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“Remind me again why I agreed to this,” Zooble, who is currently just a head being cradled in Caine’s arms, quips. It’s not a real question, just a way to complain. A way to fill the quiet that is otherwise so pervasive. A way to exert just a little bit of control until they can be put back together again.
Despite this, Caine offers up an answer. “Because, my sweet and spicy sourpuss, you’re the easiest member of the circus to carry.” He pauses, then adds, “And I trust you… And I don’t think I can do this alone.”
Zooble tries to nod, but isn’t actually capable of it at the moment. “Right.” The walls around them are black and inky. So is the floor, the ceiling, and anything else that catches their eyes. One would expect them to be totally enveloped in darkness, but instead, and much more disconcerting, they are constantly bathed in a modulating light in neon colors without an obvious source. It’s the same colors as the eyes on abstractions flash.
Ey aren’t saying so, but ey’re scared. Zooble doesn’t like being in here. Caine is more open about how little he likes it. How worried he is for Zooble. Before they came in here, he made it clear that he isn’t particularly worried about himself. Even deleting his code just sent him back out of the game- if he could get back in once he’s certain he could do so again. Faster, probably. But Zooble is, well, not a human, it turns out. Zooble is a brain scan and brain scans are a little more delicate. He desperately doesn’t want Zooble to become the thing they’re exploring right now.
He doesn’t want em to turn out like Jax. And Zooble doesn’t want that to happen, either. Obviously. Sad as ey are that he’s like this, ey doesn’t really want to risk emself to try to bring him back. Two months ago ey would’ve said no. But Caine has actually been trying to work with everyone. And Zooble, looking back, can see that he was making some effort before but falling flat. Not listening well enough. But now, somehow, they’ve got a little bit of a thing going on. When he asked for help, what was Zooble supposed to do? Refuse?
In short, Caine pulled some puppy eyes bullshit on Zooble and ey caved.
It feels like they’ve been floating through this void forever, though. If Jax is this far gone, this deep in, Zooble isn’t sure why Caine’s holding out hope about the other abstractions. Maybe it isn’t a time thing. It could be because of how terribly, horribly repressed Jax was instead of a time thing. Zooble still thinks ey were right when they pinned him as an egg, maybe ey should’ve tried to have an actual chat with him about it. Actually, scratch that. He would’ve just been insufferable about it. That was the whole problem with him. No one could reach out without him making it a cruel punchline.
Zooble can picture it. Jax in his doorway, his obvious pink frilly room behind him, laughing as maliciously as he can. ‘Just because you’re doing some gender freaky bullshit doesn’t mean I’m interested.’
Cain stops. He rubs his thumb on the side of Zooble’s head. Ey don’t stop him, don’t voice any complaints. Zooble squints around. They’ve come to some kind of actual end of the road. The wall against the end of the tunnel has rounded bulges. Gross.
“That’s weird, this isn’t what’s supposed to be here.”
“Did it change since you mapped it out?”
“Maybe. I didn’t actually get this far last time.”
“What?”
“Well, halfway through I realized it was a tunnel. And they always say there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, so I figured that light would be our incapacitated baby bunny.”
“That’s not… That’s just a saying, Caine.”
“It is? Hm.” He looks down at Zooble in his arms, then at the wall. “If it was just me I’d test this, but… Maybe we should turn back.”
Zooble stares down the closed eyes. They’ve gotten so deep in. It took so long. And what if Jax is right here on the other side of the horrible inky flesh eyeball wall?
“No, no way. We’re this far in. Just… Poke it or something. Carefully.”
“It wouldn’t be safe for you.”
“This whole little sidequest hasn’t been safe for me. I agreed to it anyway.”
Caine considers eir words for a good, long moment. Then he switches to holding em one handed, palming Zooble like a basketball. He holds eir head as far away from the wall as he can while still extending his other arm out to prod one of the closed eyes.
It opens, glowing and cycling through colors the way they’re used to seeing from the outside of abstractions. Then it blinks. Then every eye in front of them opens up, followed by a line of eyes they hadn’t noticed on the walls the whole way back through the tunnel. The ceiling starts to drip, Caine barely manages to pull Zooble away from a drop of black, sharp ichor.
The wall in front of them opens up, a slight maw glowing pure white. It’s big enough for Zooble, since eir just a head at the moment, but Caine couldn’t possibly squeeze through.
“The light! There is a light. I told you, Zooble. Oh, my beautiful flower of little faith, we found it!”
“We found a light. And the cave started falling apart, in case you didn’t notice.”
Caine glances from Zooble to the hole as he dodges the drips of ooze.
“Don’t even think about it.”
A single drop lands on one of Caine’s coattails. It starts to glitch and the glitch starts to spread. “I'm thinking about it.” He pulls Zooble in close, gives em a kiss for good luck, then rears back and throws em like a football, complete with spiral. Ey squeeze eir eyes shut tight as they pass through the mouth and blink in surprise as eir caught.
