Chapter Text
It's not long before Pomni is painfully aware of the fact she's getting jolted awake from her slumber.
She snaps awake with a gasp, jerking forward, her head colliding with a wall, the shock sending vibrations down her skull. But it isn't just her head humming from the pain, is it? Her seat is vibrating, wobbling her up and down.
Her eyes blink twice, adjusting to the harsh midday light of the sun from the window—that was the wall, huh? Her seat is cold to the touch, and so is her body, gooseflesh across her digital skin, frigid from the cool air from the air conditioner above.
A bus. She is on a bus. With a big burly gingerbread man, dressed in loose fitting attire scowling down at her with an icy frown.
His voice is harsh, thick of accent and not with any hint of compassion, screaming in her face.
“Oi? Is this your stop?”
Let her breathe, damn it. Sucking in a deep breath—lungfuls of plastic, leather and petrol. She gauges her worldview from the window that broke her skull. Concrete road beneath the bus. Plains that rolled beyond for miles on end. No trees. No houses.
Memory comes down on her like rainfall, wiping away the fog of sleep. Digital Circus, suggestion box. Satisfaction, adventure. And this is certainly not a good start.
An arm slathered with sugar waves in front of her face, snapping her back. “I said, is this your stop?”
“Oh,” Her voice is tainted with sleep, gravelly and sharp as her hands—wait, they have no gloves—pat around the cobalt seat and turn up with nothing. “Y-Yeah, I think? Yeah. Maybe this is my spot? Is it?”
“Well, I don't care if it is! You're the last person left and I have a life to get back to!” Gingerbread tugs around her arm, cracking into biscuity crumbs across the seat and spreading icing around her wrist. “My wife is in the hospital and giving birth! To six kids! SIX!”
“What the—okay, okay, okay!” Her foot taps against something nestled in the ground: a red and blue backpack, small and glided with gold zippers, laying on the wall of the bus. She scoops it up with a newfound urgency, shooting up from her seat and brushing past the conductor to the exit. Some long lost memory bubbles up to the surface, of pushing against empty seats; a last push on a tired school day. This felt that way now, nearly eight years later, still scrambling to race down the steps as the bus shuts the door with unforgiving speed.
She tumbles into the road, the cobblestone grating against her hands. A rush of air whips against her ears with the deafening squeal of tires, and Pomni is only inches away as the vehicle races off into the sun, rattling down the endless road with a shrill cry.
Well, good luck with the kids.
Pomni brushes the dirt and sugary grime out of her arms and clothes, checking her body for injuries out of sheer impulse and decides to zero in on that new anomaly; her hands.
She no longer had gloves. Skin, digital skin, wrapping around the bones of her fingers, unnaturally pale, cut fingernails. It is trance as she slides her fingers down the rest of her arm, relishing in the newfound sense of touch. Long forgotten was the ability to truly feel something with her hands with that accessory. It is nice. Familiar.
It doesn't take her long to realise her outfit is completely different, too.
She wears a pale blue sweatshirt, the hood bundled up to her neck, and she eases back. Beneath her dusty torso were grey jeans, flared and comfortable, wrapping around till her feet, where that met ankle socks and tennis shoes. Normal. She is… normal. Strangely, entirely human attire.
Pomni does not know what she looks like from afar.
She gets the odd feeling someone might be calling her name, but she's unsure and lost in the atmosphere of where she is. Chilly wind gently lifts her hair, the sun beating down liquid light upon her face. And still, no trees. Nothing, actually; the grass stretches out for miles to her naked eye, only the road in the middle to mark the difference between the green carpet.
Stranded, basically. In the middle of nowhere.
The feeling finally reaches her ears, and she turns round towards the sun.
Squinted eyes note a familiar figure racing down from the side of the road, a car parked in the distance, too far to make heads or tails of. More people around it. But this figure is racing closer, bounding down the path, louder and louder until she reaches earshot.
“Pomni! Pomni!”
Ah, if it isn't for the familiar lilting voice, the features in her face would have given Ragatha away any day. Pomni meets her pace, sprinting until they meet the middle, halting just before collision.
