Chapter Text
"I hate that I'm going to talk about this with you, because I know you're going to be a total jerk about this," Zooble says. "But you look like the kind of person who'd enjoy neopronouns."
"I don't know what that is," Blanc replies, which is more or less true. They know they've heard the word before, but never with context. "Sounds gay."
"It's like—" Zooble waves a paw vaguely. "Anything that's not he, she, or they, really. Some people make their own from scratch and just use a noun they like as a starter word like, 'bunself' or something—"
"Cringe."
"But the more common ones are like, xe/hir or zhey/xem or even it/its."
"You want me to call myself an it." Blanc puts a hand to their chest in mock outrage. "That's so dehumanizing, Zoobie!"
"Yeah, well." Zooble shrugs. "Sometimes, that's why people like it."
Blanc is starting to get why Zooble pisses Jax off sometimes. Then it remembers that it's not the nice one and it doesn't have to have inside thoughts so it says, "I can see why Jax thinks you're fucking annoying sometimes."
"Jax can tell me that to my face," Zooble says. "What do you think?"
"I like it," Blanc admits. It leans back in its chair. "Ugh."
Zooble nods.
"Surprised you're even suggesting something like that to me," Blanc adds, doing its best to keep its voice filled with its usual swagger. "You're not worried that'll give me ideas? You know, considering who I am."
Blanc gestures to its outfit, which is still technically a maid dress, if someone had attacked it with a pair of scissors. Zooble doesn't take the bait.
"It never hurts to find something that makes you more comfortable with yourself, man," they say, and immediately Blanc decides to hate them for the rest of its life, for reading it so well.
Fuck you, it wants to say. I'm unknowable.
Except it can't be, with someone's eyes on it. The only way to be completely unknowable is to disappear from the narrative altogether, and they've already failed once at that.
Blanc is the only one who still likes being called a man sometimes. Jax will accept a "dude" from Pomni, but mainly just because it marks them as a team. Even Lop—who doesn't really talk to anyone but Blanc and Rhinelander, anyway and insists that even if he wanted to change his mind, everyone would just keep he/himming him so he might as well accept his fate—always looks somewhat uncomfortable being referred to with masculine words. Rhinelander is too much of a cartoon to have any real serious thoughts on gender, and Sable's girlhood is soft and uncomplicated in a way that makes Blanc pinch her arm every time it sees her in the dark room of their mind.
It would be nice, wouldn't it? If all they were was some soft quiet girl who had tried going by "Rory" as a nickname instead of "Roy" because she watched Gilmore Girls. If something about them had been so unquestionable feminine that other girls felt safe around them without knowing why. But Blanc had drowned that girl when Leeroy had been forced to go to military school and a part of it still resents the fact that Sable hadn't had the good sense to stay gone. The only thing she was good for was making them all sick with envy now and Blanc hates that, and hates it even more that when Zooble's around, it doesn't know why it was ever jealous of Sable in the first place.
Zooble uses feminine words to describe Blanc as much as they use masculine ones. The others haven't quite caught on yet—not even Pomni, their allmighty savior—but Zooble says it all so effortlessly. Blanc is a pretty man and a handsome girl. Its a bitch and a bastard and the drunk girl at the bar. Zooble switches it up like these words were always meant to be switched up. As if gender was a fake thing that Blanc could bounce between anytime it wanted. As if what it is isn't a thing that should be looked at with horror. And when they call it an 'it,' they say it casually, like the fact that it's just a thing instead of a person might even be okay.
And no matter what it wears, Zooble never laughs. Which is fucked up, because that means Zooble thinks it is trans for real and not, like, some failure who couldn't hack it as a guy so it had to invent a new category to fall into, because no one was welcoming it to womanhood, either.
Not that Blanc has ever been nice to the women it knows. But they started it. So.
Blanc poses herself on Pomni's bed, letting her shirt ride up and wearing shorts that leave as little as possible to the imagination and gives Pomni a cheeky wave when the jester opens the door.
