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When the portal opens back to the tent, Jax practically throws himself through it, already yelling. “CAINE YOU SICK [bleep]!”
Ragatha lifts her skirt and runs after him. “Jax, hold on!”
Pomni gets through the portal a moment later, the others following her.
“–know how much you miss your old friends! I gave you a chance to see them!” Caine is explaining cheerfully. “I told you today's adventure was special!”
Jax looks livid.
“Jax, he didn't mean to–” Ragatha starts but Jax cuts her off, not taking his eyes off Caine.
“You seriously believe anything that comes out of his oversized mouth?” He spares a disgusted look her way. “You're even stupider than you look.”
“Hey, don't talk to her like that,” Zooble cuts in, stepping forward with folded arms.
Jax whirls to face her, but then Caine drops down between them.
“Now, now, everyone! There's no reason to– WOAH!”
Jax lunges at Caine, who neatly teleports out of the way with a Zap .
“Careful, Jax, you–” Zap. “–could seriously–” Zap. “–hurt s–” Zap. “Would you QUIT THAT?”
Jax actually snarls as Caine makes him float in the air. He tries flailing and swimming through the air, but he doesn't make an inch of progress.
“I'M GONNA KILL YOU CAINE!”
“Hmm…” Caine rubs his chin, then snaps, and Jax disappears.
“W-where did he go?” Pomni asks, eyes wide. She doesn't think Caine will hurt him, but she's not as certain as she wants to be. Caine ignores her.
“Bubble, I don't think they appreciated my surprise very much,” Caine says conspiratorially.
“Nope.” Bubble adds, succinctly.
Caine's eye starts to twitch and he lowers himself to eye level with the others.
“Say, you didn't… ALL hate it… did you?” He makes slow, ominous eye contact with all of them.
Under Caine's intense stare Zooble speaks up first.
“It wasn't… the worst,” they say tactfully.
“None of you look happy,” Caine says, voice dead, but laced with something sharp and dangerous.
“It really freaked Jax out!” Ragatha jumps in. “And we're just worried about him. Do you think… you could bring him back so we can try to calm him down?”
“He doesn't seem in the mood for talking,” Caine says.
“No, he just doesn't want to talk to you,” Kinger says matter of factly. Everyone looks at him with various levels of concern about Caine's reaction.
Caine flips back to his normal cheerful persona as quickly as he dropped out of it. “Sure, have at it! I'll catch up once he's cooled off a bit.”
With a snap, Caine disappears and Jax reappears back where he'd vanished… and promptly falls out of the air, landing on his head with a loud crash.
Jax scrambles to his feet, whipping his head like a rabid animal.
“Jax, calm down!” Ragatha calls. His eyes focus on her, and Pomni can see he's glaring less now… but his expression is even worse. He still looks angry but he also looks… haunted.
“He can do anything,” Jax says, voice strangely distant.
“Yeah, so maybe try not to piss him off.” Zooble rolls their eyes.
The balance of horror and anger in Jax's expression fluctuates rapidly, and Pomni jumps in.
“W-well, not anything. He has limits!” She's trying to reassure him, but Jax looks anything but.
“He's LYING!” And suddenly he's yelling again. He lunges toward her with a snarl.
Pomni stumbles back, startled, and he doesn't follow, or try to hit her. Kinger grabs her shoulders to stabilize her while she recovers from the shock.
“Jax, no…” Ragatha says, horrified. Pomni blinks, and she sees it.
Jax is glitching.
“Wi-illll you ev-ver [bleep]ing SH-SH-SHUT UP!?” Jax yells at Ragatha. The glitching intensifies.
Ragatha doesn't respond, just covers her mouth.
“Is… is he going to…?” Gangle doesn't finish her question, but they all know what she means.
Is he going to abstract?
Zooble and Gangle back away, but Pomni stays where she is, horror searing through her mind. Jax is abstracting. He'll be gone. Dead.
Kinger stays where he is too, his hands on her shoulders, and despite the terror of what's happening in front of her, Pomni is grateful he's still with her.