“Pomni!” The doll gasps, kneeling down to take in a shuddering breath. “We were waiting for you. You're the last one to arrive.”
Late, but not fashionably, considering Ragatha's strained expression, still attempting to ease itself out.
“I didn't mean to be,” She answers, gripping her sleeve. “The only thing I know of is getting kicked out of a bus by a gingerbread man with a vendetta.”
“Yikes,” Ragatha says, working her jaw. “I guess we all had different vehicles when we arrived. I came in a taxi, it wasn't so bad.”
Pomni takes a minute to scan Ragatha's new attire: a weathered turtleneck, true to the name with its color, lime green, bell-bottom pants and ivory falls that somehow slid perfectly under her stumpy feet. She smiles.
“You look comfy.”
“This outfit isn't so bad,” Ragatha wraps her arms around her elbows, coming up to wrap herself in a hug. “It's comfy. A welcome change from my old dress, honestly. I'm glad Caine's being so gracious with these costume changes.”
Pomni acknowledges such and looks past her, to the mini people in the distance, surrounding the thing she is even more sure is a car. “Is that the rest of them?”
“Mhm!” She gestures towards it. “We've been waiting around it for a while. When I saw you leave the bus, I ran all the way here.”
Pomni notes the gesture, returning it with a shaky smile. “I mean, I guess I'm glad I'm here now.”
Ragatha points her finger towards the car, already taking her next few steps, albeit a much slower speed. “Walk and talk?”
Pomni nods, a wry smile to match hers, but her memory still remains unclear, the clear cut rules still not defined in her head, especially not after the new revelations with her clothing. “Could you tell me what this adventure's supposed to be? I-I can't really seem to remember.”
“Oh, yes, of course!” She beams at her. “Caine decided to finally take up a request from the suggestion box, with our own spins in it!”
“I think I remember that much,” but clearly not enough, “but what is the adventure?”
“Well,” She gives a nervous laugh, fidgeting with the hem of her collar. “An hour of talking in the sun has kind of made me forget, myself. I don't think we really planned anything before you came. But it has something to do with a long car ride!”
Cooped up in a metal box for hours, if that constituted long enough? If someone had suggested that—it could very well have been herself, though that isn't exactly her idea of chill, just stressful—then the chase for mundane must have been more desperate than she imagined. Now, as the memory became clearer, she does remember not opposing it compared to some other, but the uneasy feeling back then and now felt entirely the same.
Car rides, especially those that lasted just too long for comfort; Pomni doesn't recall them being a thing of liking, not in the real world, anyway. Squished into a car meant too much touching. It meant rooted in uncomfortable spaces that could range from horrible music, frequent temperature drops, crunching her feet against potato crisps plastered on the floor, reminiscent of rotten cheese. Car rides were never pleasant, not to her uncomfortably detailed memory. No matter who she was sharing the space with.
Someone howls from the distance of the car, flailing their hands and cupping them around their mouth to yell louder.
“Hurry up, slowpokes!” Jax hollers, his irritatingly pitched voice reaching their ears without permission. “Some of us have places to be!”
Ragatha's lips press into a thin line, brow crinkling against her eye. “We had to put up with him for so long. He would not stop complaining.”
Pomni can only imagine that sort of plight. “Was he that bad?”
“Very.”
They reach their vehicle, and she doesn't mind it so much—white and wide, kind of like a Honda Civic, if it matches her hideous knowledge of cars. And considering whether Caine had knowledge on them or not. But yup—closer glance—Civic, whether by coincidence or intention.
The rest of the cast lay scattered around the centerpiece, and it takes a minute to register the immediate shift from circus attire.
Gangle and Zooble are atop the hood of the car, the former comfortably dressed in a frilly shift, fitting around her gangly frame, a little pink skirt to match. Cute and soft, and that reflected off the smile on her face, lost in conversation with the latter yet polite enough to glance at Pomni's direction and give her a shy wave.
She waves back.
The abstract is much more formally dressed; a dress shirt wrapped around her body, around the oddities of her limbs with pants sinking low enough to graze the floor.
