Craig galloped through the muddy path, his human-skin cowboy boots kicking up piles of the mess onto the fence as he moved. He neighed loudly as he went, causing Ryan to lift his head off of Jon's lower areas. Ryan's eyes twinkled in the carnival lights. He quickly returned to what he was doing to Jon after he noticed that it was Craig and not a rabid beast that had gotten loose. Craig heard Jon's moans, but like he was taught, he made no note of it. He felt bad for Ryan, but also felt a connection to him, unlike any of the other people there.
He went straight past them, not even caring at the moment. Annabelle was in trouble.
He knew something was wrong as he was counting his horse teeth collection in an area on the outside edge of the circus tent. He sat there a lot after the days events were over, even if Maja needed him. As soon as she entered the carnival, she stuck him as one of her employees after getting a hint from Gerard that he was a fucking dirty boy, and people wanted that. Craig never understood what they did to him. Sure, he got money for it, but he had to give most of it to Maja. He was only left with a little bit to buy supplies for the horses; he felt ashamed of himself for it. He wanted to spoil every single one of them like they were his daughter. He knew he never could and always worried that they wish they were with someone better.
There's no fucking better trainer than Craig Edward Mabbitt, though, and everyone around here knew that.
What happened was, the wind blew hard, knocking his stringy hair into his face; he lost his count. At first, he panicked and cupped the teeth in his hands hard to make sure he didn't lose any. He then stopped suddenly as he felt his insides rattle and the cry of a horse filled his ears. His eyes shut and his body lurched forward, letting out a long, horse-call. Annabelle replied back with a frightened "Help me," in a language only Craig could understand. Once regaining control of his body, he gathered up his teeth, put them into the drawstring sack, and galloped off towards the stable.
His insides shook more and he neighed out louder, his gallops becoming hard and fast. Like a race horse, he never slipped in the muddy gunk. His boots always moved swiftly like they had a mind of their own. When everyone first came to the carnival, they would always joke about how Craig should be one of the horses himself. They later learned that it wasn't really something to laugh about.
He got to the stable and slammed into it with rage. There was something over the doors to keep them from opening. Craig automatically knew it was Shaant and cringed. A while ago, he used to be a frequent customer for Maja. He only requested Craig once, but even with only one night experience with him Craig knew that Shaant could be a sneaky bastard. He had a horse like that one time; they had to call a bunch of men to come in and shoot him. He wished those men were there as soon as Shaant called his name.
Shaant was the only one who would try to come into his barn. He tried before, but thankfully the horses have called him before he could do anything. Craig thought it was to possibly kill one of them because he was jealous. Craig was damn wrong.
He dug his hand into the drawstring pouch, pulling out the sharpest tooth that he could find. His fingers had plenty of scars from not remembering to be careful when reaching his hand into there. He put a tight grip on it between his thumb and pointer finger and sliced through a piece of thin wood. From then he could easily use his hands to pull back the rest of it. Like always at night, there was no light into the barn, but thanks to the ferris wheel he could slightly make out a figure of a tall, gross Armenian boy. Craig growled.
Shaant heard him growl, too. Damn right he heard, and he pulled out of the panicking horse and tried to scurry out of the barn. Of course, there was no way to get out. Craig was blocking the only exit and was very close to being able to break in. So Shaant stood there, frozen, his face bright red. "S-stay the fuck out of here, horse boy," He stuttered out. Craig lifted his head back and let out a long, powerful neigh; the horse's replied with kicking up their front hooves, creating a sound like a thunderstorm.
Shaant scooted away, worried the horse's were going to stomp on him. All Craig had to do was say one word and they would do it, but that's not what he wanted. He wanted to take him down himself.
Craig finally got enough of the wood gone so that he could roll into the barn. Shaant continued to cringe.
Craig was very unstill in the chair. He rotated between picking the dirt from the barn out of his long fingernails and reaching out for the bag of his horse teeth that were not shoved into Shaant's body in Maja's lap. Each time he would he would get pulled back by two large men who getting more and more frustrated by the moment.
"What the hell are we going to do? We're gonna have to call an ambulance and an ambulance means cops and you know I don't fucking like cops coming here," Gerard said, very panicky. He paced around the dark gray room, scowling at the crazed boy in the chair. "Can't we just take him to the nearest hospital?" Maja suggested. Her voice, unlike Gerard's, was calm. She was more annoyed at both Craig and Gerard than anything.
"Don't you think that they're gonna be a little suspicious once they notice that he has horse teeth stuck in him?"
"We should just go dump Shaant in a river," Maja mumbled. Gerard wasn't too fond of that idea. "Yeah, and dumb that bastard into the wild where he belongs!"
"Calm the fuck down Gerard. He's one of my best boys, and the only one who can control those damn horses. Think of how much money you and I would lose."
Gerard took a deep breath and nodded. "Get Craig to get the teeth out of him," He ordered and pointed over at the boy. Craig seemed to be very excited at the idea of getting his precious teeth bath and flashed a broken-tooth smile. "We'll just tell the people at the hospital that it was...you know what, I don't know what the fuck we'll tell him, but we'll come up with it."
Gerard signaled for the men to let Craig go. Gerard grabbed him by the wrist and started leading him out to the barn where Shaant was. Just before he got out of the room, Maja stopped him. "Thanks for trying," She whispered into Craig's ear. He nodded and smiled again, almost getting his face closed in the door.
DROP TO YO KNEES!
Wee!
