Chapter Text
Pomni was exhausted.
Which was silly, considering the digital world was supposedly one where they didn’t require sleep.
She supposed it had less to do with the physical side of things, and more to do with the mental fatigue of being awake and active so constantly; a rather important aspect that their digital hell didn’t factor in when advertising the benefits of living non-corporeally, but Pomni digressed.
The point was; regardless of her ability to sleep, her mental exhaustion was enough to equivalent into physical exhaustion for her avatar, and thus, she was as sluggish and not on-the-ball as any other sleep deprived individual.
Which didn’t work in her favour when she was thrown into another high action adventure at Caine’s beck and call.
Well, depending on one’s definition of high action, she supposed. Technically, it was just a maze game, but it was a maze game with obstacles, monsters, and booby traps, something along the lines of a mix of a low fantasy dungeon campaign and a Temple of Doom rip off, so every time Pomni thought she could just walk through an area, something would throw itself at her and force her to get a sprint on. Something she neither had the patience nor the will for, feeling so goddamn tired.
So it was really no surprise when, barely fifteen minutes into the maze game, her foot had caught against the innocuous tilt of one of the trap tiles in the flooring whilst she was fleeing from a sentient boulder charging through the path, and the ground opened up seamlessly beneath her.
Her reaction was delayed, her scream only leaving her mouth once she was already in freefall, and it promptly cut out when her body splattered against the narrow end of the stone tomb. A pained wheeze squeaked out of her from the impact, her lungs pancaked and the rest of her in a bundle of tangled limbs, so she simply gave in to her untimely fate. The boulder, much larger than the trap entrance, casually rolled over the trap and out of sight to the world above.
There was no doubt about it. Pomni had lost the game.
She was fully expecting a GAME OVER tag to appear above her head, or her body to blip out of existence for a brief moment to be teleported to a loser corner or somewhere adjacent, but after a solid thirty seconds with her face plastered against the smooth surface of her prison, she finally smeared her corpse from her landing to blearily look up.
Nope, she was still in the pit.
Did that imply that there were no game overs in this game? Huh. Against her better judgement of wanting to give up and spawn back into the circus to sleep for the next several hours, Pomni was forced to sit herself up and figure out her next steps. Because as nice as it sounded to just give up in a hole until the adventure ended, it wasn’t actually any comfortable down here, and the fact that no spikes had met her at the bottom kind of implied there was probably a way for her to get out of the trap, right?
Well, if she had the energy to try.
Which she didn’t.
Not unless someone was supposed to free her from above or something. But she’d spawned in her section of the maze alone, and it was pretty early into the adventure. Her path probably didn’t reconvene with the others until much further in, if she had to guess.
She leaned her palms against the wall. It, like the other three surrounding her, held to a slightly tilted angle that ensured the base of the pit was much narrower than the hole at the top. The walls held a rough sort of texture to the stone, the kind that lightly stuck to her hand from the friction, but would probably scrape her skin off if she slipped down from it. With a dreary exhale, Pomni forced herself onto her feet. The pit she was in was exceedingly confined in space. Really, she only barely had the room to fit her body in at length; if she wished to lie down, her legs would need to be folded up and her arms somewhat tucked in. This was one of those moments where Pomni was fortunate her body was so small. All in all, it might have been a trap specifically designed for her avatar in mind. She could only imagine how stuck someone like Kinger would have ended up in here. Maybe it counted as a clipping hazard.
Despite this, Pomni was somewhat tempted to use the compact space to her advantage. She could, if she really wanted to, curl up and go to sleep. Give up and await the respawn option whenever it finally arrived to save her.
And she kind of wanted to, but it was cold down here, and everything surrounding her was solid and unpleasantly hard against her body, so it wasn’t exactly comfortable. So, unless Pomni wanted to suffer the subsequent body ache that would accompany a cheeky snooze, she would probably have to try and get out. Somehow.
She tested the sole of her shoe against the wall, but as expected it slipped with little traction and a sharp fwip sound. She sighed.
“Great. Just peachy.”
Giving up was already sounding like a preferred idea.
Squinting up at the opening far above her, it looked to be about a solid twenty foot overhang. She definitely wasn’t getting out of this alone.
All that she really had left to do was call for help and hope somebody passed by.
“Hello!?” She cried out,hands cupping around her mouth. “Is anyone there? I’m stuck!”
Other than the briefest reverb of her own voice bouncing back, it was silent on the other end. Pomni blew a raspberry. Yeah, the odds weren’t exactly in her favour now, were they? Of course nobody would be anywhere nearby within hearing range.