“Butterflies!” Kinger cries, scooping up palmfuls of nothing in the air as he wanders round the right of the car, towards the road side. His coat contains no difference, but his mood certainly does, blinded by the sunlight dipping on them.
And Jax; he leans on the opposite wall of the car, tapping his fingertips together—also gloveless. He's sporting thin pants with a black, matted jacket, a graphic t-shirt on the inside, splayed with graffiti gibberish. One leg propped up against the car door, the other thumping on the ground.
He's also the first one to break the silence, looking at the pair with a smile that stretches for miles. His stare at them is watchful, almost calculating, on spotlight by the sun and eyes fixed on more Pomni than Ragatha. Taking her in. The thought sent nerves juggling round her body.
“Looks like the sloths have arrived.” He says, hissing out each word like a snake. “Couldn't you have come any faster? Jesus.”
A muscle ticks in Ragatha's jaw, gaze narrowing sharply. “At least I had gone to get her! Someone had to! You try running in his heat.”
“I could totally do it faster.”
“Well, why didn't you go?”
“Pomni,” Zooble interrupts the two of them, their voice husky and parched. “Uh, glad you arrived. We can finally get moving. It's really hot as hell out here.” Gangle nods.
She's aware of the sweat beading behind her neck, dripping down, hot and damp in her loose jet hair. No kidding. The sun is relentless today; not animated, but fervent enough to make them suffer.
“So, what exactly are we doing here?” Pomni asks.
“The calm adventure. The one Caine finally promised us,” Zooble looks relieved, even when weighed down by the heat. “I mean, we went through the craziest shit to be here, but it's not so bad.”
“Oh, right,” Jax drawls, incredibly amused. “The one where you had to fight a dragon. Real cinematic stuff. You were all over the place. Literally.”
The abstract grumbles. “Need I remind you who the damsel in distress was?”
Jax goes quiet, eyes snapping into dots.
“That's right. Nice purple gown out there. Classy.”
“Shut up,” Jax mumbles, raising a hand to block the rays of the sun. “This is boring. We did all that work for this nonsense?”
“Give it a chance, Jax,” Ragatha says, voice blooming with irritation. “It's a breath of fresh air.”
“Yeesh, the only breath I'm getting ‘s the stink of petrol.” He isn't wrong. The overwhelming odour circles around the vehicle—something might be wrong with the gas task. Oh well, points for realism for that.
He keeps rambling. “What was it again? Chill car adventure. And to go where? Somewhere chill for a bit. Seriously?”
His complaints fall on deaf ears as Zooble's gaze suddenly turns weary, pensive in the heat. “Say, could you check if you have the keys for the car? We've been locked out and checked what we have.”
They're talking to her. “The… keys?” Pomni's hands unconsciously travel to the strap of her backpack, strung over her shoulder—she can't recall when she'd slung it there, oddly enough.
She pulls it aside and unzips it to reveal its surprisingly normal contents. A notepad and pen, a water bottle. Antibacterial wipes. Sanitiser, a bag of chips—hey, that could come in handy. The ghost of an essential packed bag without the essentials. Where is the phone and purse? How could she possibly be on the side of the road with no money on her?
She's in the Circus, that's how. And nothing here could really be as close to real as it could get. Fake wipes. Fake chips. Fake keys—well, fake but needed enough. Zooble's arm claws against their sleeve, waiting impatiently, a clock ticking in their eyes.
Pomni quickly flips the backpack to its front when she turns up with nothing. “Wait, give me a second—” The front zipper. She tugs on it with too much force, fishing around the fabric.
A chime. A jingle. Cold metal hits the back of her hand, hidden in the sleeve of the pocket. She pulls the object out, and the black key shimmers in the light, a sheen travelling down across its end. A key chain dangled from the opposite end—Bubble, plastic and grinning, a gremlin smoke spread across its serated teeth.
Ragatha smiles. “Looks like we finally have it, guys!”
Pomni tosses the key to Zooble's waiting hand, who unlocks the key with a soft click. The car chimes in response, blinking lights with the same kind of relief.
“Finally!” Jax exclaims, picking himself up from the side and clapping his hands, a sharp sound. “God, it was getting so hot in here.”
