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“And the award for Biggest Sailor Mouth goes to… Zooble!” Caine exclaims, extending an arm in Zooble’s direction.
“Huh?” Zooble mutters, as they’re slumped back in their seat with remnants of stupid sauce, dripping from their right eye.
Gangle glances at Zooble, before giving them a small smile. Gangle couldn’t help but smile at them— even if the award was Caine’s attempt at an insult and even if Zooble currently had the pink stupid sauce dripping down from their right eye. Today was a good day. She finally felt like she had something to smile about.
After Caine had announced himself as the winner of the ‘Favourite Character Award’ and had corrected it to Ming, it was finally time for an intermission between the awards. Gangle watches as Caine floats off to a corner to probably console himself. He was looking rather unhappy with his unexpected loss. Across the theatre, Pomni and Ragatha take the opportunity to leave the seating area for a while. They exit into the hallway.
Her gaze lands back on Zooble.
Zooble was still slumped against her seat, looking absolutely out of it. She couldn’t blame Zooble for asking Ragatha about the stupid sauce. The last time she saw Ragatha with the stupid sauce, she was spaced out and a little delirious. However, she didn’t think Ragatha would be the kind of person to bring back drugs from an adventure. At least Ragatha was kind enough to give it to her.
“What’s my award supposed to mean?” they slur, slowly making conversation. “I don’t remember any of us voting on that one.”
Gangle turns to them, trying to think of an answer. Zooble wasn’t wrong. She also couldn’t remember voting for the Biggest Sailor Mouth award. Since Caine didn’t really like Zooble, she wouldn’t be surprised if he had just added this award at the last minute to make fun of them. Yeah, Zooble probably didn’t need to hear that right now.
“Don’t worry about it,” Gangle says. “I’m sure that it was just Caine being Caine.”
“Yeah! He’s a BOINK!” Zooble exclaims, before laughing in their seat.
Gangle laughs nervously, wondering if Caine had overheard them or if he was too busy with his own misery. She probably needed to get Zooble to the bathroom, maybe so they could freshen up or take a break.
“Would you like to walk with me?” Gangle offers. “We have some time before the intermission is over.”
“You should have asked sooner,” Zooble answers, giving her what looked like a loopy smile.
Gangle stands up and begins to make her way to the end of the row, before she notices how Zooble sways instead of walks. How could she forget? Zooble was high on the stupid sauce. Their sentences were a fine line between confusion, slurring and actual words.
Before Zooble would fall on their face, Gangle approaches them and offers a hand. Zooble slowly takes her hand and they both begin to walk down the row of seats. As Gangle steps into the aisle, Zooble leans against her. She adjusts her hold on them and instead wraps an arm around their shoulder. The stupid sauce really had made an impact on them.
“We can go to the bathroom if you like? You could splash your face or get some water?” Gangle offers, as they both reach the foyer outside of the theatre.
“To the bathroom?” Zooble repeats, blinking a bit.
“Oh, no— I didn’t mean to make it sound like that,” Gangle begins to mutter. “I’m not sure if Caine made a unisex bathroom. You know, another option for you— because sometimes he can be considerate. But maybe you can come with me to the women’s bathroom? I know that it doesn’t suit you and I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but maybe Jax might not try and barge in. I mean he does seem to cross about every line there is. I have a bad feeling that he might do something stupid like that.”
“Yeah, he would do something stupid like that,” Zooble squints. “Because he’s a BOINK!”
Gangle could see why Caine had given Zooble such an award, at least for the swearing component of it.
However, she begins to stress about what Jax could actually do to her. She had shot multiple rounds of ammunition from the tommy gun (or maybe even all the bullets) at Jax. She had destroyed a tube feature of the circus and made him fall to the ground. Sure, they didn’t really feel pain here— but what if he was angry with her?
“Do you think he’s going to do something stupid again? I’m worried he might be angry after how I shot at him and Pomni earlier, with the tommy gun—” Gangle starts to mutter, as tears well up in her dark eyes.
