Archive of Our Own

Jax comes to her one day. Quietly, with no warning, the way most tragedies do.

Pomni might have seen it coming, if she weren’t being tugged in so many horrible directions already. She’s thrown herself into mending their crumbling world, because it’s something she can do in the face of so much she can’t. She can’t help anyone escape this place, can’t make her friends forget what they’ve learned about the nature of their existence here, can’t bring Caine back or even begin to provide closure on what his loss might mean for them–but she can do this. She can patch the holes, keep them safe, and maybe, if she sticks with it, maybe she can take these gaps in the world and turn them into something the others could one day feel at home in. 

Maybe.

The others must feel a similar craving for purpose, because they each take to Kinger’s conjuring lessons before long. First Ragatha, ever eager to ‘make herself useful’. Pomni would still want her by her side, even if she wasn’t. Ragatha’s eye goes glassy when she tells her as much. She’s a natural, conjuring larger, more structurally sound shapes in her first attempts than Pomni has managed with days of Kinger’s careful guidance. Gangle and Zooble join soon after. 

Jax… doesn’t. 

Pomni catches him watching from the sidelines, sometimes. Lingering in shadowed corners, lounging on the upper balcony, reclined with his head tilted back against the railing and eyes closed like the state of their world doesn’t bother him at all. Some days she hardly notices him. Some days he hovers closer by, and Pomni catches him watching her through cracked eyelids for a moment before he wrenches his gaze away and goes right back to pretending. 

She doesn’t hear Jax approach. Her first clue she isn’t alone on the trek back to her room is when the weight of her jester cap is suddenly snatched from her head. She knows who the culprit is without needing to turn around. 

At first she thinks he’s being cruel. That this is nothing more than a disappointing, if not expected, return to old habits. Pomni whirls to follow the sound of ringing bells, already frowning. 

It only deepens when she lays eyes on him. 

There's something wrong. The face that greets her is far from the teasing one she expects to see. It’s not even the cold detachment he’d worn from the sidelines as of late. 

She’s met this Jax before, not so long ago. He stares back at her, eyes wide and lost. He looks distant somehow, despite standing in arm’s reach. 

"I..." Jax's voice cracks, and the last of Pomni’s ire gives a death rattle at its feet. He squeezes her hat in both hands, gaze darting sideways, to the floor, then back to her. They linger on her without seeing, lips pressing together in a wobbly line.

Pomni's gaze lowers to her hat. He's gripping tight, clinging to the bundle in his hand like a life preserver in a storm. 

"Jax?"

Her voice breaks whatever spell he’s found himself under. Jax flinches at the sound, eyes darting, lips pulling back in a scowl.

"Nevermind,” He sticks his hand out, waves it in her general direction. An offering. He isn't looking at her anymore, deep in the throes of damage control. "This was stupid.”

The attempt to push her away again is as weak as it is expected. They’ve all been on the flimsier side lately, now that she thinks about it. She considers the hat, considers what it's come to mean to him, a representation of safety and comfort and trust, however tentative.

Considers what it might mean, for him to be so eager to rid himself of it now.

“I don't think it's stupid.”

Jax’s brows lower, annoyance flashing in the sharpness of his smile. He withdraws his outstretched hand, dropping it to his side.

“Fine. If you don’t want it,” Jax rolls his eyes, voice caustic and sing-song, like this was all some grand joke she’s too stupid to understand and he’s tired of wasting his time on it. He turns on his heel with an ease that doesn’t match the tension in his shoulders.  “‘spose I’ll just have to go and drop it off in the void for ya.”

"Jax, wait.” 

Jax’s ear twitches. He stops midstep, back to her.

"If you need it..."

That does it.

Jax whirls back around, 0-100 in a second flat, "I don't need it! I was just–god, you’re so… you just think you know everything, don't you?"

"Jax," she coaxes, gently. "What’s going on?"

His scowl falls lopsided, buckling under the strain of her question. He lets out a frustrated growl, runs a hand down his face.

“...Nothing, Pomni. Forget it.”

“You can talk to me,” Pomni reminds him. 

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Okay…” Pomni gives a hesitant nod, not wanting to feed any further into his instincts to dig his heels in and deny the obvious. “Then talk to me about nothing.”

“That’s stupid,” Jax says. “Why the hell would I want to do that?”

“It helped before.”

“This isn’t like before.”

“...Okay,” Pomni agrees, quieter. 

A huff, a false start as he tries to spit the words too fast and stumbles over them, “you–w-what, that’s it? That’s all you have to say? Okay?”

Pomni shrugs.

“I believe you.”

Jax stares, pupils small. She watches his prickly demeanor melt away in real time.

“If it’s not… like before,” Pomni glances down at her hat, still clenched in Jax’s fist, “...can you maybe tell me what it is like?”

There's a long moment where she loses Jax to his thoughts again, his eyes going hazy and unfocused. His stare never moves from where she's standing but Pomni can tell he isn't seeing her. 

She’s seen this mental tailspin before, not at the precipice but in the wake of its destruction, in the aftermath of Caine’s torture. Burning lungs and vacant stares and fingers dug so tight against his skin she and Gangle were surprised he hadn’t found a way to bleed from it. 

Pomni doesn’t know what’s wrong this time, but she knows she’ll lose him to that state again if she doesn’t snap him out of this soon. She edges forward, closing the distance–slow, careful movements, not wanting to risk spooking him–and lays her hand over his, the one holding her hat. She can feel the invisible tremor in him as she takes his hand.

