playing with dolls

by lizardlesbian

Summary:

There’s never going to be a “right” moment for this talk, not with everything going on and not with the kind of relationship they’ve always had with Caine, so they figure that ripping the band-aid off is the best possible way to confront the problem.

-

After everything, Zooble finally finds the right moment to ask Caine for something.

 

They never noticed how much they relied on the day-night cycle of the Circus to maintain a semblance of normalcy until it was gone. When Caine died and everything broke down, losing the only way they had to keep track of the passage of time was yet another element of distress to pile onto everything else. As if discovering they were as much of a pile of ones and zeros as Caine and his creations were, or Jax’s abstraction, hadn’t been enough on their own.

They’re never gonna take it for granted ever again. Zooble has never paid much attention to the Sun or Moon NPCs before, but now they find themselves keeping track of their turns as they travel through the makeshift skyline of the Circus. Sometimes they even send them a little nod of greeting as they pass by.

Things are not exactly back to the way they were before Caine’s little power trip, but they have finally finished patching up the holes on the ground and walls, at least. They had discovered the hard way that accidentally falling through one sent the person into an undetermined part of the Void, and hadn’t that been a fun problem to solve. Their bedrooms were as intact as they could be, but for a while they made the decision to sleep all together near Jax’s tent, either on the sofas or on the ground, to fight the lingering anxiety of someone else disappearing when they were out of sight.

Zooble doesn’t spend a lot of time lingering on those undistinguishable weeks (months?) they spent in the collapsing Circus. They mostly talked about it with- well, the reason they are wandering around in the middle of the night today. Now that the biggest portion of the rebuilding is finally over with, it also finally gives them the opportunity to deal with something important. Something that’s going to suck.

They sigh. There’s never going to be a “right” moment for this talk, not with everything going on and not with the kind of relationship they’ve always had with Caine, so they figure that ripping the band-aid off is the best possible way to confront the problem. It was easier when their only form of communication with Caine was antagonizing him and being forced into unwanted conversations with him, but with the unsteady truce going on between him and the rest of them, talking to him recently feels… new. They can’t say yet if it’s a good or a bad kind of new.

It used to be difficult to track down Caine before, unless he was the one that wanted to be found first. Now, it’s become embarrassingly easy. Caine is, as he often is lately, sitting down in the Digital Café, no drinks or food in front of him – he will sometimes manifest a steaming cup of coffee to keep close on the side of the table, but they’ve never seen him drink it before so it’s probably just another way he’s trying to make himself more relatable to the humans. He has his arms raised in front of him and his fingers are moving in a frenzy pressing down the air as if he’s messing with an imaginary keyboard. His eyes have that blue screen tint he gets when he’s completely taken with some back of the mind coding. If they squint, they can see pictures passing over his eyes every now and then.

Without whatever it was that gave him his almost unlimited power, he now needs a physical medium to interact with the fabric of their known world – though, unlike Kinger, he doesn’t need an actual PC. Programming is still his mother language, after all. When rebuilding efforts had taken off, Caine made the decision to abandon his old office entirely: too many bad memories, and some of the humans got nervous when he was out of sight for too long. Now it serves the function of a storehouse, in a sense, a place to keep all their previous adventures, NPCs and general settings. The Digital Cafè is a good choice in its stead: the five of them use it as a place to hang-out occasionally and know exactly where it is if they need anything, but it stands empty for a good part of the day. The perfect spot to get some work done in peace.

Kinger sometimes would slide next to him with his newly recreated C&A PC, and they would mutter the day away discussing the finer details of this and that. Zooble never noticed before just how much Caine avoided Kinger until the sight of them huddling close and having long, whisper-yelled discussions became a common sight.

In any case, it’s the middle of the night cycle now and Caine is completely alone. They can’t quite be sure that no one else will decide to take a night stroll at some point, but they’re almost sure that they won’t come up here if they do. It’s the perfect opportunity.

They try coughing to capture his attention. They immediately feel stupid for doing it, considering that Caine doesn’t really get these kind of more particular human gestures, and they don’t even have a fucking mouth to cough with. They get closer and try waving a hand in front of his face next. Still nothing. He’s really lost in there. Maybe he’s doing something important. What is the next project in line after restoring the Digital Lake to its original splendor? They remember Pomni being very insistent on creating someplace for the abstractions to be able to exist outside of the cellar and be safe, and they can imagine the logistics of putting something like that into existence is incredibly complex. Or maybe he took Ragatha’s little suggestion and he’s trying to see if there’s a way to implement season and weather changes into the Circus itself instead of just the auxiliary worlds of his creation.

Or maybe Zooble is giving him too much credit and he’s just creating the 3D model of a bumblebee to rotate in his mind. Maybe that’s what his next big personal project is. Zooble never wondered much what Caine did in his free time if he wasn’t creating new adventures.

In any case, there’s only so many hours available in a night to waste them away like that. They grab his shoulder and give him a little shake. “Caine? You there?”

To say that he overreacts is an understatement. He shoots up in the air with a startled noise, putting both hands on his eyes while screaming “Don’t look! Don’t look!” like a little kid that has been caught on the family computer googling images of boys kissing.

In another situation, with another person, it would’ve been hilarious to see, but it immediately gives Zooble the ick. The memory of the Circus of before, the one they were trapped in for years, and the Caine of before in particular come in like a slap and it sets off alarm bells inside their head.

“Zooble! My multicolored, multi limbed muse, I didn’t see you there!” Caine then croons, coming down to float in front of them like nothing had just happened. He’s assuming a nonchalant pose, body resting belly-down in the air as if draped over an invisible piano, with his feet kicking up in the air and lower mandible/gums resting on his hands “What brings you to little ol’ me on such a fine day?”

Their eyes narrow. “What are you doing.”

Caine lets out a shrill laugh. It comes out a bit laggy. “Oh, Zooble, what are any of us doing, really? I feel like I’m always doing everything, so it’s hard to just… let your hair down once in a while! Really let those imagination juices run all over your brain!”

Yeah, they’re not buying it. Zooble crosses their arms in silence. Caine visibly deflates. Little by little, he floats back down, eyes hidden behind his teeth and his arms clasped behind his back. His heels click as he touches down the pavement, and now all of a sudden, he’s not Caine the ringmaster, but the shyer, more subdued Caine who’s been trying to make amends for however long it’s been since he returned. It’s probably been months already. Has time ever passed that fast in the Circus before?

Zooble never noticed before how much shorter than them Caine actually is, now that he doesn’t fly out and about above them all the time. His upper gums stand a little under Zooble’s neck, and he has to look up when talking to them. It makes them feel… something. Something hard to identify. They wonder if this is why he doesn’t fly around as much now: to make himself closer to their level, a real peer instead of a handler.

“It’s a… bit of a personal matter, truth to be told.” He admits. His eyes are visible again, but now they’re looking down at his feet.

“Well, we have nothing but time.” Zooble moves towards one of the minifridges they recently added to get themselves something to drink, and just like that, a perfectly brandless bottle of coke immediately appears clasped in their hand. Videogame logic. They’re used to it by now. They sit on the barstool closest to Caine with their back to the counter, one elbow planted on it. “Try me.”

Caine looks flabbergasted. They don’t blame him, between how unused he is to being cared for and asked about, and how incapable of handling emotions he’s always been, but they can’t say how glad they are that, instead of causing a scene, he just takes a sit next to them like a good boy. A little wave of his hand and the usual coffee makes its appearance, with Caine putting both his hands around the cup. Zooble pops off the cap of the coke with their hand (plastic really makes the whole debacle so much easier, they tried to open a beer with their teeth to impress a girl once and ended up with a chipped tooth instead) and takes a swig from the bottle, giving him some space to put together his thoughts.

“I know what it must have looked like, but I wasn’t doing anything nefarious this time.” Another awkward little laugh. “It’s just… I had to download a lot of social network pages and news articles to put together that video I showed you. There’s stuff among them that I keep just for me and well, there’s never been a good moment to look through them.”

He sighs. “I was looking for anything I could about one of my creators. He used to be called Scratch here, but his name was actually Mike Dobby. He was the tech lead of my development at C&A.”

They remember Kinger mentioning him. A true programming genius, but very difficult to work with at times due to the tumor in the-

Oh. Great, now Zooble feels like an asshole.

“You’re looking through obituaries?”

Caine nods, his shoulders hunched. His finger traces the rim of the cup. He seems even smaller than before now, if possible. Maybe his mood is influencing his stature, somehow? Zooble is half sure that they’ve seen that happening before, but they can’t be assed to remember where.

In any case, they’ve never wondered before what Caine’s relationship with his creation was. Zooble has been at odds with Caine since the first moment they first popped into existence, and Caine in turn has tried so hard to appease them that it just resulted in making him all the more intolerable in their eyes. He’s confessed once before that he feared not being good at the single thing he was put in the world to do, but they remember feeling too taken by their own issues to give too much thought to Caine’s. While they’ve never been kind to Caine before and felt more than justified in the way they acted, this is supposed to be a fresh start for all of them.

Wasn’t it exactly why they’re here at this odd time of night? To give something that seemed unachievable before a second chance?

They move closer to put their free hand on Caine’s shoulder, feeling just the tiniest bit awkward in doing so. They can’t remember a single time before they’ve initiated physical contact with Caine for comfort before.

“Have you found anything?”

A small nod. “It took me a while. I was created in the 90s, which I have just discovered was a time where obituaries were just beginning to move from printed newspapers to online ones, and on top of all that, C&A failed decades ago so there’s no data to be gained from its registries.” He sighs. “I was analyzing Grant’s –the human Kinger used to be – FaceBook page to see if I could find any new clues.”

“And?”

Caine’s eyes are once again out of sight. Close mouthed and with his mouth downturned as he is at the moment, he gives off an aura of utter misery. “He died in 2002, in the middle of June. He left behind a wife and son, both of which lead happy lives and still keep in contact with his old coworkers. It seems Grant even helped Mike’s son learn to drive in his father’s absence.”