Hot, yes, and the wind with the same temperature, like sand against Pomni's cheeks. The bus was so much cooler—too cool, now that she thinks of it—and that lingering cool had long since faded.
Man, it really is hot.
The abstract’s already started the engine, a long and loud whirr from the waiting car. “I'll drive?” They ask, looking around for approval. “We can take shifts, me on the first.”
They called “sure” in clashing tones, Jax's response different but unable to be grasped.
Zooble let themselves in the driver's seat, but when Jax throws open the door to the front, they slam their hand down.
“Nope. Gangle's sitting here.”
Jax blinks, incredulous. “Okay toybox, who died and made you in charge?”
“Well, first off, I'm driving. Secondly, Gangle needs her space,” they shoot looks around the rest of the cast; right, that recent ribbon collision problem, “and I don't want her cramped up in the back. Thirdly, I don't want her cramped up with you in the back—”
“Okay, Christ,” Jax barks, slamming the door up front and throwing open the one behind with so much force it makes the whole vehicle shake. “Forget I asked.”
“You didn't even ask.”
He shuffles to the left most seat, propping his elbow against the handle with a dissatisfied scowl. Gangle looks uncomfortable; perhaps not necessarily with the seating arrangement but what Zooble had said to get her there.
“You didn't have to do that…”
“Now, you know what you need.” Zooble says. “Hop in.”
Gangle nods, shakily, allowing herself in with a grateful smile.
“Go on, Kinger,” Ragatha urges, gently pushing Kinger behind Jax, towards the middle seat, and the chess piece looks around in wonder, plopping himself down with a wave to his seatmate. He does not return it.
Ragatha adjusts to her seat beside him, dusting her turtleneck and stretching her legs. Still out in the hot sun, next to her open doorway, it takes too long for Pomni to realise what the problem is.
“W-Wait, where do I sit?”
She darts around for that extra space, the likeliness that she isn't missing something. But no—packed with people, realisation dawns on the rest of them, Ragatha already flailing in distress.
“There's only five seats,” she says, looking at the rest of them for an answer.
A lump in her throat, worry seeping into her spine before she can swat it away. Of course the car would only have five seats. Is it only because of Caine's negligence, or is it of the face that their ringmaster still hadn't adjusting things to her presence? Pomni thought she’d been here long enough, but situations like these wouldn't stop hitting her, would they?
The rest of the car has already dipped into chaos. “Of fucking course there wouldn't be enough,” Zooble curses. “Caine just had to screw this up.”
“Maybe Pomni can… share the front with me?” Gangle asks. Her expression is all considerate, but she can catch the conflict behind her void-like eyes. Shoving up in front with her with defeat the whole purpose of Gangle being there. And while Zooble also looked ready to help, it is clear even they are against the idea.
“Are we all sure there's no extra space?” Ragatha tries shifting to her left, but she barely moves, not even an inch, Jax voicing his discomfort with an inconsiderate shove back. “Can she sit on the dashboard?”
Zooble shakes their head. “We'll have to curl her up into a ball to fit.”
“Whoop de do,” Jax sighs, mixed in with all fake empathy. “Maybe we could make the smarter choice and leave her here.”
“Jax, no!” Ragatha wails. “We can't do that!”
“Kidding. Maybe.”
“Is there no place in the car she can fit?”
“It's not like we can make it any wider!”
“That's what she said!”
“Shut up, Jax!”
There it is, that yawning in Pomni's gut, the urge to send her hand flying to her ears, blocking the buzz of layered voices. She's already considered the idea of an incredible lack of space; is she cursed to the idea of none?
It must have reflected on her face—maybe the curl in her brow. She's been told it’s a bad habit of hers—because Jax is looking at her, cool and calculating, his stare loud amidst the chaos. It sends something flipping in her chest. Anxiety? Maybe.
Something shifts in his expression, and before Pomni knows what to make if it, he's slamming his palm against Zooble's extended, triangular head.
“Ah, ta ta. Shush. Sssh.” He lengthens the word, drawing out the suspense in the following quiet.
He smirks. “I have an idea.”
“Oh no,” Gangle whimpers.
