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Ragatha ran, slightly tripping over her plush legs in an attempt to outrun her follower,
He just pursued her more, centipede in hand,
“C’mon Raggy!!! It doesn’t bite!!”
“JAX!!”she screeched, ducking behind some building blocks.
Jax stood next to her, a sh1t eating grin on his face.
“Look, its perfectly harmless-”
Suddenly, the centipede recoiled, turning to Jax' s arm before biting it.
“OUCH-” jax screamed, falling on to Ragatha,who caught him just in time.
“Motherf@cker…” Jax cursed, inspecting his now bleeding arm.
It was then Ragatha realised the position they were in, him lying backwards in her arms, while she held him upright.
CRASH
She released her hold on him, causing him to slip forward, “Jeez Dolly, my arms bleeding and you drop me on the floor? That's not very nice” He said the last word with a pout, one Ragatha could only assume was fake.
“Yeah ... .sorry about that” She apologises, offering her hand out to him.
“I don’t need your help dollface,” he said slightly wobbling as he got on his feet.
“Umm … okay, do you need help with… “ She gestures to his arm,now dripping with blood.
“Ehh, it’s fine, caine’ll just fix it in two minutes, nothing to worry your licorice head about.” And with that he walks off, slightly shaky on his feet.
“Huh…” Ragath sighs before walking to her own room.
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Jax sits in his room, head throbbing, his arm still hurt,
Despite what he said, he had yet to go to caine for help, instead resulting in retreating to his room, a random cloth wrapped around the wound.
He sighed, God , why was he doing this?
He got up and looked at the bite, dried blood circled the wound and leaked through the cloth, fresh speckles of it still showing.
He shakily stood on his legs and unlocked the door, stepping outside,
-
KNOCK KNOCK
Ragtha arose from her bed, truth be told she wasn’t sleeping before, reminiscing over the previous events of the day.
Nevertheless, she walked over to the door and opened it, only to be met with a certain someone.
“Heyy Dolly…..”
“JAX??!!” Ragatha tried to hold back her confusion, but failed, it wasn’t like him to knock, heck, he’d only done it once and that was when he shoved a pie into her face!
“Oh god, what do you want…” she trailed off, spying his poorly bandaged arm
“ARE YOU OKAY……??.”
She looked up at him, his pupils and hands seemed to be shaking, not typical for his usual behaviour, his grin was nowhere to be seen and she could hear his breath, raspy and fast.
“this better not be a prank-” she was cut off by his body limply falling on her, his head buried in her shoulder, it was as if all the fight had gone out of him in a single second.
“Umm…jax..?” He simply grunted, only flopping onto her more. “Okay, you’re not gonna budge, would you at least try to walk with me?” The ragdoll tries to close the door, having to try a couple of times due to the now half collapsed rabbit on her shoulder, she eventually gets it shut and locked, turning her full attention to her sudden visitor.
“Jax, if you want my help, you’re gonna have to stand up.” He doesn’t respond, just moves his head up before stumbling to her bed and collapsing on it.
“Raggyyyyyy” he whines, “my arm hurtsss” Ragatha stares at him for a second before snapping out it. “Yeah, yeah, it would hurt less if you had let me tend to it earlier-”
“Stop….” He mumbled, seemingly not wanting to talk about the fact that he could’ve stopped this hours ago. “Whatever jax, why don’t we just take you to caine he could just-”
Jax finally looks at her, blown eyes staring through her, "Caine'll just mess it up….” He averted his gaze once again, focusing on the quilt draped over her bed “and plus, he probably won’t even show”
Ragatha sighed, not bothering to contemplate any flaws in what he said, she should just get this done with.
“Sit up” she instructed him as she fished her sewing kit out of her bedside table drawer. He thought about ignoring her, but the pain in his arm told otherwise as he reluctantly did as he was told.
Her sewing kit contained enough to be considered a medical kit, it contained a selection of cloth-like pieces that she could use as bandages, alongside a couple of needles and of course, thread.