“Jax?”

He blinks, gaze flicking down to find her again, briefly startled despite the softness of her voice as she calls him back.

The way he looks at her, like a man drowning, like he isn't sure if she's going to pull him from the water or push him further under, has her chest aching. The alarm bells in her mind ring louder.

"I...I-I think I'm..." Jax's breath hitches, involuntary. He gulps down a breath, eyes lowering to the bundle in his hands, to her hand over his. It gives a faint jingle as his grip scrunches in the fabric. "...It’s getting worse…”

He chokes. Breaths coming too fast now, hovering on the precipice of no return. The spitting image of the Jax she’d met in the aftermath of Caine’s torture; the panic, the desperation, the hurt–terror pouring from him like the blood of a freshly opened wound, pulsing through the cracks in his facade until it overwhelmed him.

The fear in him now is just as heavy, just as desperate–but there's something more, too. Something older. A hurt half-healed and torn through again, over and over, its edges macerated and weeping. Whatever this is, this nothing he’s come to her with and tried so hard to bury again, Jax has been carrying it for a while. 

But time doesn't heal all wounds. Sometimes, without proper care, they fester.

She squeezes her hand, trying her best to ground him. 

"Hey, look at me. Breathe. It’s okay."

Jax shakes his head, frantic.

“It’s–shut up.”

Pomni gives him a mournful look. She struggles for something to say, gives her best attempt at a guess–if she started with something she already knew, something he’d willingly given her, maybe she could remind him he could trust her with his other wounds, too.

“Do they hurt?”

“N-no, I–” he releases his breath in a rush, runs a hand through the fur at the base of his ears. He still does that a lot, despite Jax’s insistence the phantom touches had faded. Pomni hadn't entirely believed him, when he’d told her. She believes him even less now. “This is different.” 

“Different?” Pomni echoes. 

“Yeah,” Jax breathes. “I… it won’t… It keeps coming back, I don't know what to–? I-I need…"

His words devolve into breathless heaving, arms clutching his middle like he’s fighting a wave of nausea rather than panic. He gives a pained groan, a stuttering gasp, voice so small and pained it breaks Pomni’s heart to hear it.

“...h-help.”

Like rolling back a bandage and finding the tissue beneath gangrenous, Jax’s words only serve to worsen the dawning horror building in her stomach. This should not be happening. Jax did not ask for anything–he took, or at best, begrudgingly accepted what was offered with minimal insults in return. He certainly didn’t ask for help. This wasn’t an early warning siren–this was a charred, smoking crater. The remnants of something already gone horribly wrong.

“I…” Pomni tightens her hold on his wrist, afraid to let go, now. “I will.”

Jax doesn’t have anything to say to that. He may not even hear her. His last request leaves him shattered, worn thin, breaths rattling through his chest like he might shake apart with the force of them.

“Okay, uh–How about we just… take a minute?” 

Pomni glances around for someplace less exposed. He's always been more skittish in the open, she can't imagine it's helping him now. Her room? His? She doubts he’d appreciate either when he comes to, and they’re far enough from the bedrooms she isn’t sure they’ll make it there before his knees give out. 

She spies a playground-like structure jutting from a wall and makes her decision, tugging him towards it. Jax lets her drag him, arm slack in her grip, his other hand clutching at his chest like it's all he can do to keep himself in one piece. 

The structure boasts an enclosed second floor, sheltered and dark, but the only way up is a rope ladder and Pomni doubts either of them have the wherewithal to climb it right now. Instead she drags him towards the tube slide and steers him to sit in the mouth of the tunnel, hands lingering on his shoulders after she’s guided him down. 

“Hey, you still with me?” She tries to smile, to keep her tone light despite the anxiety making its home in her. Jax can barely carry the weight of his own right now, she can’t afford to burden him with more.

Jax tilts his head up at her, alarmed. Unnerved by something–her proximity, maybe? Or something she'd said? 

He gives a shaky nod.

Pomni smiles. 

“Good. Scoot.”

Jax doesn't respond to her command, lost again. Pomni shifts to lean over him, bracing herself against the upper rim of the slide with one hand and gently shooing him backwards with the other. 

A flash of understanding. Jax glances over his shoulder, eyes flicking over his new surroundings, ears drooping against the back of his head. Whether he approves of her choice or not Jax dutifully tucks his legs up into the slide and shuffles backwards, allowing her to follow.

Pomni clambers inside. The slide is just tall enough that Jax can sit with his back to the wall without ducking his head, but his ears brush the ceiling and he shudders, pinning them against his nape. Pomni slowly settles cross-legged across from him. Her knee brushes against his in the confined space, and Jax winces and pulls his own to his chest before Pomni has the chance to apologise.

Maybe it was a bad idea to crowd him like this, but the idea of sitting in the mouth of the tunnel while Jax sat alone in the dark at her mercy doesn’t feel like a good option. Leaving him alone here and giving him space to figure things out on his own was an even worse one. At least this way she could still offer him an easy escape route–not because she thinks he’ll take it, she hopes he won’t–but not having the option would surely only contribute to his panic spiral.

"Is this okay?"

Jax buries his face against his knees and folds his arms around his head. He takes a deeper breath than the others, shoulders rising then slumping again in a shaky exhale. It quickly devolves into something shallow again, but his panting comes a little quieter now. Small, wheezing breaths echo quietly in the tunnel, muffled against his arms. 

