Chapter Text
After lunch they both head back to the tattoo studio to pick up Jax's car. "You got room in there for me, or am I walking home?" Zooble asks.
"Uhhh…. Yeah, just let me move some stuff," Jax says, fiddling with the lock before hopping in, throwing some stuff in the back. "Hey, I'm going to open your door from in here; if you could give it a tug?" Jax asks, leaning over the seat and lifting up on the handle.
"Why?" Zooble asks as they go and tug the door open.
"Cause the handle on the outside doesn't work, but I can't get enough force on the inside. Duh."
"Oh. Dude… Your poor car…" They hop in once it's open.
"Yeah, the door did work before the circus," he notes.
"Yeah, that was a long time for it to sit…"
"Or well… It didn't stick as much…" He turns the car on with some effort. "So, where we headed, Zooby?"
Zooble chuckles. "Straight ahead, then take a left at the first light."
"Thank you, Siri," He heads out.
Zooble shakes their head. They continue to lead Jax to the apartment complex and show him where to park.
"My apartment's just up this way," they say as they get out of the car, leading him up to a second-floor apartment.
It looks… Like Zooble. plenty of bright colors and mismatched items, most of the furniture looking like Zooble redid them themself. Post-it notes and art all over the walls, though they focus in over a bright blue desk.
"Wow, huh. I thought you would want to distance yourself from the circus and… I don't know, all this shit," Jax gestures around at the mismatch of colors and patterns.
"Yeah, I think the colors grew on me. Plus, I… actually really like mismatched stuff. Just… not when it was my body…"
"Yeah, guess I can get that…" Jax drifts over to the desk to look at all the drawings. There are a lot of different kinds, animals, food, objects. Practice ones. Some with different types of shading, cross-hatching, and dots. And then there's sketches of them… Of the circus members. All of them, anyone Zooble remembered. Jax snatches a couple post-its while they're not looking. "Ah, do you have a shower I could use?"
"Oh yeah," Zooble shows him the bathroom. "Need any laundry done?"
"Yeah, I have a bag in my car with dirty stuff."
"Alright, if you give me the keys, I'll take it into the laundry and get it started for you." They hold their hand out.
"Thanks, Zooble," he says as he tosses them the keys.
They grab their own laundry and head back out and pop the trunk to grab his laundry; he… doesn't actually seem to have that many dirty clothes… Just a couple of shirts and a pair of pants in the dirty clothes. They pause before glancing in his old worn suitcase… Just a pair of underwear, another shirt, a jacket, and some toiletries. He travels light for someone who doesn't seem to have any concrete place he's staying.
—
"I got your clothes," Zooble says as they walk into their apartment.
"Toss me some?" He holds his hand up, lounging on the couch and watching TV with a towel around his waist.
They pull out some and toss it over. "Anything good on?"
"Not really."
"Lame," Zooble says, setting his bag down and going to put away their own.
He gets dressed. "Thanks for letting me crash here."
"No prob." Zooble goes to the desk and spins in the chair. They pause. "Jax, where are my sketches?"
"Hum?" He looks over. "What sketches? You have tons over there."
"Yeah, and there's some missing," they gesture to the Post-it notes. "Where are they?"
"Oh, I don't know." He smiles and turns away.
"Jax!" Zooble quickly gives him a look. "Give them back."
"No, I like em! They're mine now."
"Just because you like them doesn't mean you get to steal them." They shake their head.
"Actually I think that's exactly what it means," he argues.
"That's how you end up in jail," they get up and go to him.
"Oh, what? You're going to call the cops on me?" Jax jokes, though he actually looks a bit… worried.
"No, I'm gonna ask which ones you took," Zooble leans on the back of the couch.
He nods and pulls out the ones he took out of his pocket to show them; he's got one of Pomni, a plant, Koufmo, Bubble, an axolotl, and a lemon.
Zooble looks at them for a good bit before nodding. "Alright… That's an interesting bunch… You want the page I did of Pomni?"
"I picked the ones that spoke to me. Isn't that what you're meant to do with art?" he asks, moving right past their question. "The lemon's my favorite," he jokes.