Jax glares wildly around at the group, but she can see his fear reflecting in his eyes.
“Snap out of it Jax!” Zooble tries.
“It– it's going to be okay,” Ragatha says, finding her voice.
“N-no n-N-n-NOo-o-oo it-t-t-t'ss-t's nOo-oo-o-o-OT-t-t.” Jax covers his glitching face with his glitching hands, and Pomni knows she's never seen him so scared.
“Jax, we're here with you! Don't give up, please!” Pomni says, because she has to say something before it's too late.
His glitching slows. He looks at her. A jolt runs through her. He's listening.
“Just… stay with us Jax, okay? Don't give up. I know it's– hard. Really hard. But it's going to be okay. We're here with you. We're all still here.”
Pomni smiles at him as the crackling slows and stills, and Jax almost looks like himself again. His Cheshire grin is still gone, and he looks at her with wide, dilated eyes.
“Ribbit isn't,” he says.
Before anyone can answer, he turns and runs.
Pomni stands in front of Jax's door, anxiously wringing her hands together.
Calm down, she tells herself. It'll be okay. He won't abstract.
Maybe if she tells herself enough times she'll believe it.
They all agreed she should go after him—she was unanimously voted as his favorite, which was a little disconcerting but she has bigger problems at the moment. And she has to admit, he did seem more willing to listen to her than any of the others. The least she can do is try.
She lurches forward and knocks. Best to just do it, like ripping off a bandaid.
There's no answer. Is he hiding somewhere else, or is he…?
Concern finally overwhelms her anxiety and she knocks again, more certain this time. “Jax? Are you there?”
Pomni's heart is in her throat until the door cracks open. Not wide enough to step through, or even really look through, but definitely open.
“What do you want?” His voice is scathing, but she’s undeterred.
“Are you okay?”
He doesn't answer, and she can imagine his judgmentally narrowed eyes, even without seeing him.
“We're all really worried…” Pomni trails off in a mumble. She’s losing her nerve fast now that they’re actually talking.
Jax scoffed. “Yeah, sure you are.”
It was true, though. Even Zooble looked upset, and that was saying something. A fresh wave of concern revitalizes her. She wants to push back, but there's so much bad blood… Pomni understands why he doesn't want to hear that.
“I'm really worried about you,” she corrects.
“Like you care,” Jax mutters, nearly inaudible.
Her anxiety flares again. She can't fix this. Why would she think she could? He hates her, everyone hates her, she'll mess this up, she should just leave him alone—
But right alongside it is a burst of indignation. Pomni does care. Sure, Jax is a jerk, but he's also funny, and smart, and interesting to talk to. And even if he wasn't, even if he was just a jerk, she still wouldn't want him to suffer. He's trapped here too, just like the rest of them.
She doesn't know what will help him, but she has to try. She has to. Just minutes ago he was glitching right in front of them, on the verge of abstraction.
“Can we… talk?”
“...There's nothing to talk about.”
Yes there is, she wants to say. But Jax doesn't like talking. Well, he does, but not about serious things. The pressure beats inside Pomni's head. She can't do this. If she makes things worse he'll abstract and it will be all her fault. Pomni clasps her shaking hands in front of her. Maybe she should just leave him alone. She closes her eyes.
“The worst thing you can do in this world is make someone feel they're not wanted, or loved.”
Pomni's eyes snap open and she takes a deep breath. She will not leave him right now. He thinks nobody cares, and she refuses to prove him right.
She can't mess this up. She can't lose him. Jax is her friend.
Despite Pomni's new flood of determination, she still doesn't know what to say. She's still shaking, and her chest is so tight she feels she might burst. But she has to say something.
“Please, Jax,” is what comes out of her mouth. It sounds pathetic. She winces, but it's too late to take it back. She bites her lip, trying to find the words to salvage this.
Pomni wishes she knew what he was thinking. She wishes she could at least see his face for a hint, no matter how hard he is to read. This would be so much easier if he'd just come out.
