Chapter Text
Over time the buzz around Gangle's drawing mishap fizzled out shortly. Well, if you lived in this digital circus, you would have easily forgotten about the semi-mundane, too.
Though the majority had forgotten about it that didn't mean every single person had forgotten.
Same ol' same ol', it was another evening after another crazy event created by the circus. All was back to being calm, dinner was served and eaten leaving the inhabitants to their own devices until the next day, whatever a next day counted as.
Gangle sat at her desk utterly alone laser-focused on drawing. The supposed evenings here were the only time she and the others were guaranteed to be left alone for hours at a time. And for Gangle, that meant hours of drawing before her self-assigned bedtime.
Loose sheets of used paper littered the wooden desktop. When it became clear to her anxiety that her candid portrait drawings didn't received critical backlash for being creepy, she didn't feel afraid to leave her drawings out on display in her own room. That also meant that Jax had nothing like that to hold above her head anymore. There was still plenty of other things instead, but still.
Resting on top of these loose leafs was a medium-sized sketchbook, a gift from Caine. He thought it was best to keep her supplied as this was one of the most engaging things he's seen that could help her stay in-check from corruption. That would be correct as this thing had spent countless hours being used: in her lap on her bed, the floor or digging onto the littered desktop.
For the past few evenings she labored on a portrait drawing of Caine.
Here's the thing: she didn't hate him; Gangle thought he was sweet at times. Had their circumstances hadn't been the way they were, they would very well had been great friends. Unfortunately, the power dynamics between him and the players in this circus were too great and too chaotic. They were forced to play in his world by his unconventional rules and the two groups could never be overlapped.
That didn't stop her from trying to do something nice for him; it was only fair for how nice he treated her in the past weeks.
And after hours of her spare time taken, Gangle was on the cuffs of finishing the portrait. The tissue under her resting palm glided as she worked on the last section. Her final goal was lightening the empty tan spaces within the graphite with a white colored pencil.
When she finally deemed it finished she carefully removed the pencil and tissue onto a metal tray.
As one would imagine her back was in stiff shape. She stretched her hump out making the bones create tiny pops with each adjustment. Noticing the sweat building up around the edges of her mask she wiped her hairline with the back of her hand. Not wanting to get the paper oily she then wiped it across her dress.
She slowly ripped the paper from it's perforated line then picked the portrait up with the lightest of finger pinches at the corners avoiding any undue smudges and dents.
Ready to show her creation to Caine, she rose from her chair and stood in the center of the room.
"Caine!" Her feeble voice called out. "I made something for you!" She closed her eyes tightly knowing that if he came he would scare the bejeebus out of her. Maybe, just maybe, if she kept them closed just this once she wouldn't jump out of her skin.
Minutes passed and not a single sound of him. Her shoulders drooped and her eyes fluttered back open.
"Gangle, dear!"
"Eep!" She rocked back in her high-heels landing straight on her butt. "Ow."
"You called me?" He asked with no notion in correcting what he caused.
She grabbed the paper by it's unfortunately dented upper corners then carefully planted her feet to lift herself up without the help of her arms. Her legs wobbled until the shoes' heels dug firmly into the carpet.
"T-this is for you!" She again held it out far in front of her face.
With grace, he took it from her delicate hands. He studied it for a long time, his gloved hand rubbing under his chin. That made Gangle nervous. It didn't help that the new dents in the corners made her perfectionist mind twitch.
She wrung her hands. "D-do you like it?"
"Nobody has ever made something for me before." His voice sounded so serious.; that soon corrected itself. "Of course I like it! This is going right on the fridge!"
"I'm glad." A smile laced her masked lips. "I'm glad that you like it, I mean."
Outside the door there was some muffled commotion going on. At the same time, Gangle spotted a small piece of paper on the floor. Her eyes darted between the occupied Caine and it. She slowly inched closer and closer around him. Come on, almost there!
"Those rascals! Up to something fun out there! I should join in on them as well!" Her heart stopped as his attention floated to the paper on the floor. He scooped it up. "Oh and what's this?"
"Ah, please give me that!" She made some feeble jumps and reaches for it but he held it up an inch higher above her fingertips.
After he finished reading the front of it he handed it over. "I'm very glad you and Zooble are making friends with each other! Opposites attract is cliche but very common around here and the audience loves it, so who am I to judge!"
She snatched it away and hid it against her chest. "We're not really friends."
"Is that so?" He tipped his top hat. "Well, maybe I was wrong about what happened when the two of you met in Zooble's bedroom?"
She laughed. "W-what do you mean? Nothing happened. Nothing at all."
"Well, it sure--"
A long tear pierced their ears.
"Bubble no!" He flew over and ripped the piece of paper from her mouth. Caine's portrait was now headless and completely ruined.
Gangle started tearing up. "That took hours to make!"
He patted her head. "Don't worry, dear! With a little bit of coaxing and duct tape maybe I can--"
"Too late." Bubbled burped.
"I'm sure you can make a new one! Specifically one that isn't tasty and Bubble certainly would not want to eat! All of you are so talented, it wouldn't hurt to do something over again, right?" He cleared his throat. "Now, let's see what that commotion outside was all about!"
With a finger snap, him and Bubble disappeared into thin air.
Again, Gangle was all alone.
She pressed her hands right into her chest trying to stop "overreacting." The crackle of the flimsy paper underneath them brought her back to reality.
Oh god, Zooble! Who cares about a stupid drawing when the coolest girl here sent her a letter out of nowhere! She wiped her tears then opened the letter.
They haven't talked together in what seemed like forever other than in passive. Did she change her mind and think that she was actually a weirdo lesbian freak? Was that why she haven't been talked to her since the incident? She had to know!
Meet me in my room. I want you to do something for me. Bring sketchbook.
That was anticlimactic.
The letter was so short she wondered why Zooble didn't come right out and say the same thing in person. Maybe she just didn't want to be seen talking to her? But, she did and said she doesn't give a #$@% about anything and everyone. Maybe she was shy then?
Shy? Zooble? Couldn't be! She's way too cool to be shy!
Either way, Gangle had to find out one way or another. She couldn't just leave her request unanswered!
She grabbed her sketchbook and pencil along with many interpretations of the cryptic message.