#LOW-KEY FUCK WITH GUMBALLS FIT

[shitistolefromyoutube]

"Low-key fuck with Gumball's fit" 🤣

[gmbmcoccu-offish]

low-budget horror movie material // AUTUMN/NOVA

CHARACTERS: autumn sharpe, nova peña

TIME PERIOD: 1990s

LOCATION: N.J., U.S.

TAGS: fluff, f/f, 90s, fair, carnival, romance, soft, oneshot

~3,200 words

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"Can you change the song?" Nova said, leaning up in between the front seats, her chin nearly on Lisa's shoulder. "I hate Queen."

"I know," Lisa said, shoving her sister's ringed hand away from the stereo. "Get t' fuck away from it, you're screwing me up." There was nothing really wrong, her only problem was that she couldn't get distracted. She would freak out, and then she might have to circle the block again to calm down. In her head, she counted the turns. She thought of each of their outcomes in a map in her head. She hoped Autumn hadn't noticed that she'd done that twice now. She liked Autumn even if the girl was weird and particular and stared a lot, and Lisa wanted her to like her.

Autumn had noticed, actually, the way Lisa had gone around this house twice. The dog was still in the front yard digging at a patch of petunias. But was she supposed to tell them what to do when they were driving? She kept looking out the window, a little apprehensive about the whole day. It wasn't anyone's fault: she didn't even think she had a reason to feel nervous. Maybe it was that something about Nova always made Autumn doubt herself. No-one could guess what she was thinking, she left off at angles, started on speeches without knowing the words. She was disorganized, impulsive. She was things Autumn was not.

"Speed, speed, speed, speed" Nova instructed from the backseat, having withdrawn fully against the cushion of the seat, but fiddling restlessly with her many bracelets like an overeager child. Some of them were strings threaded through bottle caps or shells Autumn had given her, some were little more than bits of ribbon, some were of clicking plastic beads. They all made some kind of noise.

"You get a license an' kill y'rself in y'r own car."

"Riiiiiight," she giggled.

"Ana, that's not what I━"

"Look! Look, look!" She'd forgotten her staying-still promise already, or didn't care about it anymore, and straightened, leaned over on her hands, strained against her seatbelt, to watch out Autumn's window. "Goats!"

"They have goats lots of places," Autumn ventured. They were cute, at least from what she could see from the parking lot of the fair, flanked on either side by fields and fences before the sprawling clusters of attractions and rides began to blink in the setting sun. Still, she didn't understand what her girlfriend was so excited about, and she looked closer, pushing up her square glasses almost against her eyelashes.

"If you're gonna be like that the whole time, I don't wanna hear it," she said, but touched her hand on the seat anyway. "Li can turn this car around!"

"Nova, please shut up." With an exhale they shoved the car into park and turned the key, holding it in their lap. "I'll be back 't ten, O.K..?"

"I heard you the first time."

After a brief loose imitation of their sister they turned to Autumn with a kinder smile. "Have fun."

"Uh, thanks for the ride." Which had taken exactly six minutes longer than it should've.

Nova slammed the car door, a chip of greenish paint sticking to her finger. She folded it once with her thumb, then again, but it flaked off and fluttered to the grass. She held Gumball by the tail with her right hand, taking Autumn's with the other. The smells of fried dough and exhaust and weed all mingled in the warm air and drifted out to the street.

"O.K., what's your plan?" she asked, liking the way Autumn's hand fit very well in her own. "I think we should do the scariest ride first, and then go down." It would put the Ferris Wheel at the end, which meant they could sit there and see all the light from way high up, and past the fair to the distant shapes of the town, layered blues and greys and blacks, spattered in neon orange and thick white.

"Well, what's the scariest one?" Autumn asked, entertaining the idea as they trudged across the field, streaked in litter: orange and white cigarette filters, candy wrappers, the red-and-white checked boxes stained with powdered sugar and melted cheese. Her poppy red sneakers darted over trash and pebbles, neatly tied, the hue throwing off her loose green capris and grey tee shirt patterned with small leaves. She stepped over the wires which had been hasitly covered with plastic mats, running electricity from generators to the clunking rides and narrow stands with food and drinks, watching Nova scan the area from their vantage point.

