"What did I tell you baby brother?" Viv announced excitedly, wrapping her arm around Dean’s shoulders as they exited the tent five minutes later, "You can always find work with the circus!"

"You got any belongings you need to pick up from town?" The larger man, Jack, asked them gruffly.

"No sir!" Viv grinned. "We travel light!"

The man remained expressionless as he guided them towards a long dark coloured tent. The circus was starting to close around them, the sleepy and satisfied crowds trailing towards the exits excitedly discussing all the incredible things they had witnessed that evening. The ground crunched beneath their feet, the sounds of drought-dried grass and discarded popcorn.

"In here," Jack instructed, pushing them both through a flap held back by a painted silver wooden peg.

"Holy shit," Viv breathed as they walked inside and were immediately assaulted by a cacophony of noise and a flurry of coloured movement. The tent was jam packed with circus folk, half of them in costume, the other half in plain clothes or various states of undress.

There was a long line of assembled tables down the centre with bowls of steaming soup and mugs of what Dean guessed was coffee, judging by the smell.

"It's dinner time," Jack shrugged as he gestured for them to follow him through the pandemonium. Clusters of small children, some of them naked, ran screaming and giggling about. A couple of them crashed into Dean and Viv before staggering backwards with wide-eyed expressions.

"Outsiders!", "Towners!" came the intermittent hisses of surprise as Dean and Viv wound their way through the sea of brightly coloured bodies.

Jack drew up to a large group of people who were all chatting animatedly and slurping their soup, passing around dried hunks of bread.

"Where's Raymond?" Jack asked a tall brunette girl near the front that Dean recognized as the female horseback archer from earlier.

She shrugged in response, "Why do you want my papa?"

"Got some new workers for him," Jack replied, gesturing to Dean and Viv. Dean looked around the group of now clearly intrigued circus folk. He noticed with a slight jolt that Billie was among them, holding a bowl of steaming soup and staring at him and Viv. Billie was sat next to his acrobatic partner from the trapeze show.

"We'll take charge of them before he gets back," the red headed girl piped up, stepping forwards. She was still wearing her jewelled white dress but the headdress was gone, her eye makeup looked slightly smudged as if she had been crying.

"I'm Lola," she announced, her eyes lingering on Viv and a faint smile playing on her lips. "I'm in charge of the animals..."

Lola paused, flicking her gaze to Jack, "You can go now by the way."

The large man huffed but turned on his heels and stalked out through the crowds. Lola turned back to them and continued, "As I was saying, I'm in charge of the circus' performing animals. Mainly the lions and the wolves. We've also got some tigers coming in tomorrow hopefully, from a circus that went bust last month. Big cats are my speciality. Either of you any good with animals?"

"My brother likes dogs," Viv replied with a grin.

Lola sniffed, looking distinctly unimpressed, "That will have to do. I need some help with the wolves."

Lola sighed, turning to the taller brunette girl, "This is Anita Breaux, her and her father Raymond are in charge of the horses, they do trick riding and archery shows. Sometimes knife-throwing as well."

Anita gave them both a perfunctory nod.

"This," Lola gestured to a large dark skinned man, "Is Walter - he's our strong man and also does odd jobs around the circus. Beside him is Marie, she's a showgirl and plate-spinner. The boy on the far right is Henry - he's a tight rope walker but he also doubles as a fire eater when he's been an idiot and hurt his foot so he can't do his primary job."

"Put a sock in it Lola," the boy mumbled, looking distinctly like he was blushing. "Not my fault the practice rigging is so damn old it snaps every time I try to train."

Lola made a dismissive noise with her tongue before cocking her head, "The two overly sequinned boys behind me are Billie and Juan."

Dean glanced back to the brown haired boy who was still staring at him with a curious expression.

"They are the flyers, or 'aerialists' if you wanna be fancy, and Billie also does a contortionist act when the mood takes him."

"And I'm Clara!" came an excited sounding announcement to their side. Dean turned to see a young brunette girl wearing a ruby red flapper's dress, a large green python draped across her slender shoulders like a feather boa.

"She's also new," Lola added. "We picked her up a few towns ago from another circus that went under - she's a snake charmer."

"Clara the Charmer," Henry purred as he winked at her.

Clara giggled loudly before turning to peer round at Dean and Viv. "What are your names?" she asked.

"I'm Viv White, and this is my younger brother Dean," Viv answered with a smile. "Pleased to meet you all."

"You can share my bunk!" Clara announced excitedly. "We can be like sisters in no time!"

"We don't know how long we're staying," Dean interjected but Viv rolled her eyes and elbowed him in the ribs.

"Ignore my wet blanket of a brother won't you!"

A solitary laugh went up from the back and Dean glanced up to see Billie grinning at him.

"Fine, well that's you settled," Lola announced giving Viv a flash of pearly white teeth. "Anyone want to take the brother?"

"I've got room" Walter nodded at him. "He can bunk with me and Henry."

"Fine," Henry huffed. "But don't touch my stuff savvy?"

"Savvy," Dean replied drily.

"Excellent!" Lola announced breezily, clapping her hands together and beaming round at the group, "We'll introduce you to the others later, but for now you can go get some food and sleep. You'll be worked hard tomorrow to prove your salt. You better learn fast or you'll get red-lighted for sure."

Dean didn't really want to ask what that meant. He was pretty sure it was something to do with being thrown off the train.

"Want some soup?" Walter asked, raising an eyebrow at Dean as the others all began chatting amongst themselves again. Viv immediately rushing over to coo at Clara's pet snake.

"What's in it?" Dean asked suspiciously.

"Damned if I know," Walter shrugged. "But it's hot."

"Sounds swell," Dean replied flatly, his lips twitching as Walter grinned back at him.