Ragatha glowers, burning holes through his rabbitoid head with her stare. “If you even think about shoving her in the trunk—”
“Of course not!” He shrugs, mischief twinkling in his eyes. “Well, not until you've given us that wonderful idea.”
The doll's jaw drops, lower lip quivering and ready to object before he shakes it off.
“But that isn't it.”
His voice lowers into something teasing, locking eyes with the jester with a hush. “Pomni,” he used the silence, bringing his propped arm down to his lap with deliberate slowness, tapping his thigh. Once. Then twice.
A wink.
Pomni gasps.
“She's not sitting on your lap!” Someone cries.
A betraying flush seeps in her face, warmth from embarrassment, the suggestion, the obvious tease. She knows what he wants. He aches to see her squirm.
Everyone's already voicing their disagreement, save for Kinger—who blended into the background, transfixed on her alone.
“Are you seriously suggesting that?” Zooble offers him a deathly glare. “The last time she was left alone with you, you threw her out of a moving truck.”
He did, hadn't he? Pomni hasn't forgotten, not really. But the anger didn't remain anymore, not since days ago.
“Relax. No one's getting thrown off. I can be nice when I wanna be.”
She hates the way he says nice here. Like it's some kind of foreign word. Because, truth be told, it doesn't seem that alien to him. Not in Pomni's eyes.
“Jax, please, you can't be—you just can't—” Ragatha stumbles over her words, looking up at Pomni with concern. “You could, y’know, always sit in my lap, if you're interested.”
“Oh, wow,” Jax's cheshire grin remains, but there lay actual offense in his tone. “So I suggest it and somehow that's wrong, but you can? God, the audacity.”
“Because you wouldn't hurt her!” Ragatha's expression is serious, grave, and that makes it matter more. “You can't hurt her.”
“Who says I'm going to? Such little faith in me.”
“For good reason!”
Pomni's squeezed throat chokes it out before she knows. “Guys.”
Silence envelopes them all again, and Pomni is sighing, sweat trickling down her brow, the sun a spotlight as she speaks.
“I—I think if I’m going to be sitting, I should be able to think for myself, right?” She doesn't mean the annoyed tone, it just comes out. Without meaning to.
She doesn't take it back.
The quiet is a gut punch to the rest of them, Ragatha looking away briefly in shame, Zooble muttering a half-hearted, “Shit, sorry.”
Jax's smile strains.
Ragatha turns back to her, eyes swimming, breaking the silence with a question. The question.
“Pomni,” she asks, low and slow. “Who do you want to sit with?”
A hand on her chest. “Me—”
Her voice tightens. “—or Jax?”
It's then when Pomni is reminded of how much she hates making these kinds of choices.
She choose a cubicle profession for a reason; no big choices, no life altering decisions. Just choose which years worth of reports went to her coworkers’ desks, and remain under the tables and columns. It's not the task she hated, it was the strain of it—the anxiety creeping back to her in the night, a mistake, wondering and wondering if she hadn't completely fucked up.
Worse, when it came to social situations. Pomni didn't even attend parties, not to her memory.
Here, things mattered. Her standing, the trip, the hours she would spend holed up in the lap of someone, too much contact, forced to stare up at their face, all awkward smiles and averted eye contact. And both choices, waiting for a final answer—
The doll, or the rabbit. One or the other.
Ragatha or Jax.
Her gut chose something she can't take back.
“I think I can adjust with Jax.”
She blinks. Oh God. She just said that.
His smile widened. “See, I knew you'll come round.”
Nearly half the van recoils, Zooble very much more than bemused. “Seriously? Are you sure?”
Ragatha looks crestfallen, and sinks in her wrinkled face that a smile doesn't seem to wipe away fast enough. “Oh! Uhm, s-sure! Your choice, Pomni!” Her voice comes too happy, too quick, too big a skip in her varied gestures. “You're… you are sure, right?”
Pomni swallows the lump in her throat. Does she take it back? Does she know what she's getting herself into?
That night stargazing. The talks she had. The sides she saw.
She'll be fine enough.
“Yeah. I'm sure he wouldn't do something drastic. He offered it, anyway.”
