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Jax hadn’t heard “Monster Mash” in years, but somehow Caine had managed to avoid those so-called copyright laws enough to play a version of it that was nearly exactly the same except to replace “Mash” with “Bash.” It was almost enough to make this feel like a real Halloween party, if the typical Halloween party were full of actual oozing, groaning zombies and cackling witches instead of the poor human mockery of them.
It had taken everyone a great deal of effort to explain to Caine what Halloween exactly was, but Jax thought they'd done a fine job. Caine had somehow managed to make a competition out of Halloween, sure, but this was better than it could’ve been. Now, Jax was standing off to the side with her little group of murmuring witches, a cup of potentially-spiked punch in her hand, watching Ragatha and Pomni try to navigate a dance along with the crowd of zombies. They kept misstepping, knocking into each other and the zombies, who would occasionally topple over and refuse to get up. Of course, Pomni—in her Minion costume, no less—kept tripping over the downed zombies, knocking down even more in the process, and Jax couldn't wipe the damn smile off her face.
Ragatha was a little less amusing, if only because she was dressed in that sort of sexy nurse costume that made every movement precarious despite her complete lack of breasts in her Circus-assigned ragdoll body. Regardless, it looked like something was going to pop out, a sentiment Jax could empathize with. Her own costume was … revealing, to say the least. But Caine had picked it, so it wasn’t like she could even take it off. She liked it anyway. It made her look like she actually had hips.
Worst was the broomstick she had to carry with her everywhere, but that was more than made up for with the chaos potential of holding a long stick with nebulously magical properties. Could it float? She wasn’t sure Caine had even thought of that, but she’d found great joy in poking everyone and everything from afar with it for about thirty seconds.
God. This punch was definitely spiked. Wasn’t it sorta crazy that Caine could successfully simulate inebriation? Jax had gotten drunk like … a total of twice before she’d entered the Circus, but this was entirely accurate. As far as she remembered.
“Monster Bash” started another loop. Jax groaned, turning around to flop her elbows down onto the table behind her. “How many times’s Caine gonna play this anyway? This is what, the eighth time?”
Zooble’s eyes flicked over her disinterestedly. “You think he cares?”
“Uh, yeah. Isn’t that, like, his job?”
“If you’ve got a problem, take it up with him, not me.” Zooble went back to wrestling with a bottle of stupid sauce. Jax really hoped they wouldn’t offer her some because she wasn’t sure she’d say no. “On second thought, maybe not. If you’re not playing along, you might want to avoid him …”
Zooble’s points ticked up above their head, but Jax had absolutely no clue why. Maybe there was another minigame here she hadn’t caught on to yet that involved getting off one’s face on drugs.
“Where’s Gangle, anyway?” she asked.
Zooble finally popped the lid off with a relieved exhale, already tipping it back into their eyes. “She’s probably still working on the desserts. She was oddly enthusiastic about them.”
“I’m surprised you aren’t back there with her, since you’re matching and all,” Jax said, tapping the wooden end of her broomstick against the floor.
“Well, I was, but then she made me leave. Beats me why, but I guess I’ll have to wait and see.”
“Great. I’ll see if I can get her to add snails to whatever gift she’s making you.”
Zooble scoffed, holding out the bottle. “Good luck with that or something. Want some?”
“I don’t do drugs,” Jax blurted out, tossing back the rest of her drink.
Gangle was, indeed, in the kitchen that had no business being here, putting together little treats and goodies that Caine could’ve AI-ed into existence with the snap of his fingers if she just asked. Jax briefly wondered what had possessed her to come back here in the first place before she heard “Monster Mash” begin to loop again, this time much more muffled behind the closed door.
“You look good,” Gangle said as Jax walked in. Her ribbon-hands were coated in and dripping with chocolate, and there was a pan of cooling, chocolate-coated something next to her.
“You look like you scam middle aged men out of their money on Discord,” Jax replied.
Gangle giggled uneasily, her fake cat whiskers bouncing with the movement of her happy mask, which was still intact. Chocolate made a little trail on the floor under when she grabbed a cookie off a plate and dunked it in the bowl of melted chocolate.
“What’re you even doing, anyway?” Jax asked, leaning against the counter.
