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The sun hung low on the horizon, greeting you and Jax with shades of pinks and oranges that painted the sky. Earlier today, you had asked Jax to take a walk around the circus grounds with you to alleviate some boredom. But the real reason was that you wanted to show him a place that held a lot of meaning to you ever since you joined this prison.
You both had shared some laughs and jokes sitting under the tree, exchanging a few shoves and smug glances. It was fun hanging out with him, it made being here slightly more tolerable. But as the sun began to disappear, and the warm air faded, you both quieted down along with the sky.
It was dark now, stars twinkling as they appeared one by one. The air nipped at your skin, it wasn't cold but you did shiver a bit.
Jax sat next to you, watching the night sky with as many words to say as you did at the moment. Not that there was really much to talk about, the sounds of the wind gently blowing and the grass rustling said enough.
"...I used to come out here every day, y'know, for the first few months I got here," you finally spoke up after a long stretch of silence. "Just to think and… Reflect, I guess.”
Jax stayed leaned back, listening to you as you broke the silence, though he didn’t respond right away. The concept of actually coming here and thinking by yourself was an intriguing and foreign concept to him. What was there to even think about?
Jax turned his head to look at you, his large pupils darting down. “Reflect, huh…?” he asked, then leaned his head back to its previous position. He chuckled a bit.
Jax usually distracted himself from his own thoughts and feelings by bringing forth the chaos in your adventures with him. He was too scared to face them.
“What would you even have to reflect about?”
You smiled and just shrugged. "...Stuff, things. Myself, I guess,” you answered thoughtfully. “My past life...” Your smile fell when you mentioned that.
“I remember really adoring the sunsets and sunrises. Every night I would stare out into the moon and wonder what's out there. I like to think it looked back at me kindly.”
“Sounds sappy and boring,” Jax replied with a jokingly monotone voice, chuckling softly when you jabbed his side with your elbow.
"Let's see you do any better, lame,” you teased back with a smirk, earning an amused snort from him.
Jax crossed his arms in response to the chilly air around him, his ears flopping a little as he loosened the strength to keep them sticking straight up. You were sitting cross legged, but decided to sprawl your legs out in front of you and lean your back against the tree trunk.
Another long minute of silence passed you both by.
"...Sometimes it's hard to accept that this is my life now,” you murmured solemnly. Your gaze lowered, and so did your voice. “There's so much I wanted to do, so much I wanted to see. And... Now… I'll never get to do anything ever again. I don't think I've come to terms with it yet.”
Jax looked up at the sky again, but he was paying quite close attention to your tone. You sounded… Sad. Hopeless.
A feeling he knew all too well, despite his tough guy carefree attitude. He was tempted to say something comforting, but words seemed to fail him. He was never good at this whole consoling thing, but luckily you spoke up again before the silence started to get discouraging.
“I-I tried to get used to it, y'know,” you began to vent, feeling your heart begin to stiffen up in response to this subject. “B-But it just seems like… Time doesn't even exist anymore and it's just us and that damn circus.”
Jax audibly sighed under his breath as you brought up your time in the circus. There was a bit of a sour, somber look on his face as he thought about his answer.
“Yeah… You’re telling me. It’s been…” He had to stop himself and think. Did he even know how long it's been now? Time had started to blend together in his mind after years of being stuck in the same routine day after day. “…I don’t even know anymore how long," he finally said, his eyes looking lost and confused as they stared out into the open sky.
You sighed heavily and nodded, watching as the stars hung like Christmas lights above you. "Yeah. It's hard to judge the time when... The days that pass by aren't even real, but artificial... Code that just..." You shrugged, not knowing how to finish that sentence. Albeit, he understood anyway.
Jax's guard was lowering the longer he spent time with you here. Listening to your voice speak to him so calmly, the cool air, the comforting darkness. It was all a nice break from the overwhelming, energetic, and saturated nature of the circus.
"...I wanted to meet someone, y'know," you confessed, your fingers playing around in the grass beneath you. "...Get married, grow old, do fun things together. But I guess life has funny ways of doing the exact opposite.”
Jax felt his heart ache a bit at your words, but he couldn't bear himself to respond so quickly. He simply looked at the stars in the sky alongside you in silence before speaking again.
