Chapter Text
Someone knocks on his door and Jax already knows who it is before she tries calling out to him.
“J-jax?” Pomni’s voice sounds small, smaller than her already three-foot tall stature. He snorts at his own stupid thought before the tiny grin slips from his face as Pomni’s voice continues to drift over his unwilling rabbit ears. “I know you’re in there. I ju-just want to talk…and you know, make sure…you’re okay.”
Go away, Pom. He rolls his eyes at the jester who can’t leave well enough alone and turns on his side, facing the wall with his back to the door. He figures if he ignores her long enough, she’ll take the fucking hint and leave. him. alone.
As if she read his freaking mind, she knocks again and calls out in a stubborn tone. “I’m not leaving until you open the door and answer me. Please.”
He groans, covering his face with his hands. “Stupid, annoying jester,” he mutters before rolling onto his back. He blinks, exhausted, at the ceiling. He hasn’t been sleeping much since the ‘Escape the Circus’ adventure. He thinks it must’ve been a couple days since that debacle.
Jax shut himself in his room before anyone could stop him and hasn’t left it since.
“I know yesterday…was a lot. For all of us. But no one’s mad at you,” Pomni tells him, staying true to her promise in her typical way.
Crap, it’s only been a day? It feels way longer, but he’d been tired before that when…
Jax stops that thought in its tracks, glancing at the corner of his room. There is nothing there but solid wall. No ghost hands reaching out to him. No Caine trying to mess with his mind. And there’s not going to be. Not again. They don’t need to sleep in the digital world.
So he just won’t. Easy.
Right.
He sits up with a groan as Pomni knocks again. He swings his legs to the floor, standing.
“Jax, this isn’t funny! I’m really worried about you and-and if you keep ignoring me, I’ll-”
Without much thought, Jax strides over to his door & swings it open, cutting Pomni off mid-threat.
“Or you’ll what, shortstack? Break the door down?” His pupils expanded, he grins down at the jester.
The goal was to intimidate her, but the joke falls flat when he sees those cartoonishly big eyes have actual tears in their corners. Is her lip trembling?
But worst of all is the worry etched in her dilated pinwheel pupils.
Crap.
The grin falls from his face.
“Tsk. As you can see, Pomni,” he gestures to himself in a sweeping motion, “I’m fine. So you can quit it with the whole ‘caring friend’ routine. Thought I made myself pretty clear the other day-”
This time, she interrupts him in a blink as her annoyance rules out over her apprehension. “Stop that!”
“Eh, stop what?” He has a sinking feeling playing dumb will only make things worse, but what else can he do?
He’s too tired to deal with this right now. He’s questioning why he even bothered to open his stupid door to begin with.
He wants to take a nap. He wants to forget, all of it. Deep down, he thinks he wants to disappear altogether.
But he also doesn’t want to abstract to do that. Not if it’s because of Caine messing with him.
Pomni’s shrill voice brings him back to their conversation, well, argument, now.
“Stop trying to act like you don’t care when we both know that’s bull[?%!$]! God, I only came here to try and talk with you! To make sure you’re okay! After all th…”
Pomni trails off her tirade, blinking up at him. He belatedly realizes he’s been too quiet, and he hasn’t been guarding his expressions behind a nonchalant grin. Her eyes dart around his face, searching for a crack maybe or something else. She doesn’t like what she sees. There’s a familiar set to her jaw, the same one he saw in their fight the other day when she asked why he didn’t fight back.
Why doesn’t he fight back?
“You’re not okay,” she says, lowering her voice to a gentle tone.
The understanding in her voice snaps him out of it faster than anything and panic hits like a bucket of cold water.
Shitshitshit
He looks away from her, staring at a corner of the hallway with a half-hearted (the best he can do right now) grin back on. “Eh, what-what are you talking about, Pom? I just said I’m fine.”
He drags his gaze back to hers, pupils wide and convincing (god, please let it be convincing) so she can’t tell he’s lying. Why can she always tell he’s lying? Why her, out of everyone?
“Jax.” Of course she sees through him. She calls out his bullshit with one word and a slant of her eyebrows.
But his armor doesn’t crack so easily this time.
“Pomni.” He parrots back at her, keeping the mocking cheery expression on his face. His grip on his door tightens a fraction. He seriously considers slamming it in her face and locking it. But then it’d just be him and the yawning darkness of his room, the corner beckoning him to look again and see.