“Hey, don't third-person me—I'm right here,” He says, but he's still smiling.
Pomni slowly shuts the door and travels behind to the opposite end, trapping the last few warnings Zooble said to Jax in the car.
She opens the door to his cheeky grin. He adjusts the space around him, gesturing to the space with twinkling fingers.
“My lap's all yours.”
“Don't phrase it that way.”
A thousand different kinds of regrets circle her head as she notes the tiny space, the amount of contact, and… this. Just this. Terrifying.
Carefully, she lifts her feet, planting them on the car floor and slowly—with the slightest tremor—places herself on his lap.
Immediately she feels the contact of his jeans, the heat of his breath, and the crushing feeling of being too close.
The door shuts behind her, nailing her coffin in, and she barely tries to keep herself calm. She could feel herself leaning into him almost immediately, her palms on his chest.
Shit, palms on his chest!
“Relax,” he drawls, though there's something in his expression she can't place. “I don't bite. Well, unless you want me to.”
Literally everyone gapes at him from the car.
Whatever retort Pomni had planned dies in her throat as she just… takes him in. His wicked smile. His laidback demeanor, leaning against the seat to look at her up and down from the edge of his lap.
Her backpack slips from her shoulder, dropping to his seat with a light thud. Her breathing hitches. Her mind goes haywire.
She hastily breaks eye contact, leaning against the door and adjusting herself well enough so she doesn't have to see him or allow him the reward of seeing her probably beetroot red face.
“So, what's the plan?”
She sounds like a croaking frog.
Jax laughs softly.
If Zooble notices the way she is absolutely panicking at her position, and has a million regrets that all started with Jax—they don't say anything.
“Might be on the screen.”
Her mind helpfully offers her the distraction on the fitted screen on the dashboard. How many inches wide is that thing? Seven? Eight?
She doesn't get to count because Zooble's frantically tapping the buttons, and the screen comes to life with a vibrant ping.
Pixilated colors spread across the screen in blinding lights, easing out into a familiar frame—a map. Sprawling greens, waters of blue, and forests up ahead. And a red little path, stretching itself across the road for their aid.
A text box.
Caine's Chivalrous Campsite
Rerouting…
7 hours 57 mins
Her brain rounds up the numbers. Eight hours.
Eight hours in this metal thing.
No other text on the screen—of the stops and cities and landmarks—are indiscernable, AI generated nonsense save for the very thing that is sending her head in spirals.
She cannot survive that long in this guy's lap.
“You don't have to, Pomni,” Zooble adds, like they read her down to the T. “Like I said, we can take shifts. You can take the driver's seat at one point.”
Yeah. That doesn't sound too bad.
“Does anyone have a watch?”
She doesn't see him, but his arm flies around her waist, the other connecting with that wrist. A cage. A cage of arms.
And worst of all, his head draws closer. Close enough that his breath ran down her neck.
But he isn't looking at her.
He rolls up his dark sleeve, finding a watch wrapped round his wrist. Flashy, gold, like it meant something.
Two tiny arms pointing to three straight lines.
“Three o’ clock,” Jax says, resting his arms back on his thigh. Good, there goes the cage.
“We'll reach there before midnight!” Ragatha chirps. “An overnight camp. How exciting!”
Zooble adjusts the gears. “Everyone ready?”
No.
The car starts with an abrupt jerk that sends Pomni flying back into Jax.
Her head snaps perfectly under his jaw.
And he lays his head on it.
She turns into a billion pieces of panic. The numbers only grow higher.
Tap your index and thumb together rapidly when you're stressed, someone she knew had once said. That usually helps.
Her fingers may be tapping at the speed of a drill but that doesn't stop her hummingbird heart.
Light from the furious sun rays upon the car, dust motes flailing in the light like a dance. Kinger and Ragatha spark up a new conversation after the farmer's inexplicable silence, and Zooble and Gangle begin discussing the road ahead.
No one looks at her. Except Jax, grinning behind her ear, just to hammer this home. She swallows, looks down farther to hide her eyes from him, hating this emotion and the avalanche in her chest that comes with it.
She's a corpse in a car, dead before speaking.
She's dying before sunset.