"Miss me?" Blanc asks. Pomni closes the door, then opens it again moments later with a jacket that she tosses onto Blanc to cover it up. "Guess not, huh."
"Do you want to talk about this?" Pomni asks, bringing her face down to Blanc's.
"Ugh, talk, talk, talk, that's all you ever want to do." Blanc sneered. She sat herself upright on the bed, shrugging off the jacket. "Have you ever considered that maybe you should focus less on words and more on finding something actually fun to do?"
"Is this your way of saying I'm asking Jax questions you don't want her to answer?" Pomni says. She doesn't react in the slightest when Blanc puts Pomni's hand on its breast. Ugh. If they were going to act all estrogenized and stuff, the least someone could have done is give them some actual tits.
"Still don't think I could love you?" Blanc asks, flicking its hand lower. "Have some more self-confidence than that, Pom-igal."
"Honestly." Pomni snorts. "Sometimes I think you might hate me."
Finally, Blanc pulls its hand away. The truth is, she's right about that. Blanc loves Pomni just as much as Jax does and it hates her just as strongly.
"If it wasn't for you, this would have been over already," it snarls. "I wouldn't have to humiliate myself like this."
"But, Blanc—" Pomni begins, confused. Blanc stands up. "You get to choose your clothes!"
"That's what makes it humiliating!" Blanc shouts, slamming the door as it leaves the room.
Lop tells Blanc it's not doing enough.
"We were supposed to be dead by now," he says, like they were on a timeline or something. As if Blanc doesn't want that just as much as he does.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Blanc sneers. "If you have any better ideas on how to shut them all up, I'm all ears. Hell, you're welcome to do it for me since you're soooo smart!"
Lop doesn't answer.
He can't help Blanc, and they both know it. Jax's desire to live, as fragile as it is, is still too powerful to let Lop antagonize her into ruining everything. Blanc doesn't know when things changed, but Lop can't throw the first punch anymore. He had rarely been an instigator, anyway. Lop was more like a large predator, slinking in the grass, ready to strike when the time is right. He'd broken a boy's nose for repeating a rumor a girl spread when they were in the seventh grade and glowered at everyone at school the rest of the week. But he didn't punch anyone else. He hadn't needed to. Blanc had taken care of the rest itself.
They'd always been a good team like that. Blanc would press on old bruises and Lop would make new ones. Blanc could draw someone in close just to make it easier to push them away. Then Jax would escape into herself and find safety in that isolation.
But Blanc can't hurt anyone in a way that matters anymore. All their pain is too obvious. The only thing anyone sees in Blanc is an abused shelter dog, barking in its kennel. And the only thing it'll be given for its trouble is a muzzle.
Blanc tries to put a few tacks down in Ragatha's room, but Jax keeps cleaning them up before the doll can stumble onto them.
"Come on," Blanc protests. "It's Ragatha. Why do you even care what she thinks of us?"
"You're the one trying to make sure she remembers us when we're not there," Jax shoots back. "Needy much?"
That hadn't been Blanc's intent, but it's enough to make it rethink its tactics. Blanc wants Ragatha to look at it and remember pain—enough so that it makes her forget her old friendship with Jax, and any moment of weakness she might have overheard. Blanc had forgotten that Ragatha is just as likely to see it as a cry for help, and attempt to smother it with affection in an attempt to fix every broken bone in their mind.
Well, that could work, too. Even if violence is out of the question, Blanc can be very good at giving people attention.
"What do you think my trauma is?"
Zooble stares at Blanc, pausing the rag in the glass they had been trying to clean. Really, there were any number of ways Caine could make the process easier on them instead of forcing them to clean their own dishes, but Zooble had said it gave them something to do while people were still deciding what to drink. The good thing about only having a few people to talk to is that there's never any rush or lines at the bar.
"Mmmm yeah," Zooble says. "Not touching that one."
"C'mon! You've got to be thinking it." Blanc scoffs, kicking its legs under the bar table. "I know you know what Sable is. Rhinelander the one who denies reality because it's the only way to keep herself sane. Jax is the one who's supposed to pretend she's not a total crackpot and I'm…"
Blanc gestures to its outfit.