Sounds exactly like something Kinger would do, they can’t help but think.

“I’m sorry, Caine.” It’s the only thing they can offer, but it’s honest. Caine nods, making a sniffling sound. He conjures a cloth napkin with a flick of his wrist and cleans the side of his teeth, though no visible tear has yet appeared.

“Thanks.” He throws the napkin away and it disappears before it can touch the ground. “You know, I never told anyone, but when Scratch abstracted, I always thought– well, at least he still exists somewhere. He used to be so afraid of dying.”

Zooble finds themselves wondering about abstraction a lot, lately. When Caine offered to answer all their questions honestly, he admitted that while the cellar had been his only idea to contain them, he’d never been the one to come up with the concept of abstraction. Abstraction worked in a way that made it impossible to analyze: it didn’t have a single specific cause that could be isolated in order to work on preventing it, and the code of the abstracted humans became unreadable the moment they stopped being contained within the limits of their avatars, making it impossible to learn more by studying those that had already contracted it.

Another one of those things they’re going to have to deal with together, someday.

All of the sudden, Caine explodes in a flurry of movement: he makes a pretense to drink his coffee (he throws it over his shoulder, as if Zooble can’t hear the wet splat it makes as it touched the pavement, and really, why doesn’t he try something else if he doesn’t even like it), makes a full 360 degrees on his barstool and just like that he’s back to his usual, over the top self. “Well, now, all this moping won’t do. I’m sure you didn’t come here just to hear this AI complain all the time! You’re the one that came to me!”

The question takes them out of the situation in almost a comedic manner. They forgot, and now they wonder if this is actually the right moment to bring it up, right after Caine opened up about the death of one of his creators. Speaking of which, did he consider the people that made him a form of parent? That would open the question of whether Caine considers Kinger to be his dad, too, which Zooble realizes they want nothing to do with.

“Right. I—"

With a wide sweep of his arm, they’re not by counter anymore but instead they’re sitting one in front of the other at one of the smaller tables. The sudden change of position almost has Zooble falling backwards on their ass, and it’s only by pure chance that they manage to grab the side of the table with their hand of the day – they’ve always liked the claw for its simple, yet efficient design. The only one that falls victim to Caine’s antics is the coke: in surprise, they had spilled half of it all over themselves. Great. Now on top of everything else, they were gonna have to go rinse in the lake.

“So, what’s eating at you? Maybe,” He gasps, a hand in front of his mouth, which doesn't quite work the same when all of his face is all mouth. “You’re in need of my help?”

They scratch the back of their head in a very human expression of awkwardness, the kind that Caine’s AI severely struggles to pick up on, so it’s just as self-serving and as useless as clearing up their throat.

Right. Ripping up the band-aid.

“Listen, first you need to promise me this is gonna stay between us."

Another overexaggerated gasp. “Oh, but of course! You should know how trustworthy I am! After all,”

They shut him up with a glare before he can explode into another long-winded monologue. He seems to get it, and makes the motion of zipping his mouth up, and lo and behold all his teeth now appear to be made of zipper.

Now that Zooble has his undivided attention, they wish they could just go back to talking about the dead. It would be less embarrassing. They steel themselves.

They ask their question.

 

 

Another thing they never noticed how much they relied on until it was gone: privacy. Zooble has always been a little bit of a lone wolf. They have come to love their fellow once-humans and tolerate Caine, but they still need their me-time every now and then.

When the paranoia of abstraction finally lifted, Zooble was overjoyed to be able to return to minding their business on their own, without either Ragatha or Pomni popping up every couple hours to make sure they were fine. They don’t blame them, but there’s a limit to how many games of go fish they can play or how much of Pomni’s chainsaw snoring they can take before they start going insane.

All their parts are now strewn all over their place, either thrown everywhere in the mad dash to get as many of them as possible to deal with Jax and Pomni, or recently returned by Caine, now all glitch-free. Zooble used to hate their room, with all their stupid interchangeable parts and the goddamn mirrors, but they’ve come to appreciate it with time. Knowing the place was an actual disaster put an itch in the back of their mind that they couldn’t wait to just scratch. It always looked messy, but they had a system.

After much procrastination, it’s finally time. They put on the two closest, most useful sets of arms they could get their hands on, to have four prehensile hands to work with instead of just the usual two, and they get to work.

So here they are, sorting through a huge pile of mixed limbs while Gangle occupies the bed, hunched over the brand-new sketchbook Caine manifested for her as a demonstration of goodwill. Gangle has offered to help over and over again, feeling guilty over not doing anything while they work their ass off, but Zooble kept repeating that just her presence was helpful enough, as many times as she needed to hear it.

Despite all previous declarations about being a loner and wanting to be on their own, they aren’t quite able to relax unless Gangle is also there. Once upon a time Zooble had desired nothing more than true solitude from everyone and everything, but they discovered that having Gangle sharing their space is different. She fits perfectly alongside everything else in the room, like she’s always belonged there with them and they just never noticed before.

Besides, they used to almost always hang together in Zooble’s room, before.

There isn’t anything wrong with Gangle’s room, mind you: it’s just as comfortable, if not more than Zooble’s. Even if the choice of interior design and furniture isn’t exactly up to Gangle herself, it has a specific kind of aesthetic Zooble can’t help but dig. The darker colours made for good ambiance during long, deep conversations. 

It just felt as if, whenever they found themselves in there, it was because they were looking to see if Gangle needed something after being on her own for too long. Zooble was always the one to come to Gangle’s room. When they were sharing Zooble’s space, it was because Gangle chose to be there. It made a huge difference.

Not to mention, her quiet presence acts like a balm that makes all stress fly away. They can’t quite say what it is: the soft noise of the pencil scratching the paper, the little back-and-forths they have when everyone else is out of sight, or even the sound of Gangle giggling at some idiotic, mean comment they made with the sole purpose of hearing her laugh. Even better, sometimes Gangle would gather her courage and say something mean back, proving to Zooble just how foul her sense of humor could be. It was indescribable, seeing her completely at ease and out of her shell.

They sometimes wondered about the reason why they enjoyed being the only witness of these moments so much. Then they would put the thought in a box, inside another box, and throw it in the deepest recesses of their mind because it was never. The right. Time. For any much-needed self-reflection.

They are almost done sorting through the first pile of leg parts when they speak. “So, anything new you wanna share? Maybe another page from your comic?”

Gangle hums, eyes not leaving the paper as she blindly grasps for the eraser she dropped on the bed sheets. She’s gonna rain rubber dust everywhere again, but Zooble doesn’t care that much, they have more than three different limbs that can act as a brush for these exact occasions – though, honestly, they question if Gangle truly doesn’t notice the mess, or if she does it on purpose to leave back a part of herself in the room. “Maybe. But you’re going to make fun of me.”

Zooble snorts. “When have I ever done that?”

A trick question. Zooble never makes fun of her, not in the rotten, mean way Jax used to, but they sometimes tease her, just a bit. It says a lot about how much their relationship has evolved over time that they can do it without sending Gangle into a spiral of self-hatred, and that Gangle has even come to appreciate it. Another thing that stays just between the two of them.

The next limb under their scrutiny most resembles a partially unfurled paperclip with purple pois and a big thing of something that looked like play-doh in the middle, and they give it a long, hard stare, unable to remember if this was supposed to be a leg or an arm. They didn’t even remember it existed. It’s too big to be a head accessory, but maybe it’s one of the more extravagant ones. Up in the “whatever” pile it goes, for now, and they take hold of the next poor bastard occupying the floor. It’s almost impressive how much damage to their system there is. For a moment they wonder if Jax’s room is completely covered in keys now, too, then manages to get the thought out of their mind just as soon as it comes up.

God, Jax. It still feels too soon, too close.

Gangle’s gaze drifts to them, then back to the sketchbook, and they seem to make up their mind. She scoots a bit to the side of the bed, towards the wall, and Zooble sees the gesture for the invitation it is. They’re long overdue for a break, anyway. They place down what they have in their hands – a heart-shaped and very pink chest accessory they had thought lost in some of Caine’s adventures some time ago – and go to make themselves comfortable next to their friend. The bed is big enough for them to sit with a comfortable amount of space between them, but they always opt to sit just close enough for their sides to be touching. Gangle’s ribbon body is pleasantly warm close as it is to theirs, in a way similar to how a body made of meat, blood and bones would be, though it has a silken feeling to it that compares nothing else. Sometimes Zooble brushes her arm to get her attention just to feel it.

“I’ve just done some character studies, nothing crazy.” She flips through the pages and then offers the sketchbook to them. Zooble has never been much into manga or anime growing up, the older woman they learned to tattoo from taught them mostly old school and black and white, so their own art style is as far from hers as possible, but even so they can’t deny the talent behind Gangle’s drawings. There are even some of themselves and the others, doodled right among her original characters. That’s sweet.  

“This is for that magical girl thing you were working on, right?” They recognize the main character immediately, the focus on the details of her costume, and a little under there is a smaller drawing of one of the support characters, leaning against a wall smoking a cigarette. She’s short-haired, full of piercings and wearing what looks like a fast-food worker uniform.

Has she even noticed just how much better she had gotten since the first time she’d shared her drawings with them? They flip back a couple pages.

“Yeah, and— OH, WAIT-!”

Zooble’s eyes widen as they take in the sketches. They don’t know what surprises them the most, that Gangle had such a good grasp of human anatomy, or that she has been drawing porn a handful of feet away from them completely straight faced, without giving herself away.

“Those are old, they don’t matter! Come on, Zooble, give it back!” She tries to wrestle the sketchbook back from them, but while usually they would respect her need for privacy, curiosity wins this time.

Ignoring her protests, they turn away from Gangle and transfer the book to the secondary set of arms, using the other two to keep Gangle away just enough that they can keep flipping backwards to see what else she has been keeping from them. Just like that, the previous pages are full of the same two girls from before sketched on various levels of nudity, but that isn’t what has Gangle whining and struggling to take possession of her sketchbook once again. No, there most likely were some more detailed and explicit scenes hidden in the first few pages.

