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Pomni should've known not to get her hopes up.
It was just so hard not to! She had been waiting for days for Jax to finally come up to her, to join them, to say something, anything! All the members of the circus saw him lurking around, watching them work, but not getting closer.
Then he finally came up to her. Jax walked up so quietly, to the point she almost wouldn't have noticed if she wasn't keeping an eye on him too.
She tilted her head to the side, letting him make the first move. And all he did was open his mouth, close it, and open it. And then-
“I….-” he sighed. “Nevermind.”
He wrapped his arms around himself and walked away.
She sighed too. He was just…. So hard to understand! If he would just tell her how to help, things would be so much easier!
She turned back towards the floor she was repairing as he walked away, towards the rooms.
“POMNI!”
She jumped, shrieking. “Kinger?! Don't do that!”
He chuckled, he definitely scared her on purpose. “Sorry. Was that Jax?”
She nodded, hugging herself. “Yeah. He… well I think he wanted to say something but he just-” Her shoulders slumped, feeling defeated.“-left instead.”
She sighed before sitting on the floor. “I just don't know what to do for him. I've tried getting him to talk to me before, but he just- just shuts me down! Or he'll get upset, or he'll leave! But when I don't he never comes to me on his own.” She plopped her hands in her lap exasperatedly.
“I never know when I'm pushing too hard. And I don't want to keep pushing him further away from us.” Her eyes started to blur and she frustratedly wiped at them.
Kinger sat down next to her and hummed. “It's hard. Knowing how hard you should and shouldn't pry. Especially with someone who keeps their secrets so close to them.”
“Like Jax?” She offered.
He chuckled. “Like Jax.” He agreed.
Kinger put a hand on her shoulder. “But I think he came up to you for a reason today, so maybe a little push would help him. It's better to be invasive and for him to know you care, then to ignore whatever the problem is until it's too big to handle, you know?”
She sniffed, nodding her head. “Yeah, I think you're right. You know, you really are wise, Kinger.”
He laughed. “Well I don't know about that, but if my advice can help, then I'm glad.”
He patted her shoulder one last time before standing up. “We've got things taken care of here-” he gestured to the floor. “-go on ahead, I'll take care of this!” He gave her an enthusiastic thumbs up, making his bucket fall over his visible eye.
She chuckled. “Well if you're sure. Thanks Kinger!”
She started off towards the rooms, waving absently behind her as she walked.
-
The hallway was…. Eerily silent. It gave her chills.
She walked past each door, glancing at all the characters she hadn't met, and the NPC placeholder pictures until she reached Jax’s door.
She knocked. “Jax? Are you in there? Do- do you think we could talk?”
There wasn't an answer. She pressed her head against the door to listen…
She didn't hear anything.
“Jax? Uhhh…. Are you awake?” She knocked again, a little louder.
There was no response.
“Ok.” She took a deep breath before twisting the handle. She was surprised to find it unlocked. “Please don't hate me for this.”
She slowly opened the door.
There was….
No one was there. It was empty. Well, no Jax anyway. It was the first time she had been in his room since having arrived at the circus. It was… pretty cozy honestly. As she looked around, a loose picture sitting on the bed caught her eye.
It was of… Jax, looking a lot happier, Kaufmo, and a third person. A frog. Was that the girl called….Ribbit?
Ragatha mentioned that name once. She was one of the ones who abstracted, that Pomni knew, she passed by the crossed off door everyday after all. But she hadn't known that Ribbit was close to Jax.
Maybe that's where he was? Her room? He did say he had keys to all of them.
Pomni placed the picture down on the desk and left, closing the door quietly behind her.
She made her way in front of the door with Ribbit's crossed off picture. She must've passed this door a hundred times by now, but Pomni hadn't really thought too much of what was in it before now.
Pomni gingerly lifted a hand and knocked.
“Jax? Are… are you in there?”
There was a sharp gasp from the other side. But she didn't get a response besides that.
“Jax please, I know you're in there. I just, I wanna talk to you. Please could you open the door?”
There was a pause.
“G-go away. Leave me alone.”
He sounded…. Wrong. Like he was unnerved. And his voice had an odd glitchy quality to it.