He doesn’t want to be tempted to reach out again, to close his eyes and not wake up as…him. Even when it hurts, he’d rather stay out here with her in the glaring light.
They stare at each other for an indeterminate length of time. So long it almost becomes a game of chicken. Who will crack first? It almost makes him chuckle, but he stops himself from making the mistake of losing.
Pomni never seems to care much about losing when it comes to him. She’s the first to blink and takes a deep breath, holds it for a beat, and lets it out slow. Her next words are careful, measured, almost casual.
“Look, if you don’t want to talk, that’s fine. Whatever. I won’t try to force you again. But you look like [?%!$] and I don’t think you should be alone right now.” Towards the end, she has trouble holding his gaze and self-consciously wraps one hand around her opposite arm across her middle.
When she’s not looking, he feels his mouth twitch and pupils retract before widening even further.
He knows what to do. He should crack another joke about her coming on to him. Make fun of her for trying to play therapist with him. Or just straight up laugh in her face, tell her to screw off, and slam his door closed.
He does none of those things and she notices. She probably expected him to not take her seriously. And here he goes, proving her stupid chicken-fetus-in-a-egg theory by not playing his role like he should.
But maybe he can still save some dignity at least.
Before she can try speaking again, he scoffs and lets go of his door to lean against the frame. He crosses his arms in front of him as he does, letting his ears sag just a bit. His grin loosens into something more natural, almost relief if he let himself feel that.
“Heh, what? Are you saying we should all have a sleepover or something, uh, silly like that…” He cringes at the end, more so at his uncharacteristic lack of wit than at the idea of a sleepover.
Oh my god, I’m so fucking tired! What the hell was that lame finish?
To his amazement, Pomni actually giggles at his response. The tension in her shoulders loosens as she brushes a strand of her hair back despite not being completely able to. She looks relieved he’s not shutting her out again and a warm feeling flutters in his chest as he watches her. He tries to quash it, but it won’t go away, staying lodged inside. Annoyed, he chooses to ignore it, not having the energy to try and figure out what the feeling is. He focuses on Pomni’s voice as she responds.
“Well, actually, that’s kinda what the rest of us have been doing since yesterday. At least when it got late. Zooble and Ragatha needed some space for a little while, but Gangle, Kinger, and I stuck around each other to talk and then we just ended up in Kinger’s pillow fort. None of us wanted to go back to our rooms by ourselves and Zooble & Ragatha, I guess, felt the same way cause they eventually came around looking for us. Everybody’s still at the fort now.” She’s rubbing her neck towards the end, looking almost sheepish.
“Wow, I’m hurt, Pom Pom. Did you all try to forget about me until just now?” He wonders in a dry tone and a bat of his eyelashes, hoping she can’t tell he’s half-serious about the question.
It’s not like he really cares per se, but Pomni’s the only one who’s come to check on him. And it’s not like he can really blame them either if they were trying not to think about him.
He remembers she mentioned through the door earlier that none of them were mad at him, but he’s not sure he believes that. He’s still pissed at himself, even after finding out the truth about Caine.
For some reason, his response triggers her anxious nervousness and she nearly trips over herself in rebutting him, “What, n-no! It wasn’t intentional, we just - it just didn’t seem like you were ready to..”
He cuts her off before she can really spiral, his tone gentler than he planned, “Ha, easy, Pom. You know I’m just messing with you, right?”
There’s a moment she pauses, looking up at him with something like surprise before familiar annoyance floods her expression.
“[?!@]hole,” she tries to deadpan, but the small grin gives her away.
“The one and only,” he says with pride, straightening to bow partway with a flourish. It earns him another laugh from her which he sees up close when she doesn’t step back right away. The flutter in his chest grows stronger and he stands up straighter, suddenly unable to look at her head-on.
Not gonna think about it. Not gonna think about it.
He’s doing a lot of that today, he guesses.
“Anyway,” he says, attempting to put some distance between that thought and whatever he’s feeling. “Not to be a bummer, but not sure how I feel about hanging out with everybody else right now…as hilarious as it would be to see the looks on their faces if I were to actually show up and crash the party.”
The first part is the truth. Pomni is one thing. It’s not as much as effort putting on an act for her when it’s just the two of them. Probably because she sees through him so easily, but everyone else is another story. He’s exhausted just thinking about keeping up a smile for the rest of them.