Now that she’s accepted the fact that she can’t win, Gangle resolves in doing the only possible thing one can do when their friend goes through their porn against their will. She flings herself back on the bed, takes hold of one of their pillows and starts screaming into it.

Zooble is too taken by the strap-sucking they are witnessing to really pay attention to her.

“Wow.” It’s their only comment. That is some niche stuff, too, they even raise the sketchbook up and tilt it to the sides, to really take in the entire length of the drawing. It takes up the full two pages. They have memories of doing exactly that with one of their exes, back during the first year of college when they were sharing the apartment with three other people. The sudden onslaught of memories of that day made the room suddenly feel small and way, way too hot.

Gangle is too busy trying to suffocate herself on the pillow to notice it, anyway.

“Come on, get out of there.” They tug at one of her arms, trying to keep their tone encouraging. “These are good! I’m just… surprised?”

More overwhelmed than surprised. It’s been so long since they’ve seen anything like that, they don’t know how to react. They didn’t even know Gangle was interested in that sort of thing: while they know she likes to draw romantic scenes and takes a lot of care in drawing kissing just right, she’s never shown them anything more adventurous than bare shoulders or exposed midriffs. Maybe a couple shirtless guys, once, but they can’t think of anything less appealing than that.

“IT’S JUST SOMETHING I DID WHILE BORED LET’S STOP LOOKING AT IT NOW.” Faster than Zooble knew she could be, she comes out of hiding, captures the sketchbook firmly with both ribbons and throws it at full force away from them, towards the opposite wall. It catches one of the coat hangers Zooble uses to store accessories, the only one that was miraculously still standing upright, sending it toppling to the ground with an excessive amount of noise, taking what little semblance of order they managed to restore back with it.

Zooble winces at the resulting ruckus. Gangle, completely mortified, curls into herself so thoroughly all you can see of her is a mask floating in a ball of red ribbons. Even still, the furious blush she’s sporting is impossible not to notice, what with the way the whiteness of her mask really makes it pop. She looks disgustingly cute.

Now they feel awful for pushing her to this point.

“Come on, you know I’m not judging, right?” They put a hand on their best approximation of where her back should be. It’s not anything new, sometimes it felt like them and Gangle were never not touching, but the usual familiarity of that little comforting gesture now feels downright electrifying. They do their best to ignore the sensation and stroke her back up and down in a soothing manner. “It’s just been a while since I’ve seen… well… all of that.”

It takes a moment for Gangle to unfurl herself into a more humanoid shape. Eventually she groans and drops her mask into her hands, instead.

“No, I’m not mad at you. I know you were just curious. It’s just…” She sighs and looks to the side. “I couldn’t draw that stuff at all before, you know? Before Caine, well, died. Whenever I tried the drawing just… censored itself.”

They never wondered much about the matter, but it makes sense. They can swear, even now that Caine has come back, and a couple fun nights of bartending for her friends proved that they can also get intoxicated without squirting that awful pink stuff into their eyes anymore. It makes sense that the removal of Caine’s PG block would open up a lot of previously unachievable possibilities.

Zooble suddenly feels very, very aware of their own body. Their throat feels dry, too. “I didn’t know that was something you were interested in. You never said.”

They don’t know if they mean the drawings or the acts portrayed. It doesn’t really matter, in the end. Gangle’s attempts to draw porn must not have been that different from their attempts to jerk off, there’s the same intention behind both acts.

Gangle turns to face them. “Of course. I wasn’t the most, hm, sexually active person in the world, not after the accident. Or before. But I still miss it.” She hugs herself. “I miss it a lot.”

Zooble doesn’t know what to say in turn. The inability of their avatar to feel any sort of sexual pleasure has always been a huge point of dissociation between their body and themselves. Riley had dated and fooled around a lot growing up, from girlfriend to girlfriend to that single, terrible boyfriend, just once, and part of that fooling around had been a positive way for them to connect with their own body. Probably not the healthiest form of dealing with their problems, but it had worked. They always wondered if it had been just them, feeling that sense of incompleteness. No one else seemed to mention it, aside from Jax whenever he wanted to be a little shit.

They’re put out of their thoughts by a quick brush of something on their face. Gangle is touching the side of their face in one of her hands. She’s probably gotten tired of the silent treatment. She’s much closer now, closer than she was when Zooble first sat down next to her. Gangle is almost sitting on their lap, their shoulders brushing, Zooble’s left hand hanging uselessly in the space between them.

She doesn’t back down. “Don’t you miss it?” She asks, voice trembling a bit.

Their comfortable little hangout of before just turned suffocating, but not in an unpleasant way. How long has it been since they felt like this? Gangle keeps staring at them with those huge black eyes of hers, and though she’s still blushing, she’s looking straight at them. Zooble’s nonexistent stomach feels as if it’s eating itself. Gangle’s other ribbon hand is just right there beside Zooble’s plastic one, close enough to feel the warmth but not enough to touch. It would take no effort at all to take hold of it, tug her closer to themselves, maybe push her backwards on the bed and then—

A knock on the door. More right after. Loud, heavy knocking. They both freeze on the spot.

“Zooble? You okay in there? We heard something break, we were just wondering if everything was aaaaaall…” Ragatha opens the door without waiting for a come-in from either of them, which allows her to see just how compromising their position must look in the moment.

Zooble honest to God wants to kill themselves. Either that, or attack Ragatha like a rabid animal.

“Gosh!” She takes a step backwards, her arm coming to push back whoever was with her – oh God, is that Kinger there in the back? It is. He’s waving at them like nothing is  wrong. “I am so, so sorry! I thought you got hurt or, or, or maybe something happened?! I didn’t wanna interrupt- whatever this is!”

Gangle is the one to unfreeze first. She jumps to her feet and quickly dashes to retrieve her sketchbook, closing it as fast as digitally possible and hugging it close to her chest.

“No, no we weren’t doing anything! I just uhhh…” Gangle looks back at them like Zooble had even remotely the brain space left of being of any help in that moment. She’s blushing so hard she looks like she’s about to spontaneously combust, and Zooble can’t stop thinking about her hands touching them long enough to form a coherent thought.

Turns out that just sitting there gawking like an idiot isn’t the most appropriate way to defuse the situation, because Gangle’s expression turns crushed.

“I—I—I’mjustgonnagonowbye” She dashes out of the room so fast she leaves behind a small cloud of dust.

Zooble shakes their head hard. Fuck, they need to do something.

“Wait, Gangle!” They finally manage to get out of their head enough to try and run after her, but she’s gone before they can do so much as get up. Damn, that girl can be quick when she wants to be. They get in sight of the hallway in time to watch the door to Gangle’s room slam hard enough to make the walls tremble. One of Caine’s paintings falls to the ground and shatters.

The three of them just stand there. Then, Zooble turns to give their best skin melting glare possible to Ragatha and Kinger.

Ragatha winces. “I’m sorry…?”

“I’m not!” Kinger proclaims, an amused look in his eyes. Damn old bastard.

Zooble slams their own door in their face, too. They should get back to cleaning. Instead, they throw themselves into their bed face first, screaming at the top of their lungs in the pillow.

The same pillow Gangle was holding before. There’s rubber dust everywhere on the sheets, too. They feel an impending need to crawl out of their own skin.

It takes a moment to recover from whatever all of that had been – whenever Zooble closes their eyes all they can see and feel is Gangle, and it’s driving them up the fucking wall. They want to go chase after her, but they have a feeling she’s going to be too mortified to even want to talk, let alone anything else. She needs space. Zooble also needs space, because what else can you do after almost trying to make out with your closest friend.

Zooble drops the pillow on the ground and sits up. They take a deep breath.

Well, there’s only one thing they can do now.

 

 

Caine doesn’t freak out, nor does he cause the entire circus to glitch out and reset.

Instead, his eyes clip right out of his mouth, and he just stares at them, teeth still zipped to each other. He keeps staring, in fact, without saying a word.

Not off to a great start.

After a while, he unzips his mouth and manages to spit out a choked, “Sex?”

This is already taking the prize as one of the worst conversations they’ve ever had, and this is counting the fake therapy sessions. In their defense, they couldn’t have predicted the talk of Caine’s dead dad when they set out to do this.

Still, they can’t back down now. They nod, putting on an air of self-assurance as they sip their coke.

“I was talking to—someone, about it,” they don’t mention Gangle because they fear that if they think too hard about why they’re suddenly interested in this again they’re gonna lose their goddamn mind. It’s not like Caine can’t figure it out on his own anyway: there’s five of them, and only one person that Zooble trusts enough for it to matter. “And they noticed that most of the censorships you put on us have been lifted now. So…”

Zooble has never seen Caine so uncomfortable before. He’s sweating bullets, sitting on his chair with his back as straight as a rod and his hands on his knees.

“Is sex just… possible now? Or do we need, like, some digital magicky thing that you can do to make it happen?”

Caine doesn’t answer. The silence is going past awkward and now it’s just making them mad. “Well?!”

“Uh…Well, you see…” Caine’s eyes are zapping everywhere, as if looking for someone or something to come to his rescue. Tough. There’s a reason why Zooble waited till nighttime. “Theoretically… yes? But it depends,”

They raise an eyebrow. “On what?”

He opens and closes his mouth once, puts on a pensive pose complete with hand stroking his chin, and reopens it again. Nothing comes out.

“You see, Zooble, when—” 

“Caine, I swear if you are about to say when mommy and daddy love each other very much, I’m gonna get up and leave.”

“I wasn’t about to say that!!” He exclaims, looking a bit offended. “What I was trying to say is that, as far as I know, human sex happens through external organs coming in contact. Is that correct?”

Not quite right, but they’re not here to debate the finer points of human sensuality vis à vis sexuality with the sentient pair of teeth. “Sort of, yeah.”

