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Jax kept having dreams about her. He couldn't help it nor stop it: It was completely out of his control and not to mention utterly humiliating.
Every morning he'd wake up in his sickly pink room, clutching his equally nauseating pillow thinking of her. His tail would twitch, and his feet mindlessly thump in anger. He'd get up late, and have to face her at the breakfast table with a shit-eating grin, like he wasn't just imagining how her lips might've felt against his own. He had an unyielding urge to annoy her. As if that would fix it- as if there was a string of words he could say to spit this crush out of him.
Crush, God. It sounded so childish and irate. He had a crush on her. It sounded like language children would use in the playground. Maybe it was fitting that way. They were forced into a PG world with bright florescent colours and bodies that looked more akin to Saturday morning cartoons then your average man. Maybe crush was the right word after all.
Every night, after their daily adventures, usually followed a similar ritual. As much as he hated it, her red licorice hair had dug itself deep into his brain. He twisted the pillow tighter- biting it, pulling it, kicking it. Nothing ever worked. He had to come to the shameful conclusion that he had a thing for the ragdoll.
She'd wormed her way into his head. That's exactly what she would've wanted, too. That only fueled his irritation. Ragatha wanted to be liked. She was bright and chirpy, with a warm welcoming smile to whoever she passed. He wasn't anything like her in the slightest. People like her usually dug under his skin, but, she was different. She had such a way of making his chest flare up and his ears perk whenever he heard her honeyed voice. It was getting increasingly harder to deny- and hide his apparent affection.
He only worried what the others might've thought about him. He'd started going out of his way to talk to her. He'd sit beside her during meals, or follow behind on their adventures. She'd be the first he grabbed whenever there was a duo. It was obvious to everyone but her.
She hadn't been paying as much attention to him ever since Pomni joined. Of course she wasn't, she always did this whenever anyone new came around. She practically the entire and only welcoming committee. Her can-do attitude didn't seem to do much for this newbie, however. Her usual charm simply slid right off her. Jax liked that about Pomni; or maybe he just liked that she wasn't all over Ragatha.
He shuffles himself around in his bed, closing his weary eyes. But sleep didn't come easy, and he kept tossing aimlessly. He remembers when he first joined. It used to be only him, Ragatha and Kinger. Soon people started joining and Ragatha always had to be first to butter up the newest members. She always had to dote on them like some mother hen, following them around and tending to all their needs.
Jax sighs, feeling the deep breath he'd trapped in his chest leak out. There was a time where she buttered him up too. The next breath felt tight.
He'd allegedly joined only three or so months after she did, and it was a whole two years before anyone joined after him. It left a long time for the two to be in solely each other's company (With an exception for whenever Kinger poked his head out of the pillow fort). They'd grown dependent and almost inseparable.
In those two years, she made him feel like the most special man in the world. She gave him special attention he'd never recieved before. She'd listen to everything he said, laugh at the stupid jokes he made, and stroked his long winded ears when he cried. He hated crying. It was so demeaning and unlike him, pouring himself over her loving embrace, but she made him feel like it was natural.
Kinger wasn't much in the way in competition for Ragatha's attention with his sanity slowly depleting with each day, so the two were typically jousted onto two-person adventures by Caine together. Although he was annoyed, Jax slowly started to lean into them. It was like fun days out, at least until Caine got caught up on perfection. Rescuing Ragatha from the tower after slaying a dragon. Being stranded on a deserted Island. Cowboy vs Sheriff. Knight vs Sheriff. A knife throwing act (Which Jax sorely fucked up.) It was chaotic and exhaustive, but Jax looked back on those days as some of the best in his life.
But then other people started joining and Jax realised he wasn't receiving any special treatment: That was how Raggedy Agatha was with everyone. The sweetness he'd never felt before was sold by the dozen. She was just an chronic people-pleaser. He'd fallen for her façade and paid deeply with his feelings. Worse still, she'd seen sides of him he'd never shown to anyone else. The persona he'd build himself up was nothing to her, because she saw right through it. He couldn't be the cruel jokester, because Ragatha knew his deep-set kindness. He couldn't be the cool loner who did his own thing, because Ragatha knew his loyalty to the people he loved. He couldn't be cynical and mean, because Ragatha knew that it simply wasn't him.
So it became a mission to push her as far out of his life as he could. She still hung around him with Ribbit and Kaufmo, but he'd give snide remarks and comments. Things he knew would hurt her. Things he knew would make her cry. Still, for all her strength, she never did break.
But soon after new people joined, people eventually started abstracting. Even despite Ragatha's months of effort to comfort and soothe the new testers, nothing ever seemed to click. She didn't have the right words to bring them down.
And even after his cruelties, she'd come to him constantly after talking people down from the ledge. He'd put his arms around her as she sobbed her eye out. She suddenly needed the buttering up and the comfort and Jax realised he wasn't good at it. Not like she was. Not after what he'd said. How could she be so vulnerable with him when he was so vicious to her?
He couldn't return her affections. He just took and took.
Despite his endless bittering, it also gave him a newfound admiration for her. She was able to push the sinking feeling in her stomach down and plaster a smile on her face. She was able to put everyone else's problems before hers, again and again. It was a bad omen, the fact she was able to trust Jax with things he would surely spit in her face later.
He told himself clearly that she was no longer the most important person to him: Ribbit and Kaufmo were. However, he was the most important person to her, or at least used to. He wasn't anymore, he was sure of. He'd spent years antagonising her. They weren't ever going to be friends again, and it was the end of the story. An agonising truth he'd have to live with. There wasn't anyone to point the blame at but himself.
He'd pushed her away. Embarrassed he'd let her see what was under his purple-thick skin and that she'd loved him regardless. But Ragatha would love anyone. It didn't make him special.
Sometimes before he dozes off completely, he imagines her on those adventures they shared. How she looked when she laughed, trying to keep her hennin from falling off as he bounced her with each step. The way her arms were around his neck and the sensation of her chest on his when he rescued her from some yellow and red spotted dragon. How her eyelashes fluttered. How his breath felt tight. How she laughed. How he didn't. How he never wanted to kiss her more.
Was this love? He couldn't say he'd ever felt it before. A deep, intense burning in his tightened chest. His breaths are completely strained now, just airy puffs. If he could rewind time, he'd slap himself for not appreciating it back then. Maybe that's where it all started to go wrong.
He misses Ragatha, what more is there to say?