Do You Hate Me?

by Souk_Eye

Summary:

Before the adventure at the fast food restaurant, Spudsy's, Jax approaches Ragatha in the middle of the night to sew up his overalls, which have multiple weird holes in the fabric. After this - and his interaction with a high Ragatha, he begins to wonder about their relationship.

Inspired by @skellyjingles Bunnydoll comic:

https://skellyjingles.tumblr.com/post/789269625685803008/i-put-off-this-episode-4-epilogue-comic-for-so

Go check out their art!

Notes:

Inspired by @skellyjingles Bunnydoll comic: https://skellyjingles.tumblr.com/post/789269625685803008/i-put-off-this-episode-4-epilogue-comic-for-so

This work is probably very inaccuarte to what actually happens in TADC. I'm pretty sure that the characters don't change outfits, unless Caine makes them. But I kind of headcanon that if they were able to change their clothes, they would have a heap of the same outfits, like how characters in cartoons do. I also headcanon that Ragatha would sew up Jax's overalls every now and then, because he often gets into trouble and would definetly make holes in his clothes. Another headcanon about Ragatha stems from my favourite movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Ragatha is similar to Sally in a way, because they're both rag dolls with red hair. I'd like to imagine that Ragatha can sew herself up in the same way that Sally can.

Chapter 1: Frankenstein's Monster

“Ragatha, do you mind?” Jax asks her, holding up a ripped pair of overalls. 

Ragatha sits up in bed and wearily blinks at the unwanted figure in her doorway. By the faint, silver glow of the moon, she knew that it was the dead of night. By the tall, looming figure in her doorway, she knew it was Jax. What does he want at this hour? She squints at him, then squints at a pair of his overalls that he loosely holds with one hand. 

“Right now?” She mutters, rubbing her eyes. She did not feel like sewing up his clothes in the dead of night. 

“Yeah, right now, doll face,” he crosses his arms. “What if there’s an adventure tomorrow? I can’t wear torn overalls.” 

“Don’t you have more pairs of the same overalls?” Ragatha questions and frowns at the nickname. “Or Caine could just fix them tomorrow.” 

How had he not thought about either of the things she just suggested? Due to how the Digital Circus was, they all had multiple copies of the same outfit. She has multiple blue dresses stocked away in a cupboard. It would have to be the same for everyone else in the Digital Circus. It would have to be the same for Jax, too. Surely he would have multiple pairs of pink overalls. If this was the case, he had no reason to ask her to sew up his torn overalls right now. 

Jax scoffs. “Don’t involve Caine.” 

“But he could fix them in the morning, instantly - instead of me who you’re demanding to do in the middle of the night,” she whispers-yells from across the room. 

Jax steps into her bedroom. He closes the door behind himself in a careless manner, not thinking about the others who were sleeping. He definitely didn’t care if Ragatha had been sleeping. 

Ragatha glares at him. He just didn’t understand boundaries. 

“Why not?” she asks. Maybe he did have a reason to be seeking her out instead of Caine. She highly doubts it, but she wants to give him a chance. It’s more likely that he’s just doing this to frustrate her, but what if he had decided to actually go to her for help? It probably stems from her own positive outlook, but even as he continues to be the way he is, a part of her will always hope that he decides to make the right decision. 

She sees his yellow eyes advance closer in the dark. Her frown deepens. There wasn’t much light, but she could see his eyes just fine. 

“Didn’t you hear? Caine started glitching out and everything during his session with Zooble,” Jax explains. “It happened whilst we were at that stupid adventure with that stupid haunted house. I’m pretty sure it started as a therapy session for Zooble— because it’s Zooble and you know how they are— that’s not the point, though. Point is, it basically turned into a therapy session for Caine and he started glitching out. And I mean that everything started glitching. The circus tent and everything!” 

Ragatha blinks. This was too much information to process at this time of night. She didn’t know how much Jax could be exaggerating, or even lying about. She didn’t even know where he got this information from. And she didn’t think that Zooble would have willingly told him, either. But at the same time, it was concerning that Caine could be glitching out. It was worrisome to think that he could be struggling and making the entire circus tent glitch. 

Maybe, for once, Jax was right about something. He was being an arsehole about it, no doubt. He could have come way earlier to tell her this or to make her sew up his overalls. Despite everything, maybe he was right to not involve Caine.

“Okay, I can see why you didn’t go to Caine,” she murmurs in agreement. “It doesn’t sound like a good idea to approach him when he’s like that .” 

“So you will sew up my overalls?” 

“Fine.”

Before she knows it, his overalls have landed over her face. She feels the left part of her mattress sink. Ragatha pulls his overalls from her face and she stares at him. Within a matter of seconds, he’d made himself welcome on her bed. She has never met anyone more audacious than Jax. 

“I knew you wouldn’t say no,” he grins at her through the dark. “You’re too nice for that.” 

“I’m not doing this to be nice,” she answers. “I’m more worried about Caine glitching out, than I am about you.”