All at once Pomni stopped caring about forcing him to talk to her, right now her main concern was making sure he wasn't abstracting. Talking could come later.
As long as there was a later.
“Come on Jax, please, just open the door. You don't have to tell me anything, I just want to make sure you're okay.”
She pounded on the door.
She tried the handle and it wouldn't budge.
“Please! Just, let me in!”
A whisper came from the other side. And then a sniffle.
“It's too late. I did this to myself.”
She was tearing up. “It's not! Just- just let me in! Whatever's wrong, I'll listen. Even if we can't fix it, even if you did something horrible, it's okay-!
“It's not okay!” The glitch in his voice was getting worse. “They abstracted because of me! Everyone would be better off if I was gone.”
She was on her knees now as she pounded against the door. “We wouldn't! I wouldn't! I don't care how much of a jackass you can be, you're still my friend! Let me help you!”
He scoffed but didn't respond past that. She could hear him breathing fast, too fast from the other side of the door.
She pushed herself off the floor and stood in front of the door.
And then she kicked it. It made a loud thunk, but didn't budge, and hurt her foot.
She did it again. And again. And then she started throwing her entire body against the door.
“What are you doing?!” Jax sounded like he was breathing a little better than before, but she couldn't tell much from this side of the stupid door.
“If you won't open the door for me I'm breaking it!”
She could hear him scoff from the other side. “You're such an idiot. You can't break these doors. Especially not you with your little pipsqueak body.”
She ignored the pipsqueak comment.
“If you aren't planning on opening it, then it looks like we'll find out!” She kept at it. Throwing herself again. And again. And again. And agai-
The door unlocked, flinging open as her body made contact and she fell inside, landing in a heap on the carpeted floor.
She was quick to regain her bearings, swinging her head around until her eyes landed on Jax.
He was sitting on a bed shaped like a lily pad, sitting up, but facing fully away from her.
His entire body was glitching, his arms were wrapped tightly around him as he flinched at the harsh spasming.
Pomni walked over cautiously, sitting down next to him.
He refused to look at her, but she could hear his jagged breathing.
“Jax?” He hummed.
She glanced around the room. “Do you think Caine played favorites here in the circus?”
“Huh?”
She leaned back on her hands, trying to act more casual than she felt.
“I mean, this room is amazing! There's like, star projector lights on the ceiling, this bed is super comfortable, and it's shaped like a lily pad! Plus all the decorations, chairs and stuff are the same theme. If we compare it to our rooms, they kinda suck.”
Jax didn't respond, which she expected, what she didn't expect was for him to huff out a laugh just a moment later.
“She said that too.”
Pomni leaned a little closer. “She?”
“Uh, Ribbit. Back in the day, whenever we were gonna hang out in one of the rooms, we usually ended up here. She said our rooms ‘looked like shit’ compared to hers.” He laughed in a way that almost sounded more like a sigh. “I guess she wasn't wrong.”
Pomni laid down on the bed. “What was she like?”
….
….
“Nevermind, I shouldn't have ask-”
“She was… Stubborn. Headstrong. Nosy. Annoying. The mouth of a sailor.”
He flopped onto the bed next to her. He was still facing away.
“You kind of remind me of her sometimes.”
Jax glanced at her for a moment before shaking his head.
“Nah, actually, I take it back, you're more stubborn than her.”
“Jerk.”
He snorted quietly. “But, she was also… funny. Not that the bar was that high before I got here, heh. She was too kind for her own good. And she, uh, cared too much for people who didn't deserve it.”
He sat up, finally looking at her. His ears and arms were still glitching, and his eyes were flashing different colors.
He was clutching and pulling at his ears as he continued. “Why wouldn't she just give up on me? Why bother with me?! I ruined everything. And she kept trying! No matter how long I ignored her she refused to give up! And then- and now. it- I, I’m the reason she's-” His breathing was picking up, the flashing in his eyes were becoming more rapid, and he was grasping at his throat.
“Jax! Please, you need to calm down! Please take a deep breath.”
They didn't even need to breathe in this dumb circus but she didn't know how else to calm someone down!
He kept hyperventilating.