“Making cats,” Gangle said. “And dogs. And … pigeons.”
Now taking a closer look at the pan of chocolate-coated cookies, Jax could tell Gangle was taking advantage of the warm chocolate to embed different candies in different designs. Suddenly, it made sense for Gangle to want to spend her time here. Artist stuff and all.
As Gangle had said, there were several cats among her designs, as well as a variety of other animals, some of which Jax couldn’t make out. “This have to do with why you made Zooble leave?” she asked.
“Uh,” Gangle said, freezing up for a second. “Yeah! But you can’t tell them anything. I’m making something special for them. So if you’re going to ruin it—”
“Relax, Ribbons. I’m not that cruel.”
“Haha, yeah …” Gangle pushed a plastic cup aside that Jax could see held a bouquet-esque assortment of Halloween goodies. Cute.
“Got a job for me? I’ve got time to kill ‘til things get interesting or Caine gives us some actually fun minigames.”
Jax ended up decorating cake pops and turning them into little ghosts, and was somewhat disappointed to find her points ticking up with every one she finished. There was a seemingly endless supply of desserts to decorate, and an endless number of party guests to match. She supposed she’d effectively been sucked into a restaurant simulation again, but at least this time, nobody was paying for shit and she could put live worms in the food if she wanted with no punishment whatsoever.
Music floated in from the other room, muffled but still clearly audible. After the fifteenth loop of “Monster Bash,” Jax considered bashing her head against the counter and instead did the unthinkable, which was to say she made friendly conversation with Gangle.
Apparently, Gangle had never been the biggest fan of Halloween, but Zooble really liked it, hence the group effort to convince Caine to celebrate it. It could’ve been May for all everyone knew, but it was an adventure someone actually wanted, and Zooble no less, so Gangle had been all for it, and Ragatha had thought it might be a good idea, and somehow that had all happened under Jax’s nose. To think she’d woken up thinking October must’ve hit without her noticing.
The cat costumes had been part of the adventure proposal, apparently, but Caine had clearly decided everyone else’s. Jax wasn’t complaining—a sexy witch wasn’t the worst thing she’d ever been, and this dress really did shape her body so pleasantly. She would’ve never chosen such a costume herself, but the push wasn’t unwanted.
Gangle also asked about Jax’s personal experiences with Halloween, to which Jax tentatively explained that she’d enjoyed dressing up as a kid but hadn’t really had the freedom to dress up how she wanted. Granted, part of it was just that costumes were yet another expense among many and easily cut from the budget, but it wasn’t like she’d have ever gotten away with wearing this in real life, even as an adult. For several reasons.
By the time Jax had finished decorating all the cake pops, Gangle was pulling another cake out of the oven and saying, “Get to work!”
“Calm down. I’m not even getting paid for this and neither are you.” Jax picked up the rubber spatula used to scrape the mixing bowl clean and flung some cake batter at Gangle.
Gangle froze in place, her face suddenly going dead serious. “What was that.”
“Uh, a food fight. Ever heard of it?”
Gangle froze, eyes going wide and dead. “A food what.”
Okay. Creepy. Manager Gangle had made her reappearance, apparently.
“Actually, now that you mention it,” Gangle said, happy mask finally pulling up into a one-to-one recreation of the ‘UwU’ emoticon, “I can arrange payment.”
Jax scoffed. “In the form of what? Hugs? Head pats? Belly rubs?”
In response, Gangle only picked up one of the many candy bags and flung it at Jax. She barely caught it, and it ended up smearing chocolate all over her gloves. “What’s this?”
“Take a look.” Gangle giggled.
Candy corn.
“You think you’re so funny,” Jax said, huffing a laugh in spite of herself. She picked up one piece of candy corn and tossed it at Gangle, careful to avoid her mask. “Well, if you—”
“Sorry, sorry to interrupt,” came Pomni’s voice, and only then did Jax notice the door was open, letting the music in much louder than before. “I just wanted to announce that …” She panted, hands on her knees. Jax noticed her hair was wet, for some reason. “Caine finally switched the music. Zooble said you might want to know … for some reason. Don’t ask me.” Ah, a hint! Jax knew how to take those. She would let Zooble and Gangle have their little tryst in this room, then.