“What?” Jax scoffs. “He’s just an AI. I’m an actual human. But apart from that, I am way more interesting than he is.” 

“Jax, you’re just being petty about these particular overalls,” she reaches for her sewing kit, down the side of her bed. “I’m sure you have multiple pairs, just like we all do when it comes to these basic outfits.” 

“So?” He presses a dramatic hand to his chest. “They’re important to me.” 

“Not as important as Caine glitching out,” she counters, just as her hand finally lands on her sewing kit. “— Found it!” 

“You deserve a trophy,” he comments. 

“No, I deserve undisturbed sleep,” she makes a point to glare at him, before looking at the thread and needle in her hands.

She holds it up to the moonlight, before steadily weaving it through the eye of the needle. She didn't have to look twice at Jax’s overalls to know what shade of thread she wanted to use. Most of the fabric on his overalls were a brighter pink, except for the front pocket which was a lighter shade. However, she didn’t see any holes there. With the thread through the eye of the needle, she’s ready to start stitching. She looks down to examine the holes on his overalls. She frowns for the fifth time that night. There were so many holes. Weirdly enough, they were all shaped similarly? They were all roughly the same width and length. They looked too sharp. They looked too straight. It was like the holes had appeared in the fabric too perfectly. 

She glances back at Jax, who’s simply grinning at him in the dark. If she didn’t know him, this would be a whole lot more uncomfortable. His smile and wide yellow eyes, in such darkness, was almost intimidating. But that didn’t matter because he was the same idiot who brought her overalls to sew up in the dead of night.

He readjusts himself in her bed, stretching out his legs and pressing his head against her pillow. Ragatha doesn’t even acknowledge him. He was looking for a reaction. Sure, she definitely would have a reaction to what he was doing, but he wasn’t getting it out of her. Right now she would love to scowl at him. 

After a while of watching her loop the thread between the fabric of his overalls and close the holes, he grew bored. This almost felt too normal. He would kill for some normalcy, of course. It would be nice to do something, anything, that was normal, because it would remind him of the real world. But this felt domestic . He was laying in bed next to Ragatha who was sewing up his overalls, like some wife would for her husband. He didn’t plan for it to feel like this. This time, he frowns. 

“What’s gotten into you?” She asks, not looking away from her work. 

Jax’s frown deepens. “How’d you know?” 

“You went silent,” she smiles to herself. 

“Yeah, real funny, doll face ,” he comments, with some outrageous emphasis. 

This time she does glance down at him. He does get a reaction out of her. It was always the nicknames. 

“That’s just mean,” she mutters. 

He glances at his overalls. She’s already worked through a few of the holes. “Why do you own a sewing kit? Is it because you’re a rag doll?” 

Jax smirks at her and waits for an answer. He really thinks he’s being funny. 

“You’re not wrong, actually,” she answers, not liking that he’s correct, in a way. “I own a sewing kit because sometimes I just need to sew myself together again. I’m made of stuffing. The last time I was concerned about something like that was during Pomni’s first adventure. You made Gangle ram into the other truck and I got a pierced through the chest.” 

“And you turned out fine,” he answers. 

“That’s not the point!” she scowls back at him. 

“It’s not like any actual harm was done,” he remarks, folding his arms. “Caine fixed you again. You know how the logic in the Digital Circus is. We don’t really get injured. We don’t really feel pain.” 

Jax wasn’t going to outright mention it, but he wouldn’t have made Gangle drive so violently if it actually meant that she could have been seriously harmed. And she wasn’t. During that moment, his philosophy had met the criteria of his surroundings. But he wasn’t going to tell her that he didn’t actually want her to get hurt. Why would he say that to her? He may as well throw out any image he’s built of himself. And nobody, especially her, needs to know that he can be vulnerable.

“Doesn’t mean it’s a nice thing to do,” she mutters, weaving some more threads through the eye of the needle.

Jax’s eyes flicker over to Ragatha’s neck. As she leans forward, trying to get a better angle whilst she sews up his overalls, he notices the rough stitching that travels from the nape of her neck and down her spine. She really was a rag doll. He was beginning to wonder how many times she had to sew herself back together. 

What’s it like to stitch yourself back together? Does she have to hold in her stuffing? Is her stuffing the equivalent of blood? Does she begin to feel weary and drained the longer she hasn’t sewn herself back up? How many times does she sew herself up, alone? 

After another prolonged silence, she mentions it again.

“Second time this night that you’ve been silent.”

He finally responds. “So you just sew yourself back together?” 

“Yeah,” she confirms. 

“So that’s why you look like Frankenstein,” he remarks. 

She pauses, just as she’s about to loop the thread through a hole. Frankenstein? That was a new one. Jax definitely hadn’t read Frankenstein. She didn’t think he would be the type of person to read at all. However, she begins to feel his gaze burn into the side of herself, as if he was waiting for a reaction. Again, she refocuses on the hole she’s stitching up. He wasn’t getting a reaction out of her. 