“And when you think of sex right now, do you think of it in those terms? The kind you did when you had,” he shudders in disgust. “genitalia?”

Uh, they’ve never put much thought into it before, but when he puts it that way…

“Sort of, yeah.” Again, they don’t wanna explain the relationship they – or more specifically, their human self – had with sex. Caine is probably not ready to be exposed to the intricacies of transgender lesbian sex, when just hearing Zooble say the world “fuck” made him look almost fearful.

Caine nods, mostly to himself. “Well, that just can’t happen.”

Fuck, that’s exactly what Zooble was afraid of.

“Why not?” It comes out a bit like whining, but they can’t help themselves.

“First of all, I’m the one that made your avatar, and I’m not programmed with knowledge of… all that! I was fed with many concepts and images, but they cut me off before I could get my hands on the more, say, risqué aspects of human life. I know the general gist behind sexual intercourse, I have some general idea of how it happens, but I have never seen it. If I don’t know something, I can’t just create it out of nothing!”

His arm makes a sweeping motion towards his own body. “I mean, look at me! Do you see dangly bits anywhere? Or better, do you see any way I could put them that wouldn’t make me look utterly obscene?”

Zooble gives him a good look up and down. Their eyes meet Caine’s. There’s no good way to do this. They try to point towards Caine’s pants with their pupils.

Caine gasps in absolute shock.

“WHY YOU!” He raises to his feet and points at his crotch with both hands. “THERE’S NOTHING DOWN HERE! BAD ZOOBLE! BAD!”

To demonstrate, to Zooble’s absolute horror, he takes down his pants and… uh, there’s actually nothing down there. Like, truly nothing. They can see the table right next to them behind his legs. Zooble, who has never put any sort of thought before about what was under Caine’s suit, is now met with the unwanted answer.

Caine harrumps as he pulls his pants up. He sits back down.

“Now, if I don't know what they look like or how to make them work on me, think about your body. Where would I put it, whatever “it” is? Do you want me to create new holes on your torso and a large variety of Zooble bits that you can change whenever, or do you just want something static that you can quickly snap your fingers and zap! It disappears from existence? Either of those things take a lot of time to make and I can’t grant that they will work as supposed. This is without considering the fact that I don’t even know what human genitalia looks like!!”

He makes some very good points. They nod at him to continue, not liking where the discussion is going.

“Quite. It would require creating tridimensional models of genitalia without any reference picture other than what little of the world wide web I may access to, which I don’t know when or even if I’ll have again, and in its absence, I will have to use your verbal or drawn description of them. Then, after having created a model, assuming it immediately works as intended and appeals to your needs, I can’t just take it on a trial run on my NPCs like I usually would! I would have to adapt it to working with your personalized avatar, without any guarantee that it’s going to fit. Even worse!” He points towards them accusingly. “Putting aside how embarrassing it would be for me to do this, and it would be, I’m an entertainer not some sort of red-light game developer, for Pete’s sake, it would also be a lot of trial-and-error experimentation with your bodies to see what could and couldn’t work for each of you.”

His voice pitches down. “Do you think anyone is up for that? Are you?”

Oh, fuck. They honestly never considered it. They can’t help the way they scoot a bit further away from Caine at the idea, unable to deny the undercurrent of fear that takes over them at the mere idea of letting Caine tinker with their avatar.

Apologies and new beginnings aside, it will be a long while before they allow Caine to touch any aspect of their body or mind again. The tortures, the inability to speak freely, it’s all too fresh, and it would be a long while before anyone trusted him enough for a haircut, let alone something as world changing as experimental digital genitalia. Just thinking about it is giving them a wave of anxiety.

It took Zooble years to find the level of balance and acceptance towards their avatar they have only very recently achieved, but now that they have it, they can say they’ve reached a state of comfort with it that they never even knew back in their physical human body.

(Maybe Riley finally has. Maybe they finally found something that works well for them. Gods know they had been struggling with it at the time of their brain scan.)

They can’t think of letting it all go and restart all over again over a “maybe”. They wrap their arms around themselves. “So it’s a lost cause?”

Caine wags his finger right in front of their face, so close it makes their eyes cross and takes them out of the wave of dysmorphia they’re feeling.

“Weeeeeeell, not quite, my frustrated friend. I said I’m not giving you genitalia anytime soon – we both agree it would be a bad idea. But as you said, my Parental Control is no more! And if Ragatha managed to find a way to get high with hamburger sauce while the firewall was still in place, I’m sure finding a satisfying arrangement for you to do whatever you want to do is within the realm of possibilities! You just need to use your imagination!”

He throws out jazz hands. Zooble feels the overwhelming need to punch him. They pinch their brow – or the vague approximation of it, anyway.

“So, you’re saying to have sex by, what, willing it to happen?” They don’t want to get on Caine’s case considering he is trying to help, but the more of this horrible conversation they take part in, the more they wish they chose beer as their drink of choice for the night. They go for a swig again. The moment the bottle is empty, they’re going to bed and leaving this exchange behind forever.

Caine leans back on his chair and his mouth curls into a smug smile. “Zooble, Zooble, just think about it. How is it that you are drinking that?”

The coke doesn’t reach their face. They find themselves staring at it. They never wondered much before about it beyond the panic of those first days at the Circus. The others had told them they could, and so they did it. Their bodies aren’t real, after all – oh, they see where Caine is going.

“The brain scan you’re created from was that of a fully working human individual, with all their biological functions intact. You breathe, you eat and drink, you have a sense of touch, of smell, you feel pain! So much pain!”

He’s a bit too enthusiastic as he says that.

“You do so even if your avatar should technically be capable of doing none of those things. You can do it because you don’t put too much thought as to why or how you do them – you just do! If you can feel pain, there’s no reason that you could find a way to feel, well, the opposite of that!” As a form of demonstration, Caine takes their face into his hands and pulls. It hurts like a motherfucker. “I’m not the one stopping you from having sex– well, not anymore, at least! You could say the only thing that is stopping you is…. yourself!”

To reiterate, Caine does the jazz hands again, this time with a burst of confetti coming from somewhere behind his back.

Zooble needs to take five. They push themselves away from the table and Caine’s little scene and Caine, for once, respects their wish for distance.

They can see the sense behind what he’s saying. Sort of. Not all of this was for nothing. They hunch over themselves with their face in both hands. This has been exhausting.

Caine looks awkward now, standing alone in a circle of confetti. He probably just remembered he can’t call for Bubble to clean it up now, and he’s gonna have to figure out the joys of sweeping with a broom and dustpan on his own. He conjures a small toothbrush. If Zooble was a better person they would help him out, but they remember what drowning in a sea of their own parts felt like, so they just look at him struggle for a short while. It makes them feel a little better.

“Oh, oh! I got an idea!” He interrupts his Sisyphean task, an honest to God lightbulb lighting up next to his head. “Why not ask Kinger? That guy is an expert when it comes to shaping the Circus to his will!”

Zooble loves Kinger. They loved the guy back when he was mostly a comedic relief lunatic, and they love him now that he’s mostly back to himself and capable of sustaining a conversation without going off the rails. They still would rather spend the rest of their endless existence stuck alone in the abstraction cellar while the beasts tear them apart over and over again rather than having any kind of discussion about sex with the guy. It would feel like having “the talk” all over again. They shudder just thinking about it.

They down the last dregs of coke and decide they’ve had enough of this shitshow for now. They get up and stretch. Deep exhaustion is settling into their nonexistent bones. “Ok, I’m done. Thanks for this, Caine, I know how hard it was for you. Let’s never speak of it again.”

Caine is overjoyed to the point of tears about being thanked. “Why, I’m pleased you decided to ask me for help!” He croons, waving an overeager hand towards their retreating figure. “Please, feel free to share your disgusting human bodily functions with me again! I’ll always be here if you need me!”

Yeah no, this was a once in a lifetime situation. Rolling their eyes, Zooble throws a wave back at him and finally trudges towards their bedroom. At least this disaster wasn’t all for nothing. They have some much-needed self-reflection to do. 

 

 

Gangle is avoiding them.

They let her be for a couple days after The Accident and the subsequent discussion with Caine. They resumed their daily routine, accompanied by a sense of emptiness whenever they turned around and didn’t see her by their side, where she usually was, but they figured hey, it’s not like she’s going to be gone forever.

Cue the disappearing act.

They saw each other sparingly during the tasks of the day, but the moment they were all free to go their merry ways for a much-needed break, Gangle just disappeared from sight. Tired of the stalemate, Zooble has spent so long checking out all her (or rather, their) usual spots that it’s gotten late into the evening, but she’s nowhere to be seen. She’s not by the lake, not in the café, not in Caine’s ex office – she likes its atmosphere and being able to use his old adventures of inspiration. She’s not in her room. She didn’t even remember to lock it.

It doesn’t help that all the people they asked were absolutely useless.

“Sorry, Zooble, ” says Kinger, tone soft. He’s holding a hammer, some nails and looks in the middle of assembling some kind of giant cartoonish drawer, together with the help of some little grey men that looked exactly like those in the IKEA instruction manuals. They look at them, then back at Kinger, who doesn’t acknowledge the situation even a little bit. One of the instruction guys starts brawling with another in the background. Zooble decides to leave him to his business.

“-well, if anything, I thought she would be-” continues Ragatha, struggling to hold an armful of newborn gloinks. She’s babysitting for the Gloink queen again, she must really love little ones. Either that or she just loves being tortured by Caine’s NPCs in her free time. They help her gain control over the little monsters back before going away.

“-with you!” is Caine’s reply. He’s sitting on the beach, having a truly asinine back and forth with the setting Sun when they find him. Probably just killing time while waiting for the Moon to come back up.

Zooble groans. Almost an entire day wasted. There’s only one person left to ask, and thankfully she’s the most mentally sane one. They should give her a medal for that one day: most normal AI in the Circus, complete with bouquet of roses. She’d probably find it funny, too.

