Chapter Text
The truth is, Jax had always known if she was coming back, she would come back with her shattered pieces on display. Abstraction had changed something within her, and it had robbed her of any energy she might have to pretend to be human—or whatever passed as one in a world like this, anyway. And without that, she was certain there would be no reason to want her to stay around.
But Pomni, stupid, foolish, caring Pomni, had said that it didn't matter. That coming back at all was a victory worth celebrating and she would be there for Jax in whatever way Jax needed her to be anyway. All she needed to do was step off the ledge that brought Pomni to her mind in the first place. And Pomni's hand in Jax's had felt so warm and real, it had made the rabbit feel almost invincible when she returned to her digital reality. In that moment, Pomni could have told her she was loved a hundred times and Jax would have believed her every one of them.
Whatever.
Anyway.
It starts, bizarrely enough, with Ragatha. Jax had been in her own room, tapping her fingers to the side of her leg when she remembered that Ragatha had her own piano and Jax had felt such a strong desire to play she had leapt out of bed and made her way to the doll's place.
She's still not entirely sure the what had happened in the middle. What she remembers is music, her hand gliding across the keys until Ragatha walked in.
"What the—" Ragatha had said and Jax immediately scrambled away from the piano. "Jax did you come in here just to—"
"I'm sorry!" Jax said, heart beating rabbit-fast and body trying to move just as quickly. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
And Ragatha had just stared at her, bewildered but not at all angry, like Jax's anxious mind still insisted she must be.
The second time, Jax doesn't remember. Pomni has to tell her about it after. All Jax knows is that she had been wearing a dress and going out to meet Zooble, only to find herself back in her room what must have been hours later, startled into awareness by Pomni knocking at her door and asking if they can talk about her behavior.
"What behavior?" Jax asks. Pomni studies her face for a long time.
"Oh, shit," she says. "You're serious."
"Have you every known me to give up the chance to call myself a terrible person?" Jax replies, then motions for Pomni to explain what the hell she's talking about. Pomni hesitates.
"Do you remember," she begins slowly, which is already a terrible sign. "When I found you inside your mind?"
"Which time?" Jax retorts. Pomni laughs in a way that suggests she's using it moreso to give Jax a break before she continues rather than because she actually finds anything funny.
"The you in the maid dress," Pomni clarifies. "She—"
For some reason, Jax bristles at the pronoun. Pomni notices.
"They, um, were almost comically misogynistic," Pomni finishes. "Calling me emotional, butting in to every conversation to talk about how terrible being a woman is… And um. Today. You were kind of. Acting like that."
Jax blinks.
"Oh," she says, feeling a wave of calmness wash over her. "So I'm going crazy."
"Don't talk about yourself like that!" Pomni exclaims. "I just… You've been a lot more genuine lately. Maybe there's a part of you that's still getting used to being honest?"
Jax shrugs. Pomni would know better than her. After all, Jax hadn't been the one to experience this.
"Has this ever… happened before?" Pomni asks.
"Have I ever forgotten a part of my day before?" Jax shoots back. "You know, funny thing is, I can't recall."
"Okay." Pomni scoffs. "Stupid question, I guess. Right. I won't… tell you to apologize for something you can't remember, but maybe give Gangle and Zooble some space for right now?"
Fuck. It had been bad, hadn't it? Jax is too afraid to ask for more information.
"Okay," she says quietly. "Can you—Can you tell her I didn't mean it?"
Pomni's eyebrows disappear into her hat.
"Yeah," she says, gentle. "I can do that."
It keeps on happening. Jax keeps forgetting who she is, and her mind reminds her in all the wrong ways.
Jax is a cartoon character. Jax is a joke that won't end. Jax is the one who finishes all the punchlines and gets all the audience's laughs. Jax is taking a bow in center-stage. Jax will do anything, as long as it's part of the script.
"Um, Jax?" Pomni asks. "Who are you talking to?"
"Isn't it obvious, Pomkin?" Jax grins. "I'm talking about our adoring fans, of course!"
"Of course I remember," Jax insists hours later, even though that's only half the truth. "I was joking. It's like you girls don't know anything about comedy!"
"Maybe she's not back yet," Zooble says to Pomni and Jax rages at the careful way they're talking about her.
"If you don't want to trust me when I'm talking about my own life," Jax snaps. "Maybe I'll hang out somewhere else!"
"Wait, Jax—" Pomni begins. Jax sighs.
"I can be by myself for a few minutes," she mutters. "I won't do anything stupid just because you're not with me."
Except, how can she really say that, when she doesn't even know who she is when Pomni's not there? Jax swallows.
"I'm going to go bother Kinger," she says. It feels like admitting defeat.
"You weren't—you weren't being mean or anything," Gangle offers, as Jax begins to walk away. "We just got. Um. A little worried with how you started treating the thought of… violence against yourself."
"Eh, c'mon." Jax shrugs. "You know I deserve it."
And now Pomni's looking at Jax with her stupid big eyes, so Jax doesn't go to Kinger after all, because Jax knows what that look means and she won't forgive herself if she worries Pomni even more, so she sprawls herself across the couch Pomni's sitting on and does her impression of a teddy-bear.
