Work Text:
“My teacher definitely thought I was stupid, but c’mon, Jax, that’s as creative as I could’ve gotten at the time!”
“What? ‘I love someone and no one dies’? That’s all you got?”
“Okay, obviously now we’ve got all the time in the world to brainstorm, but in high school, yeah, that’s all I got.”
“Yawnnn. You had every chance to embarrass your class, and you just chose to make some normal, boring movie?”
There’s a stifled pause as Ribbit traces the ground of her bedroom with her pointer finger. All the little flies and lily pad patterns that she never really asked for but had no choice but to love.
“Well, that’s how I wanted it to end. I always liked happy endings.” She lets it slip a little quieter than she meant to. It sounds like it has more meaning than it does. Jax, being who he is, decides to ignore it.
“Didn’t think you were the sentimental type, Ribs. Gonna put me to sleep.” Jax stretches with a dramatic groan. With what little view she has of him from her seat on her rug, she can barely make out the rising of all 4 of his pink and purple limbs breaching the horizon of her bed.
“Toootally. And definitely not the fact that you’re lying in my bed and left me on the floor.”
“Just like we’re ignoring how you dragged me out of my beauty sleep.”
“You missed me.” She responds.
“Mhm.” He hums, flopping back down like it’s nothing.
Ribbit’s eyebrows, or the part of her face that would have eyebrows, come down in a squint. She wants to sit up, shoot him a glare, come back at him for being oddly sentimental in a moment where he’d already made fun of her for it, but she can’t. Like the ending of her sophomore year final project from high school, she leaves the moment as it is, feeling right like that.
“Yeah.” Is all she can say.
The silence that follows isn’t uncomfortable. It just is.
Ribbit sits with it, the weight of that simple hum still hanging in the dim air between them like something she could reach out and touch if she wanted to.
She doesn’t.
The room feels smaller somehow, or maybe she just feels more aware of the space, of him in her bed, of her on the floor, of the fact that neither of them are saying what they mean but maybe they’re saying it anyway.
She looks down at the rug beneath her again. She’s still tracing every shape. Lily pads and flies scattered across faded green fabric that’s probably just as old as her time here. Her finger finds the edge of one lily pad, traces the curve of it. Once. The motion is automatic, muscle memory she wishes she didn’t have.
Twice.
The pad’s outline is slightly raised, textured differently from the rest of the rug. She follows it again, making sure the path is the same. Making sure it feels right. Her fingertip drags along the fabric, catching slightly on the weave.
Three times.
There’s a fly next to it. She moves to that one, traces its wings. Left wing, right wing. Left wing, right wing, body. The rhythm of it is almost soothing, except for the part of her brain that can’t stop doing it, that knows if she doesn’t stop soon her fingertip will start to burn, that knows that Jax can probably hear the soft shh-shh-shh of her finger against the rug.
She tries to stop. Her hand hovers for a second.
Then she’s back on the lily pad. Once more, just to make sure. just to get it right.
The shame sits low in her chest, familiar and unwelcome. She keeps her movements small, casual, like maybe if she doesn’t draw attention to it, it isn’t happening. Like maybe he won’t notice.
“Hey, Ribs.”
Her hand freezes.
“Remember that dive bar adventure? When Caine dragged us all there in the middle of the night because none of us were talking to him and you actually got up and sang?” His voice is lazy, amused. “I’ve never seen you like that. You were so into it, it was kinda crazy. Like you didn’t even know the rest of us were there.”
Ribbit blinks. Her finger lifts from the rug. She sits up. “I was not—“
“You were totally into it.” She can hear his grin in his voice. “Singing like nobody was watching. I didn’t even know you could do that.”
“I was just having fun.”
“Exactly. You actually let loose for once.”
Her hand is in her lap now. She didn’t even realize she’d moved it. The rug sits beneath her, lily pads and flies untouched, and the anxious buzz under her skin has quieted to something manageable.
“You’re the worst,” she says, but he can hear the smile in it.
“Yeah, yeah.” He yawns, and she hears him shift on the bed, getting comfortable again. “You love it."
She doesn’t argue.
The silence that follows is different from the ones before. It's fuller, somehow. Heavier. She can hear him breathing, slow, even, the kind of rhythm that suggests he might actually fall asleep up there. The thought should annoy her. It doesn't.
She traces a lily pad with her eyes this time, not her finger. Follows the curve of it, the way the green fades into darker green at the edges. The flies are scattered between them, mid-flight, frozen in fabric. She wonders if they're supposed to be landing or leaving.
Time moves strangely here. It always has. But right now, in this room, with him sprawled across her bed and her sitting on the floor like some kind of devoted supplicant, it feels like time isn't moving at all. Like they've carved out a pocket of it that belongs only to them.
She likes that. She doesn't want to like that.
Above her, Jax shifts. It's subtle at first—just a readjustment, one of his limbs stretching out and then retracting. But then he moves again, more deliberately this time. She hears the mattress creak as weight redistributes. Hears the soft thump of feet—paws? she's never been sure—touching the floor.
Her chest tightens.
He's getting up. Of course he's getting up. It's late, probably. Or early. Time is meaningless but routines aren't, and this—whatever this is—has gone on longer than it usually does. Longer than it's supposed to.
She keeps her eyes on the rug. Watches a fly that will never land.
Another creak. Another shift. She can feel him moving, can sense the space he's occupying changing, pulling away from her orbit. The air in the room feels different already, like it's preparing for his absence.
Her throat feels tight.
"Where are you going?"
The words come out quieter than she meant them to. Not accusatory. Not playful. Just... small. Honest in a way that makes her want to take them back immediately, swallow them down, pretend she never let them escape.