“…Fate, destiny, whatever you want to call it. It sucks,” he mumbled with a low and somber tone. “Never has been on my side. I don't bother anymore.”
Your expression twisted in thought about what he said, and slowly, you shook your head in disagreement.
"Yeah but... I don't like to think that we're bound to our fates," you mused. Your fingers continued to feel the grass below you. It almost felt real.
"It's more like…” You sighed, trying to think of a useful metaphor. “We're walking along a forest path, a journey together. We don't know what's going to come next, but we can adapt to our situations. We can still choose which way to go, we can still choose our strategy to survive. Though your environment and circumstances can change..."
You smiled softly, this time a little more comfortably. “You still have yourself,” you said, looking up at him.
Jax looked down at you and smirked back weakly, then gasped under his breath when you scooted closer to him and leaned against his shoulder.
“And others to keep you company."
You looked back up and continued to just stare upon the artificial sky. He followed your gaze, his mouth pressed in a thin, small line, as he listened to what you had to say.
"....And y'know, despite being here... I still accomplished one of those things on my list.”
Jax hugged himself a little tighter, for the first time having no comebacks or witty words to say whatsoever. All he could think about was your smaller form leaning so gently against his. Your words, your voice soothingly speaking to him like a lullaby.
He wanted to believe this was real. If everything else was fake, he didn't care. But this moment... Please, just let this be real.
“Yeah?” he finally murmured in response to your words, shifting his position so you could lean against him more comfortably. “What's that?”
You smiled as you looked up at him, your eyes glistening just as brightly as the stars did.
"I met you.”
Jax’s heart nearly stopped as he heard you say that, his black pupils darting down to make eye contact with yours. They almost swallowed his yellow sclera whole. He swallowed, feeling something in his eyes threaten to spill, as his digital body flushed from head to toe. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from you after that, looking at you in stunned silence for a moment.
“I…” Jax finally broke eye contact when he had nothing to say, but his gaze remained in your direction. He instead stared at the way your shoulder touched his.
You just smiled back at him, your eyes half closed. Your hands took his arm and slowly embraced it close to you, nuzzling his shoulder. Your heart weighed heavier than iron in your chest, but the warmth of his acceptance to your reaching out lifted some of that burden off your chest.
"...I met you," you repeated with a softer comforted voice, looking at the sky. You continued, "...And even if we never grow old together... Even if we never get to buy a house or work our dream jobs… We still did fun things together. We had good times, exciting adventures, shared funny jokes…”
You giggled a bit. “And hey, we didn't abstract yet so... Who knows what else there is to come...?”
Jax tried to come up with some sarcastic remark or tease, but his words seemed to lodge themselves in the back of his throat. He had to look away before you could catch anything vulnerable on his face, but unfortunately for him, he was a really bad pretender.
He seemed to finally manage to get his brain and mouth working again, only to mutter a soft answer.
“…Yeah,” he uttered. “Maybe… Maybe you have a point there.”
Your touch on his arm and your words echoed in his mind, Jax knew he was silently fighting his emotions in a last-ditch effort to seem cool and collected. But there was nothing at this point that could pull the tears back into his eyes again, as he felt them slowly rise to the brim. He was afraid of moving, afraid of the slighest twitch that could even make one drop roll down his cheek.
“... I… I never really… Thought about this stuff,” Jax finally managed to speak, the words turning new gears in his head as his heart spilled down the center of his chest. It never hurt so much to be stuck here up until now. “I-I mean… I… I just never… Never really had a-anything to lose, so…”
"What about... Y'know, our friends at the circus? Ragatha, Zooble, Gangle, Pomni... Even Kinger," you asked. "Aren't you afraid of losing them?"
Jax smiled at your supposed naivete. "They're cool but I don't think they like me very much," he chuckled poorly. "Not that I'd want them gone but it's hard to feel bad for people who don't look in your direction. For good reason, too. I'm not a good person, Doll."
Jax shut his mouth and let out a soft, shaky exhale. That confession seemed to take a lot out of him. He composed himself again, enough to say his words clearly. But that came at the cost of letting some of the tears squeeze out of his eyes as he pressed them closed. He wanted to go back to when he had nothing to lose. But at the same time… Not really.
