Chapter Text
Jax wished he had just holed up in his room for today.
Instead, Caine had decided on some stupid adventure idea that made Jax want to peel his skin off and abstract right there and then.
“That’s right, my babbling beluga whales. See how well the gun game went yesterday, I’ve decided to make another team adventure!” Caine exclaimed, twisting in the air in ecstasy, his eyes shining with literal stars.
Jax scoffed under his breath. No way Caine was saying this. Yesterday had been anything but well.
(“OH MY GOD! ARE YOU SERIOUSLY GONNA BLAME ME FOR SOMETHING, EVERYONE ELSE DID TOO!”)
"Even better, I let Bubble help me design this one," Caine added, giving Bubble an affectionate pat on the head.
Next to him, Bubble grinned menacingly. Jax shuddered, remembering how Bubble's idea of fun involved sssssex appeal, abstraction holograms and telekinetic fish.
“Today’s adventure is the 3-legged maze solving race.”
Jax’s heart dropped to the floor. Everything seemed to freeze for a second. His mind flashed back to Pomni's grinning face, her stupid questions.
("Why are you afraid of corn?")
‘You guys will pair up in teams of 2. Once that decision is made, I will immediately teleport all of you to the maze map, each team starting in different places. First team that makes it to the centre wins!
Bubble giggled.
"By the way ya b@#&%tches, you’re never gonna make it out there without being traumatized for life or shredded to bits. There are things like vines, angel food cake and monsters that can give you terrible hallucinations, eat your EYEBALLS, try to kill you and rip you’re guts out and-"
Caine popped the blabbering ball of soap before it got another word out of its absurd mouth.
“What Bubble is trying to say is that this is going to be REALLY FUN!”
On Jax's right, Zooble flipped the finger at Caine.
“Yeah, I’m not doing this…” they muttered, ready to head off to their room. Probably to complain about their parts or something.
Caine tutted.
“Zooble, Zooble. Please, give me a chance at this. Didn’t you enjoy the gun adventure? I’m sure you’ll love it. Besides Gangle was talking to me about how much she loved having you on her team!”
Zooble cut their gaze to Gangle, who laughed nervously and proceeded to shrink behind Kinger in a pathetic attempt to hide. Zooble didn’t say anything.
God, what a wimp.
Jax groaned as quietly as he could. He was the person who worked alone during the adventures, played against the rules, threw everyone into chaos while watching on the sidelines, laughing his guts out. His silly streak was at least a mile long, ranging from mailing Zooble a pipe bomb, to throwing Pomni out of a moving truck. It was his literal archetype, the “funny one”.
(What’s your archetype…the villain？）
He couldn’t do that if he’s tied to someone else the entire time.
His foot tapped vigorously against the floor, trying to release some of the stress that was currently piling in his chest like an avalanche about to roll down and consume everything.
“Well, pick your teams everyone. Once that’s done, its ADVENTURE TIME!” Caine announced, a choir of unseen golden angles singing AAAAAAAHHHH AAAAAAHHH in the background as he said aDvEnTuRe tImE.
Almost immediately, Pomni was backing away from him, headed towards the rest of the group. He caught Ragatha frowning before throwing him an accusing glare.
He shrugged back and grinned at her in his usual nonchalant manner.
Why should he give a shit about what she thinks?
Zooble was walking up to Gangle. The masked ribbon tensed, as if she expected a scolding. But instead, Zooble nodded, as if agreeing to her unspoken offer to be on her team. For the first time today, a grin broke out on Gangle’s face.
Jax turned his head back to the other 3, pretending to check his non-existent fingernails.
Kinger was busy wondering around, staring at imaginary butterflies probably, to notice anything. Pomni was avoiding eye contact. Ragatha was talking to her. None seemed eager to be on a team with him.
But before they could tell Caine they were on a team together, Kinger jumped in.
“Ragatha! I loved having you on a team with me LAST TIME! Would you be so kind to be on my team this time?”
Obviously, he didn’t hear Pomni’s audible gulp, nor Ragatha’s frustrated sigh. Or he was just too crazy to care.
Ragatha forced a smile that Jax thought was going to break any second.
“Y-yo! Kinger! Y-yeah! I would love to be on a team with you!” She stuttered, while throwing Pomni an ‘I’m sorry’ look.
Pomni stared at Jax for a second, before nodding at Ragatha. He nearly didn’t catch what she said next.
“It’s fine…”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. Oh no.
Caine laughed maniacally.
“Now that we’ve got teams, time to go! Good luck!”
He clicked his fingers and Jax felt the world go dark around him.