Chapter Text
It was a few months after the events of episode nine that Jax woke up as a purple bunny again, alone in a sea of pillows in a giant tent. It was cosy and dark. She felt heavy and groggy like she had just had the best nap ever. Then she remembered everything up until that final moment when Pomni had hugged her goodbye.
The reception to Jax's return was mixed, to say the least. The urge to be more patient with her this time around was met with zero growth on Jax's part. She went straight back to her bullshit. She didn't open up or apologise for anything.
Everyone sat together while Caine replayed his presentation of their real life counterparts’ lives outside the circus for Jax. Jax felt her throat constrict and heart ache to see that everything had turned out okay for her, but outwardly, she just cringed. “Ew. Why would he grow his hair out like that? It's so ugly.”
Pomni gave Jax a confused look that she ignored.
This incident earned Jax her first post-abstraction ‘therapy scene’ the next time she and Pomni were alone together. Jax was blowing on a mug of black coffee from Café Cirque's new expanded menu while she waited for it to cool down. “Do you… want us to try out she/her pronouns with you?” Pomni suddenly blurted out. Jax's gender had been an elephant in the room for weeks by this point. She knew everyone had figured it out, between Pomni's intimate glimpse into her past, the feminising of Leeroy in reality and Zooble's impressive gaydar. Jax was sure they talked about it behind her back, but Pomni was the first person to dare to bring it up with her just now.
“Sure.” Jax mumbled. For some reason, it had never occurred to her that she could simply ask them to address her differently. It seemed like deception.
“You know we support you, right? And… love you for who you are,” Pomni encouraged her shyly. “Like we do with Zooble.” Jax shrugged awkwardly. Her mind began to flood with thoughts of the inconvenience she would be causing her companions by making them pretend she was a woman. She nervously grimaced through a sip of coffee. “Why do you always get the black coffee if you don't like it?” Pomni asked.
“Lattes are for girls.” Jax replied with contempt.
Pomni gave her another confused look. “What exactly do you… see yourself as? You don't have to pick anything, but, is there anything that resonates with you?”
“...Girl.” Jax answered sheepishly, well aware that she was contradicting herself.
She didn't think trying new pronouns would change anything. She believed that no matter what anyone called her, she was still only playing pretend. She would never be a real woman, so trying to act like one at all would be pointless.
That afternoon, everyone was making and decorating cookies together. Jax made mini replicas of them all and smothered them in red icing. “This is you guys.” She told them. She held up a cookie with big black icing eyes. “This one's you, Gangle.” She made intense eye contact with Gangle while biting the head off her cookie.
“Leave her alone.” Zooble muttered without glancing up from their own work.
“At least she's taking it out on the biscuits for now.” Pomni joked optimistically.
“Maybe we should give her voodoo dolls to play with.” Ragatha joined in.
It didn't feel pretend at all. It felt like the truth clicking into place.