"Wearing a very tiny dress."
"A lot of girls go through a slutty club phase," Zooble tells it.
"First of all: ouch," Blanc replies. "Don't talk about me like I'm so derivative."
"Believe me," Zooble says, dryly. "You're one of a kind."
"But not the only one up here." Blanc points to its head. "So tell me. You like talking to people. You think you're soooo good at figuring out what makes us tick. What's wrong with me?"
"Blanc, I don't—" Zooble sighs. "You act like it has to be one thing. Whatever happened to… Leeroy to make you all act like this in the circus—it's not my business. At least the bright side is, you're free from that now. I'm just hoping that having this… time away from all that is healing for you or whatever. What I care about is making sure you don't hurt anyone before you figure out you're supposed to care about people or whatever."
Blanc huffs.
"You're no fun," it says. "If you don't guess, I'm not going to tell you."
"That's fine by me."
"Even if it helps you fix Jax quicker?"
"Jax needs to heal at her own pace," Zooble says firmly. "No one's trying to fix her. And it'd be an invasion of privacy. You wouldn't be offering this if you didn't want to hurt someone."
Blanc looks away.
"Ugh, you're killing me, Zo-Zo!" Blanc complains. It waves its arms in frustration, trying to look as cartoonish as possible. "How can you serve people alcohol and still be so serious?"
"I'm as serious as I need to be," Zooble says and Blanc leaves shortly after that, because that feels like another insult.
At school, whatever instinct Leeroy had that had turned into Lop used to examine the student body for weaknesses. It was a matter of their own collective safety. If Leeroy had already placed their hands on someone, then they would be safe from the ways others might place their hands on them.
Find the weakest link. Make them beg. Convince someone stronger you can do that to them, too. That was the only way to survive.
Blanc hadn't been very good at that, though. For all its posturing, it had still always been feminine in a way that others could sound out. So it turned it into a joke. Like, jeez, yeah, maybe it hasn't gotten a haircut in a while, but is that really enough to make it look like a girl? Kind of gay for you to even be thinking about it like that, dude. Almost like you're the one we need to start asking questions about.
So maybe it'll wear the dress. Maybe it'll even laugh along. Because it had said it itself, hadn't it? There's no way it could be a real girl. You see it, too, right? How terribly this all fits it. How much of a joke this all is.
Looking back, maybe none of them had actually believed anything it said. But most of the time, they had laughed instead of hurling slurs or throwing punches, and a win is a win.
Gangle is scared of Blanc, which is satisfying. But Gangle loves Sable, which is deeply annoying, because that means she'll bug Blanc anyway because she's brave enough now to do things for the sake of a friend. It annoys Blanc how much character development everyone's had while they were off being dead and yet somehow still suicidal.
"Hey, dyke," Blanc says. Gangle doesn't flinch, unfortunately. "What's up?"
"Oh, Blanc!" Gangle's black eyes widen. "I was actually hoping to talk to you."
This is immediately a bad sign. Blanc doesn't want anyone to get close to it. It had not been born with the ability to make friends, nor did it have any interest in trying to learn.
"Why the fuck would you want that?" Blanc asks.
"I think you're the best at designing and manifesting outfits out of everyone in the circus," Gangle says. "I was wondering if you would… help me figure out a Madoka dress? I can't get the ruffles right."
"And why would I help you with that?"
"I don't know." Gangle shrugs. "You're the one who's always going around dressed like a maid. Aren't they supposed to help people with things?"
Shit. Unfortunately, that's enough to make Blanc start considering it.
"You better not be trying to make her goddess mode," Blanc warns, then immediately realizes its mistake as Gangle breaks into a smile. "Ugh. Fuck off."
"Sable already told me she watched Madoka," Gangle says. Blanc wishes she hadn't said that, because now Lop will find a way to punish Sable for it. "You don't have to pretend you don't like anime."