"You're so clingy," Jax says, as if she doesn't love the way Pomni puts her hand on Jax's head.
A few days later, Jax finds herself back at Ragatha's piano, with the other girl leaning next to her with a hand on Jax's back, encouragingly.
"That's it!" Ragatha cheers, sounding like an enthusiastic older sister, or, even worse, a mom. "You're getting better!"
Jax stands up straight, knocking her stool into the doll and making her fall face first into the piano.
"Sorry," Jax says, too confused to mean it. "Why the hell am I here?"
"You…" Ragatha's frown quickly turns to worry as she adjusts herself. "You… asked me to help you practice. You said you wanted to learn a new song."
Jax just stares. She doesn't remember any of this.
"I think," Ragatha says gently. Jax tenses instinctively. "Maybe you should talk about this with Kinger or Ca—"
"No."
"It's just—they're the only ones who know anything about our bodies!" Ragatha protests. "If something is wrong, shouldn't—shouldn't they know?"
Jax opens her mouth. Closes it. Thinks of Pomni asking, "Has this happened before?"
"No," Jax says, a bit firmer. "I don't… I don't think this is something they can help with."
The worst part about the way Ragatha looks at her is that Jax thinks she understands.
Of course she would. Out of everyone, Ragatha is the only one who's been around Jax long enough to answer Pomni's question. Jax is just too much of a coward to ask.
"I'm going to go back to my room," Jax says. "Thanks for the piano lesson, I guess. Not that I remember any of it, but—sorry for freaking out on you or whatever."
"You know you can talk to me, right?" Ragatha asks, her voice coming out so fast she almost cuts Jax off before the rabbit can finish her sentence. "If you need help, or… Or if you just want to play the piano again! I can—we're all… here for you. If you need anything."
"Rags," Jax says, exhausted. Ragatha shuts up. "I'm not—this isn't me avoiding my feelings, okay? This is embarrassing. I'm not going to abstract again. All I want is to go in my room so I don't have to think about what a nutcase I am. Can I have that?"
"If it helps," Ragatha offers. "You were really nice."
As if that doesn't just make it worse. Jax just scoffs.
Jax is flirting with Pomni. It's something she's never done before. It's something she's always wanted to do. But, she can't. Jax remembers this, even as she watches herself reach for Pomni's hand. It's not enough that Jax likes her. Pomni deserves better than being tied to a girl like her. Pomni's already given her too much as it is.
Come on, a voice in her head insists. She saved you, didn't she? Doesn't she deserve some reward?
Well, when you put it like that, it makes sense. Even with their funny cartoon bodies, of course this is all Jax is good for.
"You're being a bit… touchier than usual," Pomni says with a smile. "You haven't visited Zooble's bar today, have you?"
"What, so the only reason I could have for enjoying the company of my dear friend Pomni is that I'm under the influence?" Jax scoffs. "You should have more self-confidence."
"It's not a matter of confidence, it's just…" Pomni trails off, watching as Jax places a hand on her thigh.
"Like I said," Jax purrs. "I'm enjoying your company."
"Oh." A strange look of recognition works its way onto Pomni's face. "It's you, isn't it?"
The question feels like being doused in a bucket of ice-cold water. Jax pulls her hand away.
"Sorry," she says, but her mind is going, what do you mean, it's me? I can be anyone you want, just don't leave me, please just touch me like you could actually love me. "I'm going to—I think I'm going to go jump into the lake now, yeah. I'll—"
Pomni grabs Jax by the arm before she can run away.
"Jax," she says, gentle but firm. "We need to talk about this."
Jax sighs, all adrenaline quickly leaving her body.
"You saw," she says. "What I told Ribbit. That I was homeless."
"I did," Pomni agrees carefully.
"It's kind of easy to lose track of time," Jax continues, every word feeling like pulling teeth. "When everything that you're doing during the day isn't exactly… fun."
"That makes sense," Pomni says, still without judgment.
"I've never." Jax looks down. "No one's ever called me out on it before, though."
As if she ever had anyone who would, out there. Even her own mom only looked at her and saw what she wanted to see. Eventually, Jax had realized that all anyone wanted was to cast her in another role. Maybe it would have been different if she was less willing to play along, but not different enough. She knows that an actress that refuses to perform is worthless.
"I think…" Pomni begins. She glances at Jax, like she's still worried Jax will run away. "As… angry as some of those other Jaxs were when I was inside your head, they were all in agreement that I shouldn't… look for you."
"Well," Jax says, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice. "It was pretty stupid of you."
Strangely, that makes Pomni smile.
"Right," she says. "You didn't want to see me, either. So doesn't that mean they were kind of… doing what they thought was best for you?"
"I don't think," Jax begins, but then realizes she's not sure what exactly she had been about to proposition Pomni for, which means it's a little hard to gauge how much she'd hate herself afterwards. "I don't know. Doesn't explain why they're getting in my business now, does it?"