Pomni hovers, a silent witness. Her inaction leaves her uneasy, but what does she even begin to do with this? Jax’s composure in active freefall before her eyes, a fractured half-explanation, nevermind? Something different than before but just as bad–maybe worse. Worse than hands at his ears, pulling and tearing until he unravelled into something new, a body that felt even less like it belonged to him than the one made for him when his human counterpart donned the headset. 

The helplessness she feels now is a familiar one.

When it came to her relationship with Jax, Pomni has spent most of it squarely on the outside looking in. She’d done her best to change that–stood with her hands cupped against the glass, straining to catch a glimpse while Jax worked twice as hard to board those same windows up from the inside. 

He isn’t actively trying to block her now, and his protests have fallen quiet, but Pomni isn’t reassured. His past self has done too good of a job. Pomni still can’t see enough, can’t make out the shape of whatever it is he thinks is so terrible he needs to spend every waking moment hiding it–all she can see now is the smoke curling under the gap in the door.    

Pomni spies a flash of red and blue in his lap and reaches for it, tugging it free.

Maybe she couldn’t see him now, but Pomni has caught glimpses before. 

She scrambles to her knees and throws the hat over Jax’s head so fast he doesn’t have time to reject it, pressing her hands over the sides to smooth it over his temples. Wide eyes open to stare at her, startled, betrayed–then flick upwards. Fear shifts to confusion, then realisation. A glimmer of something softer, warmer, hopeful–

Then he meets her eyes, and despair rises in them like the tide, swallowing him whole. 

He breaks down, then. Quiet sobs into his hands, hunched over bent knees, gripping himself so tight it's as though he's trying to physically hold them back.

“Oh, Jax.” 

At a loss for what else to do, Pomni carefully adjusts the hat. Careful movements, her touch feather-soft, she tucks his ears beneath the band and smooths the fabric down the way she's seen him do a few times before. On those nights he'd wordlessly slip into her room after spending the day watching them and continuing to choose isolation, trapped in the lingering throes of a nightmare that refused to let him go even after he opened his eyes. 

Jax hadn’t asked her for help even then, just made her watch helplessly as he stubbornly fell asleep on the floor beside her bed, refusing any shred of comfort she offered him except for that stupid hat. Pomni would always find it on her bedside table the next morning, Jax himself nowhere in sight, and they'd both go back to conjuring and sulking and pretending nothing had changed between them.  

Maybe she was foolish for letting him, but what option had he left her with? When every ounce of vulnerability she'd seen in him was met with twice as much venom the next day? Annoyed as she was by his actions, Pomni couldn’t bring herself to hate him for them. Part of her understood. In the face of so much uncertainty, weren’t they all just trying to cling to what was left of the status quo? 

Jax whimpers something against his arms. Pomni dips her head, close as she dares, in an attempt to hear him.

“What was that?”

Jax groans, swipes a trembling hand over his face as he lifts it to glare at her.

“Leave me alone,” he repeats. 

“Um,” she settles back on her knees, smile tight. “Yeah, no. I’m not doing that.” 

“This isn’t a joke, Pomni.”

“Then tell me what it is,” she tries. Vulnerability has never been one of Jax’s strengths–she’s asking a lot, pressing him like this, but he also hasn’t left her much choice in the matter. She leans into the gentle teasing, hoping the familiarity might be of some small comfort for him, “I already told you, I’m helping. No take backs.” 

A miserable noise. He muffles it against his knees, burying his face again.

“You can’t help,” he insists. “Not with this.”

She tries to ignore the dread rising in her, the prickle of cold that ghosts up her neck and down her limbs at the words. At the certainty he says them with.

“Can so,” she reaches a hesitant hand up and prods at the bell on the tail of her hat, the same way Jax has done to her a hundred times before. It gives a gentle ring, echoing off the slide’s walls. “See? I’m doing it right now.”

“I hate you.”

“Uh huh,” Pomni deadpans. It’s a good thing he’s hiding his face–Jax is none the wiser to the involuntary eyeroll she sends him in response. “I think the words you’re looking for are thank you, but we can work on that later.”

Jax shakes his head. Denying his gratitude or protesting the concept of later, Pomni isn’t sure. The worry in her stomach gives a sickening little twist at that. 

“Jax,” Pomni warns. “I’m not going anywhere. If you don’t–or can’t–tell me what you need, that’s fine, but that just means I’m going to have to start guessing. I think we’d both prefer if I didn’t have to resort to trial and error.”

“Threatening me, now?” he asks, breathless. She can tell he’s trying for humour, that the sound he makes might have once been a laugh. It isn’t. “You really know how to make a guy feel special, P-Pom.”

“Jax, I’m serious–”

“I don’t care,” his chest gives another heave, a rattling exhale. He whines somewhere low in his throat, “I don’t care, okay? Just–do whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.”

Jax lifts his head to peek over his folded arms at her. 

“Then you’re even stupider than you look.”

Pomni hums, but doesn’t dignify that with a response.

They’ve played this game before. Jax is close to surrender, she can feel it. If she just waits  him out a little longer, if she refuses to engage with his attempts to derail her…

It takes a while, but eventually Jax is the first to break their impromptu staring contest. His entire body shudders, eyes snapping shut again as he curls tighter inwards.

“Just…ugh,” Jax groans again, voice shaky, “whatever. Just–say something, would you? Talk. I can’t–the quiet, it’s…”

Finally. 

It’s a small opening, but it’s something. Pomni snatches the thread and runs with it.

“Quiet is bad?” Pomni clarifies, trying her best to keep the eagerness from her tone.