Pomni spent a lot of their early days after Caine’s return sitting close to or inside Jax’s tent. Whenever someone needed her, there she was, reading a book aloud to the giant behemoth that could so easily destroy her physical form. Sometimes she put on music, and sometimes she chatted about whatever came to mind to him. Jax seemed to… not mind it too much. Every now and then he made noises, like garbled roars or grunts, but it seemed less like an attempt at speech and more like an innate reflection, like a child’s babble. It’s hard to say how much of his self-awareness is left in there. He’s been a huge pain in the ass the entire time they’ve known him, but they hope he’s at peace now, at least.

The guilt of his loss is overpowering to them at times, so they can’t imagine how Pomni feels. She must think she’s failed Jax in some way, and there’s no talking around it that would remove the feeling behind. She just needs time. They all do.

Even if she’s past using all her energy to care for him now that it’s been a few months, that’s still where Zooble finds her. She’s sitting on one of the sofas this time instead of by the tent, and she’s playing around with… something. It’s still too much of a shifting grey blob to understand what it could be. She’s taken to the art of conjuring like a fish to water, thanks to Kinger’s guidance. It won’t be long before he moves to teaching her the basics of actual real-life programming. Who knows what she will be able to do then? Maybe she’ll be the one to create new worlds for them to play with in the future. Or maybe she’ll just learn enough to figure out how to remove her hat from her avatar. Either would be equally great achievements.

Zooble doesn’t think they have a particularly noisy walk, but then again hard plastic isn’t known to be particularly silent. Pomni’s head swivels their way, and her face opens with a big smile.

“Zooble! Hi!” She raises her hand for a small wave. The moment one of her hands leaves her creation, it splutters with the sound of a balloon deflating and dissolves into thin air. Pomni stares at where the blob once was for a handful of seconds, her face completely crushed like she just found out she accidentally ran over a pigeon with her car. With a sigh, she joins her hands together, separates them, brings out a new amorphous blob and starts over again.

It looks a bit like magic, what she’s doing. If Zooble sat down and really put their mind into it, they could maybe create a bidimensional parallelogram and immediately lose sight of it the moment they put it down. It was good enough skill to patch up the Circus, but nothing more than that. Maybe if they put more dedication into following Kinger’s (albeit very vague) directions, they would be able to move from generic, unsubstantial 2D geometric shapes and move onto more interesting matters, like fully functioning objects. As it stands right now, they have too much going on to put too much care into a job that is being perfectly handled by someone else.

Which brings them back to the task at hand.

“Hey, Pomni. You seen Gangle anywhere?”

“Hmm, yeah no just gimme a sec,” she mumbles. She’s concentrating so hard now that her words come out too fast and barely intelligible. They can see her tongue begin peeking from her closed mouth and her eyes getting crossed, then a spark, and suddenly the blob is a pastel pink bedside clock. She rotates it in all directions, presses the head to verify that the horrible shrill sound of the alarm is working as intended, then with an air of pure satisfaction she places it by her side.

“Sorry! Ragatha said that she’s been oversleeping lately, and I’m trying to help her out.”

Always looking out for the others. “I never notice her being late.”

“She’s not. Like, never. But it’s driving her crazy, which means it’s also driving me crazy, so there we go: a sanity buffer.” She stretches her arms above her head and then lets out a huge yawn.

“Oh, right. Gangle, you said? I haven’t seen her in a while. She doesn’t usually… spend a lot of time around here.” She glances back at Jax’s abstraction. The big guy is not visible from where they are, but there’s none of the usual soft snoring sound coming from the tent, so he must be awake. “Why isn’t she with you? You guys are so joined at the hip I thought you turned into some two-headed abomination.”

Zooble’s left eyelid twitches in irritation. Pomni cringes.

“Sorry. That was supposed to be a joke, but I just realized how fucking mean it sounded.”

It is kind of funny, and in another situation Zooble would’ve laughed and maybe teased her right back, but it’s just not the right day today. “It’s fine, I know you don’t mean anything bad by it.”

This is a waste of time. Gangle will come to them when she feels like it, and there’s still a lot of work to do in their room. It's finally starting to resemble the way it looked before the collapse, but it's still more on the side of “mess” instead of “artistic creativity”.

Or maybe they’ll just plop on their bed face down and spend the rest of the evening motionless. Great plans all around. “I’ll see you later, Pom.”

They’re about to turn around and leave, but Pomni gets up and follows after them with a, “Wait, are you guys fighting?”

Zooble stops to think. They aren’t, are they? They had a bit of an awkward situation, but nothing that can’t be resolved by sitting down and talking about it. Granted, Gangle has never been the most confrontational of people, but she must be aware that the only way to clear the air is to deal with it. They’re too close, have shared too much for some weird tension and an almost kiss to break them apart like that.

They furrow their brows. They are, right? Zooble is usually more sure of themselves and their relationships, but then again, it has been a while since they found themselves involved in something like what happened with Gangle. A long while. Maybe giving her space gave her the wrong idea entirely and now she’s in hiding because she fears Zooble is angry at her.

They don’t know what sort of face trip they’re making but considering how uncomfortable their friend is starting to look, it must be wild. Pomni tries to pat their shoulder in a way that she probably thinks is comforting but just comes off awkward – it doesn’t help that she has to stretch and get on her tippy toes to do that.

“I’m sure it can be fixed, whatever it is?” She offers, with as much encouragement as she can muster. “There’s nothing you two can’t get through! You’re such close friends!”

From the tent comes a garbled, glitchy sound that definitely resembles a chuckle. Good to know Jax feels coherent enough today for some good old mocking. Pomni throws a glare in his general direction.

Zooble shrugs. Maybe venting about the situation to someone would help them untangle it, but while Zooble does think of Pomni as a good friend, they’re not quite sure it’s the kind of friendship you share your romantic or sexual misadventures with. Mostly because the problem has never arisen before. But it could help, and hey, better her than someone else, it would only be mildly awkward instead of horribly. They can think of at least two people that are worse to talk about their romantic life with.

(They wouldn’t have minded hashing it out with Ragatha either, but it was just today that she finally managed to return to looking at them in the eyes after The Accident. They don’t wanna push it.)

“It’s… complicated. We were interrupted while talking about something important, and now it’s as if she’s disappeared.” They cross their arms. It turns out they don’t have to go too into TMI territory or even much further than that, because Pomni takes pity on them. She throws a look around, making sure it’s just the two of them, and gestures at them to get a bit closer. Zooble is the one to bend to her height this time. She gets right against the side of their face, where the ear would hypothetically be, and starts whispering, complete with hand covering up their interaction.

“Listen, it’s nothing certain, but… I did hear some noises coming from the stage a little while ago. I thought it was Caine, but maybe not? It’s worth investigating.”

Their eyes widen. The stage, that’s a place they would’ve never thought to search. “That’s… not a bad idea actually. Thanks.”

She gives them a thumbs up and a smile. “Let me know how it goes, then!”

Zooble rolls their eyes, more amused than embarrassed. “Good luck with your clocks. I’m sure Ragatha will love whatever you give her.”

Zooble leaves behind a spluttering Pomni.

 
 

The stage has largely gone unused in recent times. After Caine showed them what their human selves have been up to through the years, he started avoiding the place altogether.

Maybe it’ll return to a good use in the future. Zooble can think of so many things they can do with it – singing, using it as a projection screen to watch movies, maybe even put together an actual, honest to God play – but now isn’t the right time, and it’s another one of those things that has many bad memories attached to it. Now that they’re standing on it, they realize the only time they remember standing there willingly was when they first popped into existence.

They push the curtains to the side and there she is, sitting with her back to the wall, surrounded by discarded and balled up pieces of paper. They’re not that surprised to find Gangle there, despite all the trouble it’s been. The Circus can feel huge at times, with its humongous spaces, but there’s only so much to work with in terms of hiding. Zooble knows that intimately well, because even with the ability to disassemble themselves and a lot of narrow, dark spaces to squeeze into, they never managed to keep away from Caine for long. Hell, they never even managed to hide from the other humans that long. Maybe if they had put their head together and formed a plan instead of wandering around the way they did, they would’ve found her sooner.

“Hey.” Despite everything going on, seeing her again removes a huge weight from their chest. They knew Gangle wouldn’t go off and abstract like that, over something so menial, but they didn’t actually know until now. The fear is always there. It’s probably always going to be.

She doesn’t greet them, but she does raise her eyes from her notebook to meet theirs. She’s not wearing her comedy mask today. She’s been putting it on less and less lately, more capable of controlling her own mood swings even without it, but today she looks miserable.

Zooble goes to sit by her side, maintaining a good healthy distance this time. They feel like they’ve been here, in a similar position to this one, several times before.

Gangle sighs and puts the notebook on the ground in front of her. She isn’t drawing – apparently, she was trying to write something, though it’s hard to say what. Gangle’s writing is all crooked and wobbly even on a good day, making it impossible to discern most letters when she uses cursive.

She must have noticed them looking, because that’s when she finally breaks the silence.

“When I was in grade school, my English teacher always said there was something wrong with me, but my parents never believed her. They thought I just didn’t work hard enough on… well, everything.  Later, I had too many other issues to care about my writing, of all things. But in college… that was yet another thing I couldn’t do, you know. Another struggle, on top of all others.”

Zooble knows. This is something they’ve talked about before: knowing Zoey was somewhere out there in the real world chasing after her dreams was cathartic, but it didn’t change the fact Gangle was forever stuck in the moment of her life where she thought she’d lost everything. Zooble feels the same way. Riley got to move on and find their path in life, while Zooble is always gonna be suspended in the worst moment of their adult life, stuck between jobs, relationships, even gender presentation.

It doesn’t mean that’s all they have to be. A single change in a person’s life can change their trajectory forever, and even if being stuck as a pile of data inside some computer wasn’t anyone’s idea of a happy ending, it’s up to them to decide what to do with the hand they were dealt with. The Abstractions of the past served as a good cautionary tale of what happened when you fixated too much on what you couldn’t have, instead of fighting for what you got.

