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The sound of claws scraping against plastic isn’t what breaks Pomni out of her dreamless sleep, but it’s what she’s awakened to nonetheless.
She spots the source the instant her eyes lull half-open. Even in the darkness of her room, the vivid shades of velvety red and blue desaturated by shadows, she’s able to make out Gummigoo sitting on the center of her rug. He’s hunched over, his blanket haphazardly draped over his legs and one arm cradled in his lap, his other hand clawing at his forearm frantically. It’s like he’s meticulously trying to scrub off a stain of dirt that isn’t there, his fingers moving in a blur as he claws back and forth back and forth at his arm in a way that, were he made of flesh and blood, would surely rub his skin raw. His eyes have morphed into those hollow ovals they become whenever he’s in a daze, his face frozen in a panicked thousand-yard-stare. He’s not in Pomni’s room anymore.
“ Gummigoo? ” Pomni calls out, her voice coming out as a shrill whisper as she tries to keep herself from yelling his name. She scrambles to get out of bed, the suddenness in her movements making her blanket clip through her leg. She flinches as the blanket rockets upwards, knocking against the ceiling with a thump , but she’s already on the floor and by Gummigoo’s side by the time it plummets back onto the bed. She dares not shake him, instead just scooting herself as close as she can to his side without them touching.
“There’s nothing under my skin,” he says breathlessly. It’s not a question, or an exclamation, there’s no shock or melancholy or even frustration in his tone, it’s just a statement. A fact. It’s something they’ve all resigned themselves to knowing. Not like it’s hard to still get hung up on it. Wouldn’t Pomni know. “It’s rubber all the way through.”
Pomni bites her bottom lip, to the best of her ability. Feels like chewing on a play mat. “…Yeah.”
Gummigoo rips his hand off from his arm, only to replace it with his opened jaw, biting down and running his tongue along it like it’s a chunk of meat. He pulls away after a short second, his face crinkled in disgust. “‘M not made of candy. Just a bunch of polygons made to replicate it.” He stops, letting out a sharp breath. “That’s all I am. A lump of polygons.”
“That’s all you’re made of, ” Pomni retorts, arms hanging stiffly at her side. “But you’re more than that. You’re - you’re a person. You have all the thoughts and feelings that make one. That’s what matters, right?”
Gummigoo shakes his head, a disgruntled frown taking shape on his face. “You know that ain’t true, jester. You lot at least lived a life before this. Your memories are actually memories and not a bunch of made-up scenes that never happened. You had actual bodies and not - ” He makes a sweeping gesture down his body. “ This. ” He pauses, tucking his legs close to his chest and resting his chin on his knees. “Must’ve been nice, being a human. Imagine you didn’t need to deal with stuff like this.”
Pomni purses her lips into a thin frown. Her gaze lands on the floor, all the words she wants to say present in her mind but too jumbled to let out.
“You’d be surprised,” she replies finally, adjusting to sit criss-cross and resting her arms in her lap. Her next words trip out of her mouth a little as she adds, “I mean, it’s not like we used to be made of digital Play-Doh before we ended up here, but, y-you know…we had our own struggles.”
Pomni turns away again, scratching the nape of what little space passes for her neck.
“I’m gonna be honest, even as a human I…never really liked my body.”
Gummigoo hesitates before responding, eyes full of melancholy. “…That so?”
Pomni nods hesitantly. “Yeah. Not in the same way I don’t like my current body, this one is still way worse, but, y’know…I never felt like the version of myself I wanted to be. I was too short, my face was too red and blotchy, my stomach was too big, my arms and legs were too weak…little things like that used to nag at me all the time. No matter what I did, my body never felt like… me. Sometimes I wished I was just some weird blob who didn’t have to worry about my health or how I looked or how others looked at me…” She chuckles, dry and resentful. “Guess I got my wish in the end…”
Gummigoo hangs his head low. "...Would've never figured. Dunno if knowing that makes me feel better or worse, honestly." A rough, uneven sigh escapes from his throat. "How'd you folks deal with this type of thing, then? Back when you were human?"
