Work Text:
Ragatha has never really felt jealousy before. What was there for her to be jealous of? She grew up moderately wealthy and had a stable job before being thrust into this digital hellhole.
So no, she had no need to be jealous of anything.
She was lucky.
She was blessed, as her mother constantly liked to tell her (though this only came up whenever she was “talking back”).
So when at the bar, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Jax leaning in to hug Pomni, and spewing apologies he didn’t mean, angling to get the one-up on the ragdoll. An odd sensation began simmering beneath Ragatha’s usual composure, growing more intense as she watched.
A peculiar feeling began to form in her chest—a sensation persistent and strange, unlike anything she had experienced before. It startled her. It was like a hand tightly wrapped around her cotton heart, squeezing just enough to leave her breathing. Every inhale felt like tiny daggers cutting up her insides.
The feeling continued to grow throughout the lightning round of adventures.
The smiles, the laughter, the touching…
At first, she chalked it up to being worried about Pomni. Jax never had noble intentions, and his sudden "genuine" behavior raised alarm bells. Still, something else didn’t sit right.
With a groan, she slammed her head on the counter of the digital shooting game at the digital carnival. Usually, Ragatha would avoid this place like the plague. It’s too loud, overstimulating, and at the sun’s whim, your avatar can feel a burn close to an actual sunburn. But at night, it's more tolerable. Certainly prettier! The lights make the place glow like a piece of heaven on earth—or on this digital earth. They give it a more homey, welcoming vibe.
She tilted her head up, resting her chin on the wooden counter while questions buzzed in her brain, refusing to stop.
Why Pomni?
Why now?
Why, after everything, did he open up to someone new?
Bitterly, she even wondered if he was just trying to replace Ribbit, but as soon as the thought came, it left.
No.
Jax would never do that.
But the tight grip in her stuffed heart wouldn't settle. She clenched her chest as some red locks fell in front of her face. She closed her eye, hoping that staying still would slow her racing heart.
Yet in the dark, her thoughts took a harsher turn.
This is good, right?
Zooble and Gangle have each other.
Pomni now has Jax and vice versa…
Kinger is easy to have small conversations with; he just floats in and out, happy in his own world.
They don’t need her.
Jax certainly doesn't.
So why not…let go.
The darkness began to slowly edge away. Bright lights formed a brigade. She knew she shouldn’t approach them, yet their warmth and allure were irresistible. And...
So peaceful.
No worries, no pain, just her and the lights, their soft glow seeping into her seams, melting the ache inside until only numbness remained.
Staying here didn’t feel so bad-
BANG.
The doll jerked upright, her gaze sharpening from the rainbow of colors to the cool, darker glow of the digital carnival. Everything blurred. She barely registered the gun beside her head, which cleanly toppled the stack of cans before her. She felt someone grab the side of her seat, turning it around to face them.
Purple.
Yellow.
Coral?
The person spoke, but she couldn’t hear over the ringing in her ears. A harsh tug on her licorice locks finally snapped her out of it, and he came into focus.
Jax stood there. To anyone else, he’d seem unbothered, almost bored. But she had known him for so long; she recognized his tells. Jax was stiff; his eyes were narrow black squares. His usual smug smile felt cheap and far too wide for comfort. He was not amused.
He flicked the gun aside, placing his hands on his hips.
“Wow, Raggy.” He drawled, and she had to swallow a lump in her throat. “Really overreacting to one little awkward day, huh?”
“Go away, Jax,” she mumbled, tired. Shooing him with her hand, she spun her seat back around. Yet Jax grabbed her wrist, yanked her forward, and, stumbling, she fell off the chair.
He seemed not to have planned beyond getting her attention, so as she fell forward, crashing into him, he froze. Eyes dilating as he looked down at the intruder in his physical space.
Huh.
How funny he can bulldoze through everyone else's boundaries, but the moment his are overstepped (even accidentally), he looks as surprised as the people he torments.