"Maybe they think you just need a little extra help getting back on your feet," Pomni suggests.
"I don't need anyone's help," Jax almost says, then realizes, annoyingly, this instinct of her's does explain the girl with the piano, at least.
"I have you, don't I?" Jax says instead, but the words come out as more of an accusation than the compliment they should be.
"Well." Pomni, as usual, the perfect being that she is, takes this in stride. "I can't help if you don't talk to me."
It's Zooble who suggests giving them different names.
"Just so we know what kind of raging bitch you'll be," they say, because they know that sentence is unfortunately very gender affirming for her and therefore the only reason Jax is entertaining this thought at all.
"Just as long as you don't give them my name," Jax replies. "Cuz I'm not changing it."
She had been considering it, but the thought that she might discard her name only for one of the others to pick it up is making her strangely defensive about it.
"Guess they'll have to pick a different kind of rabbit." Gangle giggles nervously. "Is it too on the nose to call one Harlequin?"
"Rhinelander," Jax says immediately. She can guess which specific bit of delusion Gangle's referring to. "Call her Rhinelander instead."
"Is that a real rabbit breed?" Zooble asks. "Do you… actually know shit about rabbits?"
"Obviously." Jax snorts. "What, can't you tell I'm an expert?"
The piano player becomes Sable. The terrible maid goes by Blanc. And just like that, suddenly whatever's wrong with Jax's brain is just part of the new normal.
They don't know about the other one. Jax isn't even sure how to mention them to Pomni. What do you say when another person has seen someone with your face strangling them? No matter how much Jax protests that isn't her, it's impossible to deny that whatever that dark thing is does live inside her now that she's seen the others. That the harm it gave Pomni was not targeted or accidental but simply a way to end an unwanted conversation.
But if it wants a name, Jax will offer it Rex.
Probably just as much a rabid dog as it is a rabbit, anyway.
Sable and Gangle start hanging out. This is terrible news for Jax, who knows how obvious this will make her. How could Jax bullying Gangle be anything but Jax trying to push her own weakness onto the other girl? Jax almost expects Gangle to laugh at her for that, when Jax sees Gangle approaching her with her sketchbook.
"Um," Gangle says, pushing a piece of paper into Jax's arms. "I drew this for Sable."
Jax's face goes blank as she tries to think of how to respond. The drawing is of Jax—or, Sable, apparently—wearing a sundress, ears pulled back in ribbons like they're pigtails.
"Please don't rip it up," Gangle adds. But she doesn't make fun of Jax.
Of course she doesn't. She'd never poke fun of Jax the way Jax had made fun of her. She's too kind to rub this in Jax's face.
It must be nice, a traitorous part of her whispers. To know some version of you could have been friends.
"I won't rip it up," Jax says, because even though she's probably still irredeemable in Gangle's eyes, she won't deprive the girl a chance to make a friend. "I'll hang it on my wall so she can see it next time she wakes up. Whenever that is."
Gangle's face lights up.
"T-thank you!" she says. "I didn't get a chance to show her last time she was around. I-I hope she likes it."
"I wouldn't know," Jax says. She looks away. "Probably. Think she enjoys stupid girly things like that."
"Um, Jax, you…" Gangle begins. "You know you can come to my room and draw with me, too? If you want."
"Don't get it twisted," Jax warns. "Just because I keep getting some delusion about being a nerd like you doesn't mean the real me has any interest in that."
Gangle's ribbons droop a little but, but Jax doesn't feel too bad. Gangle has a better rabbit to be friends with, anyway. The fact that she's offering to hang out with Jax at all shows a lack of self-preservation. It's best for both of them Jax lets her know she needs to cut that out now.
"You shouldn't talk about her like that," Gangle says. "She's not… I think she's as real as we are. And she's my friend."
Jax stares. She thinks she could probably count on her hand the number of times Gangle has stood up to anyone. And standing up to to Jax, of all people? This must be a first.
But Gangle doesn't even apologize for speaking up. That alone shocks Jax into an apology.
"Okay," she says. "Sorry."
Then—
"You'd probably have more fun with her than me, anyway."
Jax disappears to her room before Gangle can respond.
She does hang Gangle's art on the wall, though. She places it above her photo collection—all still backwards but for one.
One of the others must have added another photo to the wall. In it, Jax is in Pomni's lap and the two of them are laughing.
Jax doesn't remember that. Her heart twists uncomfortably at the thought of someone in her body living her desires without her consent.
It would be so much easier if it was only Gangle she had to worry about the other's stealing away.
Then again, it's not like Jax has ever deserved Pomni's attention, either.
Blanc keeps flirting with Pomni. Jax tries to reign them back, but there's a limit to how much she can push before Blanc pushes back, and they shove hard enough to leave Jax stumbling.
Why are you getting in my way? Blanc demands. I thought this is what you wanted.
It is. It was. She's spent so many nights wishing to be wrapped in Pomni's arms.
So take it already.
But she can't. Because that's not—Pomni doesn't want—
Jax is no good at stuff like that. Pomni deserves someone better.