Jax nods. The bells give a faint ring as he does. His shoulders flinch upward at the sound.

“Okay, great! Not great. You know what I mean, uh…” She winces, tripping at the starting line as her brain scrambles for what to say next. Deciding it might be best to lead by example, she settles on the truth. “Sorry. I wasn’t expecting that. You, uh–usually tell me to shut up.”

Jax groans and plants his face again.

“Okay, okay. Uh… Talking. Oh–! Did you see we finished patching the Atrium? We got to start working on the Aquarium today.”

Jax gives a huff at that. He doesn’t lift his head, but his voice is just loud enough for Pomni to parse. 

“Hate that place.”

“You do?”

“Gives me the creeps.”

Pomni pictures the tranquility of the space and struggles to understand, but forges on. 

She tells him about the repairs. How the aquarium’s glass had cracked during the tremors as the circus unravelled but somehow hadn’t spilled a drop of water. Tells him about the school of dozens of tiny fish they’d found swimming through the open air, displaced by a glitch Pomni hadn’t understood even when Kinger had tried his best to explain it to her. 

“He’s doing a lot better, even in the light,” Pomni adds, as an aside. “I think it’s helped him a lot, to have something to focus on.” 

Jax peers up at her over folded arms, but says nothing.

“Do you think, maybe… you could use something like that? To keep your mind off…”

“No.”

Pomni bites her lip. He’s glaring, now. She ignores it, distracted by the heavy shadows beneath his eyes.

“How long has it been since you’ve slept?”

The way his expression locks up says more about his reluctance for the topic than anything it could have morphed into. He casts his eyes sideways, into the shadowy depths of the slide.

“I dunno.”

“Why?”

“Does it matter? We’re not people. It’s not like we actually need it.”

“You do, apparently,” Pomni counters, ignoring his jab. They’re not human, maybe–but their minds are cut from the same cloth. Certainly enough to qualify as people, at least. It’s not an argument she feels like hashing out with Jax right now, but she files it away for later. “You look terrible.”

He snorts, gaze flicking back to meet hers. 

“Threats and insults? Man, you’re not very good at this, are you?”

Another flimsy attempt at derailment. Pomni wastes no time swerving around it.

“Are you having nightmares again?” She prompts.

“...no.”

“Trouble falling asleep?”

“No.”

The denial comes so sharp Pomni reels back, blinking at his short lived outburst. Okay. This is something. 

Jax drags a hand down his face, settling with it pressed against the upper socket of his eye, pressing at the skin there in tiny circles as if warding off a headache. His annoyance wanders, untethered–directed at his own reaction as much as it was at her for asking the question in the first place.

“What’s with the twenty questions?” Jax complains. “Aren’t you supposed to be yapping, or something? I thought the whole idea was to keep my mind off this crap.”

A childish part of her wants to point out his slip up. That the implication that there’s something to keep his mind off in the first place proves this isn’t nothing. As much as it tempts her, indulging in that path won’t lead to any real progress. Accusations would only make Jax shut down further.  

“You can sleep now,” Pomni offers instead. “I’ll stay with you, if that’ll help?”

He gives her a darkly amused expression, chin settling on his knees.

“That eager to get rid of me, huh?”

What. 

Pomni opens her mouth, but no sound comes out. Get rid of him? What the hell was that supposed to mean?

“I guess that’s fair,” Jax murmurs, more to himself than her. He sniffles, bunched fist wiping at where his nose would be if they were still human before dropping to his side again. “Probably be easier to get it over with, right? Rip the bandaid off. Finally let you all have your happy ending.”

His bitter words sink in her stomach like a stone.

“Get what over with?”

Jax doesn't answer. He stares at the floor of the tunnel, gaze flicking sideways into the dark, avoiding hers. The bells on the tails of her hat give a faint ring with the motion of his head.

“Jax…”

“This is your fault, you know,” Jax muses. “It would’ve been over with, if you hadn’t interrupted with all that Abel crap…” 

Pomni’s mind pulls at a series of memories–the beach, Jax walking off alone, her moving to follow but finding Abel instead, the excitement she’d felt as she hurried to find him and inform him of their chance to escape. He hadn’t answered when Pomni knocked, and despite hating it herself and knowing how sensitive he could be to sound she’d pressed that jarring, far too loud doorbell and promised herself she’d make it up to him later.

He’d looked tired then, too. It had seemed like something that could wait, back then. A worry for later, or maybe never, if they managed to pull off their escape.

It doesn’t seem like something that can wait now.

“Do you really think I’d let you sleep through something like that? Real or not, I believed him, Jax. I really thought we had a chance of getting out of here. I wasn’t going to just leave you behind.” 

"I wasn't sleeping."

Pomni blinks. The words are simple. Innoculous. But the weight of them as they spill from Jax’s mouth, the way his eyes widen afterwards, like he can’t believe he just uttered them, gives her pause.

“What?”

“I…” Jax struggles with something, evidence of a silent internal battle behind his eyes. “Nothing.”

Pomni narrows her eyes, just enough for him to know she doesn’t buy it for a second. 

“Don’t look at me like that–I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Can we just… the fish? You were telling me about… we’re not doing this.”

“I think we need to,” Pomni says, as gently as she can. He flinches anyway, head ducking between his knees, hands moving to clutch the back of his head.  

“No, Pomni,” Jax says. “We don’t. I shouldn’t have even–f-fuck!”

