The Farm Still Haunts You

by Creepykittens

Summary:

Set just after Episode 5

Jax can't sleep as he's stuck reliving the past. Pomni helps him out.
Twice.

Not a ship post, this one is purely platonic, also please read tags.

Chapter 1: A bad night

Everything is calm, everyone in the circus is asleep, peacefully resting in their beds.
Everyone except for Jax.
Ironic, he had been the one to ask for sleep before the second adventure, he must be extra tired by now. But no, the purple rabbit is sitting on his floor, trying desperately to hold in tears that feel more like acid on his skin. He feels that black sludge in his throat like he's gonna vomit. Jax had wanted to sleep so bad, yet closing his eyes only made him want to scream now.

Nightmares are a bitch.
Every time he was back in that stupid dress. Stupid Gangle, of course it just had to be a fucking maid dress. And Zooble... he pulled anxiously on his ears as their words repeat in his head again.

It suits you.
I thought you'd be into this.
I'm just having fun, I forgot you hate fun.

He knows they were just throwing his own words back at him, he wishes he never said it. He curses his low tolerance, he never should have drank that shit to begin with, should have thrown it over his shoulder and dealt with the looks he'd get. They were better than the looks at the ball game.

I think you look good.

His evil twin mocks him, some part of him knows he didn't mean it that way, but a much louder part contorts the tone of his voice until Jax is banging his head against his bedframe until it aches.

He's overreacting, this isn't such a big deal. It was just meant as a joke to get back at him for all the shit he pulled.
But Kinger just had to order that fuckin drink, it was nothing more than nonsense, but somehow it ended up exposing his fears and of course they were used against him. Jax wishes he never sat down at the counter to begin with.
They just had to rub it in his face.

I think you look good.
It suits you.
I thought you'd be into this.
I'm just having fun.

He feels the tears finally start falling, his head pounds. He closes his eyes to stop the water flowing from them, and all he sees is an endless cornfield.

You look good.
I thought you'd like this.
You should be having fun.

The words warp in his head, the loop changes, he opens his eyes and still feels the wind hit his legs. He curls up tighter, he feels the gaze of a thousand eyes, feels phantom fingers crawl across his skin.

You look so good, I just couldn't resist.
C'mon pretty boy, I know you like it.
Aren't you having fun.

Familiar voices fill his head, he thought he left those memories behind when he left that fucking middle of nowhere farm, when he left that filthy, tainted body forever. Every feeling somehow still clings to him now though, wrapping tighter. It's the final straw before he curls over and hurls his guts out. Bile black as oil covers his floor and soaks his knees, that horribly wet and sticky feeling only makes it worse.
His head spirals.
Suddenly he's not in his room anymore, he's not in the tent or even on the grounds. He's in a cornfield, in some stupid outfit, surrounded by evil, lecherous eyes. He hears them laughing, a cacophony of voices laughing as he cries and begs and prays to a god that he knows by now doesn't exist. He runs and yet he goes nowhere, there's nothing but corn for miles, he's trapped in it, trapped by them. He cant stop it when they move, around him, on him, under his skin, inside his very bones.

Jax is finally screaming now, the sound coming out hoarse and choked, he screams and cries so hard it throws him into another fit of vomiting that coats his chest and overalls and the hands he was trying uselessly to hold himself together with. Despite thinking he's surrounded he feels so utterly and hopelessly alone. He is alone. He knows why too.

Maybe you deserved it.

That voice, he recognized that memory the most, and it cut worse than anything else ever could. Suddenly Jax feels like a child, looking up at his mother who holds nothing but contempt in her gaze as she scorns him.

Maybe you deserve this.

He sits in the mess he made, not bothering anymore to wipe away his tears that fall in silence now, his eyes hollow. He can see bits of static and glitches at the edge of his vision as it blurs in and out of focus.

His ears twitch at a new sound, a tapping noise his fried brain is slow to realize is someone knocking on the door. He's slow to move, he feels gross, but the distortions clear from his vision. He realizes dimly that his room looks like shit.
When he eventually gets to the door he takes a moment to think before opening it, he's not sure he wants to let someone see him like this, he doesn't even know if he'd want to talk to whoever is on the other side if he was in a good mood. A real voice, or one as real as anything in the circus can be, cuts through his thoughts.

"Jax? Are you okay? I heard noises from your room and I just wanted to check in." It's Pomni on the other side. He sighs, still deciding.
"If you want me to go that's fine, I won't force you to talk if you're not up for it." She adds, and he gets another small jolt of panic at the idea of being left alone again. At the very least, hearing her kept him from drifting away, kept him here. So he cautiously opened the door.