Pomni’s response is delayed by the sour notes Gummigoo’s words leave in her head. He meant no harm, of course, but it was still a deep cut. When she was human. She never stopped being a human. She’s not a ‘former’ human, she’s not a ‘digital entity’, she was and still is a human, just a trapped one…right? She has all the parts for it, thoughts, emotions, memories. Though Gummigoo also has those, and, a person though he may be, he is objectively not a human. But her real body, her real self, is still out there, right? Probably collapsed on the floor of the office where she found that wretched headset. But she can’t remember any other bodies being there, unless all her fellow players hooked up to the Circus in other headsets, which is a horrifying thought to put it lightly. But if there is just the one, was it moved from its original spot or was her body… zapped in here somehow? Sucked in here like a vortex, her DNA and cells painstakingly warped and converted into lines of code and plastic lumps, flesh twisted and infected into the look and feel of a children’s toy, until she was shaped into… this. So if her human body is gone, if it’s been changed beyond recognition, into an entirely different plane of existence, then…
Then what?
“Uh…like…?” In Pomni’s absentmindedness it’s the best response we can come up with.
“I dunno. That’s exactly why I’m asking. I imagine human bodies are a lot different than these.”
She bites her lip, a small hiss escaping in between her teeth. "I just kind of…lived with it, I guess. Went to therapy for a bit but I couldn't afford it after so long." Not like that was the only thing she went to therapy for, far from it. "I didn't really have anyone I felt comfortable enough to talk to about it, at least after I moved out of my parents' place. It was a stupid thing to bring up, you know? I'm sure I looked fine to everyone else…"
Pomni's eyes fall to the floor once again. At the border of her vision, she's able to see Gummigoo adjusting his position, turning to face her directly. He offers her his hands, and, almost without thought, she takes them. Digital construct though they may be, their warmth is very much real.
"Well, ya've got me," Gummigoo muses. "And for the record, I think you look damn fine, but I know how you feel. At least…as much as I can. And I don't want you to feel that way."
A smile, barely present but sincere, spreads across Pomni's mouth. She manages to turn herself away from the floor and look Gummigoo in the eyes once again, a squeezing sensation tightening itself around her chest as they make eye contact. She doesn't know what emotion it spawned from, but it's not bad.
"I don't want you to feel that way, either," Pomni replies, and as if the polygons making up her structure gained a mind of their own, she places a hand on his chest. His 'skin' has the sheen of stained glass and is smooth to the touch, it's enough to make Pomni want to run her fingertips all across the length of his body. And, almost subconsciously, she does, trailing her gloved hand from the featureless plateau down to his equally flat, skinnier stomach, holding there for a moment. He's built like a doll, his torso devoid of any dips or crevices or noticeable shapes. It's just an elongated lump. That's what they're all made of.
But Pomni doesn't mind.
If only she could say the same for herself…
"Gettin' a bit handsy, are we, jester?"
Gummigoo's tease snaps Pomni to attention and she jerks her hand away from his stomach, feeling her face already begin to glow red hot. Oh God, it was probably coming across that way, wasn't it? "O-Oh my God, I'm sorry, I didn't mean - "
Gummigoo doesn't seem offended in the least, instead, his expression is one of amusement. "If you wanted a kiss, you could've just told me."
"N-No!" Pomni outbursts, mortified by the hole she's dug herself and even more embarrassed by how she's just making it deeper. "I-I mean, not like I'd mind that, but that wasn't - "
They've met their lips, or whatever poor excuse they have for them, together before Pomni can even register what's happening, and her eyes flutter shut. Gummigoo's snout is warm to the touch and the soft breath tickling her face even more so, a reminder that the person she's kissing is real and alive in spite of the building blocks for his existence. Kissing Gummigoo is a strange feeling, far from a bad one, but despite the numerous times they've done it it still feels foreign. Like Pomni shouldn't enjoy it, but she does. Gummigoo's one of the only people in her memory - filled with holes though it is - that she actually likes being touched by. He's safe, he's familiar, he's like her . Their kissing is messy and awkward with the bodies they've been shoved into but it's earnest and Pomni -
Pomni isn't alone.