She gives her own flinch at his curse. She’s never heard Jax swear before. Not properly. The only other time she’d even heard him try was after their argument, in the wake of the untimely demise of Team Bad Guys. When he’d begged her to stop looking, just like he’s doing now.    

“Jax, listen,” Pomni says. “I know you hate talking about stuff like this, but whatever is going on with you… you can’t just keep pretending it’s not. Look at what it’s doing to you. I’m not going to judge you, or… or laugh, okay? I promise I won’t.”

“You don’t let up, do you?” His voice warbles, thick with tears. “Do you get off on seeing me make a fool of myself? Is that it? Wanna make me spill my guts so you can go mouth off to Ribbons again about how pathetic I am? Go to hell.”

The accusation doesn’t cut the way it’s supposed to. It rings false, not in the way a lie does but in the way his hurt lays the blame at her feet, unfounded. The outburst leaves no room for speculation, confirming something Pomni has already suspected for some time now; someone has hurt Jax this way before. He’s terrified of it happening again. 

Of Pomni being the one to do it.  

Pomni shifts up on her knees then, caution to the wind, and reaches for him. She’s spent so long reaching these last few weeks she hardly believes it as her hand brushes the fur of his arm, the way he slackens instead of recoiling as she takes hold of his wrists and guides clawing hands away from the home they’d tried to make at his nape. 

She lowers them, cradling them in her lap, thumbs ghosting over the inner aspect of his wrists in soothing circles. It takes a while, but eventually his fists loosen. In the palms of his gloves Pomni spies three evenly spaced pinpricks punched through the fabric. He isn’t bleeding–she doesn’t think he can, from what little she knew about the composition of his body–but that doesn’t mean he isn’t hurting.   

“I would never do that to you,” Pomni reminds him. “You know that. I know you do.”

He’d come to her. Part of him, no matter how fleeting, had tried to come to her with this. The same part that allowed her glimpses sometimes, the one who’d watched the stars with her and told her about his trypophobia and initiated their duet outside Zooble’s door. A part of him that is still trying, even now, to show her pieces of himself–his discomfort with silence and sleep and whatever terrible thing she’d unwittingly interupted that day with the press of his doorbell. Hoping she’ll piece them together somehow, that she’ll see just enough.

Jax stares, silent tears streaking his cheeks. 

“You should,” he says. “It’s what I deserve.”

Pomni shakes her head.

“I won’t, Jax,” she promises him, giving his hands what she hopes is a reassuring squeeze. “Talk to me.”

His mouth pinches into a line, wobbling under the strain of something enormous. 

Pomni’s heart beats faster against her ribs. 

“I was going to,” Jax confesses, as though sharing some damning secret. “Before. I wanted to.”

“I know.” She says. “It’s okay. Tell me now.”

“There’s no point. It’s not going to help.”

“Let me try anyway,” she’s close to begging, now. “Please?”

Each exchange chips away at his resolve, little by little. The Jax it leaves behind is hollow, trembling, eyes so round and frightened it breaks her heart to meet them. Pomni does anyway. She has to. He has to know she can handle this, can handle any part of him.  

“I just wanted a nap.”

The dam breaks. His next words come hiccuping out of him, a rush of fear and despair and pain pouring from him, each word more pressured than the last.

“There was something in my room. In the dark. It was just this weird shadow at first, but then i-it… It was her. She reached for me. Took me. She–she tried to–” 

The sobbing overwhelms him for a moment, words choked off in a whine. She runs her thumbs over the backs of his knuckles, her own thoughts as scattered as his struggling breaths. It’s not enough information to understand, only to know this nothing is definitely something way worse than she’d ever have guessed. She needs him to continue. Needs it like air. She struggles to keep her silence as he scrapes together enough composure to continue, heart thrumming against the inside of her ribcage.

“I ended up–I thought I was dreaming. I’ve never seen anything like it. All these crazy colors everywhere. Moving. It felt like a dream, at first, but… and it was sort of nice, right? That’s the worst part. It felt good. It kept pulling me deeper, like it was trying to eat me, and the deeper it went the more I wanted it to, and…” 

Something terrible hangs over them in the silence. Pomni doesn’t dare breathe, doesn’t dare miss a word.  

“And when I woke up, I…” Jax holds a hand in front of his eyes, balling it into a fist before splaying his fingers again. His stare meets hers, a feeble attempt to silently communicate horrors he can’t find the words to describe. “I don’t think it was going to let me go, Pomni. If you hadn’t woke me…”  

“I don’t understand,” Pomni says. She shakes her head, as if trying to dislodge this terrible realisation settling in her mind. “You said you weren’t sleeping.”

His face pinches, gaze shifting sideways, avoidant tendencies rearing their head far too late to make a difference now. 

This is different. You can’t help, not with this.  

Jax’s voice rings in her head, taunting her, each word driving the panic deeper with every beat of her racing heart.  

Nevermind.

“C’mon, Pom. You really gonna make me spell it out for you?”

Pomni doesn’t give him the chance.

Panicked, crushed by the weight of a horrible realisation not yet fully born, veins lit with adreneline–Pomni uses her hold on him to drag him into her arms.

Jax surrenders quickly, tension at her sudden advance ebbing away as he sinks against her hold. It’s too easy. He gives in the way tissue paper gives in under running water. Like fighting wasn’t an option anymore–hadn’t been, for a while now. 

She squeezes him tighter, tucks his head below her chin, staring unblinkingly into the dark. 

“Nothing my ass,” she breathes.