"Everyone watches some anime," Blanc protests. "I just watch the ones that actually have a plot. Like Hunter x Hunter and One Piece and shit. The only reason I know about Madoka is because I saw so many sad lesbians online crying about it I figured I might as well see what made them get their panties in a twist."
"Uh-huh," Gangle says. "Blanc, have you considered you're also kind of a lesbian?"
"It's nice to know I'm not too much of a man for you," Blanc purrs. Gangle stares at it for a long time.
"If you want to flirt with me, you have to ask Zooble for permission first," she says finally.
"What, you think that's gonna make me stop?" Blanc challenges. "What's Zooble going to do, beat me up for looking at their girl? Puh-leeze. I'm not a pussy. I can take on both of you—you're the one stalling."
"Well, okay, but you didn't ask Zooble before you said that, so I'm not going to respond," Gangle replies, almost playfully. Blanc scowls. It absolutely is not going to ask Zooble and it hates how effortlessly Gangle's called its bluff. Guess she wasn't as easily flustered as Blanc liked to pretend she would be. "Do you want to make yourself a Homura devil dress, too?"
"Wait, when did Homura become the devil?" Blanc asks, before it can stop itself. Gangle's grin widens.
"It happened in one of the movies," she explains, clearly overjoyed to have someone to talk anime with—even if that someone is Blanc. "Basically, she loves Madoka so much she refuses to let her go, even if it means undoing her wish and dragging her back down so they can stay together."
Blanc tries to keep its face blank so Gangle doesn't know how incredibly compelling she's making it sound. Already, its on Homura's side here—trapping someone you love is obviously the only way to make sure they'll stay. Especially for a fucked-up kid like Homura. If you can't give someone what they need, they leave. Blanc has been the reason that's happened to Leeroy more than a few times.
"I can have Caine download the movie for us," Gangle offers. "If you make the outfits with me afterwards."
Blanc takes this time to examine Gangle.
Eventually, after spending enough time with Sable, Gangle had gotten brave enough to ask for an apology. She had told Jax that, despite everything, it would have killed her if she had stayed gone.
"Am I so terrible that the only way you can talk to me is if you hurt me?" Gangle had asked, letting out a bitter laugh. "Am I only allowed to be happy if you're dead?"
"You know I'm the terrible one, right?" Jax said. "You didn't do anything wrong. You never did. Being a bitch to you was the only way I could convince myself I didn't want to be you."
"Aren't you supposed to be afraid of me?" Blanc asks, though it think it might know the answer already. Jax's apology had filed down the sharp edges of its fangs. It can't be properly cruel in circumstances like this.
"I'm not supposed to be anything," Gangle insists. "I'm a human being."
"It's cute that you still think that," Blanc says, but it goes to Gangle's room to make her stupid Madoka dresses, anyway.
Blanc's trick to making outfits is that it imagines touching each part separately. It's something it used to do when it was still Leeroy. Which memories belong to who from the outside are still fuzzy—sometimes Blanc is convinced that Leeroy is another person altogether—but it knows that some things belong to it and it alone. Leeroy's mom would go shopping for herself, and Blanc would walk through the aisles, doing its best to look bored in a way a teenage boy should, it would run its hands through the different fabric, keeping its hand low enough that no one would notice. If it could feel it, it could almost imagine it on its skin. And if it felt disgusting for imagining something like that, that just gave more credence to its disguise as a disgruntled teenage boy.
Gangle asks Blanc if it's ever made an outfit from scratch before the circus.
"One time I glued a patch over a hole in my jeans," Blanc says. "But I didn't sew or any of that gay shit."
If it cared enough to be honest with someone, it would say that it's been practicing conjuring for its entire life. But Blanc doesn't want Gangle to be its friend. Things are bad enough as it is with Gangle looking at it like some sort of person. If Jax won't let them disappear, then Blanc wishes someone would give the dignity of letting it fall back into an old routine. People are so much nicer to it than they're supposed to be. If it could, it'd be grinding its teeth.
"I think you'd be good at it," Gangle says. "Sewing, I mean."