When Jax blinks back into awareness, she's sitting on Pomni's bed. Pomni is watching her with tired eyes.
Jax is wearing that stupid maid dress again, because of course she is, though the shorts that originally went with them have been replaced by something lacier. Jax is trying not to think about it. Jax desperately wishes she could stop thinking about it.
"Sorry," Jax says, shame mixing in the back of her throat with bile. She pulls Pomni's blankets close. She hates Blanc for making Pomni see her like this. Some desperate slut who craves attention because she didn't get enough from her parents. Whatever Blanc did, whatever they said—Pomni is smart enough to know what it says about Jax that these thoughts exist in her head at all.
That's the part she hates, more than anything. She's fine with not remembering. They all knew she craved oblivion. But she knows that some truth is coming out without her knowledge. And every time she remembers that, it feels like someone's pulling off her skin again and scrubbing her flesh raw.
"It's not your fault," Pomni says. Then, "We should talk."
"Just the words everyone wants to hear," Jax tries to joke, but her voice cracks, like she's about to cry. It terrifies her how quickly her own fear has rendered her breakable.
"I just… want to understand," Pomni continues. "And I need you to be honest with me. Do you like me?"
Jax looks down.
"Sorry," she says again. What she means is, sorry you have to deal with the feelings of someone like me. Sorry I keep disgusting you by making you think of the two of us together.
She imagines Blanc touching Pomni and feels sick.
Her body doesn't look exactly like it used to. There's a more feminine cut to her overalls now, and the eyeliner she wears is permanent. She's even got a full head of hair and bangs that keep falling into her line of sight. Still, she can't help but shake the feeling that there is something about her that is too horrible to be worth sharing.
"You don't have to apologize for that," Pomni insists gently. "I like you, too."
"You shouldn't," Jax says, but she already knows that.
"Do you want me to touch you?" Pomni asks. Jax shakes her head furiously.
The truth is that of course she wants Pomni's touch. But there's a part of her that's afraid that Pomni will end up reaching out in a way that feels wrong, and Jax would rather avoid feeling anything at all than risk getting hurt.
Pomni probably already knows this already, of course. It's feelings like that that got Jax in this mess in the first place.
"I don't think," Jax begins. "I'm not sure I want—"
"If you don't want me to touch you, I won't touch you," Pomni says. Like it's that simple.
"Even if Blanc tells you to?"
"If it makes you uncomfortable, I won't do it."
"What if…" Jax swallows and pulls a blanket over her head. "What it always makes me uncomfortable?"
"Then we won't do them."
"No, I mean." Jax feels her face turn red. "Would you… still like me? If I—"
Ugh, this is stupid. Jax ducks under the covers.
"Hey," Pomni says softly. Jax can feel her place her hand next to Jax, but not on her. "When I first got here, sex didn't even exist. I'm fine with going without it."
It's such an absurd statement Jax can't help but snort.
"I might want to," Jax admits, peaking out of the blankets. "I mean, it'd be a shame to keep this hot rabbit bod all to myself, right?"
"That's what Blanc said, too," Pomni says, though it's clear she regrets mentioning it as soon as it leaves her mouth. Jax ducks back under the blankets and sighs.
"You might as well tell me," Jax says. She pulls the blankets away and looks at Pomni. "I deserve to know what kind of second-hand embarrassment I should be having right now."
Blanc had knocked on Pomni's door just as she was about to settle in for the day.
"Blanc," Pomni said, because Rhiney and Sable would be wearing it very differently, and Jax wouldn't wear it at all.
"Got it in one, Pom-negranite." Blanc winked and let themself in. "You know me so well! I'm starting to think you might actually like me or something."
"I do like you," Pomni said carefully, because it was hard to know how Blanc would react to anything. "You're my friend."
"Ha!" Blanc said. They sat on Pomni's bed and crossed their legs together. "Gay."
Then they uncrossed their legs, spreading them far enough Pomni felt the need to turn away.
"You know," Blanc purred. "We don't have to be just friends."
"I don't think Jax would appreciate that," Pomni insisted. Blanc scoffed and stood up.
"You don't know Jax like I do," Blanc said, closing the distance between them. They knelt down, face only inches apart from Pomni's. "I know she's crazy about you. And I know you can't keep your eyes off of her, either. So why not make it official?"
"I think I'd rather hear that from Jax first," Pomni said firmly. She swerved around Blanc, making her way back to her bed.
"What, you worried about her consent or something?" Blanc rolled their eyes. "I'm the one here right now, Pommykins. And I'm the one telling you that you should be putting this hot rabbit bod to good use."
"Do you even like me?" Pomni demanded.
"What does it matter?" Blanc asked. "I'm here and I'm willing—you really got so many options in here you're gonna say no to that?"
"Are you?" Pomni challenged. "Willing, I mean? Or are you just asking me to prove a point."
Blanc just stared at her.
"You should care less about the little details," they said. "I'm trying to get you and Jax together. Isn't that what you want?"
"I want Jax happy." Pomni sat down on her bed. Blanc followed her.