Zooble, despite having unstable grounding, grasps Gangle’s face from the side. “Don’t you stress about Jax. You were amazing with the tommy gun. If anything, he should be scared of you after that. And if Jax isn’t scared, I’ll give him a reason to be. I won’t let him get angry with you, Gangle.”
“What?” she blinks, feeling Zooble hold her face.
Her tears no longer threaten to spill, but her comedy mask does begin to feel unusually warm. It could have been Zooble’s warm hold on her cheeks, but it was rather coming from below the porcelain of her comedy mask. This was a new feeling and it didn’t feel bad.
“I said you were amazing with the tommy gun!” Zooble exclaims, giving her another smile. “I’d paid a lot to see Jax that frightened again.”
Gangle returns a smile. Zooble had a point. It was great to see Jax so frightened. The entire time that she had been with Zooble was great. It was a relief not to partner up with Jax. It was a relief when Zooble reassured her that it was okay to not partner up with Jax. It felt even better when she discovered the tommy gun and was able to open fire on Jax and Pomni because it meant that she and Zooble had a chance to win.
“Yeah, it was a lot of fun shooting at him with the tommy gun,” Gangle agrees.
Zooble begins to lean in closer to her— and for someone who was high on stupid sauce, they had a really soft look in their eyes.
She slowly becomes more aware of the position that they were in.
“Oh, hey, Zooble, you have some of that stupid sauce on your face,” Gangle mutters, reaching for a nearby box of tissues. “I know you had to, uh, consume it through your eye, but there’s still some left over. Would you like some help with it?”
“I can’t believe I had to take the stupid sauce through my eye. It’s not like I have another way to consume it. For some reason Caine lets me do BOINK! but I can’t even have sex? I don’t even have a mouth. I can’t even kiss anyone. This place is hell,” Zooble rolls their eyes, before their expression softens at Gangle. “But, yeah, I don’t mind.”
Gangle didn’t expect the conversation to go that far. All she did was offer to wipe their right eye. She just wanted to be nice, considering how Gangle was pretty much spaced out. But Zooble did raise a fair point. They didn’t even have a mouth. They couldn’t kiss anyone. If they wanted the ability or rather missed the ability to have sex, being unable to kiss someone was possibly just another sore spot for Zooble.
But who would Zooble even want to kiss? Who would Zooble even want to have —
God. How did Gangle even get to the point of thinking that?
“Right!” Gangle nods, before gently wiping the remaining stupid sauce from Zooble’s right eye.
She continues to lightly dab at their eye and only realises how compromising their position has become. Zooble was holding her face by both sides, with both hands. Maybe Zooble couldn’t help that. They were high, after all. But Gangle could handle what she was doing. Was it wrong for her to wipe her face when they were this close? The last thing she wanted to do was upset Zooble.
“Well, you’re clear now,” Gangle says, before trying to pull away.
“What’s wrong?” Zooble asks, their grip loosening but hesitant to leave.
“Oh, nothing,” Gangle mutters, averting her gaze as her face grows warm again. “I just don’t want to bother you.”
“You never bother me, Gangle,” Zooble states, slowly turning her face back to theirs. “You didn’t bother me at all today. In fact, I have never felt happier seeing you smile with the tommy gun. You were smiling without the comedy mask.”
“Smiling without the comedy mask?” Gangle repeats, now staring at them.
“Yeah, smiling without the comedy mask,” Zooble repeats back, with another smile.
Gangle begins to smile again. She really had smiled without her comedy mask. Even if she had tears with her other mask, they were probably happy tears. Zooble had been a part of the reason that she managed to smile without the comedy mask.
Zooble begins to squint again. It was so unfair that they weren’t able to have a mouth. It was so unfair that they weren’t able to kiss anyone. It was so unfair that they weren’t able to kiss Gangle. She looked so happy— how could she not want to kiss her face? But no, of course their character design means that they have no mouth. And of course Caine had stupid age restriction settings. At least they could still speak.
