Chapter Text
Zooble picked themselves off the floor, shaking off the greenish goop that used to be monster meat.
“I’m not doing another adventure again.”
“OH YOU…” Caine grumbled, predictably turning to them with his teeth set in a frown, “I HAVE GIVEN YOU SUGGESTIONS, I HAVE BEEN “CHILL” WITH SOME OF THE ADVENTURES AND I EVEN GRANTED YOUR REQUEST. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME ZOOBLE?”
Zooble stared.
“What?”
“UHH, I MADE ADVENTURES BASED ON YOUR SUGGESTIONS-”
“No, no, the last part.”
Was Caine for real?
“AH! I GRANTED YOUR REQUEST!”
Zooble stared at the circus master in disbelief, “You did?”
“Oh, you didn’t know about that, Zooble?” Jax smirked and they glared at him in turn.
“Like you did, %$!#hole”.
“WEIRD”, the circus master snapped his fingers, pulling up something that looked like a screen, “THE PINGS FOR THE REQUESTS HAVE BEEN GOING OFF-”
“Wait!” Pomni said, “We don’t really need to know who has done what and stuff. So no need to look it up”.
She fidgeted with her hands as everyone looked at her, but what caught Zooble’s attention was Jax whose mouth had against all expectations snapped shut. His avoidant gaze almost made him look shy. Zooble glanced between the two of them.
No way.
“Did you two-”
“Look at the time! I need to go and uh… rearrange the blocks in my room”, Pomni nodded as if to convince at least herself of the lie, “Yep.”
She turned on her heel all but running to the direction of her room. Jax was still staring off into the distance, but as he noticed the attention shifting to him he flashed them a smirk, hanging his head backwards to look at them as he walked off in the same direction.
“WELL, I GUESS THAT’S BEEN SOLVED”, Caine said, reminding Zooble he was still there, “REMEMBER MY WONDERFUL CIRCUS GOERS, SAFETY AND SANITY ARE THE KEYS TO ANY RELATIONSHIP”.
Zooble blinked as the circus master disappeared. They turned to look at the two girls still in the room, Kinger having presumably crawled back into his forth. Gangle’s mouth hung open and Ragatha kept looking back and forth between them and the hallway to their rooms. They shaked their head.
“Hey, if either of you want to do something just come by my door and ask.”
Ragatha blinked at them, “You’re… offering me?”
“Yeah. If you’re up for it”, they looked over their shoulder and glared, “I doubt those two will”.
Ragatha nodded and Gangle offered them a small smile. “That sounds nice. Thanks Zooble.”
They shrugged, “Anytime”.
—
The knocking on their door was light and behind it stood Gangle with a shy smile as they waved.
“Hey Zooble.”
“Hi, come in.”
They stepped aside to let her in. Sometimes they visited each other’s rooms like this. It happened more often now that Jax wasn’t a near constant thorn on Gangle’s side and it felt nice to share the space with her, whether to talk or to hang out. Though tonight Zooble expected there to be another reason.
Gangle rocked on her feet, “So, how does this work?”
Zooble shrugged, “I don’t know. There’s this screen thing that I can use to send a request to anybody, but I don’t know what happens after that”.
They looked at the screen that appeared in front of them and picked Gangle from a list of names. They blinked as a screen appeared on top of their head.
“That was unexpected. What does it say?”
“Zooble has send you a request to have %$!#. Yes?”
Above them the screen blinked green. It disappeared and with it went all the minimal sense the system had. Zooble looked down at themselves before looking over to Gangle who was staring down between their own legs. Right there, on both of their bodies, stood the goddamn censor bar.
They sighed, “Of course it would be like this”.
Hesitantly Gangle reached for her own censor bar and frowned as their hand slid along it.
“I don’t feel anything. Is it working?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t feel like asking Caine to fix it. Let’s just try to have fun even if it isn’t working properly.”
They sat down on their bed, patting the space next to them for Gangle to join.
“What do you want to do?”, they looked down at themselves, “Or want to try to do?”