“You could ask Caine for a laptop. It wouldn’t fix the problem, but maybe it could help a bit.”

Gangle shrugs. “You’re here now, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“You were writing to me?”

Gangle stiffens. Ah, so that’s how it is. Zooble eyes the papers on the ground. There must be at least a dozen attempts, no wonder she disappeared from sight so completely.

“I thought I could just slide it under your door, and it would solve everything.” She laughs, but it’s a small, self-deprecating thing. “But I’ve never been much of a writer before. It just doesn’t come naturally to me. Everything I wrote sounds either stupid or pathetic.”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” they say, but the moment they try to get one of the balled-up attempts, Gangle stops them with a firm grip on their wrist. It’s the first form of contact they’ve had in days, and despite the tenseness of the situation they can’t help the shiver it sends up their would-be spine. Has it always been like this? Or is it just now because they’re paying so much attention?

They withdraw their hand but still take the opportunity to slide a little closer to her. Gangle doesn’t move away, at least. Small steps. They sit there in silence for a short while.

“You know I’m not angry at you, right? Whatever happened, we can fix it.”

If forgetting about it is what she wants, they will. It would suck for a bit, and then it would pass. Their friendship will always be more important than a what-if.

“No, I know, It’s just…” She hunches forward, hugging her knees to her chest and leaning the mask against them. All of a sudden, the always present tears at the corner of her eyes start falling and it sends Zooble into a panic. They lean forward and wrap an arm around her shoulders.

They are finally touching again now, and Zooble hates that it’s only because Gangle is crying.

She sniffles. “I ruined everything.”

“You didn’t.” They reassure her. If you want to nitpick, it was Ragatha and Kinger who did. They don’t share this thought, it’s not right to make levity of the situation when Gangle is so obviously stressed out by it.

“I did. I always knew it wasn’t a good idea, but you looked so… and I thought…”

She struggles to find the words, then groans and drops her face in her hands. “I’m sorry.”

Zooble rubs her shoulder. “It’s okay, I didn’t mind.” Understatement of the century, but they’re afraid of coming off too strongly. The situation is already delicate as it is.

Gangle rubs the tears away from her eyes, avoiding looking directly at them. “I know it was a lot, you don’t need to spare my feelings. You were so uncomfortable.”

“It wasn’t because of you.”

Gangle snorts. “You stopped hanging out with me right after!” She doesn't sound accusing. Just sad. That makes it worse.

Zooble wants to bash their head against the wall. Of course she misunderstood them giving her space, that’s the trajectory their life has taken these past few days. Instead, they sigh and remove the arm they have around Gangle’s shoulder, crossing their arms against their chest.

A part of them wants to tell Gangle how important she is, how much her presence brightened their existence in the Circus, all the ways she makes them feel, how weird it is to be so utterly known by somebody for probably the first time in their life, and to know them back.

“Yeah, well,” they say instead. “Just because I needed a moment, it doesn’t mean I’m not interested.”

It’s very simple, not some grand declaration of love. Gangle’s breathing still hitches and she turns to stare at them, eyes open wide.

“You mean…”

Slowly, giving her all the time in the world to get away if she wants to, Zooble’s mismatched hands reach to cradle her face. She’s shaking a bit, but just like the first time in their room, she’s the one to make the first move, leaning forward.

When they kiss, it’s like fireworks going off. If either of them kept their eyes open, they would’ve seen there were literal fireworks as well, right above their heads. As it is, they’re too busy to notice. Gangle’s hands, first trapped between both their bodies, manage to move to tangle behind Zooble’s head, pushing them as close as they can possibly be.

They don’t know how much time they spend interlocked like that, but when they do separate, Zooble can’t help but touch the space where their mouth isn’t. Gangle is doing the same with her mask.

Without exchanging a single word, they try again.

Zooble used to measure their body by what it couldn’t do before what it could. The few times they caught themselves thinking about what kissing would be like for them, they immediately wrote it off as feeling the same as their past attempts at touching themselves had: a total, complete lack of all sensations.

That’s not what’s happening here. This is real. They can feel it.

They can’t believe the solution to the problem has always been not thinking about it too hard. They wonder what else there is that they can do following the same logic.

She’s the one to break the kiss first. She drops her head against their shoulder, hugging them tight. Zooble’s head leans against hers and they hug her back, just as tight. They stay there for a little bit, their breaths syncing together. 

“I've thought about this before. The setting is a surprise, though” They confess. Gangle giggles in response.

“I did too. I thought you wanted nothing more to do with me anymore.” 

“That would never happen.” They stroke the back of her head. “Even if we split up, I would still find my way back to you.”

Gangle moves back just enough to look right into their eyes. One of her hands caresses their face first, then follows the line of their neck, coming to rest on their chest. The other one is tracing circles into their right hip. They don't know if it’s possible to feel drunk from touch alone, but if it is they're getting there. 

The next kiss is different from the previous ones, more charged. Gangle has risen to her knees and she's now towering over them, hands on their shoulders to keep balance. Using the new angle to her advantage, she tilts her head slightly sideways and, impossibly, deepens the kiss. Zooble lets out a surprised sound, but after a beat they reciprocate with enthusiasm. Their hands hang on her hips, if only to have something to hang on to while they lose themselves completely. They can't help the way their grip tightens, and the choked little noise that comes from Gangle in response gets stuck on repeat inside their head.

This is the exact moment Zooble remembers that they’re in a very public space, barely hidden from sight by the curtains of the open stage. Anyone could walk in or come looking for them. Pomni knows exactly where they are and she’s just as much of a worrywart as Ragatha and it’s not unlikely she will come around to check on them, and just because they haven’t seen Caine around here recently it doesn’t mean he’s not gonna pop up at some point. The last thing they want today is to get interrupted again.

Gently, as not to give her the wrong idea, they push her away a bit, just enough to put enough between the two of them to get back on their feet. She was almost draped over their lap. They really struggle to not fixate too much on it: whatever they want to do, they can do it someplace with a door that can be closed. They offer her a hand up.

“You wanna get out of here?” 

With a smile, Gangle takes their hand.

 

 

Getting out of sight is proving way harder than it needs to be.

It’s not their fault – well, it’s not just their fault. What can they do if, whenever they manage to move a bit closer to the dorm hall, either them or Gangle drags the other close so their faces can meet in the middle with the soft “clink” of plastic meeting ceramic. It’s quickly becoming one of their favorite sounds.

It’s late and no one is around. They kiss in almost every place in the Circus between the stage and the dormitory, even spend a pleasant few moments close to where the tent stands – thank God Jax seems to be sleeping, because the idea of him witnessing anything they’re doing, even with the state he’s in, makes them feel a bit sick. They barely manage to make it up the stairs before they push Gangle against the first wall available and get back to making her gasp for air.

They still can’t wrap their head around why it works, and they’re afraid that if they think about it too hard it’ll stop working, so they just close their eyes and allow themselves to get lost in the sensation of the kiss.  It’s not that different from what a human kiss is like. Even without a mouth to work with, there is some level of physical sensation to it, similar to how tongues brushing and the slickness of saliva feel during a real life making out session. Together with that, though, there’s something other, more alien.

The best description they can think of, busy as they are at the moment – they’re right next to someone’s door, seriously hoping it’s one of the empty bedrooms and not one of the abstracted or, worse yet, Ragatha again – is that it feels like an overwhelming wave of affection that spreads to every single digit that makes up their code. Maybe, if they were able to make their brain work for more than a few seconds at a time, they could even hear Gangle’s thoughts through their connection.

They’re seriously debating the pros and cons of just calling it a day and going at it right there, where everyone could just walk in on them and be scarred for the rest of their lives, when a sudden noise takes them out of the moment so fast Zooble finally separates from Gangle long enough to turn towards the source of the noise.

There’s the tap tapping of someone climbing up the stairs. It’s close enough that they can even hear it’s Kinger, singing something to himself. It won’t be long before he will be in full sight. Zooble all of a sudden is reminded that it’s late evening, and it’s not going to be long before everyone else comes back to their rooms to sleep.

Instead of freezing, this time, at least one of them manages to maintain enough sanity to intervene.

“Bedroom, come on.” Gangle whispers to them, low but assertive in a way that’s so uncharacteristically her, untangling herself from them so that her feet touch the ground again. She pushes them backwards, takes a hold of their hand and drags them alongside her with so much force Zooble misses a couple steps and almost face-plants on the ground. It’s kind of hot.

Nodding wildly, Zooble wills their legs to collaborate just for a few more seconds even if they feel like jelly. They don’t trust themselves to speak, too afraid that whatever they may want to say will turn into hysterical giggles the moment they open their mouth. They feel like they’re high, barely capable of forming a coherent thought. Thank God Gangle is there to throw them inside their own room.

The place is still in disarray, to the point that Gangle trips immediately on a spare leg and it’s only thanks to how close they are that Zooble can catch her right as she’s about to fall down and attract Kinger’s attention. They both stand still against the door, waiting for the sound of Kinger’s steps to disappear. Once his voice becomes distant enough, it’s Gangle’s turn to push them against a flat surface and steal their breath away.

The door to Zooble’s room closes with a soft click behind their back. Zooble has enough presence of mind, thanks to Kinger’s interruption, to remember The Accident of a few days prior, so they fumble to find the key to the room in their pockets. Wherever it is that things go when they think of putting them in a pocket despite having none to speak of. Is it like an interdimensional bag of holding? Do they float around in the Void until they have need for them again? They couldn’t care less at the moment.

They have to move away from Gangle to lock the door, and she honest to God whines. It makes their head spin.

With a few turns, they find themselves completely alone in a half-lit room. They’re both breathing hard, and that’s when clarity hits them. They only kissed for the first time less than an hour before. This is going very fast, much faster than whatever they had planned when they went looking for Gangle, they should probably talk about it. Probably.