“Oh! Uh, that’s alright, we don’t have to go hang out with the others if you don’t want to. It can just be the two of us,” Pomni rocks back and forth on her feet as she speaks and isn’t looking at him as his stomach twists into knots at her words, as casual as she said them.
Ugh, I need sleep. He grumbles to himself, blaming his body’s reactions these past few minutes on sleep deprivation. He almost believes it and that’s good enough for now.
“Fine by me. So, your place, then?” Jax acts like he’s agreeing to an offer she already made, stepping into the hallway and shutting his door without a backward glance until he hears it click shut. Pomni stumbles back a couple steps to make room, shooting him a brief glare at his rudeness as he turns around to lock his door.
“Suurree, that’s fine,” Pomni mutters after letting out an exhausted huff of her own. He wonders how much sleep she’s gotten herself since yesterday if she’s been with the others the whole time. He can’t imagine it was easy with Dollface probably hovering over her like she’s made of china.
“But I should probably let the others know, so they don’t worry and try to check on me. Do you wanna wait here or in my room? It shouldn’t take long,” Pomni asks carefully, watching his face again when he turns back around.
He actually appreciates she doesn’t assume he’d want to go with her to see them, even if only briefly. He takes a moment to think about it. He should be fine in the hallway and it probably wouldn’t be so bad in her room with the light on either way.
But he also doesn’t think he should be alone right now. His eyes almost stray down the hallway and that urge helps him to make up his mind.
“Nah, I’ll come with you,” he says with practiced nonchalance, “I’ll just let you do all the talking.”
Shoving his hands into his pockets, he starts walking down the hall without waiting for her response. She sputters for a moment, caught off guard by his actions, before he hears her footsteps jog to catch up to his longer strides.
“Ha, we should get you a tricycle so you can keep up with those little jester legs of yours,” he quips as she reaches him.
“Hardy-har, so funny, Jax,” she puffs with a roll of her eyes, too out of breath it seems to come up with a better retort.
Without trying to be obvious, he shortens his walk to match pace with hers. Not because he cares; it’s just cause he already made his joke and it’s no longer funny if she keeps lagging behind.
It’s quiet for most of the walk after that. The bright lights of the circus have perked him up some, but weariness still drags at his bones. He’s fine with the silence, even though he notices Pomni glancing up at him every other minute or so, like she’s either waiting for him to bolt or make a punchline. He ignores her and the tingling on the back of his neck every time her eyes wander to his face.
When their eyes meet by accident, his pupils widen by surprise while his grin widens on purpose.
“What? Something on my face?” It’s a testament to his years in the circus he keeps his voice from wavering, even if his tone lacks its usual bite to his ears.
Thankfully, Pomni doesn’t seem to notice and after a beat, starts sputtering, flustered.
“Uh, ah, no! Sorry, I just..” she trails off, looking away towards the ground.
“You just…” He wonders with a mild snicker, leaning down a bit to try and catch her expression.
Is she blushing? He notices the lighter red dusting the red dots on her cheeks.
The fluttering in his chest makes a sudden reappearance, stronger than before. For some reason he refuses to discern, he feels heat rush to his own face. He straightens quicker than a whip, stiff as a board.
Whatthefuckwhatthefuck
What. The. Fuck. Is. Happening.
It’s the sleep deprivation, he reasons with a tint of desperation to his thoughts now. Has to be. No other explanation.
Absolutely none.
It’s at this point, before the sudden tension in the air becomes too noticeable, that they round the bend around a comically huge blue block and Kinger’s fort comes into view. Jax notices Ragatha pacing just outside of it, her typical worried look on her round face. It works better than if he’d splashed cold water on his face.
He stops walking and leans his back against the block after a few steps. It takes Pomni a few seconds to realize he’s no longer beside her.
“Huh? Oh,” she pauses in her tracks, turning her head back to look up at him.
“You go on, kid. I’ll just wait here until ya get back,” he gives her a crooked grin, closing one eye in a slow wink.
“I’m not a kid, you know,” Pomni scoffs, returning his grin with a small smile. “But alright, I’ll just be a minute.”
It’s at this point Ragatha notices them and her eye meets his. She glances between him & Pomni and he catches the moment the concern when she’s looking at Pomni morphs into a glare directed towards him.
Yup. He knew it. Definitely still resentful there.