Gummigoo abruptly pulls back, face drenched with shame. “‘M sorry, that - that probably just made things worse - ”
Pomni’s eyes widen, and she shakes her head rapidly. “N-No, no, that was fine! I liked it. It actually…” Her words trail off as the realization finishes sinking in. “That…might help a bit.”
A tinge of red blush mixes with the yellow on Gummigoo’s face. “Would it now?” A smile graces his jaw, an attempt at confidence but he instead just comes across as adorably shy. “S’pose it’s worth a shot.”
It does help, truthfully. They spend the next few minutes sharing awkward kisses and small laughs and despite their gawky digital anatomy being on full display and at the forefront of Pomni’s mind she’s still able to kiss Gummigoo, and she’s happy about that. She loathes the body she’s been placed in and she loathes being touched but brief as it may be, with Gummigoo being the one touching her and reminding her of her new body, she doesn’t mind it.
They stay like that for a few more moments, exchanging affections and shy touches before Pomni feels herself tense up again, heat pooling in her faux insides.
In the back of her mind she knows she should pull away but she doesn’t, and absentmindedly her hand lands on Gummigoo’s chest again and she squeezes.
He’s the one who breaks the kiss instead, amusement on his face as he snorts. “Gettin’ riled up now, are we?”
Now forcefully planted back in reality, Pomni can only stare at him slack-jawed. Oh God, she is. She didn’t even fully register it until that moment, the heat coursing through her rubber flesh and the hand on Gummigoo’s chest feeling like afterthoughts in her haze but she’s - oh, Jesus Christ.
“S-Sorry.”
“Hey, don’t be like that,” Gummigoo assures, placing his own claw atop Pomni’s hand, gently prying it from his chest. “I don’t mind.”
Pomni buries her face in her hand, an unbearable heat spreading all across her body. “Oh God, I didn’t - I didn’t even know that could happen here.”
“Do you think it could help?”
If it was possible here, Pomni would probably die of either shock or embarrassment. Or heatstroke, considering how her body’s feeling right now. She can’t even remember the last time she was aroused, was this how it always felt?
“I…” it takes an agonizing few moments for Pomni to unclog the words from her throat. “…Don’t even think that’s possible here?”
“Eh, doubtful. But we can always try for the next best thing,” Gummigoo says, before faking a cough. “I mean, I wouldn’t really know what I’d be doing, either. I’d be pretty reliant on you. Wasn’t exactly created with this stuff in mind.”
He forces out a chuckle as he says so, rocky and disingenuous. The word created hangs in the air like black smoke.
Pomni’s hands fidget anxiously in her lap, and when she can’t come up with a response Gummigoo continues.
“H-Hey, I was just spitballin’, y’know? I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to. Just, it’s somethin’ that involves…” his words hang in the air as he tries to dance around anything explicit, not like the censor bars would let him do so anyway. “A lot of bodily functions. That we don’t have. So if we try it out like this, I-I dunno, we could get more comfortable with it? Our bodies bein’ like this, I mean.”
Pomni doesn’t respond for a few more moments, her form dead still outside of her subtle quivering, and Gummigoo shakes his head shamefully.
“Sorry, forget I said anything.”
“N-No,” Pomni interrupts, placing her palm flat against Gummigoo’s chest. He seems taken aback by the gesture, but is quick to relax under her touch. Pomni stammers over her words like a broken record. “I-I’d - ”
She pushes forward, just a bit, and in tandem Gummigoo leans back. He lays against the floor with a soft plop, his tail flapping to and fro around them as Pomni comes down with him. She’s atop him now, straddling one of his legs and her hands against his chest. He’s flustered and vulnerable beneath her, and Pomni’s almost humiliated by how much she likes what she sees.
“I’d like that,” she breathes finally, shaky but dead set.