“You are so beautiful when you smile— comedy mask or not,” Zooble slurs, before shutting their eyes pressing their face against Gangle’s.
If they didn’t have a mouth they may as well try another way to kiss her.
Gangle’s eyes widened.
Beautiful . Zooble had called her beautiful. Now she was kissing her. It didn’t have the same physicality to a kiss that she used to know but it meant everything to her now. For someone who didn’t have a mouth they were trying hard. She wanted to lean right back into them, to continue their kiss, to shut her eyes and to hold the—
Gangle gently pulls away. She can’t kiss Zooble when they’re high on stupid sauce.
Zooble stares back at Gangle, disappointed but understanding at her rejection. She had leaned in, right? It seemed like she wanted to lean in. It felt like she leaned in for a moment and then pulled away? Was she worried about Caine seeing them? Caine better not interrupt. They had just found a way to get around the whole PG system Caine had. If it was because of Caine, what a shame. Zooble had wanted to kiss Gangle all day— especially after seeing her shoot at Pomni and Jax with the tommy gun.
“Why’d you pull away?” Zooble slurs. “I had just beat the entire system and I was getting a kiss out of someone as brilliant as you.”
“I think you’re brilliant to kiss too!” Gangle exclaims, not wanting Zooble to take it the wrong way. “And it would be nice to continue what we were doing but maybe when you’re not, you know—”
Just as she’s about to finish her sentence, Caine appears out of nowhere. He stares at them in an alarmed way, his eyes wide between his teeth. It was close to the expression he made whenever the Moon was around.
“Well, well, well, it looks like the intermission has ended shortly!” Caine cuts her off. “The awards will resume right now for totally no reason at all— with nothing to do with the fact that some people were getting frisky!”
“You. You are what causes my suffering!” Zooble says, before pulling the rude finger at him (even though it was censored just as quickly as they did it). “BOINK! You!”
Caine floats in silence. Gangle stands in silence. Zooble gives him a censored middle finger in silence.
Caine sighs, breaking the silence. “There’s a reason I gave you the Biggest Sailour Mouth award.”
“I’m sure they’re just acting like this because of the stupid sauce,” Gangle mutters, trying her best to break the tension. “They did have a lot of it.”
“How did that even end up here?” Caine asks, putting his face into his hands.
“I think Ragatha took it with her after the adventure at Spudsy’s?” Gangle suggests.
“She was the one who did get weird on her shift,” Caine mutters. “That’s why she barely managed to get a B+ on her work.”
“You still suck,” Zooble comments.
Caine drags a hand down his face, before clicking his fingers. “I’ve had enough of you.”
Before she knows it, Gangle is sitting back in her seat. Zooble was sitting beside her. Caine was resuming the awards, as if they all didn’t have that interaction. Across the seating area, Pomni, Ragatha and Jax all look somewhat confused as they had also been teleported right back to their seats.
Gangle sighs, before looking at Zooble. She did feel a bit awkward after their kiss. But she didn’t hate the idea of kissing Zooble. She would have welcomed a kiss from them— in the right circumstances, of course. She only felt awkward because it felt wrong to kiss someone who was high on stupid sauce. But it was Zooble who had initiated it. Even when Zooble initiated it she didn’t feel like it was just because of the stupid sauce. They had something going on that was deeper and beyond the friendship that they had formed. Maybe the stupid sauce had just broken Zooble’s filter and made her lose constraint. But she also didn’t want them feeling bad for what had happened tonight. She wasn’t going to be awkward about it.
“How are you feeling?” Gangle asks.
“Angry and repressed because of Caine,” Zooble glares at him from across the room, before looking back to her. “Happy with you.”
Those three words were enough for Gangle to know that things were going to be okay.
“I’m happy with you,” she repeats, smiling without her comedy mask.
This time Gangle offers Zooble her hand.
This time Zooble is the one to accept her hand.