His grin widens into a Chesire smile and he raises one hand in a wave towards the uppity doll. Some things he just can’t help. Antagonizing Ragatha just happens to be one of them. She stiffens, hair sticking out comically as her glare narrows, intensifying from resentment to rage.
Pomni notices, of course, glancing back at Dollface when Jax waves. She gives an exasperated sigh, shaking her head at him. The smile she had now dropped to a disappointed frown.
“Jax!” she groans.
Before he can think, he’s already parroting back at her in a too-chill tone, “Pomni.”
He crosses his arms in front of his chest and kicks one foot behind him against the block. He steadfast ignores the immediate pinprick of worry that nibbles his insides that she might change her mind.
‘There’s nothing more to me…so please, just stop looking.’
He closes his eyes against the memory, struggling to hold his mask in place.
There’s a pause. A prickling on the back on his neck as he feels Pomni’s scrunity. She sighs again, something heavier, something that for some reason sounds like it has genuine worry in it when she speaks next.
“Just stay right here and try not to get into trouble. I’ll be right back.”
He opens his eyes at the sound of her retreating footsteps, pupils blown wide as he watches her jog to Ragatha still seething in front of the pillow fort.
Why? Why does she.. keep….
He vigorously shakes his head for a moment to scramble his thoughts, glaring at a spot on the ground in front of him, ears sagging a bit. He realizes he’s breathing heavy and struggles to get it under control. He breathes in for a heartbeat and lets it out the next. He repeats the process a couple more times, feeling a bit calmer by the third breath.
It’s only been a few seconds, maybe twenty, but his fingers start tapping against his arm, impatient for Pomni’s return. He glances up, cautious since his mask isn’t fully back on, and sees she’s already reached Ragatha. He tries not to look at Ragatha too much, focusing on the back of Pomni’s head as she speaks animatedly to the other circus member. They’re too far away for him to catch anything they’re saying, even with his rabbit ears. He thinks that’s probably for the best when he does peek at Ragatha’s expression every now and then, seeing the worry and suspicion there that only seems to grow as Pomni continues to talk.
None of the other circus crew come out, thankfully. It’s bad enough Rags has seen him and already looks ready to tear him a new one. He only has his imagination to fill in for how everyone else would react.
Maybe they’re not really mad at him, like Pomni tried telling him, but with Caine M.I.A and them left to their own devices for the time being, he’s really the only option left to take their frustrations out on.
If he wasn’t already exhausted and was feeling more existential, he might have just let them have at him. After all, what else is his archetype good for when there’s nothing left to laugh at after pushing the boundaries a bit too far?
His gaze has drifted to the floor again. His head feels like it’s gotten five pounds heavier all of a sudden. Not to sound like a broken record, but he really could use a nap right now. Or maybe a fourteen-hour coma so deep he dreams of nothing…
Jax’s ears prick at the approaching sound of familiar footsteps and the faint jiggling of bells, and he snaps his head back up, finding Pomni’s gaze as she jogs back to him. She looks relieved, whether to find him still right where she left him or that her conversation went well, he couldn’t say. Maybe both, though.
“You know, I’m thinking that tricycle might actually be a good idea. Maybe we should start hunting around for one for ya?” He calls out once she’s within earshot because his damn mouth apparently can’t help itself.
She rolls her eyes at him, coming to a stop a few steps away. Out of a breath and with a grin back on her face, she quips, “Sure, Jax, but only if we can also look around for a muzzle for you.”
He snickers. “Kinky.”
He pushes off the wall to stand, placing a hand on one hip.
She doesn’t get flustered this time, which he privately admits is admirable for her.
“I’m not even going to dignify that with a response. Ready to go?” She hooks a thumb back the way they came.
“Aaffter you,” he says, waving his arm forward as he steps to the side.
He earns another giggle from her. “You’re so weird.”
She starts walking again and Jax matches pace with her once more as they retrace their steps to Pomni’s room. He doesn’t look back once at Ragatha or the fort. And it’s only after they turned the bend around the blue block that the prickling on the back of his neck recedes.
They banter back and forth for a bit on the way back, the conversation never straying far from safer topics. It almost freaks him out, how easy it is to slip into their old routine from only two days ago. But every laugh he hears from her, every smile she gives him, keeps the panic at bay. It doesn’t hurt that she doesn’t pester him with personal questions either.