Jax let the music fill her ears for a second. Ah. Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” wasn’t actually novel, but it was another song she hadn’t heard in a while. This version seemed to be called “Driller,” whatever that was supposed to mean.
“Is Caine gonna loop this one for two hours too?” she asked.
“I hope not,” Pomni said. “Anyway, I’m back to”—she took a moment to breathe—“dancing. Need the points, y’know?”
“I might as well come with,” Jax said, wiping her chocolate-covered gloves on the counter instead of bothering to find a place to wash them. “It’s getting boring in here. No offense.”
“None taken,” Gangle said awkwardly, foisting the bag of candy corn on Jax again. “I also, uh … thank you for being nicer than usual, ever since … yeah. It means a lot.”
Inexplicably, Jax’s heart dropped to her stomach. She swallowed thickly. “Of course. Sure.”
Shit. Okay, now was a really good time to leave.
Candy corn in hand, Jax speed-walked back into the main room, where the zombies were still try-harding on the dance floor as if they actually had the agility to get as many points as Ragatha, who was absolutely killing it. It was crazy what a bit of alcohol could do to a person with as many inhibitions as her. Maybe Jax could make things more interesting for her by giving her a bit more until she stumbled.
Pomni rejoined Ragatha in dance; both of their points were high enough that Jax would be surprised if they didn’t win the game altogether. Meanwhile, despite not having moved an inch, Kinger had amassed some points somehow—he, Jax, and Gangle all had points in the double digits, but both Pomni and Ragatha had several hundred. Dancing paid well, it seemed, somewhat unrealistically. Being a tree, as Caine had assigned Kinger, clearly did not.
Wiping a hand down her face, Jax watched the two dance for a minute longer with growing tightness in her chest before she turned around.
Oh God. Gangle hadn’t really said that, right?
Jax was well aware she’d been different lately. She’d come out a few months ago; of course she’d changed. She’d undergone a whole gender transition or whatever passed for it in this digital hellscape.
Trying not to let anything show on her face, she went to sit down next to Zooble again—Zooble, who had seemingly shot off far into goopy pink outer space.
There wasn’t any good reason for her to be nicer now than before. This was all still so—fake. This body was just as fake as before, and just because she was now she didn’t mean anything had changed about who Jax was. This whole “being trans” thing had only ever been a little band-aid to make it all feel better. It had no business changing who she was.
She was slipping.
“Want some?” Zooble asked again, slumped forward against the refreshments table with pink goop oozing out of their eyes. Jax was surprised they were coherent.
“Uh, no,” Jax said, bracing her hands against her knees like that could get them to stop shaking. “But you might wanna sober up a bit before you go see Gangle.”
Jesus Christ. What was she doing? Why was she helping Zooble and Gangle of all people? Why was it so … instinctive?
She was still Jax. She still put a lot of effort into annoying everyone, always, as was the nature of her character. Gender shouldn’t have changed anything. Gangle wasn’t meant to notice a change in her—a positive change—and comment on it! That was complete bullshit.
“Driller” restarted. Jax groaned into her hands as Zooble stumbled away. Jax extended a leg and tripped them, and it did nothing to loosen the knot in her throat even when Zooble flipped her off.
… Was she even really trans, or had she just wanted to try at another character for a change after tiring of her old one? This version of Jax was annoying, a trickster, but nicer, apparently. And she was a woman. That didn’t matter, though, did it? Just like the previous Jax being a man had never mattered.
She’d never even bothered to change her name. This one didn’t matter, and neither did her identity, did it?
Pomni’s voice from months ago echoed through her mind, telling her all sorts of things about how this was her home now so she may as well let herself be comfortable. The awful thing about having actual friends was that their words tended to stick with you.
Jax’s gloved hands tightened around her broomstick. Oh how she wanted to run.
As if called, the broomstick sprung to life, jerking rapidly and nearly bringing her off her feet. Panting, she tugged it back toward herself, nearly falling backward into the drink table in the process as it gave far less resistance than she’d expected.
Fuck yes. Awesome.
And run she would.
Or, well, fly.
Jax took a cursory look around to make sure nobody was looking at her before filling her mind once more with the urge to fly. The broom jerked again, and she hopped on, delighted to find it wasn’t half as uncomfortable as it always looked.