Shoot, shoot! Uhh, damn it! What was she supposed to do?!
She acted on instinct and tugged him into a hug.
He jerked back upon the contact, but once he realized what she was doing, he didn't pull away. His arms just dropped to his side and hung there loosely loosely.
“Just…breathe, okay.”
He was shaking hard enough for her to see it, even in the dim green glow of this room. It looked like he was trying to listen to her, he was breathing stuttering breaths, trying to force it under control.
“Y-you! Why are you here!? Why do you care?! You weren't supposed to look for me! Why do you care about me?!”
Her hands were starting to glitch as she held him.
“Why wouldn't I? You're one of us, no matter what you've done!” She sniffed, holding back tears, and squeezed him tighter. “I refuse to let you do this to yourself! I won't lose you!”
His breath hitched. Tears hit her shoulder. “You weren't supposed to miss me. You weren't supposed to love me. This isn't how this was supposed to go!” He finally put his arms around her and returned the hug, resting his head on her hat.
"You're making this, so much harder."
Tears were starting to well up in her eyes. “Please, just… talk to me man.”
He squeezed her tighter.
“I… I don't know how.”
They stayed like that for a while, silent, just hugging, leaning on each other, until she had an idea.
She snuck a hand out of the embrace and conjured a long blanket for the two of them, it fell easily over them both.
He huffed out a laugh. “You're getting good at that.”
She smiled. “If you want, I could teach you.”
“The conjuring thing?”
“Yeah, and the whole, talking thing.”
He pulled back a little, grimacing.
“Gross.”
She laughed. “Gross. But we can't just leave it like this. You have to know that.”
He huffed. “But this was working so well for everyone.” She gave him a look and he rolled his eyes, the corner of his mouth lifting into a smirk. “Yeah yeah. I got it.”
He wasn't glitching anymore. His breathing was finally normal as they leaned against each other.
“How about this? We'll try just one question a day that you gotta answer. And in exchange I'll answer one of yours.”
“Depends, what kind of questions?”
She hummed. “Ok, what's your favorite drink?”
“Lame question.”
She stuck her tongue out at him.
He thought for a minute.
“Hot chocolate.”
She stuck a hand out from under that blanket as he watched. After a moment of her trying to concentrate two cups of hot chocolate appeared in to-go cups, topped with a generous amount of whipped cream.
She handed one to him as he stared at it.
“Okay?”
He smiled a little. “Yeah. Thanks.” He coughed, his cheeks turning a little red, before he downed half his drink. “Or whatever.”
She bumped her shoulder against his. “No problem. Or whatever.”
“Just… stay with me, okay? Don't leave like that.”
He sighed.
She looked at him. “Please.”
He stared at his drink. Then he stuck a hand out horizontally, palm up like he was waiting for something, and scrunched his eyes.
She tensed.
“Uh… Jax?-”
“Shh. I'm concentrating.”
“On….?”
“Shh.”
It took a minute or two, and a few quiet curses from Jax but eventually he conjured a ... spoon? It resembled a spoon at least, it was a bit rough around the edges, random parts poking out, probably sharp enough to be used as a knife, but it worked well enough as he stuck it in his drink and stirred, not looking at her. He must've been eavesdropping one of the times Kinger explained it.
He huffed.
“That was harder than I thought it would be.”
“Yeah it takes some practice.” She chuckled at the disgruntled look on his face.
He fell silent again. Just stirred and stared at the drink.
She got more nervous by the minute.
...
…
…
“I'll…. try.”
She whipped her head towards him, momentarily surprised, before grinning, the tension that had accumulated over the course of the day finally releasing as she fully slumped against his side.
“That's all I can ask for. We're gonna figure this out.” She grabbed his hand, squeezing it with her own. “Together, okay? We'll both try. I can't say I'm exactly good at this either.”
"Just. Trust me, okay?"
He took a deep breath before scoffing.
“You're such an idiot. You have no idea what you're getting into.”
She smiled up at him. “Guess you were right about me being stubborn after all.”
He sighed, and after a moment, he tentatively returned the pressure on her hand. “Alright. I guess then, we'll… try... together.”
She grinned. "Sounds like a plan, partner."