Work Text:
The circus was quiet and empty, and lit with a late summer's evening glow. Zooble was closing up shop. Running their hands over a half empty bottle, Zooble paused to consider the precise taste and texture of curacao. The thought exercise was grounding. They thought of the way it'd made their cheeks pucker, how it burned their throat. Zooble enjoyed remembering as best they could, and alcohol was an enjoyable thing to recall. Far more enjoyable than ruminating the choking spiral of the reality they now inhabited. Every 'day' was a little easier. Other times, their mind swirled endlessly over the knowledge that they were stuck, they were just a little package of data from a complete freak accident, and that was all they'd ever be. One day the real Riley would die, and Zooble would just keep on existing. It chilled them to their nonexistant bones and kept them awake at night until Gangle told them to settle down, please. They snorted softly, shaking their head. Don't start now, they thought bitterly, turning their eyes back to the curacao.
They cleaned martini glasses with microfiber rags and filled ice cube molds with boiling water before stacking them in the freezer. Zooble cranked a high-speed dishwasher down and it started its cycle. Things didn't need to get sanitized. They couldn't get sick, they didn't need booze, they didn't need food. There weren't even health inspections. But it was nice. Zooble rearranged syrups and pressed a set of index and thumb fingers together. Their fingers were tacky, and they felt a rush of satisfaction from the tangible sensation of simple syrup having gotten everywhere. Wow. Ordering a mojito had gone from being the worst part of their night to something thrilling. As they organized, Zooble paused as they pulled out an ice bucket. Their eyes softened for a moment. Placing it on the bar, they placed one hand on their hip as they leaned. Another hand placed itself on what was approximately their chin. And another still drummed listlessly on the lacquered wood.
"You know," they said aloud, reluctant and dragging from their throat, "I never got to make you a proper whiskey sour." Zooble stared at the bucket as they spoke. One hand waved dismissively. "I wonder how many bottles of whiskey I'd need to summon to fill up this thing. I bet it wasn't even the good whiskey you liked. Shitty whiskey for a whiskey sour because if you got a fluted glass you'd have a fit about it." Zooble's shoulders tightened. They felt a bitter pull in their chest. Ugly things; fury and indignation, you-sorry-sack-of-shits', bounced around in their brain. Their eyes burned in spite of it. "Was it even something you liked, huh?" Zooble's head turned toward the greyish tent. There wasn't an answer. Zooble grunted, then, started pulling the memory of Old Crow Bourbon out of their thoughts. A pair of hands retrieved, then cracked open, an ice cube mold and dumped its contents into the bottom with a clatter.
"Could've made it Fireball. You'd better like this." The bucket soon smelled like paint. Next was an equally absurd amount of simple syrup and lemon juice, and then a stupid amount of egg whites dolloped on top. They stared at their concoction for a moment. A sense of baffled embarrassment and shame passed over them. It looked ridiculous. Zooble regretted it, yet they were exhausted from the conjuring. It'd be a waste to dump it down the sink.
They drummed a plastic foot before sucking it up and gathering up their fucked up and dumb whiskey sour bucket in their arms and carefully waddling over to the tent. They poked a head in. From the darkness, a shifting, black mass stood at attention when the bucket clunked gingerly onto the floor just outside of the opening. Zooble stared, they usually did. It was hard to conceptualize it—him— as his shifting many-eyed form stared plaintively back. Pomni hadn't spoken much about what she'd seen. All she'd said is that he was in there, somewhere.
"Hey, jerk." Zooble called. Jax's eyes blinked, filled with the inquisitive innocence of an animal. There wasn't a glimmer of cruel mirth or tightening of the lids or rolling of the pupils that indicated he was himself. He plodded in their direction, and they nudged the bucket into the shadows to give him a wide berth. The air hummed with a staticky pull the nearer he got.
"You remember? I made it with, like, agave syrup last time. No eggs either. A shitton of whiskey, though." Which, in their opinion, should have made up for the whole vegan thing, in spite of his insufferable attitude.