“I was never bothered by the idea of death… So, I… I just can't imagine a world where… Where loss actually matters,” Jax sighed softly. “And... The idea or the possibility that it does... I…”
You listened to him confess what little he was brave enough to do so, letting him spill what he needed to you. When his words trailed off, you just gently nodded in understanding. Even if he couldn't say it out loud, you knew what he was thinking. You decided to ask him one of the questions that had been burning in your head for the past few hours.
"If we escaped the circus tomorrow... What would you want to do...?”
Jax’s body was tense, but he was slowly relaxing. Your nuzzling his arm made chills crawl under his skin and he found it difficult to keep his breathing steady.
He took a second to think about your question, letting out a small sigh. “I-I… I don’t even know to be honest,” he admitted. “I didn't ever think about it so deeply.”
A moment of hesitation seemed to cross his mind. He went quiet, and his eyes darted between each star as he wondered how much was worth telling you. He took a deep breath and sighed, deciding to just spill it out since he couldn't keep hiding everything forever.
“I wanted to be a game designer, y'know,” he said. “Make things, entertain people. I had a lot of stories I wanted to write… That I now have to live in.”
He chuckled cynically with that confession, recognizing the irony in his words. “Funny how that works,” he remarked bitterly.
You smiled, but it didn't meet your eyes. It was quite ironic, what he was telling you. Not surprising to his character, either. It was the perfect job for someone who was as creative and adventurous as he was.
“...Yeah, funny.”
You rested soundly against him. Then you decided to gently take his arm, and wrap it around your shoulders so you could rest your head on his chest.
Jax didn’t know how to react so he just tried to stay calm and do his best to reciprocate your affection. He was having a hard time doing that though, and he could feel his heart pounding through the words he had to fight to say out loud.
“Um...What about you…?”
You chuckled quietly at how caught off guard he seemed to be by that. You had to think about your answer for a moment, listening to the quiet air that surrounded you.
"I didn't have many specific goals in my last life," you sighed. "But I know one thing's for sure..."
Jax listened to you, lost in his own thoughts about what could've been. "Yeah?" he murmured, nudging you to continue.
"The first thing I'd do is do everything in my power to find you again. No matter what.”
Jax felt his heart stop. That sensation at the edge of his eyes come back, threatening to spill more tears over the edge. He did everything in his power to suppress it, but that job was getting harder and harder. His hand that you had pulled over your shoulders rested on your head, and he found himself rubbing circles in your hair.
Really? Him? He didn't think he could ever possibly be that special.
"You helped me find the fun in a crappy situation. I mean, you are a jerk, but at least you managed to stay energetic and enthusiastic when everyone else had given up," you explained, reminiscing of your first adventure where he shoved you in the direction of the monster. At the time it made you really mad, but once you got him back in the maze adventure, you both had gotten used to challenging each other in those adventures.
Jax couldn't help but snort a bit with what you said. He would call you an idiot for thinking that, but he had to admit to himself that it felt good to have someone for once think his antics were entertaining instead of annoying.
He had to say something in response, so he just admitted the first thing that came to his mind.
"Yeah," he murmured, his voice a little shaky but oddly positive. "I’d look for you too."
You smiled softly, opening your eyes a little again. "Yeah...?" you answered, feeling comforted by his warm body against yours. It almost felt real. It made you wish it was. It made you hope it was.
"And then...?”
Jax was now running his hand through your hair, gently twirling it around his fingers. His whole body was still buzzing from you being so close to him, your head still on his chest. He could almost feel each and every breath you took settle against him.
“Then… I suppose we’d go out and do… Whatever the hell we felt like,” he said with a soft shrug, pulling you a little closer. He smiled with the intimacy that was forming between you two, the fact he was finally able to feel comfortable with someone else felt so freeing in the most exhilarating way possible. He almost wanted to laugh, or cry, or both, but he kept quiet instead, fiddling with your hair and clothing.
“Make our lives feel a little more complete, y'know. Go on more adventures. Whatever makes you happy, Doll.”
You couldn't help but feel your eyes begin to water at his confession. You didn't want to let him see it, but your heart was now beating like a prisoner in its cage. Unfortunately for you, Jax could still hear your heartbeat increase its speed anyway, due to some abilities that were granted to him when he earned this body.
His ears twitched at that thought, and he made sure to keep you close enough to continue listening to your soft breathing and quick heartbeats.