Gummigoo’s arms are flailed out by his sides, his hat still partly on his head but crinkled under their shared weight. He blinks in succession, trying to regain his composure, before his hands trail up to cup both sides of Pomni’s torso.
“ Wow, ” is all Gummigoo can muster in a gravelly murmur, and once again Pomni’s ashamed by how much that gets to her.
Pomni does the first thing that comes to mind, which is to buck her hips down and grind herself against Gummigoo’s leg, earning her a low, sensual hum. There’s no point in removing the fabric that would normally be the barrier between his leg and her theoretical genitalia, because - well, the fabric is her. Her puffy sleeves and bottoms are as much a part of her body as her stark white rubber skin. If you vivisected her, it’d be like cutting through clay.
But the sensations are still the same. She barely holds back a shaky groan as she bucks her hips again, Gummigoo meeting her halfway this time. The heat gathering in her lower section is near identical to if she still had her human anatomy, if she imagined hard enough she could probably even believe there’s a clit somewhere down there. But there isn’t, just like she doesn’t have the reproductive organs that come with them. Or any organs. She’s digital rubber all the way through, but somehow that rubber’s able to still send a shock of pleasure racing all through her body as Gummigoo jerks his hips up to grind their featureless crotches together.
“S-sorry,” Pomni’s whisper tumbles out with a shiver crawling down her make-believe spine. Through the fog of her arousal she hadn’t even bothered to talk to Gummigoo. “I-Is this okay…?”
Gummigoo nods weakly, eyes wide and dazed. “Y-Yeah, this - this is perfect.” He laughs quietly, a wispy, ragged thing that Pomni wants to bury herself in. “You’re good, jester. You’re real good.”
She almost breaks apart then and there.
If Pomni’s memory serves right, which she’d hardly be surprised if it didn’t, she had only had sex once in her first life, with an old college fling of hers. She certainly can’t remember their name, much less their face or even gender, but she does remember that they hadn’t known each other for very long and had been dating for even less time. It wasn’t a very enjoyable experience. In retrospect, Pomni doesn’t even think she was attracted to them, not like they were a bad person or anything, she just…didn’t find them sexually appealing. With hindsight, she suspects that was just because she didn’t know them for very long. She can’t recall very many people she was ever attracted to, and she knows all the ones she can remember she knew for months before ever realizing she was attracted to them.
Well, she can add Gummigoo to the list. Not like she wasn’t interested in him beforehand, but his allure definitely seems to be amplified here. There’s something captivating about seeing him underneath her like this, eyes squeezed shut and his toothy jaw hanging open just ever so slightly. He’s like this, sprawled on his back, tail erratically whipping against the ground and his claws greedily digging into her pant-thighs, all for her . A shy, quivering smile spreads across her face at the thought. They’re the only two who have ever seen each other like this. Despite their digital make-ups, despite the lack of humanity in their structures, the cold and unfeeling nature inherent to the pixels that make up each inch of their outsides and insides, they’re still able to come together like this. It’s…weirdly romantic, which is a phrase Pomni has scarcely ever applied to things. She was never particularly one for the saccharine, but for Gummigoo she can make an exception. He is a confection, after all.
She leans down and presses a kiss to his snout, and his eyes shoot open in surprise at the contact. He clamps his jaw shut to properly return the kiss, partially rising from the floor. When Pomni pulls back, she's amused to find Gummigoo having taken one of his hands off her leg to hold onto his hat; she snorts, cups his cheeks in her hands and kisses him deeper. He reclines back, once again having his back pressed flat against the floor. A guttural noise comes rumbling from Gummigoo's throat, his chest vibrating in tandem with it; Pomni has trouble pinpointing if it's a growl or a purr, perhaps somewhere in between. However a gummy alligator can purr is beyond her, not like she cares, and especially not when she feels the warm press of Gummigoo's claws against her thighs leave and instead return on her chest.
In between the ebb and flow of his deep trill, Gummigoo speaks. "M-May I…?"
"Y-Yeah. Go ahead."
