Chapter Text
Of course Caine picked one of the loser's adventures from the suggestion box. Now Jax is stuck wandering a corn maze. “I hate this stupid place” He mumbles to himself, eyes glued to the ground, he already tried to cut through the maze but the maze cut back, so he's stuck doing it the boring way. He kicks a sizeable rock as hard as he can –imagining it as Zoobles head– sending it over the top of the horrible excuse of a plant. From the pathetic yelp and sound of shattering ceramic it hit Gangle dead on. “Jax! Why would you do that?!” he hears Ragatha yell over Gangles sniffling. He can’t even find it in himself to be entertained, the yellow stalks taunting him from every angle. His shoulders squared even further as he tries to keep his walk casual but his pace is never lighter than a jog, he keeps running into dead end after dead end. Panic is starting to creep up his throat after what feels like hours of wandering getting vertigo as he looks up at the sky
“Jax!” He jolts as he hears Pomni call out from behind him, his head twists to see the jester walking towards him calmly. He raises his eyebrow “Didn’t you get out of here first?” He recalls hearing an announcement that she escaped a while ago while he wallowed in his fiber filled prison. “Well we all got out actually, but uh you were taking a while so I decided to come find you.” she says with a small smile. I like when she smiles...anyways “You came to rescue me? How sweet.” he winks at her while internally hoping that God would take mercy on him and burn this maze of misery to the ground. “I, the exit is this way if you wanna follow me” she says pointing behind her with an awkward but amused look.
“Lead the way Pom Pom” He says falling into step beside her. She grimaces at the nickname “Pom Pom?” her expressive eyes squinting. I wonder what color her eyes were before. “What? You don't like it? Does this token of our friendship mean nothing to you?” She giggles lightly “Um, can I get a different token?” "Ouch you wound me Pom Pom” “Okay like seriously? Don't call me that, it sounds like a dog's name.” “Whatever you say cutie” it takes him a second to realize what he said before he pauses feet suddenly glued to the ground, Pomni stopped dead in her tracks as soon as he said it. …What? “Wha-” Pomni gets cut off by Zooble appearing around a corner, they sigh when they see Jax unharmed. “Oh !@mn the corn didn’t get you?” they deadpan going back to the clearing where Ragatha and Gangle are chatting while Kinger is intensly staring at a fallen piece of corn. Jax quickly jumps at the distraction. “Zoobie! You don’t mean that, do you” He puts on a fake pout. Why did I call her that!?!? – why did I mean it? – “Oh !$#@ off you fruitcake” Zooble rolls their eyes going to walk away but Jax dramatically leans against them “You wound me Zoobie” They give him a blank expression and move to the side making him fall to the ground with a cartoonish thump. He hears stifled giggles from everyone but Pomni, he looks up and see a FUCKING EAR OF CORN, so this is what hell feels like.
He lets out a resounding yelp and jumps back scrabbling onto the closest thing which happens to be our unfortunate jester, his long rubber hose like limbs clinging to her like a lifeline “Someone get that… !@#$ing thing away from me” Zooble grabs the corn, holding it up “you still not over the corn thing?” Jax was about to retort in a very manly way when Pomni cuts in, slightly muffled by her arms being full of Jax. “Um I get that this was supposed to be funny but I think the jokes are tired by now, can we all just go back to the circus?” Ragatha chimes in with her signature cheery voice “The adventure wasn't so bad, I think it's great to do some easy and fun ones sometimes!” of course you’d say that you licorice haired freak
Caine snaps into the adventure with a loud snick “WELL DONE MY LUSCIOUS LOLLYGAGGING CREW OF CANINES” he opens a portal to the circus gesturing for them all to exit the adventure with a flourish of his cane. “how do those names keep getting worse?” Zooble says as monotone as possible. Bubble pops up right behind Zooble eating the cob still in their claw whole, taking their claw with it. “Like a seafood boil :D” Bubbles eye falls off. Does Caine have any control over that thing? And how did it say that? Jax feels himself getting steadily lower to the ground as Pomni speaks “could you let me go? I don't think I can carry you any longer”He looks down and sees her knees slowly giving out and decides to be merciful and let her go. He clears his throat pretending that his face doesn't feel like it's on fire. “Glad I didn't overreact huh?” he jokes weakly, putting his hands in his pockets. The group walks back into the oversaturated place they call hell- I mean home.