"Well." Blanc snorted. "I'm a maid, not a miracle worker."
Jax rubs her arm as Pomni finishes her story.
Like peeling skin, Jax thinks. She wonders if Blanc even realizes how much they're giving away.
"Well, thanks," Jax says. "That sucked to hear."
"You need to talk to them," Pomni says. "They say they're doing this for you. If this isn't what you want, you need to tell them that."
"How?" Jax almost asks, but she already knows. She can feel Blanc pushing against her somewhere in the back of their skull, insisting that Jax has ruined all their hand work in trying to set them up together.
"You want to be a girl, don't you?" Blanc demands. "Isn't this how girls flirt?"
Sure. Some, maybe, in movies written by men. If Jax was to torture herself by trying to imagine asking out Pomni, it would be more gentle than that. Something worthy of all the effort Pomni had put into keeping Jax around. In being her anchor.
"Don't give me that shit. Like you were ever going to be some softy like Sable."
"Blanc's not going to listen," Jax says finally. "They think they know better than me. But I'll—I'll try and get them to back off you."
"I'd rather they back off you," Pomni replies. She hesitates. "Can I… ask you something?"
"I didn't get touched as a kid if that's what you're wondering." Jax snorts, derisive, but she can't meet Pomni's gaze. "When you're fucked up, you get fucked up about—about everything, I guess. It doesn't mean anything."
And sometimes you're sixteen years old and your mom starts looking at you like your her husband. But she doesn't touch you—Hell, she barely even hugs you. So it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything.
"Okay." Pomni says it like this is a delusion of Jax she's choosing to go along with, not like she believes it for a fact. "I just—I know sometimes people get desperate when they're homeless."
Jax goes very still. She wonders why it hadn't occurred to her that Pomni might ask about that. She had already said that if they were looking for a part of her human life when she had the shittiest memory, that was a time primed for black-outs. Pomni probably hadn't even been thinking about Jax's childhood. Maybe it hadn't even occurred to her how long Jax must have been like this. Or maybe she's just trying to rule out the worst possibilities first.
"I don't remember anything like that happening," Jax tells Pomni, which is a true statement, at the very least.
Caine still makes adventures sometimes, but Rhinelander's existence has sort of unofficially banned Jax from joining any of the more hardcore ones. Between her, Sable and Blanc, Rhiney is the one Jax understands the least. Unlike Blanc, who pushes when Jax pulls, trying to speak to Rhinelander is like trying not to get swept up in the current while standing at the cliff of a waterfall. The way Rhinelander thinks is so filled with delusion Jax feels out of touch with reality just remembering she exists in the same brain as her. When Rinelander's around, Leeroy Mateo becomes the name of her old voice actor, and not a name that anyone had ever used to refer to her. Rhinelander forgets that they weren't born a girl the second Jax comes out.
And, above all else, Rhinelander has no backstory that involves running away from her own family. Nothing so tragic and unfunny could happen to a creature like her. And once Jax starts hearing thoughts like that, it's impossible to stop them.
Rhinelander is naive in sort of a horrifying way, where every time Jax wakes up after her, all her muscles are sore because Rhinelander doesn't understand the concept of pain. Jax can only imagine what kind of terrible disaster would happen if she was unleashed on a map with guns. As it is, she's already embarrassed the hell out of Jax by trying to intimidate a monster by barking like a dog. Ragatha's the only one who can consistently understand her, and that's just because she's had so much practice dealing with nonsense from Kinger.
The annoying thing is, Jax remembers most of what Rhinelander does. So she knows that in Rhiney's head, everything makes sense. She jumps through a window because the gag is she's untouchable and Jax forgets to argue because Rhinelander believes this so strongly Jax forgets that the world might work any other way. And then Jax will come back to herself and try and retrace her steps, and be too completely baffled to explain any of her actions to the others. All Jax can offer is that Rhinelander will do anything if she thinks it's funny. Unfortunately for Jax, she thinks it's funny to be hurt, and her friends keep making sad eyes at her when that happens.
They can't get Rhiney to stop, either. She says that every rabbit gets what she deserves. If she gets hurt, it's because it's just what the script demands.
When Jax tries for a calm day instead, it just wakes up Sable. If Gangle wants them to have some make-over montage where they conjure different outfits, then by the end of the day, Sable will be dressed like a mermaid, doing a twirl in some tail-inspired dress. If Kinger wants to go fishing, Sable will learn how to cast a rod. She draws with Gangle. Gardens with Ragatha. Even when Jax starts the day tearing out leaves with her teeth, Sable will somehow find her way in charge long enough to make a flower crown. There's little room for Jax to live in-between.
Maybe it's a sign that Pomni had been wrong about them helping her. Maybe her mind is just picking the best bunny for the task at hand, and Jax is so bad at everything, it's only natural she keeps fading back. Pomni might argue that doesn't explain Blanc, either, but Jax thinks that maybe a good apology starts with doing something the other person wants, and Blanc is just as likely to do that as they are to make things worse enough that there's no reason to bother apologizing at all.