She’d been so damn caught up in being human that she’d forgotten she could just do things here.
The broomstick zipped forward all at once, and Jax bit back a shriek of shock as it tore through the party room and out into the artificial night. Shooting one quick look back, she decided nobody really needed to know where she was going.
Music slowly softened as she shot up into the sky, her witch hat snapping and curling in the wind but staying miraculously glued to her head. As the nondescript event building vanished beneath her, a shout ripped from her throat in that voice she still hated, and she tucked herself around the broomstick tight, clinging on for dear life.
But she didn’t fall. Far from it.
Instead, she rose higher and higher, until the cartoonishly exaggerated trees and grass were specks beneath her and she could’ve brushed the moon with her fingertips. Then her course flattened out, and she watched the black-swathed ground below blend together as if she were a bird flying higher, higher.
For an outdoors Caine had probably expected none of them to ever see, it was oddly beautiful. A great, glowing moon hung proudly in the sky in the midst of thousands of glittering stars.
Nothing about this was realistic, and nothing about it was human. She giggled sharply, and for extra kicks, she even laughed at herself about how much she sounded like the witch she was dressed as. Her broomstick carried her in lazy circles, and soon, she readjusted to sit more comfortably atop it, no longer clinging on so desperately.
This was a better place to run away to than the claustrophobic Awards Show bathroom had been, or even her room. There were things to look at, things to think about so she didn’t have to think at all. The stars danced around her, whispering and shimmering, and she sank into the memory of talking to Pomni all those months ago while looking up at a very similar night sky.
Wait, no. Bad idea.
She shook her head out like an Etch A Sketch, reflexively reaching up to hold her hat in place as if it had any chance of falling off after all that. Nostalgia was the last thing she needed right now. She just needed to calm down, then she could go back inside and indulge this stupid adventure until Caine took them back to the Circus, and then she could sleep.
But she really didn’t want to get rid of this outfit. This was the first time Caine had given her something this feminine after the maid dress incident, and unlike the maid dress, she actually liked this. Far more than her overalls, if she were honest with herself, but it would ideally be a little less revealing and a bit more casual. Still.
Swallowing down the lump in her throat once more, Jax—because that had always been her name, really, and she had never once bothered to change it, never really bothered to do what really mattered, had never really done more than experiment to begin with—let herself dip a bit closer to the ground.
It was surprising, how easily the broomstick answered her call. Maybe she could do other magic here, given she was a witch. Maybe she had all the ingredients to make potions stashed away somewhere, and maybe she could consume children for eternal youth or something. Like that mattered here.
Everything could be changed here, but everything was also so static. What was the point in doing whatever she wanted if she was stuck here, in this body, as “Jax”?
None of this was real, she reminded herself emphatically. There was no point in pretending to be anyone other than Jax.
Heart doing little leaps and trips in her chest, she directed the broomstick downward at a sharper angle. She had to make this right. She may have already accepted that she could be a woman and still be herself—thank God, actually!—but that didn’t mean she wasn’t right about everything else. She still had a role to play, and she wasn’t—
“Have you ever thought … maybe you’re trans because you’re human? And, like, both can exist at the same time … should. I don’t know.”
“Ha! Sure, maybe years ago. But that doesn’t matter anymore, does it, Pompom? I may be a girl, but I’m still Jax. You know me.”
A pair of wide, multicolored eyes delving into hers, wavering with doubt she didn’t want to dissect. “You’re impossible.”
Pomni needed to stop playing angel on her shoulder.
She hadn’t abstracted or anything. She’d been getting nicer and less funny and breaking character and somehow, absolutely nothing had happened.
The sick part of her that delusionally still wanted friends had scraped together the convenient excuse of “being trans” to justify changing something that was meant to be set in stone. Stupid, idiotic, but nothing had happened. And Jax felt better as a girl, she really did, and she didn’t want to take this dress off and stop being a “she” even if it was just an indulgent comfort that meant nothing.
Jax’s feet touched down on the ground gently, without any of the bone-breaking impact she had feared. She took a few breaths, considered taking her shoes off to feel the grass beneath her feet, then headed back inside before she could second-guess herself.
