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"Jax,"
She whispered,
"You don't have to pretend anymore. It's okay."
The jagged creature spasmed, stinging Pomni's hand. The low-poly shapes hurt to look at, but she didn't look away. She couldn't.
"I'm-.. I'm sorry you couldn't make it.."
Her eyes stung, blinking away tears. She squinted, needing to keep her eyes open. This may be the last she sees of the rabbit.
"You're.. They'll understand. Do you.. do you want me to tell them?"
The abstraction dipped it's head as if nodding in permission. The jester sniffed and leant her forehead against the abstraction's sharp, moving edges. It stung, but not in the usual way. It felt sort of staticky, like that first moment after you hit your elbow. Pomni's first instinct was to flinch back, but she resisted.
"We can.. You can stay with us in the circus.. Okay?.."
She said in a pained whisper. It was getting harder and harder to hang on. Her limbs felt heavy and ached, but she held on, just before everything went black as her head hit the ground.
The first thing she saw as she opened her eyes was.. 4 familiar faces. Well, not really faces. A doll, a colourful toy, a mask, and a chess piece. They were.. of course, they were her friends!
She attempted to move from her position, where she soon acknowledged that her head was resting on Ragatha's lap. As soon as she moved her neck, a sharp pain shot through her.
"She- I talked to Jax.. While she was abstracting.."
She mumbled faintly. The others looked worried, probably..? She couldn't read their expressions very well right now. Ragatha was the first to speak.
"You couldn't do that all by yourself.. We had to get you out."
Pomni came to a little more, her foggy brain clearing a bit.
"W-wait, Jax, we can't just leave h-"
She started, pushing herself up as fast as her aching limbs would let her, before Ragatha quickly pulled her back.
"Hey, listen, he'll.. He'll still be there later!"
She hurriedly tried to explain, watching the jester's facial expressions closely. Fidgeting with her plush hands, she attempted to speak again, the words not coming to her easily. She couldn't quite figure out what to say. Jax, he'd.. he'd abstracted. Fully given up. And maybe she hadn't had the best relationship with the rabbit, but she had still cared about his survival. Now he was.. gone.
Pomni stared at the floor, panicked. She blinked away tears as she bit her lip, trying not to cry. Gangle sat down next to her, a ribbon hand landing on the jester's.
"I-I'm sorry.."
She mumbled, wiping her mask with her free ribbon. She didn't actually know why she did that, the tears were permanent. Muscle memory from the human world, she supposed. She shook her head, snapping herself out of it.
"I... I know he, uhm.. meant a lot to you."
Pomni flinched, lip trembling. She pushed herself up from her lying down position, feeling a tear slip down her cheek.
"I just.. I just can't believe she's gone.. She stuck around for- for so long, but.."
She sniffled, resting her head on her knees. She heard Zooble sit down next to her, then Kinger.
"Um, hey.. What do you mean by she?"
Zooble's deep voice asked, cutting through the tense silence. Pomni quickly realized she hadn't actually explained that yet, and looked up, a little caught off guard. The others were looking at her questioningly, their gazes boring into her. She couldn't blame them, of course, but it was still pretty intense.
"Oh, um, well, uh.. Jax.. Jax was trans. I- I think. No, I know. She was super repressed, and.. and she tried to tell her mom once, but she got made fun of, and then.. it.. it doesn't matter."
She managed to say before trailing off, fidgeting with her gloves nervously. She looked around at everyone else's reactions.
Zooble leant back in realization, Gangle gasped and covered her mouth, Ragatha's eye widened and she froze, mouth gaping open, and Kinger.. well, Kinger's pupils dilated a little. Pomni assumed it was in realization, but you couldn't really tell. She waited tensely for someone, anybody, to say something.
"I- I never knew..."
Ragatha stammered, wiping her eye. Everybody seemed a little shaky, Gangle just staring blankly at Pomni. Zooble stared at the floor, breathing sort of shakily, before they mustered up words.
"Shit, why didn't she just tell us.. I would've- we would've helped her.. Is that why she was such an asshole? Cause she was so repressed?..."
The jester thought about it for a little. She came out to Ribbit, but she sabotaged it, then everything else in her life, too. The whole reason this started was because of how deep in the closet Jax was.
"I.. think so, yeah.."
She said quietly. Kinger stayed quiet, but put a hand on her back comfortingly. He seemed to be taking less time to process things than the others. Probably seen this happen a million times before. She didn't think it would make it any easier, though.
"God, it all makes sense now.."
Zooble whispered, clenching their fist. Ragatha looked around nervously, before speaking quietly, trying not to make things worse.
"Um, do we all need a hug...?"
Pomni nodded, and everyone inched closer together for a group hug. While they were all embracing, the cartoon jester had some time to think.
Jax had given up. Committed suicide, essentially. She'd lasted so long.
She thought back to the time when the bunny walked over to her, nearly helping, before giving up and walking off. She had never seen her again after that. Non-abstracted, at least.
She could've done more.
Burying her head in Ragatha's chest, she let herself cry quietly, her shoulders heaving.
"God, I'm so sorry, I could've saved her.."
She choked out. The hug got tighter as they all attempted to comfort eachother.
"There wasn't anything else you could do. I think she knew she was going to abstract soon. You tried everything you could, it wasn't your fault."
Kinger spoke up, trying to stay calm. His voice shook a little, though.