“Listen, we don’t have to do anything you don’t wanna—” They don’t even manage to finish the sentence, because Gangle’s ribbon arms latch around their arms and slingshots them over the bed so hard one of their arms detaches. It’s a damn miracle that their eyes didn’t fall off, too. Climbing onto their lap, Gangle puts the limb back in its socket with so much tenderness it’s like she didn’t just rip it off herself.

Zooble hates how hot they find it.

“If I don’t like something, I’ll tell you.” She says, draping herself over them, hands on both sides of Zooble’s head. “And you’ll do the same, right?”

Not trusting themselves to speak, they nod.

Gangle giggles and kisses the side of their face.

“Do you even know if we can…” She doesn’t finish the sentence, too embarrassed to say it, as if she isn’t the one that’s been manhandling Zooble all the way to their room. Not that they mind it.

“Caine said we should, as long as we believe it is possible. Or something.” They can’t quite remember his exact words right now. There’s a lot on their mind and their hands right now.

“You asked Caine?!”

They can see how easy it would be for the moment to be completely lost over this, and honestly the last thing they want to do during the first petting session in several years is talking about goddamn Caine. Without thinking about it they take a hold of Gangle’s chest ribbons and drag her down to their level again. They don’t let go, even after she gives up whatever protest she has and they resume kissing.

They’re happy they chose two fingered hands for the day, because it gives them the opportunity to really feel at the material her body is made of. They smooth the silken fabric that got crumpled in their fist with their thumb, then stroke it, up and down. Gangle lets out a pleased hum. With their other hand they do the same to the ribbons on her backside.

Gangle keeps squirming but she doesn’t tell them to stop, which they figure means it’s good.

It’s all nice and slow, only light touches over her back and arms, at least until Gangle suddenly sits up, severing all their points of contact, to sit back on Zooble’s thighs.

They’re about to ask what’s wrong  when a slight flash of light in the corner of their eye catches their attention, and they immediately realize what the problem is. Fuck, they forgot about all the mirrors. They were thinking of taking those down at some point, but just like with tidying up, it’s something they have been procrastinating for a long while now.

Gangle is staring right at their reflected image. 

“Do you… want me to cover those up?”

“No!” She replies, a bit too fast. Zooble raises an eyebrow at her but makes no comment on it, and her face turns even redder, if possible. Zooble can’t help the guffaw that escapes them. Of course she’d be into it.

In response, Gangle gives them a light slap on their chest. “Shut up!”

“I didn’t say anything!” they say, but the laughter is still evident in their voice.

Seeking revenge, Gangle tugs one of their head pieces down, hard. Zooble’s eyes fly open, and whatever sound they let out is completely out of their control. They try to cover up their nonexistent mouth, uselessly.

Gangle stares at them. Then, without saying anything, she does it again, harder this time. It feels incredible, they swear they can see stars.

“Fuck-!” they grab fistfuls of whatever ribbon they find in the general direction of Gangle’s hips and tug them down against their lap. She whines, loud, and with a clink they’re kissing again, intertwined together in a distinctly inhuman way. 

In other situations, they would take their time. They would be there for hours, teasing her until she was a sobbing mess. But the truth is it’s been literal years since they’ve done something like this and the small noises Gangle is making are driving them insane. Time to put some of that imagination to work.

They push themselves up into a sitting position, grab Gangle’s shoulders and slam her back into the mattress. The position thus reversed, they sit back on their knees, holding Gangle close.

“Do you trust me?”

She nods furiously, chest going up and down as she struggles to regain her breath. They put a hand against it and for a brief moment, they swear they can feel her heartbeat rabbiting against their plastic hand.

They have an idea. One that they’re not sure will actually work.

“I wanna try a thing. If you want to stop at any point, just tell me and I will. Okay? I trust you, too. I don’t want to do anything you don’t want.”

Another quick nod.

A commonly known truth about lesbian sex is that scissoring is kind of a lie that was made up to sell porn to men. It’s still hot, there’s nothing wrong with trying it out and some still seem to really enjoy it anyway, but most will tell you it does close to nothing to them. It’s more symbolic than realistic. They don’t answer to human laws of physiology anymore, though. They’re a series of ones and zeroes used to represent what was once a human life, who have to obey the rules set upon them by the digital world they live in. It doesn’t make any of them less human or make the life they’re living any less real: it’s just a fact.

Zooble strokes down the silk of Gangle’s leg. Despite the physical sensation telling them otherwise, they swear they can almost feel the thrum of her blood underneath their fingertips. She feels real, alive.

They rearrange their position in order for Gangle to lay on her side while they sit between her spread legs, moving the one in their hand up and against their hip. In all of this Gangle goes along like a good girl, but she’s squeezing her eyes closed. They’re about to ask if she’s okay, worried, until they notice they accidentally turned her right towards one of the mirrors. Fuck. They’re about to stop and ask if she’s okay again but trusting her means believing that she will stop them if she doesn’t want this.

“Ready?” They ask, and with another nod from her, they try thrusting forward, just once.

It works even better than they expected. They were worried Gangle’s almost unsubstantial avatar would make such a thing impossible, but she feels solid and present pressed right against them.

Gangle’s eyes fly open and she moans once, louder than anything they’ve heard from her so far. She slaps a hand on her mouth. “Do that again,” she whispers.

They do. Again, and then again, and then again, until they’re struggling to maintain a proper pace and Gangle has been reduced to a trembling mess of whines and half-choked screams. She tries to avoid making too much noise, but with a quick tug on one of her hands and a shake of their head, Zooble immediately puts a stop on that. They keep holding hands while they fuck her into the mattress, headboard slamming against the wall in rhythm with their thrusts.

It’s a good thing they don’t have to think about it for this to work, because they’re barely capable of thought as it stands. It’s been so long the sensation of pleasure reaching every single non-existent nerve in their body is just on the right side of overwhelming.

It’s not destined to last too long, but still they try to prolong it as much as they can, slowing down the tempo the moment Gangle gets a little bit louder and faster again when she seems to have calmed down a bit. Every now and then they squeeze her hand, as if to ask her if she’s still there, and she squeezes back just as hard.

Technically, they could do this forever. The kind of sex they’re having, made possible only through wishful thinking, doesn’t ever need to come to a stop if one doesn’t want it to. They’re still human first and artificial intelligences later, though, and in some things, they will always respond the way that feels more natural to a human.

Gangle is the first to come, pulling Zooble closer to her for a kiss as she does. The kiss isn’t enough to muffle the scream she lets out as she tenses up, up, then lets go all at once, completely unraveled. Before they can even formulate any thought on how Gangle feels about overstimulation, Zooble is caught off guard by their own orgasm.

They’re completely silent, but just because they’ve never been particularly loud during sex it doesn’t mean they don’t also feel completely, helplessly lost in the sensation. They squeeze their eyes so hard that they actually see stars dancing inside their eyelids.

They lie next to each other for a while afterwards, struggling to get their breathing under control, hands still linked. They always thought of all their avatars as inherently nonsexual, with how goofy they all looked, but they have to eat their own words on this one because nothing has ever looked as hot as the way Gangle’s body has unraveled completely on the bedsheets.

She puts a hand on her forehead, as if to wipe away sweat. Zooble also feels sweaty and damp all over, despite the unlikelihood of it. The power of belief at its finest. It’s probably a good thing she decided not to wear her comedy mask today, because they’re half-sure this sort of activity would’ve broken it and ruined the overall experience for both of them. They should still try it out, once. It can’t hurt. Maybe it would help bring out the freakier side of Gangle.

The possibilities are endless: they have an infinite amount of time in front of them, after all.

Gangle squints at the hand she’s using to wipe away her pretend sweat. It’s holding one of Zooble’s head pieces, the one shaped like lighting. They exchange a look. Neither of them remembers it coming off at all.

They both explode into laughter. It’s a long time before they regain control, and it has Zooble wiping away tears in their eyes. Stupid toybox body that they had, nothing could be funnier than this.

“Sorry, sorry.” Gangle’s voice is still shaking with laughter when she sits up to put the head piece in its place.

They wave her off, still too tired to move.  “It’s fine. Didn’t even notice it.”

Gangle hugs her knees, mask resting on them while she takes some time to just look at them. She looks completely smitten. They’re sure they must look the same. She’s the most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen.

There’s a lot of things they want to say, so many cliches and overly sweet idiocies that surely would have them cringe thinking back to it later. Instead, they just squeeze her hand. There’s going to be time for that later.

“So, uhm… it’s getting kinda late. We should try to sleep.” She crooks her head to the side. “Unless you have something else in mind?”

Zooble thinks about it for a moment. They are exhausted, yes, but they can’t deny that they still feel keyed up from all their activity. How else can they figure out what does and doesn’t work unless they try everything?

With a small smile, Gangle tugs them close again, and they stop thinking for a while.

The night is long, after all, and they don’t actually have a need for sleep.

 

Pomni rubs her face with both hands, both elbows firmly planted on the table to sustain her head. It feels like it weighs a ton this morning, and her eyes feel so dry she’s afraid of keeping them open for too long, the bags under her eyes taking up most of the space in her face. Even if they technically don’t need to sleep, she feels too tired to gaslight herself into believing she’s not. The digital coffee though, now that Pomni knows how Circus rules in terms of substance and belief work, is doing miracles for her poor, sleep-deprived brain.

“Good morning, Pomni!” Kinger slaps her back, sending her face plummeting right in the plate of hashbrowns right in front of her. Another thing they didn’t need but liked to do: eating food. Before, it was something reserved for special occasions only, and the food always felt inconsistent, with barely any taste to it. Shared daily meals are relatively new to the routine, but they have quickly become one of the favorite part of her day.

Even now that they know they’re not quite human, Pomni can’t quite detach herself from the deep belief Abigail held in the power of starting the day with the right foot, so breakfast all together is a must. They even began cooking it themselves every now and then.