Jax gives a wet laugh. His arms raise behind her, weaving gently around her torso. He doesn’t squeeze nearly as hard as Pomni does. Might not have the ability to. She tightens her own grip at the thought.

“You’re not allowed to be mad at me,” he tells her. “You promised.”

“I promised you could trust me,” she corrects. 

“So you are mad?”

“You nearly abstracted and didn’t tell anyone. Do you know how stupid that is? You could have…”

Pomni’s no Abstraction expert. She only knows what she’d seen of Kaufmo on her first day and what Kinger had told her about his wife and their experience together in the dark. But from what she did know, Abstraction didn’t function the same way a physical illness did. The body didn’t purge it like a virus. Abstraction was the result of something psychological. A state of mind, a breaking point–surrender in its purest form.

That kind of damage didn’t disappear with the ring of a doorbell.

“I’m allowed to be stupid. I’m dying.”

Pomni bolts upright, gripping Jax by his upper arms. She leans back, eyes flicking over him, searching for any trace of the inky black malformations or glowing eyes rupturing through his skin.

She’s never seen Abstraction happen. Was the spread slower than she thought? Was she too late this time? Had he come to her too late? 

“Where?” She demands. “Show me.”

It can’t be. She doesn’t know how she’s going to fix it, but she is. She will. If she believes it hard enough, if she imagines the exact shape and the weight of a Jax unharmed by corruption, if she somehow imbues it with the same magic she’d used to patch the holes in the floor…

Jax’s eyes blow wide.

“Not–not this second, Pomni. Jesus.”

“But you said–”

“I know what I–Do I look like I’m abstracting, to you?”

Pomni stares. She doesn’t exactly buy his reassurance, but it’s enough to give her pause. She gives him another once over, more thorough this time. Shaky hands take his arms and tilt them, checking the undersides. She reaches up and lifts the cap of her jester hat from his head, checking for hidden markings that might have gone undetected, before placing it gently down again.

“Geez. You want me to strip, too?”

Pomni raises a brow at him. 

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” he says, lifting a finger to prod at the corner of his eye, “it starts here, anyway. Pretty hard to miss.” 

“I hate that you know that.”

Jax gives a shrug as if to say what can you do?

“So you’re… not Abstracting, now?” Pomni says, confused. 

“Not immediately,” Jax hedges. He’s supremely uncomfortable with the turn the conversation has taken, Pomni can tell, but she can’t afford to spare him from it. “It’s complicated.”  

“Immediately,” Pomni echoes. “What does that mean?”

He evades her gaze again, sighing. 

“I keep seeing them,” Jax says, voice small. “It used to just be when I was about to fall asleep, but lately…”

Her stomach sinks.

“This is why you’ve been coming to my room?” She asks, horrified. “I thought you were having nightmares!” 

“I mean… I kind of was.”

She shoves him in the shoulder, “Jax!”

“Ow, hey–”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s not exactly something you can just drop in conversation! What was I supposed to say?” The corner of his mouth ticks up into the hint of dark amusement. “‘Hey Pomni, sup? By the way, the ghosts of my dead friends have been trying to drag me into that wacky psychedelic vore dream again? Pretty sure I’m going to Abstract soon and there’s nothing anyone can do about it? Mind if I sleep on your floor? Yeah, I’m sure that would have gone over great.”

There’s a lot to unpack there. Momentarily dazed by the overload of information, Pomni struggles to prioritize.

“...Ghosts?”

“The shadow things,” Jax says. “They look like Kaufy and… Ribbit. To trick me into going, maybe? I… I dunno.”

Kaufmo. Ribbit. My dead friends. 

She’d known there was more to the Kaufmo situation than Jax was letting on, ever since she’d noticed his absence at the funeral. Ribbit is a name familiar to her only in passing–Ragatha had mentioned them when discussing the fate of the abstractions in the basement on the Abel adventure. Beyond that, Pomni is in the dark. 

Pomni’s brain stutters over another memory. 

“You said it’s getting worse,” she recalls. 

“I saw them twice today,” Jax confirms. “Once when I woke up and… before. In the Atrium. I didn’t realise you’d finished working there.” 

“You were looking for us?”

Jax gives a defensive shrug.

“Usually they keep their distance and leave me alone, if I’m… not.” 

Her mind conjures memories of Jax lingering in the background, the days he’d sit right at the edge of her awareness and the days he was basically her silent, petulant shadow. She’d thought he was just sulking, refusing to apologise–and he was, in part. But there was something else behind the behaviour, too. A last ditch effort at self preservation.

Had he panicked, when he realised he was alone? When he realised he didn't know where to find them?

Pomni tries not to think about the days she hadn’t seen him. The days he didn’t seek their proximity, and what it might say about his temultuous mental state.  

Nevermind.

“You were going to walk away,” Pomni says. Somehow, this realisation twists deeper than any of the ones that came before it. “Weren’t you? I nearly let you.”

A flash of guilt twists his face. “Pom…”

“You weren’t going to tell me. I nearly…” she sits back on her haunches, hands recoiling from where she’d gripped his upper arms. She was too rough with him. He’s hurting so much already–had been, for weeks now. Longer. Could one wrong move trigger the transformation? How much more could his mind take before it was lost forever? “You’d really do that?”

“No,” he says, too quickly. He hugs his elbows, glancing aside. “...I don’t know. Maybe?”

“Why?”

