Chapter Text
Jax heaves pathetically in front of the bathroom mirror. He can hear the sound of the audience clapping and cheering, but it's muffled like he's underwater. It doesn't matter, though. He couldn't give less of a [BOINK] who won the stupid popularity contest.
Or about Pomni.
He'd only ever approached her out of boredom, unsatisfied with the other circus members and their predictable reactions. Pomni had been fresh meat, something new and different.
He remembers the buzzing in his head, not with genuine joy, but with the fleeting thrill of a child who'd lost interest in all his old toys, only to be gifted a shiny, new one to play with. A toy that, like fickle children tended to do, would be discarded after it served its use.
So he'd poked and prodded at her, testing how much he could get away with. He'd wanted to get under her skin and see what made her tick.
Because that's what did it for him, really. The entertainment of peeling away a person's layers and exposing whatever raw, unattractive part of themselves lay beneath.
He does it for the love of the game, because that's all it is to him - a fun way to pass the time.
Except he'd liked what he found underneath Pomni's anxious demeanour. He'd liked the funny, interesting soul nestled within the cartoonish jester body.
And when Pomni, who hates physical touch, hugged him, a warmth had bloomed in his hollow chest. That familiar sense of companionship and
he's lost this before
his skin burned where she touched him.
And when Pomni flashed him a smile he didn't deserve and called them a team, his heart had gotten stuck in throat and
he'll lose this again
he knew he'd played with her too long.
Jax's head snaps up as the door creaks open and he smooths his strained features into an inscrutable smile. The smile that keeps people guessing, so sharp that he can wield it like a weapon. And this time he turns it on Pomni.
"Can't a guy get some privacy around here?" He barks out a humorless laugh.
Pomni grimaces, looking everywhere but at him. "I just wanted to use the bathroom."
"Well, as you can see, it's occupied," he says, as if stating the obvious.
Pomni glances at the empty wooden stalls and back at him. He's still leaning over the sink, a thin sheen of sweat beading at his temples.
"Are you...okay?" She reaches out as if to touch him and he makes the mistake of flinching back, a crack in his facade.
She's still acting like they're friends. Like Jax hasn't already burned that bridge before she
got too close
got the wrong idea.
"Get out," he snaps through gritted teeth.
He swallows down his small, beating heart that whispers stay.
"Fine, I'll go then," Pomni bites back, but there's an undercurrent of hurt beneath her even tone. She angles her body towards the door, taking a step before changing her mind and spinning back around on her heel.
"No," she says stubbornly, "you don't get to push me out."
Whether she means it literally or figuratively, Jax doesn't care. He needs her out before the tightness in his chest overtakes him.
So he pulls out a pistol from his overalls and levels it at her. It's like they're back in the circus: two people, one gun. Except, this time, the betrayal is Jax's to claim.
"I said, get out."
"You won't do it," she states with a baseless certainty.
"You really think you know what I'm capable of?" Jax's golden grin stretches impossibly wider and sharper.
Pomni says nothing, only stares down the barrel of the gun, unflinching. Some part of her must still trust Jax, must still think of him as a friend despite everything.
He doesn't understand how someone like her doesn't jump at the chance to cut ties with someone like him. Someone who gets a kick out of hurting people, someone barely human.
That's what scares him about Pomni. He can't easily fit her into a neat little box like he can with the others. She's too real and complex for him to reduce her to a single archetype. And when he'd tried to during the gun adventure, pushing her to categorise herself for him, she'd continued to act in ways he couldn't predict.
When she hesitated to betray him, when she was supposed to be the evil archetype, it makes her all too human. And Jax comes to the terrible realisation that she's become someone instead of something to him.
It's horrifying, that what had drawn him to her in the first place has become his Achilles' heel. Even more so that he knows she'll keep pushing back at him unless he puts a stop to it.
"God, Pommy, you really think I give a [BEEP] about you," he scoffs, shaking his head in mock amazement. "You could abstract right here and now and I'd forget you by dinner."
He ignores his buried, bleeding heart that screams liar.
"Get it into your big head that you. mean. nothing. to. me."
He wonders what face she'll make. It's his favourite part of provoking people. He takes pleasure in pushing them to the brink to see how far he can go, chipping away at their composure with every taunt until they break under the pressure.
Except when Pomni's face crumples and she bites her lip like she's trying desperately not to cry, Jax can only feel a strange emptiness. It leaves a bad taste in his mouth.
Because what does it mean if he doesn't enjoy her suffering?
The room suddenly feels smaller, even with only two people in it. He needs to get out, to be anywhere but here, but Pomni's blocking the door and still looking at him with those big, pinwheel eyes. The room swims and distorts, floor meeting ceiling, mirrors reflecting dozens of Jaxes looking back at him.
He can barely
breathe,
can
barely
think
but his mind clears when he sees an escape in the firearm in his hand. So he turns the gun on himself and pulls the trigger.