“Okay, could you take off the cloth please?” The doll quipped, looking at Jax, who, strangely enough, did as he was told.
“Thank you, now, I'm gonna clean it okay?”
She lightly dabbed at the area, quickening pace once she saw how severe the wound actually was.
“OW!”
Jax backs away from Ragatha, clutching his arm, “could’ve warned me!”
Ragatha sighs, “I told you I was going to do it!”
Jax was quick to respond ,“You never said it would hurt!”
The doll woman stares, “okay, i’ll be more gentle” she continues applying the disinfectant at the area, trying to look at Jax to see if it still bothers him, but he’s completely avoiding looking in her direction now, eyes glued to the bed.
Once she's finished, she gets a better look at the bite, it seems to be quite deep. How the hell did a centipede cause that again? She comes to the conclusion that she’d probably have to stitch it up before she could apply the bandages.
“Well….the cuts quite deep, i might have to… stitch it”
Jaxs’ head practically whipped towards her, eyes like pinpricks,
“Hell no, i’d rather bleed to death” The doll tries to put an arm on his shoulder, but he practically jumps back.
“Jax, c’mon, it’ll only take a minute, i’ll go quick” she paused for a minute “promise”
He didn’t say anything, god he hated promises, but he didn't really have a choice,
Slowly nodding, he faced his back to Ragatha, knees tucked under his chin, injured arm hanging limply to his side so the ragdoll could sew it up.
She moved delicately but quickly, but it was hard to do while his arm shook so much, “jax, could you hold your arm still?” he silently complied, but it didn’t help much, both his arms were shaking, not exactly easy to stitch.
“Jax, I'm going to hold your arm down, got it?” What other option did she have? Taking his silence as a yes, she laid her left hand on top of his, stopping the shaking slightly , although she could practically feel him tense up at the contact.
As she continued, she became aware of another sound in the room.
“Jax?” she stopped for a second, turning her attention to the hunched up figure before her. “We can stop for a moment, or get caine or-” He turned to her and wordlessly dropped his head on her shoulder, burying his face in the crook of her neck.
It was only then she saw it firsthand, the tears that slowly cascaded down his face.
“Jax, if it hurts I can stop, but it's only gonna hurt more if we don’t hurry this along, ok?”
She gently rubs his back in an attempt to get him back up so she can finish up on his arm,
It only seemed to have the opposite effect, he buried his face deeper into her red curls, earning a gentle sigh from the ragdolly. .
She caresses the tips off his ears while continuing to rub his back, slowly, his sobs subside.
“There, that's better, how about I finish up now, sound good?” jax ws hesitant to continue, his lip still quivering.
Ragatha wondered if that centipede had done something to him, he was never this openly vunerable, maybe he was pranking her after all? But a big part of her knew that wasn’t true, whether the bite had affected it or not, this was genuine.
He slowly sat up, quickly hiding his face from her once again, she replaced her arm on his, but instead of laying her hand on top of his, she held his hand in hers, giving it a gentle squeeze before working on the final stitches.
Once she was done she tied of the thread, standing up from the bed and walking over to where the cloth she had was.
“Raggy?”
Ragatha turned around, it was the first time he had spoken in a while, and it was barely audible. The crying had strained his voice, his cry for her being more of a distant murmur.
“Yes Jax?” she smiled sweetly from her position on the other side of the room.
“Are you… going?” his face trembled, god, this was the same person who bullied her relentlessly, now with his facade crumbling, sitting on her bed.
She walked back over to him, sitting down behind him, getting the bandages ready, “of course not, now let me finish this off”
Rolling out the cloth made it evident that the stitches were needed, it was flimsy and wouldn’t hold in the blood if there were no stitches there to keep the bite closed.
As she finishes wrapping his arm up, Ragatha starts to wonder what would happen next, surely he’d just go back to his room, and tomorrow he’d prank her like nothing even happened.
Jax turns to her.
“It’s done jax.” she smiles sweetly at him, red curls round her head like a halo, it was fitting, at this point she seemed like his saviour.