Jax doesn’t say anything for a while. Pomni watches the rise and fall of his chest, the tap of his index finger against his arm, the way his mouth moves as if to speak then falls slack again with each attempt to answer. Each sign of life feels as prescious as the last. She clings to them, uses the strength they give her to keep her patience, even if all she wants to do is reach down his throat and tear the answers from him herself.

“I’m tired,” Jax’s voice hovers somewhere just shy of a whisper when he finally speaks, like he’s afraid the words might carry. “I’m so tired, all the time, and–I mean, it’s not like I’m some whackjob who’s gonna go off himself or whatever, but if this is going to happen either way, then… maybe it would be better to just...”

He sighs, closing his eyes. 

“I don’t know.”

It’s not his admission that does it. Not the hopelessness weaving through his words, nor the implication that it had been there long enough to wear him down into such a profound level of exhaustion that Abstraction seemed like the better option. It’s the way his shoulders inch inwards as he tells her, how his arms move to drape protectively around his middle, body subconsciously bracing for a blow as certain as the rising sun.

Pomni blinks against the sudden blur in her vision. Wipes the tears brimming in them with a quick swipe of her hand. Her next breath feels heavy in her chest. She holds onto it for a moment, forces it out slowly.

Part of her wants to shake him. To tell him how stupid he is, to let something like this build up this way, to let it become an amalgamation of hurt so all-encompassing that death feels like the only escape from it. He should have reached out sooner, to her or anyone else. But venting her frustrations won’t change anything now–all it will do is prove he was right not to trust anyone. That reaching out meant getting hurt. 

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

An eye cracks open, watching her.

“And… I’m glad you told me. I know that mustn’t have been easy for you.”

“Why are you thanking me?” He demands, incredulous. “I just dragged you into my bullshit, again, and you’re… Why are you acting like this is some huge favor?”  

“Because it is,” Pomni insists. “I can help now.”

“Pomni, I…” he gives a heavy exhale, gaze avoiding hers, “this isn’t something you can just… fix, okay? I started this ball rolling long before you showed up. It was gonna catch up with me eventually.”

“Uh huh.”

“Don’t uh huh me, I told you–this is not pleasant to be around. I’m already a terrible person, Pomni. You really wanna drag this out? See just how awful I can get? It’s gonna happen either way, what’s the point?”

“If you think you’re going to convince me to let you Abstract, you’re even stupider than I thought.”

Jax doesn’t laugh at her attempted levity. 

“No one’s ever come back from this.” 

She reaches out and places her hand over his. He lets her, eyes pained.

“You did.”

If what he’s telling her is true, if she really had snapped him out of the early stages with nothing but a loud noise and impeccable timing…

“I stopped it once, I can do it again.” Pomni swallows, says the next part with more confidence than she truly feels at that moment. It doesn’t matter–she’s always been a big believer in faking it til you make it. “Besides, I shouldn’t have to. It only happens when you’re on your own, right?”

“Pomni, no,” Jax says, alarmed. “I don’t–you can’t spend the rest of your life babysitting me. I don’t want that.”

“I don’t mind,” she assures him. “It doesn't have to be forever.”

“Pomni…”

“Maybe you just need some time. You can rest, and I’ll make sure nothing happens to you, a-and when you're feeling better, maybe–”

“–Pomni, stop.”

She does.

“I don't want you to do this for me."

“I know.” She does. It still breaks her heart to hear it. “That's why I have to.”

Jax stares at her, uncomprehending. He blinks and when he opens his eyes again they shine with unshed tears.

“I’ll want it enough for the both of us, for now,” Pomni promises him.  

“Is this some kind of punishment, or something? You trying to get payback on me by making me deal with the consequences of my actions or some crap?” He rubs his eyes harshly with the back of his hand, gaze dropping to the floor. “Trust me, I get it, okay? I’m a screw up. I fucked everything up out there and did it all over again in here. It’s all I ever do. I can’t even die properly without dragging someone down with me.”

“No one’s trying to punish you, Jax.” She tells him. 

“You are. I don’t want to be this anymore, Pomni.”

“You don’t have to be,” Pomni says. “It’s not too late to be someone different.” 

He sobs at that. Pomni takes his hands in hers again, as gently as she dares. 

“Yes it is,” he says. “Ribbit and Kaufmo are dead because of me. My Mom–I’m not a good person, Pomni. I never will be.”

“I’m not asking you to be,” Pomni eases him forward as he collapses in on himself, guiding her back into her embrace once more. “Just stay. That’s all you have to do right now. We have time to figure out the rest later.” 

Jax does stay. He melts against her, burying his face against her neck as he cries. The warmth and weight of him quells some of the anxiety in her, gradually slows her racing heart. It’s not too late. He’s still here, still with her. Pomni rubs gentle shapes into his back for what feels like hours before his breathing evens out again. 

“There’s something wrong with you,” Jax says. He doesn’t move from where he’s curled against her, voice coming muffled. “Did your folks drop you as a baby, or something? Or do you just enjoy making everything harder for yourself?” 

“I wouldn’t call this hard.” 

“I just ugly cried on you for like, half an hour.”

She’s pretty certain it’s been longer than that. Pomni graciously doesn’t correct him. 

“I’m not saying it’s going to be easy,” she tells him. “But it can’t be harder than losing you.”

Jax doesn’t have a response for that. 

The rest of their time in the tunnel is quiet. It isn’t that there’s nothing left to say–Pomni has to hold her tongue to keep herself from needling him with questions, and she’s positive they’ve only scratched the surface of the whole they’re dead because of me thing. There’s still a whole lot Jax isn’t saying, but the day has worn him threadbare and Pomni doesn’t pry any further than she has to. He’s told her enough to keep himself safe, and that means a lot more than any secret ever could.