“I don’t look like Frankenstein. I think that Frankenstein was the scientist, not the creature that he created,” Ragatha corrects him. 

“Creature?” He scoffs. “It’s more like a monster.” 

Ragatha finally looks at him. “So what do you think of me, then?” 

“That’s not the point,” he turns on his side, away from her. 

“But I do have a point. If you think that the creature is a monster, because he’s sewn together from different pieces— what do you think of me?” Ragatha continues to press the matter, unsure of why she’s even being so adamant. 

She looks away from Jax, but feels her features form a hard expression. She was scowling, deeply to herself. Of course she didn’t want Jax to see how frustrated she was, but she was also quite frustrated with herself, since she seemed to care so much about what he had to say. It’s not like he even knew what the creature felt like. He didn’t read Frankenstein. The creature had spent so long living in loneliness. He had become melancholic. He had yearned for a connection that the other humans weren’t willing to give him. Because they couldn’t stand the sight of him. She didn’t think she was that unattractive. But she was sewn up, by herself, time and time again after different adventures. She was still a bunch of different parts that were being held together by thread - and she didn’t feel held by the people around her. Everyone had been forming connections. Gangle and Zooble are becoming close. Kinger, despite being himself, finds a way to fit in. Pomni arrived just a few days ago and she’s already seeing Jax making attempts to become friendlier with her. Sure, he was teasing her, but she didn’t know how long that would last, before he would actually try to bond with Pomni. And then there was her. She was holding herself together by her own thread. By her own needle. By her own hand. Maybe she was just sewn together. Maybe she was just like Frankenstein’s monster. 

Jax watched her expression morph into more worry. He watched her hands grow faster, moving the needle and thread quicker over the holes. He watched her stitching technique slightly falter, as they didn’t even look nearly as neat as the others. What the hell had gotten into her head? She was probably thinking of some dumb metaphor after he’d compared her to Frankenstein's monster. It was just meant to be a joke. It was just meant to make her frustrated. He didn’t want her to spiral. And maybe she would spiral. She was only going to spiral because she was the one who was thinking so deeply about it. It was because she probably was one of those pretentious people who read classic literature and tried to find the fine details that didn’t actually matter. It was because she had probably read Frankenstein, that was making her spiral. All he did was suggest a tiny thing. It wasn’t really his fault. She was the one who was doing all the thinking. 

“You know, Raggy, you’re probably reading too much into it,” he lays on his back again, before resting his hands under his head. 

“Maybe you just don’t read at all, Jax,” she counters and closes off another hole. 

He scoffs. “Don’t act like I’m illiterate. I just never read those classics like you pretentious people did.” 

“I’m not pretentious because I read classic literature,” she answers, beginning to stitch up another hole. 

“You probably bought the really nice leather bound copies. I bet you had a whole collection,” he continues. “You probably drank tea and talked about the symbolism of colours.” 

Ragatha glares at him this time. It was one thing to be compared to Frankenstein’s monster, but it was another thing to be reminded of her childhood. He didn’t know what he had reminded her of, but nonetheless, he was trying to frustrate her in one way or another. He had accomplished that. Now she was thinking right back to her childhood. It was her mother who had made her do ta parties, dancing lessons -  all the kind of things that Jax would call her fancy for. She probably did own a nice collection of classic literature. She had probably been taught to read hard books. She probably did have tea parties and talk about the symbolism of colours. It was her mother who had organised all of that. She didn’t want to think about her mother right now. This conversation of him was bringing back memories she didn’t want to resurface. She looks back down at his overalls, which were draped over her lap. There were about four holes left. She just needed to get through them and then Jax would have to leave her bedroom. Jax would leave her bedroom and then she wouldn’t have to think about her mother anymore. 

That was probably wrong. She was always going to think about her mother. She would probably think more thoroughly about her mother, after he had left. She just didn’t want to tell Jax about it. She didn’t want Jax to see her become so upset over her mother. That was just one more thing for him to tease her about. 

He glances at her technique. Her hands were working faster over the fabric of his overalls. Ragatha was a talented individual. She really did have the ability to sew things quickly. If she could sew up his overalls with such precision and skill, she must be even better at sewing her own body back up. Why was she going so fast? Surely someone who gets so stressed would want to go slowly, so that she didn't make any mistakes— was she just stitching faster so that he would leave sooner!? 

“You don’t have to do it so fast, you know,” he comments. 

“I’m the one who knows how to sew,” she answers, moving onto the third last hole. 

Jax frowns. Hopefully she couldn't see his expression too well through the dark. It was fun to be around her. It was fun to be around her because he was able to frustrate her to no end. He thought that with the amount of holes in his overalls, that it would be a prolonged stay overnight. 

“Zooble didn’t even tell me about Caine glitching out,” he changes the topic and grins again. “I overheard them talking to Gangle about it.” 