“Ragatha...” he said, whispering almost, finally looking her in the eye.
“Yes ja-” who knows how many times she’d been cut off this night, this was just another instance.
He suddenly sinks into her, head pressed against her chest, arms lightly wrapped around her neck. He's so close it's as if he’s sitting in her lap.”Jax…” she repeats his name for what feels like the millionth time tonight, staring down at him. “I don’t want to go…” he weakly gets out, half asleep piled on top of the Doll.
“That's okay” she says, properly pulling him close, his legs straddled round her as he sits in her lap.
She begins lightly rubbing circles in his back, humming ever so gently as sleep takes over him.
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When jax wakes up, he realises three things
1, his arm hurts like hell,
2, he’s not in his room,
3, someone's in here with him.
The last one is made clear with the sound of shuffling he can make out from his spot under the blanket on the bed.
Wait…
Blanket?
That was weird, if he had fallen asleep in someone else's room, he wouldn’t have put the blanket on, he preferred it that way..
So now he’d realised a fourth thing
4, someone put a f@cking blanket on him.
Sitting up, he became aware to a tray of what looked like breakfast, or maybe a dead skunk, it was hard to tell in the digital world.
“Oh, hi! You’re awake” And thats when his eyes came across the final piece of the puzzle,
Ragatha
“Dollface….” She came over to the rabbit who had now kicked the blanket off himself and sat up.
“Hey jax, i brought you breakfast” she paused, “you didn’t really want to get up, i’m guessing after last night…”
Memories of said night came flooding back to him, god, had he really done that?
” And what was your excuse as to why I didn't show up for breakfast?”
Jax silently prayed that no-one had asked, what would she have said to them?
“Ehh, i just told them that i knocked on your door and you said you didn’t care enough to come down…” she eyed the bunny up and down “....is that okay/”
Okay?
That was great, it meant that (hopefully) no-one was suspicious about him,
And
He got to eat breakfast here!
not that he enjoyed being with Ragatha….
“How’s your arm?” Ragatha brought the tray to him, eyes gesturing to the bandage.
“I’ve been better” that earned him a chuckle from the ragdoll
That's good, aine was a bit mad about you not getting up for breakfast, so he said there’s no adventure today”
Oh, that was new.
“Cool.” he said, taking a bite of whatever piece of code was claiming to be a pancake.
“Yup….” Ragatha trailed off, what was there to say?
Lord this was… awkward.
“Y’know Raggy,” Jax said, breaking the silence “what you did last night…” he continued a little lower, as if what he was saying was a secret, or just embarrassed him.
He looked into her eyes, before flopping his head into her lap.
“Jax?!” The raggedy anne doll asked, half confused half knowing.
“As i was saying…” his grin was back, not as menacing though, more….
Genuine?
“What you did last night wasn’t helpful..”
Oh.
“It was mandatory”
What?
“Whats that supposed to mean?” she said, suppressing a giggle at jaxs ears slightly twitching.
“Well, if you weren’t scared of centipedes, then I wouldn't have had to chase you.”
Yup, that made absolutely zero sense, but she went along with it, in a way, she could tell this was his weird form of an apology, or a thank you, it was hard to tell when it came to him.
“Whatever you say jax” da’am, his ears were really twitching now.
Almost unknowingly, she slightly rubbed at them, cancelling whatever movement they had,
She realised what she was doing almost immediately, alerted to her by the quiet sounds of chittering that were coming from jax.
Wait….
…Jax?
Despite her disbelief, they were indeed from him, that was yet another factor pointing towards jaxs’ changes coming from the centipede,
Maybe it gave him animal instincts as well?
It left her almost on edge, wondering whether he was actually up to this, but she didn’t want to break this new found peace between them.
They continued to sit in (almost) silence, until someone broke it,
And it was jax,
“Thank you dolly”
Her worries stopped.
"anytime, just a friendly thing to do"
friendly...
that's all it was,
nothing more,
nothing romantic,
nothing special,
Just help from a friend