he wasn't up to his old habits because she was worried that the girl might be there also. It seemed that Logan always had girls that would throw themselves at him. She wasn't sure if he had ever bed them and she didn't want to know.

Once they were back inside of his tent, Markie sank down onto his cot and closed her eyes. "How bad is it? I hit the ground pretty hard." Markie muttered, glad that the girl wasn't there. She hadn't wanted to be in another fight. One a night was good in her books. "You are going to tell that girl you aren't interested right?" Markie suddenly opened her eyes to look at him.

Having any sort of relationship that wasn't job related between the non-assassins and the assassins was forbidden. Of course even more deadly was a romance between the two assassins. She had seen what had happened to couples that had been caught. It wasn't pretty. "You know what would happen to you if you got caught and I don't want to train a new guy." Markie told him, her eyes narrowed slightly to really get her point across.
 
Once back at his tent, Logan lit a couple candles before gently peeling Markie's sleeve up, rolling it to her shoulder. He was glad that the girl hadn't come, either...but there'd have to be something done in the morning about her. "Well, you're not gonna die," Logan said cheerfully. "In fact, you might even escape with your whole arm," he added jokingly. Standing up, he went to his chest, where he rummaged about for a few minutes before finding an old roll of bandages. "It's just scraped up a bit. You'll be fine in the morning." He was about to say more, but was caught off guard by her question.

After several moments, he said, almost angrily, "Yes. Another heart broken by the great assassin Logan. Way to rub it in." He didn't know why he had responded that way. Normally with the girls he would have a one-hour fling with, he would joke about it, as if he didn't care. But now, for some reason, he was angry at Markie for bringing it up.

Without saying anything else, he bandaged up her arm, a frown permanently on his face.
 
Markie was silent until Logan had finished bandaging her up. When he was done ranting at her, Markie stood up and shoved him. She would've liked to have punched him, but she didn't want to hurt him. Just knock some sense into him. "You know what Logan... you don't get to be like that!" Markie hissed at him, shoving him again. "I have tried so hard to be good about not fraternizing and there you are always with some other girl hanging from your neck." Markie glared at him and walked up to him and stood right in front of him, their noses almost touching.

"I am jealous.... of you Logan. I want you to be unhappy as I am. I want a family.... I want to have my first kiss. I want it all and then I come and find you and yet again another girl has been with you and I feel so angry I could just rip her apart." Markie stared right into his eyes to see his reaction. "Don't you get it?"
 
"We can't have families!" Logan yelled, his eyes dark and hurt and angry all at the same time. "They don't even like it when I kiss someone, even if it doesn't mean anything. At least I can pretend that I can fall in love without her being killed before my eyes right before they kill me! Even if it's only for a few minutes, and even if I have to tell the girl that I can never see her again, it's what keeps me from becoming completely heartless or jumping from a bridge!" In the space of a few seconds, it became apparent just how much the assassination business had been getting to him.

"Get out," was the next thing that came out of his mouth, his voice deathly quiet. He didn't say any more, simply sat down on the ground, clearly not in the mood for this.
 
Markie didn't leave though. Instead she sat down next to him and waited there. Waited for what seemed like hours, but in reality was only 10 minutes. Then she reached out and grabbed Logan and hugged him tightly. Yes they fought... and it seemed it was happening more and more lately but there was nobody else that Markie trusted like she trusted Logan. "Please... don't push me away. You are all that I have and I am all that you have. We are it." Markie whispered as she let him go.

"I know we fight and sometimes I want to punch you, but I trust you with my life." Markie leaned back against his bed, her legs pulled up around her chest, arms wrapped around her shins. "I do love you, you're the family I never got to have. Just don't leave me. Please...."
 
Logan sighed after Markie spoke. "I'd never leave you...I never could, anyways." He ran a hand through his hair, disheveling it. He would never be able to leave her, and he could hardly stand seeing her like this. He needed her, despite the things he would say or do. Whenever he felt like he couldn't keep going, or when he was seriously thinking about running away from it all, just seeing Markie was enough to make him keep going.

"...I'm sorry," he said after a while, looking down into his lap.
 
While she knew that he wouldn't leave her, Markie felt better hearing it come from his mouth. She leaned forward and leaned against him. "Don't be sorry. It's hard. Having missions so much.it is taking it's toll on us. We should go out and train together tomorrow." Being able to use her hands helped whenever she was feeling like she was now.
 
"Okay," Logan said, frowning. "I'll see you tomorrow, then...Right now I just want to go to sleep." He looked up at her. "Yeah. See you in the morning." It was obvious that he had been going to say something else, but he tried to hide it. After making sure Markie had left, he spent a long, sleepless night sitting on the ground and thinking.

When dawn finally came, he forced himself to his feet before walking over to Markie's tent, hoping that she had slept a little bit.
 
Markie had gone back to her tent, but she had not slept a wink. She had been writing almost the whole night. When she was stressed and there was no way to release her pent up energy, she would write. First she had wrote down the job and how she could have improved and then she set about writing her story that she was working on. When morning came, Markie heard Logan come in and she looked back at him, her eyes blood shot and baggy rims weighing under her lifeless green eyes.

"Must be morning." she murmured, slumping against the chair the pen still in her hand.
 
"You look as bad as I feel," he told her, before instantly regretting it. He had started trying to be more kind to people, especially Markie, in order to keep his sanity, but it was proving easier said than done. "Sorry," he muttered. He was able to stay up long periods of time without sleeping and still look alright in the mornings, but he certainly felt it, like he was that morning. "I think it would be a better idea if we just did nothing, all day...that way we'd be ready for the show tonight, you know?" He smiled apologetically, brushing his hair out of his face.
 
