Chapter Text
He can’t stop thinking about it.
That’s the problem.
Jax had fully intended to sleep it off. Bury the whole thing under sarcasm and exhaustion, let it fade the way everything else eventually did. That was how it usually worked. Ignore it long enough and it stopped mattering.
Except… it didn’t.
He’d slept well that night. Too well.
Blissfully, even. The kind of sleep that left him disoriented when he woke up, like his body had sunk too deeply into something it didn’t want to let go of. And that was bad enough on its own, but what made it worse—so much worse—was what he’d dreamed about.
Her fingers.
The way they’d brushed his ears, careful at first, then surer. The warmth of her touch, the way his body had reacted before his brain could interfere. The way it had all felt so easy to sink into.
He woke up irritated and unsettled, lingering tension clinging to him like static.
Three days.
It had been three days, and he still couldn’t get it out of his head.
No matter how many times he told himself it was nothing. No matter how hard he tried to laugh it off internally, shove it into the same mental box as everything else he refused to deal with.
The worst part was the craving. That quiet, unwanted pull toward the memory, toward the feeling. Toward her.
He would never admit that. Not out loud. Not even fully to himself.
Instead, he let the tension build until it gave him a headache. Let the pressure sit behind his eyes, sharp and insistent. He preferred that. Pain was familiar. Manageable.
Admitting things wasn’t.
So here he was, sprawled on the couch with the others, pretending everything was normal.
When there wasn’t an adventure, this was where everyone ended up. Sitting around, talking, killing time in the most pointless ways imaginable. Jax called it “bonding,” usually with a sneer, but the truth was that he’d always been here too. Always part of it, even if he pretended he wasn’t.
He’d come tonight with the intention of bullying everyone into distraction. Teasing Ragatha, poking at Gangle, saying something stupid just to feel like himself again.
But the past couple of days, he hadn’t felt like it.
The others noticed.
That was annoying.
They kept glancing at him, waiting, like they expected him to do something. To say something. Gangle giggled nervously at nothing, clearly bracing herself. Ragatha smiled a little too politely.
It made his skin itch.
And then there was her.
The one person he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since the fight.
Pomni.
Just thinking about it made him want to smack his forehead. God, he’d been pathetic. Letting his emotions get the better of him like that. He’d always been good at containing things, at locking them away and moving on. He’d done it for years.
So why did she get under his skin so easily?
She didn’t know what she was talking about. She didn’t know how long it had taken him to accept this place, this existence. She hadn’t been here long enough to understand what it meant to stop fighting and just… endure.
And yet.
Her words came back to him anyway, sharp and persistent, echoing in the back of his mind. His hands curled slightly where they rested against his legs.
A soft jingle pulled his attention back to the room.
His ears twitched before he could stop them.
Bells.
He didn’t need to look to know who it was.
Of course she was here. She always was when everyone gathered. Avoiding her completely would take effort. So instead, he did what he’d been doing since that day.
He kept his distance.
Jax glanced toward the sound just in time to see Pomni standing near Ragatha, nodding along as Ragatha spoke. Her hand were fidgeting with the pompom on her outfit, fingers twisting them slightly.
Nervous?
He noticed that now. He hadn’t before.
She looked up.
Their eyes met.
Pomni froze, her pinwheel eyes widening for half a second before she looked away too quickly, like she’d been caught doing something wrong. As if pretending she hadn’t been staring would undo the fact that she had.
His chest tightened.
He didn’t know why.
Annoyance, maybe. Or irritation. Or something else he refused to look at too closely.
He realized a second too late that he hadn’t looked away.
Jax tore his gaze aside just as something loomed far too close in his peripheral vision.
“AAAGH—!”
He yelped, lurching backward and promptly falling off the couch with an undignified thud.
The room went silent.
Everyone turned to stare at him.
Kinger blinked down at him, antennae tilting. “Oh! Jax,” he said cheerfully. “What are you doing down there?”
Jax lay there for a second, heart racing, stomach doing an unpleasant flip. He swallowed hard, forcing himself not to gag from the sudden rush of adrenaline.
Play it cool. Play it cool.
He shot up to his feet, brushing himself off aggressively. “Wow. Amazing. Great timing, bug brain,” he snapped. “You ever hear of personal space?”
Kinger nodded thoughtfully. “I was standing here the whole time.”
Gangle let out a small, uncontrollable giggle, immediately covering her mouth. Ragatha smiled, trying not to laugh.
Jax scowled. “What are you all looking at? This is what peak awareness looks like. You wouldn’t understand.”
He turned sharply, already walking away. “Enjoy your loser circle,” he added over his shoulder. “I’ve got better things to do.”
No one stopped him.
Good.
He stalked down the hall, jaw tight. He told himself he was annoyed at Kinger. At the others. At the stupid situation.
He’d had enough. Enough of the thoughts, enough of the feelings, enough of everything being slightly off. He wanted things back to normal. Back to easy.
As he rounded the corner, a familiar jingle sounded again.
Closer this time.
His shoulders tensed.
“Jax?”
He stopped walking.
Pomni’s footsteps were soft behind him. He didn’t turn right away.
“What,” he said finally.