He missed this. He actually missed her.
I am so screwed. His sleep-addled mind helpfully realizes.
Because he knows this truce or reprieve or whatever it is won’t last forever. He knows she’ll eventually ask him things he doesn’t want to answer. She’ll wanna talk about the stupid adventure he still can’t believe he was actually right about…
Most of all, she’ll want to talk about their fight. And what he did yesterday.
Jax knew he should have slammed the door in her face when he had the chance. It’s not too late to ditch her. Say he changed his mind. Lie about going to take a nap and try to keep himself awake for god knows how long he could keep it up. She’d probably believe him…
“Jax,” Pomni calls out questioning and it startles him out of his thoughts.
“Huh? Wha-”
They’re back in the hallway surrounded by the doors to the bedrooms. He hadn’t noticed, he’d been too busy looking down at her and making his plans for escape.
“…You better not be thinking about ditching me after we just walked all the way to Kinger’s fort and back,” she says, squinting up at him, suspicious.
He can’t meet her gaze all of a sudden. “Well, now that you mention it, I am getting pret-”
“Jax,” she interrupts his lie in what’s quickly becoming a familiar tone.
Annoying mind-reading jester…
And because he’s apparently a sucker for schticks, he parrots back to her almost automatic. “Pomni.”
Feeling the needling of her stare, he dares to meet it with a playful grin. They make it the last few feet to her door through their new stare-off. She stands with her back to it facing him, crossing her arms in front of her chest. Hand on hip, he stands in front of her, feeling the coldness of his door behind him. It goes on for a few more seconds before he scoffs, breaking the tension.
“Geesh, Pom, still can’t take a joke, I see,” he rolls his eyes for good measure which she does not appreciate by the way annoyance starts rolling off her in waves.
She blinks at him, as if she knows he was about two seconds from bolting (which he was contemplating before deciding running right now would just be suicidal being exhausted already).
“Uh huh.”
Still keeping an eye on him, she opens her door and steps through, leaving it open behind her for him to follow or not. Before he can overthink it again, he walks in and closes the door for good measure.
He actually hasn’t had a chance to snoop in here yet. He did find her spare key a few days after her arrival, but he never got a strong urge to actually look or pull a prank in here. And after their fight, he wanted to stay as far away as possible from her.
Her room matches the colors and theme of her avatar, all bright reds and royal blues. It sorta looks childish like Jax’s looks girly, with giant kid blocks stacked in a corner and various kid toys scattered along the walls. A golden chandelier hangs from the ceiling just above his eye level. Her bed is a four-poster and a decent size at least. A red plush chair sits in a corner of the room across from the bed with a deep purple vanity next to it. She has a suite of drawers adjacent to the bed, obviously much too tall for her stature as if expecting she’ll grow into it.
Well, that’s a slap to the face if he ever saw one.
He has an unexpected pang of sympathy for the jester. There’s a reason he prefers to keep the lights off in his room.
At least most of it is red. She likes red.
“Nice digs, Pomster. Loovve the colors,” Jax grins.
Pomni huffs, still half annoyed, but now half amused as she gives him a half-grin in return. “Oh, yeah. Just had the walls repainted last week and everything.”
“Oh, really? You recommend them? My room could use a touch-up.”
She laughs and it makes his grin widen. “You’re such a dork. You can sit wherever if you want, by the way. The chair’s actually decent, though probably kinda low for you.”
She motions with one hand in its direction and walks over to her bed. Seeing that his other options were the floor or the bed, he supposes too-low chair it is. Ducking his head to avoid the chandelier, he slumps onto it with a grunt, stretching his long legs out towards the bed. Pomni has made herself comfortable sitting cross-legged in the center of it.
She chuckles, “God, that chair is too low for you. Are you even comfortable?”
Jax shrugs, “Eh, I’ve sat on worse. This is surprisingly more comfy than I thought it would be.”
It’s not a lie. He did not have high expectations; it’s a bit awkward trying to lean back as the back of the chair only reaches up to his shoulder blades while sitting down, but not bad overall.
“Ah, that’s good, at least,” she says.
Silence hangs over them again after that exchange. Their eyes meet for a second before they simultaneously look away from the other. It seems to hit the both of them at the same time that they’re now truly alone now (as alone as two people can be in the circus with Caine’s ‘eyes’ lurking about).