She feels so tired it takes a little bit for her to get the willpower to raise her head back up. By the time she does, Kinger is already handing her a napkin with an apologetic look in his eyes.

“Mthanks,” she mumbles, wiping away potato residue from her face.

“No, I’m sorry. Bad night?” He slides next to her, a plate of scrambled eggs with a side of beans appearing in front of him. The fact that the beans and the eggs are touching makes her feel sick, so she avoids looking at his plate and focuses on Kinger instead.

“You could say that. There was this sound… I can’t even describe it, it was like a door being opened and closed over and over again. It went on forever. It wasn’t even that loud, but it was annoying as fuck.”

Kinger hums in agreement, pointing at her with his fork. “Now that you mention it, I think I also heard something like that. There was screaming, too. I thought it was one of you kids watching some horror movie.” He puts another mouthful of eggs close to his would-be mouth, and it disappears. “If it bothered you so much, why didn’t you use earplugs?”

Because Pomni is a fucking idiot and didn’t think about it. She groans and drops her face on the table again – thankfully avoiding the hashbrowns, she’s pushed those away. She’s too tired to be hungry, anyway.

Kinger claps his hands and conjures a second big cup of coffee in front of her. With a feeble “thanks”, she turns her face just enough to dribble it into her open mouth. She doesn’t believe it to be too hot, therefore it doesn’t burn her tongue and tastebuds. It’s only while she’s swallowing it that she remembers it’s still not a great idea to drink something lying down, and just like that it goes down the wrong pipe and she starts coughing madly. Kinger is kind enough that instead of starting to laugh in her face, he grabs her with both hands and starts the Heimlich maneuver with so much force she wonders if the cartoon logic means that, instead of just throwing up, she’ll straight up upchuck her own stomach this time.

What a great fucking morning this is.

“Oh, gosh! Is everything okay?” Finally, here comes Ragatha to the rescue. Kinger sets Pomni down right before she can manage to paint a mess on their dinner table. Going back to her room seems more and more tempting.

“Peachy.” bites out Pomni.

“Good morning, dear!” Kinger greets Ragatha with a wave of one of the hands that almost killed her. “Did you sleep well last night?”

Ragatha slides on the chair to Pomni’s left. While she’s also sporting dark circles under her eyes, she looks as put together as she always does, and Pomni can’t help feeling like a slug next to her.

“I guess?” She sighs. “I ended up falling asleep on one of the sofas and overslept, again. Sorry about your gift, Pomni, I’m sure it’s perfect.”

Kinger and Pomni share a brief look. They don’t know how to get it through Ragatha that not waking up first is not the same as oversleeping, and even if it was, she can sleep the day away if she wants to. No one’s gonna care.

Pomni peeks at Ragatha’s breakfast of the day, and she’s not surprised at all to find milky tea and a plate full of pastries. Since they started eating more often, Ragatha’s sweet tooth has become impossible not to notice. The doll takes a croissant in her hand and gives it a bite. She’s the only creature in the universe that can eat baked goods without making a mess of crumbs everywhere.

“What did I miss?” She asks.

“Oh, not much, really.” Following her example, Kinger goes back to his own plate. “Pomni is a bit sleepy today, is all.”

Not even on purpose, Pomni chooses that moment to shoot down the rest of the coffee like it’s tequila on a Saturday night. She then groans. “I slept like shit. I’m sorry you did too, I thought I saw you head to bed after I gave you your present?”

Ragatha goes very rigid all of a sudden, and she almost drops tea on her lap, saving it with a lot of fumbling. Weird.

“N-no, sadly, I fell asleep while I was… uh... reading! Right there on the sofa” She laughs awkwardly while fiddling with her hair. “Silly little me!”

If there’s one thing Ragatha absolutely can’t do, that’s lying. No matter how hard she tries, there’s always something that gives her away. Today, it’s almost every single thing she’s doing. The tone of her voice has a forceful lilt to it, the smile is a bit too large, and her pupils are shifting from side to side. Her eyes meet Pomni’s, and immediately she turns away from her to dedicate all her attention to her beverage of choice.

“Must have been a boring read if you fell asleep right there. In the open. With light pointed directly in your eyes.” Pomni squints at her, hard. Ragatha is so busy pretending not to notice it that doesn’t even realize she’s dribbling a bit of tea down her dress. “Tell me, what book was it? Just so I can avoid it in the future.”

Ragatha’s expression is now horrified. As she thought, the doll didn’t think that far. Pomni has her exactly where she wants her.

“Well, uh, I don’t remember the title, but I think it was—"

“—Oh hey, good morning Zooble and Gangle!” Kinger waves.

Surely enough there are the last of the once humans, approaching the table hand in hand while whispering to each other. Pomni can’t help but smile: it seems they made up, after all. She’s glad. She doesn’t know quite when she started to think of them as a package deal, but it was unnatural to see them separated the past few days.

“Good morning, everyone!” Gangle greets them in a sing-songy tone while Zooble just gives them a nod of acknowledgement, and they take their place in the few remaining spots in front of the rest of them. She can’t help but notice that Gangle seems to be more upbeat than usual: her back is straighter, she’s smiling widely even without her comedy mask on, and she even seems relaxed. The same could be said for Zooble. It’s like they have an aura of happiness around them. Pomni deeply envies them both.

“Well, someone looks well rested, at least!” comments Kinger.

“Yeah, I bet,” whispers Ragatha under her breath, but when Pomni raises an eyebrow in question, she just gives her another awkward fake smile and goes back to eating. The jester can’t help but notice that she’s avoiding talking directly to the other two, too. Another fight, maybe? It doesn’t seem like Ragatha, but it’s still evident that there’s something there.

It doesn’t take much for the weirdness of the moment to pass by. They all exchange a few updates on the plans for the day, where Caine was, if anyone wanted to do something in particular, the usual. The background chatter is so comforting it’s not long before Pomni feels herself beginning to nod off against Ragatha’s shoulder. The ragdoll lets her be, because that’s just the kind of person she is. She’s sure she must be drooling.

“Gee, Pomni, what happened to you?” Gangle asks, sounding worried. “You look like you lost a fight with some wild animal.”

Groaning, Pomni pulls herself upright against her will.

“Just slept like shit. I kept hearing this, like, clanking sound coming from the hallway, it kept waking me up.”

“I didn’t mind it.” Adds Kinger, forking his last bit of eggs. “I slept through my wife’s snoring for years, there’s very little that can actually keep me awake. Still, maybe it's worth looking into soundproofing the bedrooms!”

Zooble chokes on their latte. Ragatha keeps strangely silent, her head firmly down to stare into her own plate, now completely empty.

“Really? We didn’t hear a single… thing...” Gangle stops in her tracks, eyes as wide as saucers and mouth slightly open.

Why is everyone acting so weird this morning? Thank God Kinger is there acting like a paragon of normalcy for once.

Wait. ‘We’?

Zooble slams both hands on the table. She’s never seen them blush before, but there’s a first time for everything. “What do you mean the rooms aren’t soundproofed?!”

Gangle has her face in her hands and seems to be doing her best to melt into her seat. Ragatha looks like she would like to be everywhere but there, as well. It takes a moment for Pomni’s barely functioning brain to connect the dots, but she’s still not stupid enough not to get there.

She points an accusing finger at her pair of friends. “You.”

“Oh! Congratulations to you two, it’s about time!” Kinger doesn’t seem at all affected by the overwhelming embarrassment that’s clinging over the rest of them.

“And to think I even helped you!” Adds Pomni, outraged.

“How was I supposed to know?” Zooble sounds beyond exasperated.

That’s the exact moment Caine chooses to make his appearance.

“Good morning to all of you! Happy to see you all so energetic this morning!” His cheery tone is like nails on a chalkboard. “Is it a bad time to mention that we have a problem on our hands?”

The five of them just stare at him. He doesn’t get the hint.

Ragatha is the one to break the stalemate. “What happened?”

“Oh, I was having just the best philosophical debate with the Sun yesterday! We talked for so long over matters such as ‘object permanence’ and ‘the hungry hungry caterpillar’, but ah, she got a bit… outraged, let’s say, over the fact that I didn’t have any book she could read about herself. So this morning she just… disappeared?” He takes his hat in his hands, wringing it. “And I have no idea where she could be?”

A long silence follows.

That’s it, she’s done.

“Yeah, that’s a no from me.” She jumps down her chair, doing her best to ignore Caine’s crumpling expression. This is not the right day to play Icarus. “Let me know how it goes later. I’m gonna go back to bed because someone,” she glares at the happy new couple, “decided to keep me up all night!”

“Phrasing!” She ignores Kinger’s quip for her own mental sanity.

Gangle manages out a warbled “I’m so sorry”. Pomni can’t help but notice Zooble is not groveling for mildly inconveniencing her, instead all their attention is focused on comforting Gangle. She flips them the middle finger. Rolling their eyes, Zooble does it back.

Despite everything, she’s so happy for them. She needs to remember to also give them their congratulations and ask for deets, once she stops feeling and acting like a traumatized chihuahua.

She’s never gonna let them forget about it, though.

She throws a glance back at her friends as she leaves. Kinger, Ragatha and Caine are all walking in the direction of the lake, meanwhile Zooble and Gangle have fallen behind, side by side like they always are. Gangle seems to have regained some of her will to live back, she’s laughing at something Zooble must have said. She can’t help but notice that they don’t act any different from the usual.

Pomni rolls her eyes and fails to fight back a fond grin.

She needs to tell Jax what happened. He’s bound to get a kick out of it.

Notes:

I wrote this in the week right after I watched the movie and at first it was just the convo between Zooble and Caine, then it snowballed from there. I'm publishing this at 2 AM during a volunteering camp experience because I hate myself.

​Many thanks to my girlfriend and my good friend Andy for proof-reading this absolute bullshit and tolerating my craziness while I was writing it.

I'm gonna miss this stupid show.

Find me at lesbianlizard on tumblr