She hesitated, then spoke. “You left really fast.”
“Yeah,” he replied. “That tends to happen.”
Silence stretched.
Her eyes flicked briefly toward his ears, then away again. He noticed his pupils widen despite himself.
“I won’t keep you long,” Pomni said, voice steady. “I just… I wanted to talk to you.”
“Dangerous start.”
She ignored it. “About the couch.”
Jax stiffened.
“No.”
Pomni paused, watching him carefully. She nodded once, accepting it without argument. “Okay,” she said. Then, after a moment, quieter but no less certain, “Then about after.”
That made him look at her.
“…There was no after,” he said.
“There was for me.”
The words were soft, but they didn’t waver. Pomni held his gaze, shoulders squared in a way that told him she wasn’t going to walk it back just because it made him uncomfortable.
“I wanted to be clear about what I was doing,” she continued.
“Oh?” Jax raised an eyebrow, the familiar smirk slipping into place like armor. “Go on.”
“I wanted to touch you.”
For a moment, he just stared at her, like he’d misheard.
Then he laughed, quick and sharp, the sound edged with something defensive. “Wow. Bold,” he said. “You always this direct, or am I special?”
“That’s not what I meant,” Pomni said immediately, heat creeping into her face even as she held her ground.
“Oh?” he pressed. “Because it really sounded like—”
“Your ears.”
The word cut through him cleanly.
His grin froze mid-expression, caught before he could rearrange it into something safer. One sharp twitch ran through his ears before he could stop it.
Pomni saw it.
Jax pretended she hadn’t.
He scoffed, waving a hand dismissively as if the reaction hadn’t happened at all. “Weird thing to fixate on.”
“You didn’t say no,” she said, not accusing, just stating it.
“I didn’t say yes either.”
“I know,” Pomni replied. “I’m not asking now.”
That stopped him more effectively than anything else she’d said so far.
She took a breath, steadying herself. “I just didn’t want to pretend it didn’t happen.”
The silence that followed was heavier than before, settling between them with a weight neither of them moved to break. Jax looked away, jaw tight, ears angling back despite his best efforts to keep them still.
Damn it.
He squeezed his jaw shut, staring at the wall like it had personally offended him. His thoughts refused to scatter the way they usually did. Instead, they circled, slow and insistent, pulling him right back to the couch. To the warmth. To the way his body had relaxed before he’d even realized what was happening.
And after that he hadn’t slept like that in a long time.
That was the part that bothered him the most.
No nightmares. No half-waking panic. Just rest. Deep and easy and embarrassingly good. He’d woken up disoriented, almost annoyed by how fine he’d felt.
All because of her.
Her hands. Her careful touch. The fact that she’d stopped when he spoke instead of pushing, instead of pretending she hadn’t crossed a line.
And now she was standing here, actually saying it. Not circling it. Not backing away.
She came to him.
That alone should’ve been reason enough to shut it down.
Jax dragged a hand over his face, breath slow and controlled. He told himself this was stupid. That he was overthinking it. That letting it happen again would only complicate things.
But then he remembered how it felt to not be on edge for once.
How his ears had gone warm under her fingers. How his body had responded without permission. How easy it would be to let himself sink into that again, just for a little while.
She wasn’t asking to take something from him.
She was asking to be allowed.
His ears twitched again.
He hated that it made the decision harder.
“…If anything like that happens again,” he said finally, his voice lower now, steadier than he felt, “it’s not out here. And it’s not some casual thing.”
Pomni nodded without hesitation. “Okay.”
“And it’s not now.”
“I know.”
The words settled between them, not quite an agreement, not quite a refusal. Jax watched her for a moment longer than he meant to, taking in the way she stood her ground without pressing closer, without trying to fill the silence for him.
Another beat passed.
“…Later,” he added, reluctantly, like the word had been pulled out of him rather than offered.
Pomni’s eyes flicked up to his face. “Later.”
“Don’t get ideas,” he warned, though the edge in his voice had dulled.
“I already have them,” she said honestly. Then added, softer, “I won’t push.”
Something in his chest shifted at that. Not relief exactly. Something heavier. Something that made his jaw tighten instead of loosen.
“…Why?” he asked suddenly.
Pomni blinked. She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she looked down for a moment, thinking, like she was choosing her words carefully rather than scrambling for them, “Because I want to,” she said simply. “And because I’d rather be honest than pretend I don’t.”
Jax swallowed.
That wasn’t what he’d expected. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but it wasn’t that simple. That honest.
For a second, he considered shutting it down completely. Saying this was a bad idea. Saying it wouldn’t happen. Saying anything that would put the distance back where it belonged.
But his mind betrayed him.
“Your room,” he said abruptly, cutting off his own spiral. “If it ever happens. I’m not dealing with this in mine.”
She hesitated, not from doubt, but from understanding. “Okay,” she said.
Nothing else happened after that.
Nothing else happened. No touch. No step closer.
Neither of them said anything more. But the air between them felt charged now, like something waiting to snap. Jax turned away first.
“This stays between us.”
“Yes,” Pomni said. “It does.”
He walked off, his ears flicking once more and this time, she knew he noticed her noticing.