She leaned back against the wall with a sigh, crossing her arms and her ankles, then decided she was simply too tired to stand around and idle. So after unhooking her ankles she slid down the wall until she was seated with her knees to her chest. She propped her head against them with another sigh of complaint. She didn’t want to spend hours screaming in hopes that someone would find her. It would be easier if she just slept the time away until Caine poofed her back to the group.
Fatigued weighed at her eyelids, but she barely had a second to close them when the distinct sound of traction against stone met her non-existent ears, and she glanced back up with a half squint. Then proceeded to have a miniature heart attack at the sight of a face looming over the corner of the pit fall entrance directly above her.
Making a not so flattering sound at the back of her throat, her limbs jolted, karateing the air in front of her, and the Cheshire grin from above cackled at her reaction.
“Hoh man, fighting demons down there Pomni?” Jax heckled, his fingers gripping over the precipice of the hole as he leaned dangerously forward. Pomni’s heart was still surging in her chest, but she at least was able to steal her breath back, scowling up at the rabbit man.
“Har har, very funny. I fell in a trap.”
“Nooo, who would’ve guessed?” He replied playfully, inspecting the pit. “I’d have thought this was your natural habitat, being a hobbit and all.”
Pomni ignored the insult, throwing her arms up. “Look, can you help me out or what? ‘Cause if not, I’m taking a nap. Either help me or leave.”
“A nap?” Jax repeated. “Wow, you’re kinda touchy nervy today. What, don’t wanna hang with your old pal Jax? I can keep you company whilst you rot in your burrow. Keep things interesting.”
He was still leaning precariously over the edge, looking far too comfortable for such an unstable position. If it were anyone else, Pomni suspected they would’ve fallen in by now. “Are you sure it's safe for you to be hanging around? There were a bunch of boobytraps and stuff before I fell in here.”
Jax raised a brow. “Puh-lease, you probably set them all off long before I found you. It’s been smooth sailing getting here.”
“Really?” Pomni asked, “Because I sort of fell in after getting chased by a boulder.”
Jax scoffed. “I think I’d hear a boulder coming from a mile away-”
He didn’t quite finish his sentence, instead pitching forward with a yelp, and Pomni had nowhere to roll to safety to avoid Jax’s entire body plummeting straight for her from the drop. All she really processed was the dark silhouette of his head, followed by the sudden loss of light raining down in the pitfall, and then pain erupted all over her body in one big star-blurring collision.
“AGH!”
“UHMPH!”
Pomni flailed. Recognised the sensation of another, much longer body on her, and struggled moreso. It took Jax a moment to recover from the tumble before he too was floundering, trying to make space between them, but failing once all of his limbs hit every wall surrounding them at once.
“What the-!? Why’s it so cramped in here!?” Jax growled, the side of his fist thumping against a wall angrily. Pomni could hardly breathe from what she could only assume was his knee in her gut, and began wiggling to the side, trying to save herself. The back of her costume dragged against the press of the rock wall behind her, and she hissed at the sting grazing the skin underneath.
“Get off of me!” She snapped, barely making enough room to pull her leg in to force a kick into his side. Jax grunted at the roughhousing, attempting to follow Pomni’s movements to kick her back, but his knee caught against the wall and spared her from the action. He squirmed, all elbows and pointed joints, catching everywhere that was sure to leave scrapes against his skin.
After enough struggling, Jax somehow managed to flop onto his back, partially propped against one wall by his neck; bent too far forward and looking uncomfortable as his legs were forced into a ninety degree angle by the opposite wall with nowhere to stretch. Pomni had managed to spare herself as his cushion, semi-wedged between his hip bone and the side wall. She gasped for breath, the same way Jax was heaving for air from where they were trapped against each other. Unfortunately for the pair of them, there was no space unclaimed by either of their bodies.
“Hah-how the [$#!%] did you fall in?” Pomni groaned. “You were supposed to help me get out.”
She yelped when Jax tried to rotate, mashing her further into the wall as his knee rounded near her side. “Oh shut up! I was pushed! I didn’t wanna actually join you, God!”
Pomni shoved her palm into his face, knocking it into the wall, angry with him and his stupid meddling. “If you’d have just paid attention, this wouldn’t have happened!”
Jax gnashed his teeth, trying to bite at her fingers, forcing her to pull her hand away. “Uh- I didn’t get you in here did I? Don’t blame all your problems on me!”
Pomni was debating actually whacking him for real, before she clocked that it was still dark in the pit. She paused mid-strike to tilt her neck upwards, searching for the entrance.