Jax throws himself onto the communal couch –taking up two thirds of it with his lanky limbs– as everyone settles back in, Kinger throwing himself into his fort. “SO EVERYONE HOW DID WE FEEL ABOUT THIS ADVENTURE WHERE NOTHING EVEN HAPPENED?” Caines booming voice asked. “Well with Pomni it was pretty great! Who knew you had such a great sense of direction!” Ragatha’s cheerful tone grating in Jax’s ears, even worse Pomni seems flattered. She’s such a suck up, what does Pomni see in her anyways? “I hated it and if we ever go in a corn field again I’m feeding Zooble to the Gloink Queen again.” He throws an arm over his face blocking out the light. “HAHA SO TRUE JAX LETS NEVER DO A SUGGESTION BOX ADVENTURE EVER AGAIN. BUBBLE!” Caine snaps himself and Bubble to God knows where, leaving the circus in relative peace and quiet except for Ragatha’s incessant chattering with Gangle as they walk down the hall. Jax feels the couch dip near his head, shifting his arm reveals Pomni looking down at him, head cocked slightly. “You okay Bun Bun?” she says, her face giving away that she’s clearly messing with him. Jax freezes in disbelief. “are you… trying to tease me?” a grin spreads across his face as Pomni laughs “I thought I’d try it out” “I can’t have you taking my job now Poms” She stands moving in front of him. “Is it really yours if I can steal it that easily?” Jax wasn't listening anymore, I wonder if she’s still short in the real world, I was pretty tall before this so maybe hers is accurate too. The fluorescent lights somehow catch her in a soft way, framing her form. Beautiful. She looks…beautiful. “Hello?” The word cuts through his inner monologue as he zones back in, her face now twisted in confusion. “Is everything alright?” he stares at her for far too long, anger and panic spinning throughout his body, unsure of what to do.
“Just tired of seeing everyone's dumb faces” he drawls in a way he hopes is convincing “And Zooble is even higher on my kill list then they originally were” Oh god not again. Pomni just raises an eyebrow and sighs before saying “maybe if you stopped torturing Zooble they wouldn’t do it back?” her tone shifts slightly panicked “I just mean that, you do tend to start things” “Wow Pommie I thought you were my friend, why are you taking their side?” He crosses his arms. Please no. I’ll lose her too She pauses, smiling. Jax squints “what? Why are you looking at me like that?” his eyebrows knit together. “You're actually calling us friends,” she answers “it's nice” Her smile gets bigger and he can't handle being here anymore. “Yeah well” he stammers “as much as I'm enjoying our tete a tete” He stands far too quickly, stretching out his arms, looking anywhere but at her. “I'm gonna go take a nap.” “Oh, okay, I’ll just… go find Gangle, I guess. She wanted to show me a new drawing of hers” He barely waits for her to finish her sentence before walking calmly –practically running– to his room, shutting the door swiftly.
About halfway to his bed his legs give out and his knees hit the ground, hard. He lets his head drop to his hands, fingers curling around the base of his pinned back ears. “@!#$ no no no” He sobs out, eyes rapidly filling with tears. I can’t do this again. He mindlessly repeats no over and over and over again, seeing her timid smile in his mind. They have the same smile. A sob breaks from his throat again, his knees aching from the fall and palms wet with tears, he crawls over to his bed shoulders shaking as he pulls himself onto it. He brings his legs up thunking his forehead onto his throbbing knees that still hurt less than the hollow pain in his chest. He lets the tears flow, and flow, and flow, and flow. I could never be what she would need. A pained pathetic sound rips itself from his throat at that thought. She's good. She's really good, and I’m…me. What could she ever. Ever want from me. He bites his lip harshly trying to muffle the wounded sounds he's making. Eventually the tears stop. leaving Jax in a suffocating silence only broken by his shaky breaths. He lets his legs drop once his breathing evened out, he stares numbly at his door, waiting. But he has no clue what for. The only person who would just walk into his room is gone.