Vaguely, she felt like she might vomit. It was a real risk, since just about any amount of nerves was liable to make her sick, but she only swallowed and pushed into the building again.
“Driller” was still on loop. Ah, joy!
Also, more interestingly: Ragatha and Pomni were collapsed in a heap of zombies on the now very still dancefloor, sexy nurse and minion costumes stained all sorts of colors. Kinger hadn’t moved from where he’d planted his roots in the corner, and Gangle and Zooble were nowhere to be found. Jax was pretty sure they’d figured out a digital, safe-for-work approximation for sex at some point in the past few weeks, so they were probably busy.
Hesitating only a little, Jax headed on over to the pile of zombies, forcing her stride into something obnoxiously overconfident. She stopped just in front of Ragatha and Pomni, who lay groaning on the ground, their eyes swirling cartoonishly.
“Don’t—poke me …” Ragatha swatted at Jax’s hand. “Wait. Jax?”
“Jax?” Pomni echoed, craning her neck to squint at Jax without moving at all.
“Something happen?” Jax asked, landing somewhere between feigned disinterest and smugness.
“Too much dancing,” Pomni explained like that made any sense. Maybe Caine had implemented some sort of dance cooldown.
“Mm, cool. Well, I feel like this adventure has run its course. Where the heck is Caine?” Jax sat on the floor, making a face at the sticky zombie goop she narrowly avoided. She poked at Pomni’s forehead, waiting for a response.
“YOU CALLED?!”
If anyone asked later, Jax did not scream.
Nor did she double over and vomit on the floor as soon as they were all teleported back into the circus tent.
“Holy sh[BOINK!]t,” Ragatha slurred from the floor, and it occurred to Jax that she might’ve been high on stupid sauce too.
Caine looked very pleased with himself, perhaps neurotically so. “Welcome back my—oh my. That’s not very PG of you!”
Jax didn’t get to see what was “not very PG” about what Gangle and Zooble were doing because Caine snapped and a big black censor bar enveloped the both of them. Then he snapped again and cleaned up the mess Jax had made of the floor, hopefully before anyone else noticed.
“Now that that’s dealt with,” Caine said, flitting around in the air like a hummingbird, “how was it? Surveys out now! Please fill them out! But, ah, be sure to give me a 10 out of 10, or corporate won’t be happy!”
“Corporate?” Zooble echoed as a stack of papers thumped down on the floor in front of them, along with a bundle of ballpoint pens. The censor bar was gone, and they were back to their appropriately PG self. Boring.
Bubble floated in with a red tie attached just below his mouth. “Let’s go, team! Perfect 10’s this quarter!”
Caine snapped into place rigidly. “Yes, boss!”
It became rapidly clear that Jax was the only one of sound mind right now. Zooble was barely coming down from a high, and Pomni and Ragatha were … whatever they were. Gangle and Kinger were never of sound mind, really; Gangle never stopped staring at Zooble, and Kinger was still holding his arms up like he was a tree even though he wasn’t wearing his costume anymore.
Right … Jax was back in her overalls. Her skin prickled with discomfort that she promptly ignored.
Sighing to herself, she picked up one of the surveys, only nearly giving in to the impulse to tear them all to shreds. Instead, she picked up one of the pens and positioned the survey against her knee.
What was your favorite thing about the adventure? and, at the bottom, with no space beneath it at all to write, What could be improved? At the top, a series of ten circles, already filled out at the maximum score.
Jax grinned to herself and wrote “9.9/10” at the top, ignoring the circles. Then, below that, she wrote, “Needed more centipedes.” She made sure Ragatha caught a glimpse of it before handing it off to Caine, who did not even try to hide his dissatisfaction.
“That’s right! I just remembered! Your punishments!”
“My …”
“Well, you lost, didn’t you?” Caine said solemnly. “You and Zooble! You both tied for last.”
Zooble groaned. “Don’t rope me into this.”
Caine put on the appearance of thinking for a few seconds too long before he suddenly sprung into motion again and said, “I know! Cleaning!”
This time, Jax was moderately more prepared to be teleported—and, yep, now her shoes were covered in zombie goop. At least the music had stopped, leaving a more eerie sort of silence in its absence.