The movement stops.
She still won't look at him. Can't. If she looks at him, she'll see whatever expression he's making, and that will make this real. That will make this something they have to acknowledge.
The silence stretches. She counts her heartbeats.
One. Two. Three.
Then—
The floor creaks beside her.
She looks up.
Jax is lowering himself down, folding those long limbs in a way that should look awkward but doesn't. He settles onto the rug next to her, close enough that she can feel the warmth radiating off him, close enough that if she shifted even slightly their shoulders would touch.
He doesn't say anything. Doesn't explain. Doesn't make a joke or deflect or do any of the things she expected.
He just... stays.
Ribbit's breath catches. She's hyper-aware of everything suddenly—the texture of the rug beneath her, the way the light from her lamp casts soft shadows across the room, the sound of his breathing now that it's right there, right next to her. The space between them is so small. Inches. Less than inches.
She shifts, just barely. Her shoulder brushes his.
He doesn't move away.
The tightness in her chest unfurls into something else. Something warm and terrifying and so, so fragile. She can feel her pulse in her fingertips, in her throat. Can feel the weight of him beside her like gravity, like something inevitable.
This is what it feels like, she thinks. To exist next to someone and have it mean something.
Neither of them speaks. There's nothing to say that wouldn't ruin it. So they just sit there, on her bedroom floor, surrounded by lily pads and flies that will never move, and let the moment be exactly what it is.
Right. It feels right.
Like a happy ending she's too afraid to name.
Her hand moves without permission.
It’s subtle at first. Just her index finger tapping against the rug, finding the edge of a lily pad, following the curve of it, adjusting her bowtie once, twice. The rhythm is soothing in a way that makes her chest tighten with shame. She knows what she’s doing. She always knows.
Three times. Four,
“You’re doing it again.”
His voice is quiet. Not judgmental. Just… observant. Like he’s commenting on the weather.
Her hand freezes. She doesn’t look at him. “I know.”
“Why?” A pause. “You nervous?”
“What?” The word comes out too sharply. She pulls her hand back and tucks it against her stomach, sitting up while he stays down. “No, no, I’m not nervous."
“Okay.”
“I’m not."
“I said okay.”
She can feel him looking at her. Can feel the weight of his attention like a physical thing. Her jaw tightens. “Why would I be nervous?”
“I don’t know, Ribs. You tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Right.” He shifts beside her, and she hears the smile in his voice again. “So we’re just gonna sit on your bedroom floor in the middle of the night tracing your rug for fun?”
“Maybe we are.”
“Sure. And I’m here because I like the aesthetic of lily pads.”
Despite herself, her mouth twitches. “You don’t?”
“They’re very… green.”
“Profound observation.”
“I’m a profound guy.”
She does look at him then. He’s already looking at her, and the expression on his face is softer than his voice suggests. It makes something in her chest ache in a way that makes her fingers itch to fidget.
“You’re an idiot,” she says quietly.
“Sure.” He doesn’t look away. “But idiots have to keep each other company.”
The words hang between them. She should deflect, should make a joke, should do anything other than sit here feeling like her ribcage is too small for everything that wants to come bursting out of it.
Instead, she says, “Sure do.”
She scratches her stomach, once, twice, three times. It’s uncomfortable, but she can’t stop.
His hand moves. Slow, deliberate. He places it over hers, where it’s still pressed against her stomach, and the warmth of it is almost unbearable. Not covering it to stop her. Just… there. Existing with her.
“Even at my worst?” The question comes out before she can stop it. Quiet, vulnerable in a way that makes her want to take it back immediately.
Jax doesn’t hesitate. “Even at your worst.”
“Why?”
“Chill fellas.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Sure it is.” His thumb moves against the back of her hand. Just once. “You think too much, you know that?”
“You don’t think enough.”
“Probably.” He tilts his head back, looking up at her ceiling. “Nice stars, by the way. Very committed to the aesthetic.”
She follows his gaze. The glow-in-the-dark stars are scattered across the ceiling in no particular pattern. Some clustered together, some isolated, all of them glowing that soft greenish-yellow that never quite looks like real starlight. Caine put them up when she got here, complaining that there wasn’t enough light in her room, when everything felt too big and too strange, and she needed something familiar to look at in the dark.
“They’re stupid.”
“They’re not.”
“They look like they belong in a kid’s bedroom.”
“So?” He’s still looking up, and there’s something almost peaceful in his expression. “They’re still stars.”
She watches him watching them. Watches the way the faint light catches on his features, softens the sharp edges of his smile into something almost gentle. He looks younger like this, if that’s possible.
"Do you ever think about it?" she asks. "What it would be like if things were different?"
"Different how?"
"I don't know. Just... different."
He's quiet for a moment. Then: "Sometimes."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." He lowers his gaze from the ceiling and turns to look at her again. "But then I think, if things were different, I probably wouldn't be sitting on your floor right now. And that seems worse."
Her throat feels tight. "That's the dumbest thing you've ever said."
"I've said dumber."
"Debatable."
"Remember when I told Caine that his adventures would be better if they involved more explosions?"
"That wasn't dumb. That was accurate."
"He made us do that obstacle course that was literally just explosions."
"And it was better."
He laughs, soft, surprised. The sound fills the space between them like something precious. She wants to hold onto it. Wants to press it into her chest and keep it there.
The silence that follows is comfortable. Easy. She can hear him breathing beside her, can feel the warmth of his hand still resting over hers. The stars above them glow with their patient, artificial light.
She should let it be. Should let this moment exist exactly as it is, perfect and unexamined.
But she's never been good at leaving things alone.
"Have you ever done something that you regret?"