“I am not even surprised,” she mutters, closing the third hole. “It’s bad that you were listening in on another person’s conversation, but maybe we all should know about Caine glitching out.” 

“If you think about it, I did the right thing,” Jax claims. “I might save us from a lot of trouble, since we now know that Caine is glitching out.”

“You sound positive,” she comments, glancing at him. 

He sits upright. “I do not sound positive. If anything we can’t even do anything if Caine does glitch out.” 

“You just claimed that you might save us all,” she counters. 

He frowns. He didn’t like it when he contradicted himself. “Come on, doll face—” 

Before he can continue, he feels a bunch of fabric cover his face. His overalls. She just threw it over his face in the same way he had done it earlier. He didn’t know if he should respect her for giving him the same treatment, or if he should be frustrated that she gave him the same treatment. He didn’t want her to be so positive all the time, but he wasn’t expecting that. He was expecting to stay here for a bit longer. 

“I fixed your overalls,” Ragatha mutters, putting away all her thread and needles.

“We’ll see about that in the morning,” he pulls the overalls away from his face. “I’m sure you messed up somewhere, with only the moonlight to guide you. I might just have to come back and see you so you can fix them up again.” 

She shoves her sewing kit down the side of her bed, before turning back to him. “I’m sure I didn’t make any mistake.” 

“It is quite dark, though,” he counters. 

“I don’t make mistakes,” she answers. 

“You don’t know that,” he continues. 

Ragatha scowls at him again. This time she does want him to see the expression on her face. She does want him to see her through the dark. She wants him to know that he’s very insolent to seek her to fix his overalls in the middle of the night, only to doubt her skills and technique. Just as she’s about to lecture him, she hears movement in another room. She doesn’t know who it is, or if they’re next door or from across the hall— but she’s not about to get caught with Jax in her bedroom, at this time of night. 

She snatches his overalls in one hand, then grabs his arm in another. She quickly pulls him from her bed and drags him to the door. Jax doesn’t even have time to protest, before he’s met with her doorway. 

“What’s gotten into you now?” He complains, as she gently lets go of him. 

“Nothing has gotten into me,” Ragatha mutters, passing him his overalls. She looks over his shoulder, to see if anyone else has also left their room. 

Jax glances over his own shoulder, wondering what she was looking for. He slowly smirks. “Are you worried about being seen with me?” 

“In my bedroom, in the dead of night?” She stares at him as if it was obvious. “Very much so.” 

“Now that you mention it, some people would think that we—” Jax begins, before being met with her door in his face. 

He blinks. He blinks a bit in disbelief. Did she just slam the door on him? He knew that she was capable of arguing with him, but slamming the door? That was another thing. Maybe that was an improvement. He slowly smiles. Yeah, he was going to press her further. 

“I don’t even get a good night?” He teases her through the door. “That’s just cruel, doll face.” 

Ragatha’s about to walk away from the door, when she hears him. She was finally done with Jax, after all of that. She finally solved a possible issue of being seen with him during the dead of night. She didn’t like the implications of being seen with him so late, in her bedroom. She didn’t like what the others could possibly think about them, being seen like that. And she knew that he was just teasing her. She knew that she wasn’t a cruel person. But even if he didn’t mean it when he asked for a good night, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to say it to him. 

Jax is about to walk back to his bedroom. It wasn’t far, considering that they were neighbors. But it was almost annoying him that he had just closed the door on him like that, not even telling him goodnight. Just as he begins to walk off, he hears the door knob twist. 

Jax turns around.

Ragatha stands in the doorway, holding the edge of the door. 

“Good night, Jax,” she softly says. 

He stares at her for a moment. She actually wished him a good night? He folds his arms and grins at her, to mask any surprise he could be feeling. He didn’t want her to know that she had made him feel that way. 

“Well, good night to you too,” he answers. 

Ragatha watches him walk off quickly and disappear into his room. She’d never seen him so confused. Even if it was for a split second, he looked surprised that she had actually wished him a good night. 

She stands in her doorway, dazed and confused, now alone and without Jax; just herself and the moonlight.

Chapter 2: A Weary Day

Summary:

Inspired by @skellyjingles Bunnydoll comic: https://skellyjingles.tumblr.com/post/789269625685803008/i-put-off-this-episode-4-epilogue-comic-for-so

Jax returns to his room and collapses onto his bed. He gazes at the overalls in his hand, before lightly tracing his fingers over the areas that she had stitched up with a pink thread. He got a lot more out of that whole interaction with her than he had expected. He wanted to tease her that night. He didn’t expect to feel so weird after she said a simple goodnight to him. 

He neatly folds the overalls and places them at the end of his bed. It was unlike him to fold clothes. Maybe he was too tired, but he couldn’t be bothered to throw them with the rest of his overalls in his messed up cupboard. It had nothing to do with the fact that Ragatha had just worked on them for him. 

He pulls the blanket over himself and shuts his eyes. 

He felt more awake than ever. 