Eventually they leave their little makeshift sanctuary. Jax doesn’t argue when she leads him towards her room and ushers him to the bed. She guides him down the same way she’d done with the slide, hands on his shoulders to steady him. Their conversation and the following walk back to the bedrooms has left him drained; he slumps boneless in her hold, barely able to keep himself upright.

“Do you want to lie down?”

Jax blinks. Nods.

She guides him down to lay on his side against the mattress, pulls the covers up over his shoulder despite the little huff of protest he gives at her ministrations.   

Pomni reaches over him and snags a pillow, turning to appraise the floor. She’s got a stack of extra blankets in her wardrobe she’s sure she can make a semi-comfortable sleeping arrangement with. She doubts she’ll dare to close her eyes tonight, anyway.

Something catches her by the wrist.

Jax watches her through cracked eyelids. The shadows under his eyes are heavier than she’s ever seen them. When he blinks his eyelids take a few seconds to reopen, as if holding them up took significant effort.  

“S’ your bed, Pom.”

“Oh. That’s alright, I don’t mind,” she pats the back of his hand reassuringly where it’s curled around her wrist. “Maybe tomorrow we can go and get the mattress from your room and set it up in here? Then we can both…”

Despite the fatigue, Jax manages to give her an exasperated look. 

“Or we could… share?” Pomni says, unsure. “Um. If that’s okay with you?”

Another blink. Jax retracts his hand, drawing it up to tuck back against his chest beneath the blanket. 

“Don’t make this weird,” Jax mumbles. “There’s room, s’ all I’m sayin.”

Pomni glances towards the bed. He’s right, there is room. Pomni’s bed has always felt far too large for her small frame, but she’s grateful for it now. 

“Are you sure?”

Jax closes his eyes and nods.    

Pomni carefully climbs up on the other side of the bed, trying her best not to jostle him. She pats her pillow down and sits cross-legged beside him. 

Pomni tries her best not to stare, but her eyes keep trailing back to him as she ruminates on their conversation, tracing over every inch not concealed by the blankets or her hat, afraid she might catch tiny black tendrils spreading over his skin. 

Afraid she won’t catch them, until it’s too late.

Jax gives a sigh. 

He rolls over to his left side, facing her now. His brows are pinched, but there’s no true annoyance in his expression. Just resignation.

“They’re not here,” Jax says. “You can stop staring at me.”

“What if it happens when you’re asleep?” 

He shrugs.

“Jax.”

“I don’t know, just…” he sighs again. “Wake me up, I guess? Worked last time.”

“But how will I know if you’re sleeping or… if you need help?” 

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

Pomni reaches for her pillow and whacks him with it.

“Hey! Quit it.”

She raises it in preparation for another strike, sharing her demands for ceasefire.

“Take this seriously.”

“Ugh, fine!” He prods a finger at the edge of his eye socket, pressing firmly. Pomni’s mind briefly flashes back to the memory of him digging his finger beneath the skin and prying it back in demonstration of his ‘costume’. She readies her hand to stop him, but luckily Jax makes no move to repeat the incident. “I told you. It starts here–they were glowing, last time. It’ll be pretty noticable. Just, like, shove me off the bed or something if it happens again.” 

“Okay. I can do that.”

“Great.” He closes his eyes again. After a moment, he adds, “if I wake up to you peeling my eyelids open, I swear to god I will bite you.”

“I think I’ll take my chances.”

Jax huffs. 

Pomni reaches over to turn off the bedside lamp. The room settles into deep shades of blue and grey. She can still see Jax’s outline, the steady rise and fall of his chest. His breathing is slower than she’s seen it today. Small victories.

“Is there… anything else you need?” Pomni can’t help but ask.

“Goodnight, Pomni.”

Taking the hint, Pomni settles back against the headboard and falls silent, losing herself in her thoughts. She keeps stealing glances, of course, but otherwise she keeps her gaze averted, afraid to push his discomfort too far. He’s barely protested their current arrangement, despite how upset he’d seemed when she first proposed it. She doesn’t want to accidentally set off his more flighty tendancies now.

One time, far enough into the silence she’d been sure he’d gone to sleep, Pomni turns and finds Jax watching her.

“What is it?” Pomni asks, immediately on high alert. 

“Nothing,” Jax insists. He glances away, hand bunching in the blanket beneath him. “It’s not that,” Jax amends, his voice laced with something hesitant now, “I just–Could you…?” 

Pomni waits him out. 

“You never finished telling me about the fish.”

Pomni smiles at him, settling back against her pillow, and wastes no time picking up where she left off. 

She knows he doesn’t care about her story. He’s asking her for something else, in not so many words. Asking her to talk, to banish the quiet.

To help him feel safe. 

Jax has been asking for her help this way for a while now. Watching her from shadows, showing up at her door in the middle of the night–snatching her hat from her head had been a culmination of all that, a final Hail Mary. An attempt to find one last scrap of comfort in the face of oblivion… or maybe, just maybe, some small part of him reaching out and asking her not to let him go.  

She hopes one day Jax might be able to ask her for the things he needs more directly. Whatever lies behind his reluctance can’t be healthy, and she’s sure it will be something they have to face eventually. But tonight Jax is safe, and in the morning he still will be, all because he’d found his own way to ask her for help. 

If it means he’ll keep doing it, Pomni doesn’t mind playing along for now.