Everyone else keeps trying to fix it, despite Jax's protest. According to Zooble, Caine had instantly shut off the lights in one of their adventures when he noticed Rhinelander was around, but all that did was give her the cover of dark for more hijinks.
Everyone keeps telling her to talk to Kinger, too. Jax doesn't want to, but she does, because the point of coming back was that she promised to get better, even if she still doesn't know what that means. She's tired and feels empty inside and like a fake girl. Every time she wakes up, there's an ache in her chest that tells her even though she's made this huge step forward by coming out to everyone, it hardly matters at all.
She doesn't tell Kinger this, though. She's not interested in him validating her womanhood. The idea of anyone attempting that makes her feel like they're just being nice to her because they think she needs Make-A-Wish levels of sympathy.
"I don't get why everyone's trying so hard to talk to me." Jax kicks her foot. "Especially considering how often they tried to get away from me."
"You don't think things have changed since then?" Kinger asks.
Jax looks down at her body, pink overalls and all and frowns. She can see Kinger watching her before he speaks up again.
"Do you think you don't deserve to be our friend, Jax?"
Jax screws her eyes shut. They're in the aquarium, because Kinger spends about 80% of his day staring at Queenie, and even though Jax doesn't remember it from being one herself, she's visited Ribbit and Kaufmo enough to know how abstractions react to loud noises, so she doesn't want to throw a fit. Even though it would be really satisfying to start shouting right now.
"Fuck you," Jax says, more out of habit than malice. "I just—ugh. I mean, this is me we're talking about. I did kind of torment you all for years. Is it so hard to believe that I think you'd all rather hang out with the nice me?"
Maybe it really is that simple. The truth is, she still wants to disappear sometimes. Letting Sable take control is the next best thing.
"You're talking about Sable," Kinger says. Jax nods. "I'm not so sure I'd describe her as the "nice" Jax."
"Are you kidding?" Jax exclaims. "She's a pushover!"
"Refusing to state your boundaries isn't nice," Kinger says simply. Jax looks away. "I'm happy to see her, of course. I hope one day we can all convince her to be a little less frightened of the world. I think it'd help me do that if I knew a bit more about what convinced her of that in the first place."
"Why would I know?" Jax snaps. "Isn't that the point?"
Kinger just blinks.
"Well," he says. "I suppose that's fair enough."
Jax sighs and sits down on the bench next to Kinger. She puts her head in her hands.
"No reason to yell at you," Jax mumbles. "You know how this goes, right?"
Kinger bobs his head slightly in acknowledgement.
"I'll let you in on a secret," he says. "It's not the darkness that keeps me sane—it's her."
He looks at Queenie, still floating calmly in her tank.
"When I remember her, I feel safe," Kinger says softly. "It helps ground me. Our last moment together—before Caine put her in the cellar, I mean—it was just the two of us in the dark together. She was peaceful, and I was happy, because she was still with me. Ever since then, the longer I was in the dark, the more I started thinking about that time. About being safe with her in that way. Of course, now that she's here again, I have… a lot more memories to draw from. I feel safer than I have in a very long time."
The question he doesn't ask is obvious; do you feel safe, Jax?
"What the hell does safe even mean in a place like this," Jax grumbles. "We can't die. Only thing that can actually permanently hurt us is abstractions and you'll probably figure out a real cure for that soon. I mean, I found my way back, right? How hard could it be?"
Jax takes a deep breath.
"She deserved to be the first one back," she says. People cared about Queenie. Queenie had someone who loved her so much it cured his screwed-up head. "Not… me. Sorry."
Kinger puts a hand on Jax's shoulder. Jax shoves it off.
"I'm glad you're back," Kinger says.
But if it was her or me, you'd pick her, right?
Jax doesn't actually ask the question. That'd be petty and cruel, even for her.
Kinger's been doing a lot better, lately. Pomni says he used to not remember the conversations he had in the dark if there was a trip somewhere bright between them, but it's different now. There's still a chance he won't remember any of this, if Jax doesn't remind him later—and they both know she won't—but it's easier for him to gather the loose threads in his mind. Guess that's what feeling safe gives you.
"I could strangle you right now," Jax says. "I could tear that stupid crown off your head. Would that change anything? You think you'd still feel safe here, huh?"
Jax's eyes go wide and she slaps her hands over her mouth. Kinger's looking at her strangely. No, that hadn't been what Jax had meant to say. Sure, there had been a part of her that had thought it, but—
Do it. Show him how little it takes for all that progress to disappear. Show him how stupid he is for thinking he can heal in a place like this. Maybe once he's crazy again, he'll remember how to be funny.
"I'm—I'm going to go back to my room," Jax says, standing up a bit too quickly. She closes her eyes tight. Opens them. Clenches her fists. It doesn't help. The voice in her head won't go away.
There is no getting better for a face on a screen. There is no feeling good for a line of code.
"Jax?"
So stop pretending. Stop acting like you can be anything but what you were programmed to be.