"I.... I need to go. If I stay in here any longer I am going to go insane." Markie told him, standing up and putting the writing stuff away. "You don't have to come with me. I just need to go and work out my problems." she walked over to her chest and pulled out some loose fitting clothes. She walked behind the little screen set up at the corner of her tent. She came back and grabbed her work boots and slipped them on being sure to lace them tightly. "Will you just come and sit with me?" Markie asked Logan, looking over at him.
 
"Sure," he said. "Where're we heading, then?" he asked her as was lacing up her boots, shoving his hands in his pockets. "The forest or the plains?" Around the camp was more fields and a small forest, and while the fields were more open, Logan didn't like the forest as much, preferring instead to be underneath the sun. "We don't have a job tonight, do we?" he asked her, not feeling up to having two nights in a row that he had to kill someone.
 
"As far as I know and by my schedule we don't have another one until we leave here and we are due here to be a few days. They are supposed to be having a big festival and the circus is supposed to stay and get lots of full houses." Markie murmured as she stood up and grabbed her knife and bow. "I would rather go to the woods though. I want to practice my bow. My throwing knives too. My aim has been off lately. Should've killed that guy last night." Markie muttered, walking out of her tent. Because it was still early enough the only people awake were the guys that had to feed the hungry animals and they paid no attention to the two that walked through the tents and towards the corral.

Once there, she was quick to saddle the mare up who looked happy to be going out. "Easy girl. Going soon enough."
 
Logan decided not to take any weapons. After all, he was just going to sit there with Markie, nothing more. At the corral, he began saddling his own horse, whispering softly to her. It was mostly telling her about how he was going to feed her an apple later, but it filled the silence. Gently patting her, he pulled himself onto the saddle.

Once Markie was ready, Logan road off towards the forest, leading the way towards a clearing he knew about that was about a mile in. "Watch out for rocks," he told her, not liking the idea of having a horse with a broken leg.
 
Markie nodded and was careful as she tread through the treacherous rocks. Once they were clear, it was only a bit longer to the clearing. She slipped off the mare and took off the saddle so that she could roll around in the grass while her owner practiced. Then she pulled out her bow and moved to the center of the clearing. "I'm sorry about last night. I didn't... I don't like fighting with you Logan." Markie told him as she took aim at a tree a good distance away from her. "I just, it's starting to get to me. They said it would and I didn't believe it. I think it is though." Markie released the arrow and fell short of her mark. "Damn..."

She grabbed another one and notched it before taking aim again.
 
Once in the clearing, Logan unsaddled his horse like Markie before climbing a tree. Once he was a good distance from the ground, not high enough to break something if he fell, but high enough to hurt if he did, he laid down lazily, propping his head up with a hand. "It's fine," he told her as she apologized, before listening to what she had to say. "Welcome to the club, then," he said once she talked about the kills finally getting to her. He hadn't been as strong as her, he guessed, and that was why he did what he did. "It gets to even the best of us."
 
"Do you think that we could just go away? Leave it behind.... at least for a few days? Leave the circus for a few days too. Our replacements could fill in for us. Just tell the Ringmaster that we have some family business to attend to." The idea caused Markie to lower her bow and look up at him in the tree. "I mean really... I think that we could do it. We know how to move stealthily and we would come back. Just take a few days to relax and work the stress out." It sounded like a piece of heaven.

"Question is would you be willing to deal with the consequences if we got caught?" Markie asked, resuming her aim. She let the arrow fly and got a bit closer to the target. At least she hit the tree this time.
 
"...I may not like the job I do, Markie," Logan said, sighing softly. "But I value my life over anything. It sounds nice, though, just leaving for a few days, but I don't want to give them any more reason to decommission me. It's just not worth it. Besides...we're assassins, and we aren't supposed to have families." He frowned, trying not to start thinking of the family that he had to leave when he was recruited.

Letting his head hang over the branch, he looked down at Markie as she hit the tree with a shot. Logan had used to dream about getting his things and leaving forever, but the council of assassins had a sadistic sense of humor. If Logan ran away, chances were that they would force Markie to hunt him down and bring him in, dead or alive. He could never do that to her. Frowning, he rubbed his jaw gently, thinking about Markie's idea.
 
Markie didn't say anything to Logan for a little while. She was to busy focusing on hitting the tree. She also didn't want to hear what he had to say about not wanting to go. She valued her life also, but if they were going to kill each other first then they might as well get away while they still could. When he came down, Markie turned to look at him the bow facing downward. She could see that he was thinking so she left him to it and went to go and exchange weapons. She came back with her three throwing knifes and she took aim a bit closer to the tree this time and one after the other let them all fly.

Two of them hit the tree and one missed horribly. "I just think that we are going to end up killing each other if we don't stop and take a look at our working relationship." Markie told him finally turning around to look at him. She didn't go to retrieve her knives just yet. She wanted to see what he had to say about that. "You said so yourself.... you value your life..."
 
Logan had to admit, he was a little worried about standing near Markie when she had weapons on her. She wasn't bad at it, and could hit a target decently well, but he didn't want to anger her and then have her stab him. Leaning against the tree, he answered her question with, "Okay. Fine...I'll try to be complying with this."

He sighed before speaking again. "What would you have me do to make us more...compatible? Similarly, I want you to ask the same thing of me, to make it fair." He crossed his arms over his chest, a slightly dour expression on his face.
 
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