They chuckle. "Definitely. Best of my work."
"Honestly, I wish I had that tattooed instead of the bunny."
They laugh more. "Oh yeah, definitely should've gotten the lemon."
Jax smiles. "So, I'm keeping them." He tucks them back into his pocket.
"Alright, they're all yours," Zooble says before rolling back to the desk and opening up their laptop.
He returns to his phone, just sitting quietly for a while before he looks up from his phone again. "…I um… I did actually find someone else before I found you…" he admits.
Zooble looks over quickly. "Really?"
"Yeah… I… found Ribbit's music…" he shares. "… I don't think they're ah…. active… anymore."
"Whoa… That… Damn," Zooble takes a moment before rolling over. "At least you found it… Maybe we can make it famous."
"Yeah… Maybe… they already have quite a few followers on YouTube, and I think a lot on Spotify too, but I'm not sure how you really judge that… they do have a lot of comments asking for them to release a song they were working on… I've been trying to think of what to say… or…" he sighs.
"Eesh… That's rough…" Zooble rubs the back of their neck.
"Yeah, great help, Zooble," he rolls his eyes.
"Well, you should definitely tell them something… I would appreciate it if I were in their shoes… Fuck… uh… How formal do you want to sound?"
"… I don't know, just something better than 'Hey, I'm this bitch's friend; they put on a headset, and now they're dead…' though I don't know, I think Ribbit would have liked that."
Zooble chuckles weakly. "It's definitely truthful."
"Yeah. I guess I mainly just want it to sound like they didn't fake their death? You know with how common the 'Oh, I'm not that person; I'm their friend. They're dead' type shit is" He wrinkles his nose a bit. "… Maybe I should do a video… Might make it seem more credible if they can see I'm not…" He trails off.
"A video sounds like a good idea…" Zooble encourages.
"Yeah…"
Zooble gives him a soft look. "Wanna share some of their music?"
"… Sure." He opens his Spotify to play some music.
Zooble leans back in their chair, listening to it.
Jax holds onto the phone tightly as they listen, playing every song at least twice before Zooble gets up. "We should really get some sleep…" they suggest, resting their hand on his shoulder. "Thank you for sharing."
"… Yeah, yeah," Jax swipes at his face. "I'll see you in the morning."
—
"Come get breakfast," Zooble calls, Jax groaning and covering his head with his pillow in response. "Do you want strawberry or blueberry yogurt?"
"Blueberry?" Jax grumbles.
They get out a cup from the fridge and hand it over with a spoon. Serving up some hash browns for them each as well. "Ketchup?"
"Please," he nods, eating his yogurt.
They get a bottle out, putting some on their own hash browns before handing it over. He smiles and dumps it all over before eating.
"Damn, you like ketchup much?"
"… I like my hash browns bloody," he nods.
Zooble blinks before laughing. "Why do you say it like that?"
"Cause it makes people laugh, duh. It's why I do anything, funny one, remember?" He points to himself.
"Funny one. Gonna keep with that even now?"
"Of course," he says, leaning on the table and taking another bite of hash browns.
Zooble pauses for a moment. "Why?"
"… What?" he looks up at them.
"Why the funny guy? Why that persona?"
"I don't know what you mean. Do you not think I'm funny?"
"You're funny. Just… I guess I want to know why you chose that label."
"Well, what label would you pick for me?" he avoids the question.
Zooble shrugs. "Don't know. I guess… I've never been good with labels."
"Go on, try," he encourages.
"Hm, the tall one."
He laughs. "Alright, I'd argue that Kinger was taller, but I guess he's the dad already, so I'll take it."
"I thought he was the crazy one?"
"He was, but Pomni's taken that title," he jokes. "You have to be crazy to get us out like she did."
"Heh, yeah. Yeah, she's crazy. crazy impressive," Zooble smiles, finishing up their meal and grabbing their bag. "Alright, I got work."
He nods and gets up to follow them. "You work early for a tattoo artist."
"I have an early morning session set up today," they explain.