"That one," she said finally, pointing directly ahead.

"I'm...not doing that. Do you see how dangerous that is?" Autumn scrunched her nose slightly, the smell of gas mixing with her steadily growing unease. It made her hands and feet numb just thinking about it.

The ride clanked, a nearly oval shape with several loose cages attatched to it. It swung up, flipped, back down. The empty places clattered against the old metal on their hinges. It was also the attraction gaining the most attention from those on the ground for the terrified screams coming from its occupants, every one of which would deny it. But Autumn didn't think there was anything wrong with shitting your pants on a ride that looked like a medieval group torture device.

The blinking sign read in crude neon The Zip er, which she thought she understood. It kind of had a zipper-like movement.

No way in Hell.

"Are there even seatbelts or anything in there?"

Nova crossed her arms protectively over her chest, wrinkling her pink tank top, holding her stuffed fox against her hip. "Uh, might be a bar in there or something so you don' wack against the cage part. But I dunno." She looked curiously at Autumn's vehement expression. "What? Matt Blaser went on this in, like, fourth grade."

"He broke his arm that year."

"Yeah, but that was when he was ridin' his bike on the highway."

Neither of them really knew Matt Blaser, but they knew enough information about him to make a case.

"I'm still not doing that. It has to be a violation."

"You're being a violation of a good time."

"Not if y' paid me━"

"Good, 'cause I only brought money for tickets."

♡

They abandoned the Zipper and traced the perimeter of the fair first, where there were tents with basically random guys with longish hair playing guitars, kids dancing and chasing each other, bees scouring the rusted garbage cans.

"What abouuuuuut the swings?" Nova suggested, clicking the pink and black bracelet on her wrist. "They're the best ride down the shore." Which was true. There was a not a feeling quite like the strong waves crashing around the posts of the boardwalk, the music miles below her feet, salted air through her hair with the glittering lights from the rides and the hotels and even the miniscule lighthouses somewhere out there in the glassy dark far below, but close enough for her to feel their heat...

At least to Nova it was unsurpassed.

Autumn counted the from roll of tickets in her palm. "Sure, O.K.." She tore off six, then split it. She did it carefully, along the dotted, raised lines. When she handed three over Nova ripped them apart individually, crumpled in her hand.

They raced to find seats that were directly next to each other, when most of them were staggered, probably so they wouldn't bunch into each other. Autumn let Nova take the outside one. She noticed, as it began to ascend, that the chains of the swings were interwoven with thick wire, and felt safer. She sort of got what Nova was onto, then, when it tilted, when the momentum balanced fairly perfectly, when the air was tasting sweet on her tongue as it rushed by. It was kind of beautiful: the mirrors along the base of the ride, the seashell pink and aqua green swirls chasing each other among gold frames. And the way the rest of the world blurred together, the darkening trees, the clouds melted into a softened yellow. Something about it reminded her of Nova, and somehow it made her nervous, like her apprehension in the car.

Nova reached her right hand out and, after a frozen, faint moment, Autumn took it.

♡

The thing that spun around in two directions at once looked like strawberries, of course they had to try it. Autumn leaned against the fence, squishing Gumball between her hands, occasionally turning her head to sip from the lemonade Nova kept stirring around because she liked the noise the ice made in the cup.

"The seat-things match y'r shoes," she told her, poking Autumn's sneaker with her own, which was by contrast pink in places and faded to grey in others, stained with mud and water.

"I can't tell if that's a compliment."

"Me either. Whadda fairs remind you of?"

"Ummm...movies. I feel like they expect something of you but you're not allowed to know what." She made the fox walk across the fence, careful not to let the parts that stuck out catch his fur. "Like, I guess they remind me of horror movies."

"Like a clown's gonna kill you or somethin'?"

"Not that far..."