"Would you love me no matter what?” you finally asked, looking up at him with eyes that glimmered from the tears that filled them.
Jax let his eyes wander the sky, and he didn't notice your eyes watering at first. But he did notice how cute your small mannerisms were to him, like the way you spoke in your small voice whenever you were nervous. The way your breathing trembled whenever you went to hug or touch him.
Jax pulled you closer when he heard you ask that, almost as a way to protect you from your own feelings. He gently squeezed you, his voice going unusually soft.
“…Of course I would, you idiot,” he teased, snickering a little. “I’d love you no matter what.”
Jax finally let his eyes move to meet your form, and they widened a little when you hid your face in his chest. He felt your soft trembling and the new tears that dampened his fur.
“Hey, hey… Come on, now, don’t cry,” he muttered, pulling you completely against his chest. He shifted your position so you were sitting on his lap, and he put his chin over your head. His arms wrapped around you securely, gently rubbing your back to ease the tears that flowed down your cheeks.
Thank God it was them before me, Jax thought to himself, not knowing how he'd be able to handle if he's the one who began to cry.
You sobbed quietly into his chest, but it was unclear to him if you were actually sad or just overwhelmed. Not that you knew, either, the emotions were weighing on you like a stack of bricks, and crying was the only way you could find some relief in your words.
"I've been wanting to say this to you for so long but,” you chuckled through your shaky sobs, sniffling and wiping your eyes. “Guess who's just as big a coward as you.”
Jax couldn’t help but smile a little when he heard your little tease. He rolled his eyes and let you rest against him, his own form laying back against the tree trunk.
He was still trying to calm down his own heart beat as he pulled you closer to him. “Yeah, yeah. Couldn't help yourself in the face of the Jax-man, huh?” he teased back, feeling his heart jump when you giggled.
Jax liked that laugh of yours. Usually he only heard it during your adventures together when you were clearly having fun, or when you two were sharing a stupid joke. It felt more special now, however, that he could make you so happy without either of those things.
“Shuddup,” you murmured with a smile, nuzzling his shoulder and peacefully resting against him. A few sniffles still escaped you, but your sobs had quieted down by now, your arms loosely resting around his shoulders.
You closed your eyes, finally feeling at peace with yourself. Even if you never left this damn place, you knew that giving up was never an option as long as you guys had each other. As long as you had community and trust in your heart that things would be okay.
Jax looked back up at the sky again while he held you close to him, breathing slowly. His heart was now calm, but he found he didn’t want to let go of you any time soon. He still wasn't sure how to continue the conversation, but the silence seemed to be the most comforting option for the both of you. After so much confessions and sobs and such therapeutic talk, it was nice to just sit and absorb each other's company.
A while passed by as you guys sat in silence.
Jax noticed you weren't moving, and he spoke up again in a quiet voice. “…Hey, dollface?” he asked, leaning away a little to observe your face.
You seemed to be fast asleep against his arms, the silence and the darkness lulling you into a deep and quiet slumber.
Jax sighed a bit and chuckled quietly, holding you a little tighter to himself. He found it quite adorable that you clung to him so tightly even in your sleep.
He wouldn't be able to rest so soon. Your words circled his mind still. He wondered how he managed to get so lucky as to find someone willing to even get this far with him.
That's when he let the tears finally spill from his eyes, but no sound followed. His vision blurred as his breathing started to shake a little. Jax pressed his head against the trunk of the tree and clenched his already shut teeth, squeezing his eyes closed. His body was tense, his eyes burned with tears anyway, but after a couple seconds of holding that tension, he was able to slowly relax again. He let out a long, shaky breath, and felt the stress melt away with it.
Jax lifted a gloved hand to wipe his face, and he looked down at you once more. He didn't want to fall asleep out here with you, you deserved a better place to rest.
Carefully and quietly, Jax slowly slid his arm under your knees, and another arm under your back. He held you in a secure position against his chest, making sure you were laying comfortably. He then carefully stood up, taking great care as to not to wake you up, and once he was fully standing he checked to see if you were still unconscious.
Jax sighed quietly when he saw that you were, and he smiled. What a night, he thought, holding you against him and admiring the way your head rested against his shoulder. He shook his head and sighed, as he began to make his walk back to the tent.