"Hey Pomni," His voice sounded weak even to him. "If I let you in, can you promise not to judge?" Jax asked, still hiding behind his door. She turned around to face him.
"Sure." She said calmly, though she gasped as she walked into the room. Jax quickly shut his door behind her.
"I know, this looks... bad." He stated quietly.
"Are- are you okay?" She asked again, looking at him now with obvious concerns.
"Just... a bad night." He says, going to sit near his bed again, avoiding the pile of black goo on the floor, not that it mattered when it was already on him.
"Are you, um, sick? Or something?" She asked, taking a cautious step back.
"Only in the head." He replied, trying and failing to get his usual bravado back. Pomni slowly came closer, sitting next to Jax on the side away from the black stain.
"What happened?" She asked, she still looked worried, it made him want to cry again.
"Just a few nightmares." That was major understatement.
"What were they about?" She asks, there's no way he's recounting it all again, the whole point of letting her in was so he could forget.
"Home." He states simply, hoping she'll get the hint that he doesn't want to explain it all. She nods silently for a moment but in the quiet thoughts start to come back and Jax realizes he needs to get her talking again.
"Say something, anything, please?" He knows it sounds desperate and he'll beat himself up for it later, but right now he just needs her voice to drown out the rest. She thinks for just a second longer before fulfilling his unusual request.

"When I was seventeen I went to prom for the first time. It was junior year and I was going with this boy I barely even knew but I was just so excited. I got this beautiful long red dress, and we went out to dinner at the fanciest place I had ever been before we got to the dance, his dad gave him a big allowance for doing odd jobs to pay for it. I remember our first dance, this really cheesy song came on, the type of thing you'd only hear at a school function cause it stopped playing on the radio years ago. Anyway, halfway through the song I threw up, a lot. It ruined my whole dress, got on my date who understandably dumped me after that. I think it even hit a few people dancing nearby. I had to go home and was sick the rest of the night, my date called out sick for school the next day. Turns out we got food poisoning from the lobsters they served us, I think they went out of business soon after that." Jax listened intently as Pomni told her story, nodding and even smiling slightly at parts.
"I guess my point is, I know the feeling of, uh, all that." Pomni said, gesturing to the digital vomit drying into Jax's overalls.
"Right." He replies, looking down at himself, he's starting to feel more uncomfortable in it by the minute.
"Maybe we should get you cleaned up, I know where we can find a bathtub." Pomni offers, extending a hand to help Jax up.

He lets her lead him out of the room and around the main floor until they get to a long room with a tub at the end of it. She turns on the water, checking the temperature before letting the tub fill. She starts another story in the meantime about going rock climbing with her dad as a kid and chipping her tooth. When the tub is full Jax hops in, overalls and all. He might as well kill two birds with one stone, he makes a mental note to tell Caine to deal with the mess in his room tomorrow.
Pomni watched Jax's eyes droop, obviously exhausted from it all. They leave a trail of water as she leads him back to his room and he shakes it off like a dog before flopping down onto his bed. When she goes to leave and let him sleep, Jax grabs her wrist. He doesn't say anything, but there's a look in his eye that Pomni has never seen before and doubts she'll ever see again, something small and fragile. So she stays, telling another story as she watches him drift off to sleep.

When Jax wakes up the next day his floor his clean and there's a plate of food on the nightstand. He eats it quickly before putting his smile back on and heading out to join the next adventure.

Chapter 2: Your worst adventure yet

Summary:

I got inspired to make more, I'll probably stop after this though cause I don't know where else to go with it.

Jax walks out towards the main area of the tent, ready to go straight back to his normal, destructive ways. Life's no fun without a little chaos right?

As soon as he gets there he sees Gangle and Zooble sitting together on the couch, sharing a sketchbook. Maybe it's the tooth rottingly sweet display or maybe its the fact his brain went through a blender the night before, but he feels sick again looking at it. He considers breaking Gangle's mask again, but decides that's probably a bad idea with Zooble sitting so close. He decides to walk right past them instead, maybe he can find the nutcase and get a good laugh.
"Hi Jax." Gangle's voice stops him in his tracks. Her happy mask was always annoying but there was something in the tone this time, just barely there, the slightest inflection he might never had heard if he wasn't still subconsciously on high alert. It made him freeze entirely, feeling trapped in place, every limb held tight in it's spot.
Thank god that their Spudsy's adventure wasn't on that lightning round list, and fuck god for reminding him of it anyway.