"Can you breathe for me, honey? In, out. In—"
"Shut up!" Jax shoves Kinger and scrambles to the other side of the aquarium wall. She's still hyperventilating. She can hear Rex laughing inside her head.
No, not Rex. He doesn't like that name.
You're acting like I'm some big, bad monster for telling the truth. You said it yourself, right?
None of this matters.
He says he'd rather be called Lop. It makes the punchline much funnier.
The next thing Jax knows, she's in her room. For some reason, she expected it to be a mess, but it's as clean as ever. There's no indication that any chairs have been thrown. All of her photos are still on the wall and none of Sable's art—a collection which has been slowly growing—has been ripped, even though that would have been the easiest way to hurt them.
If Pomni was here, she'd probably take it as a sign Lop isn't the villain Jax thinks he is. That even someone as nihilistic as him has a good heart somewhere. Jax knows the truth, though—it's because Lop doesn't care. Why go out of his way to hurt Jax when Jax is so good at ruining her life on her own? The more drawn out it is, the funnier it'll be when she fails.
Terrible things will come to Jax whether or not Lop gets involved. They both know it. No reason to waste energy pushing over dominoes when a house of cards will fall on its own.
"Fuck," Jax says, speaking to no one.
She should apologize for pushing Kinger. But there's a lot of things Jax should apologize for that she still hasn't, so she'll just add it to the list.
Caine is, somehow, the first one to check on Jax after this.
"Jax," he says. "Tell me honestly—did you have fun on my adventures before all this?"
"Yeah," Jax says, standing in the entrance to her room. She doesn't invite Caine inside. He doesn't ask her to. He doesn't ask her to go anywhere, either. "I mean, sort of. I liked—even if it wasn't the point, there was never just one thing to do. You didn't force us to follow the rules."
That had been the reason Ragatha had tied her up while she and Gangle had tea with that ghost. If Jax had the chance to push, the ghost probably would have pushed back. Jax can't help but find it fascinating to watch the NPCs break their own archetype. It was like playing Cooking Mama and suddenly realizing you could threaten her with one of the knives. Sure, it'd be a dick move, but considering the woman lived only to teach you kindness and cooking, wouldn't you kind of want to hear what that made her say?
"But you're not having fun now," Caine says.
"Look, it's—" Jax sighs. She's not sure she can explain it to him in a way he'll understand when she barely understood it herself. De-abstraction—or whatever they wanted to call it—hadn't fixed her. She's still just as exhausted with life as she had been before. She still wants to stay in her room all day and sleep off the thoughts that constantly swirl through her head. She just… If she doesn't wake up in the morning, she can't see Pomni.
There were other, equally embarrassing things she wanted, but they all started with that. Jax wanted Pomni to be the one to compliment her new dress. Jax wanted Pomni to be the one to show her the new circus rooms. Jax wanted to wake up and feel satisfied with her life.
She can't remember if the last one's something she's ever had before.
"You shouldn't worry about me," Jax tells Caine. "You've got five other humans enjoying themselves here, right? And Sable likes some of the stuff you do. So you've—your track record is pretty alright."
"But if everyone isn't having fun, then I'm not having fun," Caine says, which is so childish and innocent that Jax can't help but expect someone to brutalize him for it.
Jax looks down.
"I don't know if I can have fun anymore," she admits. A thought occurs to her. "Hey, you—you see the entire circus, right? You still have your eyes everywhere and stuff?"
"Uh," Caine says. "More or less?"
"Can you do that thing you did to me on the gun adventure," Jax asks, waving her hands near her head. "Just… gather up all the footage of what the other rabbits in my head are doing and beam it into my brain?"
"Hm…" Caine thinks about this longer than Jax expects. "No!"
"No?"
"I think it would be a violation of privacy," Caine explains. "So I don't want to do that."
"A violation of who's privacy?" Jax laughs. "Mine? Keeping my own memories from me—that's not a violating?"
"I want to keep all my circus members safe, Jax," Caine says. Jax laughs harder.
"Right." She sneers. "So Sable gets to have allll the tea parties and cute girly slumber parties she wants and I'm not allowed to join in. I'm not even allowed to know about them. Because having me around would make her—"
"That's not true," Caine interrupts. Jax stares at him. "Sometimes when Sable's enjoying the circus, she mentions wanting to spend time with you. I have a folder of different rooms bookmarked of things she wants to show to you! But she says you don't want to talk to her. So she doesn't know how to ask."
"She… wants to spend time with me?" Jax asks slowly.
"Rhinelander's said it too." Caine nods. "She doesn't think anyone else in the circus is as funny as you."
Jax doesn't know what to say to that. Caine continues on, seemingly unaware of the turmoil he's caused in her mind.
"I'm not opposed to giving you those memories, if the others agree to it," he adds. "But I think you better be on the same page first."
"I don't know if we've ever been on the same page before," Jax says, mostly to herself. Caine tilts his head at her, confused.
"Isn't that why you're here now?" he asks.
It had taken Pomni three tries to convince Jax to leave the void she had been so intent on calling home. Each time, the others pushed back harder. Blanc joked that Pomni must be a masochist.