Another thought wormed its way into her head.
When was the last time Jax was touched by anyone else out of their own free will?
Did he miss the feeling of Ribbit’s hugs?
Deciding to test this theory out, Ragatha shuffled her hand out of his grip, hesitantly wrapping her arms around his waist. She felt him tense, but he let it continue.
The earlier suffocating grip in her chest was gone. Now, a small, light beating took its place as she buried her head into his chest. The purple fur felt warm and ticklish against her fabric skin, a sensation she had always loved. Feeling it again, she realized how much she’d missed it.
This felt...nice....for only a second-
Jax seemed to have snapped back to reality as he grabbed her by her shoulders and roughly pushed her back. She slammed into the wooden countertop of the shooting game so hard that if she were in her human body, it’d leave bruises.
Jax stared at her, dumbfounded, almost in a mocking way, as if to ask what other reaction she should have expected.
“What the f##k is wrong with you?” She snapped, standing up, rubbing the back of her head.
Jax, slipping back into his mask, flashed a broad smile.
“Don’t know what you mean, Dollface.” He stared off nonchalantly as she looked at him, stupefied. “I was merely trying to have some shooting fun before I saw your sad, raggedy, pathetic self causing a damper on the mood.”
He tilted his head in that infuriating way of his that made her want to snap his head all the way off and throw it into the bottom of the digital lake.
She pinched the space between her eyes.“Why do you always gotta do this?”
“Do what, doll?” He smirked. “Be fun to your never-ending boringness?”
“Ruin every genuine thing you have... If you keep acting this way, you’ll lose Pomni!” It slipped out before she could stop herself.
Oh shit.
Her eye went wide with sheer terror as Jax’s smile vanished. She is a deer in his headlights, and he’s pressing his foot on the gas pedal.
“Jax-”
“Oh, I see,” he chuckled darkly. “This is what this alllll about-”
“Jax, please-”
“You’re upset I broke through to the jester-”
“That’s not-”
“That she prefers ME over you-”
“Jax, listen-”
“Jealousy doesn’t look good on you, Rags-”
“I'M NOT JEALOUS OF YOU, I'M JEALOUS OF POMNI.” The ragdoll yelled, stepping forward with her fists clenched.
She paused.
She and Jax seemed stunned at her little display. He was more so because he didn’t think she had it in her to yell at him like that. For her...
The words she had just spoken rang back in her head.
Is that the truth...?
All these feelings, foreign and weird to her, were sparked by the want of...
Jax.
She missed him.
She missed them.
She is jealous of Pomni for breaking through the walls she can’t anymore. God, she's so stupid...
Ragatha grips her wrist, eye glancing up to see the damage she's done. Surprised to see Jax still very much caught off guard by her confession.
His eyes are still dilated so black there’s barely any yellow, and his ever-present smile has been thinned into a straight line.
She kicked herself internally for whatever reaction she was hoping for. Jax isn’t one to be vulnerable...or real...
The doll mumbled some vague apologies for whatever she did this time; she really didn't know, she was just tired and wanted to leave.
She began walking back towards the circus tent when she felt two arms wrap tightly around her waist. Stunned, she stopped in her tracks, which let the rabbit bury his face in the crook of her neck.
What the hell is going on?
What should she do?
Should she say anything at all?
Her hands subconsciously rose to lightly graze over the wrists wrapped around her waist.
She heard a small inhale but no more indication of a like or dislike.
As she opened her mouth to speak, she was cut off.
“Shut up, don’t speak.” Came a muffled interjection from the rabbit as he buried his head a little deeper. “Let’s just....stay like this....so the next time..you’re being weird..just remember…so you can stop being stupid..”
Her heartbeat is running a damn marathon.
Jax is...
She closed her eye, but the lights from before didn’t return. She knows by tomorrow they will all go back to the way things are.
But for now...all that matters is this moment, and all she can see is purple.