Jax feels a hand touch his arm and jolts like a livewire. He swipes the culprits leg out from under them just quick enough to cover his flinch perfectly as a planned attack. When looks down he realizes it's Pomni.
"You should watch where you're going." He tells her sarcastically, keeping up that oh so iconic grin.
"Ha ha very funny." She replies with her own sarcasm. "Anyway, are you okay?" She asks.
"Of course I am. In fact I've never been better!" He replies quick, the lie rolling off his tongue with ease, fake confidence perfectly practiced a dozen times before. When he looks back to the couch Gangle and Zooble are staring at him. He has to force himself to stare back.
"What are you looking at?" He asks in annoyance. The thought occurs that those words feel familiar, before he shakes his head to clear it again.
"You were just standing there for like ten minutes!" Zooble exclaims, he didn't realize how fast time was moving when he zoned out. He didn't let his face falter though.
"So what? Maybe I felt like being a model?" He replies, though he holds back a cringe at his own words.
"As if we'd ever draw you." Zooble retorts, rolling their eyes.
"I wouldn't mind." Gangle says with a smile. That's not helping. She leans over to say something to Zooble and Jax's ears twitch. "The maid outfit was pretty cute."
That is really not helping.
Pomni taps him again before he can think too hard about it. He glances her way for barely a second before he opens his mouth again.
"Or maybe I was just waiting to trip somebody, easier to let em come to me instead of the other way around." He replies with a shrug, already lifting a foot to leave.

His long strides take him to the stage to wait for the adventure of the day. Pomni follows like a lost puppy.
"Are you sure you're alright?" She asks. "I mean, last nigh-"
"I'm fine." He says quickly, cutting her off. She looks like she wants to say more but the Caine just showed up on the main stage and everyone else is starting to gather around.

"I hope you're all excited! Today's adventure will be The Labrinth Of Wonders! Can you find all the priceless artifacts and bring them back to their rightful home? Let's find out!" Caine announced with glee.
"Oh great, a treasure hunt. What are we five?" Jax sees Caine give him a dirty look for insulting his adventure before quickly composing himself.
"You'll all have to make it to the end of the maze to finish the adventure!" He continues as if Jax said nothing.
"Maybe we should make it a corn maze." Zooble chimes in with a pointed look to Jax, but he shuts them down.
"We're not doing suggestions anymore, remember?" He replies quickly, keeping a smug smile plastered on his face.
"You're absolutely right, we aren't using the suggestion box ideas anymore!" Caine backs him up.
Thank God.
"However, smaller input on my own ideas isn't so bad, and what material the maze is made of doesn't really matter in this case. So if corn is what gets you into this one Zooble, then corn maze it is!" Caine adds after a thoughtful pause.
Fuck god.
A flash of worry hits Jax but he covers it before anyone can notice.
"Well, you losers have fun, I'll see you la-" he starts, taking a casual step towards the hall again before he feels the ground quite literally disappear beneath his feet. He falls on his ass with a grunt, when he looks up...

He's surrounded by corn.
Again.
He can't do this again.
Jax jumps up, backing up slightly only to hit someone else and spin too look at them, eyes wide with fear. Everyone stares at him and that's really not fucking helping.
He hears giggling. They're laughing at him, suddenly he's reminded of all the worst people he ever knew. Reminded of girls who tricked him, who hurt him, and angry boyfriends who hit him like it was his fault.

He really can't be here.
"C'mon, let's go this way, maybe we can-" Pomni starts trying to lead the group.
"I'll race you guys to the exit, eat my dust suckers!" Jax talks fast, throwing the half-hearted attempt at a challenge over his shoulder as runs out into the maze. He has to get out.

Jax runs full speed through the maze, he has no clue where to go but he's running more on instinct at this point than any real plan. He gets to a dead end, tears prick at his eyes. He tries again, goes a different way. Another dead end, crap. He tries again, tears falling. Another dead end, shit. He tries again, he has to get out, HE CANT BE HERE AGAIN! Another dead end, fuck! He's slowing down, feels like he can't breathe, but he has to keep going he has to!

Jax rounds a corner only to be met with another dead end and he sobs. He falls to the ground and curls himself into a ball, shuting his eyes and pulling his ears so hard it hurts. He's never getting out, there is no escape. Jax is in hell. Stuck here alone in the corn without a prayer.