Gangle hesitated a little before speaking, too,
"Yeah.. you- you couldn't have done anything else.. I-I think she knew she was always gonna end up.. like this... And, for what it's worth, I think you helped her a lot.."
Her voice was soft and shaky, fidgeting with her ribbons. Pomni smiled weakly and hugged them all tighter.
After a while of hugging and tearful mumbling, everyone calmed down a little and decided to make a plan. Zooble used a lot of their parts to rein Jax into the large, dark pillow fort they had all built together and the others did their part too. Eventually, everybody started to live peacefully together, and Caine came back. They found out their real names, and even how they were doing in the real world. Everything was okay. Until one day.
Pomni walked up to the pillow fort, peeking through the blanket before pushing it aside and walking in. It was.. Weirdly dark in there? No usual glow of the abstraction eyes. She hesitantly walked forward, for a weirdly long time, until she bumped into something that was.. fuzzy..? She quickly shuffled backwards, unnerved. The bells on her hat jingled as she ran back to the opening, quickly conjuring a clip to hold the blanket out of the way and let some light in.
There, in the beam of light from the opening, was Jax.
Jax, but different.
Her shapes were softer, dark scene-style hair swaying slightly as her head turned. Her huge yellow eyes were like a deer in headlights', unblinkingly staring at the jester. She was naked, arms crossed over her chest and knees drawn up to her torso. She looked so.. vulnerable. Interestingly, a pink bow sat on the base of her right ear. A very familiar bow, one that Pomni was sure she had seen before.
She shook her head to clear her thoughts, and blinked a few times to check that this was real. The fort looked so disproportionately huge compared to Jax, making her look all the more small and scared.
".. Jax?.."
She finally managed to croak out, her throat dry. Finally, the big yellow eyes moved, searching the jester's face. Pomni quickly ran over to her, sitting down and just.. Looking at her. She'd never seen her like this before. The bunny's purple ears twitched, still in disbelief, it seemed.
"P-pomni!-"
Jax exclaimed, before instinctively grabbing her and throwing her into a hug. Pomni flinched, expecting to still feel the glitchiness, but after realizing she wouldn't, she melted into the hug, squeezing her back. Tears pricked at her eyes as she held the rabbit.
"You, uh.. You look different.."
She said shakily as she pulled back after a while, cupping the bunny's cheeks with both hands. Jax looked so pretty now.. Not that she wasn't before, but it was just different now.
"Wha- what'dya mean..?"
Her ears twitched, looking around in confusion. Glancing down, she quickly took in the fact that she was firstly, very much naked, and secondly, had a much more feminine looking chest. She quickly pulled back, grabbing a blanket and holding it up to her neck in embarrassment and.. some other feeling, something that felt oddly like euphoria.
"Oh! Yeah, ha, sorry, I didn't even think about that..!"
Pomni laughed awkwardly, pinwheel eyes looking Jax up and down in awe, a small, disbelieving smile on her face.
"Your.. your hair.."
She murmured softly, slowly reaching out to touch the rabbit's spiky black hair. She stopped for a second, checking if this was okay, before threading her fingers through the strands.
"Woah, it looks just like Leeroy's.."
Jax snapped out of her peaceful state, panicking and stumbling backwards, ears pinning to her head.
"What?!- who? I- I feel like I recognise that.. that.."
Pomni quickly put her hands on Jax's shoulders, cursing herself for ruining the moment as she tried to calm her down.
"Shh, it's okay, it's okay.."
She stayed with her, stubbornly trying to comfort Jax. After she stopped hyperventilating, the jester took a quick breath before speaking again.
"Leeroy Mateo. You recognise that name, right?"
A nod from her.
"That's, uh, that's you. Or, you in the real world. We saw our social medias, and uh, you're a delivery g- er, girl... And, um, you live with one of your friends now. Ah, sorry, I know this is a lot right now, hahah.."
She stuttered out, letting out a rushed laugh and scanning Jax's face for any emotion.
Shock.
Astonishment and fear and joy and a deep sense of relief.
"Are.. are you okay..?"
She asked cautiously, reaching out a hand. Before she could touch Jax, the rabbit leapt forward and tackled her into a hug, tears slipping from her wide eyes as she sobbed messily, Pomni's bells ringing pleasantly.
"You- you're serious.."
Jax asked softly.
"Yep."
Pomni murmured tearfully, arms tightening around the slim purple waist that was currently sort of crushing her. (She didn't mind, though)
"What.. How did you find our, um, socials?"
Jax asked, pushing her head up from Pomni's chest to make shaky eye contact. The jester jolted slightly, before tilting her head, smiling.
"Oh, uhm, I didn't. Caine did."
"CAINE?!"
She let out a short burst of laughter at the rabbit's shocked response.
"Yeah! He's back!"
They both laughed together, just at the pure absurdity of the situation. After a few minutes of this, they both went quiet and gazed into eachother's wide eyes, blush spreading across both of their cheeks.
Pomni's hand slowly crept up to Jax's cheek, feeling the soft fuzz through her glove. She hesitated for a second before gently pulling the other woman's face toward hers, closing her eyes and softly kissing her.
They both stayed like this for a few seconds, before pulling back slightly and just. Gazing at eachother, taking in every detail of eachother's faces. Jax quickly startled and her face turned bright red, before she buried it in Pomni's neck.
The jester giggled, patting the other girl's back and adjusting her bow, which had become crooked. Until she heard a footstep or two behind her, and her head turned swiftly, only to be met with the sight of Gangle and Zooble.
"I knew it!!!"