Gangle looked a little hesitant, but Zooble sat patient. They weren’t in a hurry and it was better if both of them knew what they wanted.
“Could I touch you?”
“Yeah. Go for it.”
Gangle’s hand slid forward, the ribbon slowly reaching for the censor bar before giving it a gentle touch. She yelped and took her hand away as if it had been burned.
“Are you okay?” they asked, trying at the same time make sense of the sensation that had come and gone with her touch.
“Y- yeah. It just felt weird. Are you okay?”
They nodded.
“Do you want to try again or..?”
“Let’s just give it a try.”
Gangle nodded, bringing her hand to the censor bar again and this time kept it there despite her grimace. After a moment she began drawing small lines across it and Zooble shuddered at the motion.
It felt hot and cold, like salve being applied to a burn. The sensation was wrong, the expected relief replaced with pleasure. But it felt good and close to something Zooble had been hoping for.
They lost their mind to a haze that buzzed over their brain, only after a moment realizing that it had happened. As they focused on the room they noted how they had shifted from leaning on their hands to elbows and how the ribbon toy’s touch had gotten a little bit steadier and firmer.
One of their arms shifted underneath them as pleasure was applied to their brain. It caught on the bed sheets, making them frown as their eyes snapped to the appendage. It had seemed fitting that morning, but right then it felt awful, uncomfortable and wrong. The haze in their head receded then.
“What’s wrong?” Gangle frowned, looking them over as her hand drew away.
“Nothing, just…” Zooble nodded their head toward their arm, “Just- it doesn't feel right anymore”.
Gangle looked at their arm and a sad smile formed on her face. “Is it often like that?”
“Sometimes. I’ve mentioned it to Caine, but he just gave me the parts box to change the parts out.”
“Do you want to do it right now?”
“It’s fine. We don’t have to stop just for this.”
Gangle shaked her head and got up, making her way to the parts box. She dug through it, her hand emerging holding onto a similar arm to their other one, this one just blue instead of pink. She looked at them and with their nod stood up.
“I don’t know if this is helpful at all, but sometimes my body feels weird too. I know it’s been long enough that you’d think I get used to it, but it feels weird to not be attached to anything. The clothes sometimes help, but most times it feels like I’m made of air.”
She sat next to Zooble, offering them the arm which they took. They detached the one caught on the sheets and put the other one in its place. It didn’t feel quite proper either but it felt better at that moment.
“I don’t think it’s weird to not be used to it. These bodies are strange. It’s still disorientating to fall to pieces.”
“Yeah, or pulled apart only to snap back together”, Gangle smiled though it changed to surprise and embarrassment when she noticed her hand that had wrapped itself around their midsection.
“Sorry.”
Zooble shaked their head. “Keep it there. It actually feels nice”.
“Okay.”
Gangle let her arm snake around them a little further, bringing the other one back to the censor bar. Zooble tried to stay coherent enough to appreciate her smile, something they wished to see more often on her face.
Through the haze they could make out the alternating pressure of her arm, relaxing and stretching thin in a mindless rhythm. All of it managed to elicit a moan, the ribbon around them momentarily tightening at the sound.
“Is this good?”
“Yeah”, they breathed, trying to focus on the sensation of the ribbon around their body rather than the cream eased burn between their legs. It travelled further, almost reaching their neck.
“Can I?”
Zooble lifted their fallen gaze to see the ribbon toy gesturing at their censor bars. They nodded.
The hand touching the censor bar lifted and Gangle brought it next to their head to give herself support. Carefully she lowered herself down and a mixture of a scream and sigh escaped them as their censor bars connected.
It truly was a battle then to know what was going on. They pressed against the ribbon toy the best they could as she did against them. Their almost matching hands tried to grab onto something, pulling on ribbon to bring her closer.
They lay there against each other in a high until their room came back to focus. Zooble would have liked to spend more time on their coherency, appreciate the weird circus body on top of theirs. But tiredness was taking them over, dragging them towards sleep.
With a content sigh their eyes fell shut.