"You're not the first person to say that," Blanc mutters, but Gangle is so genuine in her question, it unsettles Blanc a bit.
"Do you want to try?" Gangle asks. "Fabric gets kind of weird here sometimes, but Ragatha's managed a few times!"
Blanc doesn't bother replying. It just walks out of Gangle's room.
"You were fighting with Pomni the other day," Zooble says, once Blanc's already halfway through its drink. "She said you thought dressing how you want is humiliating."
"That's not what I meant," Blanc says. It finishes its drink in one long gulp. "That was ages ago, anyway. Weird that she's still thinking about it. It's like she's obsessed with me or something!"
Zooble doesn't say anything.
"It doesn't—you're not embarrassed about anything?" Blanc asks. "Telling people your pronouns, making your body not, like, suck and shit. You don't ever pick up one of those stupid parts of yours and wonder when someone's going to ask you why the last one didn't fit?"
"Gangle asks that, sometimes," Zooble says.
"She does?" That hadn't been the response Blanc had been expecting.
"When someone loves you, they want to understand you." Zooble shrugs, like this is the most obvious thing in the world. "And… yeah, sometimes its hard to put into words what about my body I don't like. But if she doesn't understand, she doesn't understand. It's not the end of the world. It's not like I have to have any of this figured out just because she asked. Sometimes if I can't figure it out, I tell her to wait a few days so I can try and put it into words. And maybe sometimes I never find the words, and that's okay, too."
Blanc finds itself clenching the fabric of its dress.
"You know, no one here's ever gotten my pronouns wrong," Zooble says. "Even when you called me a dyke, you never actually misgendered me."
"You told me you wouldn't let me drink if I didn't cut it out," Blanc mumbles. It doesn't mention calling Gangle the same slur only the day before. If Gangle was bothered by it, Zooble would have already threatened to wash Blanc's mouth out with soap or something. It makes them feel like a declawed cat. Blanc remembers hearing that losing part of their paws like that could make the animal super depressed. That it's painful for them, to walk around lacking the sharpness they used to carry with them.
"Sure," Zooble says. "But I never had to fight about my pronouns."
"It wouldn't have been funny."
"But it's funny when it's you?" Zooble asks. Blanc looks away. "Look, I—I get why you're around. Jax is afraid of being sincere, but she's already come out, which means the biggest secret is already out in the open. So you're doing damage control, right? Trying to prevent us from learning anything else because… someone out there knew, and it hurt you. And maybe they hurt you in other ways, too."
"Bold of you to assume it was only one person," Blanc mutters. Immediately, it feels Lop slapping it in the back of the head for its honesty. And it's right to, anyway. Ugh. Blanc doesn't know what it's thinking, getting all emotional like this. Like some girl.
As if it hadn't spent ages learning how to do its own hair instead of defaulting to conjuring. As if it's not wearing make-up right now. As if it hadn't spent ages figuring out how to conjure bubblegum-flavored lip gloss that it had always wanted as a child. Blanc can almost hear Gangle in its head going, "Blanc, have you considered you're kind of a girl?"
Maybe. So what? Shut up.
Zooble tilts their head.
"You know what?" they say. "You're right. It's like I said before. I shouldn't assume anything. But the more people who hurt you, the harder it probably gets to trust someone new and you…"
Zooble stares at Blanc and lets the open air between them say everything.
"So, since you probably haven't heard it enough—I'm sorry," Zooble says. "Whatever happened, you didn't deserve it. I hope one day you heal from it even if you never say it out loud. And I hope you'll figure out how to let people in enough for us to actually be friends. I know you can be funny when you're not trying to antagonize the shit out of everyone."