She thought about it more as they handed over tickets and stepped into the circular enclosure, reminding her slightly of a pen one would keep animals in. If anything was going to kill her, clown or rogue goat, it would be here. "No, the misdirection in horror movies, I meant." It made sense to her, but Nova was quiet as she climbed onto one of the strawberry-shaped cars, painted in bright red and white-yellow seeds and pointed leaves, and jumped, shaking it with a disappointing rattle.

"Uh...misdirection," she repeated as Autumn grabbed her arm, to stop her from jumping harder. "Ow, get off━"

"Don't jump on them, kid, please," called the tired operator.

She just stuck her tongue out at him and made Autumn laugh in spite of herself, then said, "You sit on the inside, so you don' get squished."

♡

Nova was still picking Autumn's hair from her mouth where it had hit her in the face. "You taste like uncooked pasta," she lied, squeezing her hand as they darted through crowds of people. The sun was going down and the air sizzled with activity.

"It would be one thing if anything you said was funny or made sense, but..."

The Gravitron proceeded to horrify her, but the door was already closed by the time she realized all she was meant to do was stand against the rectangular carpeted slats on the walls and hold on.

"Well, you believe in science, right?" Nova said, pulling up her legs so her feet were flat against the wall under her. "It's just...gravity science. You just stick there til it stops."

Low-budget horror movie material or not, Autumn resigned herself to closing her eyes against the flickering beams of light. She had never felt physically so connected and disconnected to other people. Kids beside her screamed and yelled at each other, spat at each other, held hands somehow without snapping their wrists━and she still felt a clouded stillness in her mind, that severed connection between her and everything, that had been there since she was a child. A comforting rift with multicolored sparks and cold empty space, like how she imagined it would feel if you could take off your helmet in space without exploding, like inhaling stars...

A place for herself. She could hear things from whole galaxies away, but she still felt deeply, untouchably, excruciatingly and beautifully pensive, alone.

"...So you liked it?" Nova was asking as they thudded down the buckling metal steps. It was fully dark now, and the outside of the ride was lit so they could see the scene painted around it. The colors of the pastel-textured Mars-ish landscape flowed into each other, burnt orange to dandelion yellow to tangerine. The black expanse of outer space was smattered with smudges of pink and magenta and violet purple and white stars that seemed to blink in and out. It was strangely empty, hills and suggestions of cliffs in the extraterrestrial scene, none of those humanoid green creatures or ghostly phantom-mist shapes Nova liked to talk about and draw in the corners of her notebooks. She said, "Doesn't it feel like you're a milkshake?"

"...Because you get shook around?"

"Exactly."

Autumn squinted at her, smiled. She wasn't going to admit just how much she'd enjoyed it, not one to change her mind. "Yeah. If you were an ice cream, what would you be?"

"A flavor?"

"Right."

"Uh..." She tossed Gumball up and caught him by his nose, nearly fumbling. "Maybe something..."

"Fruity?" she suggested dryly.

"...like coffee. Or chocolate, like both mixed together. With sprinkles so it's cute."

"Right."

"You'd be something weird."

"I like mint."

"No, gingerbread sorta matches your hair, kinda red━"

"Maybe uncooked pasta?"

"If that was a flavor, definitely." She was holding her right hand in her left, Gumball braced against her side, digging her thumb into her palm like she was trying to feel for something. She flexed her fingers, troubledly shook her wrist.

Autumn was staring across the lot to the street, wondering what time it was because she'd lost her watch the day it had fallen into the river while they were playing Pooh sticks, Nova's idea. She glanced over; "What is it?"

"Nothing," she mumbled, shifting her left fist.

"You're━"

"Noth-ing, Jesus, you sound like my mom."

"I wouldn't sound like your mom if you weren't difficult."

"That's a mom-word to use." She lifted her head and grinned, the glitter in her lipgloss suddenly vibrant, apparent. "I think I got over-milkshook."

♡

"Does this remind you of a movie?" Nova dangled Gumball over the side of the Ferris wheel every so often, but kept her grip incredibly tight on his tail. He looked slightly sad ever so many feet above the ground, mud and torn-up grass waiting for him far below, but then she pulled him back into her lap and he was safe.

"Why would it?"

"Like, when the two characters are gonna kiss and they're waaay up here in the stars. You know?"