He wasn’t sleeping tonight. 

 

-

 

He didn’t know how long he had been stuck at the drive through station. Everyone else thought that some realism would be nice. It would give them all some normalcy. This was hell. Jax was getting nothing out of this. All he had was a headache and a very bad case of boredom. He’d never been so bored in his life. If they all wanted some normalcy, why the fuck would it be at a fast food place? 

The whole other issue was having Gangle, out of all people, be the shift manager. It was one thing for someone like Gangle to have authority over him, but it was another thing when he was sent into the whole revaluation. He’d get Gangle back for that. But not right now. Not when she was power hungry and could easily send him right back into that analog horror which was called a revaluation. 

Nothing was as bad as the argument he had bfore with Ragatha though. Gangle had been practising her aim and he had accidently hit her with the baseball during the entire process. His argumnt with Ragatha was an asbolute blur, which is how they usually end up as, since they have at least one argument a day. But being the bad guy in the situation was ingrained into his mind. It seems like that was all Ragatha would ever even think of him. Sure, he enjoyed making fun of people. Especially Gangle. Gangle is great to make fun of. but he didn't actually mean it this time. He didn't actually want to hit Gangle in the fact with the baseball. He didn't want to break her comedy mask. But for some reason he felt very frustrated with Ragatha thinking of him as just some bad guy. 

He sighs and rubs his face.

It was getting late during the day. 

He was feeling so weary. 

It had never been this bad. 

And just as he thought it couldn't get worse, it got worse. 

Ragatha. 

Ragatha was laying on the disgusting floor of a fast food place. 

“Can you move?” He mutters. 

“Yo, Jax.” Ragatha’s gaze meets his. “I, like hate you. But I don’t want you to hate me. Is that weird?”

Jax stares down at her. Why was she being like this ? Why was she speaking like that ? Why would she ask him about their relationship? She was on the floor. Her gaze was kind of unfocused. Her arms were slightly droopy. Her speech was slurred. She was talking nonsense. She was probably drunk. She must be drunk to simply ask him about their relationship like that. That was a topic that they both seemed to religiously avoid. 

Maybe it was also what they had in common. He tried so hard to cause chaos around himself, to avoid talking about the actual issues that were affecting himself, their relationship, or simply being in the Digital Circus. She tried so hard to be a positive individual, to keep the others around her positive and to solve everyone’s issues, so that she could avoid confronting her own. 

He wasn’t in the mood to entertain this conversation with her. He’d never really come around to talking to her about their issues, but right now was worse than ever. This entire adventure was doing his head in. He didn’t need to deal with a drunk Ragatha on top of it all. She probably didn’t even know what she was talking about. So how should she even remember his answer if she’s drunk? 

Maybe in another situation, he’d make fun of her in such a state. Maybe he would find the idea of a drunk Ragatha hilarious. She’d probably be one of those emotional drunks, who share all their emotions and thoughts. In fact, he would remember to tease her about being drunk in the future.

How did she even get her hands on alcohol? This was a fast food restaurant. Actually, he could use a drink. Alcohol would be very nice right now. If alcohol is getting her out of this enetire stupid adventure, good for her. He's not going to ask her about it. This day has bored him to the point of where he won't even bother to tease Ragatha. 

“You’re drunk, or something,” Jax answers, before stepping over her and walking off. 

Her gaze follows him, even as he walks off. 

“Oh, yeah,” she mutters and laughs to herself. 

There he went. Jax had walked off. She misses her horses. She lived on a nice farm. Her house wasn't bad either. Wait, then there were the dancing lessons. The tea parties. Oh yeah, her mother organised all of that. Dancing and tea parties aren’t meant to be bad things. Not until you dance until your feet might fall off. Not until the tea parties are about how to act in front of people. Not until the person who organises them makes you repeat them over and over again. Not until the person who organises them yells and berates. Not until you begin to hate that person, yet want their love. What a weird position to be in. Her gaze continues to stay focused on Jax. It was probably the most focused she had been. What a mean person. What an awful person. She could argue with him all day. She could hate him. She could declare that she hates him, just like she did before, yet a part of her wants him to like her. It will always remain that way. Jax reminds her so much of someone she used to know. 

 

-

 

Jax finally walks out of the fast food restaurant. His shift has finally ended. When nobody is around, he finally stops smiling. 

He approaches a car with a number plate that displays: JAX_001. He pulls the door open, before slouching over the steering wheel in exhaustion. Today was the worst he felt on any recent adventures. He felt so confused and so let down. Why would Caine put Gangle in such a position? It just leads to nothing good. All it led to was an analog horror of Gangle’s sad and happy expressions, blinking back and forth on a screen. It led to a flash of black and white. A repeat of noise. And during all of it, he didn’t want to be seen by anyone. It was humiliating. It was so humiliating that he had to go through that. It was humiliating that he even felt scared during all of it. He didn’t like the idea of being seen as vulnerable. He didn’t want anyone to know that he could be vulnerable. But maybe it was more disappointing that this entire adventure was at a fast food restaurant, where he actually had to work a shift. Screw normalcy. What a lack of violence. What a lack of action. What a weary day this was.