“Oh, f[BOINK!]ck this,” Zooble said. Their voice echoed in the now-quiet party room. “You couldn’t have waited ten more minutes before p[BOINK!]ing him off.”
“What can I say? I have a talent.”
There were mops and brooms and sponges and chemicals all in a pile right in the middle of the zombies. Jax was tempted to mix everything together and see if she could make some sort of toxic gas, but the sniff test proved every bottle, despite their labels, was filled with water. Great.
Zooble wasn’t deliriously high anymore, at least, so Jax wouldn’t be doing this alone. If she played it right, maybe she could get Zooble to do all the work while she relaxed …
They started cleaning, initially in silence. The twisting and turning in Jax’s stomach returned, but she stopped just shy of becoming a trembling mess like she’d been earlier. With her thoughts running wild circles in her head, she found herself occasionally drifting out of her head entirely, only to be yanked back into herself by Zooble. It grew embarrassing, but Zooble was probably the least interested person in the entire circus in what was going on in Jax’s mind, so they probably wouldn’t say anything.
Except they did.
“You alright?” they asked when they’d cleaned up half of the zombie corpses, far too softly.
Jax suppressed a flinch. “Oh my God, can you shut up.”
“I barely said anything.” Zooble set their mop down against a table, crossing their arms. “Seriously, what’s up with you?” they asked. “For a while there, you were doing great. For the first few hours of that party, even, but suddenly, like, what? You tripped me—you barely do things like that anymore!—and now you’re being—”
Jax laughed, heart kicking into a faster rhythm in her chest. “Me? Doing great for a while at that party? And here? You must be misremembering. You were like, ridiculously high or something. Figures.”
Zooble’s eyes narrowed, and they took a small step back. “What? No, no, we’re talking about this, if that’s your response. We’ve moved past whatever weird hangups you had with talking sh[BOINK!]t out, and you’re gonna tell me what the issue is so we can all move past it and pretend it never happened. I know you love doing that.”
“Wow, I can’t believe you believed all that.”
Zooble groaned, dropping the zombie arm they were holding. It splatted wetly on the ground. “God. Not this again.”
Jax wouldn’t bother to dissect that one. She already knew everyone talked about her when she wasn’t there.
She was shaking, again, annoyingly, and it wouldn’t stop. Her character wavered.
“No, I’m serious,” she continued. “I’m not … I’m Jax. I’m not nice, or pleasant to be around, or appealing at all. And I’m probably not even actually a girl. That’s all … just another character I was trying out. You get it, don’t you? You’re always trying things on … sometimes they don’t fit, is all.”
She took a breath in the silence that came after, not looking at Zooble.
Finally, Zooble said, “You can’t just say that like it’s logical and expect me to go along with it. No, I don’t get it, Jax. You’ve been so much better lately. You clearly know there’s a better way to live. Even just for you.”
“Whatever,” Jax said with a scoff. “You don’t need to believe me—just stop treating me different. Stop pretending to be my friend. We both know you don’t want that. You’re not as pathetically desperate as the others.”
When Jax finally worked up the courage to look back up at Zooble’s face, they looked angry. She swallowed the lump in her throat.
“You’re going to go back on all that?” Zooble said. “Those months—”
“We really don’t need to talk about this,” Jax forced out. “Just forget it.”
“Fine. I’m not your babysitter,” Zooble said, “and apparently I’m not your friend either.”
Silence, again. Jax teetered along the edge of tears for a good while, not entirely sure what she would be crying about.
It took a few hours, but they eventually scraped every last zombie finger and matted clump of hair off the floor and scrubbed the whole dancefloor clean. She sank into herself again, in a place where she wasn’t really there, and it was mostly Jax on autopilot, doing everything for her while she sobbed and clawed at the walls inside her own head.
Zooble finally spoke again, but only to say, “I hope we only had to deal with the zombies.”
Jax made some noncommittal sound of agreement, her discarded mop clattering down onto the floor. Actual conversation sounded like an awful idea right now.
“Caine? We’re done!” Zooble tried, exasperation clipping their voice.
After a few seconds, a portal opened; Jax felt herself melt a little with relief.
“Jax,” Zooble said firmly before either of them stepped through, “we’re still friends. Do with that what you will.”
She shouldn’t have been happy to hear it, but she was.