Jax's door drifts further open. For a startled moment Pomni thinks he read her mind, but he doesn't step through the door. It stops after a few inches and hangs ajar. Pomni hesitantly looks through the opening, and Jax isn't standing on the other side anymore. With shaking hands, she pushes it open and gingerly steps inside.
Pomni didn't know what she was expecting, but she's not remotely surprised to find him aggressively pacing the length of his room. He's doing so perpendicular to her, not even sparing a glance in her direction. But she can see his expression and he looks pissed.
She's feeling nervous, but she takes a deep breath and pushes through. If Jax really wanted her to go, he would have closed the door. But he hadn't. Instead he silently offered her entry, and he hasn't even yelled at her, despite his furious expression.
Still, Pomni can't think of anything to say. She doesn't know what will help and what will make it worse.
Pomni taps her finger together, internally scrambling to find something useful to say, but she's drawing a blank. She doesn't know what to do, and she can't just blurt out something random. If Jax abstracts because of her, she'll never forgive herself.
“So what, you came in here to stare at me?” Jax suddenly whirls to face her, glaring daggers. “You think I'm some kinda freak show? Sorry Poms but just cuz we're in a circus doesn't mean I'm an attraction.”
“N-no, I- I just-” her eyes dart frantically around the room and land on Jax's foot tapping a rapid rhythm. Normally she'd think someone tapping their foot was annoyed, but for some reason it struck her as anxious.
The tapping felt too fast, she realized. Pomni looked closer and saw him, really saw him. He was hunched, shoulders to ears, arms folded in front of his chest. Tension quivered though his entire body like a bowstring drawn too tight, and he was about to snap.
Whatever she did, she couldn't let him abstract.
“Jax, I'm scared.”
He flinches like he's been struck, eyes going wide and pupils shrinking to pinpricks.
“You're the one in my room," he hisses. "Go away if I'm so scary.”
Pomni shakes her head and steps forward, feeling a pop of frustration inside. “You almost abstracted.”
“So?” Jax turns away, shoulders hunched. “Who cares.”
“I care!” Pomni yells. She jumps, startling herself with her volume and intensity.
Jax looks at her, obviously surprised. Pomni feels her face heat but she forces herself to keep going. She can't find the right words, but she needs to make him understand. She has to try, no matter how clumsy she feels.
“I don't want to go. I don't want you to go.”
Jax stares at her, slack jawed. Pomni wrings her hands anxiously, staring back at him. She tries to put all the words she can't find into her face instead. If she was smarter she's sure she could say it all out loud, undoubtedly she'll come up with everything she should've said, but right now all she can think to do is try to beam it directly from her brain to his.
His expression becomes blank. It's not working, she doesn't know what to do—
Pomni gives him a tentative smile, though she's sure it looks way too nervous to be real. She inwardly cringes and tries to put every last drop of her sincerity into it.
Abruptly, Jax whirls around and vaults onto his bed. He's still a bit curled in on himself, lying on his side facing the wall. His ears are flat against his head and he holds a pillow to his face like he might scream into it, but he doesn't make a sound.
Pomni hesitates. The only sound in the room is Jax's foot, still bouncing away even while he's lying down. Pomni can feel her heart beating in her throat as she creeps toward the bed. She feels so awkward. She doesn't know what to say, and she's scared to set him off. She's scared to stay, but she's too scared to leave, either.
Eventually he still hasn't moved and she does the only thing she can think of: she gives him a hug. She climbs onto his bed—it's taller than hers, and bigger, probably because Jax is so tall—and scoots closer to him until she can give him an awkward one armed hug from behind. Well, it's more like a cuddle, since they're kinda horizontal, though she's not quite lying down, just sort of– hovering, holding herself up with her free arm.
Jax goes rigid beside her. She bites her lip, nervous she's gone too far.
He moves the pillow just far enough from his face so he can talk. “What… are you doing.”
He sounds so baffled she almost wants to laugh; Pomni thinks she would've if the situation was less dire.
“I'm, uh. Hugging you.”
“...Hugging me,” he repeats.
“Y-yes.” God, this was a horrible idea. What was she thinking?