Chapter 3: Not Really A Bad Guy

Summary:

Inspired by @skellyjingles Bunnydoll comic: https://skellyjingles.tumblr.com/post/789269625685803008/i-put-off-this-episode-4-epilogue-comic-for-so

“She’s not drunk, Jax,” Zooble motions to a loopy Ragatha. 

Ragatha lays upside down on a couch, now safely back in the circus tent. Kinger sat beside her. Pomni sat on the couch next to her. Zooble and Gangle had just both taken a seat on the green couch, opposite of Jax who was lounging on a couch to himself. He had just made a comment to Pomni about Ragatha being drunk. It was now when he felt like he could make fun of her. He was so happy to be out of that adventure. He was happy enough to resort to his usual self, where he harasses everyone around him. It was just about now when he had an actual chance to make fun of a drunk Ragatha, that Zooble and Gangle just had to go and sit near him and ruin his fun. 

Right now he would love to make Gangle upset, maybe even break her comedy mask. He had quite a lot to say after what happened on that last adventure. However, he was a bit more interested in whatever caused Ragatha to act so weirdly. 

He glances at Ragatha. She was laying upside down on a couch, her eyes unfocused and her face plastered with a lazy smile. This was far too similar to what he saw when she was on the floor of the fast food restaurant. Maybe she wasn’t drunk. What had she managed to do then? 

“What’s wrong with her, then?” He asks, not glancing away from her. 

“At first I thought she huffed paint, but I think there was something wrong with the stupid sauce,” Zooble explains, paying more attention to Gangle who was drawing, than she did for Jax. “She mentioned the stupid sauce when I drove her back.” 

“So there was something in the stupid sauce,” Jax looks back at Zooble. “I could use a drug— BOINK! like that.” 

“Don’t be a BOINK! Jax, she’s clearly not having a great time,” Zooble remarks, motioning a hand at Ragatha. 

Ragatha was still under the influence of the stupid sauce. At a first glance, she looked like she was having a great trip. She was smiling widely. She was in her own world. But after a while she would stop smiling and would instead ramble on about random things, like missing her horses. If she wasn't rambling, she was starting to let everyone know how she actually felt about them. That’s what he had gone through earlier. And from the look on almost everyone else's faces, they didn’t want to hear what she had to say about them. 

Jax was almost surprised that it hadn’t worn off when they all left the previous adventure. But Ragatha will be fine. He’s sure it’ll wear off in a while. If not, someone could just go and ask Caine to make her sober again. 

With that out of the way, he turns to Gangle. He had a lot to say to Gangle. 

“Enough talk about Ragatha, in my opinion. But who we should talk about is Gangle!” Jax begins and smirks at Gangle. “We should talk about how she was such an awful shift manager—”

“Go BOINK! yourself, Jax,” Zooble cuts him off, before taking Gangle’s hand and leading her away. 

“It’s just constructive criticism,” he calls out, standing up. 

Pomni also stands up and silently follows the others. Kinger soon joins, simply because everyone else is. 

Zooble looks over their shoulder. “By the way, Ragatha needed a designated driver earlier. So she’ll probably need someone to walk her back to her bedroom.” 

“You can’t just put all of this on me,” he answers, now realising he was Ragatha’s designated person. 

Zooble ignores him and focuses on walking Gangle back to their bedrooms. 

Jax stands there in silent anger, as both Pomni and Kinger also use it as an excuse to leave him alone with Ragatha. They were also ensuring that he would be the one to take care of her. 

He glances at Ragatha again. She had gone from rambling, to staring up at absolutely nothing with a huge smile on her face. He wasn’t doing this. He wasn’t taking care of her like this. Not when he could just call Caine to come and handle her. He really didn’t want to interact with Ragatha whilst she wasn’t sober. Their interaction earlier already said enough about how a prolonged conversation could go with her while she wasn’t sober. He didn’t want to discuss their relationship. He didn’t want to talk about their feelings. He didn’t want to become vulnerable.

“Caine?” Jax calls him out, before repeating his name after a prolonged silence. “—Caine? Caine!” 

Where the hell was Caine? This was the one moment that he actually needed that stupid AI to help him. Caine always seemed to like to get into their business. He would just appear at random times and check in on them, before sending them off on some random adventure. If he can just appear at any time he pleases, why can’t he appear when Jax is actively asking for him? 

“I don’t think Caine’s here,” Ragatha slurs from the couch. 

He turns to her. It was the first time she had even directly addressed him. “Right, thanks for stating the obvious.” 

“They’re all avoiding you and so is Caine!” She laughs and falls down the side of the couch.