Suddenly he feels something touch his shoulder and he shoots up so fast he stumbles. Someone found him. Ragatha found him. He's almost ready to believe in God again.
"Jax, what's going on?" She asks, confused. His eyes dart around the corn and back to her.
"N-Nothing Dollface, let's just get out of here." He hates the way his voice stutters and cracks. He wipes his face quickly, hoping she'll drop it and he can get out of here with some digital dignity still intact.
"Clearly it's not nothing, please just talk to me Jax?" She pleads, she's definitely not dropping it. She takes a step forward and Jax tries to step back only to hit a wall of corn and flinch again. Fuck, he feels pathetic being seen like this.

He needs to get out of here.
"I can help, I care about you Jax." Its a lie and he knows it. She gets closer, he wants to run but his feet feel stuck in place. She reaches for him, he has to run, but his traitorous limbs still refuse to move. She puts her hand on his arm and it feels like every fiber of her being is made of fire hotter than the sun. He needs to run, he NEEDS to RUN, but nothing works anymore, his body is giving up without his permission, his vision blurring with tears all over again.

"Don't." He tries, his voice shaking, he feels so fucking helpless.
"Jax, I'm here for you, what's wrong?" She asks, moving her hand up his arm, it burns. It rests on his shoulder a moment before she pulls away suddenly, he feels treads and cotton stuck between his teeth. It takes him a moment to realize he must have bit her. He was just thankful she stopped touching him, until she started yelling.
"God, you are unbelievable! I'm trying to help you, jerk! Oh, why am I even bothering with it? It's not like you'd ever do the same for any of us! Maybe you deserve this! Maybe you deserve to stay out here!" She screams, clearly angry, and it hurt to listen to her.
Her face blurs and shifts, soft edges turning hard and human and cruel.

Maybe you deserve this.

His mother's voice comes back to him again, cold and emotionless. It brings back memories he hated. All his lowest points.

He remembers her standing behind him, guiding his smaller hands on the rifle. It was the closest he'd ever get to a hug from her, it made him like hunting. He remembers how loud the gunshot was, he'd hit his target and excitedly ran to grab it. It woke up, and he got knocked out pretty hard. The next thing he knew he was in the hospital with stitches and a broken leg. His mom made sure he wore shorts until it healed to show off his scars, his mistake.
"Maybe you deserve this, that's what you get for not listening, I always tell you to make sure your game is dead first." His mother scolds him after he whined about it.

The next time he was in the hospital he was having his jaw wired shut after a veterans punch. He remembers his father apologizing as soon as his head was on straight, and again on the car ride home, he knows he didn't mean to, he didn't even really see who he was swinging at until it was too late. He remembers sitting in the kitchen while his mother blends his dinner.
"Maybe you deserve this, your father is a war hero, what were you thinking waking him up like that?" His mother asks in frustration, knowing he can't respond. That horn was a pretty stupid prank in retrospect.

He remembers her finding him in the corn field the next morning, face bruised and bloody, naked and broken, pleading for help. Remembers how she looked at him with cold disgust like he was some dirty mutt that wandered into her home.
"Maybe you deserve this, what kind of man can't even fight back?" She spoke pure venom into his veins. He remembers she made him clean the mess himself because according to her, he made it.

Maybe you deserve this.
Deserve the pain and suffering.
Deserve scars that never heal.
Deserve to never feel clean again.

Ragatha is still talking but he doesn't hear any of the words anymore, his brain refusing to translate noise into meaning. Memories of the cornfield flashing through his mind. His legs give out and he collapses, his heart beats so loud it almost drowns everything else out entirely. Until he sees Ragatha's blurry figure move again, though his scattered brain has stopped recognizing her. She moves cautiously and he can't move at all, completely frozen, he can't even scream. He feels sick again, nausea rising. Then her hands come back, a gentle grip on his shoulder as she tries to get through to him, the other caressing his cheek, wiping at his wet face, to anyone else it would seem so sweet.
He can't do this. She's too close.
He can't do it again.
Jax vomits and she backs away again. He feels that awful black liquid splash back on his feet and just barely manages to tuck them slightly more into himself.

Someone else comes around the corner, a shorter blurry figure, coming into view. Pomni found them, though Jax isn't all there enough to know her right now. Ragatha grabs her arm to hold her back as Jax curls over, shaking, to puke his guts out again.
Through his haze he can see them moving as he gags again, but there's nothing left in him, he didn't eat much of breakfast. They motion in ways his brain isn't picking up yet, but at least they don't come towards him at all.

