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When he found her, or rather, she found him, he’d felt it had been entirely based on chance. A stroke of luck, a blessing from the skies above, at a time when Jax didn’t feel he deserved such a thing. Had he ever?
Regardless, he felt as if he had the right to suck out all the marrow which deeply comforted his bones, if only for a little while, considering such comfort had been so graciously offered. He only felt he truly seized the day whenever their fingers intertwined, creating a swirl of purple and green, akin to a field of lilacs. He’d always been fond of those, their scent reminding him of his mother’s perfume and the vases with fresh flowers which adorned his old house when it still felt like home.
Whatever this was, it wasn’t home. No one could find home in such a repulsive place, those who masked their disgust merely finding it in their tortured hearts to pity the ringmaster.
Caine ran it, while they ran from the impending doom looming above their heads, below the tips of their toes, or perhaps deep in their bones.
Her comfort served to remedy an illness he never knew he had. The rabbit wished to stay wrapped up in her arms forever. If only his pride allowed for that…
His nightmares had been getting more vivid lately, brief flashes of a suburban neighbourhood filling his vision until tears filled them instead and he broke into a cold sweat, hyperventilating and kicking off his blankets, daggers digging into every cell of his body, gloved fingers similarly digging into his flesh, the latter’s plastic-like quality making an awful squeaking sound over his own laboured breathing.
“Shit,” he murmured under his breath, the censor sounding more like a screech. Maybe that was him — he could barely tell anymore.
His eyes flickered to every element of his disgustingly childish, though sentimentally charged bedroom. Jax couldn’t bring himself to hate it, though he didn’t openly admit to liking it either, instead framing it as ‘making the best of the choice Caine made for him’. Pretending — performing — was easier, just like it always had been. Right now, however, there was no one to perform for…and so he wept.
The miserable rabbit soon sank into the plush floor, hands moving to pull at his ears, the crease between his eyebrows so deep it formed a valley, rivers of sweat flowing into the sea of salty tears dripping down his cheeks.
A sound raised above all else, even his own towering ego and his sobs which filled the room: a frantic knock.
“Jax?! You okay in there, buddy?”
That voice. The only one capable of leading him to care to find his voice in the midst of his outburst, the only one capable of leading him to care at all, or at least admitting to it.
“Not hic really…”
The latch of the door clicked. All he saw was a flash — infinitely better than the ones from a bad dream — of green before Ribbit hugged him tight, cold arms somehow wrapping him up in a cocoon of warmth better than warm ones ever could. His hands loosened their grip on his ears and, before he knew it, wrapped around her frame in turn.
“Oh, Bun-Bun…”
Their honeyed words trailed off into soft shushes, their embrace more aromatic than a lilac field could ever dream of being.
“You’re shaking, sweetheart,” they noted. “Need me to stay?”
He stammered, tripping over his words. She caught him before he could fall. “I’ll take that as a yes,” she remarked with a bittersweet giggle, trying hard to stay calm. They gave him what they hoped was a reassuring squeeze.
“Let’s get you off the floor, shall we?”
With a grunt — and without warning —, the frog lifted him up just over a metre off the ground, one hand supporting his upper back, finger idly tracing circles over his tense spine, while the other supported the back of his knees. He was certainly still shaken, which made him jumpy, but he trusted her. That was enough to make him relax, if only a little.
“Do you wanna go back to sleep?” He shook his head vehemently at the mere suggestion. “That’s okay, we don’t have to sleep right now,” she assured as they adjusted their hold, now cradling him to their chest like a child, his head on their shoulder.
Sure, it’d look quite awkward to any hypothetical passers-by, but they were just that, hypothetical. At that moment, it was just them. In a way, that allowed them to just be. Such a realization struck him the hardest. At last, he could let go of his performance. He was no longer obligated to put on a show. God, he hadn’t yet come to appreciate how good that felt, but he was starting to.
“I love you, Ribby…,” he whispered — not like a prayer, because her presence had answered all of his. “So much,” he added.
He felt their head move to rest above his, the rabbit’s lavender fur serving as the best pillow they had ever laid their head on.
“I love you too, sweetheart.”
Mindlessly, they started swaying him back and forth, like a pendulum. Carefully, as if he were made of glass; he might as well have been.
Reassurances spilled out of their mouth out of their own accord, a river of affection flowing into his sea of tears, rendering it dry instead of fueling it.
“I’m right here…not going anywhere…shh…”
His ears drooped as his breathing slowly but surely evened out. The nightmare was still fresh on his mind — nothing could make him forget that fateful night, after all —, but the weight felt lighter, now that he knew he wasn’t carrying it alone.
“Tired…” ‘This sucks!’, he thought. This was possibly the worst time to be tired. He’d just gotten comfortable!
“Shh, I know…don’t fight it. I’ll give ya plenty of love in the morning. Maybe we could skip the adventure, so it’ll be just the two of us?”
Oh, he liked that idea. Screw that, he loved it! His tail wagged without him noticing while he nodded profusely, a goofy smile on his face and a low purr reverberating through his chest. Ribbit wasn’t sure what filled their heart more.
“You like the sound of that, huh?” God, he was cute. “Well, guess what? I do too.”
“...Really?”
“‘Course I do! I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t, silly.”
Jax supposed that made sense. Although, his brain was quite fuzzy, so the fact anything made sense at all was baffling.
“Really tired, Ribby,” he whined like a petulant child. It was baffling how easily he allowed himself to be coddled by them.
“Let’s get ya to bed, bunny.”
Bunny. Yeah, that sounded nice. For tonight (and maybe tomorrow, if she followed through with her promise) he wasn’t a prickly rabbit. He was a sweet bunny. Her sweet bunny.
“Can’t I just sleep heree…?” He asked, still whining noticeably.
“We’ll both go to bed, then. How does that sound, bunny?”
“Okay!” He exclaimed enthusiastically.
Soon enough, he was being maneuvered into their lap whilst she sat against the headboard.
“Comfy?”
“Mhm,” he purred against their collarbone, then cut himself off with a yawn.
Ribbit chuckled lowly, ruffling the fur at the back of his head, which only made him purr louder.
It didn’t take long for his content purrs to turn into quiet snores, signaling he was fast asleep.
The frog sighed. With his weight against their chest, all felt right. And so, they allowed themselves to drift off.
He dreamt of running through lilac fields, while they dreamt of running to a certain lilac rabbit.
Little did they know, in his dreams, he wasn’t running alone.