His muddled mind can find no material now that he’s seated somewhere semi-comfortable and the stupid fluttering feeling has come back. Glancing back at Pomni, he thinks she looks at a loss on what to do now, too.
Or she’s thinking about asking him something he really doesn’t want talk about. Which is not good so he racks his brains for something to joke about, make fun, or anything really that’s not that.
Something steels in her gaze and she looks up, trapping his retracted pupils with her pinwheel ones.
Crap. He’s out of time.
“Jax…” Her tone is gentle again, careful. It makes the words of protest die on his tongue as he listens to what she has to say. “I-I meant it when I said that we don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, but I think, at some point…that we should. That we need to. But preferably when you don’t look like you’re recovering from an overnight bender.”
She tries for levity towards the end, giving him a small, reassuring smile. It only makes him want to puke. He drops his gaze, glaring at the floor rather than her.
“You know this is the part where I tell you that’s not going to happen, right?” He blinks hard against the tingling on his skin, the disappointment he feels from those damn too-big eyes of hers.
“J-Jax…”
“Pomni,” his tone is sharp, the grin long gone from his face when he looks up. “No.”
She glares right back at him, clutching her comforter like she has half a mind to choke him again. Her lip trembles as if she might be fighting off tears. His chest twinges at that, but he shoves the feeling in a box and drops it off an imaginary cliff.
“That’s not fair!”
“Life isn’t fair, toots! Get used to it!”
“AGH!” Pomni groans, rubbing her eyes with the palms of her hands. “God, I’m only trying to help cause I’m worried about you, jack[?$@]!”
“I never asked for your help! Or for you to worry about me!” Jax throws his hands up, matching Pomni’s rising tone.
“You don’t have to! That’s what friends are for!”
Jax’s heart stutters, his breath catching in his throat. Then the anger hits. He jumps to his feet without thinking as he yells at the jester.
“WE’RE NOT FRIENDS!”
“FINE, WE’RE NOT, BUT YOU’RE STILL MY FRIEND EVEN IF I’M NOT YOURS!” She screams back at him, jumping to her feet on top of the bed, almost face-level with him. Under different circumstances, he’d crack a joke about it.
Her words hit him worse than a punch to a gut. His hands drop to his side and he can only stare at her, breathing heavy. It’s eerily quiet for a few moments as they catch their breath, his brain slowly processing the words and trying to figure out where he went wrong.
Why…
He should have stayed in his room. He shouldn’t have opened his door. He should have kept his big mouth shut. He should have just gone to sleep…
“Wh- what is wrong with you?!” The edges of his vision blur and he’s not sure if the question is for Pomni or himself. Probably both. He presses his gloved fingers hard against his face. “Seriously, what is wrong with you?! Why won’t you just leave me alone like everybody else?!”
Whatiswrongwithyouwhatiswrongwithyouwhyareyoulikethis
His knees buckle under him and he slumps to the floor, hunching over, his overtired mind spiraling. “After everything I’ve done and said, anyone else would’ve just left. What more do I have to do? Isn’t it bad enough that I pressed that stupid red button?! You should hate me just like everyone else d-”
“Jax, that’s enough!” Pomni cries out, cutting him off. Her bells from her hat jingle and suddenly, her thin arms are around him and her body is pressed against his back. His eyes widen, disbelieving what’s currently happening. His hands drop to his lap.
The thoughts quiet. He gasps for breath, shivering though not from cold. Pomni lowers her voice, reassuring him with a waver in her voice.
“Everything’s gonna be okay, remember I said that?”
He remembers. He never trusted Abel, but he did trust Pomni.
He does trust her.
He reaches for her with shaking hands, wrapping one hand around her arm and placing the other over her own. Not to pull her off, just to hold onto.
“You d-don’t know that for sure,” he says, voice cracking, tears budding in the corners of his eyes.
She wraps her hand around his and squeezes; it makes something in his chest tighten.
“No, I don’t,” she admits. “But it’s what I choose to believe and hey, I mean, we’re not any worse off than we were before, right?”
Jax sighs, a real grin curving his lips. Just a small one that Pomni can’t see, but it’s there.
“Right…. I guess,” he agrees, too tired to fight her or himself anymore.
Her arms tighten a fraction at his words. He figures she wasn’t expecting him to say anything, let alone agree with her.