“...Why?”
Pomni's heart cracks open and she holds him tighter. She lets herself fully lie on the mattress and presses her forehead to his back.
“Because you're my friend,” she says, and you're hurting, she thinks, but doesn't say. If she was certain of anything about him, it was that he never wanted to be seen hurting. “And I want to.”
Jax doesn't say anything else. He doesn't move, not even his foot anymore, and stays perfectly rigid.
Pomni's anxiety swells, but she holds onto her determination.
“If you really want me to stop, I will. But I won't leave unless you tell me to.”
Jax doesn't say anything, but after a minute he starts to relax, and that's answer enough for her.
Pomni starts to relax then too, relief washing over her. She didn't spectacularly fuck it up.
Now that things feel like they're about to imminently end in disaster, she becomes aware of her arm trapped under her body. She tried to focus on something else—like Jax's unsteady breathing beside her, or how shockingly soft his fur is against her forehead.
Pomni is just getting to the point where her discomfort is about to overwhelm her cautious refusal to move (in case it breaks the moment) when Jax twitches. Pomni freezes, scared he's about to push her off of him. Maybe he's uncomfortable too.
But he doesn't, and he twitches again. Then again.
Pomni realizes, belatedly, that it's coming from his chest—his breathing is halting and uneven, like…
She doesn't move, afraid to react wrong. He could be laughing. Maybe he thought of a funny joke. Or maybe he thinks something's really funny about her cuddling him, or something she said. His sense of humor is so strange sometimes, she really wouldn't put it past him.
Then he takes a deep shuddering breath. He presses the pillow so hard to his face she wonders for a split second how he'll be able to breath, then he's screaming. It's muffled and desperate, and for the millionth time Pomni's nerves fly out the window. She scoots closer, and up a bit so she can snake her arm under his neck. He doesn't fight her, so she wraps both arms around his shoulders. She holds him tightly, but stays mindful of his breathing. She doesn't want him to choke because she's squeezing his lungs.
After he runs out of air to scream with, Jax collapses back into his eerily silent crying. He's shaking in her arms, but he doesn't make a noise. Pomni wants to cry too, but she squeezes her eyes shut and focuses on just being there for him.
Jax suddenly pulls away. Before Pomni can figure out what's happening, he's flipped himself over and pulled her into a crushing embrace. He buries his face in her hat and keeps on taking his shuddering breaths.
Pomni hugs back as soon as her brain catches up, but pretty soon she has to break the silence.
“Can't breathe,” she wheezes.
Jax's arms loosen around her, but it feels reluctant. He doesn't let go, and neither does she. He's so tall, he's holding her a little like she's his favorite plushy… but it's not uncomfortable.
Pomni closes her eyes and relaxes. He's not crying anymore, as far as she can tell, and cuddling with Jax is actually… pretty nice, if not a bit nerve wracking. She can't remember the last time someone held her like this.
Her mind quiets, and for a while they just lie there.
But it doesn't last long. A memory, sharp and vivid shocks through her mind, of Jax furious and afraid as he screamed at Caine.
Before she knows what's happening, she's the one crying.
Jax finally takes his face out of her hat.
“Pommy?” Jax says, his voice a bit rough. He moves like he's going to pull away, and she stubbornly keeps hold of him.
“I thought I was gonna lose you,” she says before she can think better of it.
Jax puts one of his hands on the back of her head and cradles her head to his chest. Instead of burying his face in her hat, he simply rests his chin on the top of her head. Jax is holding her less like a plushy, and more like… someone cherished.
Pomni clings onto him for dear life as she starts to sob in earnest.
“I'm here, Pomni. I'm still here.” He nuzzles her head a little, so gently she almost doesn't feel it. “I'm not going anywhere.”
She doesn't cry for very long, too exhausted from the stress of it all to even keep going.
She’s started to drift off a bit when she hears Jax whisper, “I'm sorry I scared you.”
Pomni gives him a little squeeze, hoping he understands. She doesn't know if he gets it, but he doesn't let go, and that's good enough for her.