Eventually he realizes the smaller of the two is exaggerating her breathing, puffing her chest in dramatic motions. He takes a deeper breath, he hadn't realized until now that he was hyperventilating. He sees her head move, a nod, he does it again. His head starts to feel just slightly clearer. He breaths for a few minutes and his hearing starts to come back.
"-at's it, you got it, just keep breathing." He hears, though his head is still too clouded to know who's talking.

His ears twitch and Pomni seems to notice.
"You're gonna get through this Jax, just breathe." Jax takes another deep breath in response. Ragatha goes to step towards him again but Pomni pushes her back. Jax can hear he's been mumbling now, mindless gibberish mostly comprised of "can't" and "don't" and "please" and he might think it's embarrassing if he could think at all right now.

"Oh god, Jax I didn't mean it, I swear!" Ragatha tries at an apology.
"I'm sorry mom." He lets out with another small sob, seeming far away. He still doesn't recognize her. Ragatha goes pale for a moment.
"Uh... I'm gonna go... find the other's for help. ByePomni!" She says before running away. Pomni stays with him, never approaching, until his vision finally starts to clear.

"P-pomni?" He asks weakly, still just slightly unsure what's... real, for lack of a better word. What wasn't in his head at least.
"Yeah, yeah it's me." She answers calmly. "Can you stand?" She asks back, though he seems distracted as his eyes dart around to all the corn again. "Hey, look at me, just focus on me for now, can you stand up?" She tries again getting his attention. He stares at her, almost through her, before slowly standing, his legs still shaking with the effort.
"I can't be here." He says it all in one breath, still panicked.
"I know, I'm gonna get you out. I'm gonna... just... put my arm out..." she says slowly bringing her arm out to hold and taking a single step forward, stepping back again when she sees him flinch and fall again.
"It's okay, I'm not gonna touch you, or hurt you. I just, you should have something to hold while I lead us out of here. I'm sure if we follow one side we'll find the exit." She tries to reassure him, then she waits with her arm out between them. He watches her with wide eyes, waiting for an attack, before eventually standing again and reaching out himself. His eyes dart around again, like he's expecting someone to jump out at any moment, as if he's done something wrong. He's crying again.
"Don't, don't look at all that, maybe just... close your eyes and... don't think about it." She says, chosing her words carefully. He screws his eyes shut tight and nods, then clears his throat.
"Right, l-lead the way." He stutters again and cringes.

She starts walking and he follows clumsily behind, his lanky limbs all feeling too long and unwieldy, he feels like his body is brand new all over again if you don't count the ache in his muscles. His ears twitch as the wind blows through the stalks in a familiar way. Pomni seems to notice, she starts talking, rambling about nothing really. Anything to fill the time with noise, from sports she played in middle-school, to how her dad always made the same joke about pizza, to college parties, to learning to ride a bike. It helped him.

She paused in the middle of some story about girl scouts, speeding up ever so slightly.
"Hey, I think I see the end!" Now that she wasn't telling stories he could hear other voices. Jax finally opened his eyes, he sees the break in the corn stalks and runs for it, Pomni not far behind.
He realized it was dark out with a simulation moon high in the sky already, how long had he been in there? He didn't care now, what mattered was getting out.

He let go of Pomni as he burst from the maze, he ran too fast to stop in time and toppled over Kinger.
"JAX!" he yelled once he realized who it was, the rabbit himself pulling his ears at how loud he was. Jax pulled himself up and dusted himself off, being sure to keep the corn maze behind him. He put on an easy, practiced smile, though inside he felt fucking exhausted.
"Yep, it's me." He replies casually. Kinger gives him a quick pat on the head that he shakes off before getting distracted again.
"About time, what happened to beating us here?" Zooble asks with a pointed stare. He meets her gaze.
"We get it, you won. Now let's get out of here, I'm hungry." He says, too tired to come up with a real excuse, so he deflects.
"You could eat the corn." Kinger says absentmindedly, his smile slips ever so slightly as he cringes.
"No." He says, before slipping right back into character. "I'd rather have something cooked." He smiles, it feels so forced. Gangle comes out from a building Jax hadn't noticed until now. Right, Caine said something about returning treasure didn't he?
"The treasure has been returned to its rightful place!" She says happily. He remembers he never got around to breaking her mask, it's rare that she still has it by the end of an adventure. Weird even.
The fractal noise opens up and Jax is the first one through it.