He’s not sure how long they stay like that for, long enough that their breathing comes down to normal and Jax’s heartbeat steadies. His trembling body slowly stills, his legs feel glued to the floor. He doesn’t let go of her and she holds on to him, breathing soft on his shoulder.
“God, I’m tired,” the words escape him on his next exhale. His drooping ears flop over his eyes when he tucks his chin behind her arms. He stares at the red floor, reminded of Caine’s ringmaster coat, and narrows his eyes.
His expression softens at Pomni’s voice, bringing him back to the fragile present.
“Do…you want to go to bed? You can take mine, I don’t mind. I fit better in the chair, anyway.”
He considers the jester, torn. Almost absentmindedly, his thumb brushes her knuckles, but she doesn’t jump. She does become very still, probably shocked.
“I..I don’t want to go to sleep,” he admits. “Like, at all.”
It takes a minute for her to respond, thinking over what he meant.
“…Why not?” She asks softly. Her hand squeezes tighter around his fingers for a moment, a gentle reassurance. She hasn’t lifted her head up yet and he’s grateful that she’s not trying to look at his face right now.
He doesn’t owe her an explanation and she won’t push him anymore. That’s what he gathers from what she’s doing now.
Still, maybe because she’s backing off, that now…he wants to try.
It’s not easy.
“I-I…I’m-” he stutters and stops, the words caught in his throat like thorns. His heart beats louder in his ears, his breath quickening. His grip unknowingly tightens on Pomni’s arm.
I’m scared…
Scared of Caine. Scared of going to sleep and waking up as an Abstraction. Scared that he would be okay with that…
Scared that no one would remember him or will want to remember him.
The sound of bells snap him out of it.
“Agh,” he gasps as a round bell smacks him in the eye, jingling as it pulls away on the tip of Pomni’s ridiculous hat.
“Jax, it’s okay,” Pomni reassures him, kaleidoscope eyes catching his when he turns his head towards her voice.
He’s not prepared for the way she’s looking at him. She’s smiling at him, relieved, concern, and something else he doesn’t dare name. Not now. It makes him drop his hand from her arm, the other would have followed suit if not for her tightening her grip.
“I-” He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know what he wants to say.
“You’re okay,” she tells him again.
The sound of his heartbeat in his ears recedes as his breathing steadies, trusting in Pomni’s words.
He’s always liked her eyes. Which is an absurd thought to be having right now with her face only inches from his own, but it’s true. He thought they were cool when he first saw them, the only non-ridiculous thing about her avatar with the alternating pinwheel pattern of blue and red. Almost everyone has big eyes, but Jax can’t recall anyone having two-toned eyes like hers.
Jax has the sudden urge to lean closer (to do what, he has no clue) and drops his gaze before he can do something stupid. He’s already made himself look too much like a loser today.
“…Thanks,” he mutters, clenching his free hand against the urge to look up.
“Don’t mention it,” Pomni says. She doesn’t try asking again, but she keeps the subject going. “So if you don’t want to go to sleep right now, do you want to at least lie down?”
She keeps ahold of his hand, but drops her arms from around him, kneeling down next to him to catch his expression. He feels cold where her body was, goosebumps rising along the back of his neck. Her knee brushes his, though, so he looks up again, hesitantly looking at her face. Slumped over as he is, they’re at eye level with each other now.
Pomni still has that small, reassuring smile, her expression open and listening. It makes his chest ache again.
“That probably won’t help with the not sleeping thing,” he jokes, and she giggles, agreeing with him.
“Yeah, you’re probably right, but I think if you tried standing for too long, you’ll collapse on your face.”
“Heh, good point.”
“Well, how about this? You lie down and we’ll help keep each other awake by talking. Just like at a real sleepover,” Pomni offers.
Jax’s eyes widen a bit, wondering if she realizes what’s she saying or she’s just as sleep deprived as he is right now. “D’ya mean like…laying…down next to each other?”
His eyes dart back and forth as he speaks, alternating between the floor and her face, suddenly anxious about her reaction.
Pom’s expression clouds with confusion for a second before a blush creeps onto her clown-white skin. Her grip loosens and he instinctively tightens his, not wanting to lose contact with her. She notes that, her gaze darting between their clasped hands, his face now with a betrayal of pink highlighting the space between his eyes (he can feel the traitorous warmth), and anywhere in-between.
