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Jax woke up feeling terrible. His head was pounding and his body felt heavy. He was shivering underneath his blanket, yet felt all too hot. Jax shut his eyes, hoping for this to pass, drifting off into a restless sleep.
KNOCK KNOCK
Jax startled at the sound of knocking. He lay still in the bed, maybe whoever that is will go away if they think he’s not here.
A feminine voice he can’t quite place speaks from behind the closed door, “You okay in there? You haven’t come out of your room all day.”
Jax groaned. A whole day? Did he miss today’s adventure? He pushed himself off his bed, wobbling slightly, and headed to the door.
Cracking the door open, he was greeted by a redhead. Ragatha.
“I’m fine. I was just napping,” Jax responds, voice scratchy and dry.
Ragatha looks him over and Jax rolls his eyes at her concerned expression. She holds her hand to her chest as she asks, “Are you sick? You don’t look very good…”
Jax squints at her. They can’t get sick in the circus, what a stupid question. “I just said I’m fine. I’m just tired.”
“Right…” Ragatha reaches her hand to his forehead and Jax has to stop himself from flinching at the sudden contact. “Oh gosh! You’re burning up! Let’s get you back in bed.” She tries to guide him back to his bed but Jax pushes her off him.
She falls to the floor and Jax steps over her, letting his signature smile cover his face. “Again. I’m fine. I’m out of my room, I’m not dying, chill out.”
Jax walked down the hall, ignoring Ragatha’s calls and trying to head to the couch area of the circus but found himself disoriented. The layout wasn’t quite making sense. Normally he would walk for a bit, take a turn and then be at the staircase. But he found himself almost falling down the stairs after what felt like just a few seconds of walking. Did he space out? He’s lucky he caught the railing, that would’ve been endlessly embarrassing. He could hear Ragatha catching up to him.
“Just let me help you downstairs at least.”
“Oh my god. Back off, dollface. I don’t need your help.”
And that’s the truth! He’s perfectly capable of walking down some stairs. He looks down at them. It doesn’t matter if they’re twisting into each other. God, he should probably just call Caine to fix whatever this is but he’s not about to do something like that while he’s being watched by Ms. Worrywart, that would just validate her saviour complex.
He shakily takes it step by step, Ragatha trailing annoyingly close behind. He’s halfway down when he loses his footing. Before he can go crashing down, he’s caught by his arm and steadied.
Ragatha stays silent as she helps him the rest of the way. Jax begrudgingly lets it happen but turns his face so he doesn’t have to look at her.
Jax shrugs Ragatha off of him as soon as they reach the ground floor. He stumbles a bit but Ragatha doesn’t say anything, just readies herself to catch him if needed. And she didn’t need to so now she looks stupid.
Jax scoffs and starts to walk to the common room but pauses. He squints at the area he’s in. Just like in the room hallway previously, the layout is off. And now that he’s really focusing, so are the colors. It's so much duller than usual.
Jax shakes his head. There's only one way to go, so at least he's not going to look like an idiot for taking a wrong turn.
He pretty quickly finds the couches- er, couch. There's only one now. Why is there only one?
Jax flops down onto the sofa, taking up the entire length of it. Ragatha, who still hasn't left, stands awkwardly behind it, fidgeting with her hands.
“Can you buzz off? You keep staring and you might find some multi-legged friends in your room~”
Ragatha looks at him for a minute before nodding, “Alright, uh- I’ll… leave you to it.”
Huh. Normally that’d cause her to freak out more. At least she’s gone. Jax waits a few minutes before quietly calling out, “Caine?”
…
The AI doesn’t respond. Which would make sense, Caine had a tendency to ignore everyone, but Jax isn’t like the others. Caine was, like… obsessed with him or something. Caine had a tendency to watch him whenever he could. Jax had gotten good at catching his “all-seeing eyes” following him. Maybe Caine is distracted and didn’t catch his name being called?
Jax was about to try again when he heard footsteps. He looked up to see a short woman with black hair, holding a glass of water.
“...Pomni?” Jax questioned.
The woman seemed to contemplate before responding, “Hey, Fe- uh. Jax.” Well the voice definitely belonged to the Jester. But there’s something major missing.
“Where’s your hat?”
“Didn’t feel like wearing it today,” she shrugged and sat down on the couch arm, taking a sip of water.
“Wha-” Jax sat up. “You can take it off? Why do you get clothes changing privileges?” Jax grumbled.
Pomni smirked, “Wouldn’t you like to know~”
“Uh, yeah. I would, actually.”
“Hmm…” Pomni held her water towards Jax instead of answering. “Your voice sounds awful, just so you know. Here.”
Jax glared at the water like it would hurt him. “I don’t need it. I’m fine.”
“What was that? I can’t seem to understand you.”
Jax let out a groan and snatched the water out of her hand. He takes a swig of it. “Happy?”
“A little bit. I’m sure you can do better, though,” Pomni challenged.
“I know what you’re doing, Pomni.” Jax stares at her. She stares back. Minutes of silence pass before Jax chugs the whole glass.
Jax despairingly throws up jazz hands. “Ta-da. There you go.”
Pomni claps her hands. “Oh, wow. I didn’t really know if that would work. But hey, you sound marginally less shitty!”
“Yeah, yeah, whatev- wait. Did you just curse?”
“Uh. Noooooo?” Pomni looks anywhere but at Jax. She should really work on her poker face.
“Yes, you did! You said ‘shitty’!”
Jax stops. The censor… is gone? And Pomni was able to get around the clothes restriction?
Jax looks at Pomni, “What’s going on?”
Pomni sighs, “Okay, just- before I say anything, know I didn’t tell you right away because Ragatha had told me you seemed disoriented and I didn’t want to freak you out.”
Jax narrows his eyes at Ragatha’s name but gives a short nod for Pomni to continue.
“We’re not in the circus, Jax. We got out.”
He’s out.
“It’s been a month now.”
That would mean… No. No, it just can’t be true.
“And we go by our real names now…”
If Jax is out then that means he’s somewhere here.
“I’m Christine, remember? And you’re-”
He’ll find Jax.
“Are you- Are you okay? Hey-”
Jax can’t go back. Felix can’t.
“Felix! Hey! Breath!”
Felix flinched, hard, when he saw hands coming towards him. But no pain came, instead a firm weight pressed against his own hands.
He makes out a voice, just barely over the static filling his ears. “Breath. In and Out. Like this.”
His hands are brought to a chest and he can feel its rise and fall along with overexaggerated breathing.
He lets himself follow along. He hadn’t realized how erratic his own was until it finally settled. Felix’s eyes focused on the person in front of him.
Silky black hair, pulled up into a ponytail. Bangs that were cut just before they covered her amber eyes. Christine.
“You good?” Christine gently asked.
“My head’s fucking killing me,” Felix responded.
Christine laughs, “Yeah, I bet. Will you admit that you’re sick now and take some medicine?”
“...Fine.”