"I don't like romances."

"Me either."

Autumn kicked her legs up and dropped her heels against the floor. "Well, we could still do it, if you wanted. We have nothing else t' do." She tilted her head back to see where the most immediate buildings touched the sky.

"It wouldn't be that stupid."

"Nah, not at all. It's not like it's..."

"A real movie."

"Right." After a beat she added, "but maybe we should wait. Until we get to the top."

"It is nicer up there."

And in a few minutes they really did get to the top, with the whole town cold and dim beneath them, fractured with light. Nova watched the softened, fine features of Autumn's face, that eternal tough focused element behind her eyes. Did she know she always looked like she was thinking of something, and something with many moving pieces at that? She was thoughtful and stern and many things Nova was not. She lifted her fingers to her cheek and kissed her.

♡

They were eating soft ice cream near the road. A bluish-green TV blinked from a living room across the street, Autumn tried to guess the show, but all she could tell was blue. Maybe water. Maybe some kind of beach thing. Or a pool.

"Hey, helloooo? Didja hear me?"

"What?"

"I said which house you'd wanna have. When you're older an' have a dog or something, and can have a whole house t' yourself."

"Uhm, a mansion. So I could sell it."

"No, outta these."

They weren't much to look at, honestly. Rectangles on their sides with small porches, sometimes lanterns, a back deck, maybe. Clusters of flowers and weeds with a football or broken flower pot nestled among the dark green stems. Though one at the end of the street was taller, white and black, each clean window glowed with a candle, the orange softened by sheer curtains. "That," Autumn said. Through the yard cut a winding black driveway, hedges trimmed with ornate shapes casting shadows against the pearlish siding. "That one's pretty. Which would y━"

"━Shh!"

"You don' have t' be rude about━"

"No, shh..." Nova deposited her sprinkled ice cream cone in Autumn's cup, staining her vanilla with rainbow sugar and chocolate, then bent as she stepped down the street toward the sewer grate. The music and voices sounded very far now, and Nova's performance made them seem all the more distant, like she was stepping into another dimension, through a curtain. But the longer Autumn watched her, the more stable she seemed.

"Y' didn' hear that?" she asked, but quickly held up her hand to silence Autumn, as though she'd said anything or was even planning to. She was however growing more and more agitated with the way Nova made no move to explain what exactly she was doing,

until there came a snap from the bushes, and a pair of black eyes lined in fur poked from the lean, thin branches.

"Kitty!" Nova whispered, immediately kneeling and holding out her hand.

Autumn had a different idea. She abandoned the cup on the pile of pavement that acted as a curb, sat next to Nova, and, looking in the cat's general direction, meowed at it.

And, fantastically, it meowed right back, creeping between them. It stroked its head against Nova's knee, then sniffed at Autumn's shirt before stepping into her lap.

"I didn't know you spoke cat."

"Yeah, they like me." She noted first that it was a brown-grey, with a smooth coat, if it was stuck with leaves and bits of branches. "Hi, kitty."

"It doesn' have a collar 'r nothin'."

She narrowed her eyes. "What're you saying?"

"I mean, since it likes you..."

"I can't keep it."

Flippantly, Nova shrugged. "Why the hell not? We could share it."

"You want to share this cat? that could have a perfectly nice family?" Though the longer she looked the more it became clear that it had been out here for a while. Its nails were long, its fur tangled in places. It felt light, thin. "Well, I can't anyway."

Nova bit at her nail, staring at the cat. "Will your parents hate it? What about just for a day?"

The way she talked Autumn into things should've been criminal. "If I brought it home, they wouldn't have a chance to say anything."

"Right!"

"And maybe it would grow on them. They wouldn't even tell it was there." She scratched its small, tense head between the ears. "What about you?" she asked over its low purr.

"Gotta make sure it wouldn't try t' eat Dulce."

"That's your one concern?"

"It's a pretty big fuckin' concern━"

Thin blazes of whitish light reached down the road, then came to a stop. "Hey, losers," Lisa called, "you wanna find somewhere else to make out or what?"

"We're getting part-custody of a cat!" Nova called back.