Jax tilted his head. He knelt in a trepidatious way. Front legs first, folding beneath the morphing texture, then back legs following slowly, one then the other. Ragatha had compared him to a horse, once, in a sort of confused voice before looking regretful and strained. Zooble could see it. They watched with a bile fascination, finding themself at a loss for words. He observed the bucket. He recoiled at the pungent aroma and Zooble's shoulders bunched as his textures flared wildly. Thankfully, he didn't simply knock it aside. Instead, he went in for a second go, awkwardly laying his long neck on the bucket. None of them needed to eat or drink, and yet they did, so it wasn't terribly shocking when Zooble heard a lapping noise. Offering accepted. They crossed their arms, then, slowly, they lay down outside of the tent.
It was just the two of them. Caine couldn't (and, as he'd put it, wouldn't if he could) spy on them anymore without the other AI. Kinger had drifted by for a Shirley Temple at some time around midday. Pomni and Ragatha had cajoled Caine into opening Candy Kingdom and had spent the better part of the day there. Gangle had retired early after she and Caine had stayed up late yes-and-ing each other over some new idea.
"I still can't believe you." Zooble muttered, breaking the silence. "You- you're so pigheaded. God, I can't." They clenched four fists and stared hard at the mezzanine that wove across the grounds. "After everything you did, and I'm pissed off the most that you did it." The worst kind of anger, irrational and wrapped up in about a dozen other things. "You're a stupid asshole who made everything so much harder than it had to be. Do you know that?" Zooble adjusted to glare inside of the tent. Jax had gone through half the bucket already. He paused to look their way, proboscis half curled out of his mouth.
Zooble deflated. They looked him up and down, searchingly.
"Forget it. Don't drink that too fast. You didn't get out much, did you?" They resumed lounging, scowling at nothing. Jax resumed drinking. It might've been their imagination, but it could've been slower. "You'd better not go wandering around and end up… I dunno, passed out somewhere weird."
The troupe had mostly resumed a 'normal' circadian rhythm, and they were growing ever-certain Jax would come creeping from the tent at night, when the grounds were dim and empty. They would wake up in the morning and find something moved out of place. Chairs and loungers pushed this way and that. An unlucky npc or two, frightened and nursing a glitching texture. One eventful morning the plastic slide had been broken at its seams and scattered all over the grounds. Jax was found sleeping in his tent with one section still around his neck. How many video game characters did it take to remove a giant hunk of plastic from a giant fucked up rabbit? Six of them, and about every extra plastic body part Zooble owned. Zooble scoffed at the memory.
They heard a groan drift out from the tent. Peering in, Jax had laid his head down. His form was undulating in slower, lazy pulses. Unfocused hypnotic eyes shuttered and never opened wider than half-mast.
"I told you not to drink that too fast." Zooble chided. There was a warbling groan in response. They weren't sure if they could still say he was a lightweight. They didn't know the average weight of an abstraction and didn't think Caine would want to wrangle one to find out, but he could definitely still feel things. He rolled onto his back, head lolling to the side, and stretched out his front legs. His pupils fixed upon his inky… feet? distractedly, flexing at whatever made up his wrist. Zooble watched for a moment, then slapped their knees and stood with a grunt. He was a happy drunk even like this. Better leave him to it, and hopefully he'd simply slip into a pleasant, boozed sleep and not be sprawled out on broken couches or something come morning. As they made their way to the bar, a loud clattering chased behind them. Zooble startled as the bucket skipped over the floor noisily toward them.
"The hell?"
From the tent, they caught Jax watching them. He had kicked it at them. They cautiously knelt to retrieve the now staticky bucket. Must've gotten to his feet and taken a tumble. Then, as they rose, they saw the change. His eyes narrowed in a particular way. Curled at the tearducts, head tossing to the side in a disconcertingly sharp, observant, and familiar fashion. Zooble straightened their back, eyes wide. He let out another slurring noise, then rolled all his dozens of eyes and disappeared clumsily into the shadows.
Zooble stared wordlessly.
"That better be a 'thank you'!" They managed without much bite.