Jax scowls. He doesn’t like this. He’s always wanted Ragatha to stop being so positive. She needs to express some negative emotion, because they were essentially stuck in the Digital Circus. But right now she was acting in somewhat of a negative way. She was making fun of him. She was laughing at him. She was acting like him . And Jax didn’t like it. 

But he also didn’t want her to hit her head on the floor. He didn't know what the limits of the Digital Circus were. He knew that they didn’t really get physically hurt. They didn’t really feel that much pain. But right now Ragatha was high on a drug that was generated by Caine himself. And in his opinion, she was acting like she was under the influence of something mildly strong. She was the opposite of sober. If she was going to act that way, then there is a good chance that other aspects are going to be realistic too. 

He was wondering if she could even walk. 

This was the second time he had seen her lying on her back. It had been numerous times in the kitchen that he had seen her either leaning, slouching, or grasping at the bench to remain upright. He didn’t think that she was going to make it to her room on her own. 

“Once again, you don’t need to state the obvious,” he drags a hand down his face, before sighing. “You can’t walk either, I’m assuming?” 

Ragatha slowly presses a hand to her chest, in a droopy manner. “All you ever do is assume. I can walk.” 

Jax walks and approaches her, until he’s standing over her like before. He doesn’t think she’ll be able to walk. Maybe she’ll sway with some difficulty, but maybe it’s better to prove to her that she can’t even walk in such a state. “Right, show me.” 

Ragatha gazes back up at him. She remains silent for a prolonged moment, but the gears shift in her head. This moment was like before. It was similar to the moment when he stood over her at the fast food restaurant. She slowly smiles up at him. 

“Hey, Jax, this is like earlier—” she begins. 

Jax’s eyes widened. “No! Just— just show me that you can walk.” 

“I can walk, Jax. You’re just negative and never believer in anything,” she slurs and pulls herself up. 

Jax sighs, relieved that she dropped the topic. 

However, his relief is short lived as Ragatha begins to sway. Just like he had expected. 

She pulls herself up and just after taking a few (somewhat) stable steps, she begins to sway and quickly stumbles. 

Jax sighs again and steps in, before catching her from under her arms. Ragatha simply blinks and begins to laugh. 

“There, we both now know that you can’t walk,” Jax concludes. 

“Looks like I can’t walk,” she confirms herself. 

Jax wraps an arm around her shoulders and begins to walk with her, hoping that she’ll keep up with him, but she doesn’t. She’s just like before. She begins to sway, before her legs ultimately give out.

Jax really didn’t want to do this. He didn’t really want to be the one who had to take care of her. He didn’t want to talk about their relationship. He doesn't want to talk about their issues. He doesn’t want to talk about their feelings. He doesn’t want to be vulnerable around her. 

But right now, Ragatha was the vulnerable one. 

She could barely even stand on her own. She couldn’t ‘walk’ without swaying. She wasn’t sober. She wasn’t in her right mind. Even if she was shifting in emotion, from positive to rambling incoherently, she now looked more tired than he had seen her before.

He couldn’t just leave her like this. Jax knew that one way or another, he was going to help her back to her bedroom. 

And maybe she wouldn’t remember what he did for her the next morning, but maybe he would feel less like a bad guy. 

He slowly sorts her into his arms, until he’s supporting her by the waist and legs. She doesn’t protest or reject what he’s doing. She simply stares up at the ceiling, looking quite out of everything. As he starts to walk towards her bedroom, she relaxes into his grasp. He glances down at her. Maybe it was the stupid sauce, or maybe it was the fact that she was a rag doll, but she really was limp in his arms. 

“You’ll be in your bedroom soon,” he mutters, trying to comfort her in some way. 

She blinks a little, then glances at him. “I will?” 

“Yeah, you will,” he quietly confirms. 

He slowly approached the hallway which had everyone's bedrooms. It would just be a few doors from now and they would be at Ragatha’s bedroom—

Oh. He felt a hand against his chest. 

Ragatha’s hand. 

Ragatha was pressing a hand over his shoulder. She was leaning against him. Jax pauses and looks down at her. He frowns at first, feeling uncertain. Why would she hold him like this? Sure, he was holding her. But it was out of necessity, so that he could get her to her bedroom. She was reciprocating his touch. Maybe it was just the stupid sauce. He’d like to tell himself that it was all to do with the fact that she wasn’t sober right now, but from the look on her face, he knew it wasn’t. Her face was still worried. Her features had tightened with stress into a worried expression. He always saw her with a face like this, but he didn’t like it this time. He could put aside how he was feeling right now. 

“How do you do it, Jax?” Ragatha mutters. 

“Do what?” he asks. 

“You know, not care,” she explains. “Don't care if people like you.” 

“Oh, that ,” he murmurs, before looking down at her again. 

Jax would have guessed that they were going to have some form of a conversation whilst she was high on the stupid sauce. He thought it would have been a conversation about their relationship. He thought it would be a conversation about their feelings. He thought it would have been a conversation about their issues. But no, he was wrong. Maybe all of those possible topics stemmed from his fears. But no, they were talking about how he coped in the Digital Circus. That also was a topic that could make him feel slightly vulnerable, but the person in his arms right now looked much more sensitive than him right now. And if he wanted to be fancy, he could blame his coping method of being ignorant as a philosophy. 