But that's not fair, because it's Zooble's fault Jax even remembered Blanc existed in the first place. Because they had been laughing with Gangle and talking about having fun. Because they had looked at Jax hadn't even hesitated to say it looked like the kind of thing she might like. Because they had already peeled away all her layers once, and Blanc was just doing its job by making sure no one could do that again. It had already failed once. Twice, maybe, if you counted the frog. At least Caine had only stripped them physically. Blanc could console itself on the fact there was no point fighting off someone stronger than you. It knows how to take it like a man. But Pomni—
She had seemed so genuine when Blanc had met her in their mind. When she promised she wouldn't leave them, it had seemed so obvious that naturally, that promise would extend to Blanc as well. But she hadn't known the full extent of what she was getting into. She had, like Jax, assumed Blanc was just a figment of the mind that could be wished away and Blanc thought that was how it had wanted things. Because if Pomni thought it was Jax, it could still test the bond between them. See how much that promise actually mattered when they were around people, when Pomni would have to show time and time again that she still wanted to choose Jax after everything.
It would be so much easier if she had just laughed in Blanc's face. Then this whole thing could be over with already. And Blanc knows it has to end, even if it doesn't today. At some point, they'll ask for too much and Jax will just be worse off for having known her enough to lose her.
Fuck her. And fuck Zooble, too, for acting like they could both be worth trusting. Fuck them all for proving that there could be more to life than a premature ending.
"I wouldn't antagonize everyone if you let me die," Blanc says and Zooble responds by pouring it another drink. It's pretty funny, but Blanc doesn't laugh. "We were all hoping for it, you know? Even Sable. Hell, she probably wants it the most! She knows she can't last in the world without us. One wrong order, and she'll be in tears trying to tell McDonald's she didn't actually want the pickles. We weren't supposed to fight for something. You assholes keep giving us a reason to stay. That's not how this is supposed to go."
"Because we don't want you dead," Zooble says, gentle enough that Blanc wants to fling its drink at them. "We want you to be actually happy with you you are. And that means, you know—not hurting you when you're in a vulnerable place."
Blanc snorts.
"I've never been happy," it says. Bullying Sable had been satisfying, for a while, but even that hadn't been something it truly enjoyed. Not that it spent too much time thinking about its own happiness. Looking for something like that seemed like the easiest way to get let down.
"Then at least there's nowhere to go but up." Zooble holds their own shot glass up towards it. Blanc snorts again, but clinks its glass against theirs.
It can appreciate, at least, that Zooble doesn't push the subject harder. Maybe that's a sign that there's some truth to what they've been saying—that no one will push Blanc to say more than it's ready to explain. That they'll all let Blanc rage and shout until it's finally screamed its heart out. That it can stomp and rattle and shake the friendship that Jax and Pomni have built, and Pomni will still look it in the eyes and promise they have a stable foundation. Blanc supposes if abstraction hadn't shaken that, it has no chance to ruin the thing the jester has given them.
"Sure," Blanc says. "Cheers."
It takes Blanc far too long to knock on Pomni's door.
"Hey," it says. "If I ask for a hug, will you give me one?"
Pomni squints, somewhat suspiciously—which is fair, Blanc thinks. It hasn't given her much of a reason to trust it.
It's changed back into Jax's signature overalls, but the difference between them all have been getting more obvious. Part of it is that they've stopped carrying about staying hidden. But maybe another part is that Pomni's learned enough about them to notice anyway. Blanc thinks it may have always been easy to spot, if someone had known what to look for.
"Just a hug?" Pomni asks.
"Yeah," Blanc says. "No one's ever hugged me before."
It says this not because it's true—though it is, if you're talking about Blanc in the solo and not as a collective—but because it wants to know how Pomni will react. Flirting is a no-go. Blanc gets that. Blanc had always known that wouldn't end in a way that would satisfy any of them.
Still.
There are other ways to test someone's faith in you.
"You don't need a reason to ask for a hug," Pomni says, so Blanc leans down and lets the jester wrap her scrawny arms around it.
Pathetic, Blanc tells itself. Lop would think so, too. What its doing is just another way of leaving them defenseless. Because now Pomni will know this is what it's always been hoping for. That the humiliating and terrifying thing Blanc has been trying to get the rest of the circus to run away from is that all it's ever wanted is to be treated softly.
How stupid of it, to give Pomni power over them like this.
The hug itself is pretty okay, though.