"Why would you do that? You have the option to sleep in until noon, and you choose to wake up this early?" Jax complains.
"I'm doing a favor because they work night shift and want to get it done early."
"Huh." He nods, propping himself up near their station to scroll on his phone while they work, watching absently as they work and fiddling absently with shit he probably shouldn't, but mainly he looks for Pomni.
"Quit that," Zooble scolds only at one point as he fiddles.
He huffs but actually stops. "I wasn't going to damage it," he complains.
"I'm sure you weren't. Can you take that out back?" They gesture to a trash can, the bag almost overfilled.
He nods and stands up to do so. When did… He's helpful??? By the end of the work day, Zooble has asked him to do quite a few tasks, which he does pretty willingly.
"Here, for your work." Zooble hands him fifty dollars.
Jax perks up. "Wait, I'm getting paid?" He takes the money.
Zooble chuckles. "Yeah, you did work. I'm not cheating you out of that."
"Yeah, but I just thought that I was working off my food and board." He happily tucks the money into his pocket. "You know you are being way too nice for someone who draws my face on watermelons so you can squash them."
"Heh, yeah. Guess I... figured out how much I missed ya."
"… I… missed you too…" he admits.
They give him a soft look before playfully punching his shoulder. "Sap."
"You started it!"
They chuckle. "Nahhhh, I could never be sappy. Come on, I'm making dinner."
He bounces up and follows them out.
Once back to the apartment, they pull out sandwich ingredients.
He sits to watch and… scroll on his phone more.
"Any luck?" They ask, setting a plate of pasta down for him.
"No…" He tucks his phone away. "She probably took down her videos or something so we couldn't find her. She never really liked any of us anyway."
Zooble gives him a look. "Don't go jumping to conclusions."
"What? She didn't," he stabs at his pasta.
"Jax, chill. She's probably just figuring out life."
"Yeah… Maybe…" He pulls the phone back out.
"… I think I'm going to move on to finding Ragatha. I'm worried for her; I don't think she had a great home life… I know she wasn't online much, but she said she used to be part of some horse groups. I know nothing about horses, but there can't be that many groups… Right?"
"There are, and we don't even know where she lives, so we can't do area-specific ones… I… already checked…" he admits.
"Shit… the outside world is big," they complain.
He laughs. "Yeah. Feels a lot bigger than it used to be."
"Yeah. Yeah, it does," Zooble shakes their head.
"Well, you're stuck with me until we can find the others," Jax jokes.
"Better start getting used to early mornings," they joke back.
"I don't have to go to work with you; I'll just mooch off of you," he gestures with his fork.
"Haha, like a leech?"
"… Yeah," he smiles. "Like a leech," once he's done eating, he takes the plates to the sink to clean.
Damn… He is different out here. They had guessed everyone would be… but still… "Thank you," they say.
"Hm? Oh, yeah," he shrugs and plops down on the couch. Pulling out his phone before pausing and putting it away again. "Want to watch a movie? catch up on all the new ones?"
Zooble looks up. "Yeah. Yeah!" They go over. "There's got to be a ton. What genre? Something sappy?" They joke.
He sticks his tongue out. "Something action."
"Fuck yeah," Zooble searches for one, looking fairly excited.
"There's... so much stuff," Jax says as they scroll through movies.
"Luckily, we got plenty of free time to catch up." Zooble picks out one that both of them are interested in.
He smiles and cozies up. And by the end of the movie, he has half sprawled across their lap, his legs hooked comfortably over theirs. "That was actually really good."
He nods. "… Wanna watch another?"
"Absolutely."
"Action?"
"Or horror," he offers.
"Ooh, horror wins. Cheesy or serious?"
"Either? No, cheesy."
"Cheesy," Zooble agrees and finds one for them.
He smiles. "You know… You're actually kinda cool."
"It took you this long to figure that out?" They tease.
"… I was trying to ignore it…" he admits.
Zooble chuckles. "So I was cool from the start?"
"I mean sometimes."
Zooble smiles. "I'll take sometimes."