“..O-oh, I, uh, I,”
Already feeling the sting of rejection, Jax lets go of her hand, rolling his eyes at his own stupid assumptions. Of course she didn’t mean like that, she probably meant she’d sit on the floor or drag the stupid chair over.
“Forget it, Pom Pom. That was my bad, a stupid jo-”
“No, wait!” she panics, grabbing his hand again before he can pull it back completely. “I didn’t mean for it to co-oh, what I’m trying to say is…Agh!”
Her free hand tugs at the longer strand of her hair framing her face as she tries to collect her thoughts and he can only stare, wide-eyed as when Ragatha apologized to him, with ears laid back, looking between her and their clasped hands again.
“Uhh…Pom?”
She finally takes a breath, smoothing her hand over the puff buttons of her jester outfit in a calming motion.
“Sorry, I just got a little flustered,” she lets out a nervous chuckle, still unable to look at him straight, but she hasn’t let go of his hand either. “But…yeeaah, we can do that. That’s fine. The bed’s not super big, but we’re both skinny enough to fit, I think."
Is he asleep sitting up? Is this happening?
“Wait, seriously?” he double checks, tilting his head to the side to try and catch her eye.
“…Yup. Don’t make me regret it please.”
She meets his gaze for a few seconds, long enough to convey that yeah, she is serious. It makes his smile widen and ears perk up.
“I make no promises, shortstack, but I will say I’ll do my utmost to be a gentleman.” He winks at her, raising his free hand to place on his chest.
Mortified, she looks away from him, doing her best with little success to cover her face with one hand. “I’m already regretting it, oh my god.”
“Too late! No taksies backsies,” he snickers when she throws a playful glare at him.
“What are we, eight?”
“Hey, the sleepover was your idea, if I recall,” he points out.
Newfound strength in his legs, he stands up and drags Pomni up with him by their clasped hands.
“Hey!” She sputters at the sudden movement and only guffaws more when he lifts her up with one hand, her legs kicking in the air suddenly several feet from the ground. “W-what ar-!”
They’re only a few steps from the bed, her room is small even for her size, so he just cartoon stretches his arm out a bit and drops her on the right side of the bed closest to the wall. Before she has time to react, he’s already laying down next to her on the left, effectively keeping her trapped unless she wanted to climb over him.
Welp, another thought to not think about too hard today.
“Jax!” She cries out, indignant.
He supposes he could have put her down a bit more gently, he shrugs to himself. All well, annoyed Pomni will keep him awake better than caring Pomni, anyway.
“Pomni.” He smiles at her, interlacing his hands on top of his stomach, the picture of ease.
“Ugh!” She falls back hard on the bed with her arms raised above her head, muttering under her breath.
“What was that, Pom Pom? I couldn’t quite catch that,” he baits her, turning his head to face her glare.
The narrowed eyes and twitching eyebrows tell him she knows what he’s doing. And she’d be right, he heard every censored word mixed in with ‘bipolar purple bunny’ and ‘idiot’.
“Ya sure you’re tired, Jax? You sure seem fine to me now,” she grits out.
“Oh, I’m exhausted,” he tells the truth with a sarcastic tone, “But how about you, Pom? You don’t sound tired.”
She’s so easy to get a rise out of sometimes, when she’s not trying to pry or help. He likes her better this way, but he’s coming to find he doesn’t mind the other parts of her too much either.
“Well, I was tired until some jerk dropped me like a sack of potatoes.” She punches his shoulder to stress the ‘jerk’ part, leaving no room for playful debate there.
He chuckles at the weak hit, rubbing his shoulder anyway.
“Pft, I placed you on your comfy bed nice and easy only like a foot above it,” he says.
“You dangled me five feet from the ground first!” she argues back.
“Details, details,” he rolls his eyes to the canopy and back, smirking.
“Important details!” She still glares at him, but he notes the faint tremble in her lip and mirth hidden in her gaze.
She lasts another second, maybe two, before turning her head away and laughing which makes him laugh aloud in return. The warm fluttering feeling is back and it spreads. Jax lets it, unable to help it at this point after all the arguing and losing his shit more times than he cared to do today. Instead of focusing on the weariness dragging his bones deeper into the mattress, he watches Pomni with an unguarded expression for a few moments while her eyes are closed.
For the first time, he doesn’t regret opening his door. He’d much rather be here in this moment with her than in the dark, waiting for Caine to finish what he started.