There was a suspicious round object blocking most of the view to the sky, leaving only the corners of the square hole with any gaps for light to pierce through. Clearly, Jax’s saboteur had sat itself on their only escape route. A frustrated smile ticked at her cheek, before she smugly brought her attention back to Jax’s face.
“Looks like you can’t hear a boulder coming from a mile away.”
He literally hissed at her. Like an animal. “You distracted me!” He bit out, “-with your sad mopey whining about being helpless in a hole!”
“I was not- ugh, I’m too tired for this.” With a grunt, Pomni planted her hands on Jax’s stomach, which jumped under her sudden touch. She began to heave herself forward, knee joining her hands on his front as she tried to free her remaining leg that was still stuck under the very trapped rabbit. But Jax freaked out at the motion.
“Woah-woah what are you doing? Get off me!”
“You are on me,” she corrected, “I’m-uhmph, trying to get out from under you!”
Finally, with one more kick, she managed to wrench her ankle free, faceplanting into Jax’s stomach with another wheeze. He scrambled from all of her weight suddenly on him, his arm pushing her away towards his hips, whilst his legs kicked forward and kneed her right back into his stomach.
“The hell - I said get off!”
Pomni yelped as she was jostled back to back, before she began fighting his pesky overgrown limbs, struggling to pull herself up into a sitting position. “Stop! I’ve got nowhere to go!”
She managed to perch herself right where his ribs met his soft stomach, her narrow thighs like a vice against his sides, simply to keep her upright, but Jax thrashed all the same underneath her like a bucking bronco.
“Pomni!” His voice pitched a bit on the level of frantic at her clambering. He let out a weird noise at her hand clutching at the lapel of his overalls to steady herself.
“I know! But I can’t do anything!” She snapped down at him, trying to ignore how absolutely mortifying it was sitting eagle spread across his torso. Thank God they didn’t have anatomy, because this was the literal worst trope she could think of enduring if she could feel other things in the process. Realising he really couldn’t put her anywhere else, Jax threw his arm over his face. The frazzled twist of his ears above his shielded eyes implied he was embarrassed, something Pomni didn’t see from him often.
She exhaled harshly, feeling the deep ragged breaths shifting Jax’s chest beneath her. The sound swallowed up the tiny space they encompassed, leaving Pomni’s ears ringing and her blood pounding.
“I… don’t know how to get out of this,” she admitted. Jax took a few more breaths before he dared peek at her sitting on his front.
“I hate you,” he told her through gritted teeth. Pomni’s eyelids fell, half-lidded and unimpressed by his contributions. This had to be the most embarrassing thing she’d ever lived through, period.
Clearly, Jax had no solutions to offer either, giving up to his fate as her seat, and with their initial struggle having waned, Pomni’s short burst of adrenaline had worn itself out, leaving her back to her original state of exhaustion. Her eyes felt heavy, and she struggled to keep her head lifted.
She groaned.
“[$#!%] this, I need a nap.”
Jax blinked at her words, processing them, but then yanked his head to his chest when he felt Pomni begin to slide down his body, her hands bracing against his sides. “Woah- now-? On me!?”
“Where else can I go?” She grumbled, shuffling back so that her hips bumped against Jax’s lifted thighs, and her chest met his own. His face was far too close to her own though, so she turned to rest her cheek against the crease of her elbow to escape the awkward stare off. “It’s not like we can get out of here. My original plans haven't changed. Gotta wait for Caine.”
“Pomni, you can’t just - sleep on me,” Jax complained, every syllable he spoke jostled her against him, but she simply clamped her knees a little tighter around his sides to keep her stable. “Seriously! This is weird!”
“Then get us out of the hole,” she bit back, burying her face a little deeper into her arm. Despite all his shuffling, his body was abhorrently malleable underneath her, and even the presence of his bones didn’t hinder how he sort of meshed against her weight like a memory foam mattress. Compared to the rocky ground, her existing fatigue was winning an easy victory, washing over her avatar and turning her into putty against him. What a shame, really, such a plush texture was granted to the most prickly guy on the team. Her eyes were already fully closed, her mouth laxing at the corner of her face.
And yet Jax didn’t rise to her bait and attempt to get them out of the hole. He laid there, wedged and uncomfortable, trapped in every direction, from the crushed in walls to the weight on his front, and the incessant drum of his heartbeat alongside the fluttered whoosh of air in his lungs played like white noise in Pomni’s head. Distantly, she heard and felt the gentle thunk of his head falling back to meet the wall behind him. There was no way that he was comfortable, the way he’d been propped. But Pomni kind of didn’t have it in her to care about him at this point.
