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2025-01-22
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you dazzle me (you knock me down)

Summary:

Ragatha starts to think about everything with a certain purple bunny tucked under her arms. Thinking is never good in The Amazing Digital Circus.

But maybe this can be the exception.

Notes:

Hello! So normally, I wouldn't have posted this but I really want to see what people will say about it so here I am. This is NOT beta read at all so beware of any grammar mistakes! Don't be afraid to point 'em out, always happy to get commentary lol. I will probably post more Eddsworld soon, or maybe not. Who knows? Not me, my hyperfixations switch faster than the speed of light.

Title is a song lyric from Impacto — Enjambre!

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Never in her so—called life Ragatha thought she'd be in a position like this.

By that, she means laying on her digital bed with Jax curled up by her side.

She isn't weirded out, quite the opposite. She just... did not expect it to happen like this. She loved Jax, she really did (though she couldn't figure out why yet) but it still baffled her that he returned her feelings. It felt like a dream, despite none of the circus residents often having them. This was... nice, comfortable. Opposed to what the doll usually thought of the world they're in. She moves her head to take a better look at the bunny. He was tucked within her arm, legs pulled close to his chest in a position that makes him look almost innocent. She chuckles, nobody in their right mind would ever call him that.

Not that Ragatha doesn't have any screws loose, anyway.

The noise makes his ear twitch and Ragatha resists the urge to squeal at how adorable it was. She wonders if he has more of the bunny—esque traits. Their avatars did affect them one way or another after all.

In her distant thoughts, she wonders if she chose her avatar before she got sent in here. She wonders the reason for it, she wonders the reasons for Pomni, for Zooble, Gangle, Jax... She wonders if Pomni was braver in a world she was familiar with, if Zooble used to take interest in ever—changing beings; if Gangle was into theatre, playing in a world all about pretending and putting on a mask. She wonders if... if Jax used to be soft, playful like a bunny.

Maybe, in another universe, he's just an ordinary man that loves cracking jokes and pulling off pranks. Without the need to put up the walls he has around himself. In another universe, maybe she's human, skin instead of fabric and blood pumping her veins instead of cotton stuffing holding up her fragile, light body. Maybe he's not a wild rabbit running from everything. The adventures, the circus, his feelings, himself. It didn't take a genius to figure out Jax's coping mechanisms. He was just trying to survive, just like the rest of them.

She just wished they didn't have to be so... hurtful.

She dreams, she dreams of the outside world, she dreams of getting out, she dreams of being real. She dreams of... Jax. She tries to dream of a kinder Jax, instead of the one she hopelessly fell in love with (not that she would be able to, she has the habit of accepting people as they are, even if the person in question is an anthropomorphic jerk who seems to have made bullying people his hobby.) She dreams of a normal relationship, making flower crowns and eating breakfast together like they had not a single thing to worry about. Like they weren't stuck in digital purgatory; like Jax didn't knock on her door every night, silently placing himself next to her on her bed

Was she even ready for this? Did commitment even matter if one of them will lose their battle against abstraction (she shudders at the word) leaving the other for themselves eventually? Did Jax... want this at all? Was everything just a passing thing for him? Was he going to leave her once his moment of weakness is over?

Her thoughts get interrupted by the smallest sound produced in the room.

A purr. Jax is purring.

Ragatha stiffles a laugh before she ruins the moment. Her hand hesistantly moves to rest on the bun's head, he leans into the touch. Holy shit. Maybe she's just thinking into this too much. Jax looks content, vulnerable. More than she's ever seen him be (except for the fateful night Jax had arrived to the circus; he was confused, scared. Just like anyone else. She often catches herself thinking about the Jax she saw that moment, trying to stiffle his sobs via her dress. That was when she remembered what she was fighting for, humans. The only humans she came to know and remembered.)

She knows there's much more to Jax than he lets people know of. She knows she... might be a little persistent and stubborn about it. But she believes in people, and she believes in him. Believes that one day, between never and forever, she'll see him get included. See Gangle smile at him without fear in her eyes. Zooble won't glare at him and Pomni won't look so annoyed of his antics. They'll accept him as he is, see him like she does. With rose—tinted glasses that she refuses to take off because she's just happy like this, with him by her side. She feels as if she doesn't have to fear the world she's in when she knows he'll be behind her to make her giggle like he always does.

There weren't many things you could physically get hurt with in the circus, the sensations were far less hurtful than she thinks they're supposed to be. (She isn't speaking from experience, of course... but she found out needles didn't really hurt when she pricked them against her arm.) Mentally, however...

Jax was a hand to hold when she was slipping away on her own. A grounding force, a snap back to reality —or as real as this place could get— when she got too lost in her own mind labyrinth. The purring comes to a stop and Jax stirs under her hold, she twists to look at the cartoony clock on her white bedroom walls (They actually didn't have a concept of time, Caine just decided to give them all clocks so they could "feel at home.")

"Goodmorning, you sleepy bunny." She says with the calm voice she often doesn't get to use. Said hare flutters his yellow eyes open. He beams a smile at her, unlike his trademark grin. One that makes her feel special, loved. "Hey Dolly."

She sits upright, earning an aw from Jax, and gets her blankets off both of them. "Sleep well?"

He stretches, fake bones making a pop sound. "You know I have." a pause, "You?"

Ragatha knows he isn't the one for affection, so naturally, he does it his own ways. Subtle times like these, she's grateful someone actually cares about how she is. And despite her tired body and mind, despite her thinking about everything and anything. Ragatha doesn't lie, she doesn't put on a chirpy tone of voice and a strained smile everyone seems to miss; she says, in the most genuine way possible. "It was nice, one of the best sleeps I've gotten in this place."

The other doesn't comment on her expression, another thing she's forever glad for. He knows the ragdoll would have talked about it if she wanted —and needed— to. Instead, he reverts back to his playful additude. "Flattered, now let's dig. I'm starving. Those idiots better have made breakfast."

She chuckles, "Don't be so harsh, you know they aren't the best cooks."

"Yeah, your pancakes are way better than the nuclear disaster Pomni put on our plates."

"Jax!"

"I'm kidding, let's go."

Even though the others may think Jax is the opposite of what she knows him to be. While he silently passes some strawberries from his plate to hers, she decides.

She loves Jax.

Notes:

18/4/25 — fixed a spelling mistake lmao