"You must have some weird kink for it, don't you?" Blanc challenged. "You think you're going to convince us to leave here all fragile and vulnerable and you can get your rocks off watching us cry about our mommy issues."
Rhinelander had said she didn't want to come back because it they weren't good enough for a reboot.
"The curtain's already closed," she said. "Show's over, kid."
Even Sable had said that Pomni was doing a lot of work for something that would hurt just herself.
"I thought you wanted me here," Pomni said. "Weren't you the one who gave me the key?"
"I wanted you to know why we were leaving you." Sable smiled sadly. "I never expected anything."
Lop, though, welcomed Pomni in.
"You'll find something that'll disappoint you eventually," he told her, on her third time. "Then you'll let him rot like he deserves."
"He?" Pomni asked, because by that time she really did know everything. Blanc burst out into laughter.
"Oh man," they said. "You really do have a kink for this, huh? Well, I'll give you one thing—I don't think there's ever been such a dedicated chaser!"
Lop cut them off with a look, but Pomni didn't know what Blanc was talking about, so she wasn't offended.
"It's funny you keep coming by," Rhinelander said, resting her head on her fist as she watched Pomni. "All we do is run you around and insult you. You really think that's going to change if you get us back out there?"
"You told me you didn't want to go," Pomni said.
"I never said that," Lop said.
"I can't promise things will be better," Pomni continued, like he hadn't spoken. "I don't know what'll happen if you come back. But you tried reaching out to me once, and I realized that too late. You can call me selfish if you want, but I don't want that to happen again. There's only one thing I can promise you, and it's that I won't leave you alone. But I mean it, I really do."
The four rabbits turned their heads to the locked door. It had banged once, softer than usual.
"You'll get tired of us," Blanc said. "Eventually, they always do."
"We'll just make you miserable," Sable agreed.
"You won't," Pomni said. "And I won't. When have you ever known me to give up? I'm too stubborn to quit."
"The others aren't going to be so quick to forgive," Lop pointed out, but he was speaking to Blanc now, not Pomni, as if trying to remind them they should be on the same page.
"You're right," Pomni agreed. "You're going to have to give out a lot of apologies if you want anyone to forgive you for any of the shit you've pulled. But I wouldn't even have been able to come back if they didn't help me get to you. It's not—it's not easy getting this close to an abstraction. But I can survive it because I have someone outside looking out for me. And if you let me, you can have that, too."
Lop opened his mouth to argue. Blanc cut him off by smacking a hand over his mouth.
"You promise?" Blanc asked.
"I promise," Pomni said.
Jax's not sure why that had been enough, but it had. She'd opened the door herself and walked out into the poker room as the other rabbits disappeared.
Pomni smiled at her, blinding and bright as the sun.
"There's my girl," she said and getting back had suddenly seemed so simple.
Staying in her room feels too depressing, so Jax goes to the cafe. Pomni's already there, a half eaten sandwich sitting next to her as she does her best to draw something using a few scattered crayons around you.
"I like that you chose, like, the most immature coloring utensil you could find," Jax says as she sits down next to her.
"Jax!" Pomni exclaims, quickly hiding her art. "How are you feeling?"
"Not the worst," Jax replies, craning her neck to try and peek at the art. "C'mon, Pom, whatever you're making can't look that bad."
"It's not—" Pomni cuts herself off and slides the paper over to Jax. "I made it for you."
The art isn't great, that's definitely true, but the scribbly figures are unmistakably the two of them, with Jax resting on Pomni's lap. A small scattering of stars in different colors are drawn around them.
"I was just thinking, you don't really have anything in your room that's just you," Pomni continues. "Like, way you are now, I mean. And you said—you said that being around me helps ground you, so I thought…"
"It looks like shit," Jax almost says, because that's what a character like her is supposed to say. Instead, Jax thinks of dark rooms and feeling safe and says, "You made me look kind of pretty."
"Well," Pomni says. "You do look kind of pretty."
As if there was never any question about it. Jax takes the paper and carefully rolls it into her pocket.
"Do you want to go to the stargazing room?" Pomni asks. "Caine marked it off-limits for a while because he wanted to make the constellations 'more accurate.'"
Another thing that had happened while Jax was away. It's so easy for her to lose track of all the things they have access to now. She used to have the energy to explore on her own. Now, she keeps forgetting why she should care.
"Let me guess," Jax says. "Gangle told him about astrology?"
Pomni laughs.
"Something like that, yeah," she says. "But it's back now. And you can ask it to show you the stars for any part of the world."
It's kind of needlessly complicated, Jax thinks. There's no where in the world you can see every star from—if Caine had just rigged the thing up to change with the seasons, that would've been enough on its own. But Jax has never seen what the stars looked like from her mother's home country before. And back when she was young and human, she used to visit her grandma in Chicago for the summers, but she's never seen what the stars there look like in the winter. She's never seen the stars where Pomni grew up, either.
Maybe, if she's feeling brave, she'll even ask it to show her the stars Leeroy's probably looking at right now.
That, at least, is something to look forward to.