“This sucks,” he complained to whoever was listening. It fell on deaf ears, Pomni losing herself to the dredges of sleep. She was pulled down fairly easily, consciousness fading to the abyss, the last thing on her mind being the careful weight of Jax’s arm draping around her back, keeping her steady and in place as she succumbed to her need to sleep.
Pomni had no idea how long she’d been out, but she awoke to the strange popping sound of their universe being obliterated and respawned around them, alongside her body dropping onto one of the Tent’s designated sofas. The impact was soft, but still startled her into consciousness, like being slapped in the face with a pillow. Her head shot up, squinting painfully at the bright saturated colours of their world around her.
“Bwuah?”
She felt drool on her chin. Embarrassingly, she wiped it away on the wrist of her glove.
“There they are!” Caine’s stereo voice announced, far too loud and far too invasive for a freshly awoken individual. “Looks like some of you got a little lost during that adventure, huh?”
The cushions underneath her moved with the motion of another, and behind her, Jax sat up with a groan.
“Ugggghhhh, my neck!” He cracked it with a palm rubbing tenderly at its stem. “Caine, some of those traps were not designed for our shapes in mind.”
Pomni’s head flopped back against the cushions with a groan. Whatever Caine replied with went right over her head, unacknowledged. A much more gentler, friendlier voice permeated her headspace instead.
“Are you alright Pomni?” Ragatha sounded like an angel in disguise, and Pomni peeked open a bleary eye to make out the smudged colour of her hair leaning somewhere overhead. “We were worried when you didn’t make it out of the maze with the rest of us!”
“Oh, and no concern for me?” Jax taunted. “Real classy. Can taste the favouritism from here.”
Pomni stretched her limbs with a grunt, surprised when her foot met Jax’s leg. She hadn’t realised he was still so close by.
“Got stuck in a trap,” she bemoaned, “I want to sleep for another day.”
“Aw, Pomni… Sounds like you had a rough time today, I’m sorry.” Ragatha leaned over the side of the arm rest, her weight making the furniture creak, and Pomni finally found it in her to lift herself up into a sitting position. “C’mon, let’s get you back to your room. You can sleep the rest of it off in peace there.”
Pomni hummed her agreement, and barely found her legs in time before Jax had already sprung off the sofa, walking away with his hands behind his head. Pomni wondered if he was just as exhausted as she was, considering the circumstances she’d sort of forced him into.
Well, not really forced him into. He could’ve avoided it by not gloating over her head before getting pushed in. Maybe it was karma or something. Pomni didn’t know how these things worked.
But Jax neither voiced what they’d shared together nor complained further, simply strolling away. Not even towards the direction of their bedrooms, so who knew what his plans were. Pomni decided the best course of action was to also keep quiet. It was easier for the pair of them if they didn’t have to acknowledge the forced proximity, especially around the other cast members. They might use it as ammunition against Jax, but Pomni also didn’t want to be on the receiving end, especially since it was her idea to just. Sleep on him.
Yeah, that was kind of weird, wasn’t it? But she was so fucking tired, so sue her.
Ragatha walked alongside Pomni until they made the trip to her door, evidently slowing her pace just for Pomni who hobbled with the lack of strength she’d yet to reclaim. Apparently it had been a couple of hours, the whole adventure, and Jax and Pomni had been stuck for an additional half an hour before Ragatha was concerned enough to prompt Caine into finding them. So Pomni was sure to thank Ragatha for the save regardless.
She waved the ragdoll off as she closed the door behind her, then made no effort to lift her feet as she heaved herself onto her bed, feeling like a slug as she clambered over her sheets to faceplant against her pillow.
She inhaled the familiar scent of her pillow fabric, but the sleep she so desperately craved to return to didn’t immediately seek her out like she’d intended. Instead, she found herself dissatisfied with her position, and grumbled as she re-positioned herself, moving her pillow from her head down to her chest. She wrapped her arms around it like a weight she craved against her stomach, fingers skirting its edges, but that didn’t feel right either.
The pillow, being the inanimate piece of stuffing that it was, didn’t pulsate with steady, rhythmic breaths, nor did it resonate its own body heat to lend to her. Her hands ghosted across its shape, but no malleable ribs danced under her fingertips.
She glared down at her pillow, then rolled onto her back with a sigh. She wanted nothing more than to just pass out again, but now her thoughts lingered on how her short little body fit so snuggly against his lanky torso. And how open and exposed she felt in comparison to the wide expanse of her bed.
Well shit.
This was not the wake up call she needed.