Ey look back towards Caine. Through the maw ey can see him glitching out, snapping himself to normal, then repeating the process as more ooze touches him. He says, “Oopsie daisy,” every time the process starts again, weirdly chipper about the situation. At least ey don't need to worry about him.
“Dang, I thought Kinger killed that guy.”
The hands that caught Zooble belong to Jax who is looking mostly like himself aside from the fact he's wearing that maid outfit that he supposedly hated. He carries em over to a poker table and sets em down on the edge of it where ey can watch the hole.
“Persistent little AI. Why the hell did he kiss you?”
Zooble hadn't thought about what to do if they actually found Jax. Ey didn't want to get eir hopes up. Jax is talking entirely casually, though, so ey guess ey should do the same.
“You missed a lot. We're dating now.”
“Oh, I see. You think just because I turned into a feral monster you get to be the funny one. Fat chance. A joke like that has to be believable to be funny, Sweetheart.”
“I'm serious. Queerplatonic.”
“No, you're serious? I thought you were just gender freaky. You're sexuality freaky, too?” He turns Zooble so ey can face him instead of Caine, then leans back in his chair and rests his feet on the poker table. “I had money on you and Gangle hooking up. That was a bet with Kaufmo, though, so I guess I don't owe him shit.”
“No, I'm with Gangle, too.”
“You guys started doing poly shit after I died?”
“You're not dead, Jax. I'm talking to you right now.”
“Okay, I'm in a coma, or whatever. Same dif.”
Zooble glances out the corner of eir eyes towards the mouth hole. “Is… Is anything actually stopping you from leaving?”
“You know, I'm not totally sure.”
“Have you tried?”
“No way, I'm enjoying my time away from all those horrible girls.”
“Jax!”
“Kidding, kidding. No, I can't leave. Got poker, though.” He motions to the table with a sweep of his arm. “I'd offer to play with you but you'd just bitch and moan about how you don't have hands and I can see your cards.”
“What happened when you tried?”
“Well, there used to be more of me, but they kinda just shot back into me when they tried to leave. And since it's just me now it doesn't seem like a good idea to try.”
Zooble gives Jax's face a good, hard look. It seems like he's being sincere. He always got this stupid wide-eyed expression when he was trying to lie.
“Do you control that mouth?”
“The opening? Yeah, I think it's technically my mouth. Somehow. Abstracting gave me an even more fucked up body than yours. Guess that's karma. Or something.”
Zooble suppresses the insult on eir tongue before it can escape. Ey take a deep breath. “Let Caine in.”
“What? No way. You might've cozied up to the enemy but I'm not falling for it. He just wants your help dragging me out of here so he can torture us all together as a family.”
“He's not like that anymore,” Zooble defends. “And you're in here all alone, playing poker by yourself in a maid dress. Forever. Do you really think Caine has something worse than that up his sleeve?”
Jax frowns. He furrows his brow at the maw. Outside, Caine is still stuck repeatedly fixing himself. His tone is still cheery.
“Probably not. Unless he starts hitting on me. I don't wanna be in your gross little polycule.”
Zooble rolls eir eyes. “He won't. Let him in. I'm getting sick of being stuck here alone with you.”
Jax smirks and condescendingly pats Zooble's head. “Aw, I love you, too.”
“Fuck off.”
Jax stands, casually walks over to the maw, and opens it up as if it's a zipper. Caine stumbles in, heals himself one last time, and looks up at Jax.
“Wow! You're wearing that dress again.”
“I'm wearing it ironically.”
“I don't understand why you'd do that, but it's your prerogative, my precious pierogi.”
“Don't call me that.”
“Noted!”
Jax crosses his arms and turns away from Caine, towards Zooble. “Well. I believe you. He's back to being normal-annoying instead of straight up evil.”
“Correct,” Caine offers helpfully, “but Zooble told me recently I'm only half as annoying as I was before I got deleted! I love progress.”
Jax's expression turns skeptic. Zooble would shrug if ey had shoulders.
“Okay, whatever. Let's get to the point. You're here to save me, so save me.”
“Well…” Caine shifts so that he's crosslegged on the floor. He pokes his pointer fingers together and averts his eyes. “About that… I'm not totally sure how to get you back.”
“I knew it was too good to be true,” Jax angrily sits back down. After a pause, he knocks over a stack of poker chips.
“I wasn't sure what was going on in here. I just saw a way in and thought I had to try.”
“Why'd you bring Zooble's severed head?”
“I knew you wouldn't be happy to see me and ey're very conveniently sized for protecting from the walls.
Jax sighs, then lays his head down on the table. “Okay. Okay. So we're just brainstorming, then?”
“Unfortunately,” Zooble offers, “But at least you have company?”
Jax turns his head so he's facing Zooble. He looks tired. He smiles, bitter but seemingly genuine. “Yeah. I guess that's something.”