“—well, just stop focusing on them and focus on yourself,” he explains and begins to walk again, hoping that it wouldn’t make her feel awkward. “If you focus on yourself, you’ll find that you don’t care about what others think.” 

“But I do care about what they think—” she answers. 

Jax pauses again. Her head rests against his chest. He feels her squeeze him, one hand tight on his shoulder, the other around his neck. 

“I care what you think.” 

He hears her murmur it against his neck, but he doesn’t respond. He remains silent. He doesn’t really know how to respond to that. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t really want to respond at all. He doesn’t know how to word it to her, but he knows that a response from him would also be vulnerable. He knows that she might become more emotional than she is right now, if he just leaves her without an answer. He knows that she might become more emotional if he does answer her in a specific way. She thought that he didn’t really care about how people thought about him. Most of that was true. He could  receive many insults from others, he could have arguments with anyone and usually he wouldn’t get hurt. But sometimes he did feel hurt because of things that were said. Sometimes they circled his mind and consumed him from the inside. But she thought that for the most part, that he wasn't affected by anyone. Jax also knew that Ragatha tried to remain positive as a coping mechanism, since she was stuck in the Digital Circus. He wanted to break through that persona of fake positivity. He wanted to see her express some negativity. Maybe that’s why he liked it when they argued. But right now, he didn’t like the expression on her face. Considering his own philosophy and considering her own philosophy, he didn't know how to answer her statement. There wasn’t really a perfect way about answering her statement. 

He slowly twists the knob on her bedroom door. He doesn't worry about dropping her. She’s already holding him tight enough. Tight enough to release one of his hands, momentarily. 

He approaches her bed, before slowly lowering her onto it. In another situation, he would have left. But he sits on her bed and watches her settle under the blanket. Ragatha turns onto her side, facing away from him. He silently pulls the blanket over her, further, so that it covers her body better. He had a feeling that her head was going to hurt in the morning. He didn't know what the stupid sauce was like, but he was wondering if she would suffer from a hang over. But right now, he knew that she was hurting. Emotionally hurting. 

Jax stands up to leave, but pauses as he sees her in the moonlight. 

With her back facing him, he could once again see the stitches that she had made from the point of the nape of her neck, down to where her spine would be. 

He really had called her Frankenstein’s Monster . 

Jax sighs, before speaking up. “You know, I don’t really think that you look like Frankenstein’s Monster.” 

He couldn't believe that he was doing this. He didn’t really feel confident enough to do this. He didn’t like how vulnerable he felt. But he was going to tell her, either way. He owed her this. 

Ragatha slowly shifts in her bed. He sees the blanket shift, before she looks at him over her shoulder. 

“Do you hate me, Jax?” Ragatha murmurs through the dark. 

His eyes widened. He let her question hang in the air for a prolonged time. He knew he shouldn’t do that to her. The answer he would probably give her would mean a lot, positive or negative. Jax sighs again and decides to answer. 

“You probably won’t remember this,” Jax murmurs back at her. “But I don’t completely hate you, Ragatha.” 

Even through the darkness, he sees her face morph into a state of relief. He might even be able to see the edges of her mouth lift into a small smile, but she turns away from him, before he can properly see. Once again, she lays on her side, facing away from him. 

He also feels a bit of relief. Maybe he was also admitting it to himself, that he didn’t completely hate her. Maybe it just felt good to know that they were vulnerable with one another and that he didn’t feel too exposed. 

“I think I said something to you earlier, Jax,” Ragatha breaks his train of thought. “But I don’t really think you’re always a bad guy.” 

He wasn’t always a bad guy . 

Jax quickly reaches for the door knob and pulls himself to her doorway. Ragatha really didn’t know how much those words meant to him. She didn’t need to know how much they meant to him. He didn’t even think that they would mean this much. 

“Good night, Ragatha,” he quickly mutters, before closing the door behind himself. 

Once again, this woman had left him stunned in the moonlight. 

He quietly approaches his own room and softly closes the door behind him. He sits down at the end of his bed, so lost in thought. He didn’t know if Ragatha would even remember what she said. He didn’t know if Ragatha would remember what he said.

He glances at the folded overalls at the end of his bed. He forgot about those. 

They were the overalls he mysteriously had multiple holes in, that also happened to be stitched up by Ragatha. 

Jax stares at his overflowing cupboard, stacked with the same pink overalls. He leans forward and fishes one of them out, grabbing the long fabric by the hem. With his other hand, he reaches for the scissors that reside from under his bed. 

He raises the scissors and makes precise cuts in his pair of overalls. 

Looks like another pair of his overalls mysteriously had holes that needed stitching. 

Looks like he’ll need to see Ragatha again.