Chapter Text
So... now she knows.
Every detail about it.
Every single movement. All that led to... this. To him winding up in this Circus.
A trembling confession. One that hardly anybody on Earth, among those who have been through events even remotely similar, would be willing to make. To anybody. Especially to someone who might amount to a total stranger. Let alone to a mere avatar of another person.
Nevertheless, well... Jax, right there, in a bedroom that was not even his own... did exactly just that.
Against what he would have, under a wildly different set of circumstances, considered his better reasoning... Jax just poured out every bit of his disturbingly shaken heart. The one secret of his that he wanted to keep just for himself. Out of shame? Out of pride? Some third reason? Nevermind that anymore. Now... it was out.
Incredibly luckily for him, though, the exact person to whom Jax made this confession was not just a random anybody.
It was somebody who... listened.
Very, very closely.
Only hope remains that Ribbit wouldn't immediately try to find a way to make this confession of Jax's stand against him. After all, already during that monologue, that deeply hurtful... heartful monologue... did a thought cross Jax's mind. The thought that this... the very act of making this very confession... was probably a terrible, terrible idea.
It wasn't. Not at all.
Not as far as she is concerned.
How soon, as a matter of fact, did Ribbit make comfortably clear that any worry of Jax's was futile?
Immediately.
"Your secret's safe with me."
That was it. That was enough. That statement that Ribbit made right then and there was... all the confirmation that Jax needed. That Ribbit was... trustworthy.
Not just trustworthy... but exactly the kind of someone whom Jax had spent his entire human life being in desperate need of, but never came close to so much as meeting.
Somebody exactly like that... was finally there. In his life. Right beside him.
Somebody with whom he was, at long last, able to share mutual trust.
The sigh of weight-dropping relief may not have been seen on the outside... but it was definitely there. Both he and even Ribbit felt it.
He even blushed.
DING!
A snap back into one's actual surroundings! A moment of honest intimacy - suddenly ruined!
"Hey," was heard from outside. "Is Jax in there?" spoke the voice unmistakably belonging to Kaufmo. "I think I found the-"
"Yeah, uh," as though his panicking mode had been activated, Jax stood right up from the bed, and: "-I mean, now is not a good time! Or now's fi- What do you want?"
Needless to say, confusion got the better of Kaufmo. He had no clue why this was the exact way Jax had reacted to the ringing - although a few guesses were to be had - leading him to just say:
"If now is a bad time, I can come back later."
"That would be cool; good!" responded Jax, still nervously.
That Kaufmo just walked away after this small, unexpected exchange, would be a reasonable assumption to make. And, luckily, a true one.
But with Jax, this still just didn't sit right.
"Alright," he therefore faced Ribbit again, maintaining a way more determined voice, out of nowhere. "So, if you ever tell anyone about this, I'm never speaking to you again. Sound good?"
But Ribbit knew - she could just sense, from all too far away - that the way Jax had just made this insistence was... not right. Not right at all.
And definitely completely out of line with the look in his eyes, the posture, the softness of his voice which accompanied his deeply personal confession! Just fully incompatible with it!
Ribbit knew that merely just accepting this request of Jax's and being done with it could not possibly have been the best choice. Or a good one, to begin with! If she were to do exactly that... Jax might just run away and... just never acknowledge that this... had ever taken place.
Thus, instead of answering...
She hugged him.
For one millionth of the briefest fathomable moment, it was a far cry from Jax being okay with this. With... with him being hugged.
It would not keep being that way, though.
Because he understood exactly why Ribbit was doing this.
It wasn't a means of manipulation. Jax had known Ribbit for tangibly too long by that evening; she... she just wasn't someone who would even consider committing to anything of that sort.
In fact... it was reassurance. Just in case something about all this had made it seem... that her verbal promise alone was not enough. Which... given the discovery that Jax is considerably more insecure than he gives off... it really might not have been.
Ribbit did not let go.
She decidedly held on very, very tight.
"I'm here for you..."
This hug did a much more masterful job expressing this exact thought and leading it to a place of comfort in Jax's... spirit... than just plainly stating said thought might have the power to.
Jax knew he could rest.
Now he finally sighed out loud, too.
Once they both opened their eyes, staring, longingly, into each other's, a few more tears escaped Jax's eyes. Each one of which Ribbit ran her soft hands across his face to wipe.
That there.
The wiping.
Comfort.
Pure... genuine... benign... warm... comfort.
...Home.
He finally felt like he was home.
Something of which out... there... he had never reached the feeling. Not even for a hot minute. Not a chance.
This was where he belonged.
He belonged in that hug with Ribbit.
...Peace.
"You can stay the night here if you want."
Her voice... So soft. Sweet. Maybe even magical.
And he would keep hearing that same sweet voice so... so many more times...
A posture that signaled defeat.
Jax just said...
"Okay."
Maybe that was not too bad a decision. Just this one night, remain surrounded by a pretense of stars, nothing else being a source of any light in the room... and fall asleep in a warm embrace. Of someone who... listened. Someone who had let him know she was there for him. Someone who made him rest assured he... belonged there.
Someone who trusted him.
Someone whom he could trust.
It was, in fact, a great decision.