"Welcome back my paparazzi peppers!" Caine cheerfully greets them, his voice makes Jax's head hurt. Maybe it already hurt and it just got worse from all these bright colors? He doesn't care enough to figure it out.
"Welp, that was horribly boring, I'm gonna grab some food. See ya around." Jax says with a grin. Pomni gives him an odd look before following Ragatha towards the hall, Kinger goes for his pillow fort, and predictably Zooble and Gangle stick together like glue. He makes his way to the food area. He knows he doesn't really need it, but at least tasting something was still sorta nice, especially since breakfast didn't stay down. He grabs a few random items out of a fridge, some of which didn't even belong there in the first place, and scarfs it down without even grabbing a plate.

On the way back to his room Jax spots Ragatha, who knows why she's still in the hall. Caine fixed her arm as soon as they got back, but it looked like he hadn't noticed the splotch of black goop at the bottom of her dress. Her head shot up to meet his gaze as he approached.
"Oh, Jax! I-I'm sorry about earlier, I really didn't mea-" she starts, but Jax cuts her off, he can't deal with her rambling a thousand apologies to him right now.
"It's fine." He says, though she still looks guilty, but he's talking again before she can open her mouth.
"Eh, sorry about... that." Jax says, awkwardly kicking her dress to point out the black stain.
"Huh? Oh! That, it's nothing, really, I can-" she starts up again and Jax still isn't in the mood for this.
"I'd love to sit and chat but I need to sleep, probably coming down with a virus or something, ya know? I'll see you tomorrow." He tells her, attempting to cover his breakdown with a cheap lie. It's obviously a bandaid on a bullet hole, but she doesn't call him out on it.

He finally gets into his room, but as soon as he hits the bed his door opens again. He looks over to see Pomni walk in. She sits on the floor next to his bed.
"Hey, how you feeling?" She asks gently, he might have lied to Ragatha, but Pomni's tone sorta reminds him of when he really was sick as a kid.
"What do you think?" There's no point lying when she probably already knows the answer.
"Yeah I sort of figured, do you want me to leave?" She asks, about to get up.
"Nah, you're fine. I actually kind of like hearing you talk." He replies, and Pomni sits back again.

"I uh, have you talked to Ragatha?" she asks, she seems concerned though it's hard to tell which person her worries are aimed at, maybe it's both.
"Yeah, I think she's still freaked out, I think I bit her pretty hard." Jax replies, his teeth are pretty sharp.
"I think she's more freaked that you called her mom." Pomni tells him with a nervous giggle.
"Oh $&!%." He hadn't realized he said that out loud, or who he said it to. In his defense, his brain had practically melted into a puddle at that point.

"Was... was she bad? Your mom?" Pomni asks, and that's a harder question to answer. She had her bad moments, but she had taken care of him too. He remembers good hunting trips, and helping cook dinner, and how she'd wake him up in time to watch the sunrise on holiday mornings, along with harsh stares and less than kind words when he'd got in trouble, and how she'd never wanted to help him because he should be capable on his own.
"Meh, she taught me to shoot, other than that she was pretty normal I guess. A mom's a mom, right?" He says, though in reality he didn't have much context for what normal looks like outside his own life.
"I wouldn't know." Pomni replies, and Jax quirks a brow at her, so she continues. "My mom died when I was really young, I don't remember her much, but I think my dad did a fairly good job raising me... I took it pretty hard when he passed." She explains.
"Did you live in an orphanage after that?" Jax asks back, she seems annoyed until she realizes that's a genuine question.
"Oh, no, I was already an adult, he got in a bad crash while I was away at college. I almost dropped out. But, I knew he wouldn't have wanted that." She tells him. Jax stays quiet a moment before opening his mouth again without thinking about it.

"My dad was an old veteran, apparently he saw combat before I was even born and was never quiet the same. He was a nice guy most days but... his head was a little... screwy sometimes. He never meant to hurt anyone, but when people start swinging at ghosts it's easy to get caught in the crossfire sometimes." It's only after the words have left his mouth that he realizes they weren't so different. He had done the same thing today, attacked without trying, hurt someone he didn't mean to.
At least his father knew how to make amends for his actions, He couldn't even apologize right.

"Hey, you okay?" Pomni asks, bring him back to the moment.
"Yeah, just thinking." He tells her softly. "Maybe you should do the talking for a while, you never finished your incredible story about cookie sales." He adds with a grin, making it sound more interesting than it really was. She nods and continues around where they left off in the story. Jax never heard the ending, he was already asleep by the time she finished. She watched him a moment, before getting up. He looked peaceful, a stark contrast to the nervous wreck she'd found earlier.

"Good night, Jax." Pomni whispered into the quiet room before leaving him to rest.