Gummigoo squeezes in conjunction with bucking his hips up, and Pomni squeaks. Slow and firm, he massages the area where her breasts would be, in its place just a flat plane, where she doesn't know where her chest ends and her stomach begins. Gummigoo just acts as if the upper segment of her oblong body constitutes her chest, kneading the colorful rubber as Pomni continues grinding on his legs. She holds back a whine, though is unable to let the smallest wisp of it contained, not particularly loud but certainly enough to have her flinch in shame. Oh God, that's another thing, what if someone hears them? She can't afford having Caine find this out, he'd be pissed.
That thought is quickly swept under the rug when she hears an uneven ‘ Pomni ’ come from beneath her, almost like a plea, and she looks down. Gummigoo’s propped himself up again, his muzzle just a few odd inches away from the gap between Pomni’s thighs. Through his intoxication his expression manages to pose a silent inquiry, which Pomni responds to with a nod and a nervous mouthing of ‘ yes’ . With the go-ahead, Gummigoo leans forward, burying his snout in her crotch to the best of his ability and nuzzling warmly. Pomni has to bite back a yelp, her body growing even fuzzier as Gummigoo trails his mouth up from her abdomen to her chest. Pomni muffles a cry in his hat, gripping his shoulders tight and basking in the staticy bliss that flashes through her digital shell as he cups her buttocks. Or at least, what amounts to them. It's a similar feeling all the same as he grips them tight, leaning back and bringing Pomni down with him to the floor as she crashes her hips into his once again. Her deathly hold on his shoulders turns into an embrace, which he scrambles to reciprocate as he lifts his head up from her chest and kisses her. Hard.
And in tandem with a grind of her hips downwards, everything becomes static. It's like Pomni's being pricked at all sides, head cloudy and somewhere between the edge of consciousness and slumber as she feels like she's being stabbed with error messages. It's unbearable and it's euphoric, blazing hot and jumbling all her senses. She's flesh and bone and plastic and rubber all at the same time, some spark of humanity bursting in her transcendent form until she's -
Back on the floor of her bedroom, gasping for air, her limbs barely able to support herself atop Gummigoo who's lost in his own mess of heaving breaths. Traces of glitched air linger around them for a brief moment before disappearing entirely.
Apparently even orgasms have to feel like near-death experiences here.
"H-Hey, you alright?" Pomni stammers, clambering off of Gummigoo and kneeling by his side on all fours. His hand is clutching his metaphorical heart, eyes turned into those hollow ovals and his chest practically bouncing up and down with how rapidly he's breathing.
He only says one word when he finally catches his breath enough to speak. "Crikey."
Pomni has a hard time restraining her laughter.
His erratic wheezing dying down and slowing to a steady pace, Gummigoo turns his head to face Pomni. "That a good ride, lass?"
She smiles weakly, but earnestly. "Passable."
Gummigoo laughs and gives Pomni a playful shove, before bringing her in for another kiss, and it's only then that she realizes his floating name tag is glitching out like hell.
It doesn't take very long for him to notice as well, and stiffly, they make eye contact.
"...We, uh…should probably get Caine to fix that, shouldn't we…?"
—
After breakfast the following morning (and Caine thankfully fixing Gummigoo's name tag with little questioning), their ringmaster gathers them for a tiny PSA before they embark on their adventure.
He's cordial and eases into it, prefacing with how happy he is that the players and the NPCs are getting along so well and he isn't trying to discourage them from forming friendships, before eventually making a plea that they please try to keep their 'bonding activities' within the family-friendly guidelines of the Circus. Caine says he isn't naming names, but considering A. Gummigoo is the only NPC here in the first place besides Caine and Bubble themselves, and B. Pomni is the only one he's remotely close enough to to be doing 'improper behavior ' with, it's blatantly obvious to pretty much everyone who the culprits of these blasphemous activities are.
Jax is always smug, but his smile just seems a bit too sly this morning and that's enough for Pomni to pinpoint him as the